A steady flow of publications has revealed these tablets and since the early 1980’s there has been a flood of copies, translations, and commentaries. Today, relatively few scholars beyond the Mari team have participated in the major reassessments of the archives. The richest harvests of information about Mari are in French, with few major assessments in other languages.

The Letters

While a large administrative corpus uncovers the nuts and bolts of Mari society, a number of letters access the pulse of a multi-ethnic community that was both urban as well as tribal. Its rulers were metaphorically linked by kinship terminology (“father,” “brother,” “son” reflect political status); its courtiers displayed raw senses of (dis)honor (invasive fear of scandal and humiliation); its leadership was anchored in piety (constant quizzing of the gods for their intentions), but was also prone to war to access or consolidate power.

The letters vary from a dozen lines to over a hundred, covering a multitude of subjects, from bureaucratic reports to soul-searching reflections. Their prose style matches what we find in Biblical narratives, attesting to an innate gift of gab drawn from popular culture, featuring sharp characterization, lively phrasing, and assured trajectory. Yet the miracle is that letters were drafted at short notice, hardly improved by later editors, and were meant for storage after inspection.

Diplomacy [see texts in From the Mari Archives (FMA) 82-92]

The storehouse of subjects in the letters is vast. To share its flavor, I offer snippets from just one topic: The world of diplomacy. Zimri-Lim kept an enormous stable of messengers, couriers, diplomats. When he travelled abroad (in one case toward Ugarit on the Mediterranean coast), he took 100 messengers and 64 runners, undoubtedly using every one of them to keep track of affairs back home and among slippery allies or fractious vassals. (In comparison, the king of 14th century England had about 12).

In Zimri-Lim’s days, one governor estimated that, “No king is truly powerful just on his own: 10 to 15 kings follow Hammurabi of Babylon, as many follow Rim- Sin of Larsa, as many follows Ibal-pi-El of Eshnunna, and as many follows Amut-pi-El of Qatna; but 20 kings follow Yarim-Lim of Yamḫad.” [FMA 82] (The writer took it for granted that Zimri-Lim belonged in that group.) As measure of how volatile conditions were, within a decade half of these states would absorb the vassals of the others.

The game was brutal; allies schemed against each other and vassals double-crossed their protectors. [FMA 83] One vassal snitched on another, “Why does my lord not write to Kaḫat about Akin-amar? Is this man, Akin-amar, just my enemy but not also my lord’s enemy? Why does he remain in good terms with my lord? Once, this man sat by my lord and drank a cup (of friendship). Having elevated him, my lord reckoned him among worthy men, clothing him in garment and supplying him with a headdress. Yet, turning around, (Akin-Amar) dropped excrement into the cup he used, becoming hostile to my lord.” [FMA 78] We also have this grisly report about the fate of one vassal who chose wrongly, “The Turukku (ruler) captured the town he was besieging. He beheaded its king and had it taken to Išme-Dagan, saying, ‘Here is the head of someone who relied on you.’” [FMA 78, n. 142]

Treaties [FMA 92-103]

Compacts between and among rulers followed painstaking diplomatic exchanges. A tablet recovered outside of Mari puts it this way, “God knows that since we have come to know each other I have trusted in you as one would trust in Ishtar and my head has rested on your very own lap. For these reasons, for us to be in harmony, my opinion and yours should be the same. You must certainly know that before there could be peace and good-will, a sacred oath must be taken, that until there is commitment (“touching of the throat”), there can be no mutual trust, and that any sacred oath must be renewed yearly.” [FMA 92 n.173]

Treaties from the Mari era follow two modes. When it concerned tribal units, leaders (or their representatives) met, immolated a donkey-foal, sat for a meal, and shared a drink before parting company. No written formulation accompanied the ritual. Concerning major powers, rulers needed not meet; rather, their representatives negotiated terms of a treaty by shuttling between the pertinent courts, producing a “small tablet,” a protocol for terms, that was linked to a ritual by the draftee (“touching the throat,” metaphoric for “committing oneself”).

If approved, the terms were set on a “large tablet,” a treaty, that was witnessed by city and personal gods conveyed for the occasion. Their format included: (a) a list of gods invoked for the oath, (b) terms for the treaty, including stipulations and pledges, (c) fearsome curses to frighten potential offenders. A subscript may have included a date. With treaties in hand, at each court there is a repeat of the commitment ritual, followed by washing of hands, pronouncement of a sacred oath, meal-taking with drinks, and exchanges of gifts.

Banquets and Exchanges of Goods [FMA 306-17]

All this shuttling back and forth was accompanied by meals. Sharing a king’s table was a major sign of favor among allies. The host would offer his guests fine garments and jewelry, their value equivalent to their status. Seating was highly formalized, decided by rank and with the most honored closest to the king. Some guests were given seats while others crouched. Feeding was also by rank, with the number of courses each received set by convention. Musicians (including bands of songstresses and blinded instrumentalists), declaimers of royal deeds, and acrobats entertained.

Exchanges of gifts went both ways: to and from rulers, representatives, and administrators. The thought behind a gift mattered less than a prompt and commensurate response. Worth was judged by the gift’s precious contents rather its artistic merits. Heaven forbid should the barter prove to be unequal. Too little would mean scorn; too much might open a bidding war that could bankrupt. One king writes the sharpest rebuke in our archives, excoriating another for responding with a measly amount of tin when he had conveyed two horses, then still rarities.

The offense was personal, but with ambassadors floating in and out of capitals, its sting was carried far and wide. “What will anyone hearing this think? Would he not mock us?” [FMA 313] A vassal writes, “I am famished these days and do not live in a home… In the future, whenever I meet my lord, there will be no gifts with which to approach my lord. If it suits my lord, he should not give my servant any gift. Just now, I have had to borrow 2 shekels to give to my lord’s messengers, but they did not accept it, saying, ‘too little!’).” [FMA 25 n. 11]

Dynastic Marriages [FMA 103-18]

Marriage arrangements were intrinsic to diplomacy, with ambassadors, messengers and couriers carrying out the negotiations. The norm was that the daughter of a ruler with high prestige marries the ruler (or the crown prince) of a state with lesser prestige, the birth of a son solidifying her status in the king’s harem. The exchange of presents included the bridewealth (terḫatum, from groom to bride’s family), the dowry (nidittum, from father to daughter, the bride), plus assorted items (biblum) exchanged between the families and among involved parties.

We are lucky to have a series of letters pertaining to interdynastic marriages involving succeeding Mari kings. The first brought a Qatna princess, so unappreciated by her husband (Yasmaḫ-Addu) that out of boredom she became ill when, accompanied by her maidservants, she exercised under a merciless sun in an open courtyard of the Mari palace. [FMA 103-107]

The other marriage was happier, involving an Aleppo princess and Zimri-Lim. [FMA 107-110] How this queen, Shiptu, achieved star ranking by earning the confidence of her husband is traceable in a large number of letters exchanged between the two of them. One is especially significant as it has her developing a method to quiz the gods that has little parallel elsewhere. [FMA 283]

Smaller dossiers reveal the marriages of Mari princess to vassals and ranking administrators. We have an accounting of the bridewealth given to one that lists jewelry, scullery, clothing, furniture, and attendants that included a woman scribe. Particularly touching is the correspondence of two sisters married to the same vassal, resulting in the mental breakdown of one of them. [FMA 111-115]

Mari vanished centuries ago, but its archives provide evidence for constant themes of human politics and behavior.

Jack M. Sasson was Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt Divinity School and Kenan Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.