Ville I (2900–2700 bc)

Little is known about the earliest phases of settlement at Mari. Debates regarding the earliest occupation at the site in Ville I include:

• whether Mari should be included among the so-called Kranzhügeln (“wreath-mound”) sites such as Chuera, Al-Rawda, and Beydar

• how early the city’s circular layout existed

• the reasons for the city’s growth and expansion

Margueron has suggested that the city was fully developed from its beginning stage, possibly as some sort of transplanted political structure (Margueron, Mari: metropole de l’Euphrate, 60–82). He suggests that the earliest city may have exhibited a circular shape and had a canal used for transporting goods to the Euphrates. In his view, commodities trade via the Euphrates may have supported the city’s size at these early phases (Margueron, “Mari, reflet du monde syro-mésopotamien au IIIe millénaire” 15–16). Fleming and Lyonett contend that Margueron’s model does not account for the significance of pastoralism (Fleming, Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors, 6–7, 219–21; Lyonnet, “Who Lived,” 182–86). Porter suggests that other sites in the Syrian Euphrates valley, which took the form of “supplemented pastoralist” societies and economies, could serve as models for Mari (Porter, “The Dynamics of Death” 24–29).

By its end, Ville I included some basic residential structures and a public institution, evidenced by a stone foundation and tombs for l’Enceinte Sacrée (“the sacred enclosure”) near the later Temple of Ishtar.