Inward/Outward. A re-examination of the city-gates at Ebla

The extensive excavation programme of the defensive system of Ebla (rampart, fortresses and city-gates) indeed provided one of the most complete sets of archaeological data for what concerns the architecture and use of the defensive elements of a Middle Bronze city of northern Levant. In particular, the excavation of all four city-gates (although they are not well preserved in all their parts) allowed, on the one hand, to study the inner landscape of Ebla as mainly divided into four sectors and, on the other, to focus on the architecture of each city-gate analysing dimensions, organization of the space and relations with both the rampart and the outer landscape. The present paper is a preliminary presentation of a just started research on the re-examination of the archaeological data of the four city-gates of Ebla that have been excavated in different years with a special attention for the portions of Ebla just beyond the limit of the city walls in the Area DD (Northern Gate) and Area A (South-Western Gate). These data, in fact, integrate our knowledge of the extension of the city-gate and the relationship with the outer portion of the city: in particular, these new archaeological evidences extend the limit of the city, on the one hand, and show the existence of workshops, architectural structures and collateral activities that currently occurred outside the city, on the other.