Studia Eblaitica Volume 6: Studies on the Archaeology, History, and Philology of Ancient Syria 3447115211, 9783447115216

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Pages
Contents
Articles
MARTA D'ANDREA: The Religious Complexes of Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and the Early Bronze Age Interregional Connectivity
JACOPO PSQUALI: Entre deuil et nécromancie: Le lexique de la lamentation funèbre à Ébla et dans l’Antiquité classique à la lumière de l’ethnologie et de la religion comparée
MARIACARMELA MONTESANTO: Lost in Transition: The Late Bronze–Iron Age Pottery Assemblage in Tell Atchana/Alalakh
SUZANNE DIBO: Nouvelles réflexions sur la question du Bît-Hilâni à travers les données du Bâtiment I à Hama
MAAMOUN ABDULKARIM: The Preservation of the Agricultural Land Divisions in the Limestone Massif of Northern Syria during the Roman and Byzantine Eras
Short Notes
Marco Bonechi, The Text of the Ebla Administrative Account TM.75.G.1886+10016 (ARET I 2 +ARET IV 23).
Marta D’Andrea, Again on the “Grey Wares”, Ebla, the Steppe, and the South during Early Bronze IV
Pelio Fronzaroli, Fragments et éclats pour ARET XI
Frances Pinnock, The Wooden Furniture from the Royal Palace G: Placing and Reconstruction
Reviews
Öhnan Tunca and Abd el-Massih Baghdo (eds), Chagar Bazar (Syrie) IV. Les tombes ordinaires de l’âge du Bronze ancien et moyen des chantiers D–F–H–I (1999–2011): Étude archéologique (Publications de la Mission Archéologique del’Université de Liège en Syrie)
Lebeau, M. (ed.), ARCANE. Associated Regional Chronologies for the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. ARCANE Interregional II Artefacts
Arabic Abstracts

Citation preview

VOL. 6

STUDIA EBLAITICA

Studies on the Archaeology, History, and Philology of Ancient Syria

HARRASSOWITZ

Studia Eblaitica Studies on the Archaeology, History, and Philology of Ancient Syria Edited by Paolo Matthiae

6 (2020)

Harrassowitz Verlag · Wiesbaden

© 2020, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11521-6 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39042-2

Cover illustration: Ebla, Temple of the Rock (Area HH); © Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria. Scientific Committee: Maamoun Abdulkerim (Syria), Michel Al-Maqdissi (Syria), Leila Badre (Lebanon), Manfred Bietak (Austria), Pascal Butterlin ( France), D ominique C harpin ( France), N icolò Marchetti (Italy), Daniele Morandi Bonacossi (Italy), Adelheid Otto (Germany), Luca Peyronel (Italy), Graham Philip (UK), Frances Pinnock (Italy), Glenn Schwartz (USA), Piotr Steinkeller (USA), Harvey Weiss (USA). Editorial Board: Frances Pinnock (chief), Marta D’Andrea, Maria Gabriella Micale, Davide Nadali, Agnese Vacca Address: Sapienza Università di Roma Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità Ex Vetrerie Sciarra, Studio 121 Via dei Volsci 122 00185 Roma, Italy e-mail: [email protected] Manuscripts are to be submitted by September 30th of each year to the Editorial Board as Word documents, with figures as single jpg or tif documents with a resolution of at least 800 dpi. Languages: English, French, German. Contributions are submitted to double blind referee. We accept papers which fulfill the ethic requirements as detailed in the home page of Harrassowitz Verlag. The journal is included in the Italian list of Class A scientific publications.

© Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden 2020 This journal, including all of its parts, is protected by copyright. Any use beyond the limits of copyright law without the permission of the publisher is forbidden and subject to penalty. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. Arabic Translation: Mohammed Alkhalid Printed on permanent/durable paper Printing and binding by Memminger MedienCentrum AG Printed in Germany www.harrassowitz-verlag.de ISBN 978-3-447-11521-6 e-ISBN 978-3-447-39042-2 ISSN 2364–7124

© 2020, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11521-6 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39042-2

Contents

ARTICLES Marta D’ANDREA The Religious Complexes of Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and the Early Bronze Age Interregional Connectivity..............................................................1 Jacopo PASQUALI Entre deuil et nécromancie: Le lexique de la lamentation funèbre à É bla et dans l’Antiquité classique à la lumière de l'ethnologie et de la religion comparée..........................................................................................................................................41 Mariacarmela MONTESANTO Lost in Transition: The Late Bronze–Iron Age Pottery Assemblage in Tell Atchana/Alalakh...............................................................................................................57 Suzanne DIBO Nouvelles réflexions sur la question du Bît-Hilâni à travers les données du Bâtiment I à Hama..................................................................................................................89 Maamoun ABDULKARIM The Preservation of the Agricultural Land Divisions in the Limestone Massif of Northern Syria during the Roman and Byzantine Eras...................................................111

SHORT NOTES Marco BONECHI: The Text of the Ebla Administrative Account TM.75.G.1886+10016 (ARET I 2 + ARET IV 23).......................................................................143 Marta D’ANDREA: Again on the “Grey Wares”, Ebla, the Steppe, and the South during Early Bronze IV..............................................................................................................153 Pelio FRONZAROLI: Fragments et éclats pour ARET XI.......................................................162 Frances PINNOCK: The Wooden Furniture from the Royal Palace G: Placing and Reconstruction........................................................................................................167

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‫‪Contents‬‬

‫‪IV‬‬ ‫‪BOOK REVIEWS‬‬

‫‪Ö. Tunca and A. Baghdo (eds), Chagar Bazar (Syrie) IV. Les tombes ordinaires de‬‬ ‫‪l’âge du Bronze ancien et moyen des chantiers D–F–H–I (1999-2011):‬‬ ‫‪Étude archéologique. Publications de la Mission Archéologique de l'Université‬‬ ‫‪de Liège en Syrie (M. D’Andrea) ................................................................................................175‬‬ ‫‪M. Lebeau (ed.), ARCANE. Associated Regional Chronologies for the Ancient‬‬ ‫‪Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. ARCANE Interregional II.‬‬ ‫‪Artefacts (P. Matthiae).....................................................................................................................................181‬‬

‫‪ARABIC ABSTRACTS‬‬

‫املقاالت‬ ‫الهياكل الدينية يف مجيدو وخربة الزرقون و اإلتصاالت اإلقليمية يف عرص الربونز القديم‬ ‫مارتا دي أندريا‪1................................................................................................................................................................‬‬ ‫مابني الحداد وإستحضار األرواح‪ :‬معجم الرثاء الجنائزي يف إبال و يف العصور الكالسيكية القدمية‬ ‫يف ضوء اإلثنولوجية والدين املقارن‪.‬‬ ‫جاكبو باسكوايل‪2...............................................................................................................................................................‬‬ ‫الضياع يف التحول‪ .‬املحتوى الفخارين لعرص الربونز الحديث وعرص الحديد يف تل العطشانة‪/‬آاللخ‬ ‫ماريا كارميال مونتيسانتو‪2...................................................................................................................................................‬‬ ‫تصورات جديدة حول موضوع بيت حيالين عىل أضواء معطيات املبنى ‪ I‬يف حامه‬ ‫سوزان ديبو‪3.....................................................................................................................................................................‬‬ ‫حالة الحفظ لتقسيامت األرايض الزراعية يف الكتلة الكلسية يف شاميل سوريا خالل العرصين الروماين والبيزنطي‬ ‫مأمون عبد الكريم‪4...........................................................................................................................................................‬‬ ‫رؤوس أقالم‬ ‫نص محاسبة إدارية من إبال‪.TM.75.G.1886 + 100616 ARET I 2 + ARET IV 23 .‬‬ ‫ماركور بونييك‪6 ................................................................................................................................................................‬‬ ‫حول “الفخار الرمادي” إبال‪ ،‬البادية والجنوب خالل عرص الربونز القديم الرابع‪.‬‬ ‫مارتا دي أندريا‪ .‬سابينزا جامعة روما‪6.................................................................................................................................‬‬ ‫كرس من ‪ARET XI‬‬ ‫بيليو فرونزارويل جامعة فلورنس‪6.........................................................................................................................................‬‬ ‫إعادة ترتيب و بناء الكساء الخشبي من القرص املليك ‪G‬‬ ‫فرانسيس بينوك‪7..............................................................................................................................................................‬‬

‫‪© 2020, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden‬‬ ‫‪ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11521-6 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39042-2‬‬

MARTA D’ANDREA

Sapienza Università di Roma

The Religious Complexes of Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and the Early Bronze Age Interregional Connectivity The southern Levantine tradition of cult buildings from Early Bronze I to Early Bronze III is represented mainly by simple broad-room temples with a central row of pillar bases, a layout derived directly from the local Chalcolithic traditions. However, at Tell el-Mutesellim/Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley, and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon in the northern Transjordanian plateau, two different types of temples were discovered, which are often conflated in the category of broad-room temples in antis. In contrast, we argue that they belong to two distinct types of Early Bronze Age temples, whose ancestry can be traced in different areas and periods during the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. We re-analyse differences and similarities of the religious complexes at the two sites in terms of intra- and inter-regional connections, re-discuss the duration of their use during the Early Bronze Age, and propose an explanation for the blending of local and non-local features in the two sacred areas framed within inter-regional connectivity already during the first half of the 3rd millennium BC.

1. Introduction Cult buildings in the southern Levant from the “proto-urban” Early Bronze IB period to the urban Early Bronze II-III periods (EB IB: ca. 3400/3300-3100/3000 BC; EB II: ca. 3100/3000-2900/2850 BC; EB III: ca. 2900/2850-2500 BC)1 consisted mainly in simple broad-room temples, often with a central row of pillar bases (Fig. 1). This layout derives directly from the Chalcolithic tradition of the southern Levant.2 However, at Tell el-Mutesellim/Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon in the northern Transjordanian plateau, two different types of temples were discovered, though often conflated in the same category of broadroom temples in antis3 (but the Megiddo temples are also referred to as megaron temples4). In contrast, we argue that they belong to two distinct types of Early Bronze Age temples, whose ancestry can be tracked in different areas and periods during the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. We reconsider differences and similarities of the two religious complexes among each other and compared to other 1 Absolute dates in the article follow the revised chronology for the southern Levantine Early Bronze Age proposed by Regev et al. 2012. 2 Sala 2005: 269–302; 2008: 291–295; Adams, Finkelstein and Ussishkin 2014: 298–299, fig. 9, with relative bibliography. 3 Sala 2008a: 190–193 and fig. 51, 200, 294; 2008: 72–73; 2010: 64–68; Ussishkin 2015: 98. 4 E.g., Loud 1948: 78, 84; Dunayewsky and Kempinski 1973: 162; Milson 1988; Finkelstein 2013: 1332–1333; Ussishkin 2015: 71, 93–101, Tabs 1–2.

Studia Eblaitica 6 (2020), pp. 1–39

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Marta D'Andrea

cult buildings in Syria and Lebanon, and re-discuss the length of their use during the Early Bronze Age. Finally, we propose an interpretation for the blend of local and non-local elements noticeable in the two sacred areas in the context of the Early Bronze Age interregional networking, connectivity, and mobility.

2. The Religious Complex of Megiddo in EB III and IV and Its Parallels at Byblos At Megiddo, the archaeological expedition of the Oriental Institute of Chicago discovered a religious complex with three cult buildings – Temples 5269, 5291 and 4040 – and a circular platform – Altar 4017 – and assigned it to Stratum XV (Fig. 2).5 This sacred area is located on the north-east edge of the mound, in Area BB of the Chicago expedition to Megiddo. Subsequently, this area was re-investigated by a team of the Tel Aviv University and renamed Area J; the religious complex was ascribed to Level J-7 in the site’s periodization established by the new expedition. The three temples had a broad-room cella with two centrally placed stone pillar bases, preceded by an open porch or vestibule formed by the extension of the sidewalls. In Temple 4040 and Temple 5192, two column bases were placed between the porch/vestibule and the cella, and there was a side room adjacent to the cella; a similar side room was reconstructed for Temple 5269 too. The definition of the chronology of the Megiddo Stratum XV temples and altar has been a critical issue in Levantine archaeology,6 because the finds associated with the architectures are a mixture of EB III, EB IV and later materials.7 The chronology and construction history of the 3rd millennium Megiddo temples have been discussed in depth in several works where all information can be found.8 Therefore, we will only summarize the most important arguments for our re-examination of the temples in the context of inter-regional contacts between EB III and IV. The excavators had originally ascribed Stratum XV to EB IV (Fig. 2),9 but later studies re-assigned it to EB III, and identified an earlier EB IV phase – Stratum XIVb – when only Temple 4040 and Altar 4017 would have been used, and a later EB IV phase – Stratum XIVa – when Altar 4017 would have been repaved with 5 6 7 8

9

See Ussishkin 2015: 70. See, for example, earlier studies by Kenyon 1958; Thompson 1970; Dunayevsky and Kempinski 1973: 162–175; Kempinski 1989: 30–38, 175–177; and a recent review of past theories and new interpretations in Ussishkin 2015: 96, 98–101. Loud 1948: pls 7:13–26, 8–9. Loud 1948: 78–84, figs 180–190; Kenyon 1958; Thompson 1970: 38–46; Dunayevsky and Kempinski 1973: 161–167, 169–172, figs 7–9; Kempinski 1989: 28–44, 175–177; Sala 2008a: 190–192, 219–240; Adams 2013: 94–100, 117–118, figs 256–259; 2017a; 2017b: 502–508, figs 16.2 –16.4; Finkelstein 2013; Ussishkin 2013; 2015; 2018. Shipton 1939: 33–35; Loud 1948: 5.

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The Religious Complexes of Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon

3

floor 4009 and transformed into a sort of installation or platform, and Temple 4040 would have been reduced to a shrine (Fig. 3).10 Subsequently, while Israel Finkelstein has retained an EB III date for the Stratum XV/J-7 cult buildings,11 David Ussishkin and Matthew J. Adams have proposed initially that the temples might date from terminal EB III and EB IV, and lately have turned to an EB IV date for their construction.12 New radiocarbon dates place the end of the preceding Stratum J-6 around 2600 BC, that is before the end of EB III according to the new absolute chronology for the southern Levant, but there are no absolute dates for Stratum J-7 that might help with the absolute chronology.13 Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the temples were built in EB III and used also in EB IV. The temporal sequence of the construction of the three temples has been much discussed too,14 but lately the hypothesis that the twin Temples 5192 and 5269 and Temple 4040 were built simultaneously has been reprised.15 Similarities between the layout of the Megiddo temples and the Chapelle Orientale and the so-called Temple en L at Byblos (Fig. 4), whose chronology is debated too, were noticed in the past.16 Like for the Megiddo temple, the question of chronology and architectural phasing of the 3rd millennium Byblos temples has been widely debated,17 and we do not aim to review all past literature on this topic here. Therefore, we will only re-examine the main points at issue within this debate to assess connections between the cult buildings of Byblos and Megiddo during EB III and IV. Maurice Dunand assigned both the Chapelle Orientale and the Temple en L to south-east of it (Fig. 4) to chronologically homogeneous construction and use within his Installation VI,18 a period roughly corresponding to EB III and the first half of EB IV.19 In Dunand’s plan, the latter building is a multiroom complex with cult buildings, which are rather small in size, located in the central sector that is called altogether Bâtiment XIV. These cult buildings are a broad-room temple in antis in the northwest corner, and a central tripartite structure with a “moderate” long-room temple in antis in the centre adjoined by two symmetric lateral wings 10 Dunayevsky and Kempinski 1973: 171–175, figs 9–10; Kempinski 1989: 10, 175–177; Finkelstein and Ussishkin 2000: 590; Finkelstein 2013: 1332–1333. 11 Finkelstein 2013: 1332–1333. 12 Finkelstein and Ussishkin 2000: 590–591; Finkelstein, Ussishkin and Halpern 2006: 847; Adams 2013: 47, Tab. 2.4, 95–97; 2017a: 141–164; 2017b: 502–508; Ussishkin 2013: 1324, 1327; 2015: 93–101, Tabs 1–2. 13 Regev et al. 2014: 259‒260. 14 See a summary in Ussishkin 2015: 94. 15 Adams 2013: 95–96, 118; Ussishkin 2015: 95. 16 E.g., Kempinsky 1989: 177; Sala 2008a: 190–196; 2008b: 72–73; Adams 2017b: 508. 17 E.g., Dunand 1950–58: 895–899 and fig. 1007; Finkbeiner 1981: 13–36, 55 and Beilagen I–III; Saghieh 1983: 121–122; Lauffray 2008: 331–354; Sala 2008a: 193–198; 2008b; Bietak 2019a: 167– 172, figs 2–4. 18 Dunand 1950–58: 894–899 and fig. 1007. 19 Dunand 1952: 85–88.

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Marta D'Andrea

with broad-room plan (Fig. 4).20 A noteworthy characteristic of the Temple en L is the presence of an installation with a betyl in the forecourt of Bâtiment XIV,21 which, as noticed earlier by Maura Sala,22 has parallels at Al-Rawda, in the Homs region, and Tell Hariri/Mari, in the central sector of the Euphrates River Valley, as is discussed below (§§ 3–4). In contrast, according to Muntaha Saghieh, it was only at the beginning of EB IV (her Period KIV) that the Chapelle Orientale was transformed into a temple in antis, and only in the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC (her Period JII–I) that the tripartite structure with central temple in antis and two symmetric lateral wings in the Bâtiment XIV of the Temple en L was built.23 Maura Sala has proposed that both the Chapelle Orientale and the Temple en L were built around 2500 BC, destroyed around 2250-2200 BC and possibly re-used until the end of the 3rd millennium BC, before the construction of the Temple of the Obelisks above the Temple en L.24 However, using Lauffray’s more recent phasing and revisions of architectural plans,25 along with the Chapelle Orientale the only parallels for the Megiddo temples are the two adjacent shrines in the central complex (Bâtiment XIV) of the Temple en L dating from Lauffray’s Piqueté I26 dated to EB III (Fig. 5:2), developing from the building of the previous periods of the Sableaux and of the Grosses Fondations (Fig. 5:1–2).27 In fact, in the following phases, Piqueté II and Piqueté III,28 the central building in the Temple en L complex had a long-room cella (Fig. 5:3–4), not a broad-room one, and the two lateral wings were not proper temples in antis. The presence of a long-room temple in antis in this complex, in these two later phases, is also of the greatest interest, because it connects the Early Bronze IV religious complex of Byblos also to the architectural traditions of northern Syria.29 In fact, in the latter region the architectural plan of the bipartite temple in antis with long-room cella became gradually established starting from the Early Bronze III/ IV transition in the Syrian Jazirah and all through EB IVA and IVB in the former region and in the Middle Euphrates, and, from the latter phase also in western 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29

Dunand 1950–58: fig. 1007, see also Finkbeiner 1981: Beilage III. Dunand 1950–58: 895; Saghieh 1983: 16, pl. IV. Sala 2008b: 72; mentioning relative literature. Saghieh 1983: 23–24, Pls II, III:1, XXII–XXIII, and plans I–II; see also Sala 2008a: 195–196, although her synchronims between Byblos and Megiddo are framed within the old absolute chronology for the southern Levantine Early Bronze Age, with local late EB III corresponding to the northern Levantine EB IVA at ca. 2500-2300 BC, and local EB IV corresponding to the northern Levantine EB IVB at ca. 2300-2000 BC. Sala 2008b: 64–68. Lauffray 2008: 331–354, figs 181–183, 186–187, 193, Plans IX–X; see also Bietak 2019a: 170–172 and figs 2–4, with discussion and further bibliography. Lauffray 2008: 333, figs 181–182. Lauffray 2008: 191–219, figs 113, 120, 333, fig. 193:d. Lauffray 2008: 333–337, 341–344, figs 186–187, 193:e–f. Sala 2008a: 197–198; 2008b: 68; 2010: 68; 2015: 41.

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The Religious Complexes of Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon

5

Inland Syria, when a long-room temple in antis is found at Ebla (Temple HH4, here see Figs 6–7).30 Comparable temples might be located at Al-Rawda and Tell Sha‘irāt,31 as is discussed below (§ 3). Thus, also in the case of Byblos, we can observe the simultaneous presence, within one religious complex, of elements that reconnect to various architectural traditions, local and non-local, which may also refer to different religious practices, and, therefore, to the use of the sanctuary by worshippers of heterogeneous provenance; I will return to this in the conclusion. Connections (quite likely commercial) between Byblos and northern Syria and Mesopotamia during different EB IV phases may be seen in the material evidence (e.g., at Ebla during EB IVA32) and the historical data (e.g., the texts from Drehem of the Ur III period33). Likewise, as discussed by the present author in some recent works, the ceramic evidence from Byblos and other sites of the northern coast of Lebanon shows connections to western Anatolia, the ‘Amuq Plain, and the eastern Aegean starting from EB III and lasting all through EB IV.34 All these data suggest that, during the second half of the 3rd millennium BC Byblos was highly involved into patterns of inter-regional mobility and connectivity. Although for both Byblos and Megiddo the chronology of the temples is uncertain, due to inappropriate digging and recording techniques used in the old excavations, similarities between the broad-room temples discovered at the two sites are unquestionable. For reasons detailed elsewhere,35 I stick to the traditional EB III date for the religious complex of Megiddo Stratum XV/J-7, though I consider plausible that the area was used during both EB III and IV, as suggested earlier by Adams and Ussishkin,36 like the Byblos temples. Subsequently, only Altar 4017, modified and resurfaced with pavement 4009, and Temple 4040, by that time transformed into a shrine, might have been used in a later EB IV phase and possibly also, with further modifications, in Stratum XIIIb, the earliest stage of Middle Bronze I (=IIA), as proposed by Immanuel Dunayewsky and Aharon Kempinski.37 30 As is well known, the earliest attestations are found at Tell Khuera in EB III, and then in EB IVA–B at Tell Khuera, Tell Halawa, Tell Banat, and Tell Qara-Quzaq, the last three remaining in use also during part of EB IVB; see Cooper 2006: 150–160 and Novák 2015: 64–66. On this topic, see Castel 2010 and Pinnock 2013. On developments at Ebla from the broad-room cella in EB IVA to a square cella in the latest EB IVA phase to a long-room cella during late EB IVB, see Matthiae 2015: 80–90. 31 For Al-Rawda, see Gondet and Castel 2004: 104–105, fig. 8c; Castel 2011: 80, fig. 14; Castel et al. 2014: fig. 25; for Tell Sha‘irāt, see Mouamar 2016: 79, fig. 7:a–b. 32 See, e.g., Thalmann 2012. 33 Solleberger 1959–60. See also Sallaberger 2007: 439; Lafont 2008: 92–94. Differently, the identification of Dulu in the Ebla texts with Byblos is considered problematic; see, e.g., Bonechi 2013: 250. 34 D’Andrea and Vacca 2020: 126–129; D’Andrea in press. 35 D’Andrea 2020a: 404–405. 36 Adams 2013: 97; Ussishkin 2013: 1324, 1327. 37 Dunayewsky and Kempinski 1973: 173–174, figs 10–11; Kempinski 1989: 39–44, 178–180, figs

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Marta D'Andrea

Based on the analogies with the EB IV temples at Byblos and his interpretation of the Egyptianized pottery cache found by the Oriental Institute expedition as a foundation deposit for the construction of Temple 4040 in EB IV,38 Adams proposed that “the agency for this event derived from the Lebanese and Syrian coastal region” in this period.39 However, as much tempting the connection between Byblos and Megiddo in EB IV proposed by Adams may be, there might be an alternative explanation, supporting an earlier chronology for the foundation of the Megiddo temples and recognizing the agency of the local communities too. Megiddo dominates the Carmel Pass where the Via Maris – a route that is better known for the later periods, but that may well have been used already in the Bronze Age40 – on one side enters the Jezreel Valley and bends towards Hazor and thence towards Syria, and on the other connects to Lebanon and Cilicia through the coast. This location might explain the presence in the EB III sacred area at Megiddo of the three temples in antis thus far paralleled only at contemporary Byblos both in EB III and IV buildings (not just EB IV!), and of the circular platform, which is typical of the southern Levantine cult areas during EB II-III (e.g., at Khirbet al-Batrawy and Bab edh-Dhra‘,41 here see fig. 1), as well as the general layout of the religious complex – with the presence of three temples and a circular platform – that recalls the one of the sacred area at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon (compare Figs 2 and 8 here).

3. The Religious Complex of Khirbet ez-Zeraqon in EB II–III and Its Parallels in Central Syria and the Euphrates Valley At Khirbet ez-Zeraqon, a religious complex with three cult buildings – Temples B.01, B.04, and B.05 – and a circular platform – installation i0.1 – associated with a fourth rectangular building of unknown function – building B.02 – was uncovered (Fig. 8).42 Temple B.01, on the northern side, represents the traditional southern Levantine freestanding single broad-room temple with the entrance located in the centre of the façade (though this is not a rule; here see Fig. 1) and a row of centrally placed pillar bases. Temple B.04 on the east and Temple B.05 to the south belong to a different type of temples with bipartite plan. There is a broad-room cella with two pillar bases, but, in this case, the sidewalls corner with two short perpendicular walls, thus forming a sort of closed porch or vestibule preceding the sancta sanctorum. The religious complex of Khirbet ez-Zeraqon has been traditionally dated to the EB III period, however, based on new modelled series of

38 39 40 41 42

17–19. Adams 2017a: 158–161; 2017b: 506–508; contra Ussishkin 2018: 221–223. Adams 2017a: 161; 2017b: 510. See Dorsey 2003: 131. See, respectively, Nigro 2013: 194–195, figs 4–6 and Rast and Schaub 2003: fig. 10.57. Genz 2002: 94–96, fig. 2.

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radiometric dates supported by the re-examination of the pottery evidence, it has been suggested that the site was abandoned at some time during the 29th century BC.43 This date corresponds to the transition between EB II and III or to early EB III according to the new southern Levantine absolute chronology.44 The importance of this detail is discussed below. Analogies between the sacred areas at Zeraqon and Megiddo have been inferred from the presence of three temples in antis and a circular altar within one religious complex at both sites.45 In some relatively recent works, the Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon temples have been considered as expressions of a general, uniform Levantine tradition of temples in antis with broad-room cella, which would differ from that observable in the Middle Euphrates and in the Syrian Jazira, where the tradition of bipartite temples in antis with a long-room cella would prevail during late EB III and EB IV.46 This evidence would reveal a sort of unifying trend during the third quarter of the 3rd millennium BC between “western” sites such as Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon in the southern Levant, where temples in antis with broad-room cellas are attested, and Ebla and Al-Rawda in the northern Levant, where temples in antis with “broad-room square” cellas can be identified, both differing from the north-eastern tradition of temples in antis with long-room cella. Moreover, within this proposal, such presumed similarities between the sites listed above are based on a reconstruction of patterns of connectivity that is grounded in the traditional absolute chronology for the southern Levant in the Early Bronze Age and the ensuing synchronism placing the later phase of EB III in the southern Levant (EB IIIB) and the first half of EB IV in the northern Levant (EB IVA) in line roughly in the third quarter of the 3rd millennium BC.47 However, this synchronism has been challenged by the higher chronology for the southern Levantine Early Bronze Age, which has been supported by a growing corpus of new radiometric determinations in the last ten years. Moreover, the available archaeological data may allow us to portray a much more differentiated picture of connections between architectural traditions of cult buildings across space and time, as is discussed below. In the first place, the layout of the two EB II-III temples B.04 and B.05 at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon is different from that of the Megiddo temples, because they feature a closed vestibule, whereas at Megiddo the three temples have a sort of open porch in the façade. This is not irrelevant, because it is this very same detail that may allow us to propose an affiliation of Khirbet Zeraqon’s Temples B.04 and B.05 43 Höflmayer 2017: 1–8 and figs 1.1–1.3; Tumolo and Höflmayer 2020: 249–264. 44 Regev et al. 2012: 558‒561 (for a critique, see Nigro et al. 2018: 211–241). 45 Sala 2008a: 190–192 and fig. 51; 2008b: 72–73; 201:0 64–67; see also Adams 201:, 117; Finkelstein 201:, 1333; Ussishkin 201:, 99. 46 Sala 2008a: 194, 294; 2008b: 74; 2015: 41; 2010: 64–68. See also Castel 2010: 132. 47 Sala 2008a: 293–295; 2008b: 63, Tab. 1; 2010: 67; 2015: 42, where she calls EB IIIB the third quarter of the 3rd millennium BC and EB IV the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC.

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to an eastern architectural tradition different from that of the Megiddo temples that are connected to Byblos. This dissimilarity has been recognized recently also by Manfred Bietak, who has plotted on a map the spatial distribution of different types of broad-room temples in antis in the Near East, grouping the Early Bronze IV Megiddo and Byblos temples together under his category of “BroadRoom Temples in antis” with a western pattern of distribution,48 and the Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and Al-Rawda temples together under the definition as “Broad-Room Temples with pseudo-antae” with an eastern spatial distribution.49 Temples B.04 and B.05 at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon have been compared also to the main temple of the latest phase in the sacred precinct of Al-Rawda (Fig. 9)50 in the Homs region, Syria, which is called the “Latest Temple” and dated to EB IVB (ca. 2300-2000 BC) by the excavators,51 although it was built on earlier temples that might go back to the foundation of the settlement in the mid-3rd millennium BC (Fig. 10).52 Similarity between temples B.04 and B.05 at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and the “Latest Temple” at Al-Rawda are actually much more appreciable than those between the two temples at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and the three temples in antis at Megiddo. However, like for the comparison between Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and Megiddo, that between Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and Al-Rawda was framed within the old synchronisms. In fact, the resemblance between the two temples in Jordan and Syria has been explained in terms of northern influences in the architectural tradition of the south in the framework of 1) the traditional chronology of the southern Levantine Early Bronze Age, with late EB III in the south corresponding to EB IVA in the north (ca. 2500-2300 BC); and 2) the old phasing for Khirbet ez-Zeraqon, believed to span EB III as a whole. However, with the revised absolute chronology for the southern Levant, local urban EB III spans from ca. 2850 to ca. 2500 BC and local non-urban EB IV is dated to ca. 2500-1950 BC, parallel to the EB IV period of developed urbanism in the northern Levant.53 Moreover, considering the revised chronology for Khirbet ez-Zeraqon placing the site’s occupation in EB II and early EB III,54 the temple of Al-Rawda is clearly several centuries later than temples B.04 and B.05 at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon. This deserves a short digression that, nonetheless, will be important in the discussion of the evidence as well as for drawing the conclusions. During the last two decades, it has emerged clearly that Al-Rawda is one of the 48 On Bietak’s map, this group includes Tell Mardikh/Ebla, where temples with broad-room cella are actually attested in Early Bronze IVA and IVB (Temples HH1 and D3, respectively; see Matthiae 2015 for a summary and discussion of these discoveries, with extensive literature), although these temples differ markedly from the Early Bronze Age temples at both Byblos and Megiddo, and cannot be ascribed to the same architectural tradition. 49 Bietak 2019b: fig. 22. 50 Sala 2008a: 198–199; 2008b: 67; Castel 2010: 128. 51 Castel 2010: 145–146. 52 Castel et al. 2008: 9–12, figs 3a, 3, 3c, 4; Castel 2010: 124–125, 145–146, figs 1–2, 5. 53 See references at fn. 44. 54 See references at fn. 43.

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best examples of early urbanization in the Syrian Shamiya, the steppe region to the east of the Orontes Valley and to the west of the Euphrates River, where a system of circular cities thrived during the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. This phenomenon is still under investigation, but it is increasingly acknowledged that, rather than a phenomenon brought from an outer political centre in the adjacent areas and univocally connected with its need to expand the available grazing land in connection with centrally-managed intensive animal herding,55 it might have been an indigenous product of the steppe groups.56 The material culture of the circular cities in the Shamiya shows a blend of elements from different sources, from the Ebla and Hama regions, to Central Syria, to the Middle Euphrates Valley and the Syrian Jazira.57 This somewhat “hybrid” material culture betrays a longterm acquaintance of the groups of the central Syrian steppe that produced it with those surrounding regions,58 paired with a possible connection to the Amorite sociocultural element adumbrated by local onomastics.59 Relations between this socio-political entity, located in the steppe region south and east of Tell Mishrifeh/Qaṭna and quite consistently identified as Ibal,60 and Ebla during the second half of the 3rd millennium BC are still under investigation as well and were varying through time. From the Ebla texts, dated to a limited timespan within the 24th century BC (varying according to different scholars61) it seems that Ebla somehow controlled the region of the steppe during this period, after military victory over Ibal.62 In my opinion, contrasts between Ebla and Ibal already during EB IVA stand per se as an element against any possible hypotheses that the Ebla state was the political entity behind the establishment of cities in the steppe, although the formation of regional states in several areas of northern Lebanon, Syria and Mesopotamia during EB IV might have triggered the formation of cities in this region of Central Syria that, because of its proximity to the Homs Gap, was truly the connector between all these regions along a north-south and 55 Wilkinson et al. 2014: 58–59, 75; Castel 2018: 84–89; Castel and Mouamar 2018: 140–141. 56 Mantellini, Micale and Peyronel 2013: 180–181; Mazzoni 2013: 36–37; Mouamar 2016: 87–89; 2017: 189; D’Andrea 2020b: 000–000; in press. For a review of this matter and of different hypotheses, see Castel and Peltenburg 2007: 611–614; Mazzoni 2013: 34–37; Nadali and Pinnock 2018: 155–158. 57 Castel and Peltenburg 2007: 611–612; Al-Maqdissi 2010; Mouamar 2016: 87–88; 2017: 185–189. See also Porter 2019: 21–23. 58 D’Andrea 2020b. 59 Catagnoti 1997: 120; Bonechi 1991: 71–73; 2001: 61; Lafont 2010: 76. 60 Archi 1985: 221, Catagnoti 1997: 123; Fronzaroli 2003: 124; Morandi Bonacossi 2009: 56–57; Lafont 2010: 76; Archi 2014: 165; Biga 2014: 205; Bonechi 2016: 35–36; Mouamar 2014: 104; 2016: 88–89. 61 Bonechi (2001: 60) estimates “not more than 50 years and (…) more likely not more than 12 or 15 years”. Archi (2014: 163) estimates that “les archives d’Ébla comprennent systématiquement 40 années” and “suivant une chronologie traditionnelle, les années des archives sont celles du milieu du XXIVe s.: ca. 2380–2335 av. J.-C”. 62 Biga 2014.

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an east-west axes.63 Therefore, it is reasonable that it would have been strategically important for Ebla, which was the main political entity in north-western Syria during EB IVA, to control the latter region, directly or indirectly, as well as to subdue possible antagonists in the steppe.64 This situation changed after the destruction of Ebla around 2300 BC (2367–2298 cal BC), which started a phase of decline and shrinkage of the settlement until the late part of EB IVB, when Ebla recovered and was drawn once again into inter-regional connections reaching up to Mesopotamia.65 Indications of a resurgence of contacts between Ebla and the sites of the central Syrian steppe are coming to light in the pottery evidence from Ebla dating to the later phase of the EB IVB period, presented for the first time by the present author in this issue of Studia Eblaitica.66 As we have discussed extensively in that study, this new evidence may provide the chronological and conceptual backgrounds to contextualize, although preliminarily, these new contacts in the framework of regeneration at Ebla in the wake of renegotiation of political and economic power among different social components, leading to a progressive ascent of local Amorite groups to power already during EB IVB.67 It is precisely at that time that connections between the religious complexes of Ebla and Al-Rawda are visible. In fact, during the late EB IVB phase at Ebla, a bipartite temple in antis with a long-room cella – Temple HH4 – was built in the Lower Town south-east (Area HH), together with a smaller chapel – Shrine HH5 – adjacent to it (Figs 6–7).68 On the one hand, Temple HH4 is the first temple in antis with a long-room cella proper attested at Ebla during EB IV, reconnecting the site to a tradition that was established in Upper Mesopotamia already from EB III and developed there as well as in the Middle Euphrates all through EB IV, seemingly reaching also Central Syria (see below) and northern Lebanon (Byblos, see above § 2 and Figs 4–5:3–4). On the other hand, despite the differences between the sacred areas of Ebla and Al-Rawda, this layout with a major temple flanked by a minor shrine is the same at the two sites (here compare Figs 6–7, 9–10).69 Interestingly, the geophysical survey of the underground has revealed the possible presence of two more cult areas at Al-Rawda in the north-west and southeast sectors of the site, which have not thus far been excavated. While the true nature of the area to the north-east as a sacred place is still uncertain, the geophysical map shows clearly the layout of a cult place in the south-east sector of the mound, 63 Al-Maqdissi 2003: 1513–1514, fig. 22. 64 Biga 2003: 83–84; 2008: 321–322; 2014: 201–204; Lafont 2010: 76. 65 See recent overviews on the site’s trajectory during EB IVB in D’Andrea 2014–15 and Matthiae 2020, citing previous works and excavation reports. 66 D’Andrea 2020b. 67 This is discussed in detail in D’Andrea 2019b: 20–26; 2020b; in press. 68 Matthiae 2007: 495–501, figs 13–18; 2015: 76, 81, figs 4, 17–18. 69 Matthiae 2007: 504–505; 2015: 81; Castel 2010: 142.

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revealing the presence of a precinct enclosing a bipartite temple in antis with a long-room cella,70 which seems all in all comparable to Temple HH4 at Ebla (Figs 6–7). Although excavations are needed to confirm the preliminary observation from the underground survey, this additional piece of evidence might reinforce the proposal of connections between the two sites shown by religious architecture, as discussed above. It might suggest that in the EB IV town of Al-Rawda there might have been various religious complexes, which might reflect the nodal position of the site at the crossroad of north-south and east-west routes crossing and connecting different parts of Syria to each other and to the surrounding regions. Three different components blending in the layout of the religious complex in the north-east sector of Al-Rawda can be recognized. The first is the presence of an installation formed by a betyl enclosed by stone circles within the precinct and in the proximity of the entrance to the enclosure (Fig. 9), which can be related to a tradition widespread across the Levant and reaching up to Mari on the Euphrates.71 Notably, as recalled before (§ 2), among the sites we have reviewed, betyls are found at Byblos in the Temple en L (Fig. 4).72 The second element is the layout of the cultic focus of the compound with a major temple and an adjacent shrine that can be compared with the EB IVB sacred area in the Lower Town of Ebla (Figs 6–7). Finally, the last characteristic is the plan of the main cult building that can be related to a tradition attested in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC in the Euphrates Valley (Fig. 11), a region with which the material culture of the circular cities of the central Syrian steppe has connections too, betraying a “familiarity” of the local groups with the traditions of the eastern region. Remarkably, it is this very last feature (the plan) – apparently derived from the tradition of the Middle Euphrates River Valley – in the “Latest Temple” of Al-Rawda (and maybe its predecessors, of which only the building of the intermediate phase is better known, while almost nothing has been identified of the layout of the older temple; here Fig. 10) that connects it to the temples of Khirbet ez-Zeraqon in northern Transjordan. In fact, and turning back to Temples B.04 and B.05 at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon, there is another cult building that bears strong resemblance to them, as well as to the “Latest Temple” of Al-Rawda, but that has not been taken into consideration thus far in previous studies on this subject. Bau II at Halawa Tell B in the Middle Euphrates Valley (Fig. 11) has the same layout as the Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and Al-Rawda temples with a closed porch/vestibule and a rectangular cella (Fig. 12), and differs from them only in the bent-axis access, a local characteristic of the early 3rd millennium BC temples (Knickachstempeln) in the Euphrates Valley.73 Also the exterior buttresses, which may be also a 70 71 72 73

Gondet and Castel 2004: 104–105, fig. 8c; Castel 2011: 80, fig. 14, Castel et al. 2014: fig. 25. Castel 2011. See references at fn. 21. Novák 2015: 61–62.

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local adaptation of a characteristic of Mesopotamian sacred buildings.74 Bau II is dated to ca. 3000-2700 BC,75 and is, therefore, largely contemporary to the Khirbet ez-Zeraqon cult buildings according to the revised chronology for the latter site. The foreign design for Temples B.04 and B.05 comparable to coeval prototypes in the Euphrates Valley and the concurrent presence of southern Levantine elements in the religious complex of Khirbet ez-Zeraqon, such as the circular platform i.01 and the simple broad-room Temple B.01, is a phenomenon observed in the religious complex at Megiddo too. As for Megiddo, also in the case of Zeraqon, the presence of southern Levantine and non-local elements in the sacred area might be explained with the geographical position of the site. Khirbet ez-Zeraqon is located on the northern Transjordanian plateau close to the route connecting the southern Levant to the central Syrian steppe and the Euphrates Valley (Fig. 14). The use of the northern sector of this path, connecting central Syria to the Euphrates Valley, during the 2nd millennium BC is documented in the Mari texts,76 covering the period from 1820 to 1758 BC.77 However, it is increasingly acknowledged that this route might have been used in the mid-3rd millennium BC as well, and, although the southern Levant is generally absent from published maps of paths of interregional connectivity during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC (with the only exception of Hazor in the latter period), it is believed that this region was reached by the southern stretch of this route.78 The existence and use of this itinerary all through the Early Bronze Age might give reason also of similarity noticeable between Temples B.04 and B.05 at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and the “Latest Temple at Al-Rawda”, which is much later, as suggested by radiocarbon dates and the associated pottery,79 but rests on two earlier temples, though not yet excavated and identified only through limited probes underneath the latest building.80 There is clear evidence in the material culture that the sacred area of Khirbet ez-Zeraqon was frequented after the abandonment of the site, at least in EB IV (ca. 2500-1950 BC), although a permanent settlement in this phase has not been thus far uncovered at the site.81 Considering that a long time elapsed from the abandonment of the site during the 29th century BC to the beginning of EB IV in the 25th century BC, it is likely that the cult place was visited also in the centuries in between. This might illuminate why collective memory of the cult place was still alive for the 74 75 76 77 78

Cooper 2006: 144. Lüth 1989: 91–94, Abb. 59; Novák 2015: 62, fig. 18. Joannès 1996; Malamat 2006: 352; Lafont 2016. Catagnoti and Bonechi 1996: 94–116. For the EB IV period, see Wilkinson et al. 2014: 91–92. More in general for the Early Bronze Age, see Nigro 2014: fig. 1. 79 Castel 2010: 145. 80 Castel et al. 2008: 9–13, figs 3–4; Castel 2010: 145–146 and fig. 5. 81 The “post-urbane Schicht” (post-urban level): Genz 2002: 13, Tab. 3.

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EB IV communities, in some way recalling continuous reuse of the sacred area of Megiddo throughout EB IV (and beyond).82 Settlement patterns in the northern regions of the southern Levant have not yet been understood clearly, and it has been proposed that EB III in these regions saw a progressive adaptation to pastoralism.83 This might be a possible interpretation of the archaeological evidence and the end of permanent settlements in some areas at the transition from EB II to EB III – like Khirbet ez-Zeraqon in the northern highland of Transjordan – might mirror a flow back of the local population toward pastoralism. However, also smaller rural sites (far less documented than towns and larger urban sites) in the highlands and lowlands might be considered as possible refugia. Moreover, the permanent fortified settlements nearby in southern Syria (from the Leja on the west to the steppe margin on the east) established in EB II and inhabited all through EB III84 (i.e., also after the abandonment of Khirbet ez-Zeraqon according to the revised ceramic and radiometric chronology for the latter site) and showing a southern Levantine material culture might have absorbed people resettling there from the Jordanian plateau. The material culture of southern Syria would show contacts both to Jordan and to the central Syrian steppe also in the following EB IV period, suggesting the role of southern Syria as a connector between north and south all through the 3rd millennium BC.85 Thus, in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC, the existence in the central Syrian steppe of a temple with the same layout as two earlier EB II-III temples in northern Jordan that showed, in turn, striking similarity to a contemporary EB IIIII temple in the Euphrates Valley might be not just coincidental. It might suggest that an inland path of connectivity from northern Jordan through Southern Syria and the central Syrian steppe to the Euphrates Valley worked all through the 3rd millennium BC. In the cases under review, we may see archaeologically the early (Bau II at Halawa, and Temples B.04 and B.05 at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon) and late (“Latest Temple” at Al-Rawda) phases of the connections between those regions along that track within such a long time-span.

4. Discussion. Architectural Traditions, Mobility, and Interregional Connectivity Similarities observable between cult buildings at sites located in different areas within Lebanon, Syria, and the southern Levant during the later Early Bronze Age and, in particular, the establishment of two architectural traditions of temples in antis – simplifying temples with broad-room or long-room cella – with regional 82 For the sacred area of Megiddo during the early 2nd millennium BC, see the considerations in Nigro 1996: 216–219. See also D’Andrea 2020c. 83 Greenberg 2017: 31‒58, mentioning earlier works. 84 Braemer et al. 2011: 225–250. 85 D’Andrea 2020a: 406, with references to earlier works.

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variations over a wide area are frequently interpreted as evidence for a general “cultural community” and “internationalization of cultural models in this period”.86 In some instances, it has been observed that those two traditions merge, like in the case of Byblos (and we have seen that this might not be the only case), and the “key role of Byblos at the crossroad of cultural and trade networks”87 has been evoked as an explanation, although the possible implications of this notion have not been examined. Actually, as we have discussed above (§§ 2–3), the archaeological documentation available offers a wider panorama, in which it is possible to isolate more than two main categories of temples in antis, that, simplifying, are the Levantine type with broad-room cella and the north-eastern/Upper Mesopotamian type with long-room cella. In fact, there are other architectural traditions, whose origin and ancestry can be tracked in different areas. In my opinion, one is represented by temples with open porch in the façade, which have been often referred to as megaron-type temples, thus far are attested only at Megiddo by Temples 5269, 5291, and 4040 and Byblos by the Chapelle Orientale, the two twin shrines in the central sector of Bâtiment XIV of the Temple en L in Lauffray’s Piqueté I, and in the shrine in the northwest corner of the same sector (Fig. 12). Only future research may reveal whether this architectural tradition is an original Gublite elaboration or it has connections to the north and north-west, which were adumbrated in the choice of the megaron-type definition but which may be concealed by the lack of documentation from the Syro-Lebanese littoral (except for Byblos) and western Anatolia. The other one is exemplified by the temples that Manfred Bietak has defined as temples “with pseudo antae”, which can be recognised at Halawa Tell B in Bau II, at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon in Temples B.04 and B.05, and at Al-Rawda in the “Latest Temple” (and perhaps in its predecessor[s]) (Fig. 13). The spatial distribution of these two additional types of temples mark out the boundaries between a western and an eastern architectural tradition and adumbrates connections along two different paths that may have functioned all through the Early Bronze Age88 although better known for later periods. These paths are a north-south coastal route turning inward at the height of the Carmel Pass controlled by Megiddo, and an inland route from the plateau to southern and central Syria, across the steppe, and thence to the Middle Euphrates (Fig. 14). In addition, at every site that we have analysed – Megiddo, Khirbet ez-Zeraqon, Ebla, and Al-Rawda – it is possible to observe that various architectural traditions overlapped differentially with each other and with further local practices and conventions (for example, the southern Levantine ones at Megiddo and Khirbet az-Zeraqon). In my opinion, this phenomenon may not mirror circulation 86 Castel 2010: 128. 87 Sala 2015: 41. 88 Wilkinson et al. 2014: 91–92; Nigro 2014: fig. 1; D’Andrea 2018: 86–87, fig. 6.

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of just cultural models across regions but above all of people and goods. If we look at the religious complexes at the sites that we have analysed more in detail before – Al-Rawda, Byblos, Megiddo, and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon – an admixture of characteristics that can be ascribed to heterogeneous architectural traditions, and likely to the associated diverse cultic practices, is clearly visible, and, in several cases, points out multiple and differential lines of connections between some of these sites. We might see a similar phenomenon in the late 3rd millennium BC Ebla, with its similarities to the Al-Rawda religious complex and the late appearance of the long-room temple in antis only in an advanced phase of EB IVB, when it might be found also at Al-Rawda and Tell Sha‘irāt in the Homs region,89 whereas it does not seem attested at Ebla in EB IVA, differently from the Euphrates Valley, the Syrian Jazira90 and Byblos (possibly lasting through EB IVB), as already pointed out by Sala.91 We have recalled Mari only for comparisons, but the architectural and cultic traditions attested in the religious complexes of the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC settlements are remarkably eclectic and mixed, blending Levantine, Syrian, and Mesopotamian characteristics.92 As recently stated by Anne Porter dealing with the “variable” ways connections are shaped across the landscape “significance is vested in what people do as much as it is in where they do it and in what kind of built environments they do it in”.93 I believe that the diversity and admixture of local and non-local traits in the religious complexes of the sites we have analysed may reflect encounters of people from different places at those very sites. Megiddo, Khirbet ez-Zeraqon, Byblos, Al-Rawda, Ebla and Mari (Fig. 15) were commercial outposts as well as stopping places for caravans, and nodal points within patterns of inter-regional mobility and interconnectivity through different Early Bronze Age phases, a phenomenon that might be mirrored by the presence of sanctuaries that were frequented by both local and non-local people at all these sites. The 3rd millennium BC in the Levant saw cyclical ups and downs of early urbanization that, in different ways and with a different pace, affected the developmental trajectories of individual areas and sites within this larger geographical entity. The very same fact that the various Levantine communities were commercially interconnected with each other and with those of the neighbouring regional areas offered, every time in a different way but consistently, a means to elaborate time by time strategies of resilience, recovery, reorganization, and social regen89 See references at fn. 31. 90 However, although one of the late EB IVA temples at Ebla – Temple D2 – has a square sancta sanctorum that might be considered as an intermediate step in the local development from the temple type with broad-room cella to the one with long-room cella according to Matthiae (2007: 763–773; 2009; 2015: 78–80, figs 13, 15). 91 Sala 2015: 41. 92 For a synthesis, see Margueron 2004. 93 Porter 2019: 17.

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eration. This may give reason of continuity of some socioeconomic structures as well as of connectivity along given routes throughout the 3rd millennium BC (and beyond), despite socioeconomic and socio-political changes from one phase to the other that were, in some cases, dramatic (e.g., after the fall of Ebla’s EB IVA regional state in the northern Levant or following the crisis of early urbanization at the end of EB III in the southern Levant).

5. Concluding Remarks. The Religious Complexes at Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon as Interregional Sanctuaries? Temples 5269, 5291 and 4040 at Megiddo, and Temples B.04 and B.05 at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon differ from the southern Levantine Early Bronze Age tradition of cult buildings, as represented by Temple B.01 at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon (Figs 1 and 8), and might mirror the adoption of non-local traditions. However, though usually conflated in the same category of broad-room temples in antis, those buildings can be referred to distinct temple types with different prototypes, lying in the north-central coast of Lebanon in EB III for the Megiddo Temples 5269, 5291 and 4040, and in the Euphrates Valley in EB II-III for temples B.04 and B.05 at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon. These foreign connections for the temples at the two southern Levantine sites may allow us to establish, albeit preliminarily, some links between human mobility and temple architecture at places located at important nodes along two possibly major paths of Early Bronze Age connectivity that we have defined, respectively, as a coastal and an inland route with further east-west connectors to each other (Fig. 14).94 Continuing interactions along these paths in Middle Bronze I is suggested, for example, by similarities in the early 2nd millennium BC religious complexes at Megiddo and Byblos on a side, and in the Euphrates Valley (and north-western inland Syria) and northern Transjordan on the other, as detailed earlier by the current author.95 Finally, resemblance between the layouts of the religious complexes at Tell el-Mutesellim and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon (Figs 2 and 8) might suggest that contacts took place along an east-west axis between these two sites located roughly at the same latitude (Fig. 15). Textual information for the EB III-IV periods in the southern Levant are lacking, therefore we do not have data on non-local people worshipping in the religious complexes at Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon. However, the confluence of elements from local and non-local traditions in the two sacred areas might suggest that different southern Levantine communities, or components within them that were more mobile, were familiar with the architectural traditions of the neighbouring regions because of interactions, and re-used and re-elaborated them to 94 D’Andrea 2018: 86–87, fig. 6. 95 D’Andrea 2014a: 43–52 and figs 2–3, 6–9; 2014b: 154–155 and figs 2: b–6; 2016: 188–195, figs 5: b–c, 7, 11–12, 14–19; in press: figs 18–22.

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show such connections. A recent interesting proposal is that during the urban period religious complexes like those at Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon might have been used for “periodical gatherings” among “town dwellers” and “herders”.96 Applying this theory at a larger geographical scale might explain why or to whom to show that foreign contacts were in place was important. Therefore, perhaps along with dynamics of local interactions between different components of the same society, there might have been also processes of connectivity working at a supra-regional level, between different societies and various communities. In fact, the convergence of local and foreign characteristics that can be observed in the two religious complexes (as well as the other cult compounds in the northern Levant that we have analysed) might have been intended deliberately to attract people from different regions and/or to adapt to multiple endogenous and exogenous cults and rituals. In sum, if our reading of the data from Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon within an inter-regional framework presented in this article is correct, it may draw the two sites in a wider scenario of regional contacts during the 3rd millennium BC. Cult and ritual often were means to fuelling socio-political, socioeconomic and sociocultural ties, and sanctuaries were places of encounter and arenas of political, social, and/or economic negotiation among people from different groups, communities or areas.97 This might be the backdrop of the situation observable in the religious complexes of Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and Megiddo in the Early Bronze Age, as well as at the other sites we have considered in our analysis and discussion of data. Admittedly, there are some speculative aspects in the proposed scenarios because there are gaps in the documentation at hand; however, the suggested reconstruction may be overall plausible. Considering the key location of Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and the mixture of local and non-local characteristics in the two cult areas, to suggest that the religious complexes at the two sites were inter-regional sanctuaries – like those at Byblos in EB III–IV, Al-Rawda at least in EB IVB, and, perhaps, Ebla at the same time – someway still venerated in EB IV, in the context of continuing inter-regional connectivity though within socio-political, socioeconomic and sociocultural backdrops different from EB II–III,98 might not be taking it too far.

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Porter, A. 2019 Isotopes and Ideograms: Bio-Archaeological and Theoretical Approaches to Pastoralism in Light of the Mari (and Other) Texts, Claroscuro 18/2: 1–34. Rast, W.E. and Schaub, R.T. 2003 Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘: Excavations at the Town Site (1975–1981). Part 1: Text, Part 2: Plates and Appendices (Reports of the Expeditions to the Dead Sea Plain Jordan II), Winona Lake, IN. Regev, J., Finkelstein, I., Adams, M. and Boaretto, E. 2014 Wiggle-Matched 14C Chronology of Early Bronze Megiddo and the Synchronization of Egyptian and Levantine Chronologies, Ägypten und Levante 24: 241–264. Regev, J., de Miroschedji, P., Greenberg, R., Braun, E., Greenhut, Z. and Boaretto, E. 2012 Chronology of the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Levant: New Analysis for a High Chronology, in E. Boaretto and N.R. Rebollo Franco (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th International Radiocarbon and Archaeology Symposium, 525‒566 (Radiocarbon 54/3–4), Tucson: 525–566. Saghieh, M. 1983 Byblos in the Third Millennium BC: A Reconstruction of the Stratigraphy and a Study of the Cultural Connections, Warminster. Sala, M. 2005 Il santuario di En-Gedi ed il recinto templare di Tuleilat el-Ghassul: i prodromi dell’architettura sacra palestinese del Bronzo Antico nell’Età Tardo-Calcolitica, in D. Nadali and A. Di Ludovico (eds), Studi in onore di Paolo Matthiae presentati in occasione del suo sessantacinquesimo compleanno (CMAO X), Roma: 269–302. 2008a L’architettura sacra della Palestina nell’età del Bronzo Antico I-III (CMAO XIII), Roma. 2008b Il Temple en L a Biblo, Vicino Oriente XIV: 61–87. 2010 La tipologia del tempio in antis della Siria e del Levante nel III millennio a.C.: da Tell Chuera ad Al-Rawda, in R. Dolce (ed.), Quale Oriente? Omaggio a un maestro. Studi di arte e archeologia del Vicino Oriente in memoria di Anton Moortgat a 30 anni dalla sua scomparsa, Palermo: 59–83. 2015 Early and Middle Bronze Age Temples at Byblos: Specificity and Levantine Interconnections, in A.M. Maïla-Afeiche (ed.), Cult and Ritual on the Levantine Coast and its impact on the Eastern Mediterranean Realm. Proceedings of the International Symposium, Beirut 2012 BAAL – Hors-Série IX), Beyrouth: 31–58. Sallaberger, W. 2007 From Urban Culture to Nomadism. A History of Upper Mesopotamia in the Late Third Millennium, in C. Kuzucuoğlu and C. Marro (eds), Société humaines et changement climatique à la fin du troisième millénaire : Une crise a-telle eu lieu en Haute Mésopotamie? Actes du Colloque de Lyon, 5–8 decembre 2005 (Varia Anatolica XIX), Paris: 417–456. Shipton, G.M. 1939 Notes on the Megiddo Pottery of Strata VI–XX (SAOC 17), Chicago. Sollberger, E. 1959–60 Byblos sous le rois d’Ur, Archiv für Orientforschung 19: 120–122. Thalmann, J.-P. 2012 Ex Oriente lux. L’invention de la lampe au Proche-Orient, in J. Giraud and G. Gernez (eds), Aux marges de l’archéologie. Hommage à Serge Cleziou (Travaux de la Maison René-Ginouvès 16), Paris: 175–185.

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Thompson, T.L. 1970 The Dating of the Megiddo Temples in Strata XV–XIV, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Pälastina-Vereins 86: 38–49. Tumolo, V. and Höflmayer, F. 2020 Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and Early Bronze Age Chronology Revisited, in S. Richard (ed.), New Horizons in the Study of the Early Bronze III and Early Bronze IV in the Levant, University Park, PA: 249–264. Ussishkin, D. 2013 Comments on the Early Bronze Cultic Compound, 1992–2010, in I. Finkelstein, D. Ussishkin and E.H. Cline (eds), Megiddo V: The 2004–2008 Seasons, Vol. 3 (Monograph Series of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology 31), Tel Aviv: 1317–1328. 2015 The Sacred Area of Early Bronze Megiddo: History and Interpretation, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 373: 69–104. 2018 Was the Egyptianized Pottery Cache from Megiddo a Foundation Deposit of Megaron Temple 4040? Response to Matthew J. Adams, Tel Aviv 45: 216–223. Wilkinson, T., Philip, G., Bradbury, J., Dunford, R., Donoghue, D., Galiatsatos, N., Lawrence, D., Ricci, A. and Smith, S. 2014 Contextualizing Early Urbanization: Settlement Cores, Early States and Agro-pastoral Strategies in the Fertile Crescent during the Fourth and Third Millennia BC, Journal of World Prehistory 27: 43–109.

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Fig. 1. Schematic plans of Early Bronze II-III southern Levantine temples with circular platforms at Khirbet al-Batrawy and Bab edh-Dhra‘ (redrawn after Nigro 2013: fig. 6, and Rast and Schaub 2003: fig. 10.57), compared to Temple B.01 at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon (redrawn after Genz 2002: fig. 2).

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Fig. 2. Tell el-Mutesellim/Megiddo, the religious complex in Area BB, with the three temples in antis and the round altar, in Stratum XV, according to the archaeological expedition of the Oriental Institute of Chicago (redrawn after Loud 1948: fig. 394).

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Fig. 3. Tell el-Mutesellim/Megiddo, Temple 4040 reduced to a shrine with Altar 4017 repaved with floor 4009 in Area BB in Stratum XIVa (redrawn after Kempinkski 1989: fig. 17).

Fig. 4. Byblos, Temple en L and Chapelle Orientale according to M. Dunand (redrawn after Dunand 1950–58: fig. 1007 and Sala 2008b: fig. 9).

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Fig. 5. Byblos, Bâtiment XIV Temple en L, phasing according to J. Lauffray; 1) Sableux; 2) Grosses Fondations; 3) Piqueté II; 4) Piqueté III (Lauffray 2008: fig. 193:c–f).

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Fig. 6. Tell Mardikh/Ebla, schematic plan of the religious complex of Early Bronze IVB in the Lower Town south-east with Temple HH4 and Shrine HH5 (© Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

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Fig. 7. Tell Mardikh/Ebla, general view of the religious complex of Early Bronze IVB in the Lower Town south-east with Temple HH4 and Shrine HH5 from the top, looking north-west (© Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

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Fig. 8. Khirbet ez-Zeraqon, plan of the Early Bronze II-III religious complex (redrawn after Genz 2002: Abb. 2).

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Fig. 9. Al-Rawda, the religious complex in its final phase of use during Early Bronze IVB (redrawn after Castel 2010: fig. 2).

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Fig. 10. Al-Rawda, suggested architectural phasing of the main temple and adjacent shrine in the Early Bronze Age religious complex according to the excavators (redrawn after Castel 2010: fig. 5).

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Fig. 11. Tell Halawa B, isometric view of Bau II (redrawn after Lüth 1989: Abb. 59).

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Fig. 12. Plan of temples in antis with open porch in the façade: 1) Byblos, shrines in the central sector of Bâtiment XIV within the Temple en L according to Lauffray, Grosses Fondations (redrawn after Lauffray 2008: fig. 193: d); 2) Byblos Chapelle Orientale (redrawn after Sala 2008b: fig. 9); 3) Tell el-Mutesellim/ Megiddo, Temple 4040 (earlier stage[s]) (redrawn after Loud 1948: fig. 394); 4) Tell el-Mutesellim/Megiddo, Temple 5192; 5) Tell el-Mutesellim/Megiddo, Temple 5629 (redrawn after Loud 1948: fig. 394).

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Fig. 13. Plan of temples with closed vestibule in the façade: 1) Halawa Tell B, Bau II (redrawn after Orthmann [ed.] 1989: Pln 13); 2) Al-Rawda, “Latest Temple” (redrawn after Castel 2010: fig. 5); 3) Khirbet ez-Zeraqon, Temple B.04 (redrawn after Genz 2002: fig. 2); 4) Khirbet ez-Zeraqon, Temple B.05 (redrawn after Genz 2002: fig. 2).

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Fig. 14. Major routes within the northern Levant during the 2nd millennium BC according to the Mari texts, note the arrows pointing toward the southern Levant (redrawn and edited by the author after Lafont 2016: Carte 1).

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39 Fig. 15. Map of sites mentioned in the text (A. Titolo; base map Image Landsat-Copernicus; © 2020Basarsoft, © ORION-ME, © Google, CS Dept. of State Geographer).

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JACOPO PASQUALI

Avignon

Entre deuil et nécromancie: Le lexique de la lamentation funèbre à Ébla et dans l’Antiquité classique à la lumière de l’ethnologie et de la religion comparée* This article is an attempt to provide a diachronic investigation of the Eblaite funeral lament seen in its Mediterranean setting. This research tackles the question not only of how the Eblaite lament works, but it takes also into account the relationship between the Eblaite lament and the Greco-Roman one. Very useful insights have been supplied by the works on the lament carried out by eminent scholars of the Italian school of folk studies (Cirese, De Martino, Lombardi Satriani, Miligrana and Di Nola), whose researches are unfortunately almost unknown outside Italy till now. The important results of these studies together with other fundamental works dealing with death and funerary cults in Classical Antiquity helped us to analyze and discuss the lament at Ebla during the Third Millennium B.C.

Le but de cet article est de tenter un tout premier essai d’analyse en sens diachronique des passages concernant la lamentation funèbre dans les tablettes d’Èbla, en les plaçant dans leur contexte culturel méditerranéen. On n’abordera pas seulement la manière dont la lamentation funèbre éblaïte fonctionne mais aussi ses liens profonds avec la lamentation du monde classique. Et ce faisant, nous utiliserons les études menées par les savants de l’école italienne d’ethnologie et d’anthropologie, dont les recherches sont malheureusement presque inconnues jusqu’à présent en-dehors d’Italie. Les importants résultats de ces recherches ainsi que d’autres études concernant la mort et les cultes funéraires dans le monde classique nous permettent de regarder les données éblaïtes à leur juste proportion. La lamentation funèbre peut être considérée à bon droit comme un exemple de “littérature submergée”, selon la définition introduite très récemment dans le monde académique grâce à l’ouvrage collectif édité par Colesanti et Giordano1, où on parle de ce phénomène dans la littérature grecque ancienne. En effet, pendant plusieurs siècles, la lamentation a été exécutée en tant que genre poétique traditionnel durant les rituels funéraires mais selon une forme tout à fait anonyme et orale. Du coup, aucun document de cette typologie n’est arrivé jusqu’à nous pour l’époque la plus ancienne. Les premiers textes écrits de lamentation remontent à une période qui va du milieu du VIe siècle av. J.-C. jusqu’au Ve siècle

* La présente étude a fait l’objet d’une communication lors du Workshop internationale “Lexicon and Grammar in the Ebla Texts” tenu les 12 et 13 mars 2019 à la Friedrich-SchillerUniversität d’Iéna. 1 Colesanti et Giordano 2014.

Studia Eblaitica 6 (2020), pp. 41–55

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av. J.-C. et ils sont originaires de Grèce. Il s’agit d’un petit nombre de fragments de textes poétiques (θρῆνοι, selon la définition littéraire grecque) composés par Simonide et Pindare et qui, à eux seuls, ne suffisent pas à satisfaire nos connaissances sur le sujet2. Heureusement, soit pour le Proche-Orient, soit pour la Grèce ancienne, nous sommes aidés par d’autres typologies de textes où l’on trouve d’amples extraits qui renvoient au genre de la lamentation. Il s’agit, par exemple, des poèmes mythologiques ou épiques, tels que le Gilgamesh (où le héros pleure la mort de l’ami Enkidu)3, l’Iliade et l’Odyssée (où on trouve entre autres les lamentations pour les funérailles de Patrocle, Hector et Achille)4, de la tragédie grecque5 ainsi que des textes de lamentation sur les villes ou sur les pays personnifiés, un genre littéraire bien répandu dans les littératures mésopotamienne, grecque et latine ainsi que dans les livres bibliques des Lamentations et de Jérémie et qui suit les mêmes modèles structuraux que ceux de la lamentation pour les défunts6. Les données du folklore et des traditions populaires des sociétés modernes et contemporaines sont, elles-aussi, à même de nous soutenir dans la reconstruction de la lamentation ancienne7. Il y a eu sans doute une osmose entre la création poétique individuelle et le recours aux matériaux traditionnels que les grands poètes de la Grèce classiques élaborèrent en formes plus élégantes et complexes mais sans jamais oublier les règles que le protocole rituel avait établies depuis longtemps. En effet, durant toutes les époques et surtout chez les couches populaires qui furent moins touchées par les nouvelles conceptions concernant la vie dans l’au-delà dues par exemple au christianisme8, l’ensemble des cérémonies funéraires, y compris la lamentation, ont été toujours ressenties comme un moyen nécessaire de donner une signification à la mort ou, pour mieux dire, au chaos que la mort a provoqué. Du coup, ces cérémonies sont aussi une raison de soulagement : lors de la mort, les défunts abandonnent leurs corps en se dirigeant vers l’au-delà mais sans l’aide des rites funèbres ne s’accomplit pas le passage définitif vers ce nouvel état et les décédés restent comme suspendus entre la vie et la mort, ce qui provoque douleur chez le morts et peur chez les vivants. D’où la nécessité de bien accomplir une tâche si importante comme la lamentation qui présente toujours une double valeur : on se prend soin des trépassés mais en même temps on soulage aussi ceux qui sont encore en vie en

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Palmisciano 2017: 161–167. Voir à ce sujet les intéressantes remarques de Abusch 1986–87: 157–158. Gagliardi 2007; Palmisciano 2017: 13–80. Palmisciano 2017: 217–314. Kramer 1940: 1–6; Alexiou 1974: 83–101; Michalowski 1989; Meier 2003; Degl’Innocenti Pierini 2012. En général, à ce propos, De Martino 1975; Lombardi Satriani et Meligrana 1989. On peut lire à ce sujet les pages dédiées par De Martino 1975: 57–110, à la lamentation funèbre lucanienne que le savant considérait comme faisant figure de vestige de la lamentation ancienne.

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les mettant à l’abri du retour hostile et non contrôlé des morts9. Dans l’économie du rituel funéraire, comme les anthropologues le savent très bien, la lamentation sert aussi à contenir la douleur à travers une série de comportements codifiés capables d’en limiter la violence. Les gestes, les rythmes, les cadences immuables ainsi que les expressions stéréotypées de la lamentation déshistoricise la mort et les réactions des personnes blessées par le deuil grâce à un schéma fixe destiné à être réitéré à l’infini. Il s’agit d’un expédient pour limiter les manifestations autodestructrices de la douleur en soulageant le moment terrible de la perte et en entament la difficile élaboration du deuil.

1. La lamentation funèbre à Ébla Pour ce qui concerne les textes d’Ébla, a été déjà relevée, il y a quelques années, la présence d’opératrices cultuelles qui avaient la charge d’exécuter les lamentations pendant les funérailles d’importants personnages de la cour. J’ai abordé le sujet pour la première fois dans l’année 1999 avec P. Mangiarotti, en proposant une nouvelle interprétation du terme sémitique ra-zi-tum / ra-zi-matum, dont on parlera par la suite, ce qui m’a aussi permis de faire une première comparaison avec les textes ougaritiques, en particulier avec le poème de Krt.10 Depuis, se sont occupés de ce sujet A. Archi11 et M.G. Biga12, qui ont fait connaître des nouveaux passages éblaïtes concernant la lamentation funèbre, lesquels ont permis de progresser dans nos connaissances sur ce thème, ainsi que M.V. Tonietti13, qui s’est occupée de manière exhaustive surtout des rapports avec la tradition mésopotamienne. Nous ne possédons pas les textes des lamentations funèbres éblaïtes mais ce sont les documents administratifs qui nous livrent d’intéressants indices. En particulier, on se souviendra des trois passages suivants: [1] ARET XX 25 f. IV:17–V:13: 1 túg-NI.NI / 2 kin siki / 1 dam / mu-na-bí-tum / 12 kin siki / 6 dam / eme-bal-SÙ / 1 túg-NI.NI 3 na4 siki / 1 dam / mu-na-bí-tum / 15 na4 siki / 5 dam / eme-bal-SÙ / ér; [2] TM.75.G.2276 r. I: 3–11: 1 túg-NI.NI 3 na4 siki 1 dam mu-na-bí-tum 12 na4 siki 6 dam eme-bal-SÙ;

9 10 11 12 13

De Martino 1975: 211–220; Caraveli-Chaves 1980: 127; Bremmer 1983: 92–94; Garland 1985: 14–47; Derderian 2001: 39; Scheying 2003: 118–121. Pasquali et Mangiarotti 1999; Pasquali 2013: 57. Archi 2002: 183–186; 2012: 22–23; 2018: 191. Biga 2007–08: 253–254, 262; 2012: 8. Tonietti 2010; 2018.

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[3] TM.75.G.1962+ r. II’:1’: [1 túg-NI.NI dam mu-na-bí-tum] 14 [kin siki] 7 dam emeba[l] dam ér S[AR]14 1 túg-NI.NI dam mu-n[a]-bí-tu[m] 10 kin [siki] 10 da[m] ra-zi-matum 1 sal-túg 1 íb+III-túg gùn al6-èn-tar […15

Ces trois extraits de textes administratifs enregistrent les sorties de laine en faveur des opératrices cultuelles qui ont accompli leur tâche durant les cérémonies funèbres d’importants personnages de la cour. En particulier, ils nous renseignent à propos des lamentations exécutées lors des funérailles des princesses dar-ib-damu et ti-iš-te-da-mu [1-2] ainsi que de la mère du roi du-si-gú [3]. On peut, donc, dater ces passages à la période la plus récente des archives. Ces sorties de laine nous assurent que ces femmes étaient rémunérées pour leurs prestations. Il s’agissait, donc, de pleureuses ou lamentatrices professionnelles, que l’on peut comparer, par exemple, avec les preficae de la tradition romaine16, dont on parlera ensuite. On est face à une tradition très répandue chez les peuples de la Méditerranée : dans la langue grecque ancienne, comme on l’apprend grâce aux poèmes homériques, on distinguait deux termes, γόος et θρῆνος, indiquant l’un la lamentation exécutée par les membres de la famille du défunt, l’autre la lamentation exécutée par des professionnels17. Les modalités d’exécution et les contenus de la lamentation, quant à eux, n’étaient pas trop différents dans les deux cas. L’attestation la plus ancienne concernant la pratique de la lamentation exécutée par des professionnels en Grèce on la trouve dans le livre XXIV de l’Iliade, où des chanteurs sont chargés d’entonner la lamentation lors des funérailles d’Hector ainsi que dans le livre XXIV de l’Odyssée, où ce sont les Muses elles-mêmes qui assument le rôle de guide de la lamentation lors des funérailles d’Achille. Ce dernier épisode peut être considéré comme le mythe grec de fondation de la lamentation professionnelle18. Dans les poèmes homériques, en principe, seulement le guide de la lamentation pouvait être confiée à une lamentatrice professionnelle tandis que le chœur était formé par les proches du mort. À Ebla, en revanche, on n’avait – semble-t-il - que des professionnels pour la guide de la lamentation et pour le chœur. On peut supposer, de toute façon, qu’il y ait eu à Ebla aussi, comme ailleurs, une lamentation funèbre exécutée par la famille de la personne décédée mais, étant donné que les textes administratifs servaient en principe à enregistrer les rétributions pour le personnel qui avait accompli une tâche, nous n’avons pas d’indices à ce propos. Les proches, par exemple le roi et la reine dans nos cas, reçoivent des tissus et des

14 Vu le contexte, on pourrait envisager une lecture kiri6, ce qui mettrait en relation l’exécution de la lamentation avec le “jardin funéraire” (pour lequel on peut voir Pasquali 2013). 15 Cités par Archi 2012: 22. 16 Pour lesquelles voir Cirese 1951; Dutsch 2008. 17 Gagliardi 2007: 23–54; Palmisciano 2017: 151–152. 18 Palmisciano 2017: 13–80.

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bijoux pour participer aux obsèques mais on ne spécifie pas quel était leur rôle précis. Les passages éblaïtes nous montrent que durant les cérémonies funèbres il pouvait y avoir un ou deux groupes d’opératrices cultuelles formés d’une dam mu-na-bí-tum, accompagnée par six ou sept dam eme-bal. Dans le dernier extrait, en revanche, il y a aussi un groupe formé d’une dam mu-na-bí-tum, accompagnée par dix dam ra-zi-ma-tum. Ce schéma correspond exactement à la modalité de lamentation funèbre la plus répandue, présentant une soliste accompagnée par un chœur qui chantait le refrain, et il s’agit du schéma que l’on retrouve non seulement dans les poèmes homériques, mais aussi dans la partie chorale de la tragédie grecque appelée κομμός, où la lamentation funèbre s’exprime en forme de dialogue lyrique entre un acteur soliste et le chœur qui répond à ses sollicitations19. En effet, Aristote dans la Poétique (12, 52b:24) définit le κομμός comme “un lament funèbre chanté à échange par le chœur et un personnage qui se trouve sur scène”. On tend à voir dans ce κομμός l’élément à partir duquel s’est développée la tragédie grecque, élargie par la suite jusqu’à exprimer toute une série d’autres émotions. A une origine orientale de ce type de lamentation fait allusion Eschyle dans les Choéphores, verset 423, où on lit: ἔκοψα κομμὸν Ἄριον, “j’ai entonné la lamentation persane”, expression qui trouve sa correspondance dans la formule Ἀσσύριον βοόωσα, “criant à la manière assyrienne”, employée par Bion dans l’Ἐπιτάφιος Ἀδώνιδος, verset 24. L’étymologie du terme κομμός qui tire son origine du verbe κόπτω, “frapper (la poitrine)”, confirme l’haute émotivité de gestes qui le caractérisent20.

1.1 Le rôle de la dam mu-na-bí-tum En analysant les extraits que nous avons cités, on peut supposer à juste titre que la dam mu-na-bí-tum correspond aux θρήνων ἔξαρχοι de la tradition homérique, c’est-à-dire les solistes qui guidaient la lamentation, en exécutant la part où le discours commémoratif donnait sa forme à la douleur. Le rôle de cette guide était très important parce qu’elle imposait les arguments et les formules du dialogue à ceux qui participaient à la lamentation, c’est-à-dire au chœur. On peut interpréter la graphie mu-na-bí-tum comme /munabbiʾtum/, un participe féminin singulier de la forme D de la racine *nbʾ et ainsi le traduire par “lamentatrice”. En suivant le dictionnaire de von Soden21, je préfère considérer l’akkadien nubbû, “se lamenter”, comme la forme D de nabû, “nommer”, du sém. *nbʾ, connu aussi en arabe et dans les dialectes sudarabiques, lorsque le CAD22,

19 20 21 22

Pierozzi 2003: 27–42; Palmisciano 2017: 222–224. Pour l’origine orientale de ces gestes, Podella 1986. AHw: 700, nabû forme 0/2. CAD, N/1 : 39, nabû B.

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répertorie les deux formes séparément. A propos du rapport entre la forme G et la forme D de la racine *nbʾ en akkadien, on est renseignés aussi par Kouwenberg23, selon lequel le rapport sémantique entre nabû G et D suggère qu’à l’origine le verbe devait indiquer la production d’un certain son et seulement ensuite sa forme G est devenue un verbe générique pour signifier “nommer”, à travers un affaiblissement de sa signification. Or, si dans les textes mésopotamiens on ne connaît que la forme masculine munabbû, attestée seulement dans les listes lexicales en tant qu’équivalent de mots sumériens signifiant « lamentateur »24, il faut remarquer que le parallèle le plus étroit avec le mot éblaïte mu-na-bí-tum on le retrouve dans les textes d’Émar du milieu du deuxième millénaire av. J.-C.25. Il s’agit du terme, toujours attesté au génitif, munus.mešmux(A)-na-bi-a-ti (var. munus.mešmux[A]-nab-bi-ia-ti)26, indiquant une typologie d’opératrices cultuelles liées à la déesse Isḫara et que l’on peut interpréter comme /munabbiʾāti/, participe féminin pluriel de la forme D de *nbʾ. La graphie avec la voyelle non contractée et présentant le signe mux(A) à la place de mu semble indiquer qu’il s’agit d’un terme local de tradition sémitique occidentale27. Même si les passages attestant ce terme sont très concis, la signification que le verbe nabû (à la forme G ainsi qu’à la forme D) présente ailleurs dans les textes d’Émar en rapport avec le culte des ancêtres et des dieux familiaux, a amené à voir dans ces opératrices cultuelles des lamentatrices28. La comparaison que l’on vient de proposer avec les plus explicites attestations éblaïtes confirme maintenant cette hypothèse. Quant au lien de ces femmes avec la déesse Isḫara, dont on connait bien les connexions avec la sphère de l’outre-tombe29, on rappellera que dans la Rome ancienne, les preficae, les professionnelles, qui guidaient la lamentation, étaient liées à la déesse des Enfers Libitine et demeuraient dans le bosquet sacré à elle dédié30. Ces professionnelles, qui accomplissaient leur tâche pendant les cérémonies en l’honneur des défunts et des ancêtres divinisés, devaient être bien enracinées dans la tradition religieuse de la Syrie ancienne, si elles sont citées encore dans la Bible, où en effet on connaît en Ezéchiel 13:17 le terme mitnabbeʾôt, voire un participe féminin pluriel hitpael de *nbʾ, correspondant aux formes que nous avons

23 24 25 26 27 28

Kouwenberg 1997: 178. CAD, M/2: 199; Huehnergard 1999: 91. Pasquali 2019. Voir aussi Felli 2015: 52. Le terme est attesté dans le passage suivant: 373:97; 379:11–12; 383:10; 406:5. Fleming 1993a: 176, n. 5; Huehnergard 1999: 93, n. 40. von Soden 1987; Tsukimoto 1989: 4-5; Huehnergard 1999: 91; Durand 2008: 434, n. 7; Stökl 2012a: 161; 2012b: 48–49. L’interprétation “prophétesse” proposée par Fleming 1993a et 1993b sur la base de la signification de l’hébreu biblique nābîʾ, “prophète”, est vraisemblablement à exclure. 29 Voir, à ce sujet, Theuer 2000: 42 et n. 115, avec bibliographie. 30 Dutsch 2008: 260.

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trouvées à Ébla et à Émar31. La forme hitpael aurait été employée à la place du simple piel afin de donner au mot une nuance désobligeante. Ces femmes, en effet, sont accusées de sorcellerie et âprement méprisées, comme c’est toujours le cas dans la Bible pour les nécromants et en général pour tous les opérateurs cultuels liés au culte des défunts. On a raison de supposer, en revanche, qu’il s’agissait de professionnelles très respectées qui garantissaient la continuité du rapport entre la communauté et ses ancêtres. D’ailleurs, à Rome, les preficae avaient, elles-aussi, la même mauvaise réputation, surtout chez les poètes satiriques et les comédiens, tels que Lucilius et Plaute, qui n’hésitèrent pas à les comparer à des prostituées à cause de leur participation émotionnelle simulée et rétribué, qui concernait non seulement leur voix, mais aussi leur corps32. De la même façon, dans la Bible, on remarque l’emploi de métaphores empruntées au lexique de la prostitution pour indiquer l’exercice de la nécromancie33. Grâce à la comparaison avec la Grèce et Rome anciennes ainsi qu’avec le folklore, nous savons que l’une des tâches les plus caractéristiques des guides de la lamentation était l’invocation du nom du défunt, réitéré plusieurs fois et accompagnée par exemple de la célébration de ses qualités34. Un exemple significatif de cette modalité exécutive de la lamentation on le trouve dans le livre XXIVe de l’Iliade, lors des funérailles d’Hector: Andromaque, Hecuba et Hélène, en assumant l’une après l’autre le rôle de guide de la lamentation, répètent à plusieurs reprises l’invocation du nom de leur cher défunt. Chez les Romains la mort physique était seulement la phase initiale d’un plus large processus de transformation, étant donné que la personne défunte restait un membre du clan, l’un des amicaux di manes, ce qui n’est pas sans rappeler certaines croyances du Proche Orient ancien, selon lesquelles les défunts entraient dans la compagnie révérée des Rpʾm. Dans la Rome ancienne, le voyage de la vie à la mort commençait officiellement lors de la conclamatio, quand on invoquait à plusieurs reprises le nom du défunt35. Ensuite, il y avait la laudatio funebris et la nenia, le chant funèbre confié à des professionnelles, les preficae. Selon le témoignage de Varron, rapporté par Nonius, la prefica était une femme avec une jolie voix qui invoquait et faisait l’éloge du mort et chantait la nenia36. Servius nous explique que la prefica était le princeps planctuum, le “chef de la lamentation”, and Festus confirme que ces chefs étaient embauchés pour réciter la lamentation et diriger les autres femmes qui pleuraient et se frappaient la poitrine. 31 32 33 34 35 36

Gruber 1999: 129; Stökl 2013; Hamori 2015: 167–183. Voir Dutsch 2008: 264. Pour le passages bibliques concernés, Lewis 1989: 140–165. Gagliardi 2007: 98–101; Palmisciano 2017: 40–42. Dutsch 2008: 258–259. Non. Marc. 145, 2: Nenia, ineptum et inconditum carmen, quod a conducta muliere, quae praefica diceretur, iis, quibus propinqui non esset, mortuis exiberetur; Varr. De vita pop. rom. IV: ibi a muliere, quae optuma voce esset, per quam laudari, dein neniam cantari solitam ad tibias et fides.

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Cette invocation, prononcée dans un état de “transe rêveuse” pour utiliser une expression chère à Ernesto De Martino, était justement confiée à la lamentatrice qui se posait à la guide de la lamentation en exécutant une section pour une voix seule à laquelle faisait suite, à intervalles plus ou moins réguliers, une partie chorale qui se composait exclusivement d’un refrain responsorial. Dès le début de la lamentation, donc, on essaie d’établir un contact avec le défunt au moyen de l’allocution et ensuite avec des expressions à la deuxième personne à lui adressées. Il s’agit de questions, parfois très serrées, à travers lesquelles on demande au mort où il se trouve, pourquoi il est décédé et pourquoi il a abandonné sa famille.37 Il ne manque pas d’incitations afin que le défunt se manifeste, coopère avec le groupe social et se resigne à sa nouvelle condition. Selon les anthropologues Lombardi Satriani et Miligrana38, qui ont étudié attentivement la lamentation au niveau folklorique et dans différentes cultures, la lamentatrice, en invoquant le mort et résumant ses vicissitudes humaines, dispose la fin de son action en rapport à ses proches. Donc, l’attestation du nouveau status de défunt et le souvenir du passé perdu sont la certification que le mort doit se résigner à sa nouvelle condition et que les vivants en déclarant la mort de leur parent le placent dans un nouvel espace physique et mental, duquel le défunt ne peut plus revenir à l’exception de certaines occasions, contrôlées par le rituel. Toutes ces données nous aident à mieux définir la signification du terme éblaïte mu-na-bi-tum, qui devait donc indiquer “celle qui invoque le nom du défunt en se lamentant”, en conformité avec le domaine sémantique de la racine *nbʾ.

1.2 Le rôle des dam eme-bal et des dam ra-zi-ma-tum Le refrain était souvent caractérisé par une plus forte émotivité et composé aussi d’une série d’interjections accompagnées souvent par des gestes contre soi-même. Dans les poèmes homériques, pour indiquer ce refrain, on utilise l’expression formulaire ἐπί δὲ στενάχοντο γυναῖκες, “et les femmes pleurèrent en réponse”. Ce n’est donc pas par hasard si à Ébla le refrain pour la lamentation en l’honneur d’un personnage particulièrement important comme la mère du roi du-si-gú était confié aux dam ra-zi-ma-tum, qui gémissaient et pleuraient. Ce terme tire son origine de la racine sémitique *rzm, “pleurer; murmurer”39, connue en arabe, où est employé pour exprimer la douleur de la chamelle qui a perdu son petit, ce qui trouve une significative correspondance avec la similitude homérique du livre XVIe de l’Odyssée, où le poète compare les pleurs des hommes aux gémissements des oiseaux rapaces auxquels des paysans ont enlevé leur progéniture. Comme

37 De Martino 1975: 91–92. 38 Lombardi Satriani et Miligrana 1996: 47–65, 161–192. 39 Pasquali et Mangiarotti 1999.

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dans une opposition nature – culture, les hommes en pleurant perdent leur rationalité et se comportent comme des animaux. Ces pleurs responsoriaux ou στεναγμός étaient caractérisés par différents taux d’émotivité et de maitrise de soi, comme semble démontrer l’existence à Ebla d’un chœur formé par les dam eme-bal qui exprimaient une douleur plus contenue. Pour ce qui concerne les dam eme-bal, on est renseignés grâce à la liste lexicale bilingue où l’on trouve l’équivalence VE 179 eme-bal = a-bí-lu-um (A), a-ba-luum (c), da-da-bí-lu (D), a-ba-um (i). Or, la signification connue du verbe sumérien eme-bal est “changer de langue; passer d’une langue à l’autre”. En tant que nom, eme-bal est attesté à compter de la période paléo-akkadien avec la signification de “interprète”. Dans la liste lexicale éblaïte que l’on vient de citer, en revanche, eme-bal est associé à des termes sémitiques qui tirent leur origine de la racine *ʾpl, “répondre; prendre part à une conversation”40. Cette signification s’adapte pleinement à nos contextes, où l’on trouve d’ailleurs la seule attestation éblaïte jusqu’à présent connue du sumérien eme-bal en-dehors des listes lexicales. On a raison de supposer que la lecture sémitique de dam eme-bal soit ʾāpilātum, “celles qui répondent”. L’existence de ces dam emebal exécutant le chant responsorial lors des lamentations funèbres, d’une part, déconseille l’hypothèse de Fronzaroli41, selon laquelle la racine *ʾpl, sur la base de son équivalence à eme-bal dans le VE, aurait signifié à Ebla “interpréter”, et d’autre part, semble, en revanche, donner raison à Durand qui interprète le terme mariote ʾāpiltum42, indiquant une opératrice cultuelle engagée dans la divination, voire une prophétesse, comme “celle qui répond” et non comme “celle qui interprète”.

1.3 Le rôle du al6-èn-tar Dans le passage concernant la cérémonie funèbre en l’honneur de la mère du roi, participe à la lamentation une autre figure professionnelle indiquée par le sumérien al6-èn-tar et qui reçoit des tissus pour avoir accompli sa tâche. Je suppose qu’il s’agit de préférence d’un personnage masculin, étant donné l’absence de l’indication dam qui précède en revanche les noms des autres opératrices. Dans la liste lexicale bilingue, nous avons l’équivalence suivante: VE 987 al6èn-tar = sá-ul-du-um (A), sá-ul-tum (B). On peut expliquer les graphies sémitiques de cette glose comme /šaʾʾultum/, adjectif verbal féminin de la forme 0/2 de *šʾl, “interroger”43. Cependant, notre contexte requiert plutôt un nom de profession de la même racine et donc šāʾilum, “celui qui interroge”. Il faut remarquer qu’il s’agit de la même racine qui est employée aussi en akkadien pour traduire le ver40 Pour cela, Seminara 2014: 10. 41 Fronzaroli: 1980: 91–95. Cette hypothèse est, en revanche, acceptée par Conti 1990: 94; Merlo 2004: 324–325; Catagnoti 2012: 187; Stökl 2012a: 41–43. 42 Durand 1997: 125. 43 Voir dernièrement Catagnoti 2012: 151.

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be sumérien èn--tar et de laquelle tirent leur origine des termes techniques de la nécromancie, c’est-à-dire šāʾilum, “divinateur”, et šāʾiltum, “devineresse” (CAD, Š/1: 109–111). De plus, on retrouve le verbe hébreu šʾl dans le récit biblique de la pythonisse d’En-Dor, chargée d’interroger l’esprit du prophète Samuel sur l’ordre du roi Saul44. C’est très probablement en ce même sens qu’il faut comprendre certains passages d’un texte éblaïte d’offrandes d’ovins où le nom de la déesse solaire dutu est suivi par le terme sumérien EN.LI. Il s’agit des extraits suivants: MEE 12 26 f. VII:15–18: 2 udu dutu EN.LI za-a-šè nídba et MEE 12 26 f. X:12–16: 2 udu dutu EN.LI dar-kab-bù nídba. On peut considérer EN.LI comme une graphie abrégée du sumérien EN.ME.LI correspondant, lui aussi, à l’akkadien šāʾilu et šāʾiltu45. Dans ces passages on enregistre donc l’offrande de deux ovins en l’honneur de dutu en sa qualité de devineresse, étant donné que c’était la divinité solaire qui, pendant son voyage nocturne dans l’Au-delà, posait les questions des vivants aux défunts et portait les réponses des défunts aux vivants46, comme on l’a bien mis en évidence pour ce qui concerne les textes mésopotamiens de nécromancie47. La présence d’un tel opérateur cultuel lors d’une lamentation funèbre ne doit pas nous étonner, surtout si l’on compare le contexte éblaïte avec ce que nous savons de la lamentation dans le monde classique et au niveau folklorique48. Comme De Martino l’a noté, la lamentation pouvait bien se terminer avec la question au défunt s’il était content de la cérémonie funèbre célébrée en son honneur. La satisfaction du mort qui donne l’assurance d’avoir accompli tout le nécessaire envers lui, empêche son retour non contrôlé, ce qui terrorise les vivants. C’est juste à travers l’intervention d’opérateurs cultuels, agréés à dialoguer avec les décédés au profit de la communauté entière, qu’on est à même d’obtenir un retour momentané et culturellement contrôlé de morts parmi les vivants ainsi que leur passage définitif dans l’au-delà. Pendant les cérémonies de lamentation funèbre, est bien documentée l’allocution directe vers le défunt souvent à travers le recours à un dialogue stichomythique qui a laissé une trace importante dans la tragédie attique. La fonction de ce dialogue était d’établir dans une sorte de transe un contact avec la personne décédée pour faire connaitre à sa famille et à la communauté ses paroles et ses pensées49. Plus le personnage était important et plus ce contact était vu comme 44 45 46 47 48

Kleiner 1995: 28–33. Voir aussi la glose VE 907 EN.LI = sa-il-du-u[m] (source A), sa-il-tum (sources B et C), /šāʾiltum/. Pasquali 2016: 55–57. Finkel 1983–84. Voir déjà Pasquali 2018. L’existence de ces pratiques à Ébla au milieu du IIIe millénaire av. J.-C. rend absolument inconsistante l’hypothèse de Schmidt 1994: 219–220, selon lequel la pratique de la nécromancie, inconnue dans la région syrienne, aurait été introduite chez les Hébreux seulement grâce à l’influence de la culture mésopotamienne. 49 Alexiou 1974: 131–160; Vermeule 1979: 16–17; Caraveli-Chaves 1980: 127–130; Gagliardi 2007: 58–61.

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nécessaire. Ce ne donc pas un hasard si cet opérateur spécifique agit à Ebla exactement pendant les obsèques de l’ama-gal en. Un exemple remarquable tiré de la tragédie grecque se trouve dans les Choéphores d’Eschyle, où les deux fils d’Agamemnon, Électre et Oreste, conduisent en alternance la lamentation pour le père décédé. La stratégie de leur discours repose sur une recherche continuelle et presque obsessive d’un contact avec Agamemnon à travers un dialogue avec lui. Mais, en particulier, on se souviendra des Perses d’Eschyle, où le fantôme de Darius apparaît à la demande du chœur des vieux perses, qui l’interrogent à propos du futur, ce qui est en effet très proche de ce que l’on suppose se produire à Ebla grâce à l’intervention du al6-èn-tar. Ce rituel, qui se déroulait en marge de la lamentation, s’appelait γοητεία en Grèce50, où, il avait été introduit durant la période orientalisante depuis le Proche Orient avec tous les autres expédients de manipulation des défunts. On peut attribuer la présence en Grèce de ces pratiques à la migration de certaines de ces spécialistes orientaux. Il s’agissait d’une activité réservée à des professionnels masculins, les γόητες, nom dérivant de la même racine que γόος, “lament”. Le lexique de la Suda définit la γοητεία comme une invocation du défunt mais, encore avant, Platon dans les Lois nous dit que ceux qui pratiquaient la γοητεία se vantaient d’être à même d’évoquer et d’interroger les esprits des morts et d’avoir un rapport privilégié avec les divinités des Enfers. Selon la tradition transmise par Diogène Laërce, le philosophe Empédocle, ayant vécu au Ve siècle av. J.-C., s’adonnait, lui-même, à cette activité. A Rome on recourait carrément à des mimes qui imitaient les personnes décédées et en marge à la lamentation répondaient aux questions en commentant les modalités de leur décès ou émettant des jugements à propos de la cérémonie funèbre. On rappellera à ce sujet que d’après le récit de l’historien grec Appien (Bellum Civile 2, 146, 611), un de ces mimes intervint aux funérailles des César et, interrogé, fit les noms des assassins51. Cette tradition d’incarner le défunt pendant les funérailles tire son origine de la pratique du ventriloquisme52. On se souviendra à ce propos que la version grecque de la Bible traduit le terme ʾôb, indiquant une typologie de nécromants, par ἐγγαστρίμυθος, “ventriloque”53. D’ailleurs, cette exigence de prendre contact et de revoir le mort on la retrouve aussi dans la culture folklorique, qui délègue le risque du rapport avec les défunts à un personnage exceptionnel, qui garantit un lien collectif de la communauté avec ses ancêtres. Les ethnologues Lombardi-Satriani et Miligrana nous reportent le cas d’une femme54, Natuzza Evolo, ayant vécu en Calabre dans les années 50 51 52 53 54

Johnston 1999: 116–118; Suter 2008: 162–163. Sumi 2002: 566–567; Dutsch 2008: 265. Dutsch 2008: 259, n. 13; Martin 2008. Tropper 1999: 809. Lombardi-Satriani et Miligrana 1996: 373–386.

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Cinquante du XXe siècle, à laquelle les défunts confiaient leurs messages pour les parents et ces derniers pouvaient poser des questions à leurs morts à l’aide de Natuzza, qui les interrogeait et référait leurs réponses aux vivants grâce à ses visions. En terminant, l’analyse de ces passages [1–3] nous révèle une fois de plus que l’importance des textes d’Ebla n’est pas liée exclusivement à l’étude des archives du Palais G dans leur contexte. En allant au-delà de l’analyse des simples notes administratives apparemment froides et rigides et de la micro-réalité locale avec ses limites spatio-temporelles, on peut saisir de suggestions du plus haut intérêt et aux profondes implications culturelles et religieuses, qui plongent leurs racines dans la préhistoire et dont les développements arrivent jusqu’à la tradition hébraïque et classique et même jusqu’à nous55.

Bibliographie Abusch, T. 1986/87 Ishtar’s Proposal and Gilgamesh’s Refusal: An Interpretation of “The Gilgamesh Epic”, History of Religions 26: 143–187. Alexiou, M. 1974 The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, Cambridge. Archi, A. 2002 Jewels for the Ladies of Ebla, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 92: 161–199. 2012 Cult of the Ancestors and Funerary Practices at Ebla, dans P. Pfälzner et al. (éds), (Re-)Constructing Funerary Rituals in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the First International Symposium of the Tübingen Post–Graduate School “Symbols of the Dead” in May 2009, Wiesbaden: 5–31. 2018 Archivi Reali di Ebla. Testi, XX. Administrative Texts: Allotments of Clothing for the Palace Personnel, Wiesbaden. Biga, M.G. 2007–08 Buried among the Living at Ebla? Funerary Practices and Rites in a XXIV Cent. B.C. Syrian Kingdom, Scienze dell’Antichità 14: 249–275. 2012 Les vivants et leurs morts en Syrie du IIIe millénaires d’après les archives d’Ébla, dans J.-M. Durand et al. (éds), Les vivants et leurs morts. Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 14–15 avril 2010, Fribourg – Göttingen: 1–17. Biga, M.G. et Capomacchia, A.M.G. 2012 I testi di Ebla di ARET XI: una rilettura alla luce dei testi paralleli, Revue d’Assyriologie 102: 19–32. Bremmer, J.N. 1983 The Early Greek Concept of the Soul, Princeton. Caraveli-Chaves, A. 1980 Bridge between Worlds: the Greek Women’s Laments as Communicative Event, Journal of American Folklore 93 : 129–157. Catagnoti, A. 2012 La grammatica della lingua di Ebla, Firenze.

55 Comme P. Xella aussi plusieurs fois l’a remarqué (voir par exemple Xella 1996: 680).

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Cirese, A.M. 1951 Nenie e prefiche nel mondo antico, Lares 17: 20–44. Colesanti, G. et Giordano, M. (éds) 2014 Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. An Introduction, Berlin – Boston. Conti, G. 1990 Il sillabario della quarta fonte della lista lessicale bilingue eblaita, Firenze. Degl’Innocenti Pierini, R. 2012 Le città personificate nella Roma repubblicana: fenomenologia di un motivo letterario tra retorica e poesia, dans G. Moretti et A. Bonandini (éds), Persona Ficta. La personificazione allegorica nella cultura antica fra letteratura, retorica e iconografia, Trento: 215–247. De Martino, E. 1975 Morte e pianto rituale. Dal lamento funebre antico al pianto di Maria, Torino. Derderian, K. 2001 Leaving Words to Remember. Greek Mourning and the Advent of Literacy, Leiden. Durand, J.-M. 1997 Les prophéties des textes de Mari, dans J.G. Heintz (éd.), Oracles et prophéties dans l’Antiquité. Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg, 15-17 juin 1995, Paris: 115– 134. 2008 La religion amorrite en Syrie à l’époque des archives de Mari, dans G. Del Olmo Lete (éd.), Mythologie et Religion des Sémites Occidentaux. Vol. I. Ebla, Mari, Leuven – Paris – Dudley: 163–716. Dutsch, D. 2008 Nenia: Gender, Genre, and the Lament in Ancient Rome, dans A. Suter (éd.), Lament. Studies in Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond, Oxford: 258–279. Felli, C. 2015 Dopo la morte. Pratiche funerarie nella valle del medio Eufrate fra la fine del III e la prima metà del II millennio a.C., Firenze. Finkel, I.L. 1983/84 Necromancy in Ancient Mesopotamia, Altorientalische Forschungen 29/30: 1–17. Fleming, D. 1993a Nābû and Munabbiātu: Two New Syrian Religious Personnel, Journal of the American Oriental Society 113: 175–183. 1993b The Etymological Origins of the Hebrew nābîʾ: The One Who Invokes God, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 55: 217–224. Fronzaroli, P. 1980 Gli equivalenti di eme-bal nelle liste lessicali eblaite, Studi Eblaiti 2: 91–95. Gagliardi, P. 2007 I due volti della gloria. I lamenti funebri omerici tra poesia e antropologia, Bari. Gruber, I.M. 1999 Women in Ancient Levant, dans B. Vivante (éd.), Women’s Roles in Ancient Civilisations: A Reference Guide, Westport: 115–152. Hamori, E.J. 2015 Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature, New Haven – London. Huehnergard, J. 1999 On the Etymology and Meaning of Hebrew nābîʾ, Eretz-Israel 26: 88–93. Johnston, S.I. 1999 Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece, Berkeley.

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Kleiner, M. 1995 Saul in En-Dor: Wahrsagung oder Totenbeschwörung?, Leipzig. Kouwenberg, N.J.C. 1997 Gemination in the Akkadian Verb, Assen. Kramer, S.N. 1940 Lamentation over the Distruction of Ur, Chicago. Lewis, Th.J. 1989 Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit, Atlanta. Lombardi Satriani, L.M. et Meligrana, M. 1989 Il ponte di San Giacomo. L’ideologia della morte nella società contadina del Sud, Palermo. Martin, R.P. 2008 Keens from the Absent Chorus: Troy to Ulster, dans A. Suter (éd.), Lament. Studies in Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond, Oxford: 118–138. Meier, C. 2003 Tocther Sion in Jeremiabuch. Eine Literarische Personifikation mit altorientalischen Hintergrund, dans I. Fischer, K. Scmidt et H.G.M. Williamson (éds), Prophetie in Israel, Münster – Hamburg – London: 157–167. Merlo, P. 2004 āpilum at Mari. A Reappraisal, Ugarit-Forschungen 35: 324–332. Michalowski, P. 1989 The Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur, Winona Lake. Palmisciano, R. 2017 Dialoghi per una voce sola. La cultura del lamento funebre nella Grecia antica, Roma. Pasquali, J. 2013 Symbolique de mort et de renaissance dans les cultes et les rites éblaïtes: d Ga-na-na, les ancêtres et la royauté, Revue d’Assyriologie 107: 43–70. 2016 À propos de l’histoire la plus ancienne du “bouc émissaire” d’après les données épigraphiques éblaïtes. Le cas du nídba den(ki), Studia Eblaitica 2: 47–69. 2018 Al6-èn-tar, “celui qui interroge le défunt”, dans un contexte de lamentation funèbre à Ébla, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2018/38. 2019 Éblaïte dam munabbiʾtum = akkadien d’Emar munus.mešmunabbiʾātu, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2019/3. Pasquali, J. et Mangiarotti, P. 1999 Eblaite rāzimtum, “Wailing Woman”, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 1999/7. Pirozzi, C. 2003 Il commo nella tragedia greca, Napoli. Podella, Th. 1986 Ein mediterraner Trauerritus, Ugarit-Forschungen 18: 263–269. Scheyhing, H. 2003 Das Ritual und der Aspekt des Magischen. Anmerkungen zur einem umstritten Begriff nach Befunden aus dem Alten Orient, Die Welt des Orients 33: 100–127. Schmidt, B.B. 1994 Israel’s Beneficent Dead. Ancestral Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition, Winona Lake. Seminara, S. 2014 Beyond the Words. Some Considerations About the Word “To Translate” in Sumerian, Vicino Oriente 18: 7–13.

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von Soden, W. 1987 Kleine Bemerkungen zu Urkunden und Ritualen aus Emar, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 1987/46. Stökl, J. 2012a Prophecy in the Ancient Near East: A Philological and Sociological Comparaison, Leiden. 2012b Female Prophets in the Ancient Near East, dans J. Day (éd.), Prophecy and Prophets in Ancient Israel, New York – London: 47–61. 2013 The ‫ תואבנתמ‬in Ezekiel 13 Reconsidered, Journal of Biblical Literature 132: 61– 76. Suter, A. 2008 Male Lament in Greek Tragedy, dans A. Suter (éd.), Lament. Studies in Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond, Oxford: 156–180. Sumi, G.S. 2002 Impersonating the Dead: Mimes at Roman Funerals, American Journal of Philology 123: 559–585. Theuer, G. 2000 Der Mondgot in den Religionen Syrien-Palästinas. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von KTU 1.24, Freiburg – Göttingen. Tonietti, M.V. 2010 Musicians in the Ebla Texts: A Third–Millennium Local Source for Northern Syria, dans R. Pruzsinszky et D. Shehata (éds), Musiker und Tradierung. Studien zur Rolle der Musikern bei der Verschriftlichung und Tradierung von literarischen Werken, Wien: 67–93. 2018 The First Ancient Near Eastern Written Sources on Musicians’ Activity and Performance: The Ebla Archive – A Glance at the 3rd Millennium BCE Syrian Evidence, dans A. Garcia-Ventura, C. Tavolieri et L. Verderame (éds), The Study of Musical Performance in Antiquity: Archaeology and Written Sources, Cambridge: 3–38. Tropper, J. 1999 Spirit of the Dead, dans K. van der Toorn, B. Becking et P.W. van der Horst (éds), Dictonary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Leiden: 806–809. Tsukimoto, A. 1989 Emar and the Old Testament – Preliminary Remarks, Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute 12: 3–24. Vermeule, E. 1979 Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry, Berkeley – Los Angeles. Xella P. 1996 Il “capro espiatorio” a Ebla. Sulle origini storiche di un antico mito mediterraneo, Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 62: 677–684.

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© 2020, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11521-6 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39042-2

MARIACARMELA MONTESANTO

Durham University

Lost in Transition: The Late Bronze–Iron Age Pottery Assemblage in Tell Atchana/Alalakh*

The transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East is recognised as a period of major social and historical significance. Despite being at the centre of these changes, the Late Bronze-Iron Age transition at Alalakh and in the ‘Amuq valley generally remains poorly understood in terms of chronology and local development. This paper presents the pottery assemblage coming from selected Late Bronze Age II and Iron Age I contexts retrieved from the new excavations at Alalakh. In particular, the paper aims at analysing the changes occurred in pottery typology and function during the transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Ages.

1. Introduction In recent years, excavations conducted at the site of Tell Atchana/ancient Alalakh recovered a series of levels dated from the Late Bronze Age II to the Iron Age I.1 The site of Alalakh is located in the ‘Amuq valley, a well-defined area enclosed by the Amanus range to the north, the Kurt Dagı to the east and the Jebel el-‘Aqra, the Jebel el-‘Ala and the Jebel Sim‘an to the south (Fig. 1). The valley is crossed by three main rivers: the Orontes flowing north from Syria, the Afrin entering the valley from south-east and the Kara Su from the north. During the Bronze and Iron Ages a series of urban centres arose such as Tell Atchana2 and Tell Tayinat.3 The ‘Amuq valley was never a power that could have competed with the Anatolian, Mesopotamian and Egyptian states, but, thanks to the mixture of ethnicities and a series of favourable circumstances it proved to be a very resilient area. Extensive archaeological research for the Bronze Age and Iron Age focused mainly at Tell Tayinat, Chatal Höyük, Tell Judeideh and Tell Atchana during the 1930s.4 In the last 20 years, a reappraisal of archaeological research in the area brought to light new data on the transition between the Late Bronze Age II and the Iron Age I.5 *

I am very grateful to Aslıhan Yener and Murat Akar who gave me the opportunity to work on this material. Appreciation is also due to Marina Pucci, Müge Bulu, James F. Osborne and Bruce Routledge. A short version of this paper was presented to the 10th ICAANE conference (Munich, April 2018). 1 Yener 2017; Montesanto and Pucci 2019. 2 Yener et al. 2000. 3 Harrison 2009. 4 Braidwood 1937; Woolley 1955. 5 The ‘Amuq Valley Regional Project (AVRP) started in 1995 and it is still ongoing (Yener et al.

Studia Eblaitica 6 (2020), pp. 57–88

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The finding of well stratified Iron Age deposits is one of the most recent discoveries made at the site of Alalakh. Until very recently, it was thought that the occupation of the site ended towards the end of the Late Bronze Age; Woolley6 suggested a failed attempt in reoccupying the city during the mid-12th century BC (Level 0); Swift7 proposed a much longer gap in the general ‘Amuq sequence between phase M (Late Bronze Age II) and phase N (Iron Age I). New evidence from Atchana offers a prolonged period of occupation until the end of the Iron Age I, during which the large Late Bronze Age I settlement was slowly reduced in size during the 13th century BC and was sparsely occupied until the 9th century BC.8 As a result, the 13th century BC, that is the end of the Late Bronze Age II, is ephemeral on the site and only a square so far, square 42.10, yielded a continuous stratigraphic sequence spanning from the Late Bronze Age II to the Iron Age II on the site. The aim of this article is to discuss the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age occupation at Alalakh with a particular focus on the pottery assemblage coming from square 42.10.

2. Historical background Alalakh, during the Late Bronze Age II, was the capital city of the kingdom of Mukish, which was incorporated into the Hittite empire together with other cities such as Aleppo, Karkemish and Ugarit. It is not clear whether a Hittite ruler was set in Alalakh after its conquest, however, the finding of a Hittite orthostat and of a bulla point to the existence of a prince Tuthalyia, probably the nephew of the Hittite king Mursili II.9 Further evidence proving the presence of a Hittite governor in Alalakh and confirming the occupation of the site during the 14th–13th century BC includes a bulla attributed to the Hittite governor Paluwa, active in the ‘Amuq and in northern Syria during the 13th century BC10 and a series of Hittite letters found in Tell Afis, which probably mention the city of Alalakh.11 The last attestation of Alalakh in the texts comes from Ugarit (Ug 5, 33; RSO 7,6; CAT 2.33) possibly dated to the reign of Ammurapi.12 The most recent epigraphic evidence dated to the Late Bronze Age II and coming from the ‘Amuq valley is a Hittite oracle text dated to the 13th century BC that may indicate the presence of religious activities most probably related to the temple.13 As a matter of fact, the presence of seven frag-

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

2000; Avšar et al. 2019), excavations at Tell Atchana and at Tell Tayinat are still ongoing (Yener 2010; 2014; 2017; Harrison 2009; 2010; 2013). Woolley 1955: 399, fn. 4. Swift 1958: 4, table 5. Montesanto and Pucci 2019. Yener, Peker and Dincol 2014; Niedorf 2002; Yener 2017; Singer 2017. Woolley 1955: 88; Fink 2010: 55; Yener 2017: 217. Archi and Venturi 2012; Archi 2016. Pardee 2002: 105–106. Singer 2017: fn. 6; Weeden 2011: 240, 506; Yener 2017: 216.

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ments of Hittite tablets found during Woolley’s excavations, biconvex seals with Hittite hieroglyphs, the carved orthostat and the Hittite bulla confirm the presence of a settlement at Atchana during the 13th century BC. However, archaeological excavations have clearly shown that the site underwent a significant reduction in size after the end of the 14th century BC and maintaining an occupation restricted to the fortress area14 and the temple.15 Archaeological evidence dated to the 12th–11th century BC (i.e. the Iron Age I) in the ‘Amuq valley is limited to very few sites.16 At the site of Tell Atchana only the temple and the surrounding area remained in use until the 10th century BC. However, archaeological findings on the site suggest that it was no longer densely inhabited and therefore it was no longer the most important administrative site of the region. Most probably the site was active during the 12th–10th century BC while the occupation and related activities diminished towards the 9th century BC.17 The evidence coming from the site of Alalakh defines the Iron Age settlement as a small settlement. Because of its nature, it is highly possible that the settlement, during this time, was dependent from a main, bigger settlement to be located on the mound of Tell Tayinat, the capital city of the kingdom of Palastin during the Iron Age I. The discovery of the Temple of the Storm God on the Aleppo citadel18 has introduced important new historical information for the Iron Age in the ‘Amuq valley. The excavation has produced two hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions dated to the 11th century BC.19 The inscriptions contain autobiographical statements attributed to Taita, Hero and King of Palastin. Reference of this ruler comes from other stelae discovered in the Hama region,20 in the site of Tell Tayinat and in Arsuz. Together, these inscriptions imply the existence of an early Iron Age kingdom centred in the ‘Amuq valley, with a capital city located on the mound of Tell Tayinat and encompassing a territory similar in extent to the combined Late Bronze Age kingdoms of Mukish, Niye, Nuhasse as well as Aleppo. The transition between the Late Bronze Age II and Iron I has been often considered as a period of change, because of a change in the political system. Indeed, the transition from the Late Bronze Age II to the Iron Age I saw the demise of the Hittite Empire and the emergence of the Neo-Hittite states. However, new archaeological investigations in the northern Levant and in south-eastern Anatolia led to a re-analysis of this period.21 14 Akar 2013. 15 Yener 2017; Montesanto 2018; Montesanto and Pucci 2019. 16 Besides the site of Alalakh, Iron Age occupation is attested only in Tell Tayinat (Harrison 2013; Welton et al. 2019), Chatal Höyük (Pucci 2013; 2017; 2019b). 17 Montesanto and Pucci 2019. 18 Kohlmeyer 2009. 19 Hawkins 2011; Dinҫol et al. 2015. 20 Hawkins 2009. 21 Manuelli 2018.

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The political gap between the demise of the Hittite Empire starting in the 13th century BC and the emergence of the Neo-Hittite states in the 10th century BC has been progressively filled with archaeological evidence coming from renewed excavations from the wider region22. In this framework, material culture has been used to understand elements of change and continuity and to analyse social habits and behaviours over time.23

3. The transition between the Late Bronze Age II and the Iron Age I at Alalakh24 The site of Alalakh/Tell Atchana is the largest Bronze Age settlement in the ‘Amuq valley. Following its first documentation by the Syro-Hittite Expedition conducted by Robert Braidwood,25 the first excavations were conducted on behalf of the Trustees of the British Museum by Sir Charles Leonard Woolley in the 1930s and 1940s.26 Recently, a new round of excavations has been conducted since 2000 under the direction of Prof. Dr. Aslıhan Yener (Emeritus, Koç University) and Asst. Prof. Dr. Murat Akar (Mustafa Kemal University).27 Until recently, it was thought that Alalakh occupation ended in the final stages of the Late Bronze Age; however, new evidence from the site suggests a prolonged period of occupation until the 9th century BC. In particular, excavations in square 42.10 (Fig. 2) revealed a series of well stratified phases dated from the Late Bronze Age II to the Iron Age I (local phases 4–3). The square is located in Area 1, to the south-east of the so-called “temple area” first excavated by Woolley.28 The occupational phase dated to the end of the Late Bronze Age II begins with phase 4 (Fig. 3). This phase has been divided into two sub-phases (a and b) because of the identification of two floors, the disappearance of new features and the change in the general plan and in the organisation of the space. The deposition between the floors is about 12 cm thick. Phase 4b is placed directly below phase 3b, dated to the mid-12th century BC, and it can be dated between the 14th century BC and the 13th century BC.29

22 Renewed excavations have been conducted in the sites of Arslantepe (Manuelli 2016; 2018); Karkemish (Marchetti 2014; Pizzimenti and Zaina 2016; Pizzimenti and Scazzosi 2017), and Tell Tayinat (Harrison 2013; Welton et al. 2019). 23 Pucci 2019a. 24 This paper is not meant to make a statement about the 2nd millennium BC absolute dating of Alalakh, the Middle Chronology is used for the Late Bronze Age (Yener et al. 2020) while for the Iron Age the Levantine framework is followed (Mazzoni 2000). 25 Braidwood 1937. 26 Woolley 1955. 27 Yener 2010. 28 Woolley 1955: 89–90, fig. 2; Yener 2017; Yener et al. 2020. 29 Yener et al. 2014; Yener 2017; Yener et al. 2020.

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Phase 4a consists of an open area with the upper part of a threshold stone reused on a clay floor (locus 25). The threshold stone was probably linked to a wall running from north-east to south-west in the middle of the square and dividing the square in two areas. In the southern part of the square a circular oven (locus 27) has been identified of a diameter of ca. 60 cm, while a circular pit (locus 26) is located in the south-western part of the square. The eastern part of the trench presents a patch of ashy material (locus 28) with pottery sherds and animal bones partly burned as well as vitrified mudbricks. This phase can be dated between the end of the 14th century BC and the beginning of the 13th century BC because of the finding of a burnt bulla on the clay floor (locus 25)30 and because of the presence of two sherds dated to the Late Helladic IIIb in the same locus.31 The floor yielded some in situ objects such as pottery, hand-stones, pestles, fragments of ceramic basins, a metal axe, a needle, a ring, metal pins, spindle whorls and many beads, thus suggesting that this area was dedicated to some kind of domestic activities. The general plan of phase 4b is very different from phase 4a. Phase 4b can be identified as a mudbrick building consisting of at least 6 rooms with clay floors and a silo (locus 40). In the central room (locus 39) ca. 7 x 2.5 m in size, preparation of food, cooking, eating and drinking activities are testified by the presence of a circular oven (locus 36,) ca. 1m in diameter, located in its northern part, as well as by the presence of ceramic basins, hand-stones, a stone tripod bowl, a metal strainer and eating, drinking and cooking vessels. Other objects retrieved from this context include personal items such as beads and rings. The bigger room (locus 31) is located immediately to the west of locus 39. This room measures ca. 5 x 3 m, although it was probably bigger as it continues into the western section. It has at its centre a basalt posthole. Pottery retrieved from this context consists mainly of eating and cooking vessels, while objects include personal items (beads, rings, pins), a metal axe, as well as hand-stones and whetstones. These bigger rooms (loci 39 and 31) are surrounded by other rooms (loci 33, 34, 35 and 37) whose real extent cannot be defined as they are all cut by the northern, western and eastern sections. On the south-eastern corner of the square is located a silo (locus 40) with a curvilinear wall. It is not possible to determine its real extension as it is cut by the southern section of the square. The rooms yielded very few objects, pottery sherds and in situ vessels. The occupational phase dated to the Iron Age begins with phase 3 (Fig. 4). This phase has been divided into two sub-phases (a and b) because of the identification of two floors and of the disappearance of old features and appearance of new ones while the general plan did not change. The deposition between the floors 30 Yener 2017: 216. 31 These sherds have been dated by Robert Koehl, and LH IIIb is generally dated to the 13th century BC (Mountjoy 1986: table 1).

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is about 15 cm thick. Phase 3 can be dated to the mid-12th century BC because of the recovery of a painted sherd inspired by the Aegean Late Helladic IIIc Middle Developed style.32 Phase 3b is placed directly on top of phase 4a, and it is the first occupational phase to be recorded after the 14th or 13th century BC. This phase consists of an open area with the upper face of the threshold stone of phase 4 reused on a clay floor (locus 24). Here a pyrotechnical installation (locus 23) has been identified consisting of an elliptic pit with a stone at the bottom and located in the south-western part of the square. This installation can be interpreted as a circular oven. The surface near this installation is irregular and a shallow pit with partially disassembled bones of a small sized bovid and a dog was identified. The floor yielded some in situ objects such as pottery, a grinding stone, handstones, beads, earrings, pendants, pins, a metal beer strainer, a ceramic hob, a tripod base of a stone vessel with traces of burnings, and a pivot stone, suggesting it was an area dedicated to daily life or domestic activities. The main architectural feature identified in phase 3a is a curvilinear structure (locus 18) lying on the floor (locus 16) that runs in a north-south direction and dividing the area into two sections. It consists of mud bricks fragments and stones kept together by a mixture of fragments of pottery and bones put together. The thickness of the structure varies from 20 to 40 cm and it is preserved for a height of about 30 cm. The structure could possibly be interpreted as an installation separating the square into two areas rather than a proper wall because of the absence of mortar and of the quality of the building material. The ceramic material in the fill above the floor is very abundant and only few in situ objects were found such as a burnt cookpot (Fig. 10o), beads, needles, rings, grinding stones, fragments of basins, fragments of an ivory plaque, a palette, miniature wheels and a lid. Objects retrieved from this phase include personal items such as beads, pendants and rings, six hand-stones, a grinding slab and four ceramic basins.

4. Methodology The Atchana pottery typology is shape-based and it is built on the analysis of the vessel morphology and on its ware33. A total of 602 diagnostic sherds have been collected in the Late Bronze Age II (phase 4) assemblage from square 42.10, while the pottery assemblage dated to the Iron Age I (phase 3) consists of 1128 diagnostic sherds. The pottery collection is represented by fragmentary and complete vessels. Several ware types have been visually identified according to their fabric and sur32 Koehl 2017: fig. 18.1.7. 33 Hendrix et al. 1997. Given the similarities between the pottery dated to the Late Bronze Age II and the one dated to the Iron Age I, it has been decided to use a common typology (Montesanto and Pucci 2019).

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face treatment. The most common ware type is the Simple Ware.34 The fabric has a variable texture and porosity and it is generally tempered with river-sand temper, limestone, mixed mineral and red and black grits inclusions. Painted Ware falls within the Simple Ware group,35 except for the addition of a painted decoration on the surface. Banded Ware falls also within the Simple Ware group and it refers to a Late Bronze Age painted style having one or several broad horizontal bands on the body.36 This ware may have been inspired by the Khabur Ware37 and the paint colour is generally red or dark brown. Banded Ware is found also in other sites of the ‘Amuq valley.38 Although this type of ware is very popular at Atchana during the Late Bronze Age II,39 it represents only 3.98% of the pottery assemblage recovered in phase 4. Red Slip Ware falls within the Simple Ware group, except for the addition of a red-brownish slip decoration on the surface, sometimes burnished. Although this type of ware is already present during the Late Bronze Age II period (4.8%), it is more common during the Iron Age I (5.58%). The Cooking Ware is largely comprised by Shell Ware fabric:40 it is heavily tempered with crushed shells, increasing the thermal shock resistance of the pot.41 Heavy coarse ware is typically used for large vessels; its fabric is very similar to the Simple Ware’s group, but it is heavily tempered with large grits and organic, mainly chaff, inclusions.

5. The Late Bronze Age II pottery from square 42.10 The pottery assemblage dated to the Late Bronze Age II and coming from square 42.10 is aligned with the Alalakh’s 14th century local assemblage42 with very few exceptions. The majority of shapes coming from phase 4a includes flat plates, some also in Banded Ware (Fig. 5a–b; 11.80%), rim bowls with thickened internal or hook rim (Fig. 5c–d; 18.81%) and hemispherical rounded bowls with simple or flaring rims (Fig. 5f–g; 20.29%). The rest of the pottery assemblage includes shallow bowls with thickened external rim (Fig. 5e; 0.73%), cups (Fig. 5i; 5.16%), high-necked jars (Fig. 5n, p; 8.85%), globular jars (Fig. 5o; 2.95%), hole-mouthed cooking pots (Fig. 5m, r; 6.64%) and broad cooking pots (Fig. 5s; 0.73%), very few pitchers (Fig. 5q; 0.73%), storage jars (0.36%) and few examples of kraters (Fig. 5k–l; 1.47%) and truncated cups (Fig. 5j; 0.1%). 34 35 36 37 38

Swift 1958; Horowitz 2015; 2020. Montesanto 2020. Horowitz 2020. Gates 1981. Platters in Banded Ware have been found in Tell Tayinat (Demirci 2016; Ünlü 2017) and in Chatal Höyük (Pucci 2019b). 39 Horowitz in pr. 40 Horowitz and Ҫakırlar 2017; Morrison and Horowitz 2016. 41 Muller et al. 2014: 269. 42 Horowitz 2020; in pr.

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The pottery assemblage retrieved from phase 4b is not very different from the one recovered from phase 4a. It includes flat plates (Fig. 6a, d; 27.20%), rim bowls with thickened internal or hook rim (Fig. 6c; 18.06%) and hemispherical rounded bowls (Fig. 6i–j, l; 14.17%), carinated bowls (Fig. 6k; 0.38%)43 and hemispherical flaring bowls (Fig. 6m, n; 0.76%).44 The assemblage includes also shallow bowls with thickened external rim (Fig. 6b, e–g; 1.5%), high-necked jars (Fig. 6p–r, t; 7.66%), globular jars (Fig. 6q; 3.83%), cups, some of them painted with red horizontal bands (9.96%) and broad cooking pots (0.73%) and very few pitchers (Fig. 6s; 0.73%) and hole-mouthed cooking pots (Fig. 6u; 7.27%). In this phase, sherds of kraters (Fig. 6o; 0.76%), of deep bowl with S-profile (Fig. 6h; 0.38%) and of deep bowls with a flanged rim (Fig. 6v; 1%) were also recovered. The deep bowl with S-profile is not very popular and it is more commonly found in the Iron Age phases. Flat plates are very common in the Late Bronze Age pottery assemblage of Alalakh,45 as well as in north-central Anatolia, the Middle Euphrates valley, Cilicia and northern Syria46. Rim bowls and shallow bowls with various rim profiles are common in the Late Bronze Age assemblages of northern Syria.47 Hemispherical bowls usually have simple or flaring rims; they appear during the 14th century BC48 and they will become more popular in the Iron Age starting from the 12th century BC. Among the bowls, it is important to mention the presence of hemispherical truncated bowls. They represent 0.1 % of the whole assemblage in this phase of square 42.10. This shape is often considered as a typical Late Bronze Age II, north-central Anatolian vessel,49 although the truncated bowls are attested also in south-eastern Anatolia50 and in coastal Syria in contexts dated to the 13th century BC51 and in Cilicia.52

43 Carinated bowls are not generally found in Late Bronze Age contexts. In Tell Atchana/ Alalakh, they are considered as markers for the beginning of the Iron Age. This bowl is a unicum and the only one thus far found in a Late Bronze Age context. 44 Hemispherical flaring bowls, like the carinated bowls, are considered a marker for the beginning of the Iron Age. Only two bowls have been found so far in a Late Bronze Age context; one of them is painted with red horizontal bands below the rim both on the exterior and on the interior. 45 Horowitz 2015; 2020; in pr. 46 Mazzoni 2002: pl. LXI; Venturi 2014: pl. 2.d–f. 47 Rim bowls are found in Emar (Caubet 2014), Tell Bazi (Otto 2014), Tell Kazel (Badre and Capet 2014), Tell Afis (Venturi 2007: fig. 48.12), Kinet Höyük (Lehmann 2017: fig. 2.2); shallow bowls are found in Arslantepe (Manuelli 2013: fig. III.34), Tille Höyük (Blaylock 1999: fig. 2.4), ‘Ain Dara (Stone and Zimansky 1999: fig. 70, 130, 134). 48 Venturi 2007: fig. 48.18; Horowitz in pr. 49 Glatz 2009: 130; Schoop 2009: fig. 13.2–3; Horowitz in pr. 50 This shape is attested in the site of Arslantepe (Manuelli 2013: fig. III.65 SA1). 51 This shape is attested in Tyre (Bikai 1978: pl. XLVIIa, 15–17), Ugarit (Courtois 1969: fig. 6c; Monchambert 2004: fig. 801180), Byblos (Salles 1980: pl. 20), Hazor (Zuckerman 2015: fig. 6.3.11), Tell Kazel (Level 6: Badre et al. 1994: fig. 42c; 52b–c), Tell ‘Arqa (Level 11: Thalmann 2006: pl. 118.3–4). 52 Few vessels ascribed to this type have been recorded in Tarsus (Goldman 1956: fig. 382.1176).

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Two types of cooking pots have been found in phase 4: the hole-mouthed cooking pot and the broad cooking pot. Hole-mouthed cooking pots are small-size neckless pots with thickened external rims and often they have two small handles applied between the rim and the shoulder. These cooking pots differ from the typical, Late Bronze Age cooking pots 53 and they will become very popular in the Iron Age levels.54 Broad cooking pots are the typical Late Bronze Age cooking pots and they are not very popular in square 42.10’s phase 4. Globular jars are medium size jars with flared or flanged rims. Large-size, storage jars are not very well attested, consisting of the 0.7% of the whole phase 4 pottery assemblage. They generally have thickened external rims. Amphoroid kraters are very rare and they found comparisons in Late Bronze Age contexts of northern Syria.55 The rest of the shapes are less frequent: high-necked jars have no real distinction between neck and body. They have thickened external rims and they were mainly used to store liquids. Sometimes a handle is attached between the shoulder and the rim. However, it is important to mention the presence of a local imitation of a north-central Anatolian pointed juglet. This type of juglet appears at Alalakh since the 15th century BC.56 They are often associated with hemispherical truncated bowls and small, handmade, miniature votive plates and they were probably used as part of ritual practices.57 Painted Ware is not very common during this phase, it represents only 2.15% of the whole assemblage. Painted motifs mainly include horizontal bands and hatched triangles. Sherds presenting a painted horizontal band decoration generally belong to cups and their aesthetic probably derives from the Khabur Ware.58 Other sherds in Painted Ware retrieved from this phase belong to closed shapes and their decoration presents hatched triangles in dark brown paint (Fig. 7a) or a combination of hatched triangles and a horizontal band in red paint (Fig. 7b). Generally, painted decorative designs from the Late Bronze Age contexts are restricted to geometric motifs, with the occasional occurrence of figurative motifs.59 The majority of motifs includes hatched decoration, hatched triangles, wavy lines and horizontal bands painted in dark brown or red paint on cups, bowls, jars and kraters. Imports recovered in this phase include Aegean LH IIIb, LH IIIa260 and Cypriot White Slip II61 sherds. The presence of two sherds dated to the LH IIIb in 53 Horowitz and Çalkilar 2017: fig. 15.5.4–6. 54 Montesanto and Pucci 2019. 55 Tell Afis (Venturi 2014: pl. 11d), Tell Kazel (Badre and Capet 2014: fig. 9), Ugarit (Monchambert 2004: figs 51–52). 56 Akar 2017. 57 Akar 2017; Yener 2017. 58 Postgate, Oates and Oates 1997. 59 Woolley 1955: 318, pl. XCV. 60 These sherds have been dated by Robert Koehl. 61 These sherds have been dated by Ekin Kozal.

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phase 4 of square 42.10 is working as a terminus post quem for the dating of this phase to the late 14th century or 13th century BC.62 Overall, the pottery assemblage recovered from phase 4 falls in the typical Late Bronze Age II pottery assemblage recovered elsewhere on site63 with the exception of the hole-mouthed cooking pots. Although this type of cooking pot is part of the Late Bronze Age II pottery typology,64 it is rarely found in 14th century BC contexts, where the typical, broad cooking pot is ubiquitous. The hole-mouthed cooking pot generally becomes more popular during the Iron Age I and the Iron Age II.65 However, phase 4 yielded very few broad cooking pots (0.3%), while it seems that the most common cooking pot during the Late Bronze Age II in this square is the hole-mouthed one.

6. The Iron Age pottery The pottery assemblage of phase 3b is very mixed, showing residual fragments typical of the Late Bronze Age II tradition as well as sherds with new attributes that clearly define this phase as belonging to the Iron Age period. Some shapes attested in this phase are typical of the Late Bronze Age II period and are not found in later levels. These are the hemispherical truncated cup (Fig 9r–s), already attested in phase 4 (Fig. 5j), the fusiform jar (Fig. 8a) and the pilgrim flask (Fig. 8b). The fusiform jar was not attested in phase 4 and it is very rare in Atchana’s Late Bronze Age II pottery assemblage.66 This shape is generally connected with the north-central Anatolian tradition67 and associated with the storage or transport of liquids.68 The latest examples of this phase can be dated to the 13th century BC and the type does not continue into the 12th century BC,69 although a fusiform jar has been found in the early Iron Age levels of Tell Tayinat.70 The pilgrim flask has not been recovered in 62 63 64 65 66 67

68 69 70

LH IIIb is generally dated to the 13th century BC (Mountjoy 1986: table 1). Horowitz 2015; in pr. Horowitz 2020. Montesanto and Pucci 2019. Three other complete fusiform jars have been found at Atchana so far: one was found by Woolley in the annex of Temple I (Woolley 1955: type 39, pl. CXI), two come from contexts ascribed to Alalakh Period I, dated to the 14th century BC (Horowitz in pr.). This shape is often recovered in Central Anatolian contexts such as Hattusha (Müller-Karpe 1988: type K2, pl. 3.2; Mielke 2006). This shape appears in northern Syria during the Late Bronze Age II in sites such as Tell Afis (Venturi 2014: pl. 8e), Tell Kazel (Pedrazzi 2007: fig. 3.45 a–b), Emar (Caubet 1982: fig. 31), Tell Sabi Abyad (Duistermaat 2008: figs. IV.89, V.24). Good parallels come also from sites under direct Hittite control such as Tarsus (Goldman 1956: fig. 385.1191), Tille Höyük (Summers 1993: fig. 54.2) and Arslantepe (Manuelli 2013: fig. III.61. BT3A). Mielke 2006; Pucci 2017. Montesanto and Pucci 2019. A fusiform jar has been recovered from Field Phase 6c in Tell Tayinat (Welton et al. 2019), thus showing a persistence of the Late Bronze Age pottery tradition in the first levels of the Iron Age.

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phase 4, although it has been recovered in other contexts dated to the Late Bronze Age at Alalakh.71 This flask has an irregular profile and it can be dated the 14th–13th century BC72 according to parallels found in Emar,73 Tell Afis74 and Kilise Tepe.75 The majority of shapes recovered in phase 3b are flat plates (Fig. 9a, d; 25.9%) and rim bowls (Fig. 9b–c; 27.9%). Other shapes recovered include shallow bowls (Fig. 9p–q; 17%), carinated bowls (Fig.9e, h, i, k, m; 8.2%) and hemispherical flaring bowls (Fig. 8l; 0.4%). Other shapes recovered includes amphoroid kraters (Fig. 9u), hemispherical rounded bowls (Fig. 9n, o), bowls with upper straight rim (Fig. 9f, g), narrow bowls (Fig. 9j), high-necked jars (Fig. 8d, f, g; 1%), globular jars (Fig. 9z, 10c; 1%) and a very few strainers (Fig. 8e; 0.01%). Two types of cooking pots have been recovered: the broad cooking pot (Fig. 9w; 3%), generally associated with the Late Bronze Age II, and the hole-mouthed cooking pot (Fig. 9x; 2%). In phase 3a some shapes tend to disappear from the pottery assemblage: there is no trace of typical Late Bronze Age II shapes such as the hemispherical truncated bowls, the fusiform jars and the pilgrim flasks; however, the broad cooking pot is still present, together with the hole-mouthed cooking pot. Unsurprisingly, the pottery recovered from phase 3a includes flat plates, also in red burnished slip (Fig. 10a–d; 21%), rim bowls (Fig. 10e; 13%), shallow bowls (Fig. 10h; 22%), carinated bowls (Fig. 10i; 1.5%) and hemispherical flaring bowls (Fig. 10j, k; 1.5%). The rest of the assemblage includes bowls with upper straight rim (Fig. 10f, g; 0.3%), deep bowls with S-profile (Fig. 10l; 0.9%), very few pitchers (Fig. 10n), high-necked jars (Fig. 10p–q; 4%), broad cooking pots (5%) and holemouthed cooking pots (Fig. 10o; 2%). Flat plates were already common in the Late Bronze Age II (phase 4) pottery assemblage and continue to be found in Iron Age pottery assemblages.76 Also rim bowls and shallow bowls, which are quite popular during phase 4, continue to be found during the Iron Age.77 Some of the carinated bowls recovered from phase 3 have loop horizontal handles attached haphazardly to the body. The similarities between those found with a handle and the Aegean shallow angular bowls (FS 295) has led to the assumption that this shape 71 Pilgrim flasks have been recovered from contexts dated to Period 2–1 (14th century BC; Horowitz in pr.). 72 Montesanto and Pucci 2019. 73 Caubet 2014: pl. 3m. 74 Venturi 2014: pl. 12e. 75 Bouthillier et al. 2014: fig. 24. 76 Flat plates are found in Iron Age levels from Tell Afis (Venturi 2007: figs 2.15, 13.8–9) and Tell Kazel (Badre and Capet 2014: fig. 7.9). 77 Comparisons for rim bowls dated to this period come from Chatal Höyük (Pucci 2019b); Tell ‘Acharneh (Fortin et al. 2014) and Tell Tayinat (Ünlü 2017: figs 3a, 3d). Comparisons for shallow bowls come from Arslantepe (Manuelli 2013: fig. III.34; Tille Höyük (Blaylock 1999: fig. 2.4), ‘Ain Dara (Stone and Zimansky 1999: fig. 70.130,134), Kilise Tepe (Bouthillier et al. 2014: fig. 46f), Chatal Höyük (Pucci 2013: fig. 2.11–12) and Tell Tayinat (Ünlü 2017: fig. 3b, c).

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is a local imitation of the Aegean shape, although its size and its curvilinear shape make it a local creation, probably derived from Late Bronze Age local shapes.78 The carinated bowl is found in many other sites from Cilicia79 and northern Syria but it is very typical of the ‘Amuq region. Hemispherical flaring bowls are not very common in the pottery assemblage from phase 3. This shape is considered the local imitation of the Aegean Deep Bowl (FS 285) and in the site is not as popular as in northern Syria80 and Cilicia.81 Amphoroid kraters are already found in phase 4 but they are found in phase 3 too (Fig. 9u; 0.3%) and they are also quite popular in Iron Age contexts in northern Syria82 and Cilicia.83 Other kraters recovered from phase 3 includes the krater with low carination (Fig. 9y; 1%), kraters with flanged rim (Fig. 10m; 1%) and a krater with flaring rim and cylindrical body (Fig. 9v). This krater is a unicum in the Iron Age pottery assemblage at Alalakh84 and it is in part similar to the Aegean krater (FS 281). Painted decoration was present during the Late Bronze Age II contexts (phase 4) but it became very popular at the beginning of the Iron Age not only in the ‘Amuq valley but also in Syria and Cilicia.85 Among the painted motifs recorded in the Iron Age at Alalakh there is the hatched motif and the wavy line motif.86 The hatched motif was present at Alalakh already in Late Bronze Age II contexts; the wavy line motif is found on sherds dated to the Late Bronze Age in combination with other motifs, but it is also part of the Mycenaean tradition during the Late Helladic IIIc period87 (Fig. 9l). At Alalakh, during the Iron Age, this motif is found on carinated bowls, considered as a local imitation of an Aegean shape. During the early Iron Age, painted pottery occurs with motifs reflecting local, regional traditions alongside locally made LH IIIc tradition and hybrids made of both. Painted motifs are restricted to geometric decoration, with the most common designs including hatched triangles, wavy lines and horizontal bands in red or dark brown paint. Imports recovered in this phase includes few sherds of Cypriot White Slip II, Cypriot Base Ring II and Mycenaean LH IIIA2.

78 It can be suggested that the carinated bowl with horizontal loop handles haphazardly attached derives from an Aegean shape (FS 295), however, its size and the curvilinear shape of its body makes it a local creation, probably derived from similar, handless shapes, recovered in the Late Bronze Age phase (fig. 3k, l). 79 Tarsus (Goldman 1956: fig. 391.1266), Kinet Höyük (Lehmann 2017: fig. 4.1), Ras Ibn Hani (du Pied 2008: fig. 7g). 80 Tell Afis (Venturi 2007: fig. 56.1), Tell ‘Acharneh (Cooper and Fortin 2006: fig. 15.2–3), Tell Kazel (Badre and Capet 2014: 27e). 81 Tarsus (Goldman 1956: figs 1259, 1265), Kinet Höyük (Lehmann 2017: figs 3.5, 4.3). 82 Tell Afis (Venturi 2007: fig. 60.9–11), Tell Kazel (Badre 2006: fig. 13.2–3), Tell ‘Arqa (Thalmann 2006: pl. 123.8–9), Chatal Höyük (Pucci 2013: fig. 6.12). 83 Tarsus (Goldman 1963: figs 114.33, 115.124, 119.252). 84 Montesanto and Pucci 2019. 85 Montesanto 2020. 86 Ibidem. 87 Mountjoy 1986: figs 116.21, 200.22, 235.14.

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Overall the pottery assemblage recovered from phase 3 shows a strong continuity with the Late Bronze Age II pottery from phase 4. Flat plates, rim bowls and carinated bowls are still very popular. Some shapes, typical of the Late Bronze Age II, such as the fusiform jar, the hemispherical truncated bowl, the cup, the pointed juglet and the pilgrim flask disappear while new other, such as the carinated bowl with horizontal loop handles are introduced for the first time. Differently from phase 4, the broad cooking pot is very popular and used alongside the hole-mouthed cooking pot.

7. Habits and social practices between the Late Bronze Age II and the Iron Age I Aim of this paragraph is to analyse the pottery based on the typological and dimensional characteristics of the assemblage to identify changes in habits and social practices between the Late Bronze Age II and the Iron Age I. Because this analysis is subordinate to the analysis of the archaeological context, it is important to emphasise that the arrangement of the space in square 42.10 modified abruptly from phase 4 (the Late Bronze Age II) to phase 3 (the Iron Age I) changing from a domestic unit to an open area. Preliminary analysis of the pottery retrieved from phases 4 and 3 defines square 42.10 as an area devoted to the production and consumption of food. Pottery retrieved from phase 4 includes a majority of eating and drinking vessels with very few vessels for serving, cooking and storage, while pottery from phase 3 includes a majority of cooking, eating, drinking and serving vessels and very few storage vessels.

7.1 Drinking traditions Late Bronze Age II vessels used for direct drinking include hemispherical truncated bowls, hemispherical rounded bowls and cups. These vessels can be divided in three sizes according to their average range of diameter and size: 1) a smaller size including hemispherical truncated bowls and hemispherical rounded bowls up to 10 cm and with a volume of ca. 0.10 l; 2) hemispherical rounded bowls with an average rim diameter of ca. 12–16 cm and a volume of ca. 0.20–0.40 l and cups with an average rim diameter of ca. 10–18 cm and a volume of ca. 0.30–0.40 l; 3) hemispherical rounded bowls with an average rime diameter of ca. 18–20 cm and a volume of ca. 0.50 l. During the Iron Age, the cups are no longer in use while the carinated bowl is introduced in the direct drinking assemblage. The size of this vessels is of ca. 0.20 l. All these shapes are intended to be single sized drinking vessels. They generally have a shallow, rounded, hemispherical or conical body; they can be easily held in one hand and they have a rim shape that facilitates the direct access to the drink.

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7.2 Dining traditions Shallow Bowls and Rim Bowls with thickened internal and thickened external rims and an average rim diameter of 20–24 cm were probably used for food consumption. Their size suggest they were used as single portion vessels. A larger version of the shallow bowls (average rim diameter of ca. 26–30 cm) were probably used as multiple portion bowls. Large flat plates are also very common, possibly suggesting that they were used for dry, multiple serving or eating. These shapes continue to be used during the Iron Age. Single portion bowls are very popular during the Late Bronze and the Iron Age, large sized plates decrease during the Iron Age, where it can be noted a preference for single portion vessels for food consumption.

7.3 Storage traditions Very little can be said on storage vessels as the number of sherds belonging to this category is very fragmentary. Vessels used for liquid storage includes highnecked jars, globular jars, pilgrim flask and the fusiform jar. These vessels have a small opening size and a neck in order to facilitate pouring and to avoid spillage. They vary in size and volume (high-necked jars could contain up to ca. 13 l; globular jars ca. 3 l; pilgrim flask and fusiform jars ca. 32 l.). The finding of the fusiform jars and the pilgrim flasks in phase 3 might suggest that they were not popular items in the Late Bronze Age pottery assemblage and that people preferred to store liquids in high-necked jars and globular jars. Dry storage was practiced in phases 4 and 3 but it was not one of the main functions of the area.

7.4 Serving and mixing traditions Kraters in phase 4 are not very common and not varied in shape. Only very few amphoroid kraters have been recovered so far in phase 4, by contrast, kraters in phase 3 are extremely varied in shape,88 however, the morphological difference between the shapes did not affect the way the vessels were handled. Once filled with liquids, these vessels would have weighted between 30 kg and 10 kg89 and therefore it would have been difficult to lift them and to pour out their content. Furthermore, it is possible to suggest that the liquid was taken out the krater by using a metal straw or a smaller bowl. The presence of a metal straws in both phase 4 and phase 3 suggests that people drank directly from the krater. However, considering the average rim size of the kraters recovered in phases 4 and 3 (between ca. 30–40 cm) and the average size of the small bowls (12–16 cm), it is possible to suggest that these were used to take the liquid out of the krater and to 88 Montesanto and Pucci 2019. 89 Ibidem.

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drink directly out of them.90 Pitchers with a trefoil rim are extremely rare in both phases.

7.5 Cooking traditions Cooking preparation varies from phase 4 to phase 3. During phase 4, only one type of pot in one size is employed, while during phase 3 two types and two sizes of cooking pots have been recovered. In phase 4 cooking activities were performed by using the hole-mouthed cooking pot. This type of vessel has an average rim diameter of 20–24 cm and a volume of ca. 6–8 l and it could have been used to cook food with high liquid contents such as stew, porridges, broth and legumes. During phase 3, the hole-mouthed cooking pot is used together with the broad cooking pot. Broad cooking pots have an average rim diameter of 25–35 cm and a volume of ca. 10 to 28 l, and they were usually meant to cook dishes that required frequent stirring. This means that people at Alalakh used two different ways of cooking. Broad cooking pots, with their wide opening, were used suspended over the fire and were used mainly for rapid, high-temperature cooking (boiling) and therefore could have been used to cook soups and similar dishes. Hole-mouthed cooking pots, with their narrow opening, were placed next to the fire and they were meant for slow, low-heat cooking (simmering) of liquid dishes.91 Therefore, the adoption of a narrower cooking pot and the gradual reduction of cooking vessels with a rounded base might be related to a change in the types of foods cooked, changing from a predominantly consumption of food to a preference of more concentrated stews. Furthermore, the differences in size and volume may show a different strategy used when cooking a meal for a bigger or a smaller household. The size of cooking vessels is related to the quantity of food and thus to the number of people for whom the food is prepared. Therefore, cooking pot’s capacity might be related to the contexts in which the consumption of food took place. Cooking vessels and serving vessels can be used as indicators of the consumer group.92 Kraters, although not common during phase 4, increase in numbers and variety during phase 3.93 Therefore, changes in cooking and serving vessels might reflect a change in the size of the consumer group shifting from a household to an increasing participation in communal activities.94 In turn, this change might reflect a shift in the spatial organisation of the square. During phase 4, where the space was occupied by a smaller, domestic unit, there is evidence for the use of smaller cooking vessels i.e. the hole-mouthed cooking pots); in phase 3, where the space 90 91 92 93

Pucci 2019a. Killebrew 1999: 107. Shapiro 1984: 706. Kraters increase from 1.12% in phase 4 to 2.63% in phase 3. Furthermore, while in phase 4 only the amphoroid krater is attested, during phase 3 are extremely varied in shape. 94 Mills 1999: 113.

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was occupied by an open space, the majority of cooking pots recovered are the larger, broad cooking vessels. This evidence might suggest that the change in the use of cooking vessels was linked to the number of people involved and possibly to the change in the spatial organisation of square 42.10.

8. Conclusion Although Tell Atchana was considerably reduced in size already during the 13th century BC, the site was not destroyed as previously imagined and it was re-occupied around the mid-12th century BC after a brief period of abandonment. Thus, it offers an ideal scenario to analyse the processes of continuity and change in the material culture assemblage. The site functioned as a pivotal control gateway and as a border zone between Anatolia, Mesopotamia and northern Syria. Because of its position, it was exposed to the introduction of external influences that often played a crucial role in modifying cultural habits and behaviours. At the same time, the presence of an uninterrupted sequence of occupation between the Late Bronze Age II and the Iron Age offers the opportunity to analyse aspects of changes and continuity over time. The transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the northern Levant has not been well understood and only recently it has been subject to a range of different interpretations. Recent analysis of the material culture concluded that continuity and change coexist and define this period as an age of transformations.95 Although the results presented in this paper are coming from the analysis of a very small area, they highlight the low rate of change and the striking continuity in the pottery assemblage from the Late Bronze Age II to the Iron Age I.96 Shapes connected with specific regions or with specific functions such as the fusiform jar, the pointed juglet and the hemispherical truncated bowls were abandoned during the Iron Age, on the other hand, at the same time the pottery assemblage shows a strong continuity with the Late Bronze Age tradition. Cups at Alalakh were found since the end of the Middle Bronze Age (Period 7),97 however they become very common from the early Late Bronze Age (Period 6) onwards, maybe as a result of a foreign influence from the Mitanni area.98 This shape is completely abandoned at the beginning of the Iron Age. During this period, there is the introduction of two new shapes, the carinated bowl and the hemispherical bowl, probably as the result of the local imitation of two foreign shapes (FS 295 and FS 285). However, despite the change witnessed in the urban occupation and in the space organisation during the transition, habits connected with daily functions are strongly related to the Late Bronze Age traditions. Although the general 95 96 97 98

Killebrew 2014; Manuelli 2018. Montesanto and Pucci 2019; Pucci 2019b; Horowitz 2020. Woolley 1955: pl. CIII,g; Horowitz 2015: 170. Horowitz in pr.

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function of the square, i.e. food production and consumption, did not change, it is possible to suggest that there was a change in the way the space was used for. The contextual and functional analysis of phase 4 suggests that the square was used to consume food and to prepare food for a smaller number of people, probably within a domestic context. The analysis of phase 3 suggests that the area was still used to consume and to prepare food although very little architecture has been found. Given the importance that the temple of Alalakh had in the past and the presence of philological evidence supporting the existing of ritual activities during the last part of the 13th century BC,99 it may be suggested that some sort of activities were carried out in square 42.10, an area located in close vicinity with the temple or the temple’s ruins. To sum up, the analysis of the pottery dated from the Late Bronze Age II to the Iron Age I confirms that only a very small area of Alalakh, i.e. the Temple area, was occupied during the 13th century BC. Based on the omission of Alalakh or Mukish from the list of allies recorded at the battle of Kadesh,100 it seems that Alalakh was no longer the capital city of a vassal state and it was probably directly annexed as a province.101 The few and limited activities recorded in square 42.10 and the new dating proposed for the Temple Ic and for Temple 0102 suggest that the city acropolis was still used as the centre of the important cult of Ishtar,103 while the few textual references dated to the late 13th century and referring to the “City of Mukish” or to “Mukish”104 would then refer not to Alalakh but to a newly created administrative centre located nearby like Tell Taiynat105 or some other site located nearby. The earliest occupation during the Iron Age (mid-12th century BC) in the acropolis suggests that the area of the Temple was still in use, and that the occupation of the mound was reduced, thus confirming the hypothesis of the shift of the settlement to Tell Tayinat during the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age.106

99 Singer 2017; Gurney 1953; Yener 2017; Yener et al. 2020. 100 Beckman 1999: 90–95. 101 Yener et al. 2020. 102 Woolley 1955; Yener 2000. Temple Ib contained several objects that can be dated to the 13th century, thus indicating that the temple was still in use at this time (Woolley 1955: 89; Yener et al. 2020: 332). 103 Yener 2013. 104 Singer 2017. 105 Welton et al. 2019. 106 Mazzoni 1997; Montesanto and Pucci 2019; Yener et al. 2020.

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42.10 Phase Phase 4a Phase 4b Phase 3b Phase 3a

0

Amuq Phase M

Century 13th century

N

Mid-12th century

Table 1 Chronological table.

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Late Bronze Age Ceramics from Emar, in M. Luciani and A. Hausleiter (eds), Recent Trends in the Study of Late Bronze Age Ceramics in Syro-Mesopotamia and Neighbouring Regions. Proceedings of the International Workshop in Berlin, 2–5 November 2006, Berlin: 71–84. Cooper, L. and Fortin, M. 2006 The Pottery from Tell ‘Acharneh, Part 1: Typological Considerations and Dating According to Excavated Areas in the Upper and Lower Towns, 1998–2002, in M. Fortin (ed.), Tell ‘Acharneh 1998–2004, Turnhout: 140–190. Courtois, J.C. 1969 Le matériel céramique de la tombe 4253 du Bronze Récent à Ugarit, in C.F.A. Schaeffer (ed.), Ugaritica. VI, publié à l’occasion de la XXXe campagne de fouilles à Ras Shamra (1968), Paris: 121–138. Demirci, Ö. 2016 The Relationship between Tell Atchana (Ancient Alalakh) and Tell Tayinat (Ancient Kunulua): A Case Study of Platters from the Late Bronze Age to Iron II/III, MA Diss., Koç Univeristy. Duistermaat, K. 2008 The Pots and Potters of Assyria: Technology and Organisation of Production, Ceramic Sequence and Vessel Function at Late Bronze Age, Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria, Turnhout. Fink, A. 2010 Late Bronze Age Tell Atchana (Alalakh): Stratigraphy, Chronology, History, Oxford. Fortin, M., Cooper, L. and Boileau, M.C. 2014 Rapport préliminaire et études céramologiques sur les campagnes de fouilles 2009 et 2010 à Tell ‘Acharneh, vallée du Ghab, Syrie, Syria 91: 173– 220. Gates, M-H. 1981 Alalakh Levels VI and V: A Chronological Reassessment, Syro-Mesopotamian Studies 4/2: 11–50. Glatz, C. 2009 Empire as Network: Spheres of Material Interaction in Late Bronze Age Anatolia, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28: 127–141. Goldman, H. 1956 Excavations at Gözlü Kule, Tarsus. Vol. 2, From the Neolithic Through the Bronze Age, Princeton. Goldman, H. (ed.) 1963 Excavations at Gözlü Kule, Tarsus. 3 The Iron Age, Princeton. Gurney, O.R. 1953 Hittite Incantation, in D.J. Wiseman (ed), The Alalakh Tablets, London: 116–118. Harrison, T.P. 2009 Neo-Hittites in the “Land of Palistin”: Renewed Excavations at Tell Tayinat on the Plain of Antioch, Near Eastern Archaeology 72: 174–189. 2010 The Late Bronze/Early Iron Age Transition in the North Orontes Valley, in F. Venturi (ed.), Societies in Transition. Evolutionary Processes in the Northern Levant between Late Bronze Age II and Early Iron Age. Papers Presented on the Occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the New Excavations in Tell Afis. Bologna, 15th November 2007, Bologna: 83–102. 2013 Tayinat in the Early Iron Age, in K.A. Yener (ed.), Across the Border: Late Bronze–Iron Age relations between Syria and Anatolia. Proceedings of a Symposium held at the Research Center for Anatolian Studies, Koç University, Istanbul May 31–June 1, 2010 (ANES Suppl. Series 42), Leuven: 89–112.

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Yener, K.A., Peker, H. and Dinçol, B. 2014 Prince Tuthaliya and Princess Ašnuhepa, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 14: 136–138. Zuckermann, S. 2015 Conspicuous Consumption of Inconspicuous Pottery: The Case of the Late Bronze Age Southern Levant, in C. Glatz (ed.), Plain Pottery Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East: Production, Use, and Social Significance, Walnut Creek, CA: 135–152.

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Fig. 1. Location of Alalakh/Tell Atchana (© Alalakh Excavation Project).

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Fig. 2. Location of square 42.10 (© Alalakh Excavation Project).

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Lost in Transition: The Late Bronze–Iron Age Pottery in Tell Atchana

Fig. 3. 42.10, local phase 4a–b (© Alalakh Excavation Project).

Fig. 4. 42.10, local phase 3a–b (© Alalakh Excavation Project).

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Fig. 5. Phase 4a pottery assemblage (© Alalakh Excavation Project).

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Lost in Transition: The Late Bronze–Iron Age Pottery in Tell Atchana

Fig. 6. Phase 4b pottery assemblage (© Alalakh Excavation Project).

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Fig. 7. Phase 4 painted ware (©Alalakh Excavation Project).

Fig. 8. Phase 3b pottery assemblage (© Alalakh Excavation Project).

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Lost in Transition: The Late Bronze–Iron Age Pottery in Tell Atchana

Fig. 9. Phase 3b pottery assemblage (© Alalakh Excavation Project).

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Fig. 10. Phase 3a pottery assemblage (© Alalakh Excavation Project).

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SUZANNE DIBO

UMR 5133 Archéorient. Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien – Université de Lyon 2; Université de Damas

Nouvelles réflexions sur la question du Bît-Hilâni à travers les données du Bâtiment I à Hama

Bît-Hilâni est un type architectural qui apparaît au Levant et en particulier en Syrie du Nord et au Sud Est de la Turquie dès la fin du IIe millénaire av. J.-C. Les Araméens et les Hittites ont fondé leurs édifices monumentaux selon le plan du Bît-Hilâni qui semble être très convoité par les Assyriens, qui eux aussi l’ont adopté dans leurs constructions palatiales. Ce plan, traditionnellement associé à l’architecture palatiale, semble également répondre à d’autres fonctions car d’autres types d’architecture publique ont été qualifiés comme Bît-Hilâni. En outre, le niveau E de la citadelle de Hama, datant du Ie millénaire, a livré des édifices monumentaux dont certains s’apparentent à cette forme architecturale. A travers les données du bâtiment I au sud-est de la citadelle, il est avéré que ce modèle a été adapté pour construire le portail monumental de la citadelle durant la dernière phase du niveau E.

1. Bît-Hilâni: terme et concept Bît-Hilâni est un modèle architectural qui caractérise l’architecture de la région de Syrie du Nord durant l’âge du Fer. Le terme de Bît-Hilâni est apparu pour la première fois dans les annales royales néo-assyriennes de Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 av. J.-C.) puis de ses successeurs jusqu’au règne d’Assurbanipal (668–627 av. J.-C.). Les inscriptions de Tiglath-Pileser III mentionnent que le roi a construit un Bît-Hilâni “Tamšil ekal māt Hatti”, traduit comme “une réplique d’un palais du pays de Hatti”1. Les assyriens emploient l’expression de bῑt appāti signifiant “maison à fenêtre” comme synonyme de Bît-Hilâni2. Dans les inscriptions de Sargon II, il est fait mention que le roi a édifié “bit appâti tamšil êkalli mât Ḫatti ša ina lišȃіn mȃt Amurri bít hilanni išassu-šu” “un portique, modelé sur un palais hittite appelé bît hilâni en langue amorrhéenne, j’ai construit en face des portes”3. Il est à noter que dans les annales de ce dernier roi, le terme Amurru est fréquent et le pays de Hatti paraît comme faisant partie d’Amurru4. La terminologie de Bît-Hilâni est composé de deux mots, le premier signifiant maison, palais ou temple5, alors que le second terme désigne un portique dans une maison (du dieu ou du roi)6. 1 Osborne 2012: 31–32. 2 Dhorme 1931: 179. 3 Ouellette 1969: 368. 4 Ibidem. 5 Black et al. 2000: 46. 6 Ibidem: 115.

Studia Eblaitica 6 (2020), pp. 89–110

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Malgré ces informations parcellaires, il est encore difficile de donner une définition claire et précise de ce bâtiment. Il faut se tourner vers la documentation existante par la mise au jour des vestiges de plusieurs Hilâni en Syrie pour parfaire une vision plus précise de se recouvre cette architecture. Le premier d’entre eux, le palais de Tell Halaf (Fig. 1A–B) est considéré par les archéologues comme un modèle exemplaire pour définir les caractéristiques du Bît-Hilâni7. C’est un bâtiment à plan rectangulaire qui se particularise par une large entrée précédée dans certains cas par un escalier à plusieurs marches et flanquée, le plus souvent, de deux avancées de mur pouvant former des tours. Le perron conçu comme un portique était soutenu par des colonnes de nombre variable, dont les fûts en bois reposent sur des bases de pierre ; la base des colonnes est en forme d’animaux colossaux8. Dans le cas de Tell Halaf, les fûts ont été remplacé par des sculptures de divinité9 portant le portique. On retrouve ce type dans un exemple au palais de Kapara, le fils de Hadianu (Fig. 2). Les façades extérieures, et parfois intérieures, étaient ornées par des orthostates monumentaux présentant des scènes narratives royale et divine. De grandes lions, sculptés en reliefs ou en ronde bosse, protégeaient les entrées de ces édifices10. Il est à noter qu’en Syrie les édifices palatiaux qui intègrent la structure du Bît-Hilâni ont des dimensions modestes11 et présentent une organisation interne moins complexe que celle des palais de l’âge du Bronze ancien et moyen au Levant et en Mésopotamie. Ils sont généralement composés de deux salles barlongues disposées l’une derrière l’autre dans un sens transversal et parallèle à la façade d’entrée. Il se peut que l’une des chambres soit divisée pour contenir des cages d’escaliers ou des pièces de services12. Une division tripartite a été également attestée dans plusieurs constructions de ce type, tel que dans le palais du Tell Fakhariya, sondage IX13 (Fig. 3). Compte tenu des caractéristiques des différents exemples de ce modèle architectural, ces descriptions sont très restrictives et seule la structure du palais répond à cette définition14. Il faut tenir compte des considérations terminologiques donnant une définition précise de Bît-Hilâni: une maison à fenêtre ou un portique sans aucune indication aux éléments cités auparavant. A savoir que la maison peut-être celle d’un roi, d’un dieu ou d’un individu. Il est donc imprudent de limiter la définition de Bît-Hilâni aux palais dont la plupart rassemblent les éléments précédents. 7 von Oppenheim 1932. 8 Contenau 1939: 212. 9 Cholidis 2014: 95. 10 von Oppenheim 1933; pour plus de détail voir Orthmann 2002: 33–38. 11 Pour plus de détail sur les dimensions des palais cf. Margueron 1979: 172. 12 Frankfort 1952; 1970: 282–285. 13 McEwan et al. 1958: pl. 9; Pruss et Baghdo 2005: 337. 14 Pour d’autres définitions voir Tubb 2014: 135.

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En outre, dans le pays d’Assur, la définition de Bît-Hilâni ne prend pas en considération l’ensemble des critères cités ci-dessus, mais plutôt la structure de portique. Les textes des rois néo-assyriens mentionnent le terme bῑt appāti, qui est une reproduction d’un palais Nord-Syrien nommé Bît-Hilâni par les Amorrites, pour désigner un portique (entrée à colonnades) dans leurs palais royaux15, sans préciser son emplacement à l’intérieur ou à l’extérieur du bâtiment16. Il s’agit de l’un des caractéristiques propres de ce type de constructions en Assyrie, mais les architectes ont élargi son emploi en créant des formes nouvelles à l’étage supérieur notamment la loggia qui surplombait les jardins17. Ainsi, sa présence dans les palais représente la version assyrienne du Bît-Hilâni en Mésopotamie. Cela indique que ce terme est flexible et peut être valable pour une variété de constructions. Enfin, appliquer le terme sur le plan architectural fait surgir l’importance de la présence des colonnes devant l’entrée. Nous pouvons donc conclure que la définition de Bît-Hilâni peut-être principalement mise en rapport avec le portique situé devant la porte d’entrée. Il est intéressant de noter que cette particularité a été observée dans d’autres types d’édifices qui ne sont pas des palais. Cette observation évoque la question de la fonction du Bît-Hilâni, un point sur lequel nous reviendrons plus loin. L’origine du Bît-Hilâni reste une question controversée18. L’hypothèse de son origine Hittite s’appuie sur les textes des rois assyriens qui mentionnent la construction d’un palais qui est une réplique du palais Hittite dans le pays de Hatti, nommé Bît-Hilâni par les Amorrites. Mais à l’époque, le pays des Hittites pour les Assyriens désignait les territoires de la Syrie du Nord. En outre, il est mentionné que le Bît-Hilâni est un terme utilisé par les gens du pays d’Amurru19. Ce dernier était habité par les populations sémitiques avant qu’il ne soit envahi par les Hittites. Ainsi ce plan est certainement propre à l’architecture en Syrie. C’est probablement sur ces territoires qu’il faut chercher ses origines. Il est nécessaire, à ce stade de la réflexion, de citer le cas d’Ebla. Ses données sont d’une valeur importante et témoignent de l’origine locale de cette conception architecturale. L’intérêt tout à fait particulier de son architecture palatiale consiste dans la constatation que deux de ses palais, le Palais Royal G (IIIe millénaire av. J.-C.) (Fig. 4) et le Palais Occidental (IIe millénaire) présentent des portiques et des colonnades devant l’accès au Palais G et dans les salles intérieures ainsi que dans le quartier d’audience du Palais Occidentale20. Ce 15 Douglas 2010: 78. 16 Pour une étude détaillée de Bît-Hilâni en tant qu’élément de décoration interne voir Kertai 2017. 17 Meissner 1942: 259; cf. Dibo 2018; sous presse. 18 Pour plus d’information cf. Frankfort 1952. 19 Ouellette 1969. 20 Matthiae 1983; 2002; Matthiae et al. 1995.

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dernier comporte aussi des orthostates couvrant ses murs21, un élément qui caractérise postérieurement les Hilâni de l’époque du Ie millénaire av. J.-C. Selon la définition donnée ci-dessus de Bît-Hilâni, il pourrait s’agir du prototype de ce modèle architecture. A partir du 10e siècle av. J.-C., il a développé ses caractéristiques des traditions anciennes préexistantes dans la région22 en reformulant un nouveau modèle qui s’adapte aux besoins du pouvoir politique dominé par les Araméens, d’où certains chercheurs l’on considéré comme un plan typique de l’architecture araméenne23. Il est adopté comme un marqueur d’identité culturel de la population araméenne en Syrie. Cela peut être clairement observé à Tell Fakhariyah ; des Araméens et des Assyriens ont coexisté dans la ville et ont laissé des traditions culturelles distinctes, avec une architecture du Bît-Hilâni (sondage IX) qui illustre la volonté des habitants araméens de se différencier des Assyriens24. Durant le Ie millénaire av. J.-C., Bît-Hilâni s’est largement répandu dans tout le Levant et en Mésopotamie. Enfin, ce type d’architecture favorise l’extension en hauteur à en juger par les dimensions modestes de la majorité des édifices ainsi que les escaliers menant à un étage supérieur. Un exemple correspondant à cette description a été découvert dans l’édifice du Kapara à Tell Halaf25 (Fig. 1a–b) qui est le prototype du BîtHilâni à l’époque araméenne. Dans d’autres exemples, un second bâtiment semblable a été érigé à proximité de celui principal lorsque ce dernier s’est révélé trop petit pour répondre aux différents besoins comme à Sam’al/Zencirli (Upper Palace)26. Pour terminer, l’accent doit être porté sur le fait que la structure fondamentale du Bît-Hilâni a été mise en rapport avec plusieurs types d’édifices. Dès lors, nous devons nous interroger sur la ou les fonctions majeures de ce type de constructions.

2. La fonction ue Bît-Hilâni La fonction du Bît-Hilâni reste un sujet à discussion. Le plus ancien exemple structurel de ce type ayant été découvert dans l’architecture palatiale, les premières hypothèses ont communément admis que ce type de construction est associé aux palais dont de nombreux exemples ont été mis au jour à Tell Halaf, Tell Tayinat, Sam’al/Zencirli, Dur-Katlimmu (Tell Sheikh Hamad) et Tell Sheikh Hassan27. 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Matthiae 2002: 559–560. Khayata 1999: 125. Berlejung 2014: 357; Sader 2010: 294; Tubb 2014: 135. Szuchman 2007: 70. Orthmann 2002. Frankfort 1952: 121. Novák 2004.

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Mais, la relation entre la désignation, déjà évoquée, du terme Bît-Hilâni et la fréquence de l’élément du portique dans une variété de bâtiments nous amène à mettre en question la théorie précédente qui privilège les palais pour ce type de construction. En outre, dans les inscriptions assyriennes, l’accent est mis sur le vestibule à colonnes construit, le plus souvent, “devant les portes”28. Certains y ont identifié une fonction religieuse, assimilant, par exemple, le Main Temple (area B) à Karkemish29 et le temple d’‘Ain Dara30 au Bît-Hilâni. Ces deux temples ayant un plan à antes associé à des colonnes à l’entrée, partagent des traits communs avec le Hilâni et l’on peut penser qu’il s’agit d’une version hybride qui regroupe des éléments des deux plans. On y ajoute également l’utilisation des orthostates ornés qui sont un élément architectural récurrent dans les édifices de Hilâni. Ils recouvrent généralement les façades extérieures comme à ‘Ain Dara31 (Fig. 5) et Tell Halaf32 (Fig. 2). Il est intéressant de rappeler qu’un temple à porche a été aussi repéré à Ebla avec deux colonnes. Ce dernier, appelé le Temple Rouge (Temple D2) grâce à la couleur rougeâtre foncée des briques crues de sa maçonnerie, est situé dans l’aire D à l’ouest de l’acropole. Son vestibule est muni de deux bases de colonne en calcaire33 qui ont été trouvées in situ. Il remonte à l’époque des Archives du Bronze Ancien IVA (2400–2300 av. J.-C.)34 constituant ainsi l’un des plus anciens exemples des temples syriens à portiques dans la région. D’ailleurs, la fonction administrative et résidentielle du Hilâni n’a pas été exclue. Deux édifices à Til Barsip (Area E) ont été interprétés comme un ensemble administratif intégrant un logement et une salle d’audience35. La présence de l’aspect portique et de deux salles transversales derrière a été mise en avant pour qualifier l’édifice comme Bît-Hilâni. Notons que l’apparence médiocre de cet ensemble architectural et la modeste qualité des briques de sa maçonnerie n’ont pas gêné certains chercheurs d’apparenter cet édifice à la catégorie du Bît-Hilâni dont le caractère prestigieux lui était associé36. Bien que les dimensions des salles principales37 de ce bâtiment soient modestes, elles se rapprochent de celles recensées pour la salle principale des plus petits Bît-Hilâni38. C’est pourquoi Gillmann tend à considérer cet édifice un Bît-Hilâni à fonction résidentielle intégrant une dimen28 Ouellette 1969: 373. 29 Marchetti 2016: 378–382, 399, fig. 14. 30 Cf. Abu Assaf 1993. 31 Ibidem. 32 Oppenheim 1933. 33 Cf. Matthiae 2009: 767–768, figs 15–16. 34 Ibidem: 766. 35 Gillmann 2011. 36 Ibidem: figs 8, 14. 37 Les dimensions de la salle 2 (8,20 et 8,70 m de long et de 2,1 à 2,9 m de large). La salle 3 (7,40 et 8 m de longueur et de 3,1 à 3,3 m de largeur). Gillmann 2011: 10. 38 Margueron 1979.

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sion officielle par la présence d’une mosaïque de galets devant l’entrée des deux bâtiments juxtaposés. Selon lui, un dignitaire démurant au Bît-Hilâni exerçait ses fonctions officielles dans la salle de réception située à proximité de son domicile39. Dans ces conditions et si ces interprétations sont correctes, on peut avancer que le plan du Bît-Hilâni n’était pas délimité à une fonction précise même si la majorité des contextes dans lesquels il a été retrouvé sont des palais. En outre, l’étude architecturale des données de fouilles provenant de Hama a permis de déceler dans certains bâtiments des éléments caractéristiques qui pourraient être mis en parallèle avec le Bît-Hilâni. Dès lors, on se demande s’il ne faut pas relier le portail monumental du Bâtiment I au vestibule qui apparait sous la forme de Bît-Hilâni faisant usage de passage aux zones officielles (la citadelle) de la ville. En effet, les grands projets de fondation et de reconstruction des villes et de ses édifices prestigieux sont parmi les œuvres citées dans les inscriptions des différents rois. Ces derniers se vantaient d’avoir construit des portails urbains des villes qui sont sous la protection des divinités tutélaires comme en témoignent les vestiges archéologiques. Tout comme les bâtiments religieux et royaux, les portes monumentales sont des œuvres architecturales assez importantes. Elles ne sont pas de simples passages aux villes, mais ont joué plusieurs fonctions qu’il n’est pas question de développer ici. Cela permet autant de comprendre les aspects majestueux qu’ils présentent en commun avec les constructions du Bît-Hilâni, que leur importance se révèle à travers les textes. La description et l’analyse des particularités des vestiges architecturaux du Bâtiment I à Hama plaident en faveur de sa classification et en font un exemple typique dans la catégorie du Bît-Hilâni.

3. Le cas du Bâtiment I à Hama L’ancienne ville de Hama (Hamath) se situe dans la région centrale de la Syrie actuelle en bordure du fleuve de l’Oronte (Fig. 6). Les anciennes ruines de la capitale de l’Oronte ont été repérées sur la citadelle qui contient les vestiges de cinq édifices regroupés autour d’une place centrale, nommés, d’après le fouilleur, I, II, III, IV et V. Les fouilles ont mis en évidence douze niveaux archéologiques désignés A–M. Ils sont mal conservés en raison de l’utilisation de la colline comme carrière pour longtemps après son abandon40. Le niveau E auquel appartient le Bâtiment I est le plus riche et couvre une période qui s’étend de 950 à 720 av. J.-C., période qui s’est terminée par une destruction militaire de la citadelle par le roi assyrien Sargon II41, à en juger par les épaisses couches d’incendie qui couvraient les bâtiments.

39 Cf. Gillmann 2011: 3, fig. 1. 40 Fugmann 1958: 126–127. 41 Ibidem: 278.

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Le Bâtiment I est situé à proximité du versant sud-est de la citadelle42. Il est construit en brique crue carrée de taille presque uniforme43 et présente quelques anomalies qui pourraient être lié à la présence de plusieurs phases de reconstructions comme le montre la réutilisation des orthostates et le niveau tardif de la tour méridionale. Son plan (Figs 7–8) est composé d’une entrée monumentale en forme de portique (F), reliée à un vestibule, E, bordé par trois pièces, A, B et C, sur son côté sud-ouest et au moins deux pièces, D et G, du côté nord44. L’entrée principale du bâtiment était précédée par des marches d’escalier en basalte et en calcaire. Ce dernier était flanqué de tours massives en briques au Nord et au Sud dont le fouilleur en restitue quatre dans l’état final de l’édifice, réaménagées à plusieurs reprises45. La façade du bâtiment46 était recouverte en deux rangées d’orthostates en calcaire grise et basalte. Les orthostates angulaires qui flanquaient l’escalier de l’entrée étaient en forme de lion représenté de profil. Les lions sont sculptés en bas-reliefs (pour le corps) et en ronde bosse (pour la tête) (Fig. 9). L’accès au bâtiment (porche F), dont la largeur est de 9,90 m, est doté de deux colonnes sur des bases de basalte circulaire. Les parties inférieures des parois de cette pièce d’entrée étaient recouvertes par deux rangées d’orthostates de basalte, alors que celles supérieures étaient munies d’un revêtement en poutres de bois47. Les amas de bois carbonisés retrouvés in situ dans cette pièce auraient été sans doute utilisés pour le revêtement, la couverture du toit et les colonnes supportant le portique. Cet espace d’entrée était aménagé d’une plateforme enduite de chaux adossée contre son mur nord (2,45 x 4,90 m). Il est relié au vestibule E par un accès large de 4,95 m environ et contrôlé par deux battants à en juger par les traces des crapaudines retrouvées in situ. Les marches de l’escalier principal traversaient tout le bâtiment en passant par ce vestibule E (longue de 11,50 m) avant de se dévier légèrement vers le Nord-Est pour donner accès à la cour. Ce passage, apparemment officiel, était décoré à l’instar de la pièce précédente par deux orthostates corniers, sculptés en forme de lion ayant un corps exécuté en bas-relief et une tête et des pâtes en ronde bosse (Fig. 9)48. Les murs étaient également revêtus de dalles en pierre que l’on peut suivre jusqu’aux façades extérieures de l’escalier situé au 42 43 44 45

Il est situé dans les carrées O16–17–18/P 16–17. Excepté certaines briques de forme rectangulaire (0,35 x 0,35 m, 0,36 x 0,36 m, 0,36 x 0,55 m). Fugmann 1958: 152–153. La présence d’une rupture nette sur une distance de 5,50 m environ dans l’alignement de la façade orientale de l’édifice montre clairement différentes phases de construction. Ibidem: 158. 46 La longueur de la façade mesure 15,50 m de chaque côté d’entrée qui mesure, elle aussi 9, 90 m de large. 47 Ce procédé de construction est connu au palais d’Alalakh niveau IV, Tell Tayinat, Sam’al et Tell Halaf. Fugmann 1958: 160. 48 Ibidem: 163–164.

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côté ouest du vestibule. Ils étaient bordés de banquettes plâtrées de 6,20 m de longueur et 0,50 m de largeur. L’extrémité ouest de cet escalier donnant sur la place était protégée par deux blocs en basalte. Parallèlement à l’entrée principale (Est), son accès occidental pourrait être doté de deux colonnes à en juger par les restes d’un socle plâtré sur son côté sud. Respectivement, deux ailes latérales s’organisent de part et d’autre du vestibule E (Fig. 8). De celle du nord ne persiste que la pièce D, des restes de G et quelques assises en pierre avec un gros bloc en basalte appartenant au revêtement de la façade latérale. L’aile sud est composée de trois pièces, A, B et C. On y accède par une rampe d’escalier menant à la pièce A dont l’entrée (large de 3,15 m) était condamnée par deux battants. Sa façade extérieure, ainsi que ses murs intérieurs, était recouvert d’orthostates en basalte. Un escalier de deux volets menant à l’étage a été restitué à l’ouest de la pièce A et au-dessus de la pièce B où passait la deuxième volée (Fig. 7). Les marches d’escalier sont construites en briques recouvertes de crépi. Un accès dans son mur oriental mène à la pièce C, la plus grande du bâtiment avec des dimensions de 6,65 x 14,40 m. Il s’agit d’une salle à piliers soigneusement aménagée, son sol est recouvert en crépi de chaux et conserve in situ les vestiges de cinq bases de colonnes en bois. Quatre de ces bases en pierre sont presque en position centrale et placées à un intervalle moyen de 2,35 m environ. Ces piliers ont joué un rôle technique et structurel, leur disposition a permis de couvrir la totalité de la pièce et de supporter le poids d’un niveau supérieur. Toujours dans le souci de supporter l’énorme charge de l’étage situé au-dessus de la partie septentrionale, des dispositifs de renforcement ont été mis en place49. Ainsi, l’épaisseur des bases des murs a été augmentée par une rangée de brique qui longeait le mur nord et des bases des colonnes supplémentaires auraient été aménagées dans le sol50. Cette salle est connectée avec la pièce B partiellement détruite, son niveau du sol est plus élevé de 0,60 m. Cet espace situé sous l’escalier menant à l’étage pourrait être utilisé, d’après les trouvailles (3 coupes à pied en basalte et une jarre à deux anses), pour arranger certains objets. Très probablement, les gardes de la garnison de la citadelle s’installaient dans la pièce C51. De l’autre côté du vestibule E et de l’entrée principale F s’étend l’aile nord du bâtiment (Fig. 7), composée des pièces D (6,60 x 4,40 m) et G, cette dernière ayant disparue, ainsi que les pièces allongées s’étendant vers l’est. Ces façades extérieures étaient revêtues par des orthostates dont les traces visibles ont permis de déterminer l’extension du bâtiment dans ce côté. Cette aile a une 49 Ibidem: 165–168. 50 Le fouilleur indique la présence des rigoles et des conduits sur le sol de la pièce C, qui ne sont pas d’origine et qui pourraient être formées par la pression du poids des poutres et du bois s’écroulant du niveau supérieur. 51 Fugmann 1958: 166.

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géométrique irrégulière. Son mur septentrional n’est pas rectiligne et tourne vers l’ouest, parallèlement au Bâtiment III, formant ainsi un espace triangulaire (pièce G)52 (Fig. 8). Cette aile était accessible par une rampe d’escalier menant à une entrée dans la façade arrière. A l’état ancien, cette rampe aurait pu être aménagée avec des marches en pierre dont seule la marche inférieure persiste, de sorte que l’on peut supposer un escalier symétrique à celui-ci conduisant aux pièces A, B et C. Dans un second temps, l’escalier a été détruit et des constructions postérieures chaotiques venaient de s’installer sur ses ruines. Le bâtiment a été détruit par un incendie qui a laissé une épaisse couche de décombre et de remblai de 1 m d’épaisseur environ dans la pièce C et de plus de 2,40 m environ de cendre et d’amas de poutres et de bois carbonisés53. Sur la surface de décombre, on trouve quelques objets contenant une pointe de flèche en bronze, une bague en bronze, deux épingles en os et un poids en hématite.

4. Analyse et interprétations Ce bâtiment situé sur le bord sud-ouest de la citadelle était à l’origine associé à un mur du rempart ancien complètement disparu aujourd’hui suite aux activités des occupations tardives. Néanmoins, le seul indice de sa présence sont les restes d’un massif d’argile avec un mur de moellons situés dans l’axe de prolongement méridional du mur est du Bâtiment I (carrée Q17)54. Cet ensemble ayant une largeur comparable, de 5,50 m environ, à celle du mur est du Bâtiment I pourrait constituer une partie de l’enceinte qui entourait cette zone officielle. L’édifice assure principalement la fonction d’accès à la citadelle qui semble être conçue à l’instar des autres villes araméennes Sam’al55, Guzana, Kunulua (Tell Tayinat)56. C’est-à-dire, une citadelle divisée en deux zones distinctes séparées par une muraille interne, où une entrée processionnelle correspondant au Bâtiment I, réservée aux rois et ses officiels, parte de la ville basse pour attendre la place centrale et sépare le secteur officiel de la citadelle de l’autre zone située au-delà du rempart. Ce portail a subi des changements au fils du temps et remplace un portail plus ancien de la phase précédente (période F). Certains éléments ont été par exemple 52 Pour explique cette configuration, on peut penser que les deux Bâtiments I et III n’étaient pas construits en même temps et que l’un des deux bâtiments est légèrement plus ancien. Dans le cas contraire, il est possible d’envisager une contrainte d’adaptation aux plans architecturaux préexistants des niveaux précédents ou un manque d’espace conduisant les bâtisseurs à couper une partie du Bâtiment I. Ibidem: 169. 53 Ibidem: 166–170. 54 Ibidem: 158–159. 55 Cf. Casana et Hermann 2010. 56 Novák 2014: 264.

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réutilisés comme les lions de la façade d’entrée datés du 10e siècle av. J.-C. Les tours de la façade semblent être doublées tardivement durant le 9e siècle57. Certains éléments de ce bâtiment bien particulier mettent l’accent sur son caractère prestigieux et son implication dans la vie sociale et religieuse de la ville. Tandis que d’autres pourraient être mis en parallèle avec des aspects caractéristiques du Bît-Hilâni, d’où l’intérêt de ce bâtiment. Le premier élément significatif est l’aménagement particulier qui se trouve dans la pièce d’entrée F, conçue dès le départ pour être visible de loin par son aspect majestueux et fortifié. Il s’agit d’une plateforme adossée contre le mur nord que le fouilleur interprète comme une installation en lien avec une fonction d’audience exercé par le roi dans ce lieu (Figs 7–8). Cette interprétation n’est pas exclue puisque dans les traditions anciennes des capitales au Proche Orient ancien, le portail était aussi l’endroit d’apparition du roi à son public comme à Babylone58. Il est d’ailleurs probable que cette entrée monumentale à la zone officielle abritait à l’origine, sur cette plateforme, la statue d’une divinité et la stèle du roi fondateur. Dans ce sens, la découverte de la stèle près de Restan semble significative puisqu’elle mentionne “Urhilina, fils d’E-tas (?) roi de Hamath, bâti une porte où il plaça une stèle pour la déesse Ba’alatas”59. Ce fait reflète que l’espace du portail peut avoir d’autres fonctions que celle militaire et publique. Il peut être considéré comme un espace sacré où les personnes rendent hommage à la divinité protectrice de la ville. Dans certains exemples, des chapelles ou des lieux de culte sont attestés dans les portails des villes. Les textes du roi paléo-assyrien Erišum mentionnent la construction d’une chapelle du dieu Aššur dans la porte de sa ville d’Assur60. L’une des portes à Babylone est, elle aussi, pourvue d’une statue royale ou divine61. Dans le cas du Bâtiment I, l’aspect de culte peut être envisagé à travers la plateforme aménagée pour recevoir une stèle portant la figure divine de la ville. C’est l’espace où les rois pieux rencontraient le dieu avant d’accéder à l’intérieur. Si ce bâtiment est celui décrit par l’inscription du roi Urhilina, il pourrait s’agir d’un monument important dans la morphologie urbaine de la ville. C’est-à-dire, celui d’un complexe monumental de porte formant un point d’accès principal à une zone officielle ceinte dans la citadelle, associé à un rempart complètement disparu aujourd’hui. Ces portails sont considérés comme des zones de limite ayant une valeur symbolique. Le pouvoir royal a été traduit par la fondation des villes et des citadelles fortifiées ainsi que des monuments décorés62. Il semble logique de penser que lorsqu’un roi commémore ses activités de constructions, ce sont les monuments les plus imposants qui seront cités dans ses inscriptions comme les

57 58 59 60 61 62

Fugmann 1958: 172. George 1992: 66–67. Hrozný 1933: 301. Grayson 1987 : 20. George 1992: 456. Harrison 2013: 103.

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portes de ville ou ses remparts, les temples et les palais. Très probablement, cette construction serait celle-ci édifiée par Urhilina. Ce portail se caractérise également par sa décoration composée des sculptures de lions en basalte à son entrée ainsi que par les orthostates couvrant la partie inférieure des murs (Fig. 9). Les lions étaient sculptés soit en bas-relief, soit en ronde bosse. Ce type d’ornement est commun dans toutes les constructions de Bît-Hilâni. Autre particularité du Bâtiment I est l’utilisation d’un revêtement en bois sur la face des murs, composé des poutres intégrées horizontalement dans la maçonnerie et placées directement sur les orthostates (Fig. 10). Les murs ont été exécutés avec des parties saillantes et des retraits au-dessus des orthostates pour y loger des poutres et des blocs transversaux63. C’est une technique spéciale utilisée dans les constructions monumentales sur d’autres sites de la région, en particulier dans les Hilâni de Tell Tayinat 64 et à Alalakh niveaux IV65. Nous avons déjà évoqué que les constructions de Bît-Hilâni sont généralement de taille modeste et s’étendent en hauteur. C’est le cas de l’Èdifice I. Ce dernier était pourvu d’un niveau supérieur construit à en juger par la masse des poutres de bois carbonisés retrouvées dans les décombres. La hauteur conservée de certains murs (6 m environ) ainsi que la présence d’un escalier de deux volées attestent de ce niveau. Ces éléments ont permis de calculer la hauteur maximale du bâtiment de 10 m environ66 avec 4 tours à sa façade. D’ailleurs, dans l’une des définitions données au Bît-Hilâni, une mention est faite à la présence des tours qui se forment par deux avancés de murs latéraux de l’entrée67 à l’image de celles visibles dans le Bâtiment I à Hama (Figs 8–11). La façade du Bît-Hilâni à Tell Halaf fournit un parallèle proche de celle du portail monumental de Hama par la présence des colonnes et des tours d’un nombre variable (4 tours dans le Bâtiment I et 2 frontales et 5 à l’arrière du palais à Halaf) (Fig. 1)68. Nous mentionnons, pour terminer, une autre particularité de cet édifice qui rappelle le Bît-Hilâni. La présence de deux colonnes devant l’entrée – présence n’étant pas connue dans les traditions des portails monumentaux des capitales de l’époque – semble être un trait distinctif qui confirme la dimension officielle de cet ensemble et suppose donc son appartenance à la catégorie du Bît-Hilâni (Fig. 11). Un fût de cèdre sculpté en double torsades et carbonisé a été retrouvé dans les décombres de l’espace d’entrée permettant de dire que les colonnes du vestibule étaient en bois (Fig. 12)69. 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

Fugmann 1958: 160; cf. McEwan 1937; Woolley 1938. McEwan 1937: 13. Woolley 1938: 25, pl. XV. Fugmann 1958: 152. Contenau 1939: 212. Cf. von Oppenheim 1933: fig. 97. Fugmann 1958 : 161.

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Il est remarquable de voir, d’ailleurs, que les édifices de ce modèle ne rassemblent pas tous les traits attribués par différents chercheurs. À partir de l’ensemble de la documentation à plusieurs sites, on peut juger que le portique à colonnades est l’élément le plus représentatif dans ce type de construction, puisqu’il est présent dans la plupart des cas. Cela est d’autant plus vraisemblable que l’on peut tirer argument des inscriptions des rois assyriens, déjà citées, et qui indiquent que, pour les Amorites, BîtHilâni désignaient le porche des palais du pays de Hatti70. Ainsi Bît-Hilâni, pour les Assyriens, n’était qu’un vestibule à colonnes construit, le plus souvent, devant les portes des palais. Dès lors, Bît-Hilâni est un portique à colonnes. Les éléments recueillis du Bâtiment I de Hama suffisent, à notre sens, pour avancer l’idée que ce portail monumental aurait pu être un Bît-Hilâni converti. Autrement dit, un édifice conçu selon le modèle d’un Bît-Hilâni avec deux colonnes en bois. Par ailleurs, même si nous prenons en considération les autres définitions données à ce style architectural, nous remarquons que les autres traits (orthostates, lions protecteurs de l’accès, technique de revêtement en bois) attribués à ce type de construction sont tous présents dans le Bâtiment I. De plus, si certains chercheurs insistent sur la présence d’un ou deux rangés de salles barlongues parallèles à la façade comme critère de définition, on peut attirer l’attention sur le fait que les pièces C et D sont disposées selon un axe transverse derrière la façade. Cela rapproche ce dernier de la conception générale des constructions de Bît-Hilâni, très fréquents dans le Levant au Ie millénaire av. J.-C. et répandu en Assyrie, surtout après les compagnes de conquête contre les royaumes syriens. D’ailleurs, les restes architecturaux de l’ancien portail qui précédait le Bâtiment I ont révélé que son plan suivait un schéma différent71 fréquent au IIème millénaire av. J.-C., composé des pièces qui se développent en longueur72. Cela confirme qu’un changement radical a eu lieu et que de nouvelles techniques et traditions architecturales ont été mises en place73. Les caractéristiques de ce portail monumental s’intègrent parfaitement dans les traditions architecturales monumentales de l’époque. Elle prouvent la capacité technique du Bît-Hilâni à transformer ses traits selon les besoins et la fonction de la construction. Ce portail monumental à portique appartenant au niveau E (900–720 av. J.C.) coïncide avec l’arrivé d’une nouvelle dynastie mettant en place son propre style artistique et architectural en reprenant certains éléments préexistants. Il a été 70 Lantsheere 1892: 80. 71 Fugmann 1958: 172. 72 Plusieurs exemples sont attestés à l’âge du Bronze moyen et récent en Syrie et en Anatolie comme à Tell Munbaqa, Alalakh VII, Tell Tuqan, Ebla et Qatna. Pour plus de détails voir Seevers 2007. 73 Dussaud 1944: 258–261 ; Fugmann 1958: 127, 135.

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probablement construit durant la deuxième moitié du 9e siècle (entre 850 et 800 av. J.-C.)74 par l’un des deux rois mentionnés sur les inscriptions des deux pierres retrouvées près de la citadelle75 et qui citent “I(r)tamès fils d’Urhilina, bâtit les remparts (?) de cette ville”76. La prospérité de cette période et de ses dynasties royales se manifeste en particulier par la mise en place d’un ensemble monumental somptueux digne de la majesté des rois. Les nouveaux édifices conçus, pour certains, selon le plan du BîtHilâni puisqu’ils sont accessibles par un portique à colonnes. Ils étaient davantage ornés à en juger par les boiseries, les décorations en sculptures des lions en basalte à l’entrée des édifices publics et les orthostates.

5. Conclusion Pour conclure, nous pouvons retenir deux points importants concernant la définition et la fonction du Bît-Hilâni. La diversité des exemples de cette forme architecturale, la variété de ses caractéristiques qui partagent le portique à colonnes comme un élément commun dans la quasi-totalité des édifices ont mené à revoir sa définition et par conséquence ses fonction. Il s’est avéré à travers les données archéologiques et philologiques que le portique à colonnes était un critère déterminant dans la définition du Bît-Hilâni et donc un trait à classer au premier plan. Ce dernier ne n’est pas un plan exclusif de l’architecture palatiale puisqu’il est également attesté dans l’architecture religieuse et résidentielle des élites et dans les portails monumentaux. L’exemple du Bâtiment I à Hama montre clairement la souplesse du plan Bît-Hilâni et sa capacité à s’adapter aux différentes fonctions. C’est un modèle architectural utilisé par excellence pour caractériser l’architecture monumentale des villes hittites, araméenne et assyrienne. C’est d’ailleurs les portiques à colonnes du Bît-Hilâni qui ont été utilisés dans la construction et la décoration des palais néo-assyriens et sont désormais un élément décoratif interne. Il s’agit sans doute d’un élément de propagande privilégié par les rois et les princes pour mettre en valeur leurs projets de construction.

Bibliographie Abu Assaf, A. 1993 Der Tempel von ‘Ain Dārā in Nordsyrien, Antike Welt 24/2 : 155–171. Berlejung, A. 2014 Aramaeans Outside of Syria, Palestine, dans H. Niehr (éd.), The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria (Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1, Ancient Near East; volume 106), Leiden – Boston: 339–365.

74 Fugmann 1958: 171; Parrot 1960: 171. 75 Garstang 1929: 321–323. 76 Messerschmidt 1900: Taf. III. B; Hrozný 1933.

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Black, J., George, A. et Postgate, J.N. 2000 A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, Wiesbaden. Casana, J. et Hermann, J.-T. 2010 Settlement History and Urban Planning at Zincirli Höyük, Southern Turkey, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 23/1: 55–80. Contenau, G. 1939 Les fouilles en Asie Occidentale (1937–1938), Revue Archéologique 13: 201–223. Cholidis, N. 2014 Syro-Hittite States: The Site of Tell Halaf (Ancient Guzana), dans J. Aruz et al. (éds), Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age, New York: 93–103. Dhorme, P. 1931 Les Amorrhéens, Revue Biblique 40/2: 161–184. Dibo, S. 2018 L’apport des cultures Syro-Levantines en Mésopotamie au Ier millénaire av. J.-C., ArchéOrient – Le Blog, 8 juin 2018. (Online at https://archeorient.hypotheses.org/8629). 2020 The Mobility of Syrian Culture to Assyria during the Neo-Assyrian Period, dans A. Otto, M. Herles et K. Kanoiuth (éds), Proceedings of the 11th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Vol. 1. Mobility in the Ancient Near East. Images in Context. Archaeology as Cultural Heritage. Engendering Near Eastern Archaeology. Societal Contexts of Religions, Shaping the Living Space, Wiesbaden: 39–56. Douglas, J.G. 2010 “I undertook Great Works”: The Ideology of Domestic Achievements in West Semitic Royal Inscriptions, Tübingen. Dussaud, R. 1944 Rev. de H. Ingholt, Rapport préliminaire sur sept campagnes de fouilles à Hama en Syrie (1932–1938) et de P.J. Riis, Hama-Samlungen, Syria 24/3–4 : 258–261. Frankfort, H. 1952 The Origin of the Bît Hilani, Iraq 14/2: 120–131. 1970 The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, Harmondsworth. Fugmann, E. 1958 Hama Fouilles et Architectures 1931–193. L’architecture des périodes pré-hellénistiques, Copenhague. Garstang, J. 1929 The Hittite Empire, Being a Survey of the History, Geography and Monuments of Hittite Asia Minor and Syria, London. George, A. 1992 Babylonian Topographical Texts (OLA 40), Leuven. Gillmann, N. 2011 Un exemple de Hilâni à Til Barsip?, Ugarit-Forschungen 42: 1–17. Grayson, K.A. 1987 Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Second Millennia BC (to 1115 BC) (RIMA 1), Toronto. Harrison, T.P. 2013 Landscapes of Power: Neo-Hittite Citadels in Comparative Perspective, dans S. Redford et N. Ergin (éds), Cities and Citadels in Turkey: From the Iron Age to the Seljuks (ANES, Suppl. 40), Leuven: 97–114. Hrozný, B. 1933 Les inscriptions hittites hiéroglyphiques II: Essai de déchiffrement, suivi d’une grammaire hittite hiéroglyphique en paradigmes et d’une liste d’hieroglyphes, Prague.

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Kertai, D. 2017 Embellishing the Interior Spaces of Assyria’s Royal Palaces: The Bēt Ḫilāni Reconsidered, Iraq 79: 85–104. Khayata, M.W. 1999 Aramaic Antiquities and Their Features in the Aleppo Museum, Annales Archéologiqes Arabes Syriennes 43: 121–136 (Section Arabe). Lantsheere, L.D. 1892 De la race et de la langue des Hittites, Paris. Marchetti, N. 2016 The Cultic District of Karkemish in the Lower Town, dans P. Matthiae, L’archeologia del sacro e l’archeologia del culto. Sabratha, Ebla, Ardea, Lanuvio (Roma, 8–11 ottobre 2013). Ebla e la Siria dall’età del Bronzo all’età del Ferro (Atti dei Convegni Lincei 304), Roma: 373–414. Margueron, J.-C. 1979 Un ‘hilani’ à Emar, dans D.N. Freedman (éd.), Archaeological Reports from the Tabqa Dam Project-Euphrates Valley, Syria (AASOR 44), Cambridge: 153–176. Matthiae, P. 1983 Fouilles de Tell Mardikh-Ébla en 1982: Nouvelles recherches sur l’architecture palatine d’Ébla, Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 127: 530–554. 2002 Fouilles et restauration à Ébla en 2000–2001: le Palais Occidental, la Résidence Occidentale et l’urbanisme de la ville paléosyrienne, Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 146 : 531–574. 2009 Temples et reines de l’Ébla protosyrienne: Résultats des fouilles à Tell Mardikh en 2007 et 2008, Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 153 : 747–791. Matthiae, P., Pinnock, F. et Scandone Matthiae, G. 1995 Ebla. Alle origini della civiltà urbana, Milano. McEwan, G.W. 1937 Tell Tainat : The Syrian Expedition of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, American Journal of Archaeology XLI : 8–16. McEwan, C.W., Braidwood, L.S., Frankfort, H., Güterbock, H.G., Haines, R.C., Kantor, H.J. et Kraeling, C.H. 1958 Soundings at Tell Fakhariyah (OIP 79), Chicago. Meissner, B. 1942 Das Bît Ḫilâni in Assyrien, Orientalia 11 : 251–261. Messerschmidt, L. 1900 Corpus inscriptionum Hetiticarum, Berlin. Novák, M. 2014 Architecture, dans H. Niehr (éd.), The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria (Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1, Ancient Near East; volume 106), Leiden – Boston: 255–271. 2004 Hilani und Lustgarten, ein Palast des Hethiter-Landes und ein Garten nach dem Abbild des Amanus in Assyrien, dans M. Novák, F. Prayon et A.-M. Witte (éds), Die Außenwirkung des Späthethitischen Kulturraums. Tagungsberichte der 2. Forschungstagung des Graduiertenkollegs ‘Anatolien und seine Nachbarn’ der Universität Tübingen (AOAT 323), Münster: 335–372. von Oppenheim, M.F. 1932 Tell Halaf : La plus ancienne capitale soubaréenne de Mésopotamie, Syria 13: 242–254. 1933 Tell Halaf: A New Culture in Oldest Mesopotamia, London – New York.

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Orthmann, W. 2002 Die aramäisch-assyrische Stadt Guzana. Ein Rückblick auf die Ausgrabungen Max von Oppenheims in Tell Halaf (Schriften der Max Freiherr von Oppenheim-Stiftung 15), Saarbrücken. Osborne, J.F. 2012 Communicating Power in the Bīt-Ḫilāni Palace, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 368: 29–66. Ouellette, J. 1969 Le vestibule du Temple de Salomon était-il un Bit Ḫilâni?, Revue Biblique 76/3: 365–378. Pruss, A. et Baghdo, A.M. 2005 Tell Fecheriye, rapport sur la première campagne de fouille syro-allemande (2001), Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes XLVII–XLVIII: 337–338. Sader, H. 2010 The Aramaeans of Syria: Some Considerations on Their Origin and Material Culture, dans B. Halpern et A. Lemaire (éds), The Books of Kings: Sources, Composition, Historiography and Reception (VTS 129), Leiden: 271–300. Seevers, B. 2007 Four-Chamber Gates in the Ancient Near East from the Middle Bronze through the Iron Ages (Batchelder Biblical Archaeology Conference, Univ. of Nebraska – Omaha, Nov.). Szuchman, J.-J. 2007 Prelude to Empire: Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat and the Rise of the Aramaeans, Los Angeles. Tubb, J.N. 2014 Phoenicians and Aramaeans, dans J. Aruz et al. (éds), Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age, New York: 132–140. Woolley, C.L. 1938 Excavations at Tell Atchana, 1937, The Antiquaries Journal XVIII/I: 1–28.

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Fig. 1. a: Plan de Hilâni de Kapara à Tell Halaf (d’après von Oppenheim 1933: 82); b: Reconstitution de Hilâni (d’après Orthmann 2002: Abb. 15, p. 34).

Fig. 2. Reconstitution de la façade du palais de Kapara à Tell Halaf (d’après von Oppenheim 1932: fig. 1: 245).

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Fig. 3. Plan du palais de Tell Fakhariya (d’après McEwan et al. 1958: pl. 7).

Fig. 4. Le palais G d’Ebla (d’après Matthiae et al. 1995: 106).

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Fig. 5. Les orthostates du temple d’‘Ain Dara (d’après Abu Assaf 1993: 167, fig. 20).

Fig. 6. L’emplacement de Hama (d’après Abu Assaf 1993: 156, fig. 2).

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Fig. 7: Plan du Bâtiment I à Hama (d’après Fugmann 1958: 154, fig. 186). 

Fig. 8. Bâtiment I à Hama (d’après Fugmann 1958: 154, fig. 186, modifié par l’A.).

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Fig. 9. Reconstitution de la façade principale du Bâtiment I avec les orthostates (d’après Fugmann 1958: 155–157, figs 187a–189, modifié par l’A.).

Fig. 10. Système de revêtement des faces des murs (d’après Fugmann 1958: 162, fig. 199).

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Fig. 11. Reconstitution de la citadelle avec la façade du Bâtiment I (d’après Fugmann 1958: pl.Ib).

Fig. 12. Poutre de cèdre carbonisé (d’après Fugmann 1958: 161, fig. 198).

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MAAMOUN ABDULKARIM

University of Damascus

The Preservation of the Agricultural Land Divisions in the Limestone Massif of Northern Syria during the Roman and Byzantine Eras The paper presents the analysis of the limestone massif in Northern Syria during the Roman and Byzantine eras with new evaluations and considerations of the morphology of the ancient landscape in relation to the exploitation of natural resources (water) and the organization of the arable land for agriculture. Modern and contemporary shape of the area still reflects and shares the same characteristics of the past and the observation of the anomalies can definitely contribute to the reconstruction of the ancient rural landscape and the identification of the several archaeological sites therein.

The limestone massif is a series of plateaux of varying height, with altitudes ranging between 400 m and more than 900 m. Running water is scarce on its surface due to cracks, but it is found in the depths of some valleys (Fig. 1).1 The Limestone Massif is characterized by a Mediterranean climate, hot in the Summer and cold in the Winter, and with a rate of rainfall ranging between 400– 600 mm, which allowed for the establishment of a number of crops such as olive, grapes, figs and some other types of fruits.2 Seasonal plants grow in the region in the plains and plateaus, thorns grow in abundance and some individual trees have grown randomly in different places, in addition to many types of plants and flowers that bloom in all seasons. In the 1st century AD, during the first settlement phase in the region that lasted until the mid-3rd century AD, the residents reclaimed the lands, setting the cultivation of many types of vegetables and fruits, especially in areas where water was available, e.g. in areas where springs were present or at the foothills near the valleys. In addition to the establishment of basic crops, such as olive, vine and grains, they exported the same system to neighbouring cities, as it can be seen in the flat areas adjacent to the villages showing the effects of ancient agricultural divisions. They also collected rocks that were found on the surface and built wall barriers in order to prevent soil erosion. Nowadays, some of those areas that could be cultivated in 1 This research is part of a book about the preservation of cultural heritage in northern Syria (The Distribution of Land in the Limestone Massif of Northern Syria. New Data for the Protection and Preservation of Syrian Cultural Heritage). The research, under preparation, received the support of the Gerda Henkel Foundation. 2 For geographic studies on the Limestone Massif, see Abdulkarim, Bildgen, Bildgen and Gaubert 2002–03: 359–379; Abdulkarim, Bildgen, Bildgen and Gaubert 2004: 17–26; Abdulkarim, Bildgen, Bildgen and Gilg 2004: 27–35; Bildgen, Gilg and Tate 2000.

Studia Eblaitica 6 (2020), pp. 111–142

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the past have been re-used and re-occupied in several places, and some have been for example reforested.

1. Landscapes in the Limestone Massif The mountain chain that forms the limestone massif extends from the Turkish borders in the North to Apamea in the South, with a length of 150 km, and from the al-Ghab Plain in the West to the plains of Aleppo and Qinnasrin in the East, with a width of approximately 70 km (Fig. 2). This chain is made of two main blocks, namely the Jebel Sim’an in the North and the Jebel al-Zawiyah in the South: they are separated by the Chalcis Plain and linked to the ‘Asi (Orontes) River by a series of smaller mountains (Jebel), al-Wastani, al-Dwyli, al-A’la and Barisha, Halaqa. The Jebel Sem’an in the North has a length of 50 km from North to South and a width between 20 and 40 km. Sheikh Barakat is the highest point on the southern side (500–600 m); to the South a stone-paved Roman road connects Antioch to Damascus, a part of which is still preserved in good conditions today. Archaeological sites are located on the southern side, such as Sit Rum, Refade and Qatura. The Jebel al-Zawiyah is made of two blocks divided by a valley where the village of al-Bara is located. The northern part is called Ariha, while the southern part is the Jebel al-Zawiyah proper. They both extend to the south and southeast of the limestone massif. The highest elevation of the mountain to the West is 939 m, at the summit of the Nabi Ayoub. The Jebel al-Zawiyah also encompasses a peak called the ‘Arbain, on the eastern side, in addition to several hills of different heights, bordered by deep valleys where there are areas suitable for cultivation (Fig. 3). Eastward, the heavy use of the area for quarries within the rocky blocks of the Hama and Qinnesrin plains can be recognised. In the valley between Ariha and the Jebel al-Zawiyah, the natural landscape of al-Bara is characterised by agricultural fields divided by stone walls, which were used to cultivate olive trees in different periods, and other types of fruit trees such as figs, apricots, peaches, etc. (Figs 4–6). At the site of Sergilla, the old agricultural divisions indicate that the area was extensively and intensely used for cultivation, especially for olive trees and grapevines, which were the main products to be traded and sold (Fig. 7). For what concerns Ruweiha, the building blocks flank a plateau overlooking the surrounding agricultural plains with a clear, distinct scene, characterized by the flatness of the surface that was partially occupied by dwelling and also used for both cultivation and domestication of animals. On the eastern side of the Jebel al-Zawiyah, the village of Jeradeh is located on the hillside, and it has been reoccupied in recent years: the new installations have affected the general landscape around the village due to the unregulated exploitation of quarries.

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A series of mountains is spread between the chains of the Jebel Sem’an and Jebel al-Zawiyah, including the Jebel al-A’la, and they include several hills of different heights ranging between 600 and 700 m; the highest peak is the Teleta, 918 m high. Like other neighbouring areas, this zone also clearly shows the effects of subdivisions of the ancient agricultural fields, which were used to cultivate different types of olives, figs and grains, in addition to tobacco. The Jawani Valley separates the Jebel al-A’la from the Jebel Barisha, a well cultivated fertile area, and is characterized by the absence of the natural transition areas between the bare limestone rocks and the rich red soil regions, which characterizes the karst nature. The Jebel Barisha is rich in plants, mostly green oak trees. The site of Dar Qita is characterized by the beauty of the natural landscape. The spaces for agriculture were exploited among the archaeological remains, and some buildings were in fact used to house animals. For what concerns other distinct natural landscapes, the site of Baqirha, at a short distance south of Darqita, shows agricultural terraces on its slopes used to cultivate olives and grains. To the west of the Jebel al-A’la, the Jebel al-Wastani runs from north to south, with hills ranging in height up to 700 m; bushes cover their eastern sides. The rich soil allows for the growth of species of aromatic trees and carob, which are rare in other limestone mountains; at the same time, tobacco cultivation occupies large areas.

2. Study of agricultural divisions The rural areas developed during the classical eras by reclaiming lands and were distributed to the population according to specific cadastral ranges. Each phase had its own method of dividing and distributing lands. The study of the ancient divisions of lands in Syria during the Roman and Byzantine periods has not been properly accomplished, if compared for example with other regions of the Roman world, as the western provinces of the Roman Empire, where we can collect, in addition to ancient Latin written sources, recent data on the patterns of divisions and on the legal and tax laws that regulated the relations between landowners and state. In addition, there are many important archaeological data such as border stones on which the names of landowners and the boundaries of their lands were usually engraved. Modern technologies helped these studies with new approaches and contributed to the detection of the remains of these divisions within the current natural landscape. These remains included ancient roads and the patterns of fields that sometimes kept the old shapes and measures, together with ancient stone walls that originally formed the borders for ancient farms. Modern techniques also contributed to the study of the distribution and relationships of the archaeological sites in relation to the aforementioned remains,

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resulting in the preparation of a hypothetical map that shows how natural and archaeological landscape looked like in ancient times, especially in the Roman and Byzantine eras that are largely documented archaeologically. Indeed, in this case we cannot overlook the changes in agricultural divisions in later ages, especially in modern time and must accurately monitor them. Currently, not many studies on this topic in Syria exist, with few exceptions, such as the study by Van Liere on the central region of Syria.3 Van Liere pointed to the existence of ancient agricultural divisions in the eastern region of Homs, that extends to a distance of 20 km, indicating the distance of 1000 m between one road and the other. This division dates back to the Roman period, specifically to the time of Septimius Severus, who ruled between 193–235 AD; during this period the city of Homs acquired the rights of colony, with the consequent exemption from paying taxes. A study published in 1990 by a group of researchers on the ancient archaeological landscape of the ancient city of Damascus corrected the scale of the divisions previously presented by Van Liere and gave another scale (i.e. 20 actus corresponding to 708/709 m). This study however reached the same conclusion on the history of the Roman divisions and set their direction to ten degrees to the west from the north.4 Previous researches also indicated the presence of Hellenistic measures for the city of Homs and the land divisions plan in the northern countryside; measurements of 144 x 96 m with a direction of 8 degrees to the west from the original north were estimated and calculated. We studied these agricultural divisions in the countryside of Homs, according to a new approach, relying on modern technologies that help to reveal ancient remains. There is no doubt that this greatly helped us to shed light on the reality of the rural economy during the Hellenistic and Roman eras, and gave us a better understanding of the nature of the relationship between the countryside and the city and the form of the settlements in the rural areas as well. By the end of the 20th century, a number of articles on the same topic in other regions, such as Antioch or southern Syria, has been also published.5

3. Studying the remains of the ancient agricultural divisions in the limestone massif In a first approach to the study of the limestone area in northern Syria, Georges Tchalenko and Georges Tate provided many explanations about the nature of the 3 4 5

Van Liere 1958: 55–58. Dodinet, Leblanc, Vallat and Villeneuve 1990: 339–368. Villeneuve 1985: 63–136; Leblanc and Vallat 1997: 36–67; Leblanc and Poccardi 1999: 91–126; Abdulkarim and Olesti-Vila 2007: 249–276; Abdulkarim 2012.

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distribution of lands in this region, according to different forms and standards. They linked the development of land reclamation and distribution to the development of ancient villages in northern Syria during the Roman and Byzantine periods.6 For what precisely concerns our study of agricultural divisions, especially the lands surrounding the archaeological sites listed on the World Heritage List, we could definitely take advantage of the field studies that we carried out for several years, studying and drawing the traces that are still visible on the ground, monitoring the remains with the help and use of topographic plans, old aerial photographs, and satellite imagery (especially Google Earth), a process that allowed us to track changes in these areas in the past ten years. In this context, we used topographic maps on the scale 1/25000, 1/50000 and 1/100000 and aerial photographs taken in the span of time between 1945 and 1958. Aerial images date back to a period when the countryside had not been exposed to many changes in Syria, caused by new agricultural reforms, or the spread of the new road network, which led to a deep modification in the shape of the old roads. These data help in searching for traces of old roads and stone walls that were used to define ancient farms or the patterns of some fields that have preserved their ancient directions and measures. These elements greatly help to understand the archaeological and natural landscape through the current reality of the region. Therefore, the combination of all these elements, even if they are incomplete, helps to draw a geometric pattern of ancient divisions in this region. In fact, it often happens that the new patterns follow somehow the ancient ones. The first phase of our research focused on the analysis of topographic maps in order to conduct survey studies, as they provide the correct dimensions that we could afterwards try to match with observations on the ground. By means of this procedure we were able to reach the outlines of the old roads, as well as the walls of farms (Figs 8–10). When it was not possible to match the evidence from the maps with observation on the ground, we resorted to aerial photos to analyse those features that might help us to draw the geometric pattern of agricultural divisions (Fig. 11). It became clear to us that a geometric form existed in two regions: the first region is around the villages of Shensherah, Rabia and Sergilla in the Jebel al-Zawiyah, while the second one is mostly centred on the villages of Ruweiha and Jeradeh, apparently extending over a distance of more than 20 square km, from Jeradeh to the west to Ruweiha to the north. G. Tate, in the study he published in 1992 on the northern Syrian countryside, compared the ancient walls with the modern ones in those areas that take on specific geometric patterns. They include straight and orthogonal walls that somewhat resemble a chessboard, and are built with two rows of stones with a 6

Tchalenko 1953; Tate 1992.

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width of about 1 m and a height of less than 0.50 m. By contrast, modern walls are often built with a single row of small stones, having a sinuous shape and being 1.5 m high.7 In the second phase of the research, we relied upon satellite data, which helped to get a more comprehensive vision of the study area and to compare the shape of the agricultural divisions in two regions, namely the Ruweiha and Jeradeh areas, on the one hand, and the Sergilla and Shensherah area in the Jebel al-Zawiyah, on the other hand. We were able to confirm that the remains of agricultural divisions have the same features in both regions. To this regard, we used Google Earth images, a valuable tool in conducting this type of studies in an easy, scientific and accurate way, tracking the variables that occur on the ground across the years, especially when modern housing and intensive exploitation of lands for cultivation strongly increased, a circumstance that had negative effects on the archaeological landscape around these villages. Combining all data, we thus reached the important conclusion that we can recognize several similar geometric forms and orientations of the agricultural divisions that are similar in the survey areas. In the last stage of the research, it was necessary to conduct a field study on the ground in order to ensure the reliability of the information we collected, especially for those cadastral parcels that were not clearly identified and indicated by the previous methods. For this purpose, we have conducted a field study of the areas where there are archaeological remains of agricultural divisions in the Jebel al-Zawiyah and the Jebel Sem’an, and above all we had to understand the topographical meaning of some of the stone walls of ancient fields that have not a fixed shape as they adapted to the physical features of some valleys (Fig. 12).

3.1. Areas where ancient walls of the agricultural divisions are present 3.1.1. The Archaeological Park of Ruweiha and Jeradeh Through the work of raising and drawing of the remains of the agricultural division walls, it is clear that the Ruweiha and Jeradé areas are characterized by the presence of geometric structures, namely low walls that represent the borders of agricultural lands. The area of ahrigucltural divisions extends in the region that includes the villages of Jeradé and Ruweiha, which constitute an archaeological park listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. They surround the two villages from almost all sides, and are in an excellent state of preservation in most of the regions; the area of these ancient divisions is estimated at more than 25 square kms from the village of Dana in the south to Ruweiha in the north (Figs 13–18). The areas located in the valley separating the two villages and the eastern re7

Tate 1992: 192.

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gion of the village of Jeradé recently suffered a massive destruction, due to the spread of a large number of stone quarries, so the ancient walls in this region disappeared through time, especially during the last twenty years. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is approaching the village of Ruweiha from the eastern side, because the quarries of the village of Jeradé continue to spread towards the village of Ruweiha and have reached to less than 3 km from the village, so we are counting on the efforts of the local community to stop the destruction of the archaeological landscape surrounding this exceptional sites, listed on the World Heritage List. The area around the village of Ruweiha, especially to the north and south, as well as the area on the southwestern side of the village, is still in a good situation regarding the ancient archaeological landscape: it is in an excellent state of conservation except for the spread of some modern housing. On the western side of the village of Ruweiha, modern housing is spread in its lands, and the modern village expanded in this direction, as the lands were cleaned by the people for years aiming at using modern machinery for an up-to-date agriculture: for this reason the old walls were removed and a large part of the archaeological landscape in the western region was thus distorted leaving only a small fraction of the agricultural divisions dating back to ancient times. As part of the work of the joint Syrian-French archaeological mission headed by G. Charpentier from the French side and this author from the Syrian side, since 2009, we have started a topographic survey of the ancient fields in the region of Ruweiha. The work started by the archaeological expedition in this area was completed in 2002 by Pascal Wraith and Laurent Vollers. New topographic surveys were conducted in 2009 and 2010 by B. Monnier and this author, with the participation of some students from Damascus University. The walls that represent the boundaries of agricultural properties in the vicinity of Ruweiha were documented and drawn using modern techniques, thus helping us to preserve and study them in a scientific way (Fig. 12). Southwest of the village of Jeradé, at a distance of less than 3 km there is the village of al-Dana. In the vicinity of al-Dana, we were able to locate the important geometric structures of ancient agricultural divisions. They were organized in peculiar geometric shapes in the area south and southwest of this village. These divisions extended to the south of the village of al-Dana village, over an area estimated in about 2 square km only because they suffered from damages due to the spread – particularly during the most recent years, and especially during the Syrian crisis – of stone quarries south of them and on large areas, stopping only in the proximity of the village. In these areas, we find that agricultural land ownership has clear rectangular or square shapes. These are probably the first divisions made, they are larger than the later ones and take the shape of regular squares or rectangles. Later on, these partitions were the objects of further divisions, by means of the creation of other square or rectangular plots for smaller size properties, possibly as the result of a redistribution of ownership among members of the

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same family in a later stage of use of the land. It is difficult to find the remains of the walls of the borders of old agricultural properties in the neighbouring villages, outside the scope of the archaeological park, due to recent settlement and expansion of the areas of agricultural lands; this led to a widespread clearing of the lands from the rocks, thus causing the disappearance of the divisions and the destruction of most of the surrounding villages. It must be noted that the phenomenon of cleaning the ancient agricultural lands from rocks has gone on by the hands of the local communities, in order to expand the areas by means of the use of heavy machinery, which removed a large part of the stone walls to the south of the limestone massif, where they had been mostly intact until the beginning of the 20th century. Through the analysis of all the extant remains of the drawn divisions that we could trace in the various documents used for this work we were able to ascertain that these walls followed a geometric layout as well. According to the survey that we conducted throughout the region, the village of Ruweiha is located in the most important area with traces of ancient walls. Unfortunately, there is an increasingly rapid disappearance of the old structures, destroyed in recent years by bulldozers. 3.1.2. The Archaeological Park of al-Bara and Sergilla This park includes 10 archaeological sites and is the largest in northern Syria, with an area of more than 30 square km. The plots which still feature the remains of the agricultural lands from the Byzantine era in this region are located between the villages of Sergilla, Rabia and Shensherah. As for the other areas of this park the stone walls of the old agricultural properties were removed as a result of the spread of housing and the expansion of villages. Another reason for the removal of the ancient divisions are the increased operations of land sweeping, due to the clearing of lands from rocks in order to expand the area of agricultural lands through modern machinery, which led to important changes in the ancient archaeological landscape inside the park. The best examples of the remains of the ancient agricultural divisions are found in the vicinity of the village of Shensherah. The area located to the south and southwest of the village of Shensherah, less than 500 meters towards the town of Hass, was exposed to changes in the archaeological landscape resulting from the extension of random housing from the town of Hass towards this important archaeological site, which is very rich in archaeological buildings, and is still in a state of exceptional conservation. This area is also characterized by the wealth of ancient properties which are at threat of a complete disappearance, and we note here that in the ancient times the lands in this region were organized, reclaimed and divided into agricultural properties, which sometimes have rectangular shapes and sometimes the shapes of squares similar to

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those that we find in other areas of the southern Massif. These violations occurred during the war years in Syria between 2011 and 2020, especially after 2016. We are also witnessing the spread of building violations in a major way in the southern and eastern sides very close to the village (Figs 19–22). On the north-eastern side and halfway to the village of Rabia, we see the presence of a stone quarry, but nevertheless this northeast region of Shensherah still is in a good condition and the agricultural divisions are still largely present. Likewise, the situation is similar in the northwest direction towards the towns of al-Bara and Mujleya, where there are some acts of sabotage due to housing or the spread of stone quarries, but the situation is still good in terms of preservation of the ancient archaeological landscape. In a similar way, the lands located between Rabia and Sergilla are still rich in remains of the walls of agricultural properties, also featuring regular geometric shapes. On the hills surrounding the village of Sergilla to the east, we find an extension of old agricultural divisions over long distances, despite the fact that some areas of them were threatened as a consequence of land reclamation during the past years. As for the land located to the west of Sergilla, all along the road to the site of al-Bara, through the site of Ba’ude, and at an estimated distance of approximately 3 km, the ancient archaeological landscape was subject to radical changes resulting from the excessive use of modern machinery in cleaning the lands from the rocks, in order to expand the cultivated areas; this led to the destruction of all the remains of the walls of the old agricultural properties in this plain, rich in arable land. In the far north of this park lies the village of Dalloze, which is an important site, rich in monumental buildings and in a state of exceptional preservation. This village is surrounded on all sides by hills; the nature of the land prevents the creation of agricultural divisions, while the archaeological landscape is still in good condition for the absence of settlements in this site. On the other hand, olive-trees are now cultivated inside the site by the residents of the neighbouring villages, so we find a kind of overlap between the ancient buildings and the newly cultivated lands. To the far west of the archaeological park there are the sites of al-Bara, Mujleya, Batirsa, Bashila and Wadi Mertahun. Because of the expansion of the settlement in this area, the agricultural divisions were removed by modern housing or agricultural land reclamation, and sometimes we find some stone quarries. 3.1.3. Archaeological Park of Brad North of the Jebel Sem’an This park, especially in its surroundings stretching to the east and north, is characterized by large areas of land, still preserving the remains of the ancient stone walls, in the shape of rectangles and regular squares, similar to those in the Jebel al-Zawiyah. The site of Brad spreads to the east, north and northeast, particularly between this site to the west, Kimar and Soghaneh to the north, Kalota and the

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Burj al-Qas to the south. The site extends over large areas in the plains to the east of the Jebel Sem’an towards the towns of Nuble and Zyara, in the plain adjacent to the Jebel Sem’an to the east. The ancient fields cover approximately 200 square km, yet these walls do not extend over the entire mentioned area, but they are scattered only over parts of it. The reason is either due to land reclamation during the past periods or to their original absence in some parts of the mentioned lands as a consequence of the topographical nature of the high plateaux or of the presence of rocky grounds: it was difficult to cultivate in ancient times because there was not enough arable land on it. We also found in the southern region of the site of Brad site towards Kafer Nebo and Burj Haidar, inside the park, some of the old divisions of geometric shapes, limited with stones, indicating that in this region the lands were divided into agricultural properties (Figs 23–26). This park and its surroundings are characterized by the presence of ancient monuments, in a state of exceptional preservation. In fact, most of them were not exposed to the previously mentioned vandalisms like the other areas of the limestone Massif. These three archaeological parks in the Jebel al-Zawiyah and in the north of the Jebel Sem’an are among the most important and richest areas in the Limestone Massif. They are characterized by the exceptional state of preservation of the old agricultural divisions and by important archaeological landscapes with an excellent state of preservation since the ancient times, despite the damages to specific areas due to the reasons mentioned previously. As for the other parks in the Jebel Sem’an, Jebel Barisha, Jebel al-Wastani, Jebel al-Dwyli and Jebel al-A’la, we seldom found traces of these ancient walls there, representing the boundaries of agricultural properties. This may be due to the rocky nature of some areas surrounding those villages or – in some instances – the high elevation of lands, or to the exposure of many areas to changes depending from the proliferation of stone quarries, especially in the Jebel Sem’an, or from recent agricultural land reclamation, which removed many archaeological landscapes in these parks.

4. The problematic date of the ancient agriculture divisions As mentioned above, it is difficult to determine an accurate date for these agricultural divisions, because we must rely only on the formal study of the divisions, after obtaining the old area measurements. These issue becomes more complicated in the case where we obtain, for example, Roman or Byzantine measurements simultaneously within the same region. Therefore – as maintained by G. Tate – it is important to study these divisions within the general historical framework of the Limestone Massif of northern Syria during the Roman and Byzantine periods. In the current state of our knowledge, we may maintain that these divisions date back to ancient times, something that is confirmed by the stone walls that represented the boundary separations between ancient farms, but we do not have any evidence to date these completely different divisions, nor to which specific century do they belong. We might propose with

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some degree of certainty that the earliest of them should not be traced back to the Seleucid period, because the regions concerned were not part of the area occupied by settlements in this period. It is possible that the most recent among them date from a period previous to the reign of Emperor Diocletian: in fact, we know from the historical texts that the survey conducted during this Emperor’s reign was presented as a census and registration process, not as a systematic reorganization of agricultural land. The texts also show us that, during the 4th century AD there was a process of inspecting and revising the land registry that had been determined previously, since the first three centuries AD.8 According to G. Tate, there are several moments during the Roman period, when the urban and rural organization of the Syrian province might have taken place, the most important of which was Pompeius’s period, which is considered important because it was the first administrative organization that had taken place in Syria. Another important phase was during Augustus’s ruling, when the imperial peace prevailed. Tate also mentioned a third phase, the period of the Flavian dynasty. Emperors Trajanus’s and Hadrianus’s period is important, because agricultural laws and the legislation on land ownership were issued in their times. As for the last period, namely the Severan dynasty period, specifically during the period of Caracalla, when many Syrian cities were granted the rights of colony, and accordingly gained many privileges. During Diocletian’s reign, cadastral and statistical registrations took place, with no new distribution and reorganization of the farmland. It is possible that the agricultural legislation concerning the development of uncultivated land in the 2nd century was applied to the entire Limestone Massif. The peasants managed to obtain contracts on uncultivated lands from the Limestone Massive. We can note that the village of Ruweiha and the other major sites of the Jebel al-Zawiyah are located in the cadastral area. Apparently, the imperial authority made legislative provisions allowing the development of the Massif. Georges Tate thinks that there is no indication that Roman citizens, veterans, former civil servants, or local notables were able to gain privileges from their given allotments only. On the contrary, they wanted to seize more lands near the plains. But it is likely that there was no place for everyone, which explains the presence of some veterans and Roman citizens in the Limestone Massif, and it is clear that the acquisition of land not suitable for cultivation was extensive.9 The second settlement phase in the Limestone Massif (AD 330–550) continued to grow steadily, lasting more than two centuries.10 This period was marked by an increase in demographic, economic and urban prosperity in the Jebel al-Zawiyah, Jebel Sem’an and the other limestone massifs. 8 Tate 1992: 298. 9 Ibidem. 10 Ibidem.

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The villages developed their trading system, as a result of the increasing cultivation of fruit trees, vines and olives, as a consequence of which the oil and wine industries started; the presses became more numerous during the 5th century AD, they became larger and larger and this had important consequences for the prosperity of the villages in this region.11 Summing up, despite the difficult circumstances in this region, especially during the current crisis in Syria, started in 2011, a large part of these divisions are still intact and give us important informations about the rural economy in this region, which is rich in hundreds of archaeological sites from the Roman and Byzantine periods. It is, therefore, very important that we document these archaeological remains within the databases for the preservation of the cultural heritage in these sites.

Bibliography Abdulkarim, M. 1997 Recherches sur la cité d’Émèse à l’époque romaine, Thèse de Doctorat, Université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin-En-Yvline. 1999 Télédétection et archéologie sur la formation de la cité d’Emèse a l’époque romaine, Photo-Interprétation 37: 14–34. 2012 Les parcellaires antiques dans la région de Ruweiha au nord de la Syrie, Syria 89: 195–211. Abdulkarim, M., Bildgen, P. Bildgen, A. and Gaubert, J-P. 2002–03 Les systemes d’alimentation en eau au voisinage et dans les terroirs des villages du Gebel Zawiyé, Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes 45–46: 359–379. 2004 Télédétection et géo-archéologie: Étude des caractéristiques géologiques, hydrogéologiques et des terroirs des villages antiques du Gebel Siman en Syrie du Nord, Photo-Interprétation 40: 17–26. Abdulkarim, M., Bildgen, P. Bildgen, A. and Gilg, J-P. 2004 Comparaison des potentialités naturelles d’accueil des Gebels Siman et Zawiyé, vis-à-vis des choix d’implantation des sites antiques romano-byzantins de Syrie du Nord, Photo-Interprétation 40: 27–35. Abdulkarim, M. and Charpentier, G. 2009 La gestion de l’eau dans un village des campagnes de la Syrie du Nord, in M. Al-Dbiyat and M. Mouton (eds), Stratégies d’acquisition de l’eau et société au Moyen-orient depuis l’Antiquité, Beyrouth: 149–157. Abdulkarim, M. and Olesti-Vila, O. 2007 Les centuriations dans la province romaine de Syrie, Syria 84: 249–276. Bildgen, P. and Gilg, J.-P. 1995 L’apport de l’imagerie satellitaire à l’étude des paysages antiques, perspectives et méthodes: Le cas de la Syrie du Nord, Syria, 72: 1–21. Bildgen, P., Gilg, J.-P. and Tate, G. 2000 Étude dynamique de l’environnement des villages romano-byzantins de Syrie du Nord, localisation des structures parcellaires et cadastrale qui leurs sont liées, Cybergeo, Édition Européene de Géographie, art. 166. 11 Callot 1984.

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Callot, O. 1984 Huileries antiques de Syrie du Nord, Paris. Dodinet, M., Leblanc, J., Vallat, J.-P. and Villeneuve, F. 1990 Les paysages antiques en Syrie: L’exemple de Damas, Syria 67: 339–368. Leblanc, J. and Vallat, J.-P. 1997 L’organisation de l’espace antique dans la zone de Suweïda et de Qanawat (Syrie du Sud), in J.- Burnouf, J.-P. Bravard and G. Chouqueur (eds), La dynamique des paysages protohistoriques, antiques, médiévaux et modernes, Sophia-Antipolis: 36–67. Leblanc, J. and Poccardi, G. 1999 Étude de la permanence de tracés urbains et ruraux antiques à Antioche-sur-l’Oronte, Syria 76: 91–126. Tate, G. 1992 Les campagnes de la Syrie du Nord du IIème au VIIème siècle, Paris. Tchalenko, G. 1953 Les villages antiques de la Syrie du nord, Paris. Van Liere, W.J. 1958 Ager centuriatus of the Roman colonia of Emese, Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes 8: 55–58. Villeneuve, F. 1985 L’economie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans le Hauran antique, in J.-M. Dentzer (ed.), Hauran I. Recherches archéologiques sur la Syrie du Sud à l’époque hellénistique et romaine (BAH 124), Paris: 63–136.

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Fig. 1. Map of northern Syria (after Tchalenko 1958: fig. XXX).

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The Preservation of the Agricultural Land Divisions in the Limestone Massif

Fig. 2. Aerial view of the archaeological parks in the Limestone Massif (© DGAM).

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Fig. 3. General view of the Jebel al-Zawiyah (© Author).

Fig. 4. The site of al-Bara (© Author).

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The Preservation of the Agricultural Land Divisions in the Limestone Massif

Fig. 5. General view of Sergilla (© Author).

Fig. 6. General view of the site of Ba‘ude (© Author).

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Fig. 7. General view of the site of Sergilla and of the region east of it (© Author).

128

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129

Fig. 8. Plan of the Archaeological Park of Ruweiha and Jerade in the Jebel al-Zawiyah (© DGAM).

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Fig. 9. Plan of the Archaeological Park of al-Bara in the Jebel al-Zawiyah (© DGAM).

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The Preservation of the Agricultural Land Divisions in the Limestone Massif

Fig. 10. Plan of the Archaeological Park of Brad in the Jebel Sem‘an (© DGAM).

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131

.

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Fig. 11. Aerial photo, dating from 1945, FFL, showing the area of Ruweiha and Jeradeh (© FFL).

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Fig. 12.

General plan of the survey area in the Ruweiha region (© Mission Archéologique Syro-Française au Nord de la Syrie).

The Preservation of the Agricultural Land Divisions in the Limestone Massif

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Fig. 13. General view of the site of Ruweiha (© Author).

Fig. 14. General view of the land plots north of Jerade (© Author).

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Fig. 15a. General view of the land plots in the regions west and north of Ruweiha (© Author).

Fig. 15b. General view of the site of Ruweiha in 2010 (© Google).

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Fig. 16. An example of a low wall east of Ruweiha (© Author).

Fig. 17. The destruction of the ancient walls in the region of Jerade (© Author).

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The Preservation of the Agricultural Land Divisions in the Limestone Massif

Fig. 18. General view of the sites of Ruweiha and Jerade in 2015 (© Google).

Fig. 19. General view of the site of Sergilla and of its region (© Author).

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Fig. 20. General view of the site of Shinserah in 2012 (© Google).

Fig. 21. General view of the site of Shinserah in 2016 (© Google).

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The Preservation of the Agricultural Land Divisions in the Limestone Massif

Fig. 22. General view of the site of Shinserah in 2017 (© Google).

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Fig. 23. A monastery in Brad (© Author).

Fig. 24. A view of the site of Kefer Nabo (© Author).

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The Preservation of the Agricultural Land Divisions in the Limestone Massif

Fig. 25. Aerial view of the site of Kefer Nabo (© Google)

Fig. 26. General view of the site of Kharab Shamas in the Jebel Sem‘an (© Author).

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Fig. 27. Aerial view of the site of Kalota (© Google).

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Short Notes

Marco Bonechi (Istituto di Studi sul Mediterraneo Antico, CNR, Roma), The Text of the Ebla Administrative Account TM.75.G.1886+10016 (ARET I 2 + ARET IV 23). The two fragments of a single cuneiform tablet TM.75.G.1886 and TM.75.G.10016 ‒ found in 1975 at Tell Mardikh, ancient Ebla, Syria, in the Palace G archive L.2769 (North B1 and North C1) ‒ were published in 1984 and 1985, respectively as ARET IV 23 and ARET I 2.1 Their join was published in 1996,2 a year when, independently, an important piece of complementary information was provided, i.e. that passages of this monthly account of “expenditures” of garments (although è is not written in the final total) run parallel to those of the multi-month account of expenditures of metals TM.75.G.2428, published in 2001 as MEE 12 35.3 An updated edition of the complete text resulting from the join of TM.75.G.1886 with TM.75.G.10016 has never been offered.4 Probably for this reason its remarkable information ‒ which allow us to improve our understanding of significant matters of the Ebla history more than other texts of the group of documents to which it belongs5 ‒ has been used in a non-systematic way. The present note is 1 M.G. Biga and L. Milano, Archivi Reali di Ebla. Testi IV. Testi amministrativi: assegnazioni di tessuti (Archivio L.2769), Roma 1984: 210–216 (photographs Tavv. XLVI-XLVII); A. Archi, Archivi Reali di Ebla. Testi I. Testi amministrativi: assegnazioni di tessuti (Archivio L.2769), Roma 1985: 15–19 (photographs Tavv. IX-X). 2 See M. Bonechi, ARET I 2 + ARET IV 23, Vicino Oriente 10 (1996): 83–84, with new photographs of the recomposed tablet kindly supplied by Alfonso Archi. This join had already been included in the quotations of the Ebla toponyms of my I nomi geografici dei testi di Ebla (RGTC 12/1), Wiesbaden 1993: passim. 3 M.G. Biga, Prosopographie et datation relative des textes d’Ébla, in J.-M. Durand (ed.), Mari, Ebla et les Hourrites dix ans de travaux, Première Partie: Actes du colloque international (Paris, mai 1993) (Amurru 1), Paris 1996: 57f., on the grounds of what had been already noted in H. Waetzoldt, review of Biga ‒ Milano, ARET IV, cit., in Bibliotheca Orientalis 43 (1986): 430ff., and in H. Waetzoldt, Zur Bewaffnung des Heeres von Ebla, Oriens Antiquus 29 (1990): 20, fn. 113. As for MEE 12 35 see H. Waetzoldt, Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungstexte aus Ebla. Archiv L.2769 (MEE 12), Napoli 2001: 341f. and 367–370. 4 In the Ebla Digital Archives (EbDA), online at http://ebda.cnr.it/index, ARET I 2 and ARET IV 23 are presented separately (accessed on April 2, 2019). 5 On this group of administrative texts ‒ including e.g. ARET I 1-9 and 32, ARET VIII 523 and 531 ‒ see for now A. Archi, ARET I, cit.: 219–225; M. Bonechi, Sui toponimi dei testi amministrativi eblaiti di tipo ARET 1.1-9, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 1990/26

Studia Eblaitica 6 (2020)

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only aimed to fill this gap for what concerns the cuneiform text of the two joined fragments,6 while an in-depth prosopographical, lexical and historical analysis of its content and relative position within the series of accounts of the very last years of the Palace G archives is presently precluded for reasons of space. However, here I wish to stress the importance of the historical information conveyed by the parts [2] and above all [4] and [5] of this document. The text of TM.75.G.1886 + TM.75.G.10016 = ARET IV 23 + ARET I 2 runs as follows: [1] Records concerning 29 unnamed members of the Syrian elites (from the kingdoms of NI-ra-arki, Ra-ʾà-aqki, Kak-mi-umki, Ì-marki, Du-ubki, Gàr-muki, Lumna-anki, Ù-ti-iqki, I-bu16-íbki, and Bur-ma-anki): (1a) obv. I:1–5: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / en / NI-ra-arki / 4 ʾàda-umtúg-2 4 aktumtúg 4 íbtúg -3 sa6 g[ùn] / 4 ábba-SÙ, “Five sets of garments for the king of NI-ra-arki (and) for his 4 elders”. (1b) obv. I:6–10: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 ˹gùn˺ / en / Ra-ʾà-aqki / 2 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 2 aktumtúg 2 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / 2 ábba-SÙ, “Three sets of garments for the king of Ra-ʾà-aqki (and) for his 2 elders”. (1c) obv. I:11‒II:3: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / en // Kak-mi-um˹ki˺ / 2 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 2 aktumtúg 2 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / 2 ábba-SÙ, “Three sets of garments for the king of Kak-mi-umki (and) for his 2 elders”.

6

(1990): 19–20; M.G. Biga and F. Pomponio, Critères de rédaction comptable et chronologie relative des textes d’Ebla, Mari. Annales de Recherches Interdisciplinaires 7 (1993): 112–114; Biga, Prosopographie et datation relative, cit.: 32f.; G. Pettinato, Testi amministrativi di Ebla. Archivio L.2752 (MEE 5), Napoli 1996: 213; A. Archi, In Search of Armi, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 63 (2011): 5–7 and fn. 2; A. Archi, La situation géopolitique de la Syrie avant l’expansion d’Akkad, in P. Butterlin, J.-C. Margueron, B. Muller, M. al-Maqdissi, D. Beyer and A. Cavigneaux (eds), Mari, ni Est, ni Ouest (Syria Suppl. II), Beirouth, 2014: 164 and fn. 18. In particular, according to A. Archi, Gifts at Ebla, in E. Ascalone and L. Peyronel (eds), Studi italiani di metrologia ed economia del Vicino Oriente antico dedicati a Nicola Parise in occasione del Suo settantesimo compleanno (Studia Asiana 7), Roma 2011: 48f., “in the last decade of Ebla, when the minister was Ibbi-zikir, it became the habit to send, once a year, a set of garments to the kings and elders (ábba) (in some cases also to representatives, maškim, and messengers, ma-za-lum) of those cities which recognised Ebla’s hegemony. [...] The administration gives no reason for these deliveries, which were certainly made annually. These are free deliveries, therefore gifts, by means of which ties of friendship were renewed with the kings of allied cities of inferior rank” (akin statements in A. Archi, Guests at the Court of Ebla, in K. Kleber, G. Neumann and S. Paulus [eds], Grenzüberschreitungen. Studien zur Kulturgeschichte des Alten Orients. Festschrift für Hans Neumann zum 65. Geburstag am 9. Mai 2018 (dubsar 5), Münster 2018: 18). To me, it is more likely that these records were written when the high-ranking foreigners traveled to(wards the kingdom of) Ebla, where they directly received the garments (same conclusions in R.D. Winters, Negotiating Exchange. Ebla and the International System of the Early Bronze Age, Diss. Harvard, 2019: 23–26). That these transactions were made annually and regularly seems to me unwarranted, but this is a topic deserving complex research. My re-edition below is based on the photographs published in the books mentioned in the fn. 1 above and in M. Bonechi, ARET I 2 + ARET IV 23, cit. (I have not seen the joined fragments in the Idlib Museum). I thank Amalia Catagnoti for her useful suggestions.

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(1d) obv. II:4–8: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / en / Ì-marki / 2 ʾàda-umtúg-2 [2] ˹aktum˺túg 2 íbtúg-4 ˹sa6˺ gùn / 2 ábba-SÙ, “Three sets of garments for the king of Ì-marki (and) for his 2 elders”. (1e) obv. II:9–10: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-1 2 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn 1 íbtúg-4 gùn / 2 Du-ubki, “Two sets of garments for 2 (high-ranking) men from Du-ubki”. (1f) obv. II:11‒III:5: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg // 1 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / en / Gàr-m[uki] / 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-1 2 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn 1 íbtúg-4 gùn / 2 ábba-SÙ, “Three sets of garments for the king of Gàr-muki (and) for his 2 elders”. (1g) obv. III:6–10: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 ˹1˺ ˹aktum˺túg [1 í]b[túg]-4 [sa6 g]ùn / en / Lumna-anki / 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-1 2 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn 1 íbtúg-3 gùn / 2 ábba-SÙ, “Three sets of garments for the king of Lum-na-anki (and) for his 2 elders”. (1h) obv. III:11‒IV:5: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 // 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / en / Ù-ti-iqki / 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-1 2 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn 1 íbtúg-4 gùn / 2 ábba-SÙ, “Three sets of garments for the king of Ù-ti-iqki (and) for his 2 elders”. (1i) obv. IV:6–10: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 gù[n] / [en] / ˹I-bu16˺-íbki / 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-1 2 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn 1 íbtúg-4 gùn / 2 ábba-SÙ, “Three sets of garments for the king of I-bu16-íbki (and) for his 2 elders”. (1j) obv. V:1–2: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / Bur-ma-anki, “One set of garments for (one high-ranking) man from Bur-ma-anki”. [2] Records concerning 40 members of the Ebla elites active in the Ebla kingdom: (2a1) obv. V:3‒VI:2: 12 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 12 aktumtúg 12 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / ʾÀ-zi / Irti / ʾÀ-da-šè / En-na-ma-lik / [PN] / [PN] / Du-bí / ʾÀ-téš / ʾÀ-da-ša / NI-zi / ˹En˺na-NI / Bù-ga-núm / ŠEŠ.2.IB / šu-mu-nígin // dNI-da-bal / Lu-ba-anki, “Twelve sets of garments for (six pairs formed by twelve high-ranking) men (from Ebla) who acted as ŠEŠ.2.IB of the (ritual) circumambulation of the (image of the Moon-god) d NI-da-bal of Lu-ba-anki”, (2a2) obv. VI:3–10: 2 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / I-gi-um / Ša-ti-lu / lú ká / Bar-za-ma-ù / ŠEŠ.2.IB / kéš-da / SA-LAK384-ki, “two garments for (the two high-ranking Ebla men) I-gi-um and Ša-ti-lu belonging to the ká of Bar-za-ma-ù, (men who acted as) ŠEŠ.2.IB kéš-da of the (Ebla) crown possessions”, (2a3) obv. VI:11‒VII:8: 26 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / Iš-má-da-ba-an / [...] / [PN] / [...] / [Kù]n-daba-an / En-na-ma-lik / SA-LAK384-ki / 2 Kul-ba-anki / 2 ˹Nu˺-ga-muki / 2 Iq-du-luki / [2 Ká-ba]-al6ki / [2 A?-ru12?]-˹lu?˺ki / [2 x]-˹x˺-duki // 2 A-ru12-luki-[2] / 2 Íl-gú-uš-ti / 2 Bù-˹x˺-[...] / 2 Ki-t[i-ir] / 2 Ḫ[u-za-anki] / ŠEŠ.[2].˹IB˺ / k[éš]-da / [k]á-ká, “(and) 26 garments for (twenty-six high-ranking) men (from various places of the Ebla kingdom) who acted as ŠEŠ.2.IB kéš-da of the ká-ká”, (2b) obv. VII:9-11: in / SA-LAK384-ki / ˹šu˺-ba4-ti, “(the garments of the sections 2a1–3) have been received and taken away (by these forty men) in the (Ebla) crown possessions”.

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[3] Records concerning 2 foreigners and 43 men and women from Ebla, in various circumstances (probably mainly in the Ebla kingdom), including deliveries of fruits, religious ceremonies, and the end of mourning rites: (3a) obv. VII:12–16: [1] aktumtúg [1] íbtúg-3 gùn / Ìr-ì-ba / ˹Ì˺-marki / šu-mu-taka4 / ˹NE˺.É, “One set of garments for Ìr-ì-ba from Ì-marki, who has delivered É:NEfruits”. (3b) obv. VII:17‒VIII:2: 11 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / Šu-ra-da-mu / Ù-ti / In-gàr / Ib-du-dAšdar / Ré-ì-ma-lik / Ib-gi / Ra!-i-zú / Du-bù-ḫu-ma-lik / I-ti-dNI-lam // [...] / [x(-x)-l]u?, “Eleven garments for (eleven high-ranking) men (from Ebla)”. (3c) obv. VIII:3–5: [1] ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / I-šar / lú En-dulu, “One set of garments for I-šar of En-du-lu’s household (both are Ebla men)”. (3d) obv. VIII:6–12: 4 íbtúg-3 gùn / 4 dumu-nita / Ga-ga / NE-di / in / gi6-sá / šu-ba4-ti, “Four garments for 4 sons of Ga-ga the dancer, on of the gi6-sá-rite, received and taken away”. (3e) obv. VIII:13‒IX:2: 10 lá-3 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 / 10 lá-3 dùltúg / 16 aktumtúg / 6 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / 2 íbtúg-4 ú-ḫáb / lú mu-DU / I-bí-zi-kir // [ma]-˹lik˺-[t]um / šu-ba4-ti, “Thirty-eight garments which are (part of) the income by I-bí-zi-kir, received and taken away by the (Ebla) queen (Da-bur-da-mu)”. (3f) obv. IX:3–11: 2 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 2 aktumtúg 2 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / ì-giš sag / Dubí / wa / ì-giš sag / Ḫa-ra-NI / En-na-NI / lú Ìr-kab-ar / šu-mu-taka4, “Two sets of garments (on the occasion) of the (two rites, marking the end of two mourning periods, of the) olive oil of the (cleaning of the) head of Du-bí and of the head of Ḫa-ra-NI, (garments which) En-na-NI of Ìr-kab-ar’s household has delivered (to Du-bí and Ḫa-ra-NI where they were, therefore not at Ebla)”. (3g1–2) obv. IX:12‒X:4: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / Za-zi / lú Ìrda-ma-lik / 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-1 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 gùn / I-bí-šum / níg-mul-an // Ir-ti / àga-ús / in / Ù-ra-muki, “Two sets of garments for Za-zi of Ìr-da-ma-lik’s household (and) for I-bí-šum, who have brought news concerning Ir-ti, the (Ebla) captain of the guard (who was) at Ù-ra-muki”. (3h) obv. X:5-8: 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 gùn / ì-giš sag / In-ma-lik / nagar, “One set of garments (on the occasion) of the (rite, marking the end of the mourning period, of the) olive oil of the (cleaning of) the head of In-ma-lik, the (Ebla) carpenter.” (3i1–2) obv. X:9 ‒ XI:8: 1 saltúg 1 íbtúg-3 gùn / Àr-ra-ma-lik / lú Ib-da-u9 / níg-mul-an / Bù-ga-núm / àga-ús / in / Ar-u9-gúki / 2 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 saltúg 2 íbtúg-4 gùn / Šu-bí // lú I-ba-zi-mi-nu / Ru12-zi-da-ar / lú Ip-dur-i-šar / níg-mul-an / Ir-ti / ŠEŠ.2.IB / in / Ar-u9-gúki, “One set of garments for Àr-ra-ma-lik of Ib-da-u9’s household, who has brought news concerning Bù-ga-núm, the (Ebla) captain of the guard (who was) at Ar-u9-gúki, (and) two sets of garments for Šu-bí of I-ba-zi-mi-nu’s household (and) for Ru12-zi-da-ar of Ip-dur-i-šar’s household, who have brought news concerning Ir-ti, (who acted as) ŠEŠ.2.IB at Ar-u9-gúki”. (3j) obv. XI:9-14: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / Na-am6-ì-giš / in ud / ḫúl-SÙ / A-kéš-da-mu / šu-mu-taka4, “One set of garments for Na-am6-ì-giš on the

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occasion of his ḫúl-rite, (which) A-kéš-da-mu has delivered (to him, who therefore was not at Ebla)”. (3k) obv. XI:15–18: 1 aktumtúg / TÚG-ZI:ZI / sag / en, “One garment for the TÚG-ZI:ZI of the sag of the (Ebla) king (Iš11-ar-da-mu)”. (3l) obv. XI:19‒rev. I:6: 2 saltúg / ˹Wa-ḫi˺-[zú] // Su-ma-NI / šu-mu-taka4 / uzu / d NI-da-bal / in / šu-mu-nígin, “Two garments for Wa-ḫi-zú and Su-ma-NI, who have delivered the meat of (the Moon-god) dNI-da-bal during the (ritual) circumambulation (of his image)”. (3m) rev. I:7–10: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / ì-giš sag / Sá-mu-um / lú In-ti, “One set of garments (on the occasion) of the (rite, marking the end of the mourning period, of the) olive oil of the (cleaning of) the head of Sá-mu-um of In-ti’s household”. (3n) rev. I:11–17: 1 zara6túg / dumu-mí / Ti-ša-núm / ga-bir5-du / ma-lik-tum / al6tuš / Lu-ba-anki, “One garment for the daughter of Ti-ša-núm, the ga-bir5-du of the (Ebla) queen (Da-bur-da-mu), (girl) residing at Lu-ba-anki”. (3o) rev. I:18–22: 1 saltúg 1 íbtúg-3 gùn / En-na-NI / NI-ra-arki / šu-mu-taka4 / NE.É, “One set of garments for En-na-NI from NI-ra-arki who has delivered É:NE-fruits”. [4] Records concerning precious goods given by members of the Ebla elite (five men are mentioned) to members of the Mari elite (thirty-three men are mentioned):7 (4a1–2) rev. II:1‒III:7: 1 dùltúg 1 gu-zi-tumtúg 2 aktumtúg 2 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / 1 gadatúg mu4mu / 3 gadatúg kir-na-nu / ˹1˺ [gàr]-su gi6 / 2 ma-na kù-sig17 / 1 giššú / 58 kù-sig17 / 1 níg-bànda / lú 2-šu / 1 ma-na 10 kù-sig17 / 1 dib / TAR-7 kù-sig17 / 1 an-zamx(LAK304) 1 PAD-SÙ / 14 kù-sig17 / 1 zi-bar 1 PAD-SÙ / lú mu-DU / en / Ra-ʾà-aqki // ˹7˺ kù-sig17 / NU11-za 1 kun / 13 kù-sig17 / NU11-za 1 si / am / 5 kù-sig17 / 1 gú-˹zu˺r[a]-tu[m ...], “Eleven garments and seven golden objects (their weight is 4 minas and 59 shekels), which are (part of) an income (to Ebla) by the king of Ra-ʾà-aqki, (and) 20 shekels of gold for the decorations of one tail and one (pair of ?) horn(s) of (the image of one) bull, and 5 shekels of gold for one clip ...”: (4a3) rev. III:8–10: AN.ŠÈ.GÚ 5 ma-na šušanax(ŠÚ+ŠA)-4 kù-sig17 / lú en / ì-nasum, “a total (referring to the sections 4a1-2) of 5 minas and 24 shekels of gold, which the (Ebla) king (Iš11-ar-da-mu) has given”, (4a4) rev. III:11–14: TAR-8 kù-sig17 / 1 bur-KAK ì-giš / lú I-bí-zi-kir / ì-na-sum, “(and furthermore) 38 shekels of gold for one bur-KAK-vessel8 for olive oil, which I-bí-zi-kir has given”, (4b) rev. III:15–17: níg-ba / lugal / Ma-ríki, “(all the goods of the sections 4a1–4) are the (Ebla) allotment for the lugal of Mari”; 7 8

Parallel passages occur in TM.75.G.2428 = MEE 12 35 obv. XVII:31-XX:6. On the bur-KAK-vessel see recently A. Vacca, Chronology and Distribution of 3rd Millennium BC Flasks, Contributi e Materiali di Archeologia Orientale 16 (2014): 258–260, with literature, and A. Archi, Archivi Reali di Ebla. Testi XX. Administrative Texts: Allotments of Clothing for the Palace Personnel (Archive L.2769), Wiesbaden 2018: 257 (“a vessel used for the wedding ceremony”).

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(4c1) rev. III:18‒IV:3: 1 ma-na šanabix(ŠA.PI) kù:babbar / níg-ba / Iš-má-NI / Engar-kínda / A-LUM / Gú-gú / Bù-dDa-gan, “(and furthermore) 1 mina and 40 shekels of silver are the (Ebla) allotment for five high-ranking men (from Mari)”, (4c2) rev. IV:4–11: 1 ma-na kù:babbar / níg-ba / Ba-lu / Da-ti / Íl-a-šar / A-[x]-nu / Kùn-i-šar / Bí-bí, “(and) 1 mina of silver is the (Ebla) allotment for six high-ranking men (from Mari)”, (4c3) rev. IV:12–15: TAR kù:babbar / níg-ba / Iš-má-NI / u5, “(and) 30 shekels of silver are the (Ebla) allotment for Iš-má-NI, the (Mari) u5”, (4c4) rev. IV:16–19: 10 kù:babbar / níg-ba / Šu-ga-du / sagi, “(and) 10 shekels of silver are the (Ebla) allotment for Šu-ga-du, the (Mari) cupbearer”: (4d) rev. IV:20: NI-si-li-gú, “(the Ebla allotments of the sections 4a-c have been given to the fourteen high-ranking Mari men at) NI-si-li-gú”; (4e) rev. IV:21‒V:3: 5 kù:babbar / ˹níg˺-ba / ˹Ib˺-gi-tum / ˹lú-kas4˺ / šuš[anax(Š[Ú+ŠA)-4 kù:babbar] // 12 maškim maḫ 2 / 5 kù:babbar / maškim-SÙ tur , “(and) 5 shekels of silver are the (Ebla) allotment for Ib-gi-tum, the (Mari) lú-kas4, (and) 24 shekels of silver are (the Ebla allotment) for 12 senior travelling agents (each of them receiving) 2 shekels, (and) 5 shekels of silver are (the Ebla gift) for his junior travelling agents (each of them receiving )”: (4f) rev. V:4: Ma-ríki, “(the Ebla allotments of the section 4e have been given to the eighteen Mari men) at Mari”; (4g1) rev. V:5–11: 5 kù:babbar / Gi-tum / ḫúb / Ù-ti / šu-mu-taka4 / si-in / Ḫa-la{-x}-bí-du˹ki˺, “(and) 5 shekels of silver for Gi-ra-tum, the (Mari) acrobat, (silver which I-bí-zi-kir’s brother) Ù-ti has delivered (to him) (when Ù-ti) towards Ḫa-la-bí-duki”, (4g2) rev. V:12–19: 2 gíri ma[r-tu] zú-aka / In-bí / Ti-a-ga-mu / maškim / I-bí-zikir / DU-DU / ˹si˺-in / Du-d[u-luki], “(and) two daggers of the mar-tu zú-aka kind for In-bí (and) Ti-a-ga-mu, the two I-bí-zi-kir’s travelling agents (when) they were travelling towards Tuttul”. [5] Records of various expenditures of garments: (5a) rev. V:20‒VI:11: 12 salt[úg] 12 íbtúg-2 gùn / Ì-lum-bal / Šu-ma-NI // ˹Du˺-ḫu-našè / I-da-NI / [Da-b]í-lum / Ne-zi-ma-lik / Ì-lum-bal / A-bù / En-na-ni-il / A-bù-dKUra / Ma-kum-dKU-ra / En-na-NI / muḫaldim, “Twelve sets of garments for (twelve Ebla palatial) cooks”. (5b1) rev. VI:12–17: 50 gadatúg níg-gùn / 1 mi-at túg-du8 / 2 kin siki / [x-Š]U?˹SÙ˺ / [Ik?-su?]-ud / šu-˹ba4˺-ti, “50 linen garments with embroideries, 100 felters, 2 kin-measures of wool for their ..., Ik-su-ud (?) has received and taken away”, (5b2) rev. VI:18–22: 1 kin si[ki] / 1 eškirix(KÌRI.ÉŠ) 4 níg-anše-aka / I-bí-zi-kir / BAD-SÙ-ELLes160 / šu-ba4-ti, “(and) 1 kin-measure of wool for 1 bridle (and) 4 reins of I-bí-zi-kir(’s chariot), BAD-SÙ-ELLes160 has received and taken away”. (5c) rev. VI:23‒VII:6: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-1 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-3 gùn / Íl-ba-da-mu / NIra-arki / šu-mu-taka4 / gu-la-tum / in / Bar-ga-˹u9˺[ki] / šu-ba4-t[i], “One set of garments

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for Íl-ba-da-mu from NI-ra-arki, who has delivered the gu-la-tum-food, at Bar-ga-u9ki received and taken away”. (5d) rev. VII:7–13: [1 ʾà-d]a-[umtúg]-2 [1] ˹aktum˺túg [1] íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / Ru12-zid NI-lam / pa4:šeš / en / in / Am6-ma-šuki / šu-ba4-ti, “One set of garments for one valet of the (Ebla) king (Iš11-ar-da-mu), at Am6-ma-šuki received and taken away”. (5e) rev. VII:14–21: 1 gu-dùltúg / En-[n]a-NI / šu-mu-taka4 / LAK384 / en / in / A-ru12-ga-duki / šu-ba4-ti, “One garment for En-na-NI (from Ebla?), who has delivered the LAK384-food to the (Ebla) king (Iš11-ar-da-mu), at A-ru12-ga-duki received and taken away”. (5f1–2) rev. VII:22–30: TAR kù:babbar / níg-ba / En-na-ni-il / Ma-ríki / 10 lá-2 saltúg / nar-nar-SÙ / é / dBAD Ga-na-na / šu-ba4-ti, “30 shekels of silver as (Ebla) gift for En-na-ni-il from Mari, (and) eight garments for his (eight) musicians (from Mari), at the (Ebla?) temple of dBAD Ga-na-na received and taken away”, (5f3) rev. VII:31‒VIII:5: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn // en / Ì-marki / d é / BAD Ga-na-na / šu-ba4-ti, “(and) one set of garments for the king of Ì-marki, at the (Ebla?) temple of dBAD Ga-na-na received and taken away”. (5g) rev. VIII:6–13: 1 saltúg 1 íbtúg-1 gùn / Puzur4-ra-ma-lik / Ì-mar˹ki˺ / šu-mutaka4 / NE.É / in / Ḫa-labx(LAM)ki / šu-ba4-ti, “One set of garments for Puzur4-rama-lik from Ì-marki who has delivered fruits É:NE, at Aleppo received and taken away”. (5h) rev. VIII:14–20: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-1 1 saltúg 1 íbtúg-3 gùn / Ma-za-˹a-du˺ / [d]am / en / in / ʾÀ-za-anki / šu-ba4-ti, “One set of garments for the (Ebla) royal lady Ma-zaa-du, at ʾÀ-za-anki received and taken away”. (5i1–2) rev. VIII:21–30: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / Gi-na-ù / 1 TÚG-NI:NI / ga-du8 / dumu-nita / en / A-ru12-ga-duki / in / A-ru12-ga-duki / šu-ba4-ti, “One set of garments for Gi-na-ù (and) one garment for the wet nurse of the son of the (Ebla) king (Iš11-ar-da-mu), (both persons) of A-ru12-ga-duki (?), at A-ru12-ga-duki received and taken away”. (5j) rev. VIII:31‒IX:8: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-1 1 aktumtúg // 1 íbtúg-4 gùn / I-šar-ma-lik / NIra-arki / šu-mu-taka4 / NE.É / in / Lu-ba-anki {x}9, “One set of garments for I-šar-ma-lik from NI-ra-arki who has delivered É:NE-fruits, at Lu-ba-anki ”. (5k) rev. IX [...] (around 4–8 cases lost), “[...]”. (5l) rev. IX:1’–5’: 2 ʾà-da-umtúg 2 aktumtúg 2 íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / 2 Kak-mi-umki / in / A-ḫa-SUMki / šu-ba4-ti, “Two sets of garments for 2 men from Kak-mi-umki, at A-ḫa-SUMki received and taken away”. (5m) rev. IX:6’‒X:4: 1 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 1 aktumtúg 1 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / ì-giš sag / Bu-maNI / šeš / Ib-rí-um // En-na-d[x-x] / maškim / Ù-ba-an / ˹šu˺-[mu-taka4], “One set of garments (on the occasion) of (the rite, marking the end of the mourning period, of) the olive oil of the (cleaning of) the head of Bu-ma-NI, Ib-rí-um’s brother, (gar-

9

The scribe erased the text of a large case including amounts of garments.

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ments which) En-na-d[x-x], travelling agent of Ù-ba-an, has delivered (to Bu-ma-NI, who therefore was not at Ebla)”. (5n) rev. X:5–11: 5 ˹gu˺-dùltúg 5 aktumtúg 5 íbtúg-3 sa6 gùn / en / ba-da-lum / ˹Li˺ma-dDa-gan / Ti-iš-ga-núm / ʾÀ-ti-ir / Ḫal-sumki, “Five sets of garments for the king, the ba-da-lum (and) three (high-ranking) men of Ḫal-sumki”. (5o) rev. X:12–14: 2 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 ˹2˺ aktum[túg] 2 íbtúg-3 [sa6 gùn] / Na-me / Puzur4uru, “Two sets of garments for (the two Ebla men) Na-me and Puzur4-uru”. (5p) rev. X:15–23: 6 gu-dùltúg 6 aktumtúg 6 íbtúg-3 sa6 ˹gùn˺ / Da-zi-ma-ad / [I]-ti-agú / NE-SI / Ḫa-zi-ir / En-na-BAD / A-bù / maškim / I-bí-zi-kir, “Six sets of garments for six men, (who are) I-bí-zi-kir’s travelling agents”. [6] Record of amounts of wool. (6) rev. X:24–28: 6 kin siki / 2 túg-du8 / I-bí-zi-kir / Ik-su-ud / šu-ba4-ti, “Six kin-measures of wool for 2 felters of I-bí-zi-kir(’s chariot), Ik-su-ud has received and taken away”. [7] Totals. (7a) rev. XI:1–7: AN.ŠÈ.GÚ 65 ʾà-da-umtúg-2 / 92 aktumtúg / 80 lá-2 gu-dùltúg gadatúg ʾà-da-umtúg-[1] / 1 zara6túg 1 TÚG-NI:NI / 30 lá-3 saltúg / 1 mi-at 10{-2} íbtúg-4 sa6 gùn / 32{-3} íbtúg-4 gùn, “Total: 65+92+78+1+1+27+110+32 = 406 garments of different kinds”. (7b) rev. XI:8–9: šu-nígin 2 mi 63 {x} túg-túg / (blank), “Grand total: 263 garments”. [8] Date. (8) rev. XI:10: itiPÈŠ×ÉŠ-egirx(ÚGUR), “12th month”. Appendix ‒ In the section (5a) above twelve “cooks” are recorded. Awaiting the study announced by Maria Giovanna Biga on the Ebla muḫaldims,10 one can already observe that this list of cooks is parallel to other five lists recorded in further monthly accounts of garments: (α) TM.75.G.1886 + TM.75.G.10016 = ARET IV 23 + ARET I 2 rev. V:20‒VI:11 (ß) TM.75.G.2402 (unp.) obv. VII:4-711 (γ) TM.75.G.2474 (unp.) + TM.75.G.5134 = ARET XII 748 + TM.75.G.1014112 obv. IV’:1-6

10 M.G. Biga, The Role of Women in Work and Society in the Ebla Kingdom (Syria, 24th century BC), in B. Lion and C. Michel (eds), The Role of Women in Work and Society in the Ancient Near East (SANER 13), Boston – Berlin 2016: 83 and fn. 38. 11 Quoted in A. Archi, Five Tablets from the Southern Wing of Palace G ‒ Ebla, Syro-Mesopotamian Studies 5/2, Malibu, 1993: 29. 12 On this join see M.G. Biga, ARET I 3 + ARET XII 146, ARET I 7+ ARET XII 934 and other recent joins of the Ebla monthly accounts of deliveries of textiles, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2009/29: 39.

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(δ) TM.75.G.3249 + TM.75.G.3293 = ARET III 214 rev.? II:7–16 + TM.75.G.5277 = ARET XII 847 II’:1’–4’13 (ε) TM.76.G.530 = ARET I 5 = MEE 5 10 rev. III:1–IV:5 (ζ) TM.76.G.542 = ARET VIII 542 = MEE 5 22 obv. VIII:15–IX:13 Probably written during a very short time frame, these lists (see the next page) give the names of 20 muḫaldims, who most likely were the royal cooks under the last Palace G king. Their names are: A-bù, A-bù-dKU-ra, A-ga-tum, A-zú-gú-ra, Ba-du-la-ti, Bí-zi-ma-lik, Bù-da-NI, Bù-dùg, Da-bí-lu/-lum, Du-ḫu-na-šè/-zi, En-na-NI, En-na-ni-il, I-da-NI, I-ib-ma-lik, Ì-lum-bal, Ì-lum-bal-2, Idx(NI)-bù-ul-NI, Mi-/Ma-kumd KU-ra, Puzur4(-ra)-ma-lik, and Šu-ma-NI. After them, often two further men ‒ i.e. NI-ba-NI and Šu-ma-lik ‒ are mentioned, respectively qualified as “the one in charge of the wine” (lú geštin) and “the one in charge of the beer” (lú ŠE+TIN).14 Clearly, they were responsible for storing alcoholic beverages in the cellars of Iš11ar-da-mu.

13 My proposal that ARET III 214 and ARET XII 847 are joins (this permits the restoration of the list of the cooks) must be verified. 14 In general, on lú geštin in the Palace G texts see A. Archi, Five Tablets from the Southern Wing, cit.: 28f. (“Officials ‘in charge of wine’”) and L. Milano, Vino e birra in Oriente. Confini geografici e confini culturali, in L. Milano (ed.), Drinking in Ancient Society. History and Culture of Drinks in the Ancient Near East (HANES VI), Padova, 1994: 437. On NI-ba-NI lú geštin see also L. Viganò, On Ebla. An Accounting of Third Millennium Syria, Aula Orientalis Supplementa 12, Sabadell 1996: 134. For Biga, The Role of Women, cit.: 83, Šu-ma-lik lú ŠE+TIN was a “cupbearer”.

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152 (α) 12th month

(β) month?

(γ) [...] month

(δ) [...] month

(ε) 9th month

(ζ) 10th month

12 saltúg

?

[...]

10 saltúg

17 aktumtúg

18 saltúg

12 íb -2 gùn

?

[...]

10 íb -2 gùn

17 íb -2 gùn

18 íbtúg-4 gùn

Ì-lum-bal

[...]

Du-ḫu-na-zi

Ì-lum-bal

Du-ḫu-na-šè

Šu-ma-NI

[...]

Ì-lum-bal

Šu-ma-NI

Ì-lum-bal

Du-ḫu-na-šè

[...]

Šu-ma-NI

I-da-NI

Šu-ma-NI

I-da-NI

[...]

Idx(NI)-bù-ul-NI

Da-bí-lu

I-da-NI

[Da-b]í-lum

[...]

I-da-NI

Puzur4-ra-ma-lik

Da-bí-lu!

túg

túg

túg

níg-É-GUL-GUL

NE-zi-ma-lik

[...]

Da-bí-lum

A-zú-gú-ra

Puzur4-ma-lik

Ì-lum-bal

[...]

Bí-zi-ma-lik

Ì-lum-bal-2

A-zú-gú-ra

A-bù

[...]

Ì-lum-bal-2

En-na-ni-il

Ì-lum-bal-2

En-na-ni-il

[...]

A-bù

A-bù-dKU-ra

En-na-ni-il

A-bù-dKU-ra

[...]

[Puzur4]-ra-ma-lik

Mi-kum-dKU-ra

A-bù-dKU-ra

Ma-kum-dKU-ra

Bí-zi-ma-lik

muḫaldim

En-na-NI

Mi-kum-dKU-ra

En-na-NI

Ì-lum-bal

NI-ba-NI

I-ib-ma-lik

En-na-NI

13 muḫaldim

A-bù

lú ŠE+TIN

A-ga-tum

I-ib-ma-lik

wa

muḫaldim-muḫaldim

Ba-du-la-ti

A-ga-tum

NI-ba-NI

Šu-ma-lik

Bù-dùg

Ba-du-la-ti

lú geštin

lú ŠE+TIN

Bù-da-NI

Bù-dùg

muḫaldim

NI-ba-NI

Bù-da-NI

lú

muḫaldim

muḫaldim-muḫaldim

NI-ba-NI lú geštin

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Marta D’Andrea (Sapienza Università di Roma), Again on the “Grey Wares”, Ebla, the Steppe, and the South during Early Bronze IV. In a recent re-examination of the various Early Bronze IV (EB IV, ca. 2500-2000 BC) “grey wares” in the Levant presented in this journal, I concluded with the question whether their absence in the Ebla region in the second half of the period (EB IVB, ca. 2300-2000 BC) was real or illusory.1 A re-examination of the photographic documentation of the EB IV pottery collected from the excavations at Ebla has allowed me to identify a group of sherds dating from late EB IVB that had escaped attention thus far. These finds may answer that question and inform us on contacts among different areas during EB IVB. One sherd is a fragment of a goblet with globular body and incurving walls, with thickened inside rim and multiple radial cream bands on a brick red surface (Fig. 1: 1), an oxidized variant of the same ware found frequently along with the grey goblets. This vessel shape and its decorative schema are found in the area between Tell Nebi Mend in the upper Orontes and Moumassakhin in the Qalamoun region of southern Syria.2 A second EB IVB sherd from Ebla is a fragment of a goblet with incurving walls and everted beaded rim characterized by a dark brown outer colour and a particular decoration (Fig. 1: 2). The decorative schema is composed of 17 thin radial bands and a lower thicker concentric painted band of cream colour and is typical of EB IVB vessels from the central Syrian steppe between Tell Mishrifeh/Qaṭna and Tell Shayrat,3 is distributed to other sites like Hama in the central Orontes Valley and Yabroud in the Damascene, and may be found at Tell Nebi Mend.4 A third pottery fragment is a body sherd belonging to a closed-shape vessel, characterised by the grey fabric and surface colour, and four sub-parallel cream painted bands (Fig. 1: 3). The fabric type and the decoration are characteristic of the EB IVB grey jars found between Central and Southern Syria.5

M. D’Andrea, Note on Early Bronze IV Grey Hard-Textured Wares in the Levant, Studia Eblaitica 3 (2017): 181. 2 E.g., M.A. Kennedy, K. Badreshany and G. Philip, Drinking on the periphery: the Tell Nebi Mend goblets in their regional and archaeometric context, Levant (2018), published online: https://doi.org/10.1080/00758914.2018.14420762018: fig. 4:3. 3 G. Mouamar, Tell Shʻaīrat: une ville circulaire majeure du IIIéme millénaire av. J.-C. du territoire de la confederation d’Ib’al, Studia Eblaitica 2 (2016): 82–84, fig. 8:8–11; Id., The Early Bronze IVB Painted Simple Ware from Tell Shʻaīrat: an integrated archaeometric approach, Levant, published online: https://doi.org/10.1080/00758914.2018.1477295: 6–8 and fig. 7. 4 Hama: A. Vacca et al., A Fresh Look at Hama in an Inter-regional Context. New Data from Phase J Materials in the National Museum of Denmark, Studia Eblaitica 4 (2018): 31–32, fig. 8:2; Yabroud: A. Abou Assaf, Der Friedhof von Yabroud, Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes 17 (1967): fig. 21:1; Tell Nebi Mend: M.A. Kennedy The Late Third Millennium BCE in the Upper Orontes Valley, Syria: Ceramics, Chronology and Cultural Connections (ANES Supplementary Series, 4), Leuven, 2015: fig. 70: 24. 5 See Vacca et al., A Fresh Look at Hama, cit.: 15, fig. 8:1, citing additional bibliography. 1

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As detailed in other works,6 the core areas of original elaboration of “grey wares” were the central and upper sectors of the Orontes Valley in EB IVA, where they further developed during EB IVB.7 It seems that only during EB IVB the production of local variants of “grey wares” spread outside that area in the Central Syrian steppe,8 in the Lebanese Beqa‘, and the Hula Valley.9 It is still indeterminate if the “grey ware” from southern Syria reflects local production or imports from different sources in the northern and southern Levant, or all of these phenomena.10 The EB IVB grey sherds (and others discussed further below) from Ebla may draw the site into a broader regional scenario. Ebla, destroyed at the end of EB IV, experienced a time of crisis and shrinkage during the earlier EB IVB phases (local EB IVB1–2) followed by reorganization during a later part of the period (local EB IVB3).11 During the latter phase, a new

6

D’Andrea, La Black Wheelmade Ware. Originalità e modelli stilistici, tipologici e tecnologici dalla Siria e dal Levante settentrionale in una peculiare produzione dipinta sud-levantina del tardo III millennio a.C., in Rendiconti Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei s. IX, vol. 24 (2014); Ead., The Southern Levant in Early Bronze IV. Issues and Perspectives in the Pottery Evidence (CMAO XVII/1-2), Roma 2014: 153–166, 169; Ead., Note on Grey Wares, cit.: 176–178, 180; Ead., A Matter of Style. Ceramic Evidence of Contacts between the Orontes Valley and the Southern Levant during the Mid-Late 3rd Millennium BC, in M. Kennedy, A Land In-between: The Orontes Valley in the Early Urban Age (Adapa Monographs), Sidney, in press. 7 L. Cooper, Exploring the Heartland of the Early Bronze Age “Caliciform” Culture, Journal of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 2 (2007): 43–50; Ead., Half-Empty or Half-Full? Past and Present Research on EB IV Caliciform Goblets and their Chronological and SocioEconomic Implications, in P. Matthiae, F. Pinnock and M. D’Andrea (eds), Ebla and Beyond. Ancient Near Eastern Studies after Fifty Years of Discoveries at Tell Mardikh. Proceedings of the International Congress Held in Rome, 15th-17th December 2014, Wiesbaden, 2018: 194–195 and figs 11–12; G. Mouamar, De nouvelles données sur les gobelets de Hama: Marqueurs de la chronologie et des échanges de Syrie centrale pendant la seconde moitié du 3e millénaire avant J.-C., Paléorient 43/2 (2016): 80–82, 85–88, figs 10–11, 14, 16; M.-C. Boileau, Petrographic signatures of the Tell ʻAcharneh ceramics: A diachronic perspective, Levant, published online DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00758914.2018.1477296: 1–2, 5–6, 10, and fig. 1; Vacca et. al., A Fresh Look at Hama, cit.: 28–30, figs 6:2, 7: 1–2; Kennedy, Badreshany and Philip, Drinking on the periphery, cit.: 29. 8 The “Shʻaīrat Grey Ware”: Mouamar, references cited at fn. 3. 9 For the Beqa‘, see H. Genz, Reflections on the Early Bronze Age IV in Lebanon, in P. Matthiae et al. (eds), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East May, 5th–10th 2008, Volume 2, Rome 2010: 205–217; H. Genz, K. Badreshany and M. Jean, A View from the North. Black Wheelmade Ware in Lebanon, in W.G. Dever and J.C. Long Jr. (eds), Transitions, Urbanism, and Collapse in the Early Bronze Age. Essays in Honor of Suzanne Richard, Sheffield, in press, citing earlier references; for the Hula Valley, see S. Bunimovitz and R. Greenberg, Revealed in their Cups: Syrian Drinking Customs in Intermediate Bronze Age Canaan, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 334 (2004): 19–31; S. Bechar, A Reanalysis of the Black Wheel-Made Ware of the Intermediate Bronze Age, Tel Aviv 42/1–2 (2015): 27–58. See also references at fn. 6. 10 D’Andrea, A Matter of Style, cit. 11 P. Matthiae, Nouvelles fouilles à Ébla en 2006: Le temple du Rocher et ses successeurs protosyriens et paléosyriens, Comptes Rendus des séances de l’Académies des Inscriptions et BellesLettres 151/1 (2007): 488 fig. 6, 495–512; M. D’Andrea, Early Bronze IVB at Ebla. Stratigraphy,

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Fig. 1. EB IVB pottery from Ebla: Grey Ware sherds typical of the area between Tell Mishrifeh/ Qaṭna and Tell Nebi Mend (nos 1–3) and Painted Simple Ware sherd typical of the Central Syrian steppe (no. 4) (© Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

settlement layout was established following a program of public architecture, though on a reduced scale compared to both the preceding and following phases. The new urban layout included two temples, a palace (the latter, though, not completed before the destruction at the end of the period, but immediately afterwards), and possibly, as recently proposed by the present author, the beginning of the construction of the ramparts (likely also halted by the destruction and completed during Middle Bronze I).12 Sites in the Ebla region, like Tell Afis and Tell Tuqan, might have followed closely the development of Ebla and have been reoccupied only during a late EB IVB phase.13 Sites in the steppe east of Chronology, and Material Culture of the Late Early Syrian Town and Their Meaning in the Regional Context, in P. Matthiae et al. (eds), Studies on the Archaeology of Ebla after 50 Years of Discoveries (AAAS LVII–LVIII, 2014–15), Damas 2017: 131–164, with references to earlier publications on Ebla’s EB IVB. 12 D’Andrea, Before the cultural Koinè: Contextualizing Interculturality in the “Greater Levant” during the Late Early Bronze Age and the Early Middle Bronze Age, in M. Bietak and S. Prell (eds), The Enigma of the Hyksos, Vol. I, ASOR Conference Boston 2017 − ICAANE Conference Munich 2018 – Collected Papers (CAENL 9), Wiesbaden 2019: 20, 23–24 and figs 15–17; on the construction of the rampart, see also D. Nadali, Inward/Outward: A Re-Examination of the City-Gates at Ebla, in P. Matthiae, F. Pinnock and M. D’Andrea (eds), Ebla and Beyond. Ancient Near Eastern Studies after 50 Years of Discovery at Tell Mardikh. Proceedings of the International Congress Held in Rome, 15th–17th December 2014, Wiesbaden 2018: 295–297. 13 D’Andrea, Early Bronze IVB at Ebla, cit.: 150, citing relative bibliography.

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Ebla, like Tell Mumbatah and Tell Sabkha, were occupied during both EB IVA and IVB, but only soundings might establish if they developed continuously all through the EB IV period. I will return to the importance of these two sites in the conclusion. The trajectory of sites in Central Syria differed from that of the Ebla region during EB IV because they developed continuously and flourished during EB IVB.14 It is believed that during the latter period, the communities of Central Syria enjoyed a phase of aggrandizement that might be related to the decline of Ebla’s regional state15 that had controlled the area from Karkemish to Hama.16 Among these communities, there was the tribal confederation of Ibal that, during EB IVB had been Ebla’s antagonist, subsequently defeated and subjugated,17 that might have expanded during EB IVB, after the destruction of Ebla, enjoying political and economic independence again.18 Petrography suggests patterns of inter-site exchange of pottery within Central Syria and ceramics from the latter region have been identified at sites in northern Lebanon, well accessible through the Homs Gap. However, this is the first time that pottery produced in the region between Tell Mishrifeh/Qaṭna, Tell Shayrat, and Tell Nebi Mend and distributed primarily to Central and Southern Syria is identified within an EB IVB assemblage of the Ebla region. This material may give some significance to a further find that otherwise might be considered irrelevant, another pottery fragment from Tell el-Khatri, also in the Ebla area, collected during the 1964 survey conducted by M. Liverani.19 This enveloped ledge handle (Fig. 2), called this way because of the folded-over flaps, belongs to a typically southern Levantine type, which occurs also in southern Syria, like, for instance, in the Damascene, at Khirbet al-Umbashi, and Dera‘a.20 The sherd from Tell el-Khatri

14 Kennedy, The Late Third Millennium, cit.: 315–316; Ead., The end of the 3rd millennium BC in the Levant: New Perspectives and Old Ideas, Levant 48/1 (2016): 3; Mouamar, Tell Sh‘aīrat, cit.: 74–77 and fig. 6. 15 Kennedy, The Late Third Millennium, cit.: 282–283, 316–317; Ead., The End of the 3rd millennium, cit.: 3. 16 On opposing theories considering Hama within or beyond the borders of the Ebla state, see Vacca et al., A fresh look at Hama, cit.: 19, with relative bibliography. 17 A. Catagnoti, Sul lessico dei giuramenti a Ebla: nam-ku5, Miscellanea Eblaitica 4 (QuSem 19), Firenze 1997: 136, M.G. Biga, The Syrian Steppes and the Kingdom of Ibal in the Third Millennium B.C.: New Data from the Ebla Texts, D. Morandi Bonacossi (ed.), Settlement Dynamics and Human-Landscape Interaction in the Dry Steppes of Syria (Studia Chaburiensia 4), Wiesbaden 2014: 201–205 and see other references at fn. 23 below. 18 D’Andrea, Before the Cultural Koinè, cit.: 18–19; Ead., Ebla and the South: Reconsidering Inter-Regional Connections during Early Bronze IV, in M. Iamoni (ed.), Broadening Horizons 5. Civilizations in Contact. Vol. I. From the Prehistory of Upper Mesopotamia to the Bronze Age Societies of the Levant (West & East. Monografie 2), Trieste, 2020: 211–214; Ead., A Matter of Style, cit.. 19 M. Liverani, I tell pre-cassici, in Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria. Campagna di scavi 1964 (Centro di Studi Semitici, Serie Archeologica 8), Roma, 1965: Tav. XCI:17. 20 M. Al-Maqdissi, La tombe de Der‘a, Syria 72/1–2 (1995): 199–200, fig. 59: 1; F. Braemer and J–C. Échallier, A Summary Statement on the EBA Ceramics from Southern Syria, and the

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might suggest that materials of southern Levantine tradition reached also northern Inland Syria in this period and thus far represents the northernmost discovery of EB IV southern pottery.

Fig. 2. Original 1964 photo of EB IV enveloped ledge handle from Tell el-Khatri (cf. Liverani 1965, I tell pre-classici, cit., Tav. XCI: 17; © Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

In the absence of petrographic analysis, any hypotheses concerning the ways southern pottery might have reached northern Syria is to some extent speculative, but there are hints pointing to the eastern path of north-south connectivity through the steppe and the desert21 rather than the western one along the central and upper Orontes Valley. Painted Simple Ware typical of the Ebla-Hama region reached Southern Syria at Moumassakhin and perhaps Tell el-

Relationship of this Material with that of Neighbouring Regions, in G. Philip and D. Baird (eds), Ceramics and Change in the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant, Sheffield 2000: 408, fig. 22.3:12; F. Braemer, La céramique du Bronze ancien en Syrie du Sud, in M. Al–Maqdissi, V. Matoïan and C. Nicolle (eds), Céramique de l’Âge du Bronze en Syrie, I: La Syrie du Sud et la Vallée de l’Oronte, BAH 161, Beyrouth 2002: 12-13, figs 1-3; J.–C. Échallier and F. Braemer, Le matériel céramique, in F. Braemer, J–C Échallier and A. Taraqji (eds), Khirbet al-‘Umbashi: Villages et campements de pasteurs dans le “Désert Noir”(Syrie) à l’âge du Bronze (BAH 171), Beyrouth 2007: 306 and fig. 562. 21 On the south end of this route, see T.J. Wilkinson et al., Contextualizing Early Urbanization: Settlement Cores, Early States and Agro-pastoral Strategies in the Fertile Crescent During the Fourth and Third Millennia BC, Journal of World Prehistory 27/1 (2014): 92.

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Ash‘ari.22 Moreover, while the Upper Orontes Valley seems not included in the area of production and distribution of Painted Simple Ware, the central Syrian steppe – likely corresponding to the territory of Ibal23 – produced and distributed a particular local variant of EB IVB Painted Simple Ware. This ware re-adapted the painted and combed style and the vessel shapes of the Ebla-Hama region in a characteristic local fashion.24 Although strong similarities between the two painted wares can be observed, the decorated vessels from the Central Syrian steppe can be clearly distinguished from those of the Ebla-Hama region for their techno-stylistic properties, as shown by Mouamar in his technological study.25 In the Painted Simple Ware of the steppe, in fact, the paint is more “diluted”, and the comb-incisions are deeper and broader. Re-examining the EB IVB pottery from Ebla, I could isolate some Painted Simple Ware of the central Syrian steppe (Figs 1: 4); although a petrographic proof of this claim would be much desirable, as said above, this painted ware is very easily discernible from that of Ebla, already at macroscopic observation. Clearly cultural and technological transmission and exchange of pottery followed movements of people between these two areas. Interestingly, vessels typical of the steppe region of Central Syria were found at Palmyra in the Syrian Desert.26 This may support the traditional view of sites in the central Syrian steppe

22 M. Al-Maqdissi, Moumassakhin 1987: Poterie du Bronze ancien IV, Syria LXV (1988): fig. 1:10; Id., Les tombes de Tell Ash‘ari, Syria LXX (1993: fig. 49:a. 23 P. Fronzaroli, Archivi Reali di Ebla. Testi, XIII. Testi di cancelleria: i rapporti con le città, Roma 2003: 124. D. Morandi Bonacossi, Tell Mishrifeh and its Region during the EBA IV and the EBA–MBA Transition. A First Assessment, in P.J. Parr (ed.), The Levant in Transition. Proceedings of a Conference Held at the British Museum on 20-21 April 2004 (PEFA IX), Leeds, 2009: 56–57; M.G. Biga, The Syrian Steppes, cit.: 205; Mouamar, Tell Sh‘aīrat, cit.: 88–89; M. Bonechi, Horny Geopolitical Problems in the Palace G Archives. The Ebla Southern Horizon, Part One: the Middle Orontes Basin, in D. Parayre (ed.), Le fleuve rebelle. Géographie historique du moyen Oronte d’Ebla à l’époque médiévale. Actes du colloque international tenu les 13 et 14 décembre 2012 à Nanterre (MAE) et à Paris (INHA) (Syria Suppl. IV), Paris 2016: 35–36, with relative bibliography. 24 G. Mouamar, Mishrifeh au troisième millénaire av. J.-C. Bilan provisoire des travaux du Chantier (R) “cour du trône”, in P. Pfälzner and M. Al-Maqdissi (eds), Qaṭna and the Networks of Bronze Age Globalism, Proceedings of an International Conference is Stuttgart and Tübingen in October 2009 (QSS 2), Wiesbaden 2015: fig. 6: 1–2; Id., Tell Sh‘aīrat, cit.: 82–84, fig. 8: 1–7; Id., The Early Bronze IVB, cit.: 5–6, fig. 6; C. Castel and G. Mouamar, Third Millennium BC Cities in the Arid Zone of Inner Syria: Settlement Landscape, Material Culture and Interregional Interactions, in B. Horejs et al. (eds), Proceedings of the 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Vol. 2, Wiesbaden 2018: 140, figs. 5: SH.07.C.509/8, SH.07.C.509/53, 6: RW1.1391/3, RW2.3124/14. 25 Mouamar, The Early Bronze IVB, cit.: fig. 9, Group A. See also the comparative evidence of Al-Rawda and Ebla in C. Castel, Urban Planning and Urbanization in 3rd Millennium BC Syria, in P. Matthiae, F. Pinnock and M. D’Andrea (eds), Ebla and Beyond, cit.: fig. 14: RW1.1386.2, RW1.2006.28, RW1.2236.6, RW2.3108.13 (Rawda) and TM.07.HH.259/2, TM.07. HH.270/6, TM.07.HH.270/3, TM.07.HH.277/1 (Ebla). 26 R. du Mesnil du Buisson, Première campagne de fouilles à Palmyre, Comptes Rendus des

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as nodes of interregional east-west contacts between Central Syria, the Euphrates Valley and Northern Mesopotamia.27 However, another path of connectivity running north-south through the steppe and reaching northern Syria is emerging. In this respect, it will be worth recalling the striking similarity between the layouts of two religious complexes at Al-Rawda and Ebla in EB IVB noticed by Paolo Matthiae and Corinne Castel.28 This might be explained in the framework of EB IVB contacts between Ebla and the steppe suggested by the new, limited though important, pottery evidence. But what might the backdrop of these EB IVB connections have been? During late EB IVB the Ebla elites might have been based already in a component of the society (which we may call “Amorite” in the broadest sense) that had been an integral part of the local community already in EB IVA but had not then been in power.29 This element might have been traditionally more connected with economic activities requiring intra- and inter-regional mobility (metallurgy, crafts, and specialized animal herding). Already during late EB IVB, in a time of reorganization, individuals coming from this social group might have been able to gain control of important sectors of economic activities that were relevant in the inter-regional scenario of that period and to rise to power.30 This hypothesis might explain several elements of continuity between late EB IVB and early MB I at Ebla (temple architecture, completion and reuse of the same palace and the rampart, royal onomastics).31 It may also explain contacts between Ebla and the communities of the central Syrian steppe, with which the new EB IVB Ebla elites might have had less antagonistic interactions and a more similar sociocultural background than the EB IVA leaders. Two aspects would be key to reconstructing interactions along such northsouth axis. They are to discern the role of Damascus in paths of connectivity during EB IVB, as there is evidence that the Damascene was included into contacts with western Syria and the southern Levant, and to better understand patterns of settlement and activities in the steppe on the southeast of Ebla and to the north-

27

28

29 30 31

séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 110–111 (1966): 183–184, fig. 6; M. AlMaqdissi, Note sur les sondages réalisés par Robert du Mesnil du Buisson dans la Cour du sanctuaire de Bêl à Palmyre, Syria LXXVII (2000): fig. 3. M. Al-Maqdissi, Recherches archéologiques syriennes à Mishirfeh-Qatna au nord-est de Homs (Émèse), in Comptes Rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 147/4 (2003): 1513–1514, fig. 22. On the east end of this path, see Wilkinson et al., Contextualizing Early Urbanization, cit.: 91. Matthiae, Nouvelles fouilles, cit.: 504–505; C. Castel, The First Temples in antis. The Sanctuary of Tell Al-Rawda in the Context of 3rd Millennium Syria, in J. Becker, R. Hempelmann and E. Rehm (eds), Kulturlandschaft Syrien, Zentrum und Peripherie, Festschrift für Jan-Waalke Meyer (AOAT 371), Münster 2010: 142. D’Andrea, Before the Cultural Koinè, cit.: 24, 26. On all these aspects, see the remarks in A. Porter, Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations Weaving Together Society, Cambridge 2012: 309–312. D’Andrea, Before the Cultural Koinè, cit.: 19–20, 23–26, figs 8–14, citing earlier references.

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west of Al-Rawda. We have no information on Damascus in this period,32 but patterns of settlement at the north edge of the Syrian steppe in the later part of EB IV are coming into sharper focus. G. Mouamar has reconsidered the role of sites like Tell Mumbatah and Tell Sabkha. Re-examining the surface pottery collected at Tell Sabkha by different survey projects, he has identified the typical Painted Simple Ware of the Ebla-Hama region and pottery from the Central Syrian steppe occurring together.33 As noted by Mouamar, Tell Sabkha is the northernmost site in a system of fortified circular settlements34 aligned to a sort of long boundary wall in Central Syria (labelled the Very Long Wall) that reflects a particular form of urbanism established in the Syrian steppe around the mid-3rd millennium BC and “linked to a specific regional identity and material culture”.35 Tell Sabkha is located at the intersection between the Ebla region, Tell Mumbatah, and the steppe territory corresponding to Ibal. Tell Mumbatah is another major settlement, though not a circular one, at the entrance to the Khanaser corridor giving access to the Jabbul Lake; it might be the easternmost outpost of the territory belonging to or controlled by Ebla.36 The re-examination of data increasingly suggests that the foundation of a system of fortified circular settlements according to an “urban territorial grid of the steppe”37 might have been the original creation of local tribal groups38 that might have reorganized themselves in response to urbanization developing all around from the mid-3rd millennium BC, rather than as the outcome of a distant political power as it was suggested initially.39 These groups straddled the regions between 32 See M. Al-Maqdissi, Notes d’archéologie levantine XXIV. Damas au IIIe millénaire av. J.-C., Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes LI–LII (2008–09): 17–22. 33 G. Mouamar, Tell Ṣabḥah: A Large Circular City of the 3rd Millennium BC in the Syrian Steppe (Shamiyah), in Studia Eblaitica 3 (2017): 185–186 and figs 4:1–2, 4:3–5, with earlier bibliography. 34 Mouamar, Tell Sh‘aīrat, cit.: 87 and fig. 12 35 Mouamar, Tell Ṣabḥah, cit.: 189. 36 Ibidem. See, earlier, A. de Maigret, Tell Munbatah: un nuovo sito della cultura caliciforme nella Siria del nord, in Oriens Antiquus 13 (1974): 249–297; S. Mantellini, M.G. Micale and L. Peyronel, Exploiting Diversity. The Archaeological Landscape of the Eblaite Chora, in P. Matthiae and N. Marchetti (eds), Ebla and Its Landscape. Early State Formation in the Ancient Near East, Walnut Creek, CA: 181. 37 Mouamar, Tell Ṣabḥah, cit.: 189. 38 See C. Castel and E. Peltenburg, Urbanism on the Margins: Third Millennium BC Al-Rawda in the Arid Zone of Syria, in Antiquity 81 (2007): 611–614; Mantellini, Micale and Peyronel, Exploiting Diversity, cit.: 180–181; S. Mazzoni, Tell Afis and the Early-Middle Bronze Age Transition, in S. Mazzoni and S. Soldi (eds), Syrian Archaeology in Perspective Celebrating 20 Years of Excavations at Tell Afis. Proceedings of the International Meeting Percorsi di Archeologia Siriana Giornate di studio, Pisa 27-28 Novembre 2006, Pisa 2013: 36-37. On tribal state formations, see A. Porter, Isotopes and Ideograms: Bio-archaeological and Theoretical Approaches to Pastoralism in Light of the Mari (and other) Texts, Claroscuro 18/2 (2019): 1–34. 39 Castel, Urban Planning, cit.: 84–89. See overviews of different hypothesis proposed in C. Castel and G. Mouamar, Third Millennium BC Cities, cit.: 140–141; Mazzoni, Tell Afis, cit.: 34–37. In this respect, see also the remarks in D. Nadali and F. Pinnock, Far From the River: Physical and Metaphorical Use of the Territory and Its Water Resources in Early and Middle

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Central Syria and Northern Mesopotamia. This might explain the adoption of the circular town plan reminiscent of the Kranzhügeln of the Middle Euphrates and the Syrian Jazirah40 and the elaboration of a local subset of material culture in vogue in the central and upper Orontes Valley throughout different EB IV phases. Whatever the relations of the central Syrian steppe sites to Ebla might have been in EB IVA, their continuous occupation in EB IVB may suggest that they were not affected by the decline of Ebla after the destruction. Contacts of these sites with Ebla and the sites of the central Syrian steppe might have resumed in the new socio-political and socioeconomic scenario of the late EB IVB phase that also contributed to reshape the sociocultural backdrop of Syria at the turn between the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC.

Bronze Age Syria, in M. Frangipane and L.R. Manzanilla (eds), Rethinking Urbanization and Its Living Landscapes from the Inspiring Perspective of a Great “Maestro” (Origini XLII, 2018–2), Roma 2018: 155–158. 40 Castel and Peltenburg, Urbanism on the margins, cit.: 611–612; M. Al-Maqdissi, Matériel pour l’étude de la ville ancienne en Syrie (Deuxième Partie): Urban Planning in Syria during the Sur (Second Urban Revolution) (Mid-third Millennium BC), Al-Rāfidān Special Issue 2010: 131–145.

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Pelio Fronzaroli (Emeritus Professor, University of Florence), Fragments et éclats pour ARET XI. Lors de la préparation des éditions d’ARET XIII et d’ARET XVI, il a été possible d’identifier quelques fragments et éclats appartenant aux deux textes majeurs du Rituel royal publiés dans ARET XI1. Dans la plupart des cas, les mots ou les fragments de mots identifiés confirment les restitutions proposées dans l’édition; en revanche, dans d’autres cas ils apportent des graphies intéressantes qui complètent ou modifient le sens du paragraphe. ARET XI 1. Dans la face du Rituel le plus ancien, un fragment conserve trois cases de la lacune précédant r. III 3’ et il restitue le texte de r. IV 9–12: [1] ma-lik-tum / šu mu-tak4 / 2 GIŠ-šu4 GIŠ-ildag4-kìm 2 níg-sagšu (TM.75.G.5510 r. I’ 1’-3’); sa-ti / na-ti-NI / ma-lik-tum / šu mu-tak4 ( r. II’ 1’–4’) Les cases r. I’ 1’–2’ du fragment conservent la fin d’un paragraphe entièrement perdu dans le texte de l’édition (r. III 1’–2’ = § 7bis). La case r. I’ 3’ du fragment conserve un texte correspondant presque entièrement à la restitution proposée dans l’édition du début du paragraphe (8). Les cases r. II’ 1’–4 ‘du fragment ajoutent une explication qui suggère le sens de la graphie 4 RU-RU (§ 11) et elles confirment la restitution conjecturale de r. IV 11–12. Le texte parallèle dans ARET XI 2 ne conserve que les quatre premières cases de ce paragraphe: ARET XI 1 r. ARET XI 2 r. (11) (16) IV. [si-dù si-dù] VI. si-dù si-dù 7. [1 GIŠ-érin GIŠ-taskarin] 19. 1 GIŠ-érin GIŠ-taskarin 4 RU-RU GIŠ-ildag4-kìm 4 GIŠ-RU 9. sa-ti [… na-ti-ì 11. ma-lik-tum šu mu-tak4 (11) “[Pour les bétyles] 1 balance (avec joug) en buis, 4 arcs composites (en bois) de saule, ceux des archers, la reine offre” // (16) “Pour les bétyles 1 balance (avec joug) en buis, 4 arcs composites [...]” si-dù: Parmi les différentes interprétations proposées pour ce sumérogramme, la plus adéquate aux contextes et à la documentation archéologique semble maintenant être celle de “bétyle”2. 1 P. Fronzaroli, Archivi Reali di Ebla. Testi, XI. Testi rituali della regalità (Archivio L.2769), Roma 1993. 2 A. Archi, The Stele (na-rú) in the Ebla Documents, dans J. Braun et al. (éds), Written on Clay and Stone. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Krystyna Szarzynska, Warsaw 1998: 23 (avec

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GIŠ-érin: L’interprétation “balance”, déjà proposée dans l’édition, correspond aux types de balances utilisés à Ebla à l’époque des Archives3. Le sumérogramme pourrait également faire référence au “joug” d’un char, mais une telle interprétation ne semble pas adéquate au contexte. RU-RU: L’explication qui suit ce sumérogramme dans le texte du fragment exclut le sens de “sceptres”, proposé dubitativement dans l’édition, et elle suggère plutôt de le comparer à l’akkadien de Mari tilpānum (= GIŠ-RU), pour lequel le sens “arc composite” a été proposé4. na-ti-ì: Graphie interprétable comme une forme de pluriel oblique du participe 0/1 de *ndy “jeter”, /nādiy-ī/ “archers”. L’utilisation de ì pour /yi/ ne correspond pas à la norme. Pour le nom de l’archer indiqué par le participe d’un verbe pour “jeter”, on comparera l’hébr. yōre(h), du sem. *wry, et rōbe(h), du sem. *rby. On notera que ces trois racines se trouvent dans la liste lexicale bilingue comme gloses de giš-RU.RU (= mar-ba-a, A, B, C, D) et giš-RU (= ma-du-um, A; wa-ru12-um, g)5. La graphie mar-ba-a attestée par les quatre sources de la liste lexicale bilingue indique un duel6 et elle pourrait donc faire allusion à la forme de deux arcs superposés, propre à l’arc composite. Dans le revers du Rituel le plus ancien, deux éclats correspondent entièrement aux restitutions proposées dans l’édition: [2] nu-ba-du / dKU-ra / ù / dBa-ra-ma (TM.75.G.18345W = 1 v. XIII 1–4) [3] mi-in / ˹a˺-ḫé-˹rí˺ (TM.75.G.18246Q = 1 v. XIII 5–6) En revanche, l’éclat qui restitue deux cases de la lacune qui suit v. VI 11 contient une graphie phonétique témoignant d’une nouvelle forme du verbe *nšʾ “lever”: [4] wa-a / i-sa-ma (TM.75.G.17834Z)

3 4 5

6

bibliographie); recemment, J. Pasquali, Symbolique de mort et de renaissance dans les cultes et les rites éblaïtes: dga-na-na, les ancêtres et la royauté, Revue d’Assyriologie 107 (2013): 46 et n. 26. L. Peyronel, masqaltum kittum. Questioni di equilibrio: bilance e sistemi di pesatura nell’Oriente antico, dans E. Ascalone - L. Peyronel (éds), Studi italiani di metrologia ed economia del Vicino Oriente antico dedicati a Nicola Parise (Studia Asiana 7), Roma 2011: 109–111. J.-M. Durand, Textes administratifs des salles 134 et 160 du Palais de Mari (ARMT XXI), Paris 1983: 336–340. La glose mar-ba-a a été comparée à l’hébr. rōbe(h) “archer” par A.W. Sjöberg, Notes on Selected Entries from the Ebla Vocabulary éš-bar-kin5 (III), dans H. Waetzoldt (éd.), Von Sumer nach Ebla und Zurück. Festschrift Giovanni Pettinato, Heidelberg 2004: 262 (414); pour les gloses et les significations de giš-RU, voir H. Waetzoldt, Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungstexte aus Ebla (MEE 12), Roma 2001: 110–111; M. Civil, Archivi Reali di Ebla. Studi, IV. The Early Dynastic Practical Vocabulary A (Archaic HAR-ra A), Roma 2008: 146–147 (379). P. Fronzaroli, Forms of the Dual in the Texts of Ebla, Maarav 5–6 (1990): 113.

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Cette restitution invite à réexaminer l’interprétation du signe incomplet conservé dans la case fragmentaire de v. VI 11. Le contexte fourni par l’éclat et l’excellente copie d’A. Catagnoti7 permettent d’identifier une variante du signe ÍL, avec le deuxième élément du signe écrit sous le premier élément8. La restitution du paragraphe (68), qui dans l’édition était presque entièrement perdu, permet également de proposer une restitution du paragraphe parallèle dans le deuxième Rituel: ARET XI 1 v. ARET XI 2 v. (68) (71) V. ˹wa˺ VI 11. ˹íl˺-[íl] 23. [il-il] [šu] [šu] 13. wa a 25. [wa] i-sa-ma [il-il] 15. 3 VI. 1. 3 (69) (72) wa-a wa 17. al6 3. al6 3-ma 3-ma 5. il-il 19. al6 al6 d Utu 7. dUtu 21. è (68) “(Quand) on sou[lève la main], ils (la) soulèvent trois fois, (69) et trois fois (ils la soulèvent) devant la divinité solaire qui se lève” // (71) “Et, [(quand) on soulève la main, ils la soulèvent] trois fois, (72) et trois fois ils (la) soulèvent devant la divinité solaire qui se lève” ˹íl˺- [íl]: Comme il avait déjà été proposé dans le commentaire du passage parallèle du deuxième Rituel9, le verbe peut faire référence au soulèvement de la main (droite) comme geste cultuel. Cinq siècles plus tard, Hammourabi sera représenté sur la Stèle de Suse dans la même posture devant le dieu Soleil. i-sa-ma: Cette graphie peut être interprétée comme une forme de la troisième personne sing. du prétérit, suivie de la particule d’emphase: /yiššāyma/ de *yiššiʾay-ma. L’élision de /ʾ/ avant les suffixes vocaliques dans les verbes de III-ʾ est bien 7 8 9

ARET XI: Pl. II. Pour les variantes de ÍL dans les textes administratifs et dans les textes de chancellerie éblaïtes, voir A. Catagnoti, La paleografia dei testi dell’amministrazione e della cancelleria di Ebla (QuSem 30), Firenze 2013: 25 (113). ARET XI: 78 (72).

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documentée10. L’existence d’un suffixe du duel /-ay/ en éblaïte a été proposée par Fronzaroli11. al6 / 3-ma: En l’absence d’attestations comparables, ce lien pourrait également être compris comme “la troisième fois”12. Sur la base de trois textes administratifs qui définissent un personnage comme “gardien de l’étang de la divinité solaire” (en-nun-ak / AMBAR / dUtu), il a récemment été proposé que la cérémonie liée au lever du Soleil se déroulât près d’un étang situé à proximité du Mausolée de NEnaš et que ce personnage eût la charge de surveiller l’apparition du Soleil13. La proposition est tentante mais jusqu’à maintenant nous ne n’avons pas de preuves que l’étang était à NEnaš. ARET XI 2 Dans la face du deuxième Rituel, un éclat préserve le bord supérieur des colonnes XVI, XVII, XVIII. Il est à noter que, alors que dans l’édition on avait supposé que dans la colonne XVI le nom propre fût écrit dans la graphie phonétique documentée dans la liste des rois (A-bur-Li-im, TM.74.G.120 r. II 5; également, ARET VII 150 r. III 5), l’éclat montre que le scribe a rendu le premier élément du nom avec omission de /r/ préconsonantique14 et il a utilisé la graphie archaïque du premier Rituel pour le deuxième élément (A-bur-DÍM, 1 r. XIII 15). Les graphies des colonnes XVII et XVIII correspondent aux restitutions proposées dans l’édition: [5] [A-b]ù-[ D]ÍM (TM.75.G.LXXXIX r. I’ 1 = 2 r. XVI 1); si-in (r. II’ 1 = 2 r. XVII 1); NI-ap˹ki˺ / è (r. III’ 1–2 = 2 r. XVIII 1–2) Toujours dans la face du deuxième Rituel, un fragment confirme les restitutions proposées dans l’édition: [6] dDa-i-in / wa / [d]Ba-al6-tum / E[n]-na-NI / nídba / 1 udu-nita 1 u8 1 (TM.75.G.5890 I’ 1’–6’= 2 r. XVIII 3–8) Dans le revers du deuxième Rituel un éclat confirme la restitution de la dernière case du paragraphe (114) et permet d’améliorer la restitution du paragraphe (115) proposée dans l’édition:

10 A. Catagnoti, La grammatica della lingua di Ebla (QuSem 29), Firenze 2012: 151–152. 11 P. Fronzaroli, The Hail Incantation (ARET 5, 4), dans G.J. Selz (éd.), Festschrift für Burkhart Kienast (AOAT 274), Münster 2003: 100–101. 12 M.V. Tonietti, Aspetti del sistema preposizionale dell’eblaita, Venezia 2013: 113. 13 J. Pasquali, L’étang (AMBAR) du Soleil à Ébla, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2018/39; Id., Encore sur l’étang (AMBAR) du Soleil à Ébla, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2018/94. 14 Pour l’omission de /r/ préconsonantique, bien documentée à Ebla, voir G. Conti, Il sillabario della quarta fonte della lista lessicale bilingue eblaita (QuSem 17), Firenze 1990: 32–33.

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[7] ˹u4˺ / a-ti-ma / zà-me (TM.75.G.LXVIII I’ 1’–3’ = 2 v. XVIII 3–5) Le paragraphe (115) restitué à partir de l’éclat se réfère au déroulement du rite, pendant lequel la tête du dieu n’est pas voilée, et non à la conclusion du rite. Le texte ainsi restitué est donc parallèle au paragraphe (24) d’ARET XI 3: ARET XI 2 v. ARET XI 3 v. (115) (24) XVIII a-ti-ma IV. 15. a-ti-ma 5. zà-me zà-me [sa-ba-a-ti-SÙ] V. 1. sa-ba-da-su-ma 7. sag ba-na-a d KU-ra 3. dKU-ra wa 5. dBa-ra-ma 9. ˹nu˺ PAD nu PAD.TÙG (115) “Pendant que nous effectuons [ses rituels hebdomadaires], la tête de KUra n’est pas voilée” // (24) “Pendant que nous effectuons leur rituel hebdomadaire, les visages de KUra et de Barama ne sont pas voilés”.

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Frances Pinnock (Sapienza Università di Roma), The Wooden Furniture from the Royal Palace G: Placing and Reconstruction. During the excavation of the Royal Palace G of the mature Early Syrian Ebla (ca. 2300 BC), two rooms were brought to light in 1974 – L.2601 and L.2586 – which, in the final definition of the structure and functions of the palatial building, were attributed to the NorthWest Wing.1 In L.2586 the first group of cuneiform tablets of the Eblaic archives was found.2 In L.2601 several fragments of charred wood were located: some of them were carved, and it was immediately clear that they belonged to carved and inlaid pieces of furniture. Since the first publication of this important and unique material, based on the preliminary analysis of the material retrieved, P. Matthiae identified these fittings as a table and a chair.3 Here I would like to present the elements – not numerous and yet meaningful – which led to propose the presence of these two specific pieces of furniture.

Fig. 1. Part of an armrest, TM.74.G.1019–1026, wood and mother-of-pearl (© Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

1

2

3

The announcement of the finding was given by P. Matthiae, Ébla à l’époque d’Akkad: Archéologie et histoire, Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 120 (1976): 193. All the drawings presented in this contribution were made by Dr C. Cataldi Tassoni, for many years architect with the Ebla Expedition, in presence of the objects; all drawings an photos are copyright by the Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria. The documents included 41 administrative texts and a list of persons, written on small round tablets, probably kept in the bottom of a jar, whose fragments were found all around the tablets: A. Archi, Ebla and Its Archives (SANER 7), Boston – Berlin 2015: 77; A. Archi, M.G. Biga, L. Milano, Studies in Eblaite Prosopography, in A. Archi (ed.), Archivi Reali di Ebla. Studi, I. Eblaite Personal Names and Semitic Name-Giving, Roma 1988: 283–284. P. Matthiae, I tesori di Ebla, Roma – Bari 1985: Pls 37, 41–43.

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A part of an armrest (Fig. 1), already published several times,4 certainly belongs to a kind of chair, or throne: it includes the upper, rounded straight element, in whose lower part several sockets were meant to host the upper fillets of straight bands, forming openwork squares, whose frames were cut

Fig. 2. Drawing of the armrest TM.74.G.1019–1026, with the details of the fillets blocking the various pieces together © Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

with a pattern of lozenges, filled with mother-of-pearl inlays (Fig. 2). The fillets featured two passing holes each, where cylindrical pegs passed in order to block the pieces into the upper horizontal element (Fig. 3); these pegs were certainly made of wood, because no trace of metal was identified either in the holes or in the sockets of the horizontal element. Under this first band of openwork squares, there were two other sectors, with openwork figures, separated by means of horizontal bands with the same decoration of carved and inlaid lozenges. This reconstruction is quite certain, because parts of the scenes were recovered, and fragments of figures were still attached to the horizontal bands. The scenes of the armrest depict fights of animals and lions attacking caprids, with frontal heads of bearded bulls separating the groups of animals; the scenes belong to the type of the Contest Scene, but the animals are never represented standing, as is usual in this theme when it is represented in glyptics.5 It is possible to reconstruct the

4 5

E.g. P. Matthiae, Ébla à l’époque d’Akkad, cit.: fig. 2; P. Matthiae, Figurative Themes and Literary Texts, in P. Matthiae, Studies on the Archaeology of Ebla 1980–2010 (ed. F. Pinnock), Wiesbaden 2013: Pl. 66a. Contests of animals with standing figures are present at Ebla in the cylinder seals of the Palace Style and, probably, also in the inlaid wall panels with stone figures: P. Matthiae, Ebla, la Città del Trono. Archeologia e storia, Torino 2010: 167, 172–174.

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Fig. 3. Details of the fixing techniques of the armrest TM.74.G.1019–1026 © Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

original height of the standing figures in ca. 7–9 cm;6 based on the remaining fragments, the three bands, one with the openwork squares and two with the figures, were approximately of the same height; the total height of the armrest can

Fig. 4. The two pomegranateshaped decorations, probably from the throne © Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria). 6

R. Dolce, On the Wooden Carvings from Ebla: Some Suggestions from Work in Progress, in P. Bieliński, M. Gawlikowski, R. Koliński, D. Lswecka, A. Soltysiak and Z. Wygnańska (eds), Proceedings of the 8th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. 30 April – 4 May 2012. University of Warsaw, Wiesbaden 2014: 652 proposes some considerations, not completely sharable, about the heights of the figures of the wooden inlays from Ebla.

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thus be reconstructed in ca. 40 cm, which looks convenient for this kind of luxury chair. It is quite likely that this chair was completed, probably at the top end of the backrest, with two round pieces, ca. 4 cm in diameter, possibly representing pomegranates, blocked with a complicated joint (Fig. 4). The remains of the second piece of furniture are less numerous, but it was possible to identify parts of the horizontal top (Fig. 5): these are fragments of quite thick planks, which were kept in place by dovetail joints, several specimens of which have been retrieved (Fig. 6). The joints are between 8 and 10 cm long and the proposed reconstruction of the table includes three parallel planks, blocked at

Fig. 5. Fragment of the horizontal top of the presumed table © Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

Fig. 6. Fragments of dovetail joints © Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

their ends by the dovetail joints. With these elements there were also some small bone bars (Fig. 7), ca. 2 cm long in average, shaped as half cylinders and featuring two passing holes each. These bars might have been used to block on a flat surface a kind of revetment. As these bars are quite fragile, it does not seem possible

Fig. 7. Half cylindrical bone bars © Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

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that they were used for the seat or the backrest of the chair, whereas it seems more likely that they were used for the table, in order to fix a cloth or light gold foil

Fig. 8. Reconstructive drawing fixing terchniques of the table, using the dovetail joints and the half-cylindrical bars © Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

revetment (Fig. 8).7 Among the carved pieces found in the room there were human individual figures or groups of figures, of larger size than those of the groups of

Fig. 9. Reconstructive drawing of the table with the possible distribution of the carved figures © Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria). 7

No sound hypothesis may be proposed about this revetment, because in the room there was not a fragment of gold foil, nor, of course, traces of textiles. It may be recalled that the two rooms were located on the edge of the slope of the Acropolis of Ebla, and their western edges were completely lost, for the erosion of the slope, favoured also by the presence of the rooms placed at a lower level, and for the presence of later waste pits.

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animals attributed to the chair, reaching to ca. 20 cm in height. These figures seem to refer to aspects of kingship:8 a front-facing king holding a ceremonial axe, a front-facing elegant court lady, duels between two heroes or between a hero and a lion, warriors’ heads wearing royal helmets.9 It seems possible to propose that the table legs were linked by means of bands of figures, including these larger pieces, possibly alternating with double bands of smaller figures, whose joint height would be similar to the height of the standing human characters (Fig. 9). Taking into account the amount of fragments of decorations and of structural elements retrieved in the room – the two round pomegranate-shaped knobs, the fragments of planks, the dovetail joints, the small bone bars and the fragment of armrest – it seems possible to propose that the room contained a chair and a table, whereas it seems more difficult to hypothesize the presence of other objects, pieces of furniture or other, made of wood or decorated with wooden elements. As concerns their use and location, the two rooms where the tablets – L.2586 – and the wooden furniture – L.2601 – were found are quite large (ca. 10 x 5 m), but they do not belong to the official sectors of the Royal Palace G. Palace G was built on a series of terraces,10 mounting up from the Lower Town to the top of the Acropolis, which incorporated – as is now quite clear – important pre-existing features of the pre- and proto-palatial phases. The two rooms are located at a level ca. 2.50–3.00 m higher than the Court of Audience, halfway between the level of the Court and the rooms of the West Unit of the Central Complex, which, in its turn is 2.50–3.00 m higher that L.2586 and L.2601 (Fig. 10).11 The Court of Audience communicated – by means of a door opening to the west of the dais along the north façade of the Court – with two long east-west stores behind the façade and with two rooms – L.9583 and L.9330, communicating with each other – which, based on the objects they yielded, were identified with places where the queen prepared herself before entering the Court of Audience.12 Thus, the Court of Audience, the two north stores and the two rooms L. 9583 and L.9330, as well as the whole Administrative Quarter, are at the same height, level with the Lower Town, and they belong to a homogeneous functional and ceremonial complex, 8 Matthiae, Figurative Themes and Literary Texts, cit.: pls 66c, 67, 68a–b. 9 Matthiae, Ebla, la Città del Trono, cit.: 170–171. 10 Besides the evident observations made in the field, this peculiarity of the structure of the Palace is also evident in the description of its building, preserved in the cuneiform documents: M. Bonechi, Building Works at Palace G. The King Between Major-domos, Carriers and Construction Workers, Studia Eblaitica 2 (2016): 1–45. On the pre- and proto-palatial levels see A. Vacca, Before the Royal Palace G. The Stratigraphic and Pottery Sequence of the West Unit of the Central Complex: The Building G5, Studia Eblaitica 1 (2015): 1–32. 11 Matthiae, Ebla, la Città del Trono, cit.: 378–379. 12 P. Matthiae, The Standard of the maliktum of Ebla in the Royal Archives Period, in P. Matthiae, Studies on the Archaeology of Ebla, cit.: 455–477; F. Pinnock, Colours and Light in the Royal Palace G of Early Syrian Ebla, in R. Matthews and J. Curtis (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, Wiesbaden 2012: 271–286.

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albeit probably built in different moments. L.2585 and L.2601, on the other hand, are at a higher level, do not connect with the lower level of the Court of Audience and they belong to a different unit. Presently, the only element we have is a sharp bend staircase, north of L.2601, connecting the level of these two rooms with the level of the West Unit of the Central Complex, located 2.50–3.00 m higher up. The West Unit of the Central Complex is a very peculiar sector of the Royal Palace G: apparently its primary function was the preparation of flour, as it included several small rooms with a number of working places with grinding

Fig. 10. Detail of the North-West Wing of the Royal Pace G (© Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

stones. But it is not, or not only, a service quarter. In fact, the large number of working places led to propose that it might have not been functional only to the Palace’s everyday life, but that it might have also been used for the preparation of the food rations for the Palace personnel.13 Moreover, the West Unit includes a

13 P. Matthiae, Gli Archivi Reali di Ebla. La scoperta, i testi, il significato, Milano 2008: 45–46.

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group of three rooms – L.4424, L.4436 and L.4448 – characterized by a relatively large size, by the regular building technique and by the presence of an elegant floor decoration of wooden planks in the passages between one room and the other.14 These passages are quite large and there was no trace for the placement of door-hinges and they look, therefore, like a one large room marked by slightly narrower passages, rather than like three separate pieces. I have already proposed to identify in this region a place with some kind of ceremonial function.15 It was certainly in use in the first phases of the life of the Palace, and was dismissed in the last years of Early Syrian Ebla, when the monumental Red Temple was built north of this sector of the palatial building. Probably in order to create an open space – albeit limited – in front of the entrance to the temple, the West Unit of the Central Complex was partially abandoned, levelled and covered with a flooring.16 In the light of these considerations, it seems more likely that the table and chair found in L.2601 were used in this quarter of the Palace, where they could be carried, when needed, using the sharp bend staircase mentioned previously. Certainly the king, when in the Court of Audience, used a chair, or rather a throne, placed on the dais located in the centre of the north façade of the Court, but this chair was kept elsewhere, possibly in one of the two store-rooms behind the Throne Room L.2866, where several fragments of fittings were found, but where the looting was so brutal at the time of the destruction of the Palace in 2300 BC, that everything was broken into minute fragments and set on fire, as is proved by the thick layers of ash filling the two rooms.

14 On this sector and on the decoration of wooden planks with inlays see, recently P. Matthiae, The Victory Panel of Early Syrian Ebla: Finding, Structure, Dating, Studia Eblaitica 3 (2017): 33–83. 15 F. Pinnock, The Royal Palace G of Early Syrian Ebla: Structure and Functions, in M. Bietak, P. Matthiae and S. Prell (eds), Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Palaces Vol. II (CAENL 8), Wiesbaden 2019: 70–73. 16 Matthiae, Ebla, la Città del Trono, cit.: 392.

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Reviews

Öhnan Tunca and Abd el-Massih Baghdo (eds) with the collaboration of Sophie Léon, Chagar Bazar (Syrie) IV. Les tombes ordinaires de l’âge du Bronze ancien et moyen des chantiers D–F–H–I (1999– 2011): Étude archéologique (Publications de la Mission Archéologique de l’Université de Liège en Syrie). Peeters, Louvain – Paris – Bristol, CT, 2018 (pp. XVIII–286 + 220 pls). ISBN: 9789042936331. Price € 90,00. The book under review, edited by Öhnan Tunca and Abd el-Massih Baghdo with the collaboration of Sophie Léon, is the fourth volume of the Publications de la Mission Archéologique de l’Université de Liège en Syrie, the final reports of the renewed archaeological excavations at Chagar Bazar, located in the Khabur basin in the Syrian Jazirah. As recalled by Tunca (p. 1), Chagar Bazar was discovered in 1934 by the British archaeologist Max Mallowan, who excavated the site between 1935 and 1937. Much later, the archaeological exploration of the site was resumed by an expedition of the Directorate-General of Antiquities & Museums of Syria (DGAM) and the University of Liège led by Baghdo and Tunca as co-directors from 1999 to 2011, when it was halted by the outbreak of

the Syrian crisis; from 1999–2004 the then British School of Archaeology in Iraq was another partner institution with Augusta MacMahon as another co-director. The book reports on the Early and Middle Bronze Age ordinary tombs – as they are defined by the archaeologists of the Syro-Belgian expedition – uncovered at Chagar Bazar in Areas D, F, H, and I, which are the sectors investigated by the joint team of the DGAM and the University of Liège. The main focus of the book is to present the stratigraphy, topographical distribution, and types of graves and burials, while the content of the tombs is dealt with in detail in four following volumes of the same series, reporting on the funerary equipment (Léon [ed.] 2018; Tunca and Mas [eds] 2018), the human remains (Cordy and Ali [eds] 2018), and various archaeometric studies (Tunca and Baghdo [eds] 2018). However, the most relevant data concerning all these aspects are summarised in dedicated chapters also in the book under review, which, therefore, offers a complete overview of the documentation available from the Early and Middle Bronze Age tombs of Chagar Bazar excavated by the Syro-Belgian team. The corpus is

Studia Eblaitica 6 (2020)

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quite impressive, with a total number of 164 tombs. The introductory section opens with Tunca’s foreword (p. V), followed by the table of contents (pp. VII–XVI) and the list of abbreviations (p. XVII). The book proper is then divided into ten chapters (pp. 13–266), followed by the list of abbreviations and the bibliography (pp. 267–282), the list of tombs according to excavation number, classification number, excavation area and chronological period (pp. 283–286), and 220 plates with grayscale drawings and white-on-black photographs. The first two chapters are written by Tunca and offer some general introduction. Chapter One presents the site, the expedition, and the excavations, including methodological aspects, and a description of the registration and documentation process used by the expedition. Chapter Two shortly introduces the readers to problems of absolute chronology and archaeological periodization. Recalling that the complete list of radiometric determinations from the Early and Middle Bronze Age tombs of Chagar Bazar is published (Boudin and Van Strydonk 2018), Tunca stresses the difficulties of dealing with a corpus of absolute dates fluctuating between different ranges, which have led him to not choose just those that might seem more suitable to the archaeological data. He further recalls that, for the Middle Bronze Age, tablets dating from the reign of Shamshi-Addu were found in sector I, discarded in pits intruding into the remains of Phase XII in this area of the site that precedes the

phase to which the tombs in this sector belong. According to Tunca, these tablets may offer the only terminus post quem to use as a possible anchorage to historical chronology to place Phase XII right after the reign of the Amorite king and to suggest, by consequence, that, being later than Phase XII, the tombs in this sector should date to a phase that is considerably later than the reign of Shamshi-Addu. Considering these constraints to the definition of the tombs’ absolute dates, Tunca does not take a stand in the current debate on absolute chronology, and the chronological chart (Tab. 2.1 on p. 10) in this chapter reports dates according to both the Middle Chronology and the Low Chronology for the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, as well as correspondences of these phases expressed according to the Bronze Age terminology to those designated following the Early Jazirah (EJZ) and Old Jazirah (OJ) phasing systems, as well as with the historical periodization based on Southern Mesopotamia (Early Dynastic, Akkadian, postAkkadian, Neo-Sumerian, and Old Babylonian Periods). This chart and the associated discussion are useful, as, notwithstanding the intense debate on terminological issues (and the associated chronological matters) during the past decades, there is no consensus yet. In fact, the three systems are still currently used either combined or as alternatives dealing with the 3rd and the first half of the 2nd millennium BC in the Syrian Jazirah (see, e.g., Lebeau 2011: 9–13), as well as to establish interregional parallels with the surrounding areas (p. 11).

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Nevertheless, an inconsistency between the absolute dates used in this book and the traditional dates assigned to the Early Bronze Age phases used especially for western Syria must be noticed. Tab. 2.1 in the book under review refers to the ARCANE Project’s periodization established for the Syrian Jazirah to associate each phase within the 3rd millennium BC sequence expressed according to the Early Jazirah system to absolute dates according to Lebeau’s Middle Chronology and Short Chronology (Lebeau 2011: 12, Tab. 1). However, the correlation between these phases and their chronological ranges and phases expressed according to the Early Bronze Age system are somewhat off. I will only report the example with Lebeau’s Middle Chronology, but the following considerations may apply also to correlations between Early Bronze Age phases and the Early Jazirah periodization within the framework of Lebeau’s Short Chronology, as there are only slight differences between the latter and his Middle Chronology in terms of date ranges for each phase. Thus, according to the Middle Chronology followed in the ARCANE periodization for the Syrian Jazira, which is used in Tab. 2.1 of the book under review EJZ 2 corresponds to ca. 2700–2600 BC and to Early Bronze III; EJZ 3 to ca. 2600–2350 BC and to Early Bronze IVA (actually, it should be equated to the late Early Bronze III/IV transition and to the Early Bronze IVA); EJZ 4 is dated to ca. 2350–2105 BC and therefor equals most of the Early Bronze IVB period; and EJZ 5 is dated to ca. 2105-2000 BC and corresponds to the

late Early Bronze IVB phase. However, in the same table, Early Bronze Age III is dated to 2550-2350 BC according to the MC, while this range of absolute dates broadly equals Early Bronze IVA in Western Syria; likewise, the absolute MC dates for Early Bronze IVA and IVB reported in the periodization chart are, respectively, 2350–2150 BC and 2150– 2000 BC, which, instead, are considered traditional dates for the Early Bronze IVB as a whole (see, e.g., Schwartz 2017, also with radiocarbon dates). The same problem recurs in the text, when the 3rd millennium BC tombs are ascribed to Early Bronze II and to Early Bronze III-IVA corresponding to EJZ 2–3–4 (p. 11), while this should be EJZ 1–4 to make the Bronze Age and Early Jazira systems of periodization be in agreement. However, if we consider the established regional chronotypology of the Syrian Jazirah (Rova 2011), the chronology of the tombs of Chagar Bazar from EJZ 2 to EJZ 4 determined by the excavators relying on ceramic grounds is correct, despite the flaws in terminology and absolute dating. The date of the 2nd millennium BC tombs to the Middle Bronze II (OJ 2–3) is also established mainly on ceramic grounds. In the latter case, the suggested correspondences of the Bronze Age terminology to the Old Jazirah periodization system and their proposed conventional absolute ranges are consistent with those traditionally accepted. Chapters Three to Five present and analyse the funerary data from spatial, topographical, and stratigraphic points of view. Chapter Three presents the

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chrono-stratigraphy of the tombs and their spatial distribution across the site. Chapter Four by Léon presents the typological classification of the tombs, articulated in eight types, some with sub-types, and Chapter Five by Tunca and Léon analyses the layout of the tombs as well as their changes and evolution through time. Chapters Six to Eight summarize the information concerning the contents of the tombs. Chapter Six by Léon reports on the human remains and discusses the different types of burials attested at the site. Chapter Seven, also by Léon, presents and analyses the funerary equipment. Chapter Eight, by Léon and Jean-Marie Cordy, presents the animal offerings. Chapter Nine (Léon) discusses the contribution of the Chagar Bazar Early and Middle Bronze Age tombs to the study of funerary archaeology. This chapter aims at bringing together the results of the analysis presented in the previous chapters and drawing some conclusions. One interesting aspect is a certain degree of continuity between the Early and the Middle Bronze Age burial customs, especially regarding shaft tombs. Likewise, the ratio between adult (60%) and subadult (40%) individuals seems the same in the Early and Middle Bronze Age tombs. On the contrary, an important difference between the two periods is the presence of meat offerings in the Middle Bronze Age tombs, whereas they are absent in the Early Bronze Age graves. Léon suggests that this might mirror some change in burial customs from the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BC; it is worth recalling that,

in the past, it has been suggested that, even in the case of similarly equipped tombs, the presence/absence of meat offerings in various tombs might reflect differences in status that might be otherwise concealed by the absence of patent differences between grave goods among the various tombs (Dever 1995: 286–287). Actually, the study of the Early and Middle Bronze Age tombs at Chagar Bazar as well as at other sites in Syria, and more generally in the Near East, raises the question of understanding the social status within the communities of the individuals buried in the tombs when clear marker of a different or higher rank or role are absent. Moreover, throughout the book, the designation ordinary tombs (tombes ordinaires) is used to distinguish them from monumental burials found at other sites that are clearly elite burials, in some well-known cases even related on a sound basis to a royal elite. On the other end, to which extent ordinary burial was a rule in ancient societies and which sectors of the society were allowed “archaeologically visible disposal” (Chapman 2007: 74) is still an open issue (Bradbury and Philip 2020: 75–76). Another aspect that might somehow relate to rank and status is the number of infants buried in the Chagar Bazar tombs, usually with some funerary equipment. In fact, it has been suggested already in the past that, even in cemeteries with rather standard and “ordinary” supplies, the presence of grave goods in child burials might be an indication of a social status “already present at birth” (Palumbo 1987: 47).

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Finally, Léon addresses the question whether the variety of tomb types in the Middle Bronze Age might mirror the diversity of the deceased’s ethnic identities, as, she recalls, the 2nd millennium BC texts uncovered at Chagar Bazar show that the population of the site was quite composite in this period. However, as Léon herself recalls, this remains an open question (p. 189), which should be addressed also with a substantial contribution of bioarchaeological and archaeogenetic data. Furthermore, Léon recalls similarities between the Early Bronze Age mudbrick cist tombs lined uncovered at Chagar Bazar to Middle Bronze Age tombs uncovered at Tell ed-Dab‘a, the capital of the Hyksos in the Nile Delta, which are at least a millennium later, but, as she also admits, the resemblance might be fortuitous (p. 188). Although there seem to be new archaeogenetic evidence that the origins of the Hyksos might have been heterogeneous and that their ancestors might have been “not from a unified place” (Stantis et al. 2020), there are no thus far proved one-toone connections between Chagar Bazar and Tell ed-Dab‘a that might explain similarity between tomb types attested at the two sites and “conservatism” of mid-3rd millennium BC burial customs in the 17th century BC harbour city in the Nile Delta. Considering all these matters, the important corpus of 3rd and 2nd millennia BC tombs from Chagar Bazar confronts us with many unresolved questions in the understanding of the Bronze Age societies, their beliefs,

ritual behaviours, commemoration of the deceased, and differentiated ways of disposal of the dead depending on their status, as well as ways of social representation and expressions of identity that may be mirrored by mortuary data. Finally, Chapter Ten, written by S. Léon in collaboration with Rania Ali and J.-M. Cordy, is a detailed catalogue of the corpus of tombs sorted by chronology (Early and Middle Bronze Ages) and, within these macrocategories, by tomb type. The catalogue includes a meticulous description of the stratigraphy and archaeological context of each tomb, charts with data on human remains (age, sex, position, and orientation), as well as with the burial equipment, animal offerings, and samples. These thorough descriptions are complemented by a remarkably well-done and accurate corpus of illustrations on Plates 21–220 that show, for each tomb, plans, blackand-white photos, and drawings of the complete burial equipment including pottery and small finds. In general, the book presents a very accurate systematization and analysis of an important corpus of data. The sessions dedicated to the discussion and interpretation of the evidence offer food for thought with respect to important issues in the study and understanding of the Bronze Age society of north-east Syria, among which the potential of funerary data for the reconstruction of demographics despite unavoidable biases in the available datasets (Bradbury and Philip 2020: 75–76). Some flaws in the

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proposed absolute chronology and archaeological periodization noticed in this review (moreover mitigated by the accuracy of the ceramic chronology proposed by the excavators) by no way lessen the importance of the book for the study of ancient Syria, as well as its contribution to our knowledge of the Syrian Jazirah in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC and to the field of funerary archaeology. The accurate presentation of data is commendable, making this fine, well-presented, and remarkably well-illustrated book an example of best practices in the publication of archaeological reports. Marta D’Andrea Sapienza Università di Roma

Bibliography Bradbury, J. and Philip, G. 2020 Mapping and Modelling the ‘Invisible Dead’: Reconstructing Demographics in the Ancient Near East, in D. Lawrence, M. Altaweel and G. Philip (eds), New Agendas in Remote Sensing and Landscape Archaeology in the Near East Studies in Honour of Tony J. Wilkinson, Oxford: 63–79. Boudin, M. and Van Strydonk, M. 2018 2018 14C Dates from the Early and Middle Bronze Age Graves at Chagar Bazar (Syria), in Tunca and Baghdo (eds) 2018: 1–10. Chapman, R. 2007 Mortuary Rituals, Social Relations, and Identity in Southeast Spain in the Late Third to Early Second Millennia B.C., in N. Laneri (ed.), Performing Death. Social

Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean (OIS 3), Chicago: 69–80. Cordy, J.-M. and Ali, R. (eds) 2018 Chagar Bazar (Syrie) VII. Les tombes ordinaires de l’âge du Bronze ancien et moyen des chantiers D–F–H–I (1999–2011): Les ossements (Publications de la Mission Archéologique de l’Université de Liège en Syrie), Louvain – Paris – Bristol, CT. Dever, W.G. 1995 Social Structure in the Early Bronze IV Period in Palestine, in Th.E. Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land, London – Washington: 282–296. Lebeau, M. 2011 Introduction, in M. Lebeau (ed.), ARCANE I. Jazira, Turnhout: 1–17. Léon, S. (ed.) 2018 Chagar Bazar (Syrie) VI. Les tombes ordinaires de l’âge du Bronze ancien et moyen des chantiers D–F–H–I (1999–2011): Les objets (Publications de la Mission Archéologique de l’Université de Liège en Syrie), Louvain – Paris – Bristol, CT. Palumbo, G. 1987 “Egalitarian” or “Stratified” Society? Some Notes on Mortuary Practices and Social Structure at Jericho in EB IV, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 267: 43–59. Rova, E. 2011 Ceramic, in M. Lebeau (ed.), ARCANE I. Jazira, Turnhout: 49–127. Schwartz, G. 2017 Western Syria and the Thirdto Second-Millennium BC Transition, in F. Höflmayer (ed.), The Late Third Millennium in the Ancient Near East: Chronology, C14, and Climate

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Change (OIS 11), Chicago: 87– 128. Stantis C., Kharobi A., Maaranen N., Nowell G.M., Bietak M., Prell S. and Shutkowski, H. 2020 Who were the Hyksos? Challenging traditional narratives using strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis of human remains from ancient Egypt, PLoS ONE 15(7), online: e0235414. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0235414. Tunca. Ö. and Baghdo, (eds) 2018 Les tombes ordinaires de l’âge du Bronze ancien et moyen des chantiers D–F–H–I (1999–2011): Études diverses (Publications de

la Mission Archéologique de l’Université de Liège en Syrie), Louvain – Paris – Bristol, CT. Tunca, Ö. and Mas, J. (eds) 2018 Chagar Bazar (Syrie) V. Les tombes ordinaires de l’âge du Bronze ancien et moyen des chantiers D–F–H–I (1999–2011): La poterie (Publications de la Mission Archéologique de l’Université de Liège en Syrie), Louvain -–Paris – Bristol, CT.

Lebeau, M. (ed.), ARCANE. Associated Regional Chronologies for the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. ARCANE Interregional II Artefacts, Turnhout, Brepols 2018, x-309 pages, 132 figures and plates. ISBN 978-2-50354988-0. Price € 90.00.

from the 3rd millennium BC. However, it presents serious difficulties for its accomplishment, which are clear to anyone having a not superficial knowledge of the history of the archaeological explorations in this wide geographic area. In the first place, there is the strong disparity in the field activities – as concerns number, intensity, length, quality of publications, etc. – and, as a consequence, in the knowledge about all the aspects of the material culture of the different regions of the whole area. In the second place, there is the objective fact that the core of the regional chronologies was in the main reconstructed in the different regions between the First and the Second World Wars, based on extensive excavations and before the application of the modern techniques of stratigraphic archaeology (see Matthiae 2020a). In the third place the correct application

This volume is the last but one of the seven books thus far published in the series ARCANE, general editor Marc Lebeau, who, as is well known, is the creator of the ARCANE Project, whose aim is “to produce a reliable relative and absolute chronology of the entire Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean, based on the synchronisation of regional chronologies for the Third millennium B.C.” This ambitious goal can be certainly shared and even desired by all the scholars engaged – in the field and out of the field, in the different areas of the ancient Near East – in the study of assemblages dating

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of different developments of the modern stratigraphic method nearly everywhere in the Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and the recent strong interest for the crucial researches about landscape archaeology (see Wilkinson 2003) led in the last decades in some instances to a too strong attention for minute aspects of the analysis of stratigraphic and pottery sequences void of a larger scope. These are general considerations, only very rapidly mentioned for space limits, whereas they would need extensive comments and clarifications. I must also add the obvious observation that – for evident reasons of stratigraphic superimpositions – the sites of any phase of the 3rd millennium BC in all the regions of the ancient Near East which are extensively and not only very fragmentarily exposed, are very few. This happens also because, still today, chance findings, rather than specific historical problems are at the origin of the decision to explore archaeologically a site. The research of the ARCANE Project was sponsored by the European Science Foundation and its ideal aims are summarised in the very ambitious subtitle Setting Science Agendas for Europe. Since its beginning the scholars responsible for the research – the “Arcanians”, as they like to call themselves – decided that the foundation for the “synchronization of the regional chronologies” had to be the creation of a database, where that largest number of the excavations on 3rd millennium sites of the last decades had to be represented, as well as at least

the main long lasting great historical excavations. For the great complexity of the evidence provided by these great excavations, it was deemed opportune that each of these “great excavations” – e.g. Mari, Ashshur, Nagar, Ebla, Eshnunna, Kanesh, Megiddo, etc. – were represented buy one (!!!) stratigraphic unit, in the topographic/ architectural sense, which was considered particularly meaningful and exemplary for that specific site. It is evident that such formulation drastically diminished, and really nullified any possible contribution by the major excavations to the knowledge of the material culture of the most important regions of the ancient Near East in the 3rd millennium BC. In this way, the central database of the research became purely illusory, and in fact, any individual Author, charged with a contribution for the ARCANE volumes dedicated both to individual great geographical-cultural regions (those thus far appeared are dedicated to Cyprus [ARCANE 2, 2013], the Jezirah [ARCANE 1, 2012], the Middle Euphrates [ARCANE 4, 2015] and the Tigridian Region [ARCANE 5, 2019]) and to the interregional considerations (those thus far appeared are ARCANE IR 1, Ceramics, 2014 and ARCANE IR 2, Artefacts, 2018), had to base his/her essay on personal information and personal researches. This happened also with ARCANE 3, History & Philology, 2015, whose editors are W. Sallaberger and I. Schrakamp. It is worth recalling that this volume is excellent for the redactional coordination, the thematic in-depth analysis and the well-

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balanced considerations of nearly every essay, and it actually is an essential reference tool for any reconstruction and critical evaluation of the absolute chronology of the 3rd millennium BC. It demonstrates that, in the actual state of our knowledges of the written sources, the most reliable absolute chronology for the 3rd millennium BC is a Middle Chronology, lowered of approximately 8 years. It is important to note that this well-balanced evaluation for the 3rd millennium BC differs only for a very few years from what has been proposed in the most recent revisions of the absolute chronology of the 2nd millennium BC. The latter, in fact, propose that the less problematic and more reliable absolute chronology is placed somewhere between the traditional Middle Chronology (Hammurabi of Babylon 1792-1750 BC; fall of Babylon 1595 BC) and the traditional Low Chronology (Hammurabi 1728-1686; fall of Babylon 1531). This volume – ARCANE Interregional II, Artefacts – includes the following chapters: 1. Cypriot Anthropomorphic Figurines by Diane Bolger (pp. 1–11); 2. Inlays by Rita Dolce and Barbara Couturaud (pp. 13–26); 3. Organic Materials (Bone, Ivory, Shell) by Hermann Genz (pp. 27–37); 4. Metal Weapons by Guillaume Gernez (pp. 39–76); 5. Andirons by Mehmet Işıklı and Raphael Greenberg (pp. 77–84); 6. Animal Figurines by Luca Peyronel and Alexander Pruss (pp. 85–105); 7. Dark Soft Stone Objects by Holly Pittman (pp. 107–172); 8. Model Vehicles by Alexander Pruss (pp. 173–191); 9. Semi-

Precious Stones by Philippe Quenet (pp. 193–201); 10. Cananean Blades by Steven A. Rosen (pp. 203–219); 11. Anthropomorphic Terracotta Figurines by Ferhan Sakal (pp. 221–234); 12. Stone Vessels by Karin Sowada (pp. 245–276); 13. Bitumen by Thomas Van de Velde and Jacques Connan (pp. 277–281); 14. Beads by Zuzanna Wygnańska and Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer (pp. 283– 294). Though taking into due account the practical difficulties the editor had to face, the reader is not positively impressed by the lack of homogeneity in the subjects of the individual chapters, whose reasons are not clear. In fact, they in part include materials (Chapters 3, 9, 13), in part types of objects of explicitly defined materials (Chapters 4, 7, 11, 12), in part types of objects clearly made of different materials (Chapters 2, 14), and, lastly, types of objects whose materials are not specified, though clearly made of clay (Chapters 5, 6, 8) or stone (Chapter 10); finally, in one instance only (Chapter 1) a specific typology of objects from one area only (Cyprus) is dealt with, though the volume is Interregional and one of the first published volumes (Peltenburg [ed.] ARCANE 2, 2013) is dedicated precisely to Cyprus. The individual chapters are quite dissimilar from each other and it is evident that the Authors were left complete freedom to deal with their subject: as a consequence some chapters are very analytical and excellent, like the chapter by H. Pittman on the artistic productions in chlorite, whereas others are too synthetic with respect to the

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diffusion, quantity and chronological value of the analyzed artefacts, as happens with the Inlays. The plurality of Authors for subjects which could have been more appropriately treated unitarily – as happens with the anthropomorphic and animal figurines and with the model vehicles in clay – lead to uneven evaluations. The presence of a chapter – albeit a very interesting one – about the relations among regions, pivoting on a very specific subject like the Andirons is a little astonishing, whereas S.A. Rosen’s considerations about the technological innovations in the Cananaean Blades, related with the social changes taking place by the end of Early Bronze are very appreciable and deserve further developments and debate. It is difficult to understand why no attention was paid to metal tools, whereas G. Gernez’s very useful and analytic essay deals only with Metal Weapons. More in general, one might ask why there is a – too synthetic – chapter about Semi-Precious Stones and nothing about the artefacts in precious metals, like gold and silver, and nothing about stone sculpture in an inter-regional perspective, whose importance is clearly crucial, in the history of studies and in the current debate, for the creation of the relative (see J.M. Evans, 2012) and absolute chronology of the ancient Near East in the 3rd millennium BC (see R. Dittmann and G.J. Selz [eds], 2015 and M. Eppihimer 2019). I would like to draw attention onto the accurate and informative contribution by K. Sowada about the Stone Vessels (she also authored the very

useful monograph Sowada 2009), where she discusses in detail the finding in the Royal Palace G of Ebla of several fragments of pharaonic bowls, mostly dating from the Sixth Dynasty, among which the nearly complete lid with Pepi I’s royal titles. This finding is obviously a basic one for the complex problems of the synchronization of the absolute chronologies of Egypt and the Near East: in fact, it is the only synchronism, in the whole 3rd millennium BC, connecting Lower Mesopotamia, Northern Syria and Egypt, because it proves that Sargon od Akkad, Ishar-Damu of Ebla and Pepi I of Egypt were contemporaries, as preliminarily announced in P. Matthiae 1989 (see now Id. 2020b: 35–41). Sowada’s essay is also important because often the pharaonic gifts brought to Ebla between the 26th and 24th centuries BC escape the attention of the Egyptologists. In this sense, one may mention as an example the absence of any mention of the Egyptian bowls, bearing Chefren’s and Pepi I’s names, discovered in the intact context of the Royal Palace G of Ebla, in the excellent contribution by Do. Arnold and E. Pishikova (1999: 112– 118), where they even publish an intact uninscribed five spouted lamp made of “Chefren’s diorite” (Ibidem: 259, fn. 99), which is identical as type and material to the lamp discovered at Ebla, bearing the hieroglyphic signs with two names of Chefren’s titles. More recently, about the importance of the finding of the pharaonic bowls in the Royal Palace G of Ebla see Matthiae 2018 and Pinnock 2018. The individual chapters of this volume, albeit , as already mentioned, inexplicably not comprehensive of the

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complex of the material culture of the 3rd millennium BC, which might have been dealt with in an Interregional perspective, are anyhow useful to have a general idea of our present knowledges, though their greatest limit – with the lack of systematicity– is the unclear contribution they give to the subject of the ARCANE research, namely to the production of a reliable relative and absolute chronology for the entire Ancient Near East. This volume of the ARCANE series resents, in the reviewer’s opinion, the main not positive aspect of this scientific enterprise. In my opinion, a research with this kind of subject should have a “problematic” perspective, taking into account as much as possible all the terms of the discussion, without imposing final conclusions which might be misunderstood. In this reviewer’s opinion the research Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 2nd Millennium BC, created and directed by M. Bietak is an excellent example, because it provides scholars with a huge amount of materials, a high level of discussion and the possibility to go further in depth in several aspects of these difficult topics. Paolo Matthiae Sapienza Università di Roma

Bibliography Arnold, Do. and Pishikova, E. 1999 Les vases en pierre, des produits de luxe aux implications multiples, in Ch. Ziegler, Do. Arnold and K.

Grzymsky (eds), L’art égyptien au temps des pyramides, Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais 6 avril – 12 juillet 1999, Paris. Dittmann, R. and Selz, G.J. (eds) 2015 Is’s a Long Way to a Historiography of the Early Dynastic Period(s) (Altertumskunde des Vorderen Orients 15), Münster. Eppihimer, M. 2019 Exemplars of Kingship. Tradition, and the Legacy of the Akkadians, Oxford. Evans, J.M. 2012 The Lives of Sumerian Sculpture. An Archaeology of the Early Dynastic Temple, Chicago. Matthiae, P. 1989 The Destruction of Ebla Royal Palace: Interconnections between Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt in the late EB IVA, in P. Åström (ed.), High, Middle or Low? Acts of an International Colloquium on Absolute Chronology held at the University of Gothenburg 20th–22nd August 1987, III, Gothenburg: 163–169. 2020a Prima lezione di Archeologia Orientale, III Ed., Roma – Bari. 2020b Ebla. Archaeology and History (English translation of Ebla, la città del trono. Archeologia e storia, Torino 2010), Oxford. 2018 Doni faraonici alla corte di Ebla nell’Antico Regno: Una riflessione sul contesto storico, in A. Vacca, S. Pizzimenti and M.G. Micale (eds), A Oriente del Delta. Scritti sull’Egitto ed il Vicino Oriente in onore di Gabriella Scandone Matthiae (CMAO 18), Roma: 347–366.

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Sowada, K. 2009 Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Old Kingdom. An Archaeological Perspective (OBO 237), Fribourg – Göttingen. Wilkinson, T.J. 2003 Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East, Tucson.

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‫‪Arabic Abstracts‬‬

‫إعادة ترتيب و بناء الكساء الخشبي من القرص املليك ‪G‬‬ ‫فرانسيس بينوك‪ .‬سابينزا جامعة روما‬ ‫خالل التنقيبات األثرية يف طبقات الفرتة السورية القدمية يف القرص املليك ‪ G‬يف إبال تم يف عام ‪ 1974‬إكتشاف غرفتان ‪L.1260-‬‬ ‫‪ L.2586‬تم يف واحدة منهام ‪ L.1260‬إكتشاف العديد من قطع الخشب املتفحم‪،‬البعض من هذه القطع كانت محفورة و‬ ‫كان من الواضح أنها تنتمي إىل قطعة أثاث مرصعة ومحفورة‪ .‬يف هذه املشاركة سأعرض العنارص التي التي قادت إىل تحديد‬ ‫قطع هذا األثاث عىل أنه كريس عرش و طاولة و البيانات التي تخص املوقع والطبقة الكرونولوجية لهذه القطع‪ .‬يف ضوء هذه‬ ‫العنارص عىل مايبدو أن الكريس والطاولة التي عرث عليهام يف الغرفة ‪ L.1260‬قد إستخدمت يف الوحدة الغربية للبنية املركزية‬ ‫للقرص‪ ،‬حيث كان باإلمكان نقلهام عند الحاجة بإستخدام السالمل املنحنية التي تقود من طبقة الغرف حيث تم العثور عليهام‬ ‫إىل الطبقة األعىل للقطاع حيث تم تحديد بعض الغرف التي رمبا خصصت إىل وظائف إحتفالية‪.‬‬

‫‪© 2020, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden‬‬ ‫‪ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11521-6 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39042-2‬‬

‫‪Arabic Abstracts‬‬

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‫رؤوس أقالم‬

‫نص محاسبة إدارية من إبال‪.TM.75.G.1886 + 100616 ARET I 2 + ARET IV 23 .‬‬ ‫ماركور بونييك‬ ‫هذه املالحظة هي املقدمة للنص الفخاري اإلداري اإلباليئ الذي حصلنا عليه من خالل إلصاق ‪TM.75.G.1886 = ARET IV‬‬ ‫‪ .,23 con TM.75.G.10016 = ARET I 2‬تتبع مبناقشة ملحتواه و بنيته الداخلية‪.‬‬ ‫حول “الفخار الرمادي” إبال‪ ،‬البادية والجنوب خالل عرص الربونز القديم الرابع‪.‬‬ ‫مارتا دي أندريا‪ .‬سابينزا جامعة روما‬ ‫سمحت إعادة دراسة الوثائق املصورة املجموعة من تنقيبات إبال بتحديد مجموعة من الكرس الفخارية مؤرخة إىل نهاية عرص‬ ‫الربونز القديم الرابع ب والتي تنتمي إىل تقاليد “الفخار الرمادي” املنتجة مابني تل املرشفة‪/‬قطنا ‪ ،‬تل الشعريات وتل النبي مند‬ ‫ومنترشة إىل مركز وجنوب سوريا‪ ،‬و إىل الفخار البسيط املطيل يف مركز البادية السورية‪ .‬وتعترب هذه الكرس الفخارية من اول‬ ‫الدالئل عىل إنتاجها يف هذه املناطق وتواجدها يف نص أثري مؤرخ إىل عرص الربونز القديم الرابع يف منطقة إبال‪ .‬هذه املواد من‬ ‫املمكن أن تعطي بعض االهمية إىل كرس فخارية أخرى من تل الخاطري يف منطقة إبال‪ ،‬ملتقطة خالل املسح األثري لعام ‪1964‬‬ ‫من قبل ماريو ليفرياين‪ .‬هذه الكرسة تدعى املقبض املغلف‪ ،‬سميت بهذه الطريقة بسبب اللوحات املطوية ‪ ،‬تنتمي إىل أمناط‬ ‫جنوب بالد الشام التي تتواجد أيضا يف جنوب سوريا‪ ،‬عىل سبيل املثال يف خربة األومبايش يف منقطة دمشق ويف درعا‪ .‬الكرسة‬ ‫من تل الخاطري ممكن أن تقرتح أن املواد من تقاليد جنوب بالد الشام قد وصلت إىل شامل داخل سوريا يف هذه الفرتة و بالتايل‬ ‫تشكل اإلكتشاف األكرث بعدا إىل الشامل لفخاريات الجنوب يف عرص الربونز القديم الرابع‪ .‬من املمكن ان تخربنا هذه اللقى‬ ‫حول اإلتصاالت مابني مختلف املناطق خالل عرص الربونز القديم الرابع ب‪ .‬مع تواجد تحاليل املكونات إي نظرية تخص كيفية‬ ‫وصول فخاريات الجنوب إىل الشامل هي تخمينية‪ ،‬ولكن هناك تلميحات تشري إىل املمر الرشقي لشامل و أعىل وادي العايص‪.‬‬ ‫اإلتصاالت مابني إبال و املواقع يف مركز البادية السورية من املمكن أن تكون قد إستعيدت من خالل مشهد سيايس وإقتصادي‬ ‫إجتامعي يف مرحلة عرص الربونز القديم الرابع ب التي شارك أيضا يف إعادة تشكيل الخلفية الثقايف اإلجتامعية لسوريا خالل‬ ‫فرتة اإلنتقال من األلف الثالث إىل األلف الثاين قبل امليالد‪.‬‬ ‫كرس من ‪ARET XI‬‬ ‫بيليو فرونزارويل جامعة فلورنس‬ ‫خالل تحضري نرش املجلد ‪ ARET XIII e ARET XVI‬كان من املمكن التعرف عىل بعض الكرس والرشائح الفخارية التي‬ ‫تنتمي إىل نصوص أكرب تتحدث عن العقائد امللكية املنشور يف ‪ .ARET XI‬يف معظم الحاالت الكلامت أو كرس الكلامت املتعرف‬ ‫عليها تأكد عىل الدمج املقرتح يف املجلد املنشور و يف بعض الحاالت تقدم معلومات مهمة تضاف إىل أو تعدل مضمون النص‪.‬‬

‫‪© 2020, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden‬‬ ‫‪ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11521-6 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39042-2‬‬

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‫‪Arabic Abstracts‬‬

‫الوسطاين و الدوييل‪ .‬تنترش فيها القرى األثرية “املدن امليتة أو املدن املنسية “‪ ،‬التي يبلغ عددها أكرث من سبعامئة قرية‪ ،‬يتميز‬ ‫أكرث من ‪ 80‬موقع منها‪ ،‬بحالة معامرية جيدة حتى وقتنا الحايل‪ ،‬عىل الرغم مام تعرضت له من عوامل التخريب الطبيعية‬ ‫والبرشية عرب الزمن‪ ،‬ويعود ذلك إىل مادة البناء وهي الحجر الكليس‪ ،‬وما تزال واجهات عدد من بيوتها قامئة حتى مستوى‬ ‫السقف بعلو ‪6-8‬م‪ .‬تعود تلك القرى األثرية إىل العرصين الروماين والبيزنطي‪ ،‬حيث تعرضت أغلب هذه القرى للهجرة منذ‬ ‫القرن الثامن امليالدي بسبب الحروب واألوبئة والجفاف والزالزل وغريها‪ .‬قامت املديرية العامة لآلثار واملتاحف يف سورية منذ‬ ‫عدة سنوات بالتنسيق مع مركز الرتاث العاملي يف منظمة اليونسكو بإعداد ملف تسجيل هذه املنطقة التي متثل مشهدا ُ نادرا ً‬ ‫ألرياف من العرصين الروماين والبيزنطي عىل شكل مثانية محميات تتضمن ‪ 35‬قرية منوذجية‪ ،‬وتسجيلها عىل قامئة الرتاث‬ ‫العاملي منذ ‪ .2011‬فيام يتعلق بدراستنا للتقسيامت الزراعية خاصة األرايض التي تحيط باملواقع األثرية املدرجة عىل الئحة‬ ‫الرتاث العاملي يف الباركات الثامنية ال بد من االستفادة من الدراسات امليدانية التي قمنا بها خالل عدد من السنوات حيث متت‬ ‫دراسة ورسم آثار التقسيامت التي ما تزال موجودة عىل األرض واالستفادة من الخرائط الطبوغرافية والصور الجوية القدمية‬ ‫والصور امللتقطة من األقامر الصناعية وخاصة غوغل إرث التي تساعدنا عىل تتبع التغريات التي متت يف هذه املناطق خالل‬ ‫العرش السنوات املاضية‪ .‬تساعد هذه املعطيات يف البحث عن آثار الطرقات القدمية و عن الجدران الحجرية التي كانت تحدد‬ ‫املزارع القدمية أو أشكال بعض الحقول التي حافظت عىل اتجاهاتها و مقاييسها القدمية‪ .‬كام تساعد هذه العنارص بشكل كبري‬ ‫عىل فهم املشهد األثري و الطبيعي القديم من خالل الواقع الحايل للمنطقة‪ ،‬بالتايل فإن تجميع كل هذه العنارص‪ ،‬حتى ولو‬ ‫كانت غري مكتملة لكنها تحمل السامت القدمية نفسها التي كانت تتمتع بها من خالل االتجاه أو املقياس املساحي املستخدم‬ ‫أصال يف تخطيطها‪ ،‬يساعد عىل فهم واقع االقتصاد الريفي الذي انعكس عىل نهضتها من الناحيتني االجتامعية واملعامرية بشكل‬ ‫كبري‪ .‬تتعرض حالياً بعض هذه املناطق إىل تدمري هائل‪ ،‬بسبب انتشار عدد كبري من مقالع الحجر‪ ،‬و بسبب ظاهرة تنظيف‬ ‫األرايض الزراعية القدمية من قبل املجتمع املحيل بقصد توسيع املساحات القابلة للزراعة من خالل استخدام اآلليات الثقيلة‬ ‫التي أزالت جزء كبري من الجدران الحجرية املوجودة يف مناطق مختلفة من الكتلة الكلسية حيث كانت سليمة يف أغلبها حتى‬ ‫بدايات القرن العرشين‪ ،‬بالتايل من املهم ضمن إطار هذه الدراسة توثيق تلك املتغريات التي تجري حالياً عىل آثار هذه املنطقة‬ ‫قبل زوالها وفقدانها نهائياً مع مرور الزمن‪.‬‬

‫‪© 2020, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden‬‬ ‫‪ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11521-6 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39042-2‬‬

‫‪Arabic Abstracts‬‬

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‫ملكية وإلهية؛ كام كانت مداخل هذه املباين محميّة بتامثيل أسود كبرية منحوتة إما بشكل بارز أو مجسم‪ .‬ارتبطت أصول هذا‬ ‫النموذج من البناء ارتباطاً وثيقاً بالتقاليد املعامرية القدمية التي كانت سائدة سابقاً يف املنطقة‪ ،‬فعىل سبيل املثال‪ ،‬كانت األروقة‬ ‫معروفة يف إيبال منذ األلف الثالث قبل امليالد ويف قرص زمري ليم يف ماري العائد لأللف الثاين‪ .‬كام ُزيّنت جدران أحد قصور إيبال‬ ‫منذ األلف الثاين ق‪ .‬م‪ .‬ببالطات حجرية واقفة (أورتوستات)‪ .‬يُع ُّد قرص أالالخ‪ ،‬السوية ‪( ،IV‬القرن الخامس عرش ق‪ .‬م‪ ).‬منوذجاً‬ ‫مبدئياً لبيت حيالين الذي استكمل جميع عنارصه املعامرية متخذا ً شكله النهايئ يف األلف األول ق‪ .‬م‪ .‬تشري هذه األدلة إىل‬ ‫األصول املحلية لبيت حيالين الذي امتزجت فيه تقاليد محلية وأخرى مستحدثة خالل الفرتة اآلرامية‪ .‬أقدم مثال عنه هو قرص‬ ‫كبارا يف تل حلف (القرن العارش ق‪ .‬م‪ ،).‬وقد ُعرث عىل مناذج مامثلة له يف تل طعينات‪ ،‬زنجرييل (شأمل)‪ ،‬تل الفخريية‪ ،‬تل الشيخ‬ ‫حسن‪ ،‬تل الشيخ حمد‪ ،‬تل أفيس‪ ،‬كركميش وحامه‪ .‬فيام يخص وظيفة هذا النمط املعامري‪ ،‬فقد تم ربطه بشكلٍ تقليدي وفقاً‬ ‫للرأي السائد بعامرة القصور واعتُرب كنموذج خاص بها‪ ،‬ألن أول أبنية حيالين التي ُعرث عليها كانت قصورا ً كام يف تل حلف‪ ،‬تل‬ ‫الطعينات‪ ،‬زنجرييل وتل الفخريية‪ .‬لكنه يف الواقع كان له وظائف أخرى‪ ،‬وتم وصف بعض األبنية العامة التي مل تكن قصورا ً بأنها‬ ‫أبنية حيالين‪ .‬فهناك معابد مشيّدة عىل غرار طراز بيت حيالين مثل معبد عني دارا وآخر يف كركميش؛ يبدو أيضاً أنه استخدم يف‬ ‫بناء بعض مساكن طبقة النبالء كام يف مثال أحد مباين تل برسيب‪ .‬وأخريا ً‪ ،‬قدم املستوى ‪ E‬من قلعة حامه‪ ،‬الذي يعود لأللف‬ ‫األول ق‪ .‬م‪ ،.‬عدة أبنية عامة ضخمة والتي بُني بعضها وفقاً ملخطط بيت حيالين‪ .‬تشري املعطيات األثرية اآلتية من أحد البوابات‬ ‫امللكية (املبنى ‪ )I‬للقلعة الواقعة يف جزئها الجنويب الرشقي أنها بُنيت أيضاً بنموذج بيت حيالين خالل املرحلة األخرية من السوية‬ ‫‪ .E‬وهنا ميكن القول بأن هذا النموذج املعامري متعدد الوظائف س ّيام وأنه استُخدم يف بناء القصور واملعابد واملباين السكنية‬ ‫لطبقة النخبة ويف البوابات العامة‪ .‬يف الختام‪ ،‬ميكننا التأكيد عىل مسألتني هامتني تتعلقان بتعريف ووظيفة بيت حيالين‪ .‬أدى‬ ‫تنوع مناذج هذا الشكل املعامري وغنى خصائصه التي تشرتك بوجود الرواق ذو األعمدة‪ ،‬كعنرص مشرتك يف جميع هذه املباين‪،‬‬ ‫إىل إعادة النظر يف تعريفه وبالتايل وظيفته‪ .‬اتضح من خالل األدلة األثرية وكذلك النصوص أن الرواق الذي يحتوي عىل أعمدة‬ ‫كان معيارا ً حاسامً يف تعريف بيت حيالين‪ ،‬وبالتايل سمة يتوجب تصنيفها كصفة أساسية ومميّزة له‪ .‬ال ينبغي نسب مخطط‬ ‫بيت حيالين إىل عامرة القصور فقط نظرا ً لوجوده أيضاً يف العامرة الدينية والسكنية للنخب ويف البوابات الضخمة‪ .‬يُظهر مثال‬ ‫املبنى ‪ I‬يف حامه بوضوح مرونة هذا املخطط وقدرته عىل التكيف مع الوظائف املختلفة‪ .‬فهو منوذج معامري استُخدم بامتياز‬ ‫العامرة الرسمية للمدن الحثية واآلرامية واآلشورية‪ .‬يف الواقع‪ ،‬اعتُمدت أروقة بيت حيالين املتم ّيزة بأعمدتها يف بناء وزخرفة‬ ‫القصور اآلشورية الجديدة وأصبحت عنرصا ً زخرفياً واضحاً داخل هذه القصور‪ .‬فكان بال شك أحد أساليب الدعاية املفضلة لدى‬ ‫امللوك واألمراء بهدف التباهي مبشاريعهم املعامرية‪.‬‬ ‫حالة الحفظ لتقسيامت األرايض الزراعية يف الكتلة الكلسية يف شاميل سوريا خالل العرصين الروماين والبيزنطي‬ ‫مأمون عبد الكريم‬ ‫متتد السلسلة الجبلية التي تكون الكتلة الكلسية يف شاميل سورية من حدود تركيا حالياً يف الشامل حتى منطقة أفاميا جنوباً‬ ‫بطول ‪ 150‬كم‪ ،‬ومن سهل الغاب غرباً حتى سهول حلب و قنرسين رشقاً بعرض ‪ 70‬كم تقريباً‪ .‬وتشكل هذه السلسلة كتلتان‬ ‫رئيستان‪ ،‬هام جبل سمعان يف الشامل‪ ،‬وجبل الزاوية يف الجنوب‪ ،‬بينهام سلسلة من الجبال األصغر هي الحلقة‪ ،‬باريشا‪ ،‬األعىل‪،‬‬

‫‪© 2020, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden‬‬ ‫‪ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11521-6 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39042-2‬‬

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‫‪Arabic Abstracts‬‬

‫نقطة مرجعية من أجل تعريف ودراسة العالقات السياسية اإلقتصادية و اإلجتامعية خالل نهاية عرص الربونز وبداية عرص‬ ‫الحديد‪ .‬بعد املقدمة التاريخية و الكرونولوجية‪،‬يعرض هذا املقال بعض الطبقات املكتشفة يف املنطقة ‪ ، 42.10‬تعترب هذه‬ ‫املنطقة الوحيدة املنقبة حديثا يف املوقع التي قدمت تعاقب طبقي غري منقطع ميتد منذ عرص الربونز الحديث الثاين إىل عرص‬ ‫الحديد الثاين‪ .‬املقال يركز عىل الطبقات املؤرخة إىل مابني نهاية عرص الربونز وبداية عرص الحديد (املراحل ‪ .)4a-3b‬و يدرس‬ ‫الفخاريات بتطبيق ليس فقط تحاليل شكلية عىل الفخاريات بل يحاول إستخدام الفخاريات كمؤرش عىل التغري اإلجتامعي‬ ‫واإلقتصادي من خالل املقاربة الوظيفية‪ .‬الفخاريات عالوة عىل ذلك‪ ،‬مقارنة بفخاريات مواقع أخرى معارصة تقع يف شامل بالد‬ ‫الشام‪ ،‬مظهرين الخصائص املحلية و املستوردة‪ .‬الفخاريات منصنصة عىل أساس أستخدامهام من أجل الحصول عىل معلومات‬ ‫حول تحول الطرق التي تم من خاللها إستخدام املساحات والقطع خالل فرتات التغري املوثقة يف العبور من عرص الربونز إىل‬ ‫عرص الحديد‪.‬‬ ‫تصورات جديدة حول موضوع بيت حيالين عىل أضواء معطيات املبنى ‪ I‬يف حامه‬ ‫سوزان ديبو‬ ‫وحدة البحث ‪ ،5133‬مخرب آثار الرشق‪ ،‬بيئات ومجتمعات الرشق القديم‪-‬جامعة ليون الثانية‪/‬جامعة دمشق بيت حيالين هو‬ ‫منط معامري ظهر يف املرشق وبشكل خاص يف شامل سوريا ويف جنوب رشق تركيا منذ نهاية األلف الثانية قبل امليالد‪ .‬يُنسب‬ ‫بناؤه للشعوب اآلرامية التي سكنت املنطقة يف األلف األول قبل امليالد‪ .‬وقد شيّد كالً من اآلراميني والحثيني أبنيتهم الرسمية‬ ‫وفقاً لهذا النموذج الذي انترش انتشارا ً واسعاً خالل عرص الحديد‪ ،‬ليس فقط يف املرشق وإمنا يف بالد شور أيضاً‪ .‬إذ استحوذت‬ ‫عامرة وتخطيط بيت حيالين عىل إعجاب ملوك العرص اآلشوري الحديث الذين غزوا املنطقة ونقلوا معهم تقنيته إىل ماملكهم‬ ‫واستخدموها يف بناء قصورهم أو أجزاء منها فقط‪ .‬ظهر مصطلح بيت حيالين ألول مرة يف حوليات امللك اآلشوري تيغالت بيلرص‬ ‫الثالث (القرن الثامن ق‪.‬م‪ ).‬ومن بعده خلفائه‪ .‬وقد ورد يف نصوصه أن امللك بنى بيت حيالين نسخة طبق األصل عن قرص‬ ‫موجود يف بالد خايت ‪ .pays de Hatti‬وقد متت اإلشارة إليه يف الحوليات امللكية باسم بيت آبّايت ‪ bῑt appāti‬الذي يعني بلغتهم‬ ‫“البيت ذو الفتحات”‪ .‬ويف ٍ‬ ‫نص آخر ذكر أحد امللوك أنه بنى رواق أمام البوابات عىل غرار قرص حثي الذي يسمى بيت حيالين‬ ‫باللغة األمورية‪ .‬يتكون مصطلح بيت حيالين من كلمتني‪ :‬األوىل تعني منزل‪ ،‬قرص أو معبد‪ ،‬بينام تشري الكلمة الثانية إىل رواق‬ ‫يف منزل (لإلله أو للملك)‪ .‬شغل هذا النمط املعامري حيّزا ً كبريا ً من اهتامم الباحثني الذين قدموا دراسات عديدة عن أصوله‬ ‫وانتشاره واالقتباسات اآلشورية املأخوذة منه‪ .‬بالرغم من كرثة هذه الدراسات حوله ال ميكن حرصه بتعريف دقيق‪ ،‬بل ميكن‬ ‫باألحرى التأكيد عىل سامته العامة التي يشرتك بها جميع أبنية هذا النمط‪ .‬فهو بشكل عام بناء مستطيل مك ّون من قاعتني‬ ‫طوالنيتني تنتظم إحداهام خلف األخرى يف اتجاه عريض وموازي لواجهة املدخل‪ .‬يتم ّيز مبدخل واسع مسبوق بدرج يف بعض‬ ‫الحاالت ويحيط به من كل جهة‪ ،‬يف أغلب األحيان‪ ،‬ما يشبه األبراج‪ .‬والعنرص املعامري األكرث بروزا ً –الذي تم ذكره باستمرار يف‬ ‫النصوص اآلشورية‪ -‬هو تصميم مدخله عىل شكل رواق مسقوف بأعمدة خشبية قامئة عىل قواعد حجرية؛ وكانت هذه القواعد‬ ‫عىل شكل حيوانات ضخمة أو مزينة بزخارف‪ .‬يف قرص امللك كبارا يف تل حلف‪ ،‬تم استبدال األعمدة مبنحوتات تجسد اآللهة‬ ‫الرئيسية يك تحمل الرواق‪ .‬تم تزيني الواجهات الخارجية‪ ،‬وأحياناً الداخلية‪ ،‬بأورتوستات حجرية ضخمة تحمل مشاهد رسدية‬

‫‪© 2020, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden‬‬ ‫‪ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11521-6 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39042-2‬‬

‫‪Arabic Abstracts‬‬

‫‪٢‬‬

‫ويف العديد من الحاالت تعكس خطوط اإلتصال املختلفة مابني هذه املواقع‪ .‬هذه الظاهرة التعكس تنقل األمناط الثقافية‬ ‫فحسب بل أيضا تنقل الناس والبضائع‪ .‬مجيدو وخربة الزرقون والروضة و إبال وناري كانت محطات تجارية و عقد تبادل‬ ‫إقليمية خال الفرتات املختلفة لعرص الربونز القديم‪ ،‬ظاهرة ميكن أن تكون معكوسة بتواجد الهياكل املقدسة التي كانت مزار‬ ‫للناس املحليني واألجانب‪.‬‬

‫مابني الحداد وإستحضار األرواح‪ :‬معجم الرثاء الجنائزي يف إبال و يف العصور الكالسيكية القدمية يف ضوء اإلثنولوجية والدين‬ ‫املقارن‪.‬‬ ‫جاكبو باسكوايل‬ ‫نحاول يف هذا املقال ألول مرة أن نقدم تحليل تطوري للرثاء الجنائزي يف إبال‪ ،‬معتربينه يف نصه الواسع املتوسطي‪ .‬هذا البحث ال‬ ‫يتطرق إىل كيفية إجراء الرثاء الجنائزي يف إبال فحسب‪ ،‬بل يحاول إظهار العالقة مابني الرثاء اإلباليئ و الرثاء الجنائزي اإلغريقي‬ ‫والروماين‪ .‬من أجل إجراء هذا البحث‪ ،‬قد كان يف غاية األهمية اإلطالع عىل منشورات رواد املدرسة اإليطالية للدراسات‬ ‫اإلنرثبولوجية و العرقية كمنشورات‪ .Cirese, Di Martino, Lombardi Satriani, Meligrana e Di Nola‬الذين تعترب لسوء‬ ‫الحظ دراساتهم غري معروفة خارج إيطاليا‪ .‬النتائج الهامة التي توصلت لها هذه الدراسات و األعامل العلمية األخرى التي‬ ‫عالجت عقيدة املوت و الشعائر الجنائزية خالل العصور الكالسيكية القدمية قد سهلت التحاليل و املناقشة للرثاء الجنائزي‬ ‫اإلباليئ خالل األلف الثالث قبل امليالد‪ .‬لقد لوحظ عىل وجه الخصوص تواجد عازف منفرد ميثل عىل أنه يقود الرثاء يرافقه‬ ‫جوقة تتجاوب مع طلباته‪ .‬يتوافق ليس مع أشكال الرثاء الجنائزي الذي نشاهده يف قصائد الشعراء األومرين بل يتوافق أيضا‬ ‫مع شكل القسم الكورايل يف املآيس اليونانية التي تدعا ‪ κομμός‬التي بحسب الوصف املقدم من قبل سقطراط مل تكن إال‬ ‫رثاء جنائزي متناوب مابني الجوقة و العازف الذي يتواجد يف نصف املشهد‪ .‬بعد ذلك وبالخروج من الواقع الصغري املحيل و‬ ‫من آفاقه املحدودة‪ ،‬من املمكن إظهار أسباب وأفكار بغاية األهمية من املستندات اإلبالئية ووضعها يف منظور تطوري متعدد‬ ‫الثقافات يسمح لنا بالوصول من األلف الثالث قبل امليالد إىل التقاليد اليهودية والعامل الكالسييك‪.‬‬

‫الضياع يف التحول‪ .‬املحتوى الفخارين لعرص الربونز الحديث وعرص الحديد يف تل العطشانة‪/‬آاللخ‬ ‫ماريا كارميال مونتيسانتو‬ ‫التنقيبات األخري يف تل العطشانة أظهرت العديد من الطبقات املؤرخة إىل عرص الربونز الحديث الثاين و إىل عرص الحديد األول‬ ‫(مابني القرنني الخامس عرش والثاين عرش قبل امليالد)‪ .‬يقع تل آاللخ يف وادي العمق و يعترب أكرب مستوطنات عرص الربونز يف‬ ‫املنطقة‪ .‬عالوة عىل ذلك‪ ،‬أكدت التنقيبات الحديثة عىل اإلستيطان حتى عرص الحديد الثاين‪ ،‬لهذه األسباب‪ ،‬ميكن إعتبار التل‬

‫‪© 2020, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden‬‬ ‫‪ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11521-6 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39042-2‬‬

‫‪Arabic Abstracts‬‬ ‫املقاالت‬

‫الهياكل الدينية يف مجيدو وخربة الزرقون و اإلتصاالت اإلقليمية يف عرص الربونز القديم‬ ‫مارتا دي أندريا‪ .‬سابينزا جامعة روما‬ ‫املعبد ‪ 5269‬و ‪ 5291‬و ‪ 4040‬يف مجيدو و املعبد ‪ B.04‬و ‪ B.05‬يف خربة الزرقون تختلف عن التقاليد الدينية يف جنوب بالد‬ ‫الشام يف عرص الربونز القديم التي تتمثل بشكل جيد يف املعبد ‪ B.01‬يف خربة الزرقون و رمبا تعكس تبني تقاليد غري محلية‪.‬‬ ‫عادة ما تتمثل هذه املعابد بالغرفة الطويلة التي تدعى ‪ ,in antis‬تلك املعابد ميكن أن تنتمي إىل منط معني بأصول مختلفة‪.‬‬ ‫الظواهر العمرانية غري املحلية يف معابد املوقعني يف جنوب بال الشام ممكن أن تسمح لنا برتسيخ بعض الروابط بني التنقل‬ ‫اإلنساين و عامرة املعابد يف أماكن تقع يف عقد مهمة خالل عرص الربونز القديم مابني الساحل واألرايض الداخية‪ .‬يف هذا املقال‬ ‫سنبحث عن اإلختالفات والتشابهات لألبنية املعامرية يف هذان املوقعان يف جنوب بالد الشام و نقارنهم مع األبنية الدينية يف‬ ‫سوريا ولبنان‪ .‬و سنعيد مناقشة فرتة إستخدامهم يف بالد الشام خالل عرص الربونز القديم‪ .‬ويف النهاية سنقرتح تفسري السامت‬ ‫املحلية والغري محلية للعامرة الدينية يف عرص الربونز القديم‪ .‬املستندات األثرية املتاحة تقدم صور عامة أكرث وضوحا‪ ،‬من‬ ‫خاللها ميكننا فصل منطني رئيسني للمعابد ‪ in antis‬بشكل مبسط هام‪ :‬معبد بالحنية الطويلة العريضة هو املتواجد يف‬ ‫شامل رشق بالد الرافدين وهو ذو الحنية الطويلة‪ .‬بالواقع هنا العديد من التقاليد املعامرية الدينية التي من املمكن أن ترجع‬ ‫أصولها إىل أكرث من منطقة جغرافية‪ .‬بحسب رأي أن واحد يتمثل يف املعابد بواجهة مفتوحة‪ ،‬الذي يدعا بنمط ‪megaron‬‬ ‫والذي يتواجد فقط يف موقع مجيدو و بيبلوس‪ ،‬فقط مع األبحاث األثرية املستقبلية ميكننا معرفة فيام إذا كانت هذه التقاليد‬ ‫املعامرية هي تطوير معامري محيل أو تقاليد مستوردة من عمليات اإلتصال مع الشامل الرشقي لبالد الرافدين‪ .‬النمط الثاين‬ ‫يتمثل مبعابد تل حالوة ‪ B‬و خربة الزرقون يف املعابد ‪ B.04‬و ‪ B.05‬و يف تل الروضة من خالل مايسمى باملعبد االخري‪ .‬التوزع‬ ‫املكاين لهذان النمطان املعبديان تضع الحدود مابني التقاليد املعامرية الغربية والرشقية وتحدد طبيعة اإلتصاالت يف املمرين‬ ‫الثقافيني يف عرص الربونز القديم عىل الرغم من أنها كانت شائعة يف فرتات الحقة أيضا‪ .‬هذان املمران هام‪ :‬األول من الشامل‬ ‫الجنويب الساحيل املتحكم به من قبل مجيدو والثاين املمر الداخيل مابني جنويب و وسط سوريا بالعبور بالبادية و وادي الفرات‪.‬‬ ‫يف الهياكل املعامرية الدينية يف مجيدو وخربة الزرقون و كام شاهدنا أيضا يف موقع الروضة وبيبلوس وإبال وماري هناك العديد‬ ‫من الصفات املشرتكة التي ميكن أن توصف عىل أنها سامت معامرية أصلية مرتافقة مع الشعائر الدينة املختلفة تكون واضحة‪،‬‬

‫‪© 2020, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden‬‬ ‫‪ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11521-6 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39042-2‬‬