Qatna and Mari: The History of Ancient Syria’s Most Important Cities

For a period of just under 100 years, the city of Mari in northern Mesopotamia-eastern Syria was one of the most important cities in the Near East. Mari was ruled by a dynasty of powerful Amorite kings who were not afraid to use their military power to keep subordinate provinces in line and their enemies at bay, but more often, they relied upon a combination of diplomacy and trade to establish their dominance. Founded by semi-nomadic Amorite tribes, Mari was gradually transformed over the span of centuries from a sleepy stop along the Euphrates River to the premier power in Near East during the early 2nd millennium BCE. It remained a relatively obscure city for quite some time, overshadowed by more powerful dynasties and city-states in Akkad and Ur until its kings took advantage of the collapse of the Ur III Dynasty and the return to the process of competing city-states that so often marked interregnum periods throughout ancient Mesopotamian history. If it were not for some very fortunate events and circumstances, the modern world might never have known about Mari. After Mari was conquered by Babylonian King Hammurabi, its cultural and political influence quickly diminished until it was literally relegated to being a backwater on the Euphrates. As time went on, later rulers ignored the site, and it was eventually all but forgotten.

The textual and archaeological evidence shows that Qatna was able to grow and prosper throughout the Middle Bronze Age. As the other Amorite powers collapsed at the onset of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1550-1200 BCE), it was able to stay politically relevant longer by playing the new powers against one another. Eventually, though, Qatna could not stop the march of history, or the armies of Egypt, Mitanni, and Hatti, and Qatna was ultimately leveled, only to be rediscovered over 3,000 years later in the 20th century.