Ebla: Crafts and Power in an Emergent State of Third Millennium BC Syria

Abstract

This paper draws on data from the excavation of late fourth and third millennia settlements in the northern Levant to explore the dynamic relationship between craft production and urbanization. An examination of the contexts of production and patterns of artefact distribution, both within and between settlements, suggests that the impact on craft production of elite-dominated managerial institutions can be detected at both central and peripheral sites, and involved both valuable and more mundane classes of artefact.