Libraries in Syria and the Levant in the Late Bronze Age, c.1450–1100 BCE

Abstract

Syria and the southern Levant has a long and rich epigraphic tradition that was rediscovered in the last century through archaeological excavation. Written remains stretching from the Bronze Age (Ebla, Mari, Alalakh, Ugarit, and Emar) down into the Roman period (Qumran) provide ample evidence for the collecting of literary texts, broadly conceived, and the formation of ancient libraries. This survey gives an overview of the archaeological distribution of what modern scholarship has termed ‘libraries’ and considers the chronological, geographic, and textual depth of the data from the region as whole. It then considers the principal case studies from ancient Syria and the Levant—cuneiform libraries from the north Syrian sites of Ugarit and Emar dating to the last centuries of the second millennium BCE.