The Oxford History of the Biblical World (9 page)

The Ebla texts are difficult to decipher, and initial reports of direct links between them and the Bible have been proved wrong. What we now know is that approximately 80 percent of the tablets are economic and administrative documents, mostly recording royal dealings in a wide variety of goods—gold, silver, clothing, wood, olive oil, spices, and weapons, as well as livestock and their by-products. Textiles seem to have been particularly important commodities. The tablets give detailed information about the type of long-distance trade that was carried on by the great cities of Syria and Mesopotamia during this period. Scholarly suppositions about the importance of trade in the development of cities, as described above, seem borne out by the picture of Ebla’s economic activity that these tablets give.

The administrative texts also show that Ebla controlled a large area of northern Syria, in part directly through appointed governors or local overseers and in part through client kings. They also reveal the highly developed bureaucracy of the city, which the king headed and which a wide range of subordinate officials administered.

Among the noneconomic tablets are a few literary texts (such as hymns); incantation texts; lists of animals, birds, professions, and the like; Sumerian vocabulary lists, some with Semitic equivalents; lists of geographical data; and a few mathematical texts. Unfortunately, most of these writings do not provide information about Eblaite culture because they are actually copies of Mesopotamian works used as part of scribal training at Ebla. A notable exception is a large vocabulary list that may give the Eblaite equivalents to hundreds of Sumerian words. This and other fragments of the local language show that the language of the city, called Eblaite, is closely related to Old Akkadian, a Mesopotamian Semitic dialect.

The tablets provide only the most superficial information about the religion of Ebla, but it is clear that many of the great West Semitic deities were worshiped there. Gods such as Ilu (El), Hadad, Athtar, Dagan, Rashap (biblical Resheph), Malik, and the sun-god (whose name is not spelled out) are all deities well known from later texts, including the Bible. The Ebla tablets also mention Sumerian and otherwise unknown deities.

Despite the wealth of information in the tablets, several basic facts about the Ebla archives remain unclear. For instance, the date of the archives is still in question. Matthiae, the archaeological director of the Ebla excavations, has argued that they
should be dated to 2300–2250
BCE
, based on the supposition that the palace in which they were found probably was destroyed by the Mesopotamian king Naram-Sin. But others, including the original epigraphist of the Ebla team, Giovanni Pettinato, have argued from the style of the script and other internal indications that the tablets were composed as much as two centuries earlier.

It is also not certain over what length of time the tablets were written. Originally they were thought to be the archives of at least five kings over a period of 100 to 150 years. But more recently scholars have tended to attribute the archive to the reigns of two or three kings at the most, covering a span closer to fifty years.

The last quarter of the third millennium brought instability and decline throughout the ancient Near East. In Mesopotamia, the first great empire, that of the Akkad dynasty, collapsed in 2193
BCE
, ushering in nearly a century of political fragmentation. In Egypt the Old Kingdom monarchy, which had produced the mighty pyramids, also dissolved after centuries of relative stability, leading to the chaos of the First Intermediate Period (2160–2010
BCE
). In Syria-Palestine, no written documents survive to describe the events, but the archaeological record testifies to a serious economic and political decline there too.

In Palestine, evidence points to a nearly complete collapse of urban civilization at the end of the Early Bronze III period (2300
BCE
), a situation that lasted about three hundred years. Habitation of the fortified cities ceased, with many destroyed violently and others simply abandoned. This period is now most commonly called Early Bronze IV, although some scholars designate it Middle Bronze I or Intermediate Early Bronze-Middle Bronze. At this time most of the population of Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan River, followed a pastoral existence, regularly migrating to various seasonal camps throughout the region. Such campsites provide few remains that archaeologists can locate. Only one town, Khirbet Iskander, occupying a 3-hectare (7.5-acre) site in Jordan, is known to have been surrounded by a wall during the Early Bronze IV period. Other villages existed in Transjordan at this time, but they were only pale reflections of the urban culture that had preceded them. Few settlements existed west of the Jordan River until about halfway through the period, when seasonal villages were constructed in the southern marginal lands.

Not until about 2000 did cities begin to revive in Palestine. Their reappearance marks the inauguration of the Middle Bronze Age (2000–1550
BCE
), the period that saw the genesis of the Canaanite culture that would dominate Palestine throughout the second millennium. From this culture Israel would emerge around 1200
BCE
.

In northern Syria, excavations have yet to give a clear picture of the Early Bronze IV period. Evidence from such sites as Ebla and Leilan bespeaks a significant decline during this time, and Leilan may have been abandoned for a while. Certainly this region avoided the complete urban collapse that befell Palestine. Thus, following its destruction, Ebla was rebuilt, although on a more modest scale. Despite the decline, however, the written sources of Sumer show that extensive trade continued to move through cities such as Ebla. Gudea of Lagash in southern Mesopotamia mentions trade dealings with several cities and regions in Syria, including Ebla and Ursu, during the twenty-second century. Cedars from the Lebanon Mountains, as well as wood,
precious metals, and other goods from Anatolia (Asia Minor), continued to cross Syria as caravans brought them into Mesopotamia. This kind of trade also took place during the Ur III Dynasty (ca. 2112–2004
BCE
). Except for these scraps of information from Sumer, we know little else from this time about northern Syria’s social makeup or even the location of its primary political entities, although several city-states remained viable despite the chaos that erupted from time to time.

The opening of the second millennium
BCE
brings a much better documented period. An extraordinary number of archives have been discovered in cities of Syria and northern Mesopotamia that provide considerable insight into the political, social, economic, and religious situation in Syria and, to a lesser degree, Palestine. The incomparable texts from Mari on the middle Euphrates River have shed light on an important forty-year period of Syro-Mesopotamian history during the late nineteenth and early eighteenth centuries. The Mari tablets have been supplemented by smaller contemporary or near contemporary archives from other sites in the region, including Tell er-Rimah, Tell Asmar, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, Terqa, Tell Shemshara, and Tell Leilan. These sources show that Syria during the Middle Bronze Age formed a critical component of the political and cultural situation in the Near East, comparable in importance to the states of Mesopotamia during the same period. They also illuminate the two great empires of the Middle Bronze Age, that of Shamshi-Adad I, who controlled all of Upper Mesopotamia for twenty to thirty years, and that of Hammurapi (Hammurabi) of Babylon, who brought all of Mesopotamia under his sway.

The Middle Bronze Age in northern Syria and Mesopotamia has been called the age of the Amorite kingdoms. Most of the states in these regions were ruled during this era by kings whose names belong to a language called Amorite, a Northwest Semitic tongue that most likely originated in northeastern Syria.

The Amorites were a large and complex group of peoples, and their origins and spread across the Near East are only partially understood. Earlier studies of the Amorites tended to portray them as primarily nomadic tribespeople, sweeping in from the steppe land that borders the great Syrian desert, attacking the urban centers of Mesopotamia, and eventually bringing down Neo-Sumerian culture at the end of the third millennium. Following their triumph, so it was said, the crude Amorites found themselves overwhelmed by the advanced culture they had subdued, and they began to settle down and develop into city-dwellers. It is now clear that this portrait is distorted. Although there was a substantial pastoralist, seminomadic element among the Amorites, large portions of the tribes were sedentary folk, living both in agricultural villages and in the larger urban centers. By the mid-third millennium, in fact, considerable numbers of Amorites had migrated south into Mesopotamia, settling in the cities and becoming established yet distinct members of Mesopotamian society. The collapse of Neo-Sumerian culture cannot be attributed entirely, nor perhaps even largely, to invasions of nomadic Amorites; many other factors played a role in this decline. The Amorite clans who eventually gained dominance over various cities were those that had long since been fully urbanized and already had a substantial power base in the cities.

When written sources begin to appear toward the end of the nineteenth century
BCE
, most of the major cities of Mesopotamia and northern Syria were ruled by kings with Amorite names. Many of the cities that had played major roles in the Early Bronze Age were replaced by new cities that assumed political dominance.

The great archives of Mari supply the foundation for our understanding of Syria and Mesopotamia during the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries
BCE
. These archives were recovered from the ruins of the palace of Zimri-Lim, the last king of Mari before its destruction by Hammurapi of Babylon about 1760
BCE
. The palace itself was an extraordinary building, sprawling over about 2.5 hectares (6 acres) and boasting more than 260 rooms, courtyards, and corridors on the ground level, as well as an undetermined number on the second floor. In this enormous building culminated centuries of construction that had begun in the late third millennium. Reports of its splendor spread widely in the Near East.

But more significant than the ruins of the palace for the study of Syro-Palestinian history and culture are the collections of tablets found within the city. Some twenty-five thousand tablets, dating between the twenty-fourth and eighteenth centuries, have come to light at Mari, most of them dating from its final decades during the late nineteenth and early eighteenth centuries, the period roughly contemporary with Shamshi-Adad I of Upper Mesopotamia and Hammurapi of Babylon. About two thousand of the tablets are letters, while most of the rest are economic, administrative, and juridical documents. Besides the tablets, a number of official royal inscriptions also provide much important information.

All of the documents are valuable in reconstructing the political, social, and economic history of the region, but the letters in particular give extraordinary insight into life at Mari and throughout Syro-Mesopotamia during one of the most interesting periods of its history. The letters come from a host of different people, including kings and administrators, Mari diplomats in other states, family members, priests, and prophets. Most were sent to the kings of Mari, who thus kept themselves abreast of what was going on in their kingdom and, at times, in the kingdoms round about. The letters provide inside information, not royal propaganda. Thus they give us a view, unmatched from any other archive, into the workings of an ancient royal city, as well as into individuals living through extraordinary times.

The tablets are particularly informative about the major political powers in Syria and Mesopotamia during this period. Farthest south was Larsa, an important city that during the reign of Rim-Sin (1822–1763) held sway over a significant part of southern Mesopotamia. About 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the northwest of Larsa lay Babylon, which first began to emerge as an important city in the late nineteenth century and rapidly reached its first period of political dominance during the 1760s, the latter years of Hammurapi’s reign. Eshnunna (Tell Asmar), a city east of the Tigris, along the Diyala River, had made itself master of Assyria and the region west of the Tigris about the time the Mari archive begins, but later lost the area to Shamshi-Adad I. After Shamshi-Adad’s death, Eshnunna’s fortunes revived briefly, soon to be dashed with the rise of Hammurapi.

Along the middle Euphrates was Mari itself, whose fortunes waxed and waned during the period of the archives. It first appears as an independent state of considerable
strength under the rule of Yahdun-Lim. But not long after his death, the city passed into the empire of Shamshi-Adad I. Mari later regained its independence and prestige under Zimri-Lim, only to be overthrown forever by Babylon.

On the upper part of the Habur River was the city of Shekhna, in the land of Apum. Shamshi-Adad I chose the town as the primary capital of his empire, renaming it Shubat-Enlil. Recent discoveries at the site of Tell Leilan have shown decisively that it should be identified as ancient Shekhna/Shubat-Enlil. Modern historians often call Shamshi-Adad the first great king of Assyria, but this is misleading. He appears to have belonged to an Amorite tribe whose homeland lay in northern Syria, which may have been why he moved his capital to the Habur Plain. Assyria was the first part of his empire, however; he had an enormous impact on the Assyrians’ imperial ideology and long survived in their memories as one of their greatest kings.

Farther west was Yamhad, a powerful state whose capital occupied the site of modern Aleppo. Yamhad blocked both Shamshi-Adad I and Hammurapi of Babylon from expanding into western Syria. During much of the Middle Bronze Age it was the leading state of northern Syria. To the south of Yamhad, in central Syria, was the major city-state of Qatna, closely linked with Mari by the trade route that connected them across the desert via Tadmor/Palmyra. Moving south into northern Canaan, a traveler would have reached the city of Hazor, which seems to be mentioned several times in the Mari letters (although some of the references suggest that there was another Hazor in central or northern Syria). The largest city in Canaan (72 hectares [180 acres]), Hazor may have been the dominant Canaanite town of the Middle Bronze Age, but it was on the periphery of Mari’s economic horizon.