Mari and Its Archives

Mari stood at the crossroads between Mesopotamia, Syria and the Mediterranean, living off trade and tolls on the caravans. The palace of Zimri-Lim, with its hundreds of rooms, burned when Hammurabi took the city — and the baked tablets survived. In them are envoys' dispatches, marriage contracts, price reports, governors' complaints, and disputes with nomad tribes whose names and customs are close to those known from the traditions of the patriarchs. No other archive shows the Near East of the second millennium so fully and so matter-of-factly.