The Reconstruction Of The Harem Of Zimri-Lim,the King Of Mari (1775-1762BC) And Study On Women Of The Royal Family During The Old Babylonian Period

More than20thousands cuniform texts unearthed from the Tell Hariri, which is the ruins of ancient kingdom Mari, is the most important text evidence for researching the history of the Old Babylonian Period (2003-1595BC) of Mesopotamia. The European Assyriologists, majority are French, cleared up, edited and published this large number cuniform texts. From1950till now, the Archives Royales de Mari has been published31volumes. At the same time, international Assyriologists make an intensive study on the texts included in the Archives Royales de Mari. They have published lots of treatises and papers about it. Among these present research findings about the Archives Royales de Mari, the result about women study on Mari are less. This paper choosed the14years rule of Zimri-Lim, the last king of Mari, as the historical background, and choosed the31volumes Archives Royales de Mari as the text evidence, and consulted related research result, structured the dominance hierarchy and the staff of each dominance hierarchy of the harem of Zimri-Lim. At the same time, this paper made an intensive study of the women of the Mari royal family.Through statistic and analysis these name lists of the Mari court supply oil and wool for women of the harem of Zimri-Lim and these registry lists of women of the harem of Zimri-Lim, we know the harem of Zimri-Lim are formed by four ranks, about31groups women. The first class contain4groups royal women, including priestesses, the queen mother, princesses and the queen and other concubines. The second class contain5groups women, including3groups singing and dancing women, Serkertum women and Kezertum women. The third class contain9groups, including female scribe, two groups countryard sweeper, female instructor,2groups apprentice and1group service woman of Yue Fang, charge women and chief stewards of the royal kitchen. The forth class contain12groups women, including9groups specific duty women of the royal kitchen, the nurse, female gatekeeper and female water drawer. The most peripheral staff of the harem of Zimri-Lim is two groups gatekeeper, they guard the passway from outside into the harem of Zimri-Lim.The intensive research goal of this paper is the royal women, including:the nin-digir priestess Inibsina, the nin-digir priestess Bahlatum, the naditum priestess Eristi-Aya, the queen mother dAddu-duri, the queen Dam-hursi, the second queen Sibtu and these Mari princesses who intermarriage with other states, Simatum, Kiru, Inib-sarri, Ibbatum and Tizpatum. This paper collected and translated all the economic and letter documents of these royal women, on the base of the analysis of all those documents, we made a deep research of the status and role of these women played on the administrate of the court and on the religion affairs, political and militiry affairs of the Mari kingdom. The study on Mari royal women can help us have a deep analysis and understanding with the view of life and value, what the royal women displayed when they joined the national affairs and the international affairs during the Old Babylonian Period.