Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: In a recent study of the topographical features and the urban layout of the city of Ebla following its destruction by the Akkadians' we have drawn on the archaeological documentation and the very little data that exists to attempt to sketch out a preliminary image of the city in that crucial phase of the historical and cultural development of northern Syria, EB IVB, which, until only a few years ago, had not been shown, or even assumed to be so crucial2.Some of the many questions raised by the ongoing investigations, to which it is difficult to offer any definitive answers at the present time, have at least been clarified by the findings of the excavations conducted over the past ten years in the Lower Town of this large Syrian centre (fig.I), to which I shall be referring here as the starting-point from which to draw a number of further considerations: the Late Early Syrian Ebla was radically destroyed by the Akkadians which held up the development of the town and for a time, and certainly led to a considerable reduction in its size, but it was never completely abandoned.The partial reorganization of some of the public structures on the Acropolis and the probable building of the official residence of the sovereign3 in the EBIVBIMardikh IIB period suggest that the city recovered and a system of institutionalized royal power was established.The extension of the EB IVB settlement in the Lower own^, particularly on the northern and western sides5, grew up around the monumental Royal Palace (the Archaic Palace) (fig.2), the seat of the throne and manifest official pwerh, which was founded and already in use by EB IVB and was the forerunner and, to a certain extent, the "model" of the royal-official buildings that followed in the same area and without interruption from EB IVB to MB I17.
Author: R. Dolce
Language: English
Topic: Ancient Near East History
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W92892859