Middle Bronze Age in Syria: new architectural practices. Sites of Ebla and Aleppo

Review

Last week we primarily looked at the end of the 3rd millennium in southern Mesopotamia, when what the Near Eastern scholars term as the Mesopotamian tradition, or stream of tradition is crystallized: in all fields of creative activity. In literature, in the Akkadian and later in the Ur III period, large amounts of Sumerian and Akkadian myths are written down and the kings of Ur in particular sponsored long literary compositions, royal hymns to commemorate important historical events, and attempting to establish a genealogical link with the heroes and kings of Uruk. They did start to sponsor building projects in ancient cult centers such as Uruk as well. This is indeed a mjor attempt to evoke a certain historical consciousness and creation of social memory, a very specific cultural identity and thereby legitimization of royal rule on their behalf, which showed up in the pictorial narrtives of them alsa as we saw in the stele of Ur Nammu.

In socio-economic organization, a very intricate and highly detailed administrative buraucracy adopted to control the agricultural production, when the territorial state becomes wealthy. In architecture, the temple complex becomes an impressive entity with multiple palatial and cultic structures incorporated in it, and culminated in the innovation of a true ziqqurat, a temple tower structure which from then on became the most monumental aspect of the cult complexes in Mesopotamian cities, a massive building, and only by virtue of its massive contruction represents how social cohesion was created by involving a great deal of workmen. When you approach the architecture of ziqqurat the most striking thing is of course the massive amount of labour that was used for its construction. Sometime in early 2nd millennium BC, ca 1950s, the Ur III state falls apart due to economic decline when the many cities that the state controlled could no longer sustain to pay taxes. Salinization and overuse of the agricultural soils, massive population increase which cannot be sustained any more could lead to eventual decline. The Malthusian theory. Production increases along with the population increase, but due to environmental restrictions at some point the production stops to increase while population continues.

The Ur III state was really the culmination of the early southern alluvium history during the Early Bronze Age. In the ensuing Middle and Late Bronze ages and the Iron Age which we will look at the powerful territorial states shift in geographical focus for more Northern territories, especially Upper Mesopotamia and perhaps in certain cases the Northermn part of Lower Mesopotamia around Babylon, near modern day Baghdad. It is not that nothing is happening in the southern alluvium any more, just that it is easier to follow the cultural trajectories in the North where a lot of new and innovative things are happening. One other reason of this shift also is the the development of the Eastern Mediterranean trade network, by the Middle and Late Bronze age it becomes an important aspect, where many lands around the Mediterranean develop new seafaring techniques which make sea trade develop a great deal. We’ll talk about this in greater detail next week.

Let me remind you briefly the geography we are moving into. The dry-farming zone where irrigation agriculture is not necessary, high rainfall zone, foothills of the Zagros and Taurus mountains. The syrian steppe: the river valleys Euphrates and Tigris but also especially tributaries Habur, Balih, Upper and Lower Zap. Also the Amuq plain and the coastal Syria and Palestine. A spectacular stretch, which we will also reach up to the Central Anatolian plateau. More of an undulting landscape of rolling hills in the jazira region.

Midthird millennium urbanization in the Jazira: massive increase of mound settlements spotting the landscape: small and steep low wide, several third millennium settlements, especially along the river valleys. Settlements as large as ca 80 ha. Often referred as 2nd urban revolution because of the full fledged appearance of large towns with fortifications. 4-tiered hierarchy: large cities, towns, villages and hamlets. Circular towns with fortifications and lower town-upper town differentiation which we had not seen in the south. Also with a lot of ceremonial architecture, artificial terracing and monumental stone temple architecture. A very peculiar local Northern style of sculpture is also coming to existence with ties to southern Mesopotamian visual vocabulary and mythology but with a distinct style. We are not entirely sure of the political organization because of the lack of detailed textual sources but it seams small regional polities and city-states with small hinterlands. Hurrians and Amorites. Tell Mozan and the Hurrian kingdom. Diamorphic society: Amorites, a Semitic language but never becomes lingua franca. Wheras Hurrian is more influential and widespread.

The collapse towards the end of the third millennium more closely related to the collapse of the Akkadian empire as well. and there seems to be some sort of hiatus in the transition from the Early Bronze Age of 3rd millennium and the Middle Bronze age of the 2nd. Let’s move on to the 2nd millennium: where we have much more textual sources actually an explosion of textual resources from multiplicity of places and we apparently are dealing with some city-states and regional states. I would like to look at first the site of Ebla where there established a powerful polity in the early 2nd millennium, then move on to the sites of Aššur and Mari.

Ebla (Tell Mardikh)

Ebla, 60 ha and 60 km S of Aleppo was already a major settlement in the mid-third millennium urbanization and from these levels of Ebla a large palace was excavated Palace G which revealed large amount of texts. Very well preserved structure. The texts were administrative records of textiles, distributed, stored, and received by the palace. Massive archive. City-state with three-partite political structure king, royal officials and elders (members of important families).

Middle Bronze I 2000-1800 BC Mardikh IIIA Middle Bronze II 1800-1600 BC Mardikh IIIB

General picture: A wave of decentralization in the last century of the 3rd millennium, large sites are abandoned or poorly inhabited. In the earlier part of the Middle Bronze Age largely small regional kingdoms and city-states at Qatna, Alalah, Ebla, Mari, Aššur, Yamhad-Aleppo, Karkamiš. Giorgio Buccellati proposed that Syrian Bronze Age produced “a new type of territorial organism, the macroregional state” along with “the tribe” defined as “a different type of political construct”. The macro-regional states were distinguished with their involvement to alter the structure of their expanded hinterland by means of founding cities and to control this territory by means of “capillary” bureaucratic systems.

Ebla prominent. For MBII we will look at the kings of Mari, who were contemporary with Shamshi Adad and his kingdom on the Tigris emerging from the city-state of Aššur, Yamhad-Aleppo becomes a major kingdom but excavtions don’t tell us much yet. Hammurabi of Babylon is also a contemporary of Shamshi Adad and the Mari kings.

Early in the 2nd millennium in Mardikh IIIA period, the city of Ebla emerges as a flourishing urban center, a massive building program was put into place by the rulers of Ebla: which can be described almost as a new foundation of the town. Upper and Lower city. This involved the construction of two sets of fortifications, one for the citadel the other for the lower town, palatial and temple complexes on the citadel and a belt of public buildings immediately around the citadel. The outer town fortifications is a massive earthen rampart, faced with stone revetments. 22 m high and 42 m thick. A series of gateways punctuated the fortification wall. The Soutwest gate is the most interesting both in layout and architectural technologies:

In the Southwest (“Damascus”) Gate of the lower city in Area A, finely dressed basalt and limestone orthostats of about 1.80 m. in height lined the walls of the inner and outer gate structures, which were then tightly connected with a trapezoidal hall. The basalt revetments consolidated the protruding 3-pier and 2-pier structures while limestone was used in the facing of inner rooms/recesses. Orthostats were raised on slightly protruding ashlar foundations (Matthiae 1981: 121). Such overall architectural design and construction technology are attested in the gate buildings of Syria and the Levant at this time period, and understood as a distinctive feature of Middle Bronze Age architectural practices in the region. A headless, seated basalt statue, wearing a peculiar “kaunakés” or a thick cloak, was found near the inner gateway and dated by Matthiae possibly to the 20th c. BC. Both the monumental design and tectonic quality of the gate, as well as its association with a royal/cult statue suggests that the gate had a ceremonial character in the urban landscape of Ebla. Considering the later appearance of similar gate structures with ceremonial function, comparable architectural designs and full-fledged visual narrative programs in the Late Bronze and Early Iron ages in Anatolia and Syria, it may be possible to argue that earlier examples of this particular urban feature are attested in the Syrian koine of Middle Bronze age sites.

Main deity of Ebla is Ištar, also known as Ištar of Ebla venerated in several places. The location of particular divinities was important in the North, such as Ištar of Ebla, very different from Istar of Nineveh, or the Storm God of Aleppo.

The Temple D on the Western edge of the Ebla citadel, which was also built towards the beginning of Mardikh IIIA, has an axial plan with a longitudanal cult room as well as a vestibule and a porch. The doorways of the temple was consolidated with monumental orthostatic blocks culminating with a cult niche on the symmetrical axis. The main cult chamber itself features a low limestone socle, faced with well-dressed ashlar blocks, while it was presumably paved with basalt blocks.

However the use of high wall socle with ashlar masonry is perhaps best illustrated by the Monument P3, a massive cult-platform (52.5 x 42 m) in the lower town area, sacred to Ištar, immediately North-west of the citadel. The three courses of roughly hewn large limestone blocks that is used for facing of the inner court (23x12.5 m) is reminiscent of the stone masonry of monumental buildings in the much later Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean and in the imperial Hittite cities of the Anatolian plateau.

The use of finely dressed orthostats is also widely attested in the contemporaneous palace complexes excavated at Ebla, especially the better preserved Western palace in Area Q to the west of the citadel (possibly the palace of the crown prince). Most of the preserved northern and southeast façades of the Western palace were lined with orthostats with a height of 1.50 m raised on top of 2-3 courses of finely worked ashlar socle. In addition, certain privilaged spaces and doorways were consolidated with ashlar upright slabs. The monumentalized double columned in-antis entrance to the palace complex which is repeated in the main reception hall are significant aspects of the flourishing Middle Bronze Age palace design which are used down to the Iron Age in North Syria, and eventually associatied with the ceremonial bīt hilāni structures of the time period.

A spectacular basalt stele —presumably dedicated to Ištar, 150 cm in height, 45 cm width at the base— was excavated in fragmentary situation in and near the Temple D on the citadel. Carved on all four sides in regular registers (3-5 each) with scenes of mythological and cultic events. It is worthwhile to point out that the iconography of this stele as well as that of a series of sculpted basalt and limestone lustral basins from the Middle Bronze temples B1, D and N at Ebla, may have close affinities with the iconography of the earliest Late Bronze Age carved orthostats that are known to have been developed later in this region, especially at Karkamıš, Halab/Aleppo and Ain Dara, but also at Alacahöyük in the Anatolian plateau. The subjects of the scenes, cultic and mythological on all faces. The main scene on top of each face was broken but presumably a scene that involves the king as was the case for cult basins. Figure of a goddess in a winged shrine standing on a bull flanked by two mythological bull-men. Winged dragon which is represented in a state of vomiting waters of fertility. Also a winged sphinx on the other side. Several scenes of ceremonial cultic activity, also a scene of conflict.