Ricerc@Sapienza

A re-examination of the photographic documentation of the EB IV pottery collected from the excavations at Ebla has allowed us to identify a group of sherds dating from late Early Bronze IVB that belong to the tradition of “grey wares” produced between Tell Mishrifeh/Qaṭna, Tell Shayrat and Tell Nebi Mend, and distributed primarily to Central and Southern Syria, and to the Painted Simple Ware of the central Syrian steppe. This is the first time that pottery produced in these areas is identified within an EB IVB assemblage of the Ebla region.

An Early Bronze IVB tomb was discovered by the MOTA-DACH on June 2009 in the city of Bethlehem, nearby the Milk Grotto. Its architectural features, burials and associated funerary equipment are here considered and compared with those of other Early Bronze IV cemeteries and necropoleis of Southern Levant to grasp the historical-archaeological meaning of this discovery.

Tin-bronze makes its appearance in Southern Levant during the Early Bronze IV, the post-urban phase of the last centuries of the 3rdmillennium BC, when arsenical copper was still the most widespread copper alloy. Only from the following Middle Bronze Age tin-bronze will be the utmost spread alloy. The adoption of tin as alloying metal purports new technological skills, and a changed trade supply system, through new routes, thanks to itinerant coppersmiths.