Mari was one of the major centers of Mesopotamian culture from the mid-third millennium to the eighteenth century BCE. In this class we talked particularly about the Old Babylonian period at Mari and the archives of tablets discovered in the great royal palace. Here we will look at the Zimri-Lim palace from the 20th-18th centuries BCE, the high terrace to its east, which was part of a religious area of the city, and the Temple of Dagan (also called the Temple of the Lions). We will then look at the well preserved Sacred Precinct of the earlier third millennium palace discovered under Zimri-Lim’s.

Mari in the Second Millennium BCE

In class we discussed the written sources discovered here. We will now look at the remains of the palace where the tablets were found. The early 2nd millennium palace at Mari was an extraordinary monument. Its ground floor covered an area of ca. six acres, and it had approximately 300 rooms and courtyards. Several stairways show that parts of the building also had an upper floor.

The palace was excavated by Andre Parrot in the 1930s. It was extraordinarily well preserved, with walls standing over 16 feet high in some places. Nearly 20,000 tablets were eventually discovered in the palace, mostly from the second millennium, and mostly from four archive rooms in the palace. In addition to the tablets, the excavators found large numbers of sculptures and wall paintings, cult objects, as well as hundreds of items for everyday use.

Many of the palace walls still stand, though they have decayed considerably since the 1930s. Some sections of the palace no longer exist because later excavations into the earlier palace below have required the removal of the walls. The photos here focus on the parts of the second millennium palace that were connected directly with the king.

The palace in its final phase, the reign of King Zimri-Lim (ca. 1775-1761 BCE), was centered around two large courtyards. The largest, Courtyard 131, on the east side of the palace, measured 48 by 32.5 meters. Directly to its west was Courtyard 106, now identified as the Court of the Palms mentioned in some of the Mari tablets. On the walls flanking its south doorway, the excavators found a series of paintings. To the west of the doorway they discovered a painting that apparently depicts the coronation of the king. Two central panels show the coronation. They are flanked on each side with depictions of winged creatures, predecessors to the biblical cherubim.

Through the south door of the courtyard one entered the antechamber to the throne room (Room 64), an impressive room in itself. Opposite the door was a podium, upon which apparently a statue of a goddess stood. The statue was actually part of a fountain, water flowing out of the tilted vase she holds in her hands. Because there were no surviving indications of a water hookup for the fountain in Room 64, some scholars believe the statue did not actually belong in the room.

To the right and left of the podium were two doors into the largest covered room of the palace, the throne room (Room 65). On the west wall was the podium for the king’s throne. At the east end of the room was an additional small room (Room 66), whose function is still uncertain. Steps led up to the small room. At the foot of the steps, a fine statue of Ishtup-Ilum, a king of the 21st century BCE, was found lying on its back.
The rest of the palace contained rooms for the royal family, the administrative staff, and, along the southeast side, a royal sanctuary (see below).

To the east of the palace was a high terrace, originally referred to as a ziqqurat, that was built near the end of the third millennium, and used until the final destruction of the city. It was built partially over a temple complex from the mid-third millennium attributed to the god Dagan. The exact function of this terrace (and a predecessor to its north, called the “massif rouge” for the red soil used in its construction) is unknown, but probably had to do with the worship of Dagan.

Up against the terrace on the south are the remains of a large temple of Dagan, also called “The Temple of the Lions” for the two bronze lions that were found flanking the entrance to the temple. The entrance to the temple faced a large open courtyard. The temple was composed of a large room with a podium at the far end. To each side of the podium was a door leading into two small rooms in the back. This temple had also been built at the end of the third millennium.

Mari in the Third Millennium BCE

Although this period does not directly relate to our discussion of Mari and the Bible, the third millennium palace at Mari is such an extraordinary discovery that we looked at it anyway. This palace is extraordinarily well preserved, like its successor. Excavations, still continuing, have exposed parts of the palace under the southeastern corner of the 2nd millennium palace, under the floors of Courtyards 131 and 106, under the floor of the Throne Room and under the northern entry gate.

The entrance into the 3rd millennium palace was in the same location as that of the 2nd millennium. Two doorways led into two separate corridors that opened onto a small courtyard inside the palace.

The section of the palace on the southeast side was the sacred area (this was also the case in the 2nd millennium palace). The sacred area of this period was a rectangular enclosure separated from the rest of the palace by thin corridors on all four sides. In the center was a large square room in which various offerings were made. On the north, east and west sides were various smaller rooms.

The main sanctuary was to the south, a long thin room with a small room on the east, where a podium was located that presumably held the statue of the deity. This sanctuary was used and rebuilt in the succeeding centuries until the destruction of the city, so that now one can see three superimposed sets of walls and three podiums that reach a height of 6.5 meters. The upper one, with its vertical recesses, was the podium of the sanctuary in the final palace.