Power and written culture in Upper Mesopotamia in the XVIII^th century BC.

Symposium objectives and challenges

Of course, there can be no question of exhaustiveness in a period limited to two days, but new or renewed research will be the subject of twenty-three papers. A history of research and an outline of future prospects will be presented. Among the themes addressed, the place of the written word in these ancient societies will be highlighted. The aim is to show how terse, seemingly innocuous accounting texts, such as the " meals of the king ", turn out to be highly interesting historical sources, provided we know how to interrogate them properly. Scribes have so far been the subject of only very partial studies, which deserve to be revisited ; in particular, digital palaeography work using the latest resources in image analysis will be presented, as well as research into syllabaries, based on a computer program grafted onto the ARCHIBAB database. Finally, specific periods need to be approached with a clear awareness of the status of available written sources. In this respect, the time when Yasmah-Addu occupied the throne of Mari is particularly interesting, since the Mari archives are complemented by those of many other sites, such as Tuttul, Ašnakkum and Šubat-Enlil.

Despite a widespread cliché, nomads are not only known through the writings of sedentary people -   . The Mari archives contain numerous letters written by nomadic chiefs of Upper Mesopotamia to King Zimri-Lim, many of which have been published by J.-M. Durand as part of the PCEHM project ; a detailed examination of certain batches will help to bring out the full richness of this material. The study of the environment is not limited to the steppe traversed by nomads and their flocks of sheep : two contributions will look again at the way in which natural environments are described in the letters and the way in which animals were used by scribes to construct metaphors and comparisons.

Mari was undoubtedly the most important city in the Middle Euphrates between 1800 and 1750, but excavations at other sites in the valley have proved highly fruitful, such as Terqa and, in the Upper Habur region, Ašnakkum. Other sites, which have not yet been excavated, are still known thanks to the letters written there, such as those of the governor of Saggaratum Sumhu-rabi, found at Mari.

The archives of Upper Mesopotamia are very rich from a legal point of view. Fortunately for historians, many aspects of oral law are described in letters. Certain alliances are not otherwise known, whose conclusion involved both binding oaths and symbolic gestures. But the written word also played an essential role in this area, including the drawing up of lists of accusations against certain administrators whose probity was sometimes called into question.

Religion was not a separate field at this time, but certain aspects of it can be the subject of specific studies, such as the organization of worship or divinatory practices. The numerous prophecies discovered in Mari's letters have, for more than half a century, made it possible to revisit the study of prophetism attested by the Bible : we shall see if this problematic can still be renewed.

Finally, despite the emphasis on the XVIII^thcentury, which is the most abundantly documented period, we thought it would be interesting to extend the investigation into the first millennium, through the Tigunanum, Mittani and Emar files in the II^ndmillennium, right up to the Neo-Assyrian empire.