Design at Ebla. The Decorative System of a Painted Wall Decoration

The archaeologists who have studied the figurative patterns of pre-classic Western Asia have very rarely focused their attention on colours and geometric systems, because of the difficulty in discovering, preserving and understanding polychrome findings of any kinds. Moreover, the very rare examples of architectural use of colours have been usually intended as ways to express the same iconographies of relief. Few attention has been paid to the technical differences between sculpture and painting and in particular to the semantic implications. An entirely plastered room located in the western side of an important building dating to the Early Bronze Age IV and probably functionally linked to the Southern Administrative Quarter of the Royal Palace G has been recently discovered at Tell Mardikh-Ebla in the southern lower city. A hypothetically reconstructed niche in the northern wall of this room (L.8729) was completely decorated by geometric painted patterns directly traced on white plaster. A number of plaster fragments is what remains of the niche. The fragments preservation state is definitely critical: the collapse of the imposing structures caused the total shattering of some parts of the plaster.