#ebla

[shycroissanti]

Alex and his fish - Ebla :3

[inspofromancientworld]

History of Libraries: Great Libraries of the Ancient Near East

While most people know of the Library of Alexander and possibly of Ashurbanipal's library, there are many other libraries of note through history, and likely more that have been lost entirely to the passage of time.

Perhaps the first library, the Royal Library of Ebla, flourishing from around 2500-22350 BCE, near modern day Aleppo, Syria, and likely held around 20,000 tablets. Of those, around 1,800 complete and 4,700 fragments, to say nothing of thousands of minor chips, have been found to date. The tablets were written in Sumerian and in the local Semitic language using Sumerian cuneiform script to represent the sounds. The language was previously unknown before the site was discovered in 1974-1979. Many of the shelves the tablets were found on still had their clay tags that referenced what was on the shelf. The shelves were made of wood and partially recessed into the walls. They were stored so that the recto, or front, was facing outwards and slightly reclined. They told us much about Ebla and mentioned Canaanites, Ugarit, and Lebanon, representing the first mentions we have of those groups. The focus of the texts were on financial affairs of the city, ranging from imports and exports to the range of beers that were produced, including one that was named for the city, to treaties and king lists.

Nuzi, now known as Yorgan Tepe near Kirkuk, Iraq, was rediscovered in 1896, but wasn't really excavated until 1925. To date, about 5,000 tablets have been recovered, with about a quarter of them focused around legal and business matters for a single family, which date back as far as about 1500 BCE. The tablets are mostly from the Hurrian period though a few go back to the Akkadian founding of the town. From these, we know that Nuzi's people largely worshiped in their homes and the eldest son would inherit the family's cult statue. Very few, only 0.18%, of the tablets contained a formula that allow us to date them against others, but they can be 'chronologically ordered by internal clues such as the names of officials and prosopographical [relating to the study that identifies and relates a group of person or characters within a particular historical or literary context] data'.

The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal flourished from about 668-627 BCE in Nineveh, which is near modern day Mosul, Iraq. Ashurbanipal was a 'passionate collector of texts and tablets', so he wrote to cities around Mesopotamia to get copies of all their written works as well as plundering material from those he conquered, using his reputation for cruelty to gain them from his enemies, resulting in a collection of more than 30,000 tablets and fragments that we've found thus far. He also used a stamp on each tablet that stated the tablet belonged to his library. The library contained records related to the running of the empire to medicine, astronomy and religious texts. The library also included ten 'expressive rhythmic literary works such as epics and myths', including the Epic of Gilgamesh, the story of Adapa, the first man who unwittingly refused immortality, the Enûma Eliš creation story, and lexical lists which aid in translation of the texts into modern languages. These texts were mostly in Akkadian, which used cuneiform, with some using Neo-Babylonian script, but were in the Akkadian language. The tablets were organized according to shape, which also indicated their purpose, with round tablets representing agricultural information, for example, as well as in rooms that grouped the more general topic, such as government, history, astronomy, and geography, with colored marks or brief descriptions indicating where they belonged.

[tsalmu]

F.14 - Seal impression from Royal Palace G Ebla, Syria Source: Ebla to Damascus: Art and Archaeology of ancient Syria Harvey Weiss (Editor) Smithsonian Institute, 1985

[nogetron]

Dagan, the ancient Syrian creator god. The great father of the gods and creator of prosperity. Almost nothing is concretely known about Dagan, it can be assumed however that he was the Primordial originator of Syrian mythology. His wife was Shalash. He granted abundance in harvests and was associated with grain. His son was the storm god Hadad.

The name Dagan does not descend from any known language at the time, likely originating as a uniquely Syrian word. This has led to his name’s etymology and meaning being practically unidentifiable. However, the Greeks believed his name meant grain, some modern researchers believe that his name meant “cloudy” possibly pointing to a weather god aspect, but these theories do not have wider support and are seen as unlikely. Dagan was possibly the Syrian Eblaite descendant of the Semitic El, with both having similar properties and being conflated with the same gods. Dagan’s son Hadad is more popularly known as Baal, his title in Canaan. This brings up some issues of parentage, as Baal was considered a son of Dagan in both Syria and Canaan, however the Canaanites also held Baal as a son of El. It’s believed that traditionally, Baal was seen as El’s son in Canaan, but took on the tradition of Dagan being his father later on when Dagan’s worship was introduced to the Canaanites yet not fully disregarding his original parentage. Dagan’s wife Shalash could be a mirror of El’s wife: Asherah. After Syria was conquered by the Mesopotamians, Dagan was introduced to the Mesopotamian pantheon. The Mesopotamians took greatly to Dagan, even more so than the Canaanites, both inducting him into the pantheon as well as synchronizing him with their deities, that of Enlil and later Marduk. The Mesopotamians also compared Dagan to the Hurrian Kumarbi. Dagan was also present in the Hellenized Phoenician mythology. His role was minor, no longer being the primordial father of the gods as he was in his homeland. Rather Dagan was seen as the brother El, the son of the sky and earth, and the grandson of Elyon. Baal was no longer seen as his biological son, rather he was Dagan’s step son after Dagan received one of Sky’s concubines after he was deposed. This concubine was already pregnant with Baal from Sky and later gave birth to him, making Baal both Dagan’s stepson and brother. Dagan’s worship eventually faded, and with the demonization he received from another descendant of El; the Abrahamic God, he was rendered into the forgotten demon Dagon.

Broken form

REDESIGN

[archaeologicalnews]

The world's first professional acrobats were flipping through the Middle East 4,000 years ago

Inhabitants of the ancient city-states of the Middle East enjoyed a vibrant social and economic life centered on palace and temple institutions, supported by surrounding agricultural and pastoralist communities. People, goods and ideas flowed between these cities generating a cultural sphere within which strong local identities and customs were preserved.

One such custom that arose in the area of Syria was the professional acrobat, or huppû, attached to the royal court.

The first known mention of the huppû is in administrative documents from the ancient city of Ebla (Tell Mardikh) in Syria dated as early as 2320 BCE. Details of the profession can be further pieced together from snippets of information in a royal archive (1771–1764 BCE) of about 20,000 tablets preserved at the neighboring city of Mari (Tell Hariri) on the Euphrates River. Read more.

[everything-witch-aesthetic]

Character Aesthetic  Ebla - Nymph of the Moon

[owlart18]

Drawing an old oc

[intothestacks]

Libraries Around the World: Ebla, Syria

Ebla Palace Archive (the oldest library ever found)

Located in the city of Ebla, now located near the village of Mardikh (roughly 55 km outside Aleppo), you are looking at the oldest organized library we have yet to find anywhere.

The city was founded sometime around 3,500 BCE, while the library is believed to be from around 2500 BCE to 2250 BCE.

The archive held around 20,000 cuneiform tablets from around 2350 BCE, which have provided invaluable information about the government proceedings and everyday life of the people who lived in the area at the time.