The roughly 5,000 cuneiform tablets from Ebla (3rd millennium BC) attest to the oldest Semitic language and provide insight into a period in the history of Syria that was previously unknown. Their restoration, interpretation, and classification has taken more than thirty years. The essays collected in this volume offer important insight into the history and culture of this ancient Near Eastern city-state.

When the ancient city of Ebla was unearthed, archaeologists discovered the well-preserved royal library containing more than 15,000 clay tablets and fragments. At digs in modern-day Syria, the Ebla tablets provide unique insight into the culture and and history of ancient Mesopotamia.

In Ebla , Paolo Matthiae presents the results of 47 years of excavations at this fascinating site, providing a detailed account of Ebla’s history and archaeology. Ebla grew from a small Early Bronze Age settlement into an important trading and political centre, which endured until its final destruction in c. 1600 BC . The destruction of its royal palace c. 2300 BC was particularly significant as it preserved the city’s rich archives, offering a wealth of information on its history, economy, religion, administration, and daily life. The discovery of Ebla is a pivotal moment in the history of archaeological investigations of the twentieth century, and this book is the result of all the excavation campaigns at Tell Mardikh- Ebla from 1964 until 2010, when field operations stopped due to the war in Syria. Available for the first time in English, Ebla offers a complete account of one of the largest pre-classical urban centres by its discoverer, making it an essential resource for students of Ancient Near Eastern archaeology and history.

The discovery of the great Early Bronze Age library at Tell Mardikh, the site of the ancient city of Ebla, has altered significantly our understanding of the history and culture of ancient Syria and the neighboring areas. This volume contains essays that provide additional texts from the site, as well as studies on previously published texts that further the understanding of both the language and culture of the great city-state. These articles are by members of the Ebla Seminar at New York University, as well as from the epigrapher of the Italian expedition at Ebla, Alfonso Archi. Debate about the identification and connections of the language of the tablets found at Ebla will probably continue for some time, and the place and influence of the city in the web of ancient Syrian and Near Eastern culture will be discussed for years to come. This volume provides additional information relevant to both concerns and contributes to clarification of the issues involved.

The fourth and final volume in the series Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language embodies eight cogent essays by a variety of specialists. Of particular interest in this issue is the second part of Michael Astour’s history of Ebla. Contributors include Alfonso Archi, Michael C. Astour, Cyrus H. Gordon, Gary A. Rendsburg, Robert R. Stieglitz, and Al Wolters.

Excavation of Ebla, thriving center of trade during the Bronze Age.

The discovery of 17,000 tablets at the mid-third millennium BC site of Ebla in Syria has revolutionized the study of the ancient Near East. This is the first major English-language volume describing the multidisciplinary archaeological research at Ebla. Using an innovative regional landscape approach, the 29 contributions to this expansive volume examine Ebla in its regional context through lenses of archaeological, textual, archaeobiological, archaeometric, geomorphological, and remote sensing analysis. In doing so, they are able to provide us with a detailed picture of the constituent elements and trajectories of early state development at Ebla, essential to those studying the ancient Near East and to other archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, and linguists. This work was made possible by an IDEAS grant from the European Research Council.

The archaeological exploration of Tell Mardikh started in 1964 and, since the first campaigns, some of the most influential archaeologists of the time considered it one of the most promising excavations in the Levant. In 1968, the discovery of a basalt bust bearing the dedicatory inscription of Ibbit-Lim, king of Ebla, allowed to propose that the large archaeological site was ancient Ebla, usually located North of Aleppo, and not to the South. In 1975, the spectacular, and revolutionary discovery of the Royal Archives of 2350-2300 BC took place. After 1975, the Ebla Expedition was engaged in the systematic exploration of large areas of the Lower Town, with the discovery of the great residential palaces, of some temples, of the fortified buildings on the earthwork ramparts, of some quarters of private houses, and of the city gates of the great Old Syrian town. The publication of the Archives and of the archaeological discoveries led Ignace J. Gelb, the late dean of the Oriental Institute of Chicago, to say that the Italians had discovered at Ebla a new history, a new language, a new culture. Paolo Matthiae, the Director of the Ebla Expedition, published, since the beginning of the research, many studies about aspects of material culture, artistic productions, architectural, and urban structures, chronological and historic matters. These studies appeared in Italian, in international scientific journals as well as in miscellaneous volumes, and are therefore scattered and sometimes not easy to access. Forty-two of these contributions of particular value for an evaluation of Ebla discoveries, published between 1980 and 2010, and all in English language, are now collected in the volume edited by Francis Pinnock.

The history of the Ancient Near East covers a huge chronological frame, from the first pictographic texts of the late 4th millennium to the conquest of Alexander the Great in 333 BC. During these millennia, different societies developed in a changing landscape where sheep (and their wool) always played an important economic role. The 22 papers presented here explore the place of wool in the ancient economy of the region, where large-scale textile production began during the second half of the 3rd millennium. By placing emphasis on the development of multi-disciplinary methodologies, experimentation and use of archaeological evidence combined with ancient textual sources, the wide-ranging contributions explore a number of key themes. These include: the first uses of wool in textile manufacture and organization of weaving; trade and exchange; the role of wool in institutionalized economies; and the reconstruction of the processes that led to this first form of industry in Antiquity. The numerous archaeological and written sources provide an enormous amount of data on wool, textile crafts, and clothing and these inter-disciplinary studies are beginning to present a comprehensive picture of the economic and cultural impact of woollen textiles and textile manufacturing on formative ancient societies.