A Phantom City

Extract

In 1929 the French archaeologists unearthed at Ras Shamra on the N. Phoenician coast the remains of a once famous city, Ugarit, and the story of the wonders there brought to light is familiar to many. Now there has come to light another and in some respects even more important city. Nearly opposite where the R. Khabour flows into the Euphrates (the “Chobar” of Ezechiel i.i, etc.) is a mound, Tell Hariri, where M. Parrot has been working since 1933. His report on his third campaign, December 1935 till March 1936, is full of interest. For here stood a mighty city on the Middle Euphrates, on a line drawn between the island of Cyprus and Ecbatana, and somewhat below Carchemish, which has now been identified as Mari, one of the eleven “cities of royalty” according to later scribes, and ranking with such well-known cities as Kish, Erech, Ur, Agade, etc. Previous to these excavations little was known of Mari, though the name of one of its rulers had appeared in an inscription, and it was also known that the famous dynasty of Isin had been founded by a Semite from Mari, c. 2180 B.C. Up to date two main features have appeared: an immense palace and a series of superimposed temples of Ishtar. The last of these temples was destroyed by Hammurabi in a campaign conducted from his thirty-third to thirty-fifth year. Under it was an earlier, pre-Sargonic temple with an extraordinary wealth of ex-votos, etc., the whole surrounded by a wall.