The Ebla Archaeological Park: Project and Results

he reconstruction of the environment of a specific settlement, as the case of Ebla, can only be achieved with the help of modern disciplines that study the natural developments and changes. On the other hand, these disciplines need a meta-disciplinary co-ordination and an analytical system that can then be archaeologically applied and controlled. These are few principles that drove the renewal of the existing topographic map and the geophysical investigation of the site since only considering the space and its measurability it is possible to catch the peculiar synchronic relations between the urban structures, the diachronic changes of the settlement composition, the evidences of continuity of the architectural and building practices, and the marks of the significant breaks in the long-settlement occupation. The composite relationship between the natural resources and the resident population concerns a traditional theme of the historical archaeological research, but considering Ebla example, the historical relevance of the site cannot be distinguished from its contemporary economical importance in the entire region both because the inner Syria does not lend itself towards an excellent and progressive economic production-development, and because in the construction of the Archaeological Park the question is fundamental of a possible cooperation between the forty-years-old Italian archaeology experience and the social, economic, and cultural local conditions deeply at risk. Looking at this profile, it is more clear that in the proposed Model the human relations through time are evaluated. Observing the city through the experimental perspective of the new technologies applied to archaeology it should be emphasized an integrated and transversal reading of the records and their historical roots which sensibly diverges from a paratactic and vertical one. This observation imposes the acceptance of a different key-reading of history, but it implies an internal transformation of the scientific relations too, these relations should not be devised just on the basic competences but continuously interacted in a more dynamic and flexible structure. Observing the city from the viewpoint of the Project of the Archaeological Park, and in regard to its theoretical principles and its ambitious programs, one has to emphasize a development and social perspective which goes out from the site, intended as archaeological entity, because it touches the interests of an entire region and, of course, the responsibilities of a whole generation of Syrian archaeology. This observation intends cooperation as a developing process and, in this specific meaning, the ambition could be now interpreted as a politic frontier, strongly allusive, as well as an ideal auspice we hope the new generations will respect and follow.

The reconstruction of the environment of a specific settlement, as the case of Ebla, can only be achieved with the help of modern disciplines that study the natural developments and changes. On the other hand, these disciplines need a meta-disciplinary co-ordination and an analytical system that can then be archaeologically applied and controlled. These are few principles that drove the renewal of the existing topographic map and the geophysical investigation of the site since only considering the space and its measurability it is possible to catch the peculiar synchronic relations between the urban structures, the diachronic changes of the settlement composition, the evidences of continuity of the architectural and building practices, and the marks of the significant breaks in the long-settlement occupation. The composite relationship between the natural resources and the resident population concerns a traditional theme of the historical archaeological research, but considering Ebla example, the historical relevance of the site cannot be distinguished from its contemporary economical importance in the entire region both because the inner Syria does not lend itself towards an excellent and progressive economic production-development, and because in the construction of the Archaeological Park the question is fundamental of a possible cooperation between the forty-years-old Italian archaeology experience and the social, economic, and cultural local conditions deeply at risk. Looking at this profile, it is more clear that in the proposed Model the human relations through time are evaluated. Observing the city through the experimental perspective of the new technologies applied to archaeology it should be emphasized an integrated and transversal reading of the records and their historical roots which sensibly diverges from a paratactic and vertical one. This observation imposes the acceptance of a different key-reading of history, but it implies an internal transformation of the scientific relations too, these relations should not be devised just on the basic competences but continuously interacted in a more dynamic and flexible structure. Observing the city from the viewpoint of the Project of the Archaeological Park, and in regard to its theoretical principles and its ambitious programs, one has to emphasize a development and social perspective which goes out from the site, intended as archaeological entity, because it touches the interests of an entire region and, of course, the responsibilities of a whole generation of Syrian archaeology. This observation intends cooperation as a developing process and, in this specific meaning, the ambition could be now interpreted as a politic frontier, strongly allusive, as well as an ideal auspice we hope the new generations will respect and follow.