The Oxford History of the Biblical World by Michael D. Coogan Page A

several times in the Mari letters (although some of the references suggest that there was another Hazor in central or northern Syria). The largest city in Canaan (72 hectares [180 acres]), Hazor may have been the dominant Canaanite town of the Middle Bronze Age, but it was on the periphery of Mari’s economic horizon.
    The Mari tablets, along with other sources, allow us to sketch the political history of Syria and Mesopotamia in the early centuries of the second millennium BCE . The written sources are particularly helpful in illuminating the rise of Shamshi-Adad and the collapse of his empire following his death, in tracing developments at Mari before, during, and after Shamshi-Adad’s reign, and in chronicling Hammurapi’s slow rise to dominance over Mesopotamia.
    The early years of Shamshi-Adad’s long career as king are known only from a text called the
Mari Eponym Chronicle,
first published in 1985. The
Chronicle
lists the names of the years of Shamshi-Adad’s reign, along with brief notes of important events that occurred in each year. From it we know that he became king as a youth. The original seat of his kingdom is not known, and his true rise to power took place only after he had occupied his throne for approximately twenty years. In his twenty-first regnal year, he conquered the city of Ekallatum, just north of Ashur. There he ruled for three years before overthrowing Erishum, king of Assyria, and seizing his victim’s crown. From the capital city of Ashur, Shamshi-Adad began to expand his empire westward, eastward, and southward, taking over the Habur region and the Balikh River to the west, subduing Mari and other cities to the south, and expanding eastward as far as Shusharra on the Little Zab River. Within a few years he had formed a major empire and become the most powerful king of the region.
    Having established his empire, Shamshi-Adad moved his own capital westward to Shekhna, in the land of Apum, changing its name as we have seen to Shubat-Enlil. Excavations since 1979 at Tell Leilan have begun to yield significant information about this city. Several important public buildings from the time of Shamshi-Adad have been excavated, including a large temple located on the acropolis and a palace in the lower city, which has produced about 600 tablets that date from the end of his reign (1781 BCE ) until about 1725. While most of the tablets are administrative texts, approximately 120 are letters to two successors of Shamshi-Adad at Shekhna. In addition, fragments of 5 treaties between kings of Apum and their neighbors have been recovered. In 1991, archaeologists found another substantial administrative building, containing a group of 588 small receipt and disbursement tablets that date from the final years of Shamshi-Adad’s reign. Still awaiting full study, these tablets promise to add much to our knowledge of Upper Mesopotamia during the eighteenth century BCE .

     
    The Near East during the Second Millennium BCE
     
    By the time he became the ruler of this empire, Shamshi-Adad had two grown sons, whom he appointed subrulers over parts of his realm. The elder son, Ishme-Dagan, resembled his father as an able soldier and administrator. The letters of Shamshi-Adad show the two men’s close relationship and reveal the father’s pride in his son. Ishme-Dagan was appointed ruler of Ekallatum in Assyria to keep control over the eastern part of the empire.
    Much to his chagrin, the king’s other son, Yasmah-Adad, proved incompetent and lazy. Shamshi-Adad placed him in charge of Mari, once he had captured that city, hoping that the young man would look after the southern part of the empire. But Shamshi-Adad found himself spending much of his time patching up Yasmah-Adad’s poor handling of his job. The letters between father and son vividly show their strained relationship. “Are you a child and not a man? Have you no beard on your chin?” Shamshi-Adad wrote on one occasion. “While here your brother is