227
ANATOLIA AND THE LEVANTEBLA
Amalia Catagnoti
Tell Mardikh (about 60 km south of Aleppo, Syria) is the site of
ancient Ebla, excavated from 1964 by P. Matthiae.^1 The remains
date from the Chalcolithic period to the last part of the Middle
Bronze Age.- S L
1.1 More than three thousand cuneiform tablets have been recov-
ered from archives within the main excavated building, Palace G,^2
which was the residence of the local ruler and his wife. They are
usually dated to the second half of the twenty-fourth century.1.2 The royal archives are mainly administrative in nature,^3 but
they also contain official acts dealing with the royal and elite fami-
lies, in particular “decrees” (en-ma), “verdicts” (di-ku 5 ) and interna-
tional treaties.^4 Lexical lists, chancery documents, and literary texts
were also stored in the main archive, L. 2769. Bilingual lexical lists
(VE), not always in the Mesopotamian tradition, help to explain the
legal terminology. The local language (written with extensive use of
logograms from the Mesopotamian tradition) appears to be a Syrian
variant of Archaic Semitic.^5(^1) Matthiae, Ebla...
(^2) Archi, “The Archives of Ebla,” and “Gli archivi di Ebla.. .”
(^3) Archi, “About the Organization.. .,” “Ebla: La formazione di uno stato...,”
“Fifteen Years of Studies.. .,” and “Trade and Administrative Practice.. .”; Pettinato,
La città sepolta; Bonechi, “Lexique...”
(^4) Archi, Ebla du IIIèmillénaire...
(^5) Fronzaroli, “La lingua...”
WESTBROOK_F6_227-239 8/27/03 1:42 PM Page 227