Ziggurat of Mari

34.5430°N, 40.8873°E.

The ziggurat of Mari — ancient Mariwum — in modern Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria, on the west bank of the Euphrates near the modern Iraqi border. Construction date approximately 2900 to 2400 BCE during the Early Dynastic period when Mari was one of the largest urban centres in the western Mesopotamian world. Original base approximately 40 metres per side; original height undetermined, with the surviving structure preserving only the lower terrace. Mari was a major trade and political centre that contested hegemony with Ebla, Akkad, and Babylon for nearly a thousand years; the city was sacked by Hammurabi of Babylon in 1759 BCE and never recovered. Excavated by André Parrot for the French mission in Syria from 1933 onward across more than thirty seasons of digging. The Mari Royal Archives — approximately 25,000 cuneiform tablets recovered from the palace of Zimri-Lim — are one of the largest single textual finds from the ancient Near East.

A ziggurat in the city whose archive recorded a thousand years of Mesopotamian diplomacy from the western frontier — until the city was erased by the king whose law code would outlast the language it was written in.