Abarsal was a
city-state
A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, ...
of
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
in the area of the
Euphrates
The Euphrates ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originati ...
. Very little is known of the history of the town and the site is unidentified at the moment. It could be the city of Aburru mentioned in various texts of the tablets of Mari, which was located south of
Emar to
Qalat Gabir. A second theory says that could be Apishal.
Around 2420 BC,
Iblul-Il
Iblul-Il (died 2380 BC) was the most energetic king (Lugal) of the second Mari, Syria#The second kingdom, Mariote kingdom, noted for his extensive campaigns in the middle Euphrates valley against the Ebla#Archive period, Eblaites, and in the uppe ...
was called King of Mari Abarsal.
Vizier of Ebla Ibrium (24th-century BC) campaigned against the city of Abarsal during the time of vizier
Arrukum.
[Mario Liverani (2013). The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. p. 119.]
The
Treaty between Ebla and Abarsal has been discovered in
Ebla archives.
References
{{reflist
Further reading
*Archi, A., "The Chronology of Ebla and Synchronisms with Abarsal, Tuttul, Nagar and Nabada, Mari, Kish", In W. Sallaberger and I. Schrakamp (eds.): ARCANE. Associated Regional Chronologies for the Ancient Near East. Vol. 3: History & Philology. Brepols. Turnhout, pp. 163‒179, 2015
*Archi, A., "La ville d’Abarsal", in M. Lebeau and Ph. Talon (eds.): Reflets des deux fleuves. Mélanges offerts à André Finet. Peeters. Louvain, pp. 15‑19, 1989
uensanta, Jesús Gil, Alfredo Mederos Martín, and Otabek Uktamovich Muminov, "On the Northern frontier of the Ebla Kingdom during the Early Bronze Age IVA. The Birecik Valley and the Kingdom of Abarsal in the left bank of the Middle Turkish Euphrates", Cuadernos de Prehistoria y Arqueología de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 50.1, pp. 81-107, 2024
Ancient cities of the Middle East
Mesopotamia