Ebla and Its Landscape—Early State Formation in the Ancient Near East

The discovery of the 17,000 tablets at the late third millennium BC Syrian site of Ebla revolutionized the study of the ancient Near East. Popular treatments of the finds were quick to follow and volumes analyzing aspects of these texts have filtered out over the year. But until now, there has been no major English-language research volume describing the multidisciplinary archaeological research at Ebla. Using a regional landscape approach, the thirty contributions to this expansive volume examine Ebla in its regional context through lenses of archaeological, textual, biological, materials, and remote sensing analysis, among others. In doing so, they are able to construct a detailed picture of the constituent elements and trajectories of early state development, essential to those studying the ancient Near East and other archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, and linguists.

Paolo Matthiae is Professor of Archaeology and Art History of the Ancient Near East in the Sapienza, University of Rome, and directs its Italian Archaeological Expedition to Syria. He has served as Dean of the Faculty of Human Sciences, Vice-Rector for the Cultural Initiatives, and Director of the PhD School of Archaeology at Sapienza. Since 1964 he has led the excavations at Tell Mardikh-Ebla. Among his publications are more than 200 articles, several monographs about Ebla in Italian, a popular volume on the site in Italian and English, and the multi-volume History of the Art of the Ancient Orient. Matthiae cofounded the International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE) and is President of its Scientific Committee. He has received honorary degrees from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid and the University of Copenhagen, was granted the Syrian Merit, and awarded the Italian Republic Knight of the Great Cross, the highest Italian decoration.Nicolo Marchetti is Associate Professor in the Department of Archaeology at University of Bologna. He has directed archaeological excavations at Karkemish, Tilmen Hoyuk, and Tasli Gecit Hoyuk (Turkey), Jericho (Palestine), and participated in the Ebla excavations for 8 seasons. He has authored over two dozen research articles, edited ARCHAIA Case Studies on Research Planning, Characterisation, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites (BAR), and authored La statuaria regale nella Mesopotamia protodinastica (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei). Marchetti co-founded the journal Orient-Expres, edited the series OrientLab, and served on the editorial boards of the journals Contributi e materiali di archeologia orientale, Studi Eblaiti, and Ricerche di egittologia e di antichita copte