The Archives of the Palace of Mari II: A Review Article

Abstract

midable task which requires not only organization and tenacity but also the collaboration of qualified and enthusiastic epigraphers and philologists. Few if any expeditions to Mesopotamia have so far met this challenge as successfully as that of Mr. A. Parrot and his colleagues. The more than twenty thousand tablets and fragments excavated in Mari between 1933 and 1939 are being offered to the scholarly world by the Mus6e du Louvre in a special series Archives royales de Mari, of which the first volume (ARM, I=TCL, XXI) was published in 1941. Two more have followed since, and as many are said to be in various stages of preparation and execution. Parallel with these volumes containing the autographic copies, another series was started in 1950 which is to present the texts contained in the first series in corresponding volumes of transliterations and translations. Of the latter, the following volumes have been published so far: Georges Dossin, Correspondance de Samsi-Addu, CharlesF. Jean, Lettres diverses, and J.-R. Kupper, Correspondance de Kibri-Dagan. To the French and Belgian contributors as well as to the responsible authorities of the Louvre, Assyriologists are under a great obligation. The zeal and efficiency which have made these two parallel series possible have combined to promise a complete and competent publication of the Mari material within a reasonable