The Involuntariness of Will. Borders and Circulation of People in the Kingdom of Mari (Syria -18th Century BC)

In general, borders represent not only a physical issue but also a social one. All over time, social actors circulated through borders implicitly or explicitly forced by the political powers (tribe, state, etc.). In oriental antiquity, the borders (pat.um) of the realms were unstable: they were in constant mutation and movement. For this reason, it is necessary to investigate the circulation of people through such borders in order to achieve a better understanding of them. In the syro-mesopotamian area during the Old Babylonian period, borders between realms, cities and villages were an important axis of the socio-political layout. At this time, the kingdom of Mari gives us a signifi cant amount of written sources where we can track and analyze people's movements between kingdoms. In this paper, we want to inquire into some topics related with forced circulation of people set on the premise that not all the movements that were considered voluntary were actually so.