Syria is home to the ancient city of Mari, a major Bronze Age site on the Euphrates River. Its ruins are located near modern Tell Hariri in eastern Syria, close to the present-day border with Iraq.
Mari flourished because it controlled trade and river routes linking Mesopotamia, Syria, and regions farther west. The city’s palace produced thousands of cuneiform tablets, including diplomatic letters, administrative records, legal texts, and reports about political affairs in the ancient Near East.
Mari was destroyed by Hammurabi of Babylon around the 18th century BCE. Its archive is one of the most important written sources for the political and economic history of the Old Babylonian period. Mari is sometimes mistaken for a city in Iraq because of its close connection to Mesopotamian civilization and its location near the Euphrates.