As the relative chronology of the two main Eblaic temples of the State Archives Age
is clear, it is possible to maintain that the change from the in antistemple with a wide
cella to the temple with a long cella took place during the same mature Early Syrian
period, Early Bronze IVA. In the late Early Syrian period, Early Bronze IVB, two new
cult buildings were erected over the remains of the more monumental temples of the
State Archives Age: over the Temple of the Rock, Temple HH 4 features the final
appearance of the plan with a long cella – here 8. 10 m long and 6. 10 m large – but the
vestibule is deeper than usually happens in the classical Syrian temple in antis. In Area
D on the Acropolis, on the contrary, a building, quite likely of Early Bronze IVB, is
squashed between the Red Temple of Early Bronze IVA and Ishtar’s Temple of Middle
Bronze I–II; the plan is therefore incomplete, and could be the first example of
a tripartite temple, in a specimen which certainly was not very monumental. The
tripartite temple in antiswas to become the classic plan for sanctuaries closely related
to palaces, or connected with royal ideology.
The Temple of the Rock and the Red Temple, therefore, are two buildings of similar
monumental aspect. The first one was probably related to the presence of underground
water, and thus, perhaps with a foundation myth of the town; it was built very close
to the town walls, and quite likely, also to a city gate. The second temple was closely
connected to the Royal Palace, and, in fact, as already maintained, the space left
between temple and palace was very narrow, and the Palace did not have a true
perimeter wall in that area. These elements, with the careful analysis of written
documents like the Ritual of Kingship (Fronzaroli 1993 ), led P. Matthiae to identify in
the two sanctuaries two temples dedicated to the main deity of the Early Syrian Eblaic
pantheon, namely Kura, a god who can be considered similar to Enki in the
Mesopotamian world. In fact, in the Ritual text, they mention Kura’s Temple in the
Lower Town, which the queen enters, after spending one night outside the town: here
the queen wears the ceremonial dress, before starting the ritual for the renewal of
kingship. The complex ceremony, which lasted several days, ends in Kura’s Temple in
the SA.ZAxki, a term, as already suggested, probably indicating the Royal Palace itself.
At the end of the ritual, the royal couple – representation on earth of the divine couple
of Kura and Barama – regained possession of their prerogatives, as is indicated by the
sentence ‘the king and queen provide, they do provide’, as opposed to the sentence ‘the
king and queen provide, they do not provide’ previously employed during the
development of their complex journey, touching divine temples and royal mausolea
in the territory of Ebla, outside the town.
The Ebla temples belong to an architectural tradition which probably started in
Upper Mesopotamia at the beginning of the Early Syrian period, with the specimens
in particular of Halawa (Building I), and Tell Khuera (Aussenbau, Steinbau, and
Nordtempel), featuring a clear break from the tradition of the Uruk colonies of south
Mesopotamia (Pinnock forthcoming). In these buildings, the plan with long cella
prevails. In inner Syria, the Syrian temple in antisis represented by the two Eblaic
specimens, and also by the temple of er-Rawda, and by the Aleppo temple, where, on
the contrary, the cella is mainly of the wide type. This typology will be gradually
abandoned during Early Bronze IVB, and the typology with long cella will become the
rule in Middle Bronze I–II. A similar development may also be singled out at Byblos,
where the Chapelle Orientalehas a wide cella, while the antecedent of the Obelisk
Temple in Early Bronze IVB features a long cella (Pinnock 2007 ).
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