The Victory Panel of Early Syrian Ebla: Finding, Structure, Dating

The Ebla Victory Panel is an important document of the Early Syrian artistic culture, of which many fragments were discovered in 1988, re-employed in the West Unit of the Central Complex of the Royal Palace G. This contribution addresses the history of the panel’s discovery and attempts to reconstruct its figurative composition and chronology. The Ebla Victory Panel is a large wall panel that celebrates a military triumph; the scenes are arranged in several superimposed registers with soldiers turned to the left, facing mythical beings, and a royal figure, almost completely lost, three times the soldiers in size, following a representation scheme probably influenced by Egyptian art works of the Old Kingdom. The panel seems to have been realized at the time of a predecessor of the Royal Palace G, probably the Second Palace, whose remains are preserved in Building G5 of the western sector of the Acropolis.