PARROT, ANDRÉ°

PARROT, ANDRÉ° (1901–1980), French archaeologist. He directed the French excavations at Tello and Larsa in Iraq from 1931 to 1933 and at mari in Syria (1933–64). He was curator in chief of the French national museums from 1946 and professor at the Ecole du Louvre and the Protestant Theology Faculty of Paris (both institutions from 1936). His contributions in the field of Near Eastern archaeology are highlighted by his excavations of the palace of Mari. His recovery of more than 20,000 tablets of the Mari royal archives, composed mainly during the reign of Zimrilim (18th century B.C.E.), immeasurably increased the historical understanding of Western Asia, especially as regards the Patriarchal Age. His contributions on Mari include Une Bille Perdue (1945); an assortment of studies appearing in Syria, a French quarterly on Oriental art and archaeology, and the series Archives Royales de Mari (vols. 1–9, 1950–60), and Mission archéologique de Mari (3 vols., 1956–67), all scholarly publications which he helped edit. He wrote voluminously on ancient Near Eastern history, literature, architecture, philology, and similar subjects. Many of his semipopular works, marked by clarity, humor, and enthusiasm, are concerned with the problems of the biblical past and its Oriental background. (Zev Garber)