ABSTRACT DI CONFERENZA INTERNAZIONALE. Sorbonne (Francia): Preliminary Reports of a Geophysical Survey at Tell-Mardikh-Ebla 2000-2001.

During the month of October, occasion for the 38th excavation season at Tell Mardikh - Ebla, a pilot project started taking place, in order to explore and detail the Tell morphology using new geophysical and computer-related technologies. In this step of the project we intend to create a geomagnetic map of the Lower City with the aim of analysing some topographical characteristics of the urban settlement, to point out some morphological peculiarities of the Tell, to verify the hypotheses regarding the historical and economic reasons of the peculiar planar distribution of the major monuments, and finally to identify sectors of particular interest to be handed over to the future systematic excavations. The second step, the geophysical map of the investigated areas, will also represent some layers of a digital cartography set up to be used on GIS system, as a support instrument for the examination of possible semantic relations between subsuperficial physiography of the city and planar distribution of the major anthropic activities