Section 5.2 - Historical Archaeology: The Case of Ebla - (min. 18:18)

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Recovering the Humankind's Past and Saving the Universal Heritage

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Sapienza University of Rome

Recovering the Humankind's Past and Saving the Universal Heritage

129 notes

Archaeology is, among human sciences, the discipline with the strongest importance for the rediscovery, but also for the preservation and protection of cultural heritage, as Humankind’s universal patrimony. You will be introduced to the way we ourselves reflect on and are engaged with the study of human past: from the practical and material recovery of ancient traces in the field to the study and interpretation. On the other hand, the discovery of human past implies the correct conservation and presentation for both experts and general public: the study and protection of the past we share every day prevent from any possible destruction, misuse, abuse and thus cancellation of human memory. “Recovering the Humankind's Past and Saving the Universal Heritage” presents to a large public Archaeology as a historical discipline: through an inter-disciplinary perspective you will follow the evolution and change of archaeology to the moment when natural sciences contributed to make the historical reconstructions scientifically sound; the aid of informatics and of virtual reconstructions gives new fascination to the already strong suggestion of Archaeology, as the discipline of discovery par excellence. Within this frame, Ebla, which is the glory of the Sapienza school of Oriental archaeology, will have an exemplary meaning in the course development as a long lasting experience on the field and an excellent example of the scientific results of combined researches and disciplines. Moreover, the course will focus on actual, innovative instruments to preserve, monitor and give value to cultural heritage through a multidisciplinary approach, based on a deep archaeological and historical knowledge but also on ICT technologies. The wide adoption of ICT technologies in our daily life is also impacting in the way in which we interact with our cultural heritage in particular in terms of preservation and dissemination of cultural objects. In this course you will learn the basic techniques to digitize cultural objects and obtain 3D digital copies of a physical objects such as statues, vases or archaeological sites. We will also discuss how to structure the raw data in order to facilitate and make effective the access to digital contents. In particular, we will present the European Data Model, a framework for collecting, connecting and enriching data on cultural objects provided by a number of museum, archives, sites and libraries in Europe.

À partir de la leçon

Week 5 - The birth of archaeology and its role in the contemporary world.

This module focuses on scientific research and knowledge dissemination.The specificities of the past pose a problem in respect of popularization and simplification. The operational chain is made of exploration, dig, publication, conservation, dissemination, protection. However, the need for a legitimacy of the present has led also to political readings of the retrieval of the past. Present cultural identity is grounded in the retrieved past. The “past of the other” has often been refused throughout history down to modern times. Our perception of the past is made manifest in its material and virtual reconstruction starting from ruins. Further, “excessive exploitation” of the past represent a modern destruction. The archaeological excavation of Ebla (Syria) will be analyzed as case study. It is in fact an example of a research framed within historical archaeology, which, in the course of fifty years of research, turned into a global perspective. Homework available since Dic.: Quiz week 5

Section 5.1 - Pioneer Archaeology: The Case of Nineveh - (min. 18:33)17:31

Section 5.2 - Historical Archaeology: The Case of Ebla - (min. 18:18)18:18

Section 5.3 - Archaeology of Territory: Surveys in Southern Mesopotamia - (min. 18:33)18:33

Rencontrer les enseignants

Paolo Matthiae
Emeritus Professor of Archaeology
Dipartimento delle Scienze dell'Antichità
Davide Nadali
PhD in Near Eastern Archaeology
Andrea Vitaletti
Ph.D. in Computer Science
Computer Science
Emanuel Demetrescu
PhD candidate

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.

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