The Mimesis of a World The Early and Middle Bronze Clay Figurines from Ebla-Tell Mardikh

The paper will focus on the cognitive and spatial analysis of some clay figurines dated to the Early and Middle Bronze Age and recently discovered in Ebla - Tell Mardikh (Syria). The results outline a symbolic chaîne opératoire of these clay artifacts and underline their ideographic and composite character, which can be recognized also in the Early Dynastic and Early Syrian miniature statue tradition; it will then be suggested that these productions of the so-called ‘material culture’ were also a conscious human imitation of sacred and royal images of power. It has been experimentally observed that during the Early Syrian period, the spatial concentration of clay figurines in the Royal Palace G of Ebla does not seem accidental and demonstrates a sort of affinity of this miniature clay world with the sacred Kingship. On the contrary, the spatial distribution of the clay figurines during the Old Syrian Period is extensive, but the strong concentration of fragments close to the Ishtar public cult area (Monument P3 and Temple P2) seems to indicate a radical transformation of the roles played by this clay world. It will no longer be a Mimesis of the physical and metaphysical sacred Kingship, but a reproduction of the whole society.