NOTES ON RECENT DISCOVERIES AT TELL 
MARDIKH-EBLA
SILVIN KOŠAK 
Oxford
After a survey of the Aleppo region in the autum n of 1963 the Italian 
Archaeological Expedition in Syria has concentrated its efforts on Tell 
M ardikh, approx. 70 km south of Aleppo. The results have been published in 
extensive prelim inary reports.1 In 1974, an archive of 42 tablets was found in 
an EB IV stratum (2300—2200 B. C.),2 and in 1975, royal archives from the 
same period were discovered, containing nearly 15,000 tablets.3 The archives 
include adm inistrative and commercial, historical, literary and lexical texts 
among the latter are bilingual Sumero-Eblaite vocabularies. Pettinato [1975: 
374 n. 107] neatly sum m arizes the results in the following points: 1) Tell 
M ardikh can be positively identified w ith Ebla; 2) M ari was at this period 
under E blaite dom ination; 3) the language of E bla belongs to the North- 
W estern group of Semitic languages and is defined as Old Canaanite, a 
parallel to the Old Akkadian of the North-Eastern Sem itic group.
As this discovery opens a new chapter in com parative philology on the 
one hand and in the history of Ancient Near East on the other, a brief histo­
rical and linguistic outline should serve those interested in related fields.
The archives of Ebla have greatly changed our knowledge of Syro-Palestine 
in the 3rd millenium B. C.4 This was not an area of nom adic tribes but a great 
and well organized power. Ebla exerted a strong influence over a wide area; 
it controlled Kanish (a vassal treaty is preserved), Charchemish, Alalakh, 
Hazor, Lachish, Megiddo, Gaza, Ashtarot, Japha and allegedly Sinai. Of course, 
the reading of some signs is still uncertain ; for example, it is doubtful whether 
Sinai is really m entioned in the texts5 as the name Sinai appears in younger 
books of the Old Testam ent, i. e. the Yahwist (J ) and Priestly (P ) strata of 
the P entateuch while in the Elohist (E ) stratum and Deuteronomic (D) lite­
rature the nam e Horeb was used. Nevertheless, the overall picture of Eblaite 
dominions will probably rem ain the same.
The following list of kings is now known :
Igriš-halam
Ar-ennum

E brum
Ibbi-sipiš
Dubuhu-ada
Irkab-dam u
One of the documents m entions a w ar w ith Iblun-il of Mari who flees to 
H aššum and Ebrum makes his son king of Mari.
During the period of the Dynasty of Agade (2370—2190 B. C.) which cor­
responds to the archaeological horizon EB IV Ebla yields its power to Agade. 
According to Pettinato [1976] its m ercenary arm y could not m atch the Ak­
kadian forces.
This point m arks the beginning of the history of Ebla based on external 
evidence. The inscription of Sargon of Agade states: "Sargon, the king, pro­
strated (him self) in prayer before the god Dagan in Tutul (and) he gave 
(him ) the Upper Region (i. e.) Mari, Iarm uti (and) Ebla as far as the Cedar 
Forest and the Silver M ountain”.6
The destruction of the royal palace at Ebla can be attributed to the 
conquest of Naram -Sin: “Although since the era of the creation (?) of m an 
(kind) none of the kings has ever destroyed (the tow ns) Arman and Ebla, 
now the god Nergal did open up the path for the m ighty Naram-Sin, and 
gave him Arman and Ebla, and he presented him (also) w ith the Amanus, 
the Cedar M ountain and (w ith) the Upper Sea. And m ighty Naram-Sin slew 
Arman and Ebla w ith the weapon of the god Dagan who aggrandizes his 
kingdom".7
The royal palace was abandoned after the conquest and over it a m onu­
m ental staircase of the EB IV B period was built b u t the town continued 
to play an im portant role well into the 2nd m illennium B. C. A clear example 
of this continuity is the uninterrupted existence of the tem ple N from 2300 
B. C. u n til 1700/1600 B. C.6
During the Ur III period, Ebla is mentioned as an exporter of wood to 
Lagash and appears in connection w ith Uršu.9 Later it appears in Cappadocian 
texts,1 0 in adm inistrative texts of Alalakh V II,1 1 and in the H ittite historical 
text CTH 14, in connection w ith Haššum, Halpa and Uršu [KUB XL 4, 6]. 
Finally, one ought to list texts from Alalakh IV,1 2 the Thutm ose I l l ’s list of 
K arnak1 3 and the H urrian text from Bogazköy, Bo 409; the latter is the only 
docum ent whose spelling uraE-eb-la-a-pa indicates the reading Ebla, not Ibla.1 4 
The presence of Ebla in a middle-Assyrian letter [Gelb 1935: 4 n. 35] is 
uncertain.
The site Tell M ardikh was positively identified w ith the old Ebla by 
M atthiae [1970: 68 ff. ; id. 1971: 60 f.].
For the philologist the excitem ent lies in the discovery of a new language, 
which has been term ed Old Canaanite.
The classification and nom enclature of Semitic languages has always been 
a problem .1 5 After several decades of indiscrim inate use of the term s "Canaa­
nite” and "Amorite” with fu rth e r determ inatives such as "E ast”, "Old” etc., 
scholars seemed to have settled for the name "A m orite” describing the lan­
guage and culture of early West-Semitic peoples in Syro-Palestine.1 6 It is 
not w ithout irony th at P ettinato has now resurrected the term “Canaanite”

after Gelb [1961: 47] had set a tom bstone over it. So far, there are no definite 
criteria for the classification of individual languages, a problem which may 
root in the complicated cross-group pattern of lexical and morphological iso­
glosses.1 7 B ut the nam e itself is, after all, irrelevant; for the Indo-European 
Anatolian group names like “H ittite” itself are wrong b u t serve their purpose 
as long as they are used consistently. One can only hope th at agreement will 
be reached now on which term to employ.
1 MAIS I, 1965; II, 1966; III, 1967.
2 Pettinato 1975:363.
2 Pettinato 1975:374 n. 107; id. 1976.
4 All data for the pre-Sargonic period 
are from Pettinato 1976.
5 This was pointed out by A. Kem- 
pinski.
2 ANET3 1969:268; Hirsch 1963:38.
7 ANET3 1969:268; Hirsch: 73 f.
8 Matthiae 1975:356.
9 Edzard-Farber 1974:39; MAIS I, 121 
n. 45; Küpper 1949:85 f.; cf. Klengel 
1965:259 f.
1 0 Stephens 1944, Nr. 193:14; Lewy 
1945:180; Astour 1971:13. Kienast 1960, 
Nr. 32:17—22, cf. Liverani 1973:108 and 
n. 27.
1 1 AT 18:2, 35:10, 269:3, 373:5, 377:4; 
cf. Klengel 1965:261.
1 2 AT 180:36, 182:5.
1 3 Helck 1971:147.
1 4 Weidner 1952-53:13 n. 87; Goetze 
1953:103 n. 1 .
1 5 Greenfield 1969; Sekine 1973; Hetz- 
ron 1974.
1 6 von Soden 1960:191; Gelb 1961:46 f.; 
Kenyon 1966:76.
1 7 Rabin 1963:107 ff.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Astour, M. C. 1971. "Tell Mardikh and Ebla”, UF 3, 9—19.
Edzard, D. O — Färber, G. 1974. Repertoire géographique des textes cunéiformes, 
Bd. 2 (TAVO, Beiheft Reihe b/7). Wiesbaden.
Gelb, I. J. 1935. Inscriptions from Alishar and vicinity. Chicago.
Gelb, I. J. 1961. “The early history of the West Semitic peoples”, ICS 15, 27—47.
Goetze, A. 1953. “Four Ur dynasty tablets mentioning foreigners”, ICS 7, 103—107.
Greenfield, J. C. 1969. "Amurrite, Ugaritic and Canaanite”, apud Proceedings of 
the International Conference on Semitic Studies (Jerusalem 1965). Jerusalem. 92 
do 101.
Helck, W. 1971. Die Beziehungen Ägyptens zu Vorderasien im 3. und 2. Jahr­
tausend v. Chr. (2. verbess. Aufl.). Wiesbaden.
Hetzron, R. 1974. "La division des langues sémitiques”, apud Actes du Premier 
congrès international de linguistique sémitique et chamito-sémitique (Paris 1969). 
Paris. 181—194.
Hirsch, H. 1963. »Die Inschriften der Könige von Agade«, AfO 19, 1 —82.
Kenyon, K. M. 1966. Amorites and Canaanites. London.
Kienast, B. 1960. Die altassyrischen Texte des Orientalischen Seminars der 
Universität Heidelberg und der Sammlung Erlenmayer-Basel. Berlin.
Klengel, H. 1965. Geschichte Syriens, I. Berlin.
Küpper, J.-R. 1949. »Uršu«, RA 43, 79—87.
Lewy, J. 1945. [Review of Stephens 1944], AJA 49, 180—182.
Liverani, M. 1973. "The Amorites”, apud Wiseman, D. J. (ed.), Peoples of Od 
Testament times. Oxford. 100—133.
Matthiae, P. 1970. "Mission archéologique à Teil Mardikh”, /L4AS 20, 55— 72.
Matthiae, P. 1971. “Teil Mardikh, Syria. Excavations of 1967 and 1968”, Archae­
ology 24,55—61.
Matthiae, P. 1975. "Ebla nel periodo delle dinastie amoree e della dinastia di 
Akkad. Scoperte archeologiche recenti a Teli Mardikh”, OrNS 44, 337—360.
Missione archeologica italiana in Siria (= MAIS). 1965, 1966, 1967. Roma.
Pettinato, G. 1970. “Inscription de Ibbit-Lim, roi de Ebla”, AAAS 20, 73—76.

Pettinato, G. 1975. “Testi cuneiformi del 3 millennio in paleo-cananeo rinvenuti 
nella campagna 1974 a Teli Mardikh = Ebla”, OrNS 44, 361—374.
Pettinato, G. 1976. “The palace archive of Tell Mardikh-Ebla: A preliminary 
report’’. Paper read at the XXIII RAI, Birmingham, 8. 7. 1976.
Pritchard (ed.). 1969. Ancient Near Eastern texts relating to the Old Testament. 
3rd ed. (= ANET3 ). Princeton.
Rabin, Ch. 1963. “The origin of the subdivisions of Semitic”, apud Hebrew and 
Semitic studies presented to G. R. Driver. Oxford. 104—115.
Sekine, M. 1973. "The subdivisions of the North-West Semitic languages”, JSS 18, 
205—221.
Soden, W. von. 1960. »Zur Einteilung der semitischen Sprachen«, ZDMG 56, 
177—191.
Stephens, F. J. 1944. Old Assyrian letters and business documents (BIN VI). New 
Haven etc.
Weidner, E. 1952—53. »Das Reich Sargons von Akkad«, AfO 16, 1 —24.
Wiseman, D. J. 1953. The Alalakh tablets. (= AT). London.
[Articles publ. since this contribution went to press:
Matthiae, P. 1976. “La scoperta del palazzo reale G e degli archivi di stato di 
Ebla (C. 2400—2250 A. C.)”, La parola del passato 168, 233 f.
Matthiae, P.; Pettinato, G. 1976. Reallexikon der Assyriologie, s. v. Ibla.
Text Bo 409 now publ. as KUB XLV 84.]
Lothar Eckhart: Die Skulpturen des 
Stadtgebietes von Lauriacum. Corpus 
signorum imperii Romani. Österreich 
III, 2. Österreichische Akademie der 
Wissenschaften. Wien, 1976, veliki 8°, 84 
str., 49 tabel.
Mednarodna zveza za klasično arhe­
ologijo (Association internationale d'Ar- 
chéologie Classique) s sedežem v Rimu 
si je pred leti zastavila nalogo organizi­
rati izdajanje mednarodnega dela »Cor­
pus signorum imperii Romani«, kjer naj 
bi bila objavljena in obdelana vsa rim­
ska plastika v okviru modemih držav in 
nekdanjih rimskih provinc oziroma 
mestnih območij. V tej seriji je doslej 
izšlo:
za Avstrijo 5 zvezkov, in sicer:
I, 1 Alfred Neumann, Die Skulpturen 
des Stadtgebietes von Vindobona, Wien 
1967
I, 2 Marie-Louise Krüger, Die Rund­
skulpturen des Stadtgebietes von Car­
nuntum, Wien 1967
I, 3 Marie-Louise Krüger, Die Reliefs 
des Stadtgebietes von Carnuntun, Wien 
1970
II, 1 Gemot Piccottini, Die Rimd- 
skulpturen des Stadtgebietes von Viru- 
num, Wien 1968
III, 2 Lothar Eckhart, Die Skulpturen 
des Stadtgebietes von Lauriacum, Wien 
1976;
za Nemčijo 2 zvezka:
I, 1 Friedrich Wagner, Raetia et No­
ricum, Bayern südlich des Limes und 
Chiemseegebiet, Bonn 1973
II, 1 Em st Künzl, Germania Superior. 
Alzey und Umgebung, Bonn 1975;
za Poljsko en zvezek:
I Anna Sadurska, Les portraits ro- 
mains dans les collections polonaises, 
Warszawa 1972;
za Britanijo en zvezek:
I, 1 E. J. Phillips, Handrian’ s Wall, 
East of the North Tyme, London-Oxford 
1976.
V zvezku, ki naj bi ga tukaj predsta­
vili, je obdelana rimska plastika Lauria- 
ka, rimskega središča v današnji Zgor­
nji Avstriji, zahodno od izliva reke Enns 
v Donavo, in njegovega širšega območja, 
ki na severu meji na Donavo, na vzhodu 
sega do Erlaufa na Nižjeavstrijskem, na 
jugu do pogorja Hochschwab in Eisener- 
ških Alp, na zahodu pa mu teče meja po 
črti med rekami Enns, Steyr, Krems do 
reke Traun na severu in naprej do Dona­
ve. Lauriacum je bil utrdba za avksiliar- 
ne enote vse do Marka Avrelija, ko je 
postal sedež druge italske legije. Ob ta­
boru se je začelo krepiti tudi civilno me­
sto, ki je dobilo mestne pravice za Ka­
rakale in je ostalo zadnje oporišče Rim­
ljanov na Donavi.
Geografski opis Lauriaka, njegovo le­
go ter pomembnosti kakor tudi zgodovi­