O que apareceu primeiro? O Arquivo ou a Biblioteca? A resposta é o Arquivo! Considere-se o chamado Palácio de Ebla, a mais antiga biblioteca arqueologicamente recuperada, datada ao século XXIV ac: 20.000 argilas grafadas em cuneiforme, em duas linguas, uma delas desconhecida até à descoberta deste testemunho.
Outros tesouros de Ebla incluem:
One aspect of special interest to Bible students is that a number of Old Testament cities are referred to. There are cities that were previously known in lst and 2nd Millennium records, but now they are referred to in these 3rd Millennium B.C. tablets. There is Salim, possibly the city of Melchizedec, Hazor, Lachish, Megiddo, Gaza, Dor, Sinai, Ashtaroth, Joppa and Damascus. Of special interest is Urusalima (Jerusalem), this being the earliest known reference to this city.
Although a city called Salim is referred to in the tablets, there is no indication just what its geographic location is. It is referred to separately from Urusalima (Jerusalem), and this would indicate that the two cities are separate.
Two of the towns mentioned are Sodom and Gomorrah. Here we are transported back to about 2,300 B.C., and we find that these towns were regularly visited, being on the route of the King’s Highway that ran down from Damascus. There are actually references to five “cities of the Plain” (to use the Biblical term at Genesis 14:2), and these were Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar. We are told in that same verse that an earlier name for Zoar was Bela.
