The Mari Letters
Over twenty thousand letters from a single royal archive argue that Old Babylonian-era diplomacy, espionage, and even prophecy were conducted through exhaustive, almost bureaucratic written correspondence rather than oral tradition alone.
- largest surviving Old Babylonian royal archive
- correspondence with Hammurabi shortly before Mari's destruction
- early evidence for Mesopotamian prophecy
- diplomacy and espionage documented in bureaucratic detail
Excavated from the palace of Zimri-Lim at Mari on the middle Euphrates, this archive of more than twenty thousand cuneiform tablets, mostly letters, offers the richest surviving window onto Old Babylonian-era international relations, court administration, and daily life anywhere in the ancient Near East. Correspondence ranges from military intelligence and treaty negotiation between rival kingdoms, including exchanges with Hammurabi of Babylon shortly before Hammurabi's forces destroyed Mari itself, to reports of prophetic dreams and oracles delivered to the king by named individuals, making the archive a primary source for early Mesopotamian prophecy as well as diplomacy.
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