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Mar. 3rd, 2005 09:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsycheFrench archaeologist solves mystery of ancient Mesopotamian city
The mystery of an ancient Mesopotamian city has finally been lifted after 25 years of meticulous work by a French archaeologist 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) centre."
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.
"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?"
[...] "The" revelation of Mari -- spread over a dozen years but unpublished until now -- was the existence of a major centre of metallurgy, dating from 2,900 BC.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.
The mystery of an ancient Mesopotamian city has finally been lifted after 25 years of meticulous work by a French archaeologist 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) centre."
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.
"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?"
[...] "The" revelation of Mari -- spread over a dozen years but unpublished until now -- was the existence of a major centre of metallurgy, dating from 2,900 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.