Royal Administration During the Conquest. New Archaeological and Epigraphic Discoveries in the Royal Palace G at Ebla-Tell Mardikh

Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien

52e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale International Congress of Assyriology and

Near Eastern Archaeology Münster, 17.–21. Juli 2006

Herausgegeben von Hans Neumann, Reinhard Dittmann,

Susanne Paulus, Georg Neumann und Anais Schuster-Brandis

Alter Orient und Altes Testament Veröffentlichungen zur Kultur und Geschichte des Alten Orients und des Alten Testaments

Band 401

Herausgeber

Manfried Dietrich • Hans Neumann

Lektorat

Kai A. Metzler • Ellen Rehm

Beratergremium

Rainer Albertz • Joachim Bretschneider • Stefan Maul Udo Rüterswörden • Walther Sallaberger • Gebhard Selz

Michael P. Streck • Wolfgang Zwickel

Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien

52e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale International Congress of Assyriology and

Near Eastern Archaeology Münster, 17.–21. Juli 2006

Herausgegeben von Hans Neumann, Reinhard Dittmann,

Susanne Paulus, Georg Neumann und Anais Schuster-Brandis

2014

Ugarit-Verlag Münster

Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien. 52e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale International Congress of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology, Münster, 17.–21. Juli 2006

Herausgegeben von Hans Neumann, Reinhard Dittmann, Susanne Paulus, Georg Neumann und Anais Schuster-Brandis

Alter Orient und Altes Testament, Band 401

© 2014 Ugarit-Verlag, Münster www.ugarit-verlag.de Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Rencontre-Logo: Susanne Paulus, Georg Neumann All rights preserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo-copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Herstellung: Hubert und Co, Göttingen Printed in Germany

ISBN: 978-3-86835-075-3

Printed on acid-free paper

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Anacleto D’Agostino Assyrian Wars and Ceramic Production. The Tell Barri Late Bronze/ Iron Age Sequence: An Attempt of Historical Reading ................................................... 1

Alfonso Archi Who led the Army of Ebla? Administrative Documents vs. Commemorative Texts ....... 19

Julia M. Asher-Greve Insinuations of Peace in Literature, the Standard of Ur, and the Stele of Vultures .......... 27

Richard E. Averbeck The Third Millennium Temple. War and Peace in History and Religion ......................... 41

Fabrice De Backer Notes sur les machines de siège néo-assyriennes ............................................................. 69

Heather D. Baker Babylonian City Walls in a Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective ............................ 87

Daliah Bawanypeck Die Auguren und das hethitische Heer ............................................................................. 97

Richard H. Beal Hittite Reluctance to Go to War ....................................................................................... 109

Gary Beckman The Hittites Make Peace ................................................................................................... 117

Daniel Bodi The ‘Widow’s Tablet’ for the Wife of an Assyrian War Prisoner and the Rabbinic ‘Divorce Letter’ of the Hebrew Warriors ......................................................................... 123

Daniel Bonneterre Les deux bateaux du roi Zimri-Lim, le transport des troupes et la symbolique du pouvoir selon une vision onirique................................................................................ 133

Joachim Bretschneider und Karel van Lerberghe Das Reich von Ugarit vor und nach dem Seevölkersturm. Neue Forschungen im antiken Gibʾala ............................................................................................................ 149

Anna Maria G. Capomacchia and Marta Rivaroli Peace and War: A Ritual Question ................................................................................... 171

Dominique Charpin Guerre et paix dans le monde amorrite et post-amorrite ................................................... 189

Inhaltsverzeichnis VI

Petr Charvát Primeval Statesmen. Winnie the Pooh at Archaic Ur ...................................................... 215

Tamás Dezső Neo-Assyrian Military Intelligence ................................................................................. 221

Rita Dolce Beyond Defeat. The Psychological Annihilation of the Vanquished in Pre-Classical Near Eastern Visual Communication ..................................................... 237

Jeanette C. Fincke Babylonische Gelehrte am neuassyrischen Hof: zwischen Anpassung und Individualität ............................................................................................................. 269

Kristina A. Franke und Christian K. Piller Überlegungen zur kulturgeschichtlichen und chronologischen Einordnung der Stelen von Hakkâri unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Waffen ......................... 293

Sabina Franke Der Zorn Marduks, Erras und Sanheribs. Zu Datierung und Funktion von „Erra und Išum“ ........................................................................................................ 315

Hannes D. Galter Sargon II. und die Eroberung der Welt ............................................................................ 329

Agnès Garcia-Ventura Women, Work and War. A Proposal to Analyze Their Relationship During the Neo-Sumerian Period ....................................................................................................... 345

Steven J. Garfinkle The Economy of Warfare in Southern Iraq at the End of the Third Millennium BC ....... 353

Susanne Görke Fremde in hethitischen Festritualtexten ........................................................................... 363

Laurent Hebenstreit The Sumerian Spoils of War During Ur III ..................................................................... 373

Nils P. Heeßel Krieg und Frieden in den Apodosen von Omen-Texten .................................................. 381

Bruno Jacobs Kriegsentscheidung durch göttliche Gunst. Zur Bewertung von DBi §§ 72 und 75 ........ 391

Greta Jans and Joachim Bretschneider The Glyptic of Tell Beydar. An Impression of the Sealing Evidence for an Early Dynastic Official Household .................................................................................. 401

Wojciech Jaworski Automatic Tool for Semantic Analysis of Neo-Sumerian Documents ............................ 421

Inhaltsverzeichnis VII

Kristin Kleber Zu Waffen und Ausrüstung babylonischer Soldaten in der zweiten Hälfte des 1. Jt. v. Chr. ................................................................................................................ 429

Roland Lamprichs A Period of Peace and Prosperity in Gilead. Tell Johfiyeh and its Surrounding During the (Late) Iron Age A Report on the 2002-2004 Seasons .................................... 447

Martin Lang Einige Beobachtungen zur sumerisch-akkadischen Überlieferung der Fluterzählung(en) ....................................................................................................... 461

Jürgen Lorenz Termingeschäfte in unsicheren Zeiten .............................................................................. 475

Alessandro Di Ludovico The Reign of Šulgi. Investigation of a King Above Suspicion ......................................... 481

Steven Lundström Die Baugeschichte des Alten Palastes von Assur ............................................................. 495

Duncan J. Melville The Mathland Mirror. On Using Mathematical Texts as Reflections of Everyday Life .. 517

Sarah C. Melville Win, Lose, or Draw? Claiming Victory in Battle ............................................................. 527

Bernd Müller-Neuhof Kriege im Neolithikum Vorderasiens? ............................................................................. 539

Davide Nadali and Lorenzo Verderame Experts at War. Masters Behind the Ranks of the Assyrian Army ................................... 553

Zoltán Niederreiter Le rôle des insignes votifs et des insignes de pouvoir néo-assyriens. Un parallèle étonnant entre les deux catégories de masses d’armes ................................. 567

Takayoshi Oshima The Battle of Bel Against Omorka ................................................................................... 601

Elisabeth von der Osten-Sacken Federn für Pfeile ............................................................................................................... 609

Giovanni Pettinato† and Silvia M. Chiodi Attività italiana in ambito archeologico relativa all’Iraq, 2004-2005 ............................... 629

Marco Ramazzotti Royal Administration During the Conquest. New Archaeological and Epigraphic Discoveries in the Royal Palace G at Ebla – Tell Mardikh .............................................. 651

Jack M. Sasson Casus belli in the Mari Archives ...................................................................................... 673

Inhaltsverzeichnis VIII

Ingo Schrakamp Krieger und Bauern. RU-lugal und aga3/aga-us2 im Militär des altsumerischen Lagaš ................................................................................................. 691

JoAnn Scurlock kallāpu: A New Proposal for a Neo-Assyrian Military Term .......................................... 725

Cristina Simonetti Peace After War. Ḫammurapi in Larsa ............................................................................ 735

Marek Stępień Les changements d’application des sceaux dédicatoires dans les archives d’Umma ....... 743

Thomas Friedrich Sturm Öle, Fette und Bitumen nach den Keilschrifttexten der 1. Hälfte des 2. Jt. v. Chr. ......... 757

Igor A. Sviatopolk-Czetvertynski The Weapon of Ninurta mi-tum and ĝišmittu (lugal-e). Akkadian mittu(m) and its Semitic Parallels Aspects of etymology and poetics ............................................ 779

Sara Tricoli The Ritual Destruction of the Palace of Mari by Hammurapi under the Light of the Cult of the Ancestors’ Seat in Mesopotamian Houses and Palaces ....................... 795

Klaas R. Veenhof Old Assyrian Traders in War and Peace .......................................................................... 837

Tommaso De Vincenzi Development of the “Kastenmauern” Building Technique in Anatolia in the First Half of the II Millennium B.C. ...................................................................... 851

K. Lawson Younger, Jr. “War and Peace” in the Origins of the Arameans ............................................................ 861

Stefan Zawadzki Nabonidus and Sippar ...................................................................................................... 875

Nele Ziegler Kriege und ihre Folgen. Frauenschicksale anhand der Archive aus Mari ........................ 885

Gábor Zólyomi The Competition Between the Enclitics –/ʾa/ and –/e/ in Sumerian ................................ 909

Royal Administration During the Conquest New Archaeological and Epigraphic Discoveries

in the Royal Palace G at Ebla – Tell Mardikh

Marco Ramazzotti (Roma)

I. The Royal Palace G Administrative Areas (1974–1986)

The archaeological research work, carried out during the spring campaigns in Ebla, and associated with the Archaeological Park Project, provides further information about con-texts that have already been investigated, both in terms of the need for conservation and in order to ensure the full visibility and long term maintenance of the main buildings which will be included in the visitors’ tour (Fig. 1)1. These two simple methodological and theoretical rules, which were consistently laid down from the beginning of initial work in the field in 1997, are also a natural introduction to the interesting and unexpected results of the latest campaigns in the central, south-eastern and south-western sectors of the renewed Royal Palace G2. The main archive was located at the entrance of the Administrative Quar-ter, in a room (L. 2769) below the porch, along the east wall of the great Court of Audi-ences. The texts of the State Archives were mostly preserved inside this room, but smaller groups of tablets were found in two other rooms: the trapezoidal store L. 2764, in the inner sector of this region, and the small archive, L. 2712, built at the north edge of the east porch of the Court of the Audiences. This certainly was the main archive of the palace, conserving the registration of acts which took place in the Court of Audiences3.

1 M. Ramazzotti, Some Preliminary Signs of the Excavation of the North-East Sector of the West-

ern Palace in Tell Mardikh-Ebla: 2000-2001 campaign, Damascus 2002 (in press); M. Ramazzotti, An Integrated Analysis for the Urban Settlement Reconstruction. The Topographic, Mathematical and Geophysical Frame of Tell Mardikh, Ancient Ebla, in: H. Kühne/R.M. Czichon/F.J. Kreppner (eds), Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (29 March-6 April 2004), Freie Universität Berlin. Volume 1: The Reconstruction of Environment: Natural Resources and Human Interrelations through Time, Art History: Visual Communication, Berlin 2008, 191-205; M. Ramazzotti, The Ebla Archaeological Park. Natural, Archaeological and Artificial Italian Portrait of the Ancient Syrian Capital, in: P. Matthiae et al (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East May, 5th-10th 2008, “Sapienza” – Università di Roma, Volume 2: Excavations, Surveys and Restorations: Reports on Recent Field Archaeology in the Near East, Wiesbaden 2010, 581-597.

2 M. Ramazzotti, The Ebla Archaeological Park: Project and Results, in: J.A. Messih (ed.), Résultats du programme de formation à la sauvegarde du patrimoine culturel de Syrie, 2002-2004, 2007, 281-294.

3 The room measured only 5.10 x 3.55 m, with wooden shelves in three rows, at least against the east, north, and west walls; inside it 1.727 complete or almost complete tablets were found, to-gether with 4.713 large fragments, several small fragments, and thousands of shards, for an overall total of more than 17.000 inventory numbers. P. Matthiae, La scoperta del Palazzo Reale G e degli

Marco Ramazzotti 652

II. The Early Bronze Age IVA New Areas (2003–2006)

During the Archaeological Park surveys and excavations campaigns many archaeological results have been obtained which are progressively modifying the EBIVA archaeological landscape of the city. Thanks to these discoveries we can now detail the classical under-standing of the Early Bronze Age Period urban planning (Fig. 2) but, at the same time, integrating the new and the well known archaeological records with the epigraphic sources, put forward some other interpretations of the so-called Eblaite Administrative Process, interpretations that highlight the contextual and local dynamics of both the “Destruction” and “Administration”4. Given the main theme of the rencontre, we have a good opportunity to discuss the evaluation of what happened in the Eblaite administrative praxis before, dur-ing and after the Akkadian conquest. Five new EBIVA areas were identified during the last campaigns: 1. The FF2 Building5, presented at the last ICAANE held in Madrid, can be understood as a fragmentary part of an important structure probably conserving a Royal Chapel and dated to the EBIVA period6; 2. A new square room (L. 2982) in the south-west-ern limit of the Royal Palace G identified during the 2003 spring campaign and excavated

Archivi di Stato di Ebla (c. 2400-2250 a.C), La Parola del Passato 31, 1976, 233-266; P. Matthiae, La biblioteca reale di Ebla (2400-2250 a. C), Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, Città del Vaticano 48, 1975-76, 19-43; P. Matthiae, Tell Mardikh: The Archives and Palace, Archaeology 30, 1977, 244-53; P. Matthiae, Ebla in the Late Early Syrian Period: The Royal Palace and the State Archives, Biblical Archaeology 39, 1976, 94-113; P. Matthiae, Le palais royal et les archives d’état d’Ebla protosyrienne, Akkadica 2, 1977, 2-19; P. Matthiae, Il palazzo reale e gli archivi di Ebla protosiriana, in: P. Matthiae, Scoperte di archeologia orientale, 1986, 37-57; P. Matthiae, Recherches archéologiques à Ebla, 1977: le quartier administrative du Palais Royal G (CRAI 1978), 204-236; P. Matthiae, Palazzo Reale G di Ebla e la tradizione architettonica protosiriana, Studi Eblaiti 5, 1982, 75-92; A. Archi, Les 17000 tablettes des Archives Royales, Histoire et Archéologie 83, 1984, 32-37; A. Archi, Gli archivi di Ebla, in: P. Matthiae (ed.), Da Ebla a Damasco. Diecimal anni di archeologia in Siria, Milano 1985, 68-71; A. Archi, The Archives of Ebla, in: K.R. Veenhof (ed.), Cuneiform Archives and Libraries, Istanbul 1986, 72-86; P. Matthiae, The Archives of the Royal Palace G of Ebla. Distribution and Arrangement of the Tablets according to the Archaeological Evidence, in: K.R. Veenhof (ed.), Cuneiform Archives and Libraries, 53-71.

4 M. Ramazzotti, Segni, codici e linguaggi nell’“agire comunicativo” delle culture protostoriche di Mesopotamia, alta Siria e Anatolia, in: F. Baffi/R. Dolce/S. Mazzoni/F. Pinnock (eds.), “ina kibrat erbetti”. Studies in Honor of Paolo Matthiae. Offered by Colleagues and Friends on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, Rome 2006, 511-564; M. Ramazzotti, Anatomia di Akkad. Le ombre di una città invisibile dal suo paesaggio storiografico, estetico e storico, in: R. Dolce et al. (a cura di), Quale Oriente? Omaggio a un Maestro. Studi di Arte e di Archeologia del Vicino Oriente in memoria di A. Moortgat a trenta anni dalla sua morte, Palermo 2011, 341-375.

5 P. Matthiae, Le palais méridional dans la ville basse d’Ebla paléosyrienne: fouilles à Tell Mardikh 6 (2002-2003) (CRAI 2004), 318-324; M. Ramazzotti, A. Di Ludovico, Design at Ebla. The Dec-orative System of a Painted Wall Decoration, Orientalia 80/1, 2011, 66-80.

6 M. Ramazzotti, A. Di Ludovico White, Red and Black. Technical Relationships and Stylistic Perceptions between Colours, Lights and Places in Mesopotamia and Syria during the Third Mil-lennium BC., in: R. Matthews et al (eds.), Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 12 April-16 April 2010, the British Museum and UCL, London, Volume 2: Ancient & Modern Issues in Cultural Heritage Colour & Light in Architecture, Art & Material Culture Islamic Archaeology, Wiesbaden 2012, 287-302.

Royal Administration During the Conquest 653

in the summer campaign7; 3. The north-eastern corner of another room in the Southern Quarter of the Royal Palace G, room L. 8490 that was identified and excavated during the 2004 spring campaign8; 4. The large area in the western section of the Court of Audiences L. 2752 that was opened during the 2003 spring campaign and closed with the construction of a retaining wall as a western limit of the restored Palace9. 5. The complex L. 8496 + L. 8778 in the eastern retaining wall of the inner Throne Room L. 2866, which was identified and excavated during the 2004 spring campaign10.

III. Synchronization before the destruction

The relative chronology is the first step in connecting each discovery within a more inte-grated system, since synchronization between the archaeological contexts is the basic unit for studying local dynamic processes and for detailing an absolute chronology11 as the syn-chronization between textual sources can obviously refine our knowledge of the Eblaite histoire evenementielle12. As we have pointed out, some figurative themes and geometric patterns discovered in the FF2 Building are strictly related to the Royal Palace G icono-graphic apparatus and the new inlays originally superimposed on the anthropomorphic figure collected in L. 2892 should be ascribed to the same sphere of royal artistic produc-tion as well as the two kinds of lapis-lazuli fragments (mass blocks and inlays) in room L. 8490 and the lion in red jasper and white stones discovered, with other precious inlays, in the western section of the Court of Audiences (Fig. 3a-b)13. Moreover the gold and the royal inlays from the administrative complex L. 8496 + L. 8778 are precious objects dated

7 Matthiae, Le palais méridional dans la ville basse d’Ebla paléosyrienne: fouilles à Tell Mardikh

(2002-2003), 311; M. Ramazzotti, New Discoveries in the Royal Palace G: 2003-2004 Campaign (2005).

8 Ramazzotti, New Discoveries in the Royal Palace G: 2003-2004 Campaign. 9 Ramazzotti, New Discoveries in the Royal Palace G: 2003-2004 Campaign. 10 Ramazzotti, in: Baffi/Dolce/Mazzoni/Pinnock (eds.), “ina kibrat erbetti”, 511-564. 11 Matthiae, The Archives of the Royal Palace G of Ebla. Distribution and Arrangement of the Tab-

lets According to the Archaeological Evidence, in: Veenhof (ed.), Cuneiform Archives and Libraries, 53-71; P. Matthiae, The Problem of the Relation between Ebla and Mesopotamia in the Time of Royal Palace of Mardikh 1IB1 (XXVe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale), Berlin 1982, 111-123; P. Matthiae, The Destruction of Ebla Royal Palace: Interconnections between Syria, Mesopotamia and Egypt in the Late EB IVA, in: P. Ålstrom (ed.), High. Middle or Low? Acts of an International Colloquium on Absolute Chronology, Göteborg 1989, 163-169; P. Matthiae, Crisis and Collapse: Similarity and Diversity in the Three Destructions of Ebla from EBIVA to MBII, Scienze dell’Antichità 15, 2009, 165-204.

12 Matthiae, Colloquium on Absolute Chronology, 163-169. Indeed the important synchronisms revealed in the texts of the main archive between Ebla and Mari kingdoms before the Akkadian destruction are precising the evenemential history of the EB IVA culture; A. Archi, I rapporti tra Ebla e Mari. SEb IV, 1981, 129-166; A. Archi, Ebla: la formazione di uno Stato del III. millenni a.C., PdP 46, 1991, 195-219; A. Archi, Chronologie relative des Archives d’Ebla, in: J.-M. Durand (ed.), Amurru I. Mari, Ebla et les Hourrites. Dix ans de travaux, Paris 1996, 11-28; A. Archi, M.G. Biga, A Victory over Mari and the Fall of Ebla, JCS 55, 2003, 1-44.

13 Matthiae, Le palais méridional dans la ville basse d’Ebla paléosyrienne: fouilles à Tell Mardikh (2002-2003), 315, figs. 10-17.


stratigraphically to the destruction of the Royal Palace G and, typologically, to the EBIVA period (Fig. 4), but it should be borne in mind that the archaic prosopography and the fast handwriting – recognized in the new texts14 – could be a stylistic habitus and a technical characteristic of the scribes operating in this palace sector from the time of Ibbi-Zikir on (because Ibrium is not attested)15.

IV. The administrative system before and after the destruction

Looking separately at these 5 new EBIVA sectors it is possible to advance some hypotheses concerning the functions played by Administrative System in the time immediately before the Akkadian conquest16. If the room L. 8729 of the FF2 Building was a space conserving sacred images in the well articulated niche painted with geometrical patterns, it is thus possible to comprehend this enigmatic and erased structure17 as a lower part of the Palace where a Royal Chapel was located, spatially linked to the Southern Quarter of the Royal Palace G but lower in its southern extremity (Fig. 5). At the same time, room L. 8490 in the Southern Quarter could refer to the western extension of the Royal Palace G service area, and since in this room different lapis-lazuli blocks (row and inlays) were located we can infer that its function was quite similar to that played by L. 2982. The discoveries of gold, limestone and lapis-lazuli inlays in the room show that the Royal Atelier was spatially con-nected to the Throne Room L. 2866. Finally, the complex L. 8496 + L. 8778 – that will be discussed in detail – can be understood as a kind of Temporary Archive encapsulated in the Throne Room where many tablets and other precious small finds as gold cloth and lapis inlays have been discovered (Fig. 6).

According to this the reconstruction (Fig. 7), it has been supposed that each kind of goods was directly observed in the inner courtyard L. 2931 (grey arrows), then they were recorded

14 Studied and analysed in a preliminary way by Prof. Maria Giovanna Biga. 15 For a specific and detailed analysis on the relative chronology of the Ebla texts both on the

philological and prosopographic level see: M.G. Biga, F. Pomponio, Elements for a Chronological Division of the Administrative Documentation of Ebla, JCS 42, 1990, 179-201; M.G. Biga, F. Pomponio, Critères de rédaction comptable et chronologie relative des textes d’Ebla, MARI 7, 1993, 107-128; M.G. Biga, Prosopographie et dotation relative des texts d’Ebla, Amurru I, 1996, 29-72; M.G. Biga, The Reconstruction of a Relative Chronology for Ebla Text, Orientalia 72/4, 2003, 345-364.

16 Biga, Orientalia 72/4, 2003, 345-364. The destruction is documented by a heavy fire, evident in all the architectural remains brought to light. According to our interpretation, it was the work of Sargon of Akkad. The second destruction concludes the immediately following phase of Mardikh IIB2, and corresponds to Early Bronze IVB. P. Matthiae, Crisis and Collapse: Similarity and Diversity in the Three Destructions of Ebla from EBIVA to MBII, Scienze dell’Antichità 15, 165-204; R. Dolce, Ebla after the “Fall” – Some Preliminary Considerations on the EB IVB City, Damaszener Mitteilungen (= Festschrift für Ali Abu Assaf) 13, 2001, 11-28. Ramazzotti, Anatomia di Akkad. Le ombre di una città invisibile dal suo paesaggio storiografico, estetico e storico, in: R. Dolce et al. (a cura di), Quale Oriente? Omaggio a un Maestro. Studi di Arte e di Archeologia del Vicino Oriente in memoria di A. Moortgat a trenta anni dalla sua morte, 341-375.

17 Matthiae, Le palais méridional dans la ville basse d’Ebla paléosyrienne: fouilles à Tell Mardikh (2002-2003), 301-346.


in the Temporary Archive (dotted-line arrows) and probably the administrative apparatus organized its official registration for the Royal Archive as well as its physical transportation to the Royal Atelier (dashed-line arrows)18. The theoretical framework recomposed here has been drawn up on the basis of the local spatial constraints of the Royal Palace G, but it seems to be confirmed if we examine the dispersion of material in each selected area. In the Royal Chapel located in FF2 Building the Painted Niche was completely destroyed and probably the sacred images (originally located inside this) were lost, as was normal during wars, especially in the third millennium BC19. At the same time, the high dispersion of limestone inlays, row lapis-lazuli, and gold in the Royal Atelier enables us to view this room as having been sacked, the most important pieces having being selected whilst smaller pieces or other considered insignificant were, instead, dispersed. Finally, in the Throne Room the destruction was complete and we can only imagine how rich this area must have been, although some extraordinary and important details have survived: tablets, cretulae, lapis-lazuli inlays and gold cloth. Reconstructing the spatial dispersion of the finds in the whole area we can also suggest some of the routes followed by the enemies during the attack. After the destruction, a lot of precious fragments were left on the floors. Of course, the administrative system was deactivated before the sack but some archaeologi-cal records allow us to perceive, through the well planned and hierarchical strategy carried on by the enemies, the general consideration that they held regarding palatial spaces. The inspection and sack were integral except for the tablets, and some extraordinary pieces were ignored probably because they were located in the less important administrative areas, such as, for example, the gold cloth in the Temporary Archive.

V. The administrative system during the destruction

The archaeological stratigraphy can be read as an important text narrating the destruction thanks to the clear and well recognizable sequences. In the Royal Chapel of the Building FF2 the niche collapsed directly on the floor and was not destroyed by the fire, although it was possible to record some carbonized layers that should be interpreted as burnt traces of carpets or reed nets20. On the other hand, in the Royal Atelier the destruction represents a

18 Many other syntaxes could be suggested, but observing the spatial constraints the proposed routes

are quite reasonable. 19 For a more specific and detailed interpretation of the ideological roles played by statues, icons and

symbols deportations as for the semantic meaning of some iconographic destructions of the more significant sacred images in the III and II Millennium see M. Ramazzotti, Ideografia ed estetica della statuaria mesopotamica del III Millennio a. C., in: M. Liverani, M.G. Biga (eds.), “ana turri gimilli”. Studi dedicati al Padre Werner R. Mayer, S.J., da amici e allievi (= Quaderni del Vicino Oriente V), Roma 2010, 309-326; M. Ramazzotti, The Aesthetic Lexicon of Ebla’s Composite Art during the Age of the Archives. An Innovative Visual Representation of Words and Concepts in Early Dynastic Image Technology, 57 Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Rome (in press); M. Ramazzotti, Aesthetic and Cognitive Report on Ancient Near East Clay Figurines Based on Some Early Bronze and Middle Bronze Records Discovered at Ebla – Tell Mardikh (Syria), Scienze dell’Antichità 17, 2012, 341-372.

20 Ramazzotti, Di Ludovico, Orientalia Vol. 80/1, 2011, 66-80; M. Ramazzotti, A. Di Ludovico White, Red and Black. Technical Relationships and Stylistic Perceptions between Colours, Lights


typical example of the collapse of the high mud-brick structure: under the mud-brick walls a thick deposit of carbonized woods was found that entirely covered the plastered floor and sealed the original dispersion of the materials21. On the contrary in the Temporary Archive the mud-brick collapse was mixed with different burnt layers, more intensive on the upper surface where a very complex wooden skirting board was located. The dynamic of the collapse is quite different from that of the Royal Atelier since in this area the floor was first set on fire and the lower roof then collapsed onto this later while this two rooms were prob-ably still decorated with imported structural elements made from non-local wood such as the Cedrus and the Abies (Fig. 8)22. The dynamic and the micro-dynamic of these collapses enable us to reconstruct a more detailed picture of the destruction that should be considered in order to better understand what happened at the heart of the administration during the attack (Fig. 9). Probably, after the complete sack of the richer sectors (grey arrows), the two main archives were set on fire separately (dotted-line arrows) and, at a later time, both the second floor of rooms and the three open courtyards were set on fire (dashed-line arrows). If accept hypothesis as reasonable, then we must observe that the Akkadians paid particular attention to a topographic assessment of the Palace and, while their strategy was completely successful, the destruction still left us the possibility of discovering the administrative ar-eas. Moreover, we can obtain further important information by analyzing the contextual microstratigraphy of the so called Temporary Archive in the Throne Room. The fragmen-tary state of the tablets in L. 8496 could be better understood if assume that they were originally found on the second floor23. Indeed their stratigraphic position – between the carbonized layers and not on the floor – must be the result of lighter superstructures col-lapsing after the roof itself had come down.

VI. Goods and words. Reconstructing the local dynamic of the destruction

The images just discussed produce an iconic structure of the administrative processes in the complex Royal Palace G and Building FF2 that derives directly from the different steps taken in excavations, and could be interpreted as different phases of the system during the Akkadian conquest of Ebla. We may now use this archaeological information to organize a

and Places in Mesopotamia and Syria during the Third Millennium BC., in: Matthiae et al (eds.), Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 12 April-16 April 2010, the British Museum and UCL, London, Volume 2: Ancient & Modern Issues in Cultural Heritage Colour & Light in Architecture, Art & Material Culture Islamic Archaeology, 287-302.

21 Indeed some impressive carbonized wooden beams were recognized directly on the floor, while the combustion of the plaster surfaces was not so clear as in the two rooms of the Temporary Ar-chive.

22 The collapse dynamic can be observed looking at the wooden floor decorations carbonized in situ on the steps of the staircase and all around the lower inner perimeter of the two rooms. Moreover, a preliminary archaeobotanic survey conducted by G. Fiorentino and V. Caracuta, bio-archaeolo-gists of the University of Lecce, shows that the floor and roof of these two rooms were probably decorated with imported structural elements made from non-local wood such as the Cedrus and the Abies.

23 Biga proposed to me to consider this possibility.


more specific and articulated framework of the process in order to highlight its specific temporal meaning. Before the Akkadian attack many raw materials such as the rock crystals and lapis blocks arrived in the Royal Palace G24 and these deliveries have recently been confirmed by the discovery in the Southern Quarter and Royal Atelier. While the majority of these precious row materials were probably stored in the Southern Quarter, a large pro-portion was found also in the so called Royal Atelier in stratigraphic association with dif-ferent weights, gold and lapis-lazuli inlays. Probably these served as semi-finished pieces for the production of more articulated objects made of different elements, as the eye inlays discovered in the same room would appear to confirm. During the pillaging many of the objects were stolen but the fragments believed to be decorative were generally left or aban-doned, as the pleated skirt on floor of the Royal Court seems to indicate. In other cases, some objects were probably considered to be more significant because of their symbolic value and were, thus, dismantled or destroyed while the enemies were leaving the Palace. This interpretation appears reasonable if we consider the extraordinary that was discovered. Made of red jasper and white limestone25, the three pieces of this lion were found in three different areas of the western section, in front of the Court of Audience, and were strati-graphically associated with three limestone eyes inlays26. After rapidly sacking the Palace, the Akkadians then set it on fire at different points. The administrative areas, however, were probably set on fire beginning with the inner spaces since they were most probably consid-ered less valuable. The discovery on the floor of the so-called Temporary Archive of 6 rectangular fragments of golden cloth and many threads seems to indicate that other pre-cious materials were probably transported to other sectors of the Palace before these rooms were set ablaze.27

24 On a more specific analysis concerning the Eblaite control of the Lapis Lazuli trade routes see: F.

Pinnock, The Lapis Lazuli Trade in the Third Millennium B.C. and the Evidence from the Royal Palace G of Ebla, in: M. Kelly-Buccellati et al. (eds.), Insight Through Images. Studies in Honor of Edith Porada (BiMes 21), Malibu 1986, 221-228; F. Pinnock, Observations on the Trade of Lapis Lazuli in the IIIrd Millennium B.C., in: H. Hauptmann/H. Waetzoldt (eds.), Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft von Ebla. Akten der Internationalen Tagung 4.-7. November 1986, Heidelberg 1988, 107-110.

25 Matthiae, Le palais méridional dans la ville basse d’Ebla paleosyrienne: fouilles à Tell Mardikh (2002-2003), 301-346.

26 Ramazzotti, New Discoveries in the Royal Palace G: 2003-2004 Campaign. 27 I suggested the identification of the fine gold strips interworked to make small objects looking like

miniature mats (and considered by Desoriers the earliest interworking of gold) and found in the inner room L. 8496 of the Throne Room L. 2866 as a precious part the Queen Veil recorded in the so called Ritual of the Kingship. They may also fit with the term zimidatum, a band in gold thread used for ceremonial ornaments mentioned in a text found in the Temporary Archive near the six gold intertwined bands. See S. Desrosiers, Textile Terminologies and Classification: Some meth-odological and chronological aspects, in: C. Michel/M.-L. Nosch (eds.), Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean from the Third to the First millennia BC, Oxford 2010, 23-51; Ramazzotti, The Aesthetic Lexicon of Ebla’s Composite Art during the Age of the Ar-chives. An Innovative Visual Representation of Words and Concepts in Early Dynastic Image Technology, in press.


VII. Goods and words. Reconstructing the local dynamic of the administration under destruction

Concerning the most important discovery (Fig. 10), a series of indicators help us formulate a hypothesis regarding the function of this small complex of two rooms. The discovery, in the small northern room, of 14 tablets28, some other fragments and 2 bullae29, probably all located at a higher level – since none were found on the floor – indicates (as we said ear-lier) that one of the primary activities carried out concerned “complex” administrative as-pects. In fact, although the limited number of documents hardly constitutes proof of another Small Archive, the presence of tablets and bullae together implies that at least two func-tions were carried out there: that of collecting documents and that of sealing goods30. Moreover, the discovery of one of the most extraordinary items of Early Bronze jewellery on the floor of this room, unique in its kind and without any known comparison, could, on the one hand, confirm that the two rooms were used by important dignitaries. On the other, it could suggest – and an analysis of the texts has been decisive to this end – that the items kept and sealed there before the pillage were generally of very high quality. The semantic features of the two seal impressions, though they reveal different techniques, style and articulation of the register certainly cannot be compared to a common kind of sealing. The first is more schematic and apparently represents a religious ceremony; the second, bold and with pretty relief style, falls within the sphere of Early Bronze Syrian religiosity which always focused on the bull-man and on the lion31. There seems to be no doubt that these very rich locations in the Throne Room of the Royal Palace G administered special items of great prestige, but it would be overreaching ourselves to say that these items were also the subject matter of administrative ratification, as the discovery of the small lot of written documents might lead us to think. Actually, the size, firing, state of preservation, and pale-ography of the texts, cause us to take into careful consideration the kind of transactions they recorded. In fact, if we were to assess the texts according to their physical and formal as-pect, one might think of a kind of document which was not intended for long term conser-vation – unlike the well known documents housed in the main Archive – but were supposed to circulate easily, a sort of memo to provide an accurate record of the items managed. Moreover the preliminary study of the tablets has confirmed all previous general sugges-tions. The texts are single annotations of gold and silver deliveries that probably were rec-orded in these two rooms before their official registration in the main Archive. So if it

28 From L. 8496: TM. 04. G. 73; 74; 145; 154; 148; 149; 150; 151; 147; 146; 160; 168; 180. 29 From L. 8496: TM. 04. G. 172; 173. 30 But concerning the concept of record keeping focused on Ebla see: A. Archi, Archival Record-

Keeping at Ebla 2400-2350 BC, in: M. Brosius (ed.), Ancient Archives and Archival Traditions. Concepts of Record-Keeping in the Ancient World, Oxford 2003, 17-36.

31 This important glyptic material of the Temporary Archive probably belongs to the same icono-graphic sphere of the main two groups dated on the last phase of the State Archives of Ebla Mardikh IIB1 (the time of the great dignitaries Ibbi-Zikir and Dubukhu-Adda) and found in Royal Palace G between 1975 and 1978 both in the North facade of the large Court of Audience L. 2752 and in some rooms of the Administrative Quarter stretched partly below the East portico, and partly beyond the East facade of the Court L. 2752; cf. Ramazzotti, in: Baffi/Dolce/Mazzoni/Pinnock (eds.), “ina kibrat erbetti”, 511-564.


seems impossible to recognize a direct association between the administration of the items found and the formal typological aspect of the written documentation, we must consider this small lot of documents independently. Certainly, the 14 tablets were not found by chance in this room, although it is likely that the room was not set aside to receive them as an Archive; it is therefore reasonable to draw the hypothesis that the two rooms opened in the eastern sector of the Throne Room temporarily housed items of great value, and regis-tered some kind of official transaction which, before being filed in the Main Archive, needed to undergo other kinds of approval, or – if this were not necessarily so – that the items were at least centrally controlled by those who had free access to the rooms. The new discovery in the Royal Palace G of Ebla, like others in the past, and in the recent past too, of Oriental archaeology, cannot be represented as a static function, and escapes any precise definition. However, with administrative acts, we should not forget that before data are introduced into the places set aside for the conservation of their memory, research and consultation, the procedures followed natural steps, and this precious lot found in the Royal Palace G perhaps simply tells us of a location where one of these steps was carried out.


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Fig. 4: Some Recent Important Discoveries in the Royal Palace G: Fragmentary Gold Cloths and Precious Inlays. © La Sapienza University of Rome (Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).


Fig. 5a: The Detailed Plan of the Building FF2. © La Sapienza University of Rome (Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

Fig. 5b: The Three Dimensional Reconstruction of the FF2 Painted Niche Elaborated by Arch. R. Franceschetti. © La Sapienza University of Rome (Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).


Fig. 6a: The New Temporary Archive in the Royal Palace G Throne Room. © La Sapienza University of Rome (Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).


Fig. 6b The Detailed Plan of the New Temporary Archive in the Royal Palace G. © La Sapienza University of Rome (Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).


Fig. 6c: The Three Dimensional Reconstruction of the New Temporary Archive in the Royal Palace G Throne Room Elaborated by Arch. R. Franceschetti. © La Sapienza University of Rome (Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).


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