From around 2200 to 1900 BC the Amorites, starting from their original homeland around Jebel Bishri in central Syria, migrated and conquered much of the Near East, seizing power in a number of important city-states in Canaan, Syria and Mesopotamia. During this same period the Hurrians spread south and east from their core area in the Khabur triangle.
In Mesopotamia the two centuries of fragmentation and anarchy that followed the fall of Ur III culminated in the rise of two great Amorite warlords: Shamshi-Adad-I of Assyria (r.c.1749-c.1716 BC) and Hammurabi of Babylon (r.c.1728-c.1686 BC). An Amorite sheik Ila-kabkabu (r.c.1790-c.1772 BC), king of Ekallatum (near Assur) and the father of Shamshi-Adad, drew up a peace treaty with Yaggid-Lim (r.c.1756-c.1746 BC), the king of Mari.
Shamshi-Adad governed in Ekallatum for about ten years and then fled to Babylon when Naram-Sin (r.c.1754-c.1751 BC), king of Eshnunna, ousted him from his throne. When Naram-Sin died, Shamshi-Adad recaptured Ekallatum and liberated Assur. After capturing Mari he went on to unite the whole of northern Mesopotamia into a single state in which he established three provinces.
He reigned personally from his new capital Shubat-Enlil in the Khabur triangle of northeast Syria. His eldest son Ishme-Dagan-I (r.c.1716-c.1677 BC) ruled from the original capital in Ekallatum with the task of keeping the inhabitants of the mountains in check. His younger son Yasmah-Adad (r.c.1726 –c.1712 BC) ruled from Mari as viceroy.
In Syria Shamshi-Adad’s main problem was Aleppo where Zimri-Lim (r.c.1712-c.1697 BC), the heir to the throne of Mari, had fled for protection. When Shamshi-Adad died Zimri-Lim drove Yasmah-Adad out of Mari, Ishme-Dagan lost control of all of his father’s kingdom except Ekallatum and Assur, and northern Syria became a patchwork of small independent states.
In his brief fifteen-year reign Zimri-Lim as Hammurabi’s staunchest ally brought Mari to its height of its economic and political power. In the end, however, relations broke down between the two allies, leading to war culminating in the conquest and utter destruction of Mari in c.1695 BC. After the fall of Mari the centre of power for the middle Euphrates shifted some 100 kilometres (≈62 miles) north to Terqa.
Aleppo was the capital of the state of Yamhad. Strategically placed on the trade route between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, it seems to have come into prominence after the beginning of the second millennium BC, perhaps after Ebla’s loss of power. Yamhad’s most stubborn opponent was Qatna, a city of central Syria, located to the south.
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