EBLA: An Archaeological Enigma. With Sixteen Pages Of Photographs

Bermant, Chaim and Michael Weitzman

Published by London UK. 1979. Weidenfeld & Nicolson

About this Item

brown hardcover 8vo. (octavo). dustwrapper in protective brodart book jacket cover. fine cond. binding square & tight. covers clean. bottom corners bumped. edges clean. contents free of markings. dustwrapper in vg+ / near fine cond. sunfading to spine, couple of 1cm edge tears, missing pea size piece on rear, not price clipped. nice clean copy. no library markings, store stamps, stickers, bookplates, no names, inking, underlining, remainder markings etc~. first edition. first printing (FPuGB1979 & nap). endpaper maps. xi+244p. 31 glossy b&w photo illustrations. chronological table. notes. index. archaeology. ancient history. middle east history. mesopotamia. history of syria.~ In the inter~war years archaeologists working on sites in the Near East kept stumbling upon references to a city of Ebla which, it was suggested, was a major centre of civilization going back to the third millenium BC, but there was no clear indication as to its actual location. Paulo Matthiae, a young graduate in Near Eastern studies, was convinced from his research that it was in northern Syria, and the chance discovery of a bronze~age urn in a field near Aleppo confirmed his belief. In 1964 he brought together a team of archaeologists and technicians to test his theories, and finally in 1968 they came upon an inscription confirming that this was indeed Ebla. Further excavations revealed that it was a city of considerable size and affluence, but the character of its society and its place in history were all subjects of speculation until the discovery in 1974 of the royal archive, a library of some twenty~thousand tablets written in cuneiform. It was evidently a new language and when Professor Pettinato, a philologist attached to the expedition, revealed its secrets, he found that it also represented a lost civilization. In this fascinating book, Chaim Bermant and Michael Weitzman describe Matthiae's initial discovery, show how Pettinato managed to decipher the new language, compare the Ebla excavations to others in the area, and assess its significance both to the history of the ancient Near East and to our understanding of the Bible. With sixteen pages of photographs.

Seller Inventory # 7032502

Bibliographic Details

• Title: EBLA: An Archaeological Enigma. With Sixteen Pages Of Photographs
• Publisher: London UK. 1979. Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • ancient history
  • ancient literature
  • archaeology