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Only 120 km. from Deir-Ezzor, a large synthetic roof on
the left signals one of the most ancient cities of the world, Mari,
unearthed accidentally in 1933 and excavated by Andre Parrot (died 1980)
on the flanks of Tell Hariri, near the right bank of the river
Euphrates. There surely existed there, from 2700 B.C., and probably even
before that a city, peopled with Semites, that was at equal distances
between the cradles of Mesopotamian culture, the Mediterranean coast and
the Anatolian plateau: all three imposing their influence. Those coming
from Somerland, in lower Mesopotamia, were preponderant, but adapted to
a Semitic civilization.
Between about 2600 and 2340 B.C., the dynasty ruling Mari was signaled
in Sumerian annals as the tenth, having ruled after the Deluge. Andre
Parrot found the palace of the kings of this archaic dynasty; a palace
surrounded with a wall of raw bricks adjoining a sacred quarter, with
many temples dominated by a Red Massif, the basis of a staged tower, or
Ziggurat, or rather the important foundations of the main temple of the
city. The most famous sample of Mesopotamian Ziggurats is the Tower of
Babel, a construction not as old as this one.
Very interesting statues and mosaics of this epoch came to enrich the
museums of Damascus, Aleppo and the Louvre. Dating back to the 25th and
24th century B.C., they are proof of the extraordinary vitality of the
Mari culture, which even under the influence of Mesopotamia was still
able to create many masterpieces comparable to Sumerian productions.
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