certainly a response to new methods of siege. They laid down an embankment of earth
and stones along the inside of the wall, using a total of 308 , 000 cubic metres of
material, a huge task. A rough calculation suggests that three million donkey journeys
carrying 100 kg each, would have been necessary between the quarry and the rampart
which are about 10 – 15 km apart. If 1 , 000 donkeys worked every day, it would have
needed 3 , 000 working days (more than eight years) to complete this glacis.
Iahdun-Lim may have built it, but it is impossible to be certain. The gravel is the
secret weapon, it is easy to dig a tunnel through a masonry wall and so overcome the
obstacle, but it is not possible to use the same technique in gravel which will just
collapse as fast as it is dug, making the work of sappers impossible. This new defence
allows us to deduce what siege warfare could achieve and was in response to the
appearance of siege engines.
The palace
The destruction of the palace by Hammurabi has given us, by virtue of the archae-
ological and the epigraphic evidence, a snapshot of a monument which is typical of a
palace-dominated civilization at the end of its life, of all the administrative and eco-
nomic activities which took place within it, of the way of life of its inhabitants, the
rituals of kingship, and of the palace’s position at the heart of the economic system: it
is unique evidence from a building which was the keystone of the palatial system
(Figure 27. 8 ).
With an area of 2. 5 ha, the palace is part of a group of large monuments, without
however being exceptional; because of erosion its southwestern corner has disappeared.
The original plan was extended twice, once on its eastern edge to which the stables
provided an entrance from the north, the other on the south where many storerooms
were set up, also linked to the stables.
Two major courtyards formed the main foci of the building. In the east was the
court with the Painted Chapel (Room 131 or sector B) and, in the west, the Court of
the Palms (room 106 or sector M), linked to court 131 in its northwest corner. The
palace is thus formed of two distinct areas. The first, the eastern half, stretches from the
main entrance, which was under the supervision and control of an Intendant whose
quarters lay in the northeast corner (sector C) of the palace. His rooms opened onto
the court of the Painted Chapel ( 131 ), this was the biggest of all the palace courts and
had a central cistern to provide water for the inhabitants; it was also the pivot for the
major routes through the palace, to the chapels and to the stores to the south. The
Painted Chapel, containing the oldest paintings, was dedicated to Ishtar and opened
onto the court.
The northeast angle of the court gave access to the rest of the palace.
The second part of the palace was more secluded and was protected by the first. It
was made up of three big sectors: in the centre the official area (M) (consisting of the
Court of the Palms), the papuhumor entrance hall and the Throne Room (rooms 106 ,
64 and 65 ). This tripartite arrangement was designed in accordance with the ideology
of the time to enhance the status of the king. The suite was superbly decorated; the
court was covered with white plaster ornamented with red and blue bands while the
west wall of the court, which gave access to the Throne Room was painted with a mural
depicting the Investiture of the King and sacrificial processions. Facing the door of the–– The Kingdom of Mari ––