THE KING AND I A MARI KING IN CHANGING PERCEPTIONS* JACKM. SASSON UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA This presentation reviews the ways scholars have reconstructed the life of one king of Mari, Zimri-Lim, who lived in the middle-Euphratesregion in the early eighteenth century B.C.E. THE "KING"ABOUT WHOM I SPEAKlived almost four queen came from my own birthplace,Aleppo [Halab], he thousand years ago, and he was not particularly distin- seemed so much like folks with whom I grew up that I guished. He generated no new paradigms for dominion, could not imagine him keeping any secrets from me. imposed no dynastic principles, built no enduring mon- In those days, I felt certain that my upbringing in uments, instigated no new social movements of which Aleppo and Beirut gave me a special entry into the past. we are aware, and, thank God, launched no new reli- Lexical affinities fed this allusion. Had I not preparedfor gions. No poet sang his praise posthumously, and no life as a tupsarrum,Akkadian for scribe, when as a child legend was built aroundhis deeds.' Yet, I would not call in Beirut I wrote on the board with a tabshur, a piece of him insignificant, if only because in his lifetime many chalk? Was I not instructed in 'adab, "culture,"just as thought he could be their passport to happiness. I want ancient scribes apprenticedin their edubba-schools? to tell you something about him; but I also want to use There were other, seemingly more compelling, epiph- him to comment on the drive we share as custodians of anies, such as when reading about legal proceduresfrom the past to bridge gaps and complete stories. Mesopotamia brought to my mind the saga of a distant The king of my title is Zimri-Lim, and in the early aunt sent out naked from the divorce chamber.2Or when, eighteenth century B.C.E.he ruled at Mari, now just a upon learning that Old Babylonian grooms presented tell on the right bank of the Euphrates, about fifty kilo- their brides handsome gifts heaped on platters, I recalled meters north of the present Iraqi-Syrian border. I first the sweni ("trays"),similarly lavish celebrations (Green- met with Zimri-Lim in the early 1960s. I was a graduate gus 1966: 59-61). student at Brandeis then and, frankly, I was delighted to Such conjunctions of words and practices were, of learn that although Zimri-Lim was fluent in Akkadian course, as false as they were benign, with only the same and Amorite, he communicated also in French, the lan- approximatesound or landscape in common; yet through guage of his editors. And when I furtherlearned that his them, I sought reciprocally to quicken the life of two lifeless cultures,one Mesopotamianand remote, the other Judaeo-arabicand surviving now only between the cov- * Thisis a lightlymodified version of thePresidential Address ers of Claudia Roden's highly recommendedrecent book deliveredin Miami,Florida, at the 207thmeeting of theAmeri- (1996) on Sephardi food. But Western scholarship, alas, can OrientalSociety, March 25, 1997. I have omittedlevities distances researchers from their subjects, and the illu- thatplay on theconjunction of the titleof my addressand those sion could not long endure. Still, as the world I was of a well-knownmusical and movie. studying became more remote, Zimri-Lim was there to Unlessotherwise indicated, all abbreviationsfollow the CAD. ease the parting. I am grateful to MaynardMaidman for editing the essay. The French were governing Syria when, in the late 1 This was the case of Samsu-iluna a generation later; see 1920s, they began to excavate Tell Hariri, initiating the Lambert 1991. Zimri-Lim did indeed inspire his poets to create resurrection of a town whose death was rehearsed in a highly elaborate "epic,"just after his early successes against the records of Hammurabiof Babylon. Within a decade, Benjamin tribes. Although it is the earliest we know of a liter- the broad outline of Mari's history had been sketched. ature much favored later on, it is not likely that Mari's court poets originated the genre. This epic is still not fully published; for the most recent statement about it, see Durand 1993: 51-52. 2 For similar practices in antiquity, see van der Toorn 1996: On Zimri-Lim's fate, see also note 21, below. 45-47. 453 454 Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.4 (1998) The city has had roots deep into the fourth millennium but I give you its gist from the pen of Andre Parrot,the and its rulers had actively shaped third-millennium re- man who first excavated Mari. gional history. But its archives shed the brightest light In a Seance publique annuelle des cinq academies, on one century of the Old Babylonian period that ended Parrotsketched the life of a chief of state (Parrot 1966). around 1760. A series of articles published before World To Parrot,the Mari documents supplied us with the name War II provided basic information about Zimri-Lim. In of the ruler Hammurabiboasted of defeating when, in 1936, Francois Thureau-Danginestablished Yahdun-Lim his thirty-fifthyear-name, he recorded the destruction of as the king's father and proved that he was Hammurabi's Mari. The victim was Zimri-Lim, and he had had a tough contemporary(Thureau-Dangin 1936).3 In 1937, Georges life. Surviving his father'sassassination, the young prince Dossin, who headed the Mari epigraphicteam until 1981, found refuge in the Aleppo of King Yarim-Lim. His quoted a passage that rankedZimri-Lim very high among exile there ended twenty years later, when he defeated the power brokers of his day (Dossin 1937: 17-18). the usurperYasmah-Addu. Then, for over thirty years he That same year, Thureau-Dangincited a text (later fully ruled from his palace, a city within a city, where every published as ARM 1 3) proving that during a long inter- sector had its proper function, the whole protected by val between Yahdun-Limand Zimri-Lim, Mari was first massive walls. For Parrot,Zimri-Lim was an enlightened ruled briefly by a shadowy figure named Sumu-Yamam despot, a "powerful and noble chief of state," who tire- and then by Yasmab-Addu,who was placed on the throne lessly prodded administratorsto fulfill their duty (p. 11). by his father, a grizzled warrior named Samsi-Addu His power was absolute, with political as well as sacer- (Thureau-Dangin1937). When in 1939 Thureau-Dangin dotal dimensions; but he remained accessible to peti- publishedclay labels bearingHammurabi's date-formulas, tioners, visitors, and tribal leaders. Among them, Parrot Zimri-Lim's position as Mari's last ruler was confirmed imagined, were Benjaminite chieftains, kin to Terah and (Thureau-Dangin1939). Abraham,in transit toward Haran (p. 8). To escape, the So as the storms were gathering over Europe, much king would hie to a corner of the palace. (To his credit, had come to be known about Zimri-Lim. Archaeological Parrot avoids the term "harem.") There, among other reports were proving how exceptional was his palace. wives and concubines, he would find Siptu, a queen ca- Scholars knew about his lineage and they recognized pable of writing one of the most ardent love letters from that his rise to the throne was turbulent,that he enjoyed antiquity. prestige in his own days, and that his end was violent. But virtue and hardwork (as we all know) rarelyprotect Still lacking was information about his apprenticeship, from covetous neighbors. For Parrot, Hammurabi of the length of his rule, and details of his personal life. It Babylon was a Machiavellianally, striving for hegemony. was not until 1949 that Dossin established the Aleppo Mari stood in the way and was conquered.The victorious origin of Queen Siptu. Soon afterward,he quoted a letter Babylonianhumiliated Zimri-Lim by forcing examination in which Zimri-Lim reminded his Aleppo father-in-law of his correspondence.Stung, Zimri-Lim tried to break of the aid he gave in regaining the Mari throne (Dossin Babylon's yoke, but failed. Hammurabiturned implaca- 1952; full edition 1973: see Appendix). ble. Mass executions took place outside the city walls. As With these added details, a biography of Zimri-Lim columns of slaves made their way to Babylon, Hammu- was emerging that was surprisingly satisfying and com- rabi razed the palace and burnedit. Parrotdid not specu- plete, although it was commonly delivered as a page late on Zimri-Lim's fate, but opined that in the looted from period history. This reconstructionwas shaped by Mari palacejust enough was left behind to attest to Zimri- a wide cast of scholars, including such A.O.S. stalwartsas Lim's power and nobility (p. 11). William Albright, Albrecht Goetze, and HildegardLewy; Given its public setting, Parrot'spresentation was bound to be hyperbolic. Yet, his story was but a less obsessively academic version of what then obtained in learnedjour- nals. What he offered, of course, is not even 3 Parrot,who excavatedMari into the mid 1970s,tells how history, by Voltaire's minimalist definition of history as "a pan- thegreat Assyriologist Thureau-Dangin jumped with excitement orama of crimes and misery."4And neither is it sober on findinga letterHammurabi of Babylonsent to Zimri-Lim biography, because it lacks the self-conscious compro- (Parrot1966: 9). It shouldbe recalledthat in 1936 Hammurabi mises with historical methodologies that normally occur was thepatron saint of Assyriology,not just becauseof his law "code,"then deemed the earliestin history,but also becauseof his successfulempire building which, in the opinionof many 4 scholarswho then commented on Genesis14, broughthim into "En effet, l'histoiren'est que le tableaudes crimeset des conflictwith the Hebrewpatriarch Abraham.