Books in Brief

Testi Amministrativi Della Biblioteca L. 2769, Parte I: Serie Maior, II, Materiali Epigrafici di Ebla, vol. 2

(Administrative Texts from Archive L. 2769, Part 1: Major series, II, Epigraphical Material from Ebla, vol. 2) Giovanni Pettinato (Instituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, Seminario di Studi Asiatici: Naples, Italy, 1980)

This publication is not the kind of book usually reviewed in BAR: First of all, it is in Italian; second, it will be readable only to those who, as the scholars say, “control” (that is, read and understand) cuneiform. Nevertheless, it is important that BAR readers be aware of the book’s existence and be informed, in general terms, about what the book says. It is the first volume of Ebla tablets with scholarly commentary to be published.

As most BAR readers know, the Ebla tablets are the cache of more than 17,000 cuneiform tablets and fragments which were found from 1974 to 1977 in Syria by the Italian Mission to Ebla during continuing excavation of that important ancient capital. The tablets, dating to the mid-third millennium B.C. have become the center of international controversy.