Mari in Syria

The Mari in Syria exhibition at the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg brings together works of art, objects and documents that tell the story of half a millennium of the legendary city of Mari, the seat of a powerful kingdom that flourished on the banks of the Euphrates at the end of the third millennium BC. Organized in collaboration with the Musée Royal de Mariemont (Belgium) and the Musée du Louvre, which is lending a number of works from its collection, the exhibition shows how this city was rebuilt and embellished after 2250 BC under the aegis of the rulers known as the Šakkanakkus. This narrative also intersects with the rediscovery of Mari by archaeologists in 1933, when André Parrot and his teams began excavating what would become one of France’s most important archaeological digs in the Middle East for several decades. Through 150 works, some on show for the first time, Mari in Syria brings back to life some of the splendor of this city of art—a reinvented city and, in a certain sense, an ideal city.