This paper describes, through the analysis of both the archaeological and textual evidence, the ritual activities related to the cult of the royal ancestors (called Rapiʼuma or Rephaʼim in texts from Ugarit/Ras Shamra, later interpreted as Manes), at Ebla/Tell Mardikh, from Ancient Bronze IVA (ca. 2400-2300 BC) to Iron Age II (ca. 900-720 BC).

The BA IVA texts found in the Royal Archives of Ebla mention the divinisation of the dead kings and the cult offered to the royal ancestors: the ‘Ritual of the Regality’ (L. 2769, ca. 2350-2300 BC), from the Royal Palace G, interpreted as an enthronement ritual or a ritual performed on the occasion of the royal marriage, mentions a three-week celebration involving a procession of the royal couple (escorted by the statues of Kura and Barama) to the site of Binash (a royal necropolis), presenting offerings to the royal ancestors, mentioned by their names: this ritual was celebrated once the royal couple came back to Ebla.

Another text mentions an offering of ten rams to ten different deified kings, from Abur-Lim to Irkab-Damu (ca. 2520 BC and 2340 BC respectively), and another offering of rams to some ‘gods’ residing at Darib/Atareb(?) (another royal necropolis).

Apart from these offerings presented in sites located outside Ebla, some administrative texts also report offerings presented in the Royal Palace to the DINDIR EN (‘the god of the lord/king’), to the DINGIR maliktum (‘the god of the queen’), or to the DINGIR a-mu (‘the god of the father’), revealing a specific royal cult not involving the royal ancestors.

In 1993 excavation campaign, the archaeologists uncovered the so-called ‘Western Unit of the Central Complex’, in the area of the Royal Palace G, revealing the presence of the Hypogeum G4 (insisting on areas L. 5762 and L. 6402), dating to BA IVA: the place, found completely empty, was interpreted as an unutilized tomb of a king (possibly Ishar-Damu or another successor), or also perhaps of the royal couple (as it could be confirmed by analysing a precious royal standard found in the royal storeroom, displaying the young queen Tabur-Dumu and the queen-mother Dusigu), or even for one of the ‘greats’ of the royal administration (e.g. Ibbi-Zikir); this interpretation can be confirmed by the term É×PAP (‘tomb’) attested in an economic document (TM.75.G.2596) of the time of the vizier Ibrium, registering the delivery of 2.136 kg of gold ‘for the tomb of the king’. Whatever the correct interpretation is, it is possible to envisage in the construction of the Hypogeum G4 an ideological revolution in the conception of the kingship at Ebla, stressing the imperial ambitions of the king who decided to be engraved under his own palace and not in a burial site outside the city.

Later on, during the Middle Bronze I-II (ca. 200-1600 BC), the city further expanded outside the citadel: in the area Q of the Western Palace, in 1978-1979 three hypogea were discovered, labelled as ‘Tomb of the Cisterns’, ‘Tomb of the Princess’, and ‘Tomb of the Lord of the Goats’, the last probably belonging to king Immeya (ca. 1750 BC); these tombs can be dated between MB IB and MB IIA, i.e. ca. 1850-1700 BC. In the ‘Tomb of the Lord of the Goats’, an object in bone interpreted as a funerary talisman was found: on the obverse, it shows a funerary banquet, while on the reverse a human-head bull is depicted, adorated by two cynocephalics; these two scenes are interpreted as the topic moment of the royal funeral, i.e. the assumption of the king among the other deified predecessors (the rapiʼuma). Furthermore, the location of these tombs, along the western side of the mound, could be interpreted as a reference to the West, the place of the sunset, perceived as the real of the deceased; in fact, the tombs are close to the area of the temple of Rashap, the god of the Underworld (it is noteworthy that in this temple a ritual basaltic basin was found [dated to MB IB, i.e. ca. 1900-1800 BC], showing a similar banquet scene, involving the adoration of the king). The ritual banquet scene has been interpreted as the Mesopotamian kispum, where the actual king and his deified ancestors shared the ritual banquet.

Moreover, Ugaritic texts of the Late Bronze Age II (such as KTU 1.20-22, labelled as ‘Poem of the Rapi’uma’, possibly a portion of the ‘Tale of Aqhat’) tell us about myths and rituals involving the rapiʼuma, i.e. the royal deified ancestors, participating in ritual banquets. This interpretation of the rapiʼuma with the royal ancestors is confirmed by another text (KTU 1.61, ‘The Book for the Banquet of the Shadows’), where the rapiʼuma escorts the dead king (Niqmaddu III, ca. 1225-1220 BC) to the Underworld. Two other texts (KTU 1.108 and KTU 1.124) report two sumptuous banquets of the rapiʼuma at the presence respectively of the goddess Anat and of *Ditanu, a mythical hero fighting to ensure a long descendance to the reigning dynasty.

Furthermore, in 1964-1965 and 1971-1972 excavations in the lower city, the structure of the Sanctuary B2 (MB II, ca. 1800-1600 BC) was uncovered, a building showing a peculiar architecture including a wide room clearly adhibited to ritual banquets (probably something similar to the North-West Semitic marzeah (see e.g. King 1989 or to the Mesopotamian kispum (see e.g. Mac Dougal 2014) with many participants; such an interpretation is stressed by the finding of peculiar places with altars flanked by two antae (probably hosting a cultic statue), the presence of a large podium in a central position, and by the proximity of the aforementioned place to a room where cooking activities took place. These banquets were performed on the occasion of the death of the reigning king, to guarantee him the assumption among the ancestors.

Eventually, a steatite cylindrical seal kept in the Erlenmeyer Collection (Paleo-Assyrian period, unknown provenance; see also Matthiae 2011, with picture) depicts three scenes involving the divinities of Yamkhad and the rapiʼuma of Halab, probably on the occasion of the death of a Syrian king (other seals carrying a similar depiction have been published in Matthiae 2015).

In conclusion: “La tradition de la divinisation des rois défunts et la foi dans une protection essentielle fournie par ces êtres divinisés à la communauté des vivants, à la maison régnante et à l’ensemble de la société, remontent, en Syrie, aux débuts mêmes de la vie urbaine, à l’époque protosyrienne et au grand essor d’Ébla à l’apogée de la « seconde urbanisation », peu après la moitié du IIIe millénaire av. J.-C., quand les rituels des Archives royales témoignent le rôle des rois morts divinisés dans le renouvellement des rois régnants” (“The tradition of deification of deceased kings and the faith in an essential protection provided by these deified beings to the community of the living, the reigning house, and the whole society, go back, in Syria, to the very beginning of urban life, in Proto-Syrian times and in the sudden growth of Ebla at the acme of the ‘second urbanization’, shortly after the middle of the third millennium BC, when the rituals of the Royal Archives testify to the role of the deified dead kings in the renewal of the reigning kings” [p. 991; English translation by mDP]).

The approach and data presented by the author fully involve the present volume of Giorgio Buccellati: through the analysis of both textual and archaeological evidence, P. Matthiae reconstructs ancient ritual practices performed at Ebla/Tell Mardikh and Ugarit/Ras Shamra. The aforementioned approach, also involving comparisons with the Biblical tradition, perfectly exemplifies Giorgio Buccellati’s comparative approach described in the present volume.

On the topic of ‘divinised kings’: in this paper, P. Matthiae outlines some clues hinting to a divinization of dead kings at Ebla/Tell Mardikh. In Chapter 16, Section 5 of his book on Mesopotamian religion, Giorgio Buccellati presents a slightly different opinion on the topic of ‘divinised kings’: “The explicit divinization of the king is a phenomenon that rarely happens in Mesopotamia, and never plays a structural or institutional role, serving only as an extreme form of glorification. But it is certain that kingship as an institution is ‘divinized,’ as the priesthood in its various forms never is. If a particular king is not divinized as an individual, we can say he is divinized as the holder of royal power, and only as long as power actually remains under his control. It is a way of defining the parameters of political legitimacy”. This discrepancy can be explained considering that for Giorgio Buccellati is the royalty itself to be eventually ‘divinized’, while the ‘divinization’ of dead kings represents a form of ‘glorification’ only.

[Note that the hypothesis of divinisation of kings at Ebla has not been considered in Giorgio Buccellati’s volume, since the present paper by P. Matthiae has been published later].