Abstract
The alliance between the Aleppo king Yarim-Lim and his Mari counterpart Zimri-Lim was a key element in the international politics of their time. Yet the number of texts directly documenting this alliance is relatively limited. In 1972, Maurice Birot was fortunate enough to discover two fragments of a letter from Yarim-Lim to Zimri-Lim in a corner of room 115 of the palace, which he published shortly afterwards. We also know of two letters from Dariš-libur, written from Aleppo; this high-ranking Zimri-Lim dignitary had been sent on a mission to Yarim-Lim to demand the extradition of the Yaminite chiefs who had rebelled against Zimri-Lim. A letter recently published by J.-M. Durand in ARM 35, whose address has disappeared, could have been written in the same context. A re-reading of this letter has led to new hypotheses, including the reconstruction of the words of the oath Yarim-Lim swore to the king of Mari, and the gestures that accompanied their utterance.
