In the previous lesson, we maintained that in order to illustrate the contribution of archaeology to history, we would have used three case studies: respectively for pioneer archaeology of the 19th century, for historical archaeology of a large part of the 20th century, and for the global archaeology of our days. Thus, after Nineveh we will speak about Ebla, which is a typical excavation of the last years of historical archaeology, and of the first years of global archaeology, characterized by a very long activity - 47 excavations campaign without interruption - and by results of exceptional historical relevance. In 1964, the Italian Archaeological Expedition of the University of Rome, asked the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums of Damascus, to obtain the permission to dig in the site of Tell Mardikh, an intact important archaeological site nearly 60 hectares in size, located approximately 50 kilometers south of Aleppo in West Inner Syria. This choice came from precise reasons, typical of the historical archaeology of those decades. I chose that site and directed the excavations for nearly 50 years with the aim, in the first place to demonstrate the originality of the culture of Syria, in the 2nd millennium BC as partially revealed by the excavations made not too far away from Ebla at Tell Atchanah, ancient Alalakh by one of the greatest archaeologists of the 20th century, Sir Leonard Woolley, which had ended two decades before, and, in the second place, to try, find and study the historical roots of that culture in the 3rd millennium BC. Both results were achieved beyond the most optimistic expectation. One of the great masters of World Assyriology, the late dean Ignace J. Gelb of the Oriental Institute of Chicago, maintained, already 1978: (literally) "Italians at Ebla discovered a new history, a new language, a new culture". In fact, after five years of excavations, the discovery of a basalt torso, bearing a royal cuneiform inscription, allowed to identify Tell Mardikh with ancient Ebla, a town for a long time located mostly north of Aleppo, in Turkey, famous because it was conquered by Sargon of Akkad around 2300 BC. After 11 years of excavations, in 1975, a discovery took place in the Royal Palace destroyed in 2300 BC. An extraordinary intact archive with more than 17,000 inventory numbers of cuneiform tablets, which abruptly revealed every aspect - economic, social, religious, institutional, military, diplomatic, administrative - of a powerful territorial state dating between 2350 and 2300 BC, which largely dominated over western Syria, west of the Euphrates, and had become a formidable adversary for important towns of Mesopotamia like Mari, Nagar, and Kish. The ruins of the great town of the State Archives, destroyed by Sargon of Akkad - committed to create what we nowadays consider the first universal empire in history - were covered almost everywhere by a new great urban center, limited by imposing ramparts, more than 20 meters high and between 40 and 60 meters thick at the base, founded around 2000 BC, when in Upper Syria and in Lower Mesopotamia a series of dynasties of Amorite kings seized power, among which, shortly after 1800 BC the great figure of Hammurabi of Babylon stood out. This second great Ebla was finally destroyed around 1600 BC. Four palaces, five temples, to extended residential areas, four city-gates, the massive ramparts of the town walls, three fortresses on the walls, and three tombs of the royal necropolis were brought to light with several evidences of the material and artistic cultures, from votive royal statues, to ivories celebrating kingship, several jewels of the highest quality, and every kind of pottery production. Before the beginning of the Italian excavations, Ebla was no more than a mysterious and somehow fascinating name, because it was the name of a town the great Sargon of Akkad maintained he had dominated, and which his nephew, Naram-Sin of Akkad, said he had vanquished. Today, 50 years of it's most remote history, between 2350 and 2300 BC, recording also the wars against Mesopotamia, its administrative organization, its rich pantheon with tens of gods, its social and economic structure were recovered to our knowledge, while its architectural monuments, and the numerous evidences of material culture make of it one of the best known urban centers of the ancient Near East of the first half of the second millennium BC, albeit with a very limited amount of written texts. The language documented by the Royal Archives is a very ancient Semitic language, not known beforehand, which, in the Syro- Palestinian region, is at the same level of development as Akkadian language in the Mesopotamian region, and with Akkadian, is the third most ancient language of humankind delivered to writing, after Sumerian in Mesopotamia, also written in cuneiform writing, and ancient Egyptian in Egypt, which, on the contrary, was written in hieroglyphic. History, as modified by hundreds of administrative texts, led to rewrite some page of the history of the ancient Orient around 2350 BC, when a series of military accomplishments took place, led by a number of towns in Southern Mesopotamia, by the end of the phase usually called "Early Dynastic Period", in a crucial moment, when they wished to enlarge the horizons for long distance trade, and supplying of raw materials of basic importance for the needs of an age at the beginning of the Bronze Age, like timber and some mineral, like, most of all, copper. Thus, light can be thrown over a time when several towns of Mesopotamia and Syria aimed at founding an empire, a state entity which might overcome the settlement organization of city-states, as well as of territorial states: namely a new state formation, which, often just in order to have free access to sources of relatively rare raw materials, needed to enlarge its borders, largely beyond the areas where quite similar state organizations, and cultural situations were present. Moreover, the culture of Ebla may be defined as a culture which, though it developed in quite a close contact with the Mesopotamian world, and certainly with the presence at least of Mesopotamian scribes from Mari and Kish, and possibly also of craftsmens from the same centers, since the beginning features strong elements of originality. The state structure of Ebla was based on a clear relevance of the palace with regard to the temple, and on a definite centralization in the sovereign's hands. The king was assisted by a group of high officials called the "Great Ones", who, at least at the beginning, were perhaps the clan chiefs. The social structure was characterized by relevant position of women, unlike what happened in Mesopotamia and Egypt. The great historical relevance of Ebla was certainly known also by ancient peoples. In fact, at the time of its final destruction around 1600 BC, by the Hittites led by the great king Mursili I - celebratated in Anatolia because he had been the conqueror of Ebla and Babylon - in an eastern Hurrite milieu, on the upper Tigris, they composed a poem, called "Song of Release", in which they told that Pizikarra, a prince of Nineveh, upon an order by the god Teshub, of the town of Kumme, on the upper Tigris, north of Nineveh, besieged and destroyed the town which was considered impious because it held captive a prince and people from the town of Igingallish. This extraordinary poem was composed in Hurrian, and was later on translated into Hittite. Large fragments of the two versions, Hurrian and Hittite, were discovered a Boghazkoy, the ancient Hittite capital Hattusa, and they reveal extraordinary analogies with Homer's Iliad. In fact, we may infer that this one, as well as other Hurrian compositions, may have been known in the 8th century BC Ionia, in the time when Homer probably lived, and Homer might have recalled in his famous poem, subjects still current in the Anatolian world at his time. In this poem Ebla is called the "Town of the Throne", perhaps because kingship in this very ancient town had a special prestige. It is quite likely that the Hittite Musili I were allied with the Hurrian Pizikarra, and that Hattusa and Niniveh were members of a coalition aiming at overthrowing Aleppo and Ebla. This alliance between a great Hittite King and an unknown Hurrian prince, and the fact that afterwards several Hittite kings tried to repeat Mursili's I feat in conquering Aleppo might well explain why later Hittite kings kept with care the Hurrian poem in the capital, and wished to have it translated into Hittite. The basic historical importance of Ebla is in the fact that Ebla is by far the best known urban center, due to the very large amount of texts discovered there, and to the very important evidences of material life of the period when, by the half of third millennium BC, the so-called "second urbanization" of the ancient Orient took place, which developed later and independently from the "first urbanization" of the second half of the fourth millennium BC. In fact, during the "first urbanization", which took place only in the alluvial plains of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and of the Nile in Egypt, witnessed the birth of the first city-states in Mesopotamia, and the first territorial state in Egypt The first towns were all in alluvial plains. On the other hand, during the "second urbanization", towns developed in quite different ecological situation, also on different social-economic bases, always far from the alluvial plains, and therefore in relation with extensive, not intensive agriculture. The "second urbanization" was a basic challenge in the history of town formation. In fact, if the social-economic model of the town could adapt itself, and flourish in a regime of dry agriculture, it was clear that the model could spread over every region in the world, as it was not linked the ecologic situation of alluvial plains. Therefore, in conclusion Ebla is in our knowledge, the best known case for this stage of the development of the town. A basic stage which determined the huge success of urban civilization in the world.
