Mara-Il Explained

Mara-Il is the only king of Nagar (Tell Brak) known by name, and the first known historical figure from the Jezirah region. He can be dated to the Early Jezirah IIIb Palace Archive (i.e. Early Bronze IIIB, between 2500-2350 BC).^[1] Most of the texts record the ruler of Nagar using his title "En", without mentioning a name. Only in Ebla was a name mentioned: Mara-Il; he ruled a little more than a generation before Nagar's destruction c. 2300 BC, and was most probably the "En" recorded in other texts, including the ones from Nabada. At this time the main city-states were Ebla to the west and Mari to the south. In times of war between Ebla and Mari, Ebla was allied with Nagar circumventing trade through northern mesopotamia instead of the blocked Euphrates valley.

Amar-AN

An inscription from Mari records a certain Amar-AN of the land of Nagar, and he could be identical to Mara-Il (whose name in Ebla was written ma-ra-AN). Four scholars, Marco Bonechi, Amalia Catagnoti, Maria Vittoria Tonietti and Walther Sallaberger, suggested a tentative relation between the element Amar and the element Ma-ra but both Catagnoti and Tonietti admit to the difficulty of this identification and have reservations.

References

Sources

• Book: Walther. Sallaberger. Alexander. Pruß. Labor in the Ancient World. Home and Work in Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia:“Ration Lists” and “Private Houses” at Tell Beydar/Nabada. Piotr. Steinkeller. Michael. Hudson. 2015. 978-3-981-48423-6. Islet Press. International Scholars Conference on Ancient Near Eastern Economics. 5.
• Book: Jesper. Eidem. Irving. Finkel. Marco. Bonechi. The Third-millennium Inscriptions. Excavations at Tell Brak. 2: Nagar in the third millennium BC. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. David. Oates. Joan. Oates. Helen. McDonald. 978-0-9519420-9-3. 2001.
• Book: Frayne, Douglas. The Royal inscriptions of Mesopotamia Early Periods. 1. University of Toronto Press. Pre-Sargonic Period: Early Periods (2700–2350 BC). 2008. 978-1-4426-9047-9.
• Book: Bonechi, Marco. About Subartu. Studies Devoted to Upper Mesopotamia. Volume I: Landscape, Archeology, Settlement. Volume II: Culture, society, Image.. Remarks on the III Millennium Geographical Names of the Syrian Upper Mesopotamia. Marc. Lebeau. 1998. 978-2-503-50652-4. Brepols Publishers. Subartu (SUBART). 4.

Notes and References

1. Marc Lebeau (2006) Nabada (Tell Beydar), an Early Bronze Age City in the Syrian Jezirah (lecture)https://www.beydar.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/nabada-conf-en.pdf www.beydar.org