The Use of Textiles in the Ritual Texts of Ebla

The archives of Ebla, roughly datable to 2400 BC, provide unique insights on the use of textiles in ritual context, within the broader frame of early urban systems. Combined with iconographical motives, the sources fill in an otherwise large documentary gap for this kind of study, spanning from the collapse of the so-called first urbanization in Mesopotamia up to the rise of regional states at the beginning of the second millennium BC. As for the epigraphical evidence, the tablets from Ebla, together with the almost contemporary archives of Lasgah/Girsu in Southern Mesopotamia, represent the earliest corpus of texts that can be positively inquired for data concerning ritual and cultic practices, with special reference to textiles. However, the Ebla evidence remains unparalleled in terms of both richness of information and diversity of sources. Besides administrative documents, ritual texts are in fact known for this site, providing precious details on the rituals for the renewal of kingship, in which textiles play a major role. The paper explores the typology of the textiles mentioned in these documents, as well as their functions, symbolic aspects, and social settings.