Testi rituali della regalita.

AuthorBiga, Maria Giovanna

Testi rituali della regalita (archivio L. 2769). By PELIO FRONZAROLI. In collaboration with AMALIA CATAGNOTI. Archivi Reali di Ebla, Testi, vol. 11. Rome: MISSIONE ARCHEOLOGICA ITALIANA IN SIRIA, 1993. Pp. xvi + 183 + 19 plates. LIt 90,000 (paper).

Three texts, found in 1975 in the main archive L.2769, are edited in volume XI of the ARET series; the editor, P. Fronzaroli, defines them as royal rituals. The first two texts are very similar versions of the same lengthy royal marriage ritual celebrated at Ebla, as the new royal couple assumes regal status. The third text, ARET XI 3, which is much shorter than the preceding two, appears to be an abbreviated version of the ritual regulating the marriages of Eblaite kings.

The marriage rituals, which are both prescriptive and descriptive, were recorded for the weddings of the last two kings of Ebla. The morphological variants, graphics, and syntax of the first two texts provide us with elements better to understand certain terms and to calibrate the chronology of the texts. Thus we can establish that the first text, ARET XI 1, in which there is a clear prevalence of Eblaite terms, is the earliest. This almost certainly refers to the marriage of Irkab-Damu, the penultimate king of Ebla, to a queen whose name remains unknown, when the prime minister was Arrukum. The second and later text, ARET XI 2, is concerned with the marriage of the last king of Ebla, Is ar-Damu, to queen Tabur-Damu, in the presence of the prime minister Ibrium. When found, these two rituals were in dozens of fragments. Thanks only to the lengthy, patient work of P. Fronzaroli in the museums of Aleppo and Idlib, we can now study the nearly complete reconstruction of two of the most important texts from the Ebla archives.

The editor follows the style of the other ARET volumes, providing for these texts transcriptions, translations, and philological commentary. There then follows a synopsis of the texts, given the repeated parallelisms between the documents, indexes of personal, divine and place names, as well as a glossary. There are also excellent photographic plates by M. Necci and accurate copies of the reconstructed texts by A. Catagnoti.

The wedding rituals open with explicit mention of the marriage of the queen, who leaves her father's house, dresses according to precise instructions, and makes offerings to specific gods, first among them, the sun goddess. There then follows a description of the fundamental act in an Ebla...

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