The Politics of Ebla

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As might be expected, BAR’s “Assessing Ebla,” BAR 04:01, by Paul C. Maloney is the best and most comprehensive overall popular treatment of the Ebla Tablets yet to appear.

There is, however, later news, as well as another side to the Ebla story—a political side.

This political aspect makes everyone connected with Ebla vulnerable, so this report—and possibly subsequent reports—will have to be written pseudonymously.

As anyone who has made his living in academia knows, it is a political jungle. Ebla is no exception. Indeed, the higher stakes only intensify the political animosities.

As is now well known, Paolo Matthiae, director of the excavations at Ebla, and Giovanni Pettinato, his chief epigrapher, were for several months not speaking to one another.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Pettinato was barred by Matthiae from the dig as well as from the museum in Aleppo, Syria where the crates of cuneiform tablets are being stored. The Los Angeles Times’ story said that Matthiae even withheld from Pettinato photographs of the tablets. Pettinato appealed to his scholarly colleagues around the world, including several in the United States, for support.

Part of the problem was academic. As BAR has already reported, Matthiae and Pettinato disagree, and have disagreed for the past two years, regarding the dating of the Ebla tablets. Matthiae says they date from about 2400–2250 B.C. Pettinato dates them from 2580–2450 B.C. If Pettinato the epigrapher is right, there is probably something wrong with Matthiae’s stratigraphy; he may have missed an entire stratum.

Part of the problem between the two men is also personal. Matthiae labored in the vineyard—or should we say on the tell—for 10 years before finding the Ebla archive. During this period he was an obscure young scholar working in solitary splendor. No one beat a path to his door. Then he uncovered the tablets and became famous.

But he couldn’t read the tablets. Pettinato became the hero. Matthiae became understandably upset when everyone wanted to talk to Pettinato, not him. Who cared about the ceramic sequence or whether one wall was associated with another. People wanted to know what the tablets said. And for this they went to Pettinato. Is it any wonder that jealousies developed even as the scholarly pair made their international tours. After ten years of work, Matthiae watched as Pettinato reaped the glory.

There was another issue between the two men. Who would control the tablets and the publication of the information they contained? Although Matthiae could not read them, they were found in his excavation.

When the two men stopped talking to one another, Matthiae appointed a ten-man committee to direct the translation and publication of the tablets. Pettinato, predictably enough, refused to serve.

The feud reached such proportions that the President of Italy reportedly called the two men in and ordered them to patch things up. At the moment, Pettinato has agreed to serve on the ten-man committee, and a fragile truce exists between the two scholars.

While this may be nothing more than politics-as-usual in academia, there is another political aspect to the story that has graver implications.

The popular interest in the Ebla tablets both in the United States and in other western nations stems from the light they may shed on the Bible. 003(Presumably that is the reason for the extensive coverage by the Biblical Archaeology Review.) The Syrian government, however, would like to play down, if not suppress this aspect of the tablets. This is nothing new in Arab countries. In Jordan, for example, American archaeologists know they must tread lightly in excavating and reporting Iron Age finds, lest they anger the local archaeological and government establishment. The situation in Syria is worse. If Matthiae wishes to stay in the good graces of his Syrian hosts, he will not be emphasizing the Biblical implications of his finds. Rather he will be talking about Syrian history during the Bronze Age.

According to the prominent Biblical scholar David Noel Freedman, the Ebla tablets are more significant for elucidating the Hebrew Bible than any other archaeological discovery ever unearthed. But Freedman is himself now persona non grata at Ebla and in Syria, although it was he who first brought Matthiae and Pettinato to world-wide attention and popularized the Ebla tablets in the United States. Now even the Arabic press in Damascus has been critical of Freedman for emphasizing the Biblical connections of the tablets. According to Matthiae, Freedman tried to sensationalize the tablets to build his own public image on them. Others believe Freedman is being made the scapegoat for calling attention to the tablets’ Biblical connections, something Syria and therefore Matthiae do not want.

Initially, both Matthiae and Pettinato seemed pleased with the interest Biblical scholars showed in their work. The Italian pair published preliminary stories in English in the Biblical Archeologist, of which Freedman is editor. They spoke to overflow crowds at the Society for Biblical Literature. Matthiae himself wrote, for example, that “the name of the great king Ebrum [of Ebla] … probably became Eber in Biblical tradition and was inserted in Shem’s genealogy” (Biblical Archeologist, Vol. 39, p. 109 (1976)).

More recently, Matthiae has “deplored” popular presentations of the Ebla tablets which emphasize the Biblical connections.

This may be because of irresponsible sensationalizing or it may be in part because the Biblical connection is seen as jeopardizing Matthiae’s relations with his Syrian hosts. And who can say that Matthiae’s fears concerning his Syrian relations are unfounded. Matthiae was enraged at a report in the London Observer by Chaim Bermant. Bermant there stated:

Pettinato believes that King Ebrum [of Ebla] may have introduced the worship of Yahweh some two or three centuries before Abraham. He also suggests … that the Israelites were derived from Syria … All of which may show that Jews may be aboriginal Syrians.

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This is hardly what the Syrians want to hear. And Matthiae must surely be sensitive to this.

According to Professor Robert D. Biggs of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, Matthiae and Pettinato are now “denying that the Ebla tablets have any special relevance for the Old Testament, calling such statements ‘pseudo-scientific mystifications.’”

How much of this shift is political is difficult to say. But what this suggests is that in addition to considering the usual controversies over translation, meaning and significance, anyone wishing to assess the Ebla tablets in terms of their Biblical significance will also have to look at the politics which may underlie one position or another.

In the BAR article, “Assessing Ebla,” BAR 04:01, Maloney called attention to the difficulty in determining on available evidence whether the “Ya” endings in so many Eblaite personal names were abbreviations of “Yahweh” as is the case with “Ya” names in the Hebrew Bible. The question, Maloney says, could be answered in a number of ways. For example:

Deities are often indicated in cuneiform by the addition of a non-phonetic or unpronounced sign called a determinative, which is included with the phonetic signs to make up the word. The phonetic 006signs indicate the way the name is pronounced; the determinative indicates that the name is the name of a god. Perhaps such a determinative will be found in connection with a Ya name … To this point, no name has been found in ancient documents which acknowledge Ya as a deity by using the divine determinative.

Not true anymore, Mr. Maloney.

It has been reliably reported that a Ya name has been found on a tablet from Ebla which is spelled with the divine determinative. The name is Ya-ra-mu which is preceded by the divine determinative, signifying that Ya is a divine element. The name is semantically equivalent to the Hebrew name Yoram, whose name means “Ya is exalted.” So Ya or Yahweh was known at Ebla sometime in the third millennium—although of course he was not the same all-powerful, transcendent and monotheistic God later worshipped by the Israelites.

The BAR article reported some recent news: “A seal impression of Egyptian King Pepi I (ca. 2280 B.C.) was recently found at Ebla. This seal impression tends to support Matthiae’s dating of the archive to the period between 2400–2250 B.C.” This is true, but a cartouche of the Egyptian pharaoh Khafre or Cephren (whose tomb is the second of three great pyramids of Giza) was also found. Although we do not have completely reliable dates for the reign of this 4th dynasty pharaoh, Khafre appears to have ruled for about 25 years, sometime between 2625 B.C. and 2500 B.C. This of course tends to support Pettinato’s dating of the tablets.

Future discoveries promise to be as exciting as past ones. I hope I will be able to report them to BAR readers.

As might be expected, BAR’s “Assessing Ebla,” BAR 04:01, by Paul C. Maloney is the best and most comprehensive overall popular treatment of the Ebla Tablets yet to appear. There is, however, later news, as well as another side to the Ebla story—a political side. This political aspect makes everyone connected with Ebla vulnerable, so this report—and possibly subsequent reports—will have to be written pseudonymously. As anyone who has made his living in academia knows, it is a political jungle. Ebla is no exception. Indeed, the higher stakes only intensify the political animosities. As is now well known, Paolo […]