Notes and Links on Mari

[sheshki]

From: Mari: Capital of northern Mesopotamia in the third millenium BC

by Jean-Claude Margueron



I: Presentation of the site

Conclusion: the history of Mari provided by archaeology

...

City I, founded around 2900 on a site with no previous human settlement,
was accompanied by a regional infrastructure consisting of an irrigational
network, a navigable canal and a derivative canal linking the city to the river.
The last preserved appears to belong to the beginning of the twenty-eighth century BC,
but as the tell was levelled during the re-founding, the exact date and the
conditions of its disappearance are not known. It is not even known whether
City I no longer existed when the levelling work for the foundation
of City II was undertaken.

City II was the product of a complete reconstrution, probably carried out
during the twenty-sixth century BC, and of a reactivation of the entire
hydraulic and urban structure. After a relatively short period of existence,
a century and a half or two centuries, it was completly destroyed,
probably by Naram-Sin, king of Akkad.

City III, built on the levelled ruins of this destruction, existed from
twenty-third century to 1760, first under the dynasty of the Shakkanakku
who reconstructed the city and then under the domination of Amorite kings,
whose last representative, Zimri-Lim, was defeated by Hammurabi of Babylon.
The city never recovered from this destruction, although remains of the
Middle Assyrian and Seleuco-Parthian periods indicate a sporadic occupation of the tell.



II. The foundation of Mari and regional development

The foundation of Mari on the Holocene terrace

...
The topographical organisation of the architectural remains and their
position in the valley show that Mari was established as a new city, created ex nihilo,
according to a circular plan 1.9km in diameter, on virgin land of the Holocene terrace more than 2km
from the Euphates, linked to the river by a canal. Its present-day morphology is the result
of erosion that has occured since the destruction of the city.

...

It is thus certain that the circular form of the city is that of its foundation.
Could this morphology be symbolic or religious? There is another reason to explain this shape.
The Euphrates is characterized by spring floods caused by snow melt from the mountains of eastern Anatolia.
Before the recnet large constructions were built to control the waters, on average flooding was
contained in the main bed of the river. But if the snows are exceptionally abundant and rain adds
to the process, then the river swells, breaks out of the main bed and invades the Holocene terrace.
The effects of flooding are terrible, not only for the crops destroyed but for all earth-built human
constructions, including houses and canals; if a volume of moving water invades an area of land,
it easily attacks all constructed angles, ...

But a curved shape causes water to flow past rather than attack.
...
But probably the most important reason for the choice of a circular shape was to facilitate
the elimination of rainwater towards the periphery. A street network radiating
from the centre of the city was the solution for this function of evacuation.
It appears that the circular plan, the distance from the river and the linking of the site
to the river by a canal are the features that are closely related. They are aspects of a
preconceived plan that implies a good understaning of the phenomena that it was necessary to dominate.

[sheshki]

From: Mari: Capital of northern Mesopotamia in the third millenium BC

by Jean-Claude Margueron

II. The foundation of Mari and regional development

The canals

...
Three hydraulic works of importance were discovered.

The linking canal

..., the linking canal is proof of the expertise of the inhabitants of the valley in hydraulic
design, without which the city of Mari could not have existed.
...
As the water level of the canal was the same as that of the river, the port was located at the
altitude of the base of the main bed; it was therefore necessary to dig into the Holocene
terrace to ensure that the canal was positioned at least 2m below the level of the base of the
city.
The function of the canal was first of all to provide water for the city, and secondly, to
enable access for the boats that sailed up and down the Euphrates. A port, still undiscovered,
was the key to the system, a karum where the boats stopped and were loaded with
merchandise or unloaded before leaving for another destination, by boat or by land.
The destruction of the city in 1760 BC led to its abandonment and silting up of this canal.
...
Then, as it was mostly filled in and not usable, the canal became during the high floods that
occurred rarely but also during the annual floods, a channel for the flood waters every spring.
This contributed to the erosion of all the northern part of the tell and this process was all
the easier as the canal crossed the city, being at the same level as the river. Thus the process
of erosion erased all the installations between the left bank of the canal and the dyke-rampart
to the north and east, of which nothing remains.
Only a third of the city is left, perhaps the most important part. Ironically, the feature that
enabled Mari to exist and to flourish was also to be the cause of its disappearance, which is
fortunately only partial.



The irrigation canal

On the right river bank of the river a large irrigation canal was discovered in
sections over a distance of 17km, a few kilometres north of the site.
There are enough vestiges to show that it was a very large work, in a
heightened position on the Holocene terrace so the water in the canal could
reach the fields by gravity.
The canal was more than 100m wide, which would seem excessive for a simple irrigation canal
a few dozen kilometres long. Its size and volume indicate that the builders intended that it
resists heavy floods; its massiveness would prevent its being washed away, and once the danger
passed repairs could be made without any need for total reconstruction.
Thus it was the necessity for protection from heavy flooding that led to the size and volume
of this installation, exactly as for the circular enclosure wall of the city.
It was probably built around the time of the foundation of the city, but its date has not yet been determined.
...
This canal provides clear evidence that the Holocene terrace on the right bank,
was devoted to agricultural activities.

The navigation canal

The existence of a third large canal, on the left bank this time, is an essential piece of
information that completes the infrastructure of the valley.
...
It had in fact been discovered starting at the Khabur, where it branched off in all likelihood
at es-Sijr. We followed it, with interruptions as it is not always well preserved, along the
edge of the valley, between two embarkments or sunken in the plateau, along a clearly continuous
line, up to the environs of Abu Kemal where it would have joined the Euphrates after a course of
115 to 120 km.
This is an exceptional construction, impressive first of all for its surprising length. And the
consistency of its gauge is also surprising; it varies between 8 and 11 m, never less. The slope
of its course is very regular, 0.2 for 1000, which allowed the water to flow easily but without
excessive current, although in some places a wadi may have modified this ratio by deposits of
detritus.
...
When a meander approached too closely the cliff of the left bank and risked engulfing the canal,
the decision was taken to take the canal across the plateau by digging a trench almost 15m deep.
In the sections where it was thus incised in the plateau, large works were carried out to avoid,
during heavy rain, the arrival of large volumes of runoff water; basins to hold sediments,
traces of zigzags and dykes to break the descending wave show the degree of technology possessed
by the engineers responsible for builing them.
...
This does not mean that at certain periods of its history certain sections of its course were not used as
irrigation canals, but its first function was for navigation, for which it was conceived in its
totality to follow the Euphrates between the Khabur and Abu Kemal.

Dating and significance

...
..., if the following factors are considered, then the reasons
for regional developpment of Mari become clear:

• the clear economic importance of the Euphrates since the Uruk period,
• the rise of urbanisation in central and southern Mesopotamia from the end of the Uruk period,
• the rapid growth of the need of the new cities for ores coming from the mountains
  and for wood from Lebanon, the Amanus and the Taurus, transported on the Euphrates
• the near absence of means of transport other than by boat for heavy materials
• in particular, the fact that all trade necessitates, if it is not to rapidly disappear,
  return trips and reciprocal exchange.

[sheshki]

From: Mari: Capital of northern Mesopotamia in the third millenium BC

by Jean-Claude Margueron

III. The historical stages

The foundation of Mari and City I (Early Dynastic I-II, 2950 - ca. 2650 [?])

Carbon 14 and thermo-luminescense analyses both indicate that Mari was founded between 3000 and
2900 BC, that is, at the beginning of what is called Early Dynastic I.
Nothing is known of the historical outline, as no text has been found. But the archaeology shows
clearly that the city existed for some time, although it is not possible to determine when it
ended. The top of the archaeological layers that make up City I were levelled to an altitude of
about 175.50 m, somewhat more at the top of the tell, somewhat less at the periphery, the
variations rarely exceeding 1 m. This was an voluntary act that that concerned the entire city
intra muros; no evidence appears to have survived to provide the complete sequence of
City I beginning with the end of Early Dynastic II, and it is impossible to pinpoint the cause
and time of its disappearance or abandonement.



The re-foundation of Mari and City II (Early Dynastic III and the Akkadian period 2550-2220)


..., at about 2550 BC, during the Early Dynastic III, a new city was built on the levelled ruins
of City I, at a consistent height, using highly elaborated techniques and new principles whose
precise origin has not yet been clearly discovered on any other known site in Mesopotamia or
Syria, but whose use was general everywhere.
This is evidence for a true urbanism, concerning not only the establishment of a defensive
system, but the structuring of the city, with its political, religious and economic hubs and its
residential quarters, and with the organisation of a street network laid out before any
construction and designed to ensure rapid evacuation of rainwater, either by flow or by
absorption.
This City II existed for three centuries, straddling the Early Dynastic III and the Akkadian
periods. Its relation were as close with the Syria of Ebla and Emar as with the Babylonia of
Kish and the Sumer of Ur.
...
..., City II was probably destroyed by Naram-Sin (rather than earlier by Sargon of Akkad)
during his great re-conquest of the western and northern regions of the empire.

The reconstruction of Mari and City III (Shakkanakku and Amorite periods, 2200-1760)

The city called City II was systematically destroyed. All the temples, public buildings and
dwellings were discovered in a state of having been destroyed by fire, and many important objects were found in them...

The general reconstruction of the city was carried out by the new dynasty of the Shakkanakku,
probably installed by Naram-Sin to govern the city...
The last fifty years of Mari, during which large residences and dwellings were built,
are particularly well-recorded in the texts and it is possible to glimpse
the main lines of the history of the city, in a weakend position at the end of Shakkanakku period.
It was coveted by a kingdom of upper Mesopotamia under the energetic action of Shamshi-Addu,
then taken over by a branch of the legitimate dynasty in the person of Zimri-Lim with the help of the kingdom of Aleppo.
It is under this dynasty that Mari was last active; with the Amorite sovereigns decline began,
and when Hammurabi took the city and burned it down in 1760, the end of the city was sealed.

**note: Since i quoted from the book i had to repeat the typos.

[sheshki]

Mariki

(MA.RI.KI)

There is also an alternative writing for Mari

Mariki

(MA.RI2.KI)

[sheshki]

From: Mari: Capital of northern Mesopotamia in the third millenium BC

by Jean-Claude Margueron

Reconstructions of City I - III

[sheshki]

From: Mari: Capital of northern Mesopotamia in the third millenium BC

by Jean-Claude Margueron


The religious monuments

Religious life at Mari is known only for Cities II and III.
No temple has been found in City I, with the possible exception
of the building in trench G, a superb monument that appears by its
situation and the fullness of its conception to be a relgious building,
either a temple or the edge of a terrace intended for religious purposes,
possibly sacrifices, built on the first level of occupation in the heart of the city.

The religious organisation of City II

The religious organisation of the city consisted of a concentration of a large number
of sanctuaries and an administrative centre at the heart of the city,
and it is also possible that isolated temples existed outside the urban fabric.

The religious heart of the city

The large concentration of religious buildings of various kinds,
near the middle of the tell, leads to the conclusion that
a domain of the gods existed within the ancient city.
But this is quite difficult to define precisely, as no edge has
been found and it is not known how it was associated with the rest of the city...

...

In the present stage of our knowledge, the religious centre was organized around
two hubs - the Sacred Precinct to the west and the Massif Rouge to the east - and
a north-south line defined by the Sacred Way. To the west of the street that runs
from the eastern edge of the Massif Rouge lie the temples of Ninhursag and Shamash
and to the east the sanctuaries of Ishtarat and Ninni-Zaza; ...

...

A temple in the city

The discovery of a temple dedicated to the goddess Ishtar, on the edge of the city
and built against, it appears, an interior rampart, demonstrates that divinities
at Mari could have a place in ordinary parts of the city and that their worship
was not restricted to a reserved area.
...

The main temples found in City II

The temple in the Sacred Precinct

...it differs from the others in two respects:
its much larger size and its integration into the palace.
It was probably also consecrated to the great god of the city.

Temple of Ishtar

The first building excavated at Mari (1934 - 1937 campaings),
one month after the beginning of work, the temple of Ishtar
certainly suffered from the inexpirience of the workers
in the detection of mud brick and definition of floors.
...

Dedicated to a "virile Ishtar" which was certainly not
the first form of the great goddess, the situation of the temple
in the city can be explained by its association with the rampart.

Temple of Ninni-Zaza

To the east of the sacred way, facing the temple of Ninhursag,
stands the temple of Ninni-Zaza. It is complete, and after
some rectifications provides us with a fairly good picture
of the organisation of a sanctuary of this period at Mari.
Dedicated to the goddess Ninni-Zaza, perhaps an avatar of Ishtar,
this sanctuary is situated on the edge of the Sacred Way and
of the Street of the Model. Its plan is simple: a central space,
with a refined and delicate decoration of niches and salients
in double projection, almost square (9.80m by 10.80m), accessible
from the vestibule that links the building to the Sacred Way;...
...



volumetric reconstruction of the temple of Ninni-zaza (City II)



Temple of Ishtarat

Set against the temple of Ninni-Zaza, the temple of Ishtarat,
another avatar of Ishtar, was also designed around a central space (6m each side),
without decoration, and reproduces the plan of a simple house;
however, broken boat-shaped libation receptacles and statuettes
provide identification. Carbonised beams lay in the central space,
evidence for a covered hall rather than a courtyard, which is
the usual interpretation. This is a field observation that confirms
the architectural analysis that the central spaces of this period were covered.
The height of the ruins found and the contiguity of the temple of Ninni-Zaza
confirm that there would have been an upper storey.

Temple of Shamash

Immediatly south of the temple of Ninhursag, the temple of Shamash,
presents a very simple plan: a Holy Place that is a square in shape,
15m wide each side, with a gallery along at the south and east walls,
which indicates that the spans were 10m in each direction;
in the north is evidence for a long hall, of which few elements
remain today, probably most of it has been disturbed by later reconstructions.
A rectangular pit (3.80 m by 1.80 m), in the centre of the Very Holy place,
is an exploratory hole probably made by Yahdun-Lim at the time
he ordered works for the foundation of a new temple to ensure
that nothing impure risked compromising the new work.

Temple of Ninhursag

In the sector studied between 1951 and 1954 and taken up
again starting in 1990, the temple of City II attributed
to Ninhursag as a hypothesis is still incompletey defined.
A central space, very irregular in shape, was equipped with
religious installations - various platforms, sometimes
surrounded by grooves coated with bitumen. On the south there
are rooms of different dimensions, while on the north a
fine stairway leads to an upper level occupied by
the Very Holy Place. The annexes are equipped with benches
which supported statues (a base found in situ), jars or tannour.
The Very Holy Place is striking because of its massiveness,
the thickness of its walls - 4 m - and its raised position
in the group of constructions. It is accessed by an imposing
stairway of a dozen low steps, which are placed in a thickness
of the south wall and rise to a height of about 80 cm.
This dominant position of the Very Holy Place is quite unusual.
...
The extraordiary massiveness of the walls of the Very Holy Place,
4 metres in thickness, the complete disharmony of the orientation
of the Very Holy Place and that of the temple, the shape of
the Very Holy Place ( a rectangular trapezoid) and the size
of the deposits suggest that the Very Holy Place had existed
before all the rest and that the whole of the sanctuary
has a long and complicated history, starting with City I.

A formula peculiar to Mari

These six sanctuaries represent a very important part of
the vestiges of City II. Except for a few variations,
they are organised in an identical manner, based on the
tri-partition characteristic of ancient Near Eastern
sacred architecture, but according to a model peculiar to Mari.

The Massif Rouge

This is a High Terrace rectangular in shape (42 by 29 m)
which owes its name to the red colour of some of the bricks
that form its core. The access, ..., could have been by means
of a ramp laid against the south-east face of the terrace,
exactly in the line of continuation of the Sacred Way.
There is no indication that a temple existed on top of the terrace,
which probably served as a religious area for carrying out sacrifices
serving all the temples of the city; detailed analysis of the temples
shows that it would not have been possible for sacrificial rites
to have taken place in them.

The Temple -tower

This is an imposing building of rectangular shape
(exterior measurement 12.50 m by 14.50 m),
consisting of one room (11 m by 7 m) preceded by a vestibule
in the form of a porch. The orientation of this edifice,
..., is identical to that of the High Terrace; moreover,
its width is exactly one third of the lenght of the terrace
and the surface area occupied is placed precicely in the central third of this lenght.
...
...the austerity of its proportions and its morphology identify it
as a typical temple-tower in the Syrian tradition, and indicate
its close association with the High Terrace, even though the phase
is a late one of City II. Thus the two structures form a pair,
High Terrace and temple-tower, that was clearly one of the religious hubs.

Activity in the temples of City II

The religious installations

During the period of the second city of Mari, there was an important
developement in the installations used for religious purposes.
At the beginning the apparatus for libations and low podiums was standard,
as seen in the Sacred Precinct. In certain temples - Ishtar, Ninni-zaza, Ishtarat,
Ninhursag - this equipment lasted until the final destructive fire.
But altars appear that are free-standing or backed against a wall, while the installations
for libation appear to diminish in number or become transformed.
...
It seems that no such developement has been observed elsewhere,
but the use of backed-up platform is often older, according to the evidence,
for example in the temple of Sin in Khafadjé. It is certain that at Mari
this transformation marks an important developement in the rites,
but without any change necessary in the spaces used; ....

[sheshki]

From: Gods in Dwellings; Temples and Divine Presence in the Ancient Near East

by Michael B. Hundley

For example, near life-sized lions were
discovered guarding the portals at Tell Harmal, Mari, and Nimrud,
while at Tell Rimah the head of the hybrid creature Huwawa from the
Gilgamesh epic and a bull-man were found on either side of the door.

[sheshki]

From: Mari: Capital of northern Mesopotamia in the third millenium BC

by Jean-Claude Margueron

The religious reorganisation of City III
...
A profound transformation affected the organisation of the religious domain;
a new High Terrace, built farther to the west, replaced the Massive Rouge,
which was levelled and probably masked by a new sanctuary, itself erased
by erosion after the end of Mari. The temple of Lions, an apparently new sanctuary,
was placed against the south face of the religious High Terrace, and the esplanade
that preceded it covered the Anonymous Temples, which existed only briefly.
The Sahuru, itself placed against the north face of the new temple-tower of Ninhursag,
appears to have been an entrance to the temple of Lions; in the south-east,
the situation of the temple of Shamash remained the same.
Thus the esplanade, the Sahuru and the temples of Ninhursag and Shamash
were aligned to the Sacred Way; on the other side of the road, nothing appears
to have replaced the temples of Ninni-zaza and Ishtarat.

From City II to City III: maintaining tradition

The sanctuary of the palace

The sanctuary, embellished with a small chapel, was inherited from the Sacred Precinct. During
the construction of the Great Royal Palace it preserved its original morphology, but during the
course of history a large western part was amputated from the central space, which created a new
organisation.

The Anonymous Temples

...probably built by Ididish, they were both a conclusion to City II and a small first stage of
City III.
...
Associated with other buildings that have completely disappeared, in particular under the High
Terrace, it is not possible to assign them a precise function.

Temple of Shamash

At the location of the temple of Shamash of City II and in the same position, a sanctuary was
constructed by Yadhun-Lim of which only the foundations have been found; the intermediate
construction by the Shakkanakku has not left any traces...
the sanctuary consisted of a large space, about 13 m by 9 m, with two very long rooms on the
south-west and the south-east, und hugged on the north by a massive building measuring about 20
m by 12.5 m.
...
The tradition of the Mari type of temple with its square Holy Place preceding the long Very
Holy Place, was thus respected in the middle of the eighteenth c. BC.
...
But the construction of the Massif à Redans gave this sanctuary of archaic tradition a new
dimension, that of modernity.


Volumetric reconstruction of the temple of Shamash (City III)

[inimgina]

Marc van de Mieroop on food importation at Mari:

A similar difficult situation seems to have existed at the Middle Euphrates site of Mari. The City, which originally might have been 254 hectares in size, was strategically located on the junction between Babylonia and Syria, and also acted as an intermediary between nomads of the Syrian desert and the agriculturalists of the Euphrates valley. But its agricultural base was limited. It lies in a zone where its insufficient rainfall for dry-farming, and the river cuts through a barren plateau on both sides. The valley is only 6-14 kilometers wide in Mari's neighborhood, and just a narrow section of it could be easily irrigated. Thus a massive and long irrigation canal had to be dug when Mari developed into a massive settlement, and this canal had o be carefully maintained. Yet even these irrigated areas were unable to produce sufficient food for the city, and the texts attest to the practice of grain imports from northern Syria. The following letter documents the procedure:

"To my lord your servant Yasim-Sumu says as follows: 'With respect to teh barley boats which leave the city of Emar, from now on they will not leave any longer. Harvest time has come, but there will be no more boats arriving to load the barley for the palace. And for the next five months there will be no more boats leaving. Now either there are boats (from Mari) on their wa that will arrive here (in that case)we will fill them up so that they shouldn't have to return(to Mari) empty - or, if it pleases my lord, he should send me five minas (= five pounds) of silver, then I, in concert with the merchants living in Emar, will hire then boats of 300 ugar (=3,6000 liters) capacity (each), [co]lle[ct barley] and dispatch thus 3,000 ugar (=36,000 liters) of barley to Mari. One should give either to Idinyatum or to another official 60 ugar (=600kor) of barley for the five minas (=300 shekels)of silver at a rate of 2 1/2 kor-measures per shekel. Then, in order that the five minas of silver return to the palace, the wages for the sixty men of the crew will be 2 1/2 minas of silver which amounts to 300 kor barley. And the balance of 210 ugar should go into the palace..."

The letter is not easy to understand, and the calculations in it appear mistaken at a first glance; a recent study by Durand has elucidated its contents, however. Yasim-Sumu was in Emar, and announced that all cargo ships were chartered, and would be unavailable for five months, indicating that Emar shipped grain to other places that were round-trip distance five months travel. Now, either he had to hope that the ships from Mari ould soon arrive and could be loaded with grain, or he had to spend five pounds of silver from the palace to hire other boats from merchants, whose representative in Mari was Idinyatum. These merchants were independent from the palace and needed to be convinced with financial incentives to reassign their boats or to release some boats that they had previously withheld This was to be done by offering Idinyatum 60 ugar (=600) of barley, which was worth five minas (=300 shekels) of silver in Emar. Yasim-Sumu would recover the additional costs by taking advantage of the differences in the price of barley between Emar and Mari. In Emar he could acquire 2.5 kor of barley per shekel of silver, in Mari only 2 kor. The 3,000 ugar acquired in Emar was worth twenty Minas of silver there, but in Mari it would be priced at twenty-five Minas. Thus the only transport costs the palace would have to take care of were the salaries of the boatmen. We see here how palace, private merchants and salaried boatmen all were involved in the process, each of them eager to make a profit.
The cereals in the letter cited above came from Emar, a city upstream on the Euphrates, in the zone where rain-fed agriculture was possible. The region of the upper Euphrates was only accessible to Mari when its political relations with Aleppo were good. Such was not always true, however, and an alternative source for cereals was perhaps the middle habur area. The grain storage and processing facilities found at sites such as Tell Atij, and mentioned before, may have been established for that purpose. Transport of grain along the Euphrates was facilitated by a canal on its bank, more convenient and cheaper than the use of over-land caravans which are also attested. According to the letter quoted above, the crew of six men would be paid the equivalent of 450 liters of barley in silver to navigate a 3,600 liter boat over a distance of more than 300 kilometers. If overland transport had been used, the teamsters themselves would have consumed the entire load. Mari was thus most likely unable to feed its citizens with its own resources, and had to import food. Its location provided the city with much income from trade, however, and this income could be used for food acquisition.

"The Ancient Mesopotamian City" by Marc van de Mieroop (Oxford University Press, 1999)

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From: Mari: Capital of northern Mesopotamia in the third millenium BC

by Jean-Claude Margueron

Conclusion: the originality of the sacred architecture at Mari

Shortly after the discovery of Mari, the tendency was to view the city
as the beacon of Mesopotamian radiating light towards a backward Occident
that had not attained the summit of urban civilization.
This position is deeply flawed by a Mesopotamo-centrism that is perhaps
understandable for the first half of the twentieth century, but must be
abandoned in favour of a view that takes into account the specific forces
that were present in the larger regional units.
If we examine the morphology of the temples of City II, it is the absolute
independence of the choices made at Mari in relation to Mesopotamia that is striking;
none of the examples discovered are actually comparable to any Mesopotamian monument
of the third millennium.
...
None of the temples found in City III present a morphology that is Babylonian or Sumerian;
the only origin that we can observe is Syrian or northern. For the temple-tower and the High Terrace,
the influence was from western Syria, while the elongated form of the temple of Lions came
from the foothills of the Taurus, and the temple with incorporated terrace (such as that of Shamash)
would appear to have originated in Assyria, although further information is necessary to confirm this.
...
The religious universe of Mari appears in the eighteenth century to have been faithful
to its own traditions, with a particularly strong root in the northern Syro-Mesopotamian domain,
which confers an exceptional originality in comparison to all its neighbours.

[sheshki]

Year name of Sargon

mu ma-ri₂^{ki} hul-a
Year in which Mari was destroyed.

[sheshki]

ASOR article from 2017 about Mari

ASOR Article