clipped from: atlastours.net Mari was an ancient kingdom on the western bank of the Euphrates which flourished in the 3rd millennium BC as an important hub between the main irrigation-based states of the Land of the Two Rivers (Tigris and Euphrates) and the drier plains of Northern Syria and the Upper Euphrates/Khabur system, occupied by Akkadians, Sumerians, Amarite, and destroyed in about 1760 BC by King Hammorabi. It was the capital of the 10th dynasty after the flood.
This palace is the most impressive and best preserved of the Early Bronze Age palaces unearthed in the region. It is one of the most extensive excavated in the Middle East and was constructed across several centuries, though it misleadingly bears the name of the last ruler, Zimri-Lim. The fact that the building was deliberately destroyed, its mud walls half knocked down to fill in the rooms, accounts for its remarkable state of preservation.
