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Stone Worlds: Narrative and Reflexivity in Landscape Archaeology

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<< Our Photo Pages >> Mari. - Ancient Village or Settlement in Syria

Submitted by AlexHunger on Tuesday, 29 November 2011  Page Views: 8365

Multi-periodSite Name: Mari.
Country: Syria
NOTE: This site is 10.956 km away from the location you searched for.

Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Abu Kemal  Nearest Village: Tell Hariri
Latitude: 34.549978N  Longitude: 40.889160E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
2 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
4 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
5

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Mari.
Mari. submitted by AlexHunger : Palace of Zimri-Lin temple in Bronze age Sumerian City in Syria (Vote or comment on this photo)
Mari lies in a mound measuring 1000 by 600 meters 12 Km South West of Tell Hariri. Destoyed 1800 BCE by Hammurabi. Mari was rediscovered in 1933 in southern Syria, near the Iraqi border when Bedouins found a headless statue.

French archaeologists from the Louvre in Paris immediately started excavations, finding the temple of Ishtar very quickly. 25,000 Akkadian clay tablets were also found, although only half the site has been excavated so far. Mari had been inhabited since the 5th millennium BCE. The city flourished since it was strategically located between Sumerian cities of lower Mesopotamia and the cities of the northern Euphrates in what is now Turkey and Syria. Mari was destroyed around 2350 BCE.

The city was revived under an Amorite dynasty and regained some importance around 1900 BCE. The palace of Zimri-Lim, the king of Mari, contained over 300 rooms. Mari was again destroyed around 1759 BCE by Hammurabi after which the city gradually disapeared altogether.

The political and military events of the decades leading up to the destruction of Mari are well described in a collection of clay tabets found on location, which have been translated in a book by Wolgang Heimpel; "Letters To The King of Mari." King Zimri-Lim was an ally of Hamurabi and helped in many regional conflicts until the later double crossed him in what must have been a surprise attack.

The inhabitants of Mari worshiped the Sumerians gods and goddesses with Dagan, the god of storms, Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, and Shamash, the Sun god having larger temples.

Note: Ancient Mesopotamian city in need of rescue
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Mari.
Mari. submitted by DrewParsons : Ebil-II the Superintendent of Mari from the Temple of Ishtar at Mari, Syria. Dated to the Archaic Dynasties Period circa 2400 BC. Now in the Louvre. September 2009 (Vote or comment on this photo)

Mari.
Mari. submitted by AlexHunger : Temple of Ishtar courtyard in Bronze age Sumerian City in Syria. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Mari.
Mari. submitted by AlexHunger : Broken Basalt statue of VIP from Bronze age Sumerian City in Syria, now in Damascus national Museum. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Mari.
Mari. submitted by AlexHunger : Ceramic well at Bronze age Sumerian City in Syria. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Mari.
Mari. submitted by AlexHunger : Water suply at Bronze age Sumerian City in Syria (Vote or comment on this photo)

Mari.
Mari. submitted by AlexHunger : Temple of Ishtar at lower level in Bronze age Sumerian City in Syria

Mari.
Mari. submitted by AlexHunger : Passages amid mud brick wall in Bronze age Sumerian City in Syria

Mari.
Mari. submitted by AlexHunger : Courtyard in Bronze age Sumerian City in Syria

Mari.
Mari. submitted by AlexHunger : Arches in foundation in Bronze age Sumerian City in Syria

Mari.
Mari. submitted by AlexHunger : Bronze age Sumerian City in Syria. Mud brick mound, or Tell.

Mari.
Mari. submitted by AlexHunger : Bronze age Sumerian City in Syria. The entire town is now a mound, or Tell, as it is made mostly of mud bricks. The roofed area covers the temple area and protects it from the elements.

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Ancient Mesopotamian city in need of rescue by davidmorgan on Monday, 28 November 2011
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Mari, the city of 25,000 tablets and one of the great Bronze Age palaces of Mesopotamia, erodes into dust while it awaits a badly needed rescue.

In its heyday, the ancient city of Mari was the throne of one of ancient Mesopotamia's great kings, located at the western edge of the Sumerian civilization. It played a key role in the trade of goods and information between Sumer and the kingdoms to its west. It was here that the famous Mari Tablet Archive was discovered, a collection of 25,000 fired-clay tablets inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform, affording archaeologists and the rest of the world with a rich trove of information about lives and business in 2nd century, B.C. Mesopotamia. To look upon its remains today, however, one would see a slow tragedy in the making. Its exposed walls are gradually eroding away, melting back into the natural landscape. Some of its excavated remains are now unrecognizable. The need for better general site management and conservation would be an understatement. What it really needs is urgent rescue.

This is the assessment made by the Global Heritage Fund, a California-based non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation and protection of the world's endangered cultural and archaeological sites and treasures in developing countries. According to the Fund's Global Heritage Network, Mari (or Tell Hariri, the modern name), is classified in the urgent "rescue" category, out of a list of 12 other endangered sites in present-day Syria. This list contains such well-known archaeological and cultural heritage sites as Palmyra, Ebla, and Carchemish. It is based on a recent report by Emma Cunliffe, a 2010 Global Heritage Fellow. All of the sites in the report are considered "at risk". But Mari is assessed at the very highest level.

Says Cunliffe about the remains: "In order to preserve them, finds are removed to museums offsite. The uncovered mudbrick walls are eroding, and large parts of the excavated site are now unrecognizable. Part of the palace [of king Zimri-Lim] was roofed to protect it, but due to the size of the city, it was considered unfeasible to cover it all, and the reconstructions are also eroding."

Located on the western bank of the Euphrates, the city of Mari rose to prominence in about 2900 BC. It was important as a stopping or relay point for trade between the Sumerian cities in lower Mesopotamia and the cities in what is today northern Syria. During the following centuries until the 25th century, it was home to six kings, but lost its prominence in the middle of the 24th century when it fell to a violent destruction, reducing it thereafter to a small village. It enjoyed a revival, however, under the Amorites, a Semitic people, around 1900 B.C. It was during the Amorite rule that king Zimri-Lim built his monumental palace of over 300 rooms, the remains of which were partially excavated during the 1930's. It was also during this time when the state archives were established. The city was finally destroyed in about 1759 B.C. by king Hammurabi of Babylon, after which it never regained its former prominence.

Ancient Mari was the site of one of the big Mesopotamia digs of the early 20th century. Discovered initially in 1933 when members of a Bedouin tribe uncovered a headless statue, French authorities in Syria investigated the site and excavations began in earnest on December 14, 1933 by archaeologists from the Louvre in Paris. The remains of the temple of Ishtar emerged within the first month, followed by many other finds, including over 25,000 clay tablets in Akkadian language written in cuneiform, and much of what remained of king Zimri-Lim's palace, including wall paintings. Numerous excavation seasons have been conducted since that time, most notably under the great French archaeologist André Parrot. Less than half of the estimated area of Mari has been uncovered to date, and it is still not certain how many cultural layers exist at the site. Said Parrot, "each time a vertical probe was commenced in order to trace the site'

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