Modelling the Transmission of Scribal Knowledge in the Late Bronze Age Levant: A Statistical Approach to Practical Documents

This paper examines the circulation of scribal knowledge in the Levant during the Late Bronze Age (15th–13th century BC) through a statistical analysis of cuneiform legal texts. These texts serve as material indicators of scribal training and reflect locally transmitted standards. The aim of this paper is to use this documentation to reconstruct transmission networks of written knowledge at both regional and interregional levels. The originality of this approach lies in the modeling of textual and material data using R Studio. Information extracted from the tablets is categorized into three domains: diplomatics (norms governing tablet formatting), orthography (rules governing the writing of words), and phraseology (formulas used in legal discourse). This data is encoded in a structured database, enabling statistical methods such as factorial analyses and hierarchical classifications. These analyses help identify consistent patterns across the corpus and isolate textual subsets sharing common scribal norms. Such standards suggest the existence of scribal micro-networks, pointing to a structured circulation of technical writing knowledge in the Levant. This seemingly fragmented system reveals deeper dynamics: interurban influences, intergenerational transmissions, and differentiated appropriations depending on political context. By cross-referencing textual data with geographical and chronological information, this study models the vectors of scribal circulation across Levantine cities and highlights points of contact with Mesopotamian, Anatolian, and Egyptian traditions. The case study of legal texts from Ekalte (Tell Munbaqa) serves as a concrete example. Situated on the Middle Euphrates, this archive allows for the analysis of transmission modalities: were they shaped by regional globalization among literate elites, imperial harmonization policies, or gradual hybridization through multiple flows? At the intersection of historical geography and digital humanities, this research offers a new reading of cultural flows in the Ancient Near East by connecting the materiality of writing with the dynamics of human networks.