The mystery of an ancient Mesopotamian city has finally been lifted after 25 years of meticulous work by a French archeologist who has revealed it was one of the first "modern cities," purpose-built in the desert for the manufacture of copper arms and tools.
In a new book entitled Mari, the Metropolis of the Euphrates, Jean-Claude Margueron said the third millennium BC city, in modern-day Syria, was "one of the first modern cities of humanity. Created from scratch in one phase of construction with the specific goal of becoming this [metallurgical] center."
This was an astounding concept for the period when cities developed from villages or trading posts and showed that the Mesopotamians were way ahead of their time in terms of urban design and development.
PHOTO: AFP
"How could a city develop in the third millennium BC in the middle of the desert, in a region devoid of copper and in a valley devastated by the floods of the Euphrates making any agriculture very risky?"
In an interview, Margueron, 70, repeated the question which haunted him during the decades of excavations of Mari, discovered in 1933 by his predecessor Andre Parrot.
In 1935, the temple of Ishtar, the statue of King Lamgi Mari, then the Grand Palace of the second millennium, and other temples and fabulous sculptures were discovered, followed by the living areas and a part of the third-millennium palace.
When Margueron took over as director of excavations in 1979, most of the spectacular pieces had already been discovered. But the question remained: Why had they built Mari?
To rediscover the city, Margueron spent thousands of hours examining the basements, the terraces, the living quarters, traces of streets and the former river bed of the Euphrates and other waterways.
"So they were discoveries, not always spectacular, rarely immediately important, but very significant for the overall understanding of the site and its integration in the geographical, historical and economic context," Margueron said.
The major revelation of Mari -- spread over a dozen years but unpublished until now -- was the existence of a major center of metallurgy, dating from 2900 BC.
"In fact the metallurgy was everywhere in the city. It was the existence of this lucrative activity -- Mari produced arms and tools -- which justified everything which we had found previously," said Margueron.
A major navigable canal was discovered that followed the Euphrates river for 120km and allowed the transport of copper and wood from the Tauras mountains of modern Turkey to support the metallurgical activities of Mari.
They also discovered an irrigation channel that allowed agricultural production in an area that otherwise did not receive sufficient rainfall to grow crops. A third canal protected the city from flooding and allowed large boats to enter the city, which was also protected by a levy bank and double ramparts.
"The builders of Mari knew the profits they could make from an economic hub between the south of Mesopotamia and the north, between the east and the Mediterranean.
"The innumerable riches of the archeological discoveries made during these excavations shows they were right."
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby