Remembering Syria - Mari - III — Egisto Sani

The Royal Palace: Stairway dating from four thousand years ago. The Royal Palace dating from the beginning of the second millennium BCE was discovered in 1935. In order to prevent the rains destroy the palace walls made by mud bricks, a roof covers the wide central area of the palace. This exceptionally well-preserved monument had walls as high as 4 or 5 m and was full of material abandoned by the conquering Hammurabi of Babylon when he destroyed the city in I760 BCE. The palace was built at beginning of a new phase in the history of the city, when a new dynasty named from the ruler Shakkanakku, seized the power in Mari. Enormous construction projects were undertaken and a new Royal Palace was built on top of the ruins of the earlier one. The plan of the official apartments - a courtyard called the Court of the Palm closely associated with two successive long rooms, the second one being the Throne Hall - is a characteristic formula for royal palaces from the Third Dynasty of Ur (twenty—first century BCE) to the end of the Old Babylonian period (mid-second millennium). 2900 – 1750 BC Mari, Syria