Mari was an ancient Semitic city-state in modern-day Abu Kamal, Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria. Mari flourished as a trade center and hegemonic state between 2900 BC and 1759 BC, as it was built in the middle of the Euphrates trade routes between Sumer in the south and the Eblaite kingdom and the Levant in the west. Mari engaged in a long war with Ebla and was destroyed by the Akkadian Empire during the 23rd century BC, but the Akkadians rebuilt the city and appointed a military governor. The governors became independent on the fall of Akkad to the Gutians and rebuilt the city as a regional center of the Euphrates valley. During the late 19th century BC, the Amorites conquered Mari, only for the Babylonians to conquer then in 1761 BC. Mari survived as a small settlement under Babylonian and Assyrian rule before being abandoned and forgotten during the Hellenistic period in the 3rd century BC.
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