The open character of Eblaite society, less centred on the great organisations (the temple and the palace) than its Mesopotamian contemporaries, and closer to its kin-based structure, is also visible in its architecture, at least judging from its palace. The type of Mesopotamian palace found at Eridu, Kish and Mari was like a fortress. It had narrow entrances and limited access from the outside, and open courtyards inside. On the contrary, the Eblaite palace was designed around its courtyard, the so-called ‘Audience Court’. On one side, this courtyard opened up towards the city, and on the other, it provided access to the inside of the palace. This open architecture was both ceremonial, as indicated by the set of stairs reserved for the king’s descent towards the external throne, and functional, since the commercial archives were located between the courtyard and the administrative quarter.
Therefore, despite having evolved from an earlier Mesopotamian model in terms of function and architecture, the Eblaite palace was innovative in terms of layout and ideology. This emphasises the more approachable nature of the Eblaite administration. Temple architecture is not well attested for this period, and some information can be gathered from sources describing rituals as well as later architectural developments. It is probable that there were many temples, as many as the deities worshipped in the state cult. However, they were relatively small in size. Therefore, they seem to have been devoid of those economic and administrative structures (storehouses and workshops) that made Mesopotamian temples stand out (also in terms of size and height) as political and economic centres. For instance, the Rock Temple at Ebla was a monumental and visible construction, but lacked those economic buildings characteristic of Mesopotamian temples.
Syrian temples simply were the gods’ houses and the focal point of a type of cult that was mainly pursued outdoors. Sacrifices and festivals were not private cults managed by priests, but important redistributive occasions involving the population as a whole. Among the many deities worshipped at Ebla, the most important one for the city and its royal family was the god Kura, a deity exclusively attested in Ebla. He received more offerings than any other deity and his temple was located on the highest point of the city, where royal rituals and important political oaths were performed. Ebla also worshipped popular gods such as Dagan (a typical deity in the Middle Euphrates region), Ishtar/Ishara, Adad (main deity of Aleppo), Shamash, Rashap and Kamish. Other deities were more typical of Eblaite religion, such as the enigmatic Nidabal, who would eventually disappear. Each of these gods had its own temple and cult statue, and regularly received offerings and votive statues. Among the many rituals attested in Ebla, the most important one for the official cult was the enthronement or marriage ritual (attested in many versions, one for each king). This ritual required the king and queen to travel to the shrines of the kingdom.
While Eblaite cults were predominantly local in character, its scribal culture displays a marked Mesopotamian influence. This must have been an obvious consequence of the use of cuneiform writing, with its Sumerian syllabary and logography. Eblaite writing was similar to the cuneiform of the Early Dynastic Illa period (attested in Fara and Abu Salabih), also found in Pre-Sargonic Mari. This indicates that writing had been in use at Ebla before the construction of Palace G (whose preceding version has only been detected through surveys), possibly in connection with the rise of the Eblaite dynasty (ca. 2500 bc). The Mesopotamian origin of the script was still considered a vital aspect, leading to the training of young scribes at Mari with teachers coming from Kish. Ebla was part of the scribal tradition coming from Central Mesopotamia. This is the tradition defined by Ignace Jay Gelb as the ‘Kish tradition’, which used the Sumerian system to express the local language.
Scribal training and the need to adapt it to the local languages led to the appearance of lexical texts. These ranged from sign-lists and word-lists (of birds, fish, professions, as well as toponyms), also found in Fara and Abu Salabih, to bilingual lists. The latter were an Eblaite innovation, listing an ideogram with its Sumerian and Eblaite reading (Text 7.2). Due to the standardisation of scribal resources and their transmission through time, the lexical lists of Ebla belong to a tradition dating back to the Late Uruk period. However, these texts had to respond to new needs. Apart from a wider linguistic variety, there was the need to record various systems of numeration and measurement. In fact, Sumerian ideograms could often be used to indicate very different local systems of measurement, making the conversion of an Eblaite measurement into the Mesopotamian system rather inaccurate. Therefore, it was necessary to assign a set of signs to the local systems of measurement, thus separating signifier from signified.
Apart from lexical texts, there were divination texts of Mesopotamian origin, and literary texts, also after a Mesopotamian model, but re-elaborated to accommodate local cosmologies and myths. However, writing remained a crucial aspect of the administration, requiring scribes to develop more efficient and clearer ways to record information. In this regard, the Eblaite archive constitutes an important step. It shows a clear desire to store tablets (placed on shelves along the walls, carried in baskets or on trays), to establish clear and consistent types of texts, and to develop a clear way to keep track of accounting records, especially those covering one or more years (Figure 7.6).
However, it has to be said that not everything was yet clear and established. After all, the development of defined and unambiguous types of documents would be the result of later improvements. Nonetheless, Ebla was already on the right path, but its documentation did not manage to reach the exemplary clarity
Figure 7.6 Ebla, palace G: reconstruction of one of the rooms of the archive.
That would arise in the Neo-Sumerian period. For instance, in terms of dating systems, the correctness of the calculations, the clarity of the recorded actions, their aim, and the use of a technical terminology only appear through the analysis of several texts. However, these aspects should have been clear after the analysis of only one text, yet they are not.
Even in terms of iconography, Ebla owes greatly to Mesopotamia, and its wealth and refinement was equal to the most important Sumerian centres. Despite having been sacked once it was destroyed, the palace’s remains still give us an idea of Ebla’s wealth. For instance, there were small sculptures made from a combination of precious materials, from gold to black stone and lapis lazuli. Large sculptures have not been found, probably due to the desire of Eblaite rulers to avoid obvious forms of self-celebration. In terms of material culture, the shell or stone inlays follow Mesopotamian examples, while woodcarvings were typically Syrian and were the forerunners of ivory carvings. Seals were generally similar to the ones of the Early Dynastic II—III, but were filled with local mythological and iconographic motifs (Figure 7.7). Therefore, the city experienced a vivacious intellectual and technical development. This would form the basis for high-quality Syrian craftsmanship, thanks to the use of precious materials from distant lands and earlier Mesopotamian models. Even pottery combined two of the typical features of palace workshops, namely, elegance and standardisation.
World History
