take a look at /bin/php/ezcsvimport.php of the eZ installation. You can find some patterns on how to create content objects via PHP there. You might also want to take a look at the forum thread http://ez.no/developer/forum/developer/cli_script_slow where you can finde a code sample and some hints on better practices.
Again. You will want to take further time to study and learn from the existing eZ Publish PHP API Documentation and available extensions instead of seeking a sql based solution.
ez Publish is new for me and i have to spend more time with documentation. But i found the log of queries to mysql - the general query log http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/query-log.html
It might be possible to saw the the sql statements for publishing of articles.