Mari

Tell (ancient Mari) is located along the western bank of the central Euphrates River, about 17km (10.5 miles) north of the modern border between Syria and Iraq. Situated between the heartland of Mesopotamia and the world of the western Levant, ‘the world’ of ancient Mari was a mélange of east and west Semitic traditions. The site has been under excavation by a French expedition (Mission Archéologique de Mari) since 1933 and, more recently, a Syro-French team. Among the many devastating tragedies of the civil war in Syria, which began in 2001, the site of Tell Hariri was repeatedly looted by illicit excavations. Many of the remains excavated from the site are currently housed in museums in Paris, Damascus, Aleppo, and Deir es-Zor. Among the impressive archaeological recoveries from the site are a large, nearly 300-room palace and numerous temples. Also of particular note is an extensive cuneiform Akkadian tablet collection from the Middle Bronze Age/Old Babylonian period. These tablets, especially the nearly 4500 letters, not only provide unprecedented information about social, cultural, political, and religious traditions along the central Euphrates in ancient Syria but also have long provided a basis for comparative studies of the Hebrew Bible. Many of these letters are distinctively long and contain detailed information about social, cultural, political, and religious traditions along the central Euphrates in ancient Syria.