the king of Mari was not exceptionally strong, yet it was exceptionally prosperous. Discuss.(8 marks)
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
Mari was a city-state located near the west bank of the Euphrates River in Northern Mesopotamia (now eastern Syria) during the Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age. One of the earliest known planned cities, Mari is believed to have been founded as a trade hub, and copper and bronze-smelting centre, between Babylonia in Southern Mesopotamia and the resource-rich Taurus Mountains of modern Turkey. For 1,200 years, Mari served as a major centre of Northern Mesopotamia until it was destroyed by Hammurabi of Babylon between 1760 BCE and 1757 BCE and gradually eroded away from memory and quite literally - today only one-third of the city survives with the rest washed away by the Euphrates.
Geography & condition of the site
The ruins of Mari are located at modern-day Tell Hariri in eastern Syria. In the Bronze Age, the Euphrates was around 4-6 km from the city but has since moved farther east. The city is believed to have been constructed along with a 10 km long man-made "linking canal" that once cut through the city and provided water essential for the city's existence as the city itself was too far from the Euphrates for daily water retrieval on foot and the ground water is too salty for wells. As a result of the destruction of Mari by Hammurabi, Mari's linkage canal expanded outside of its intended boundaries and eventually eroded away two-thirds of the city, including most of the housing from the third and last phase of the city.
Canals: the life-blood of Mari
In addition to providing water for the city, the linkage canal also gave easy access for trading ships travelling on the river. Along with the linkage canal, two other substantial canals were constructed by the city's builders. One was an irrigation canal, 16 km long and 100 m wide, and the other was a 126 km long navigational canal which ran past Mari on the opposite side of the Euphrates and allowed boats to bypass the winding Euphrates in favour of a straight passage - Mari controlled the entry points and profited from tolls.
Technological & architectural innovations
Mari is an early example of complex urban planning and is believed to have been entirely planned out prior to its actual construction by another unknown but complex society. This is evident in Mari's overall design as the city was built as two concentric rings, the outer ring intended to protect the city from the occasional violent floods of the Euphrates, and the inner ring designed to defend against attackers.
A portion of wall at Mari
A portion of wall at Mari
by Zukka (CC BY-SA)
The earliest examples of certain Syro-Mesopotamian technologies were excavated by archaeologists at Tell Hariri, including the wheel and plumbing. Mari was built so that the whole city sloped gradually downwards, and the streets had complex drainage systems. This meant rainwater from the occasional torrential rains could be safely drained out of the city without risking damage to the buildings which were all made from mudbrick.
Archaeology & modern perils
Mari was discovered in 1933 CE by a local Bedouin who found a statue and informed the French government - this was a period when Syria was controlled by France. Since then, Mari has been a French-excavated site, with most of the literature on the site published in French. It was excavated by André Parrot from 1933–1939 CE, 1951–1954 CE, and 1960–1974 CE. In 1979 CE, a new expedition began under Jean-Claude Margueron, who ran the excavation until 2004 CE.
After he retired and gave his responsibilities over to Pascal Butterlin, Margueron went on to write a book on Mari, which compressed 70 years of scholarship on the site into a 159-page English-language summary, which forms the basis of this definition. Butterlin ran the excavations up to 2012 CE when the Syrian Civil War placed further excavation on hold indefinitely. Since 2012 CE, Mari has faced extensive looting, the impact of which is not yet known.
Mari tablets
Between 1933 CE and 1938 CE, excavators uncovered over 15,000 tablets at Mari. Many of these were concentrated in the "Great Royal Palace," but many also came from private homes. While some tablets are from an earlier period, most of the tablets are from the last 50 years of Mari's existence, and these help to recreate the Syro-Mesopotamian world of the time in great detail.