The Royal Palace of Ebla

This article presents a preliminary picture of the 1973-1975 excavations of the Tell Mardikh Royal Palace G dating to Early Bronze IVA ( ca. 2400-2250 B.C.). It was in 1975 that some 15,000 cuneiform tablets and fragments were found in the palace, some of them written in a new North- Westem Semitic language. The various sectors of the palace thus far excavated are described and the building is placed within its chronological and historical framework. Ceramic evidence pertaining to the chronology is published here in detail for the first time. The paper (given here in a translation by Dr. Frances Pinnock) was read at the 24th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Birmingham in July 1976.