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" Ebla's Hegemony and Its Impact on the Archaeology of the Amuq Plain in the Third Millennium BCE "
Edwards, Steven
Harrison, Timothy P.
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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1104196
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| Doc. No
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TLpq2202427691
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| Main Entry
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Edwards, Steven
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Harrison, Timothy P.
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| Title & Author
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Ebla's Hegemony and Its Impact on the Archaeology of the Amuq Plain in the Third Millennium BCE\ Edwards, StevenHarrison, Timothy P.
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| College
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University of Toronto (Canada)
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| Date
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2019
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2019
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Page No
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383
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| Abstract
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This dissertation investigates the emergence of Ebla as a regional state in northwest Syria during the Early Bronze Age and provides a characterization of Ebla that emphasizes its hegemonic rather than imperial features. The texts recovered from the Royal Palace G archives reveal that Ebla expanded from a small Ciseuphratean kingdom into a major regional power in Upper Mesopotamia over the course of just four or five decades. To consolidate and maintain its rapidly growing periphery, Ebla engaged in intensive diplomatic relations with an array of client states, semi-autonomous polities, and independent kingdoms. Often, political goals were achieved through mutual gift-exchange and interdynastic marriage, but military activity became increasingly common towards the end of the period covered by the texts. However, apart from installing palace officials at some cities, Ebla did not appear to have invested heavily in building infrastructure, such as roads or forts, along its periphery, preferring instead to leave matters of defense up to client and allied states. As a result, the archaeological impact of Ebla’s political hegemony along parts of its periphery was minimal. In re-evaluating the archaeological evidence for Ebla’s growth in the mid-third millennium BCE, this dissertation shows that in only a few instances—for example, in changes to regional settlement patterns in the Amuq Plain, subsistence strategies at Tell es-Sweyhat, and the distribution of ceramic assemblages—can an Eblaite influence on material culture along its periphery be inferred, and even then, only indirectly. While Ebla’s sphere of interaction extended over a considerable territory, this dissertation restricts most of its discussion to Ebla’s northwestern frontier, and particularly to the archaeology of the Amuq Plain. This study demonstrates that even though Ebla had installed an official at Alalah¸u—the major polity in the Amuq Plain—local historical trajectories remained largely intact, and Ebla’s hegemony left only an ephemeral archaeological legacy in the area.
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| Subject
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Ancient history
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Archaeology
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Near Eastern Studies
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