Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (413 page)

Babylonian god, also called
Bel
, originally a god of thunderstorms, who in the 13–12th centuries
bc
ousted Enlil as the most prominent deity in the Sumerian pantheon. He became the ruler of the gods, rather than just their head, which represented a shift in the relationship between the gods that paralleled the rise in power of the Mesopotamian kings.

 
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Queen of Scotland from ad 1286. She was born in 1283, daughter of Margaret (daughter of Alexander III) and Eric II of Norway. She died in ad 1290 aged seven, having reigned four years.

 
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Margary , Ivan Donald
(1897–1976)
[Bi].

British farmer, businessman, and archaeologist best known for his work on Roman roads. After a period of war service with the Royal Sussex Regiment he went up to Exeter College, Oxford, graduating in 1921 with a degree in chemistry. His life was spent in Sussex, farming first at Chartham Park and later at Yew Lodge, East Grinstead. Alongside farming he pursued an interest in archaeology, especially in documenting and mapping the road network of Roman Britain. This was published in a two-volume corpus
Roman roads in Britain
(1955, London: John Baker), which was an immediate success and went through two successive editions during his life. Margary was a wealthy and shrewd farmer and businessman who applied his resources generously and widely during his lifetime, including: helping with the acquisition of Avebury for the National Trust; funding rebuilding works at Exeter College; and establishing the Margary Room in the Barbidan House Museum in Lewes and the
camerone
in the British School at Rome.
[Obit.:
The Times
, 27 February 1976]

 
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Mesopotamian city situated on the right bank of the River Euphrates on the border between modern Syria and Iraq that flourished during the Old Babylonian period as a principal commercial centre on the trade route between Syria and Babylonia. Extensively excavated by French archaeologists André Parrot from 1933 and Jean-Claude Margueron from 1979. The earliest deposits date to the Jemdet Nasr period (
c.
3200–2900 bc). The early dynastic remains include a number of substantial mud-brick buildings identified as temples and palaces. One of the most extensive palaces is Zimri-Lim, dated to the early 2nd millennium
bc
. The complex covers over 2.5ha and contains over 300 rooms, including stables, storerooms, archives, and bitumen-lined bathrooms. One surviving mural depicts the ruler of Mari in the presence of various deities, including Ishtar in the form of the goddess of war. The most important discovery in the palace was the archive of some 23000 Old Babylonian cuneiform tablets dating from
c.
1810 to 1760 bc. The cache includes scientific and economic texts, as well as several thousand items of diplomatic correspondence, including a vital set of letters between the ruler of northern Mesopotamia, Shamshi-Adad , and his son, Yasmah-Adad , the ruler of Mari. The palace was never rebuilt after its destruction at the hands of the Babylonian ruler Hammurabi in
c.
1759 bc.
[Rep.: K. Kohlmeyer , 1985, Mari (Tell Hariri ). In H. Weiss (ed.),
Elba to Damascus: art and archaeology in ancient Syria
. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution. 134–48 and 194–7]

 
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Mariette , François Auguste Ferdinand
(1821–81)
[Bi].

French Egyptologist well known for his excavations at many major Egyptian sites. Born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, on leaving school he went to work in his father's office of the Marine Department. He left soon afterwards, however, first to take a post as drawing master at a private school in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, and then to be a teacher at the College of Art in Boulogne. He was an active journalist and essayist and was very interested in art. He was first introduced to Egyptology by his cousin Nestor Lhote , and became hooked. He learnt hieroglyphics and Coptic and spent his vacations in the Louvre Museum studying its collections. In 1849 he was offered a post at the Louvre which he gladly accepted. The following year he began a series of expeditions to Egypt, initially to collect manuscripts but this soon turned into excavations at Saqqara where he found the burials of the Apis bulls and the jewels belonging to Ramesses II. His ambition was to establish a museum of antiquities in Cairo, and in 1858 Said Pasha the viceroy of the Ottoman emperor agreed to the plans. He founded the Egyptian Antiquities Service and what was to become the Cairo Museum (National Museum of Egyptian Antiquities). Later excavations included work at Giza, Abydos, Thebes, Edfu, and Elephantine. He was buried in a sarcophagus in front of the Cairo Museum.
[Bio.: G. Lambert , 1997,
Auguste Mariette
,
ou
,
L'Egypte sauvée des sables
. Paris: J. C. Lattes ]

 
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