The Sumerian World (Routledge Worlds)

• devastating spring floods led to the building of a dyke of mud to protect the city,
  with a stone core at its centre to reinforce it.

This wall surrounded a second almost circular enclosure, which in fact was slightly
polygonal, with a diameter of 1. 3 km. An area of about 300 m separated the two walls
and was filled with gardens and craftsmen’s quarters. The interior wall which was only
partly excavated, together with one of its gates, was built on a foundation of gypsum
blocks; it had a thickness of more than 6 m, a height estimated at between 8 and 10
metres, and was strengthened by towers which projected 2 m beyond the line of the wall.
As yet we know little of the internal organisation of the city; only two sectors have
been defined, but they do not include either the administrative centre or that of the
temple(s).
There is a final crucial feature. Mari is built on the Holocene terrace and is a long
way from the only source of drinkable water, nor could it control the boats using the
river from this distance. A canal was dug through the terrace down to the level of the
river to link the city to the Euphrates. We do not know where the canal entered the city
or at which point it reached the river as it may have been linked to one of the old
meanders which are difficult to identify today. It seems likely from the various traces
visible that it would have been between 7 and 10 km long.
One can sum up the characteristics of the earliest city of Mari by saying that it was
built ex nihiloon the Holocene terrace in order to protect it from the annual flooding
of the river to which it was linked by a canal; it was protected by two enclosure walls,
one to defend it from exceptionally high floods and the second to defend it from people.
Both C 14 dating and thermoluminescense suggest a date for the foundation of the
city c. 2900 BC.

The hinterland

A huge project to improve the surrounding area was undertaken at the same time as
the foundation of the city; the aim was not just to create a new town, but to develop
a command centre to control the heavy river traffic which united north and northwest
Syria with South Mesopotamia. In order to do this, it had to provide two essentials:

1. Subsistence for a large population when Mari lay in a desert region with an average
   of 140 mm of rain a year. This is too little for rain-fed agriculture, irrigation is
   essential to cultivate the Holocene terrace and produce the necessary cereal crops;
   however, food production can be practised at river level by means of simple shadoufs
   or lifting devices.Traces of a large irrigation canal found on the Holocene terrace
   show the choice made by the founders of the city. This canal was fed either by
   diversion of water from upstream, where the wadi es Souab met the river, or by a
   dam which held back the spring floods in the same wadi; some traces of the canal
   were recovered, but they are almost impossible to date.


2. A system of controls so that the city could fulfil its regulatory role over shipping and,
   eventually, provision itself with goods brought in from afar.

The solution to this problem was not easy; at the beginning of the third millennium
water transport by river or canal was by far the easiest, quickest and safest method when

–– J.-C. Margueron, trans H. Crawford ––