A New "Third World"

Historians have long regarded Egypt and Mesopotamia as the major civilizations of the biblical Near East. Now they must recognize an ancient "third world." A pair of Italian scientists has uncovered a veritable treasure trove of clay tablets at Ebla in northern Syria. Their discovery does more than provide documentary evidence of a little-known kingdom that existed between 2400 and 2250 B.C.; it also provides the best evidence to date that some of the people described in the Old Testament actually existed. To some scholars, the find may ultimately rank with the 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The existence of the Eblan kingdom was not unknown; ancient Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian texts refer to it. However, Paolo Matthiae, 36, and Giovanni Pettinato, 41, both of the University of Rome, were the first to explore Ebla's ruins, which they located some 30 miles south of modern Aleppo. In 1964 Matthiae began digging into the 50-ft.-high mound of dry, dusty dirt that covered the ancient city. It was not until 1968 that the team's mining began to produce archaeological ore: a statue bearing the name of a king of Ebla. Six years later the excavations yielded a cache of 42 tablets covered with cuneiform writing.

Last fall the Italian pair's persistence paid off even more handsomely when the expedition began to uncover the outer rooms of the royal palace. In one room, the archaeologists found 1,000 tablets inscribed in both Sumerian and a hitherto unknown Canaanite dialect they dubbed Eblaite. In another room, which appears to have been an archive, they found 14,000 tablets.

Biblical Connections. The tablets reflect a sophisticated system of keeping records. They include texts on Ebla's polytheistic religion, and renditions of treaties and trade agreements between Ebla and city-states in the region. The tablets also reveal much about Eblan life and customs, including that one king had 38 sons and that the penalty for raping a virgin was death. Collectively, they paint a picture of a powerful Semitic civilization that reached from the Red Sea to Turkey and east to Mesopotamia. Says David Noel Freedman, a University of Michigan archaeologist who worked with the Italians: "It is as if we were suddenly to find out about Rome and the Roman Empire."

The biblical connections appear to be numerous. The tablets contain accounts of the creation and the flood, which are strikingly similar to those found in both the Old Testament and Babylonian literature. They refer to a place called Urusalima, which scholars say is clearly Ebla's name for Jerusalem. (If so, it is unquestionably the earliest known reference to the Holy City, predating others by hundreds of years.) They make frequent mention of Ebrium, or Eber, who is identified in the Book of Genesis as the great-great-great-great grandfather of the patriarch Abraham. "We always thought of ancestors like Eber as symbolic," says Freedman. "Nobody ever regarded them as historic--at least not until these tablets were found. Fundamentalists could have a field day with this one."

Field Day. In fact, nobody has really had a field day over the finds yet. Fearing that Syria might take exception to the biblical aspects of the discoveries and hamper further exploration, the Italian archaeologists have been slow to publicize their discoveries. But the international community of archaeologists and biblical scholars has heard enough already to begin murmuring with excitement. Matthiae and Pettinato will arrive in the U.S. this month for a speaking tour. Whatever they reveal, it cannot be all. The Italians have excavated only a few of the 140 acres that once were Ebla. It may take 200 years to explore the rest.

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