Syrian Interview with Chief Ebla Archaeologist Matthiae

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The following interview is reprinted in full from Flash of Damascus, February 1978.

Q: The world press has several times underlined the importance of the discovery of the town of Ebla in the present site of Tell Mardikh. Would you briefly inform us of the principal elements which have given this discovery its importance?

A: The fundamental importance of the discovery of the Royal Palace and the records of the State of Ebla lies in the disclosure of the culture I have designated as the proto-Syrian culture of the 3rd Millenary B.C. It is a great civilization the properly Syrian character of which I have underlined since the beginning. Its originality elements may be summed up in the following points the language and population of Ebla are north-western Semitic, that is to say “Local”. The political institutions show a particular social organization with the king and a council of the elders. Religion is typically Syrian, with Dagan and Ishtar, who were the great gods, as well as other deities such as Resheph, Shamash, Kamish, and Damu. The architecture and arts of Ebla reveal the beginnings of the tradition of pre-classic Syria. While before the Italian discoveries, Syria was considered a peripheric [peripheral] region of no originality whatsoever, Ebla has revealed one of the greatest centres of civilization in the 3rd Millenary B.C., the capital of an important kingdom having control over a large part of the ancient Near-East in rivalry with Akkad, and a centre of a great international commerce of textile.

Q: On 2.11.1976 “Jerusalem Post” quoted your declaration that the problem to be set up in the future would be a total revision of the geography and history of the Middle East. Have you really made such a declaration, and what was its aim?

A: I have never given any declaration to “Jerusalem Post” and I have never affirmed that our discoveries would set, as you say, a total revision of the geography and history of the whole Middle East. What I have specified since the beginning of our discoveries is that they will provoke a revolution of our knowledge on the Near East in the third millenary B.C. What is this revolution? It is the disclosure of the part played by Syria, especially by Ebla, and by the proto-Syrian culture already in this remote period of history.

Q: Some ill-disposed centres have interpreted and utilized certain tablets for political purposes. Would you explain this fact? It is possible that these tablets may give way to explanations that would serve Zionist interests?

A: It is a matter of anti-scientific and anti-historical speculation that I vigorously deplore. This point has to be very clear. In the tablets of Ebla there is no data, when correctly explained, that may contribute in political speculations. False interpretations may give way to entirely lamentable speculations. The duty of archaeologists and, in general, of historians is to make the historical reality clear and to denounce falsifications. What the archaeological and epigraphic discoveries of Ebla have disclosed is the great urban civilization of Syria in the third millenary B.C. I believe that we can frankly affirm that such discoveries have created some feelings of jealousy with regard to the Italian Mission. In the same way Syria has become subject to jealousy because of the glory of its great historical past in the dawn of history.

Q: Some newspapers have specified that David Noel Freedman takes part in your mission. Who is the man, and what is his relationship with the mission? What would you do if his pretension were a slander?

A: Mr. Freedman has never taken part, in our mission and I do most clearly specify that the Archaeological Mission of Rome university in Syria, which I am at the head of since its foundation in 1964, has been exclusively composed of Italian members. Mr. Freedman has no relation with the Italian Mission. When the “Time” of America gave such information, I, while acquainting the Directorate of Antiquities of Damascus with that, sent a letter of precision to the body of editors of the review, which was published in the same review.

Q: Freedman pretends to have met you in Rome in June 1976. Later on he published a statement in “Los Angelos Times” newspaper, calling for throwing a bright on the discovery of Ebla. On the other hand, he gave information 049which he qualified as extremely real and which was later on reported by Zionist information agencies. Where could Freedman extract such information from? In case you were acquainted with his statement, would you believe all he mentioned to be true?

A: I have met and I meet dozens of colleagues and scholars, especially in and outside scientific conferences I held in France, Belgium, Britain, Switzerland, America and Germany, for explaining, the real meaning of the discovery of the civilization of Ebla. While also meeting Mr. Freedman in Rome, I in haste explained to him the importance of the discoveries of Ebla, with the expressions I used in several scientific articles I was publishing`, I also know that Mr. Pettinato has separately seen him in Rome and has given him some information on the texts he was studying. I am of course not able to know the exact words of such information, nor what Mr. Freedman declared to the American press later on. Yet, I can give my opinion about what the American press has published. In many of-these press accounts, there have arbitrarily and contrary to the truth been underlined pretended relations between Ebla and the Bible, simply not existing at all. On the contrary, what is also serious is that they have often missed to specify the great bearing of the Italian discovery for the history of civilizations and the fundamental role of Syria in this very remote past of the urban culture of humanity.

Q: The Israeli newspaper “Davar” has mentioned that Mr. Freedman who is the Director of the Institute of Ulbrecht [Albright] Researches in Jerusalem and the President of the “American Society of the Bible” as well as the editor in chief of “Biblical Archaeologist” is a member of the confederacy against defamation. He has set forth his ideas at the 63rd meeting of the annual session of the Confederacy held in Jerusalem on 16.11.1976.

Do you know that this confederacy is more than the police and political organ of the Masonic Jewish brotherhood “Bnai-Brith”? Have you realized later on the serious role assigned to Freedman to falsify the truth and to give deceptive interpretations?

A: I am not aware of Mr. Freedman’s political ideas, nor of his contingent part in equivocal political associations. My duty as scholar and historian is that of making the historical truth in its real expressions known by everybody all over the world. My engagement is also, for sure, to contrast very strictly false or insinuating interpretations of whatever nature, that so much the more when there is, in the foundation, a political speculation.

Q: You have specified many times that the language of Ebla is an ancient dialect of the Canaanite. What relation is there between this language and the Arabic and Hebraic languages?

A: The Language of Ebla, disclosed by the texts of the State records of the 3rd. Millenary B.C., is the most ancient written Semitic language the information of which is given now to us. The position of this language among Semitic languages will be subject to long studies as has been the case for the language of Ougarit [Ugarit] after its discovery in 1929. Among the scholars who are going to devote themselves to this duty, a first rank official role is that of Mr. Fronzaroli, a linguist of our mission since 1965. For this moment, we may say that the language of Ebla is a Semitic language of the very archaic North-West. It has then as many relations with the other Semitic languages of the North-West, namely those of Ougarit [Ugarit] and Phoenicia, as the relations with the most ancient known Semitic language up to the discovery of Ebla, the Akkadian, the Semitic of the East. Since the Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the South-West, there are also relations with these two languages.

Q: Mr. Pettinato, the man in charge of interpreting the tablets of Ebla, has in the “Biblica Archaeologist” Review (May 1976 issue), mentioned certain words of the language of Ebla, followed by their English translation. All these words exist, as you know, in the Arabic language and the Ugaritian [Ugaritic], Canaanite and Aramean dialects. Does Mr. Pettinato ignore the Arabic language? If he does, does he also ignore these dialects? Doesn’t the fact that he reconciles such vocabulary only with the Hebraic language indicate, as estimated by Valery Emilianov, that he is caught in the Zionist trap?

A: When we take into consideration what we know up till now about the texts of Ebla, it is true, so far as the lexicon is concerned, that the most remarkable analogies are between the language of Ebla and those of Ougarit [Ugarit] and Phoenicia. However, there is no doubt, as I have already told you, that many words are also known in Arabic. Mr. Pettinato is a specialist of the Sumerian and the Akkadian, and of the languages of Mesopotamia which are written in Cuneiform, in general. The intentions of Mr. Pettinato in his interpretations of the tablets of Ebla is a matter relating to my conscience as scholar and man. I can only tell you that I most vividly deplore the unscientific valuations decided upon without the necessary ripe reflection. I also have to specify that the declarations given by Mr. Pettinato were neither authorized nor approved by me, and they in no way reflect the interpretations of the Italian Mission, but they are only his personal ideas.

Q: The word “Ursalema” has figured in the inscriptions. Do you think that this word is nothing but “Uruchalim”, appearing for the first time in the period of David? How do you justify the chronological interval between the two names when “Jerusalem” was called “Yabous” [“Jebus”] before David?

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A: If it is true, as it seems, that the name of “Urusalima” town appears in the texts of Ebla, it is probable that it is “Jerusalem”, since the same writing of the name appears in the cuneiform texts of Amarna of the 14th century B.C., for the town of “Jerusalem”. It is well known, out of the texts—not only biblical ones, and of archaeology, that Jerusalem is much earlier than David. One must not wonder then if the texts of Ebla, which among others, mention the towns of Byblos, Assur, Mari, and maybe Aleppo, Homs and Damascus, also point out the town of Jerusalem, which, according to the Bible itself, was an important town before the conquest of the Hebrews.

Q: Mr. Pettinato says: “The manuscripts of Ebla make historical fact out of the news and names of the Patriarchs”. He also mentions their names as Abraham, Ismail, Ezrael and David. Are these names Hebraic or Canaanite? And do they have relation whatsoever with the pagan cults, which were spread in the Canaanite centre where the Hebrews were installing themselves?

A: It has to be clearly said, as I have already declared to the London “Times” and the “Associated Press”, that in the texts of Ebla there is no evidence and testimony of the historicity of the Patriarchs. If anybody, whoever might he be, declares the contrary, that would be historical faults which the author is wholly responsible for. In the texts of Ebla, there are only well-known names of persons, spread in the Canaanite centres that are earlier than the Hebrews. But there is no connection between these names, which were very common, and the individuals of the legends and stories of the Bible.

Q: To what extent have the studies of Ebla reached at present and what will they he in the future? What is the attitude of competent Syrian Authorities with regard to the work of the Italian Mission? Is there a collaboration between the Mission and the Directorate of Antiquities and Museums?

A: The Italian Mission has elaborated a preliminary texts. At present we are completing these preliminary restorations and the complete photographic documentation of 16,500 tablets. The edition of the first texts discovered in 1914 is almost complete. The study of the records of Ebla is a colossal duty. If we consider that 40 years were not sufficient for the edition of the old Babylonian texts of Mari, then we may know the number of years required for the complete study of the documents of Ebla. For the organization and planification [sic] of the study, on the basis of an agreement between the Directorate of Antiquities in Damascus and the Italian Archaeological Mission, there has been formed an international committee of nine great authority scholars from all over the world entrusted with the duty of collaborating with me for the edition of documents. In its first session at the end of this year, this committee is going to elaborate the outlines of this international collaboration work programme, which will guarantee the most complete objectivity and rapidity of studies, in communication with the remarkable difficulties of interpretation offered by the texts. The Syrian Arab Republic Authorities have always given the best hand of collaboration to the development of the researches at Tell Mardikh—Ebla, and have always facilitated the task of the Italian archaeologists. Between the Directorate General of Antiquities and the Italian Mission, there has always and for thirteen years been the most intimate and the fruitfull [sic] collaboration. It is this exceptional collaboration that has permitted to obtain the sensational results of the great discoveries of Ebla during these last years. Let me give here my most sincere thanks to Dr. Afif Bahnassi, Director General of antiquities in Damascus, for every help, as well as to his excellency Mr. Tawfic Salha, Mayor of Idlib, for the constant support always given to the Italian Mission.

The following interview is reprinted in full from Flash of Damascus, February 1978.