Modern Agriculture in the Ebla Region

The study of the epigraphic documentation from Tell Mardikh provides us with information concerning the crops and vegetation of the territory of Ebla in the mid-third millennium BC. These data allow us to reconstruct, to some extent, the ecological and environmental situation of the region. The data extrapolated from the texts are compared with data about the agriculture of the same area in modern times, which were collected in two surveys carried out by a team of the University of Bologna in the framework of the project Ebla Chora. During these land use surveys the main crops and spontaneous species were recorded. The comparison between the evidence provided by the ancient written sources and the modern data highlights some persistences and changes through time, which also allow us to better understand the ecology of the region on a diachronic scale.