STUDI ARCHEOLOGICI 01

SU QATNA

URBAN AND NATURAL LANDSCAPES

OF AN ANCIENT SYRIAN CAPITAL
SETTLEMENT AND ENVIRONMENT
AT TELL MISHRIFEH/QATNA AND
IN CENTRAL-WESTERN SYRIA
EDITED BY DANIELE MORANDI BONACOSSI

FORUM
 Università degli studi di Udine
Dipartimento di Storia e tutela dei beni culturali
Direction Générale des Antiquités et des Musées de Syrie
Missione archeologica italo-siriana a Mishrifeh

STUDI ARCHEOLOGICI
SU QATNA
Risultati delle ricerche archeologiche
italo-siriane in Siria centrale

SAQ 1
DOCUMENTS D’ARCHÉOLOGIE
SYRIENNE (SAQ 1 = DAS XII)

Direttori
Michel al-Maqdissi
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi
La serie ‘Studi Archeologici su Qatna’ è pubblicata
in coedizione con la serie ‘Documents
d’Archéologie Syrienne’ (SAQ 1 = DAS XII)

La presente pubblicazione è stata realizzata

anche grazie al contributo di

e del Dipartimento di Storia e tutela dei

beni culturali dell’Università degli studi di Udine

In copertina
Porta, terrapieno e fossato orientale di Qatna
(foto di Daniele Morandi Bonacossi)

Progetto grafico della copertina

cdm/associati

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et des Musées de Syrie

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ISBN 978-88-8420-418-9
URBAN AND NATURAL LANDSCAPES
OF AN ANCIENT SYRIAN CAPITAL
SETTLEMENT AND ENVIRONMENT
AT TELL MISHRIFEH/QATNA AND
IN CENTRAL-WESTERN SYRIA
EDITED BY
DANIELE MORANDI BONACOSSI

Proceedings of the International Conference held in Udine

9-11 December 2004

FORUM
Contents

Preface p. 9

Editorial Note » 11

Foreword » 13

Abbreviations » 15

The Archaeology of Mishrifeh and its Region during the Bronze

and Iron Ages

Michel al-Maqdissi
Notes d’archéologie levantine X.
Introduction aux travaux archéologiques syriens à Mishirfeh/Qatna
au nord-est de Homs (Émèse) » 19

Peter Pfälzner
Archaeological Investigations in the Royal Palace of Qatna » 29

Daniele Morandi Bonacossi

Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and Iron Ages. A Preliminary
Reconstruction of Urbanism and Settlement in the Mishrifeh Region » 65

The Environment of Mishrifeh and its Region during the Bronze

and Iron Ages

Mauro Cremaschi
Qatna’s Lake: A Geoarchaeological Study of the Bronze Age Capital » 93

Verushka Valsecchi
Vegetation and Environmental Changes during the Middle-Late
Holocene at Tell Mishrifeh/Qatna: Climate Versus Land-Use » 105

Luca Trombino
Micromorphological Reconstruction of the Archaeological Land Use
and Palaeoenvironment of Tell Mishrifeh: Evidence from the
Sinkhole South of the Site » 115

5
Contents

Leonor Peña-Chocarro and Mauro Rottoli

Crop Husbandry Practices during the Bronze and Iron Ages in
Tell Mishrifeh (Central-Western Syria) » 123

Simone Riehl
Preliminary Archaeobotanical Results from the Palace at Qatna
(Tell Mishrifeh) » 145

Girolamo Fiorentino and Valentina Caracuta

Palaeoclimatic Signals Inferred from Carbon Stable Isotope Analysis
of Qatna/Tell Mishrifeh Archaeological Plant Remains » 153

Emmanuelle Vila et Lionel Gourichon

Apport de l’étude de la faune mammalienne et de l’avifaune à la
réflexion sur l’environnement de Qatna à l’Age du Bronze et à l’Age du Fer » 161

Alessandro Canci and Fulvio Bartoli

Food in Ancient Qatna: The Results of Palaeopathological
Examination and Trace Element Analysis on Human Bones » 169

Carsten Witzel and Kerstin Kreutz

First Results of the Anthropological and Palaeopathological
Examination of the Human Skeletal Remains Recovered
from the Royal Tomb of Tell Mishrifeh/Qatna » 173

Anna J. Mukherjee, Matthew A. James, Peter Pfälzner

and Richard P. Evershed
Biomolecular Analysis of Ceramic Containers, Skeletal Remains,
Anthropogenic Sediments and Organic Artefacts from the
Royal Tomb at Qatna » 189

Christine Pümpin
Micromorphological Analyses of the Soil from the Royal Tomb of Qatna » 199

Lara Maritan, Claudio Mazzoli and Fabio Speranza

Archaeometrical Study of Bronze and Iron Age Pottery from
Tell Mishrifeh/Qatna and Archaeomagnetic Data » 207

Settlement and Landscape in Central-Western Syria:

The Archaeological Evidence

Jean-Paul Thalmann
Settlement Patterns and Agriculture in the Akkar Plain during
the Late Early and Early Middle Bronze Ages » 219

Graham Philip
Natural and Cultural Aspects of the Development of the Marl
Landscape East of Lake Qatina during the Bronze and Iron Ages » 233

Karin Bartl and Michel al-Maqdissi

Ancient Settlements in the Middle Orontes Region between

6
 Contents

ar-Rastan and Qal cat Shayzar. First Results of Archaeological

Surface Investigations 2003-2004 » 243

Michel Fortin
La vallée du Ghab: nouvelle prospection archéologique » 253

Bernard Geyer, Mohamed al-Dbiyat, Nazir Awad, Olivier Barge,

Jacques Besançon, Yves Calvet and Ronald Jaubert
The Arid Margins of Northern Syria: Occupation of the Land
and Modes of Exploitation in the Bronze Age » 269

Corinne Castel
Stratégies de subsistance et modes d’occupation de l’espace dans
la micro-région d’Al-Rawda au Bronze ancien final (Shamiyeh) » 283

Settlement and Landscape in Central-Western Syria:

The Textual Evidence

Jesper Eidem
Notes on the Topography of Late Bronze Age Qatna. New Evidence
from the ‘Lower City Palace’ Tablets » 297

Thomas Richter
Topographical Names in Late Bronze Age Texts Unearthed in Mišrife/Qa#na » 305

Nele Ziegler
Les données des archives royales de Mari sur le milieu naturel
et l’occupation humaine en Syrie centrale » 311

Cinzia Pappi
The Religious Landscape of Qatna during the Mari Period » 319

Towards a First Reconstruction

Mauro Cremaschi (with comments by Alessandro Canci,

Lionel Gourichon, Leonor Peña-Chocarro, Christine Pümpin,
Simone Riehl and Emmanuelle Vila)
The Environment of Ancient Qatna. Contributions from Natural
Sciences and Landscape Archaeology » 331

Bernard Geyer
Quelques réflexions en guise de synthèse » 337

Index » 341

7
Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and
Iron Ages. A Preliminary Reconstruction
of Urbanism and Settlement in the Mishrifeh
Region
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi 1

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ABSTRACT

Archaeological excavations and surveys conducted at the site of Mishrifeh and its hinterland between 1924 and 2006
have furnished a large amount of archaeological data; it is now possible to sketch a preliminary reconstruction of the
site’s urban development and the patterns of settlement and land-use in the surrounding countryside. In this paper
attention is focused on a preliminary reconstruction of the town’s layout and functional organization from the EBA IV
to its abandonment during the IA III, in order to explore the different phases of urban growth and crisis over a period
of approximately two millennia. The first emergence of a middle-sized urban centre at Mishrifeh during the mid to late
third millennium BC was followed by a phase of dramatic urban growth and radical change in the town’s layout during
the MBA and then a period of urban revival during the MBA/LBA transition. During this epoch Qatna’s royal dyna-
sty initiated a centralized programme of public and institutional building, which appears to have involved both the
upper and lower cities, thus launching a further important phase of urban and functional reorganization of the town.
The apparent abandonment of the site during the LBA/IA transition, which seems to have lasted until the late IA I,
was followed by a new phase of urban development within a new historical and socio-economic context.
In addition, the analysis of the excavation and survey record combined with the results of palaeoenvironmental
research show that the formation of an urban site at Mishrifeh from the EBA IV onwards also led to a profound chan-
ge in the occupation patterns of the surrounding region. The processes of urban and demographic development
taking place in Mishrifeh and its hinterland during the EBA IV and the MBA determined a striking modification of
the region’s natural environment and the emergence of a new man-shaped rural landscape; there is clear evidence
indicating the beginning of a process of dramatic environmental deterioration, which continued during the LBA, IA
and Classical period.

1
University of Udine.

65
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi
1. Introduction
The intensive excavations carried out at Mishrifeh
during recent years have made it possible for the first
time to review the available archaeological evidence
from the site in order to try to sketch a preliminary
but coherent – though in many parts still hypotheti-
cal and incomplete – reconstruction of the general
development of the urban layout of Mishrifeh and
its function during the Bronze and Iron Ages.
This attempt is based upon an evaluation of the main
archaeological data produced by excavations con-
ducted at the site between 1924 and 20062. Although
only about 5% of the overall area of the ancient site
has been systematically excavated to date, the region
of the upper town has constituted the main focus of
archaeological research in Mishrifeh and has there-
fore been extensively investigated (Fig. 1). Thus,
despite the fact that Mishrifeh’s lower town remains
something of a terra incognita, we are starting to
develop a broad picture of the urban and functional
organization of the upper town in the period
between the third and first millennia BC.
The second aim of this article is to attempt to recon-
struct the settlement of the countryside around
Mishrifeh and to analyse the extent to which the occu-
pation of the region may be related to the cultural
development processes taking place within the city of
Mishrifeh, which from the mid-third to the mid-first
millennium BC acted as the region’s central place.
The data to support this latter effort were provid-
ed by the geo-archaeological survey of the
Mishrifeh region carried out by the Italian team
between 2000 and 20033.
2. The Late Chalcolithic and the Early Bronze Age: the
foundation of Mishrifeh and its first urbanization
The excavation between 1999 and 2004 of a deep
stratigraphic trial trench in Operation J, on the sum-
mit of the upper town, has allowed us to ascertain that
the site of Mishrifeh was founded during the Late
Chalcolithic 4 on a flat limestone outcrop. In the cen-
tral part of what was going to become the Mishrifeh
upper town, un-built-up open areas with some very
fragmentary features such as pisé installations and fire
places related to trodden floors were discovered at a
depth of 8 m below the present-day tell surface.
This thin occupation of the Operation J region,
the function of which cannot be established, seems
to have ended during the late fourth millennium
BC (as shown by an AMS radiocarbon determina-
66
tion) and was followed, after a hiatus of some cen-
turies, by an EBA III re-occupation of the summit
of the upper town characterized by fragmentary
and poorly preserved domestic architecture.
The earliest stage of the EBA III occupation in
Operation J was distinguished by the presence of a
dwelling with living, domestic, and storage spaces
(Fig. 2). This large house was then replaced by a
smaller one with interior domestic storage units
and external cereal silos.
Residual ceramic material of the same period was
recovered from the foundation trenches of the sec-
ond millennium Royal Palace in Operations G, H
and R, showing that an EBA III settlement also
existed in the northern part of the upper town4.
The in situ evidence for the EBA III at Mishrifeh,
therefore, is still confined to a rather restricted
area in Operations J, H and R (Fig. 3). However,
the domestic architecture and storage installations
uncovered indicate that, after the Late Chalcolith-
ic 4 foundation of the site, during the EBA III a
settlement – perhaps a village – was built at the site
of Mishrifeh on a flat Pleistocene terrace located at
the confluence of a minor and a main wadi5. This
occupation can be attributed to the EBA III on the
basis of radiocarbon determinations and the (lim-
ited) pottery assemblage recovered. The latter is
characterised by the typical Pattern Combed Ware
and by Simple Ware bowls and platters with hori-
zontal burnishing and jars with vertical or net pat-
tern burnishing that parallel finds from the coastal
region (Tell Arqa, Phase R6, Tell Sianu7, Ras Sham-
ra III A1-28) and western and northern inner Syria
2
Cf. DU MESNIL DU BUISSON 1935; AL-MAQDISSI - LUCIANI - MORAN-
DI BONACOSSI - NOVÁK - PFÄLZNER 2002; AL-MAQDISSI - DOH-
MANN-PFÄLZNER - PFÄLZNER - SULEIMAN 2003; MORANDI BONA-
COSSI et al. 2003; NOVÁK - PFÄLZNER 2003; AL-MAQDISSI - MORAN-
DI BONACOSSI 2005; MORANDI BONACOSSI 2006a; see also the arti-
cles by AL-MAQDISSI and PFÄLZNER, this volume.
3
CREMASCHI - TROMBINO - SALA 2002; CREMASCHI - TROMBINO -
SALA - VALSECCHI 2003; CREMASCHI - MORANDI BONACOSSI -
VALSECCHI, in press; see also the contributions by CREMASCHI
and VALSECCHI, this volume.
4
A trial trench excavated by the Syrian team under the
southern part of the palace throne room (Operation R) has
brought to light some EBA III storage pits, which were
later covered by EBA IVA houses (prof. al-Maqdissi, per-
sonal communication). A further contemporary storage pit
and an installation related to it have been discovered by the
Italian team underneath the northern section of the eastern
palace wall (Operation H).
5
CREMASCHI - TROMBINO - SALA - VALSECCHI 2003: 72.
6
THALMANN 2006: 111-116.
7
BOUNNI - AL-MAQDISSI 1994.
8
COURTOIS 1962; DE CONTENSON 1989; id. 2992.
 Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and Iron Ages

Fig. 1. Topographic map of Mishrifeh showing excavated areas (drawing A. Savioli).

(Hama K4-19 and Tell Mardikh, G2 storage

unit10). At the beginning of the EBA IV, the EBA
III settlement experienced a radical transforma-
tion, which seems to have involved the layout and
function of the entire site11.
Excavations carried out by du Mesnil du Buisson
and by the Syrian, Italian and German teams have
brought to light EBA IV levels in all areas of the
upper town investigated so far: Operations C, G,
H, R, J, K, and T (Fig. 4)12.
A large EBA IVA-B residential quarter was locat-
ed in Operations G, H, R, and possibly T in the
northern part of the upper town. The houses with
their domestic installations (fireplaces, tannurs,
work benches, storage pits) and other buildings
belonging to this neighbourhood13 were later

9
THUESEN 1988: 113.
10
MAZZONI 2002: 74-75.
11
AL-MAQDISSI 2003a; MORANDI BONACOSSI 2007a.
12
Operation T was begun in 2006 by the Italo-Syrian Mission
immediately to the east of the Royal Palace.
13
An EBA IVB mud-brick building partly brought to light in
2005 in the south-eastern corner of Operation H has been
Fig. 2. View of an EBA III dwelling, Operation J. interpreted as a granary.

67
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi

Fig. 3. The EBA III at Mishrifeh (drawing A. Savioli).

Fig. 4. The EBA IV at Mishrifeh (drawing A. Savioli).

severely damaged by the massive foundations of the
mid-second millennium Royal Palace built above
them, so that only very limited and fragmentary parts
of the buildings and their installations survived. The
plan and the internal organisation of this residential
quarter can therefore not be reconstructed.
From a secondary context in this area, a fragment
of an EBA IVA2 corrugated globular jar with plain
vertical rim bearing a cylinder seal impression
depicting a contest scene on its outer part was
recovered14. An identical seal impression was
14
See also BARRO 2003: 82, fig. 16. Petrographic and chemical
analyses of the rim fragment carried out by Claudio Maz-

68
 Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and Iron Ages
found on the fragmentary vertical rim of a corru-
gated globular jar from Operation C15. According
to a pattern reconstructed by Mazzoni in her sem-
inal study of EBA Syrian seal impressions on jars16,
the presence at Mishrifeh of corrugated globular
jars with seal impressions on their plain vertical
rims17 indicates that the site was involved in an
economic network of specialised production,
transformation and storage of agricultural pro-
duce. Within such a context Mishrifeh probably
acted as a central place to which specialised contain-
ers for high quality products – such as olive oil –
were sent from the surrounding rural villages18.
Drastic changes occurred from the beginning of
the EBA IV, involving the plan and function of
structures on the upper city of Mishrifeh in partic-
ular. Here, in Operation J, the most significant dis-
coveries concerning the last years on EBA IV
Mishrifeh were made19.
The simple settlement of the area during the EBA
III, was succeeded, at the onset of the EBA IVA,
by the construction of a large multi-roomed gra-
nary built in mud-brick, similar to a contemporary
public grain store found in the upper city at Tell
Beydar20. The summit of the upper town became
an area specialised in the intensive processing and
mid- to long-term storage of agricultural surplus.
During the following phases, this large granary
was transformed into an establishment where cere-
al was temporarily stored in a semi-cleaned state in
medium-sized circular brick-built silos and further
processed by fine sieving and hand sorting.
Installations for intensive mid- and long-term
grain storage (silos and storage pits, some of which
were of notable size) continued to characterize this
area until the end of the EBA IVB.
The great variety, abundance and size of these
structures for the processing and storage of sur-
plus agricultural produce found on the summit of
the Mishrifeh upper town clearly indicate that the
crops were processed and warehoused here in an
intensive and specialised fashion most likely under
the control of a central institution. It cannot be
ruled out that the Operation J cleaning and stock-
piling facilities were related to an administrative
building (as yet unknown), which served a control
and interface function in the redistributive system.
On the western slope of the upper town central
mound, in Operation C, late third millennium
(EBA IVB) levels have so far been reached only in
a small trial trench21. However, Tomb IV, which
was discovered in the same area (now Operation
C) by du Mesnil du Buisson in the 1920s22, is rele-
vant to the interpretation of the site’s character
and role during the EBA IV. The burial type, a
shaft grave dating to the EBA IVA that contained
40 individuals and the funerary gifts accompany-
ing the dead23, indicates that we are dealing with a
collective tomb belonging to a high-status group
and that by the mid-third millennium BC a social
elite had emerged at Mishrifeh.
Finally, mid to late third millennium levels were
also reached – though only in several very small
areas – in Operation K, underneath the monu-
mental LBA I ‘Lower City Palace’, where the
northern upper town slope merges with the lower
town24. The character of this EBA IV occupation,
however, cannot yet be ascertained.
The presence of occupation layers attributable to
the second half of the third millennium BC in the
Mishrifeh upper town excavations confirms that,
wherever excavation has been carried out in this
region, significant EBA IV horizons have been
uncovered. On the contrary, no contemporary
occupation has yet been demonstrated in the por-
tions of the northern, eastern and southern lower
town that have been investigated, whilst the west-
ern lower town has not been excavated to date.
This would suggest that the EBA IV settlement
was confined to the upper town region and had a
roughly circular plan, which is shared by other
new EBA IV urban foundations in central and
zoli and Lara Maritan (University of Padua) have demon-
strated the local origin of this conservation jar.
15
Prof. al-Maqdissi, personal communication.
16
MAZZONI 1992: 177-196.
17
These jars, which are a local variant of the Pattern Combed
jars of the coastal region, were produced in the Tell Mar-
dikh-Hama-Qatna region and were used for cooking and
storage (MAZZONI 1992: 184; id. 2002: 78).
18
On the function of the Syrian and Palestinian corrugated
and Pattern Combed jars with seal impressions as contai-
ners for olive oil, cf. MAZZONI 1992, 183-184, notes 18-19
(with further literature) and ead. 193-195.
19
For a more detailed presentation of the Operation J EBA
IV levels, cf. MORANDI BONACOSSI 2007a and in press a.
20
GODDEERIS - LAHLOUH - STÉNUIT 1997; LEBEAU - BRETSCHNEI-
DER 1997: 154.
21
AL-MAQDISSI 2001: 146.
22
DU MESNIL DU BUISSON 1935: 144-167.
23
Nearly 300 pottery vessels and over one hundred metal
objects such as daggers, a spearhead, toggle pins, orna-
ments and faience (or Egyptian Blue) and carnelian beads.
24
LUCIANI 2003: 146-157. Mid- to late third millennium cera-
mic material was also collected from the surface of Opera-
tion K.
69
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi

Fig. 5. Map of the Mishrifeh

region with distribution of
archaeological sites (PPNB to
Islamic; drawing A. Savioli).

northern Syria, such as ar-Rawda25, Sha’ayrat26 and
Ebla27.
In this case, it would be possible to estimate the exten-
sion of EBA IV Mishrifeh as at least about 25 ha28.
Our knowledge of the settlement of Mishrifeh
during the second half of the third millennium BC
is still rather patchy and certainly insufficient for
the reconstruction of a plan of the city and its
functional organization. The archaeological data,
despite their incompleteness, do however provide
a clear indication as to the nature of the settlement
on the site. The development (from a previous
EBA III settlement of unknown size and function)
of a medium to large-sized centre of roughly cir-
cular shape29, which contained an extensive and
densely populated residential area, numerous con-
structions (some large in size) for the processing
and intensive storage of agricultural produce
located in the centre of the site, and the existence
of evidence – such as seal impressions on the rims
of locally-produced jars – which indicates the
probable presence at Mishrifeh of a redistributive
type of staple finance system, all point towards the
existence of a genuinely urban settlement in EBA
IV Mishrifeh.
The hypothesis also receives corroboration from
Tomb IV which, with its rich grave goods and per-
sonal ornaments in pottery, metal and more exotic
25
CASTEL et al. 2004, figs. 4, 6; eid. 2005 and CASTEL, this volu-
me.
26
DU MESNIL DU BUISSON 1930; AL-MAQDISSI 1995; id. 2003a:
1513-1514.
27
MATTHIAE 1989.
28
MORANDI BONACOSSI 2007a.
29
Cf. also AL-MAQDISSI 2003a: 1513-1514.

70
 Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and Iron Ages

Fig. 6. Map of the Mishrifeh

region with distribution of EBA
IV archaeological sites (dra-
wing A. Savioli). Circles indica-
te the likely cultivated areas
around tells (radius 1 km). The
empty areas between the
wadis were probably used as
pasture lands.

materials (carnelian), demonstrates the presence,
in about 2400-2300 BC, of an urban-type elite
within the social fabric of the settlement.
Even though various functions characteristic of an
urban centre, such as for example defence and reli-
gion, have not as yet been recorded archaeologically at
Mishrifeh, others (residential, economic and perhaps
administrative, funerary) are starting to emerge from
the still very limited and fragmentary archaeological
data currently available concerning the EBA IV.
Further evidence has also been furnished by land-
scape archaeology studies conducted by the Italian
Mission in the region surrounding Mishrifeh.
The geo-archaeological survey has discovered the
existence of no less than 25 archaeological sites
distributed around Mishrifeh (Fig. 5)30. In the
course of the second half of the third millennium
BC, at the time when Mishrifeh was emerging as
quite a large city, the surrounding countryside was
colonized, for the first time in its history. Besides
Mishrifeh, 17 small settlements (ca. 1-2 ha)
appeared, distributed at regular intervals, most
frequently along the two wadis to the east and west
of the main site (Fig. 6)31. Tells are basically absent
along the central Wadi Zora with the exception of
two sites upstream of Mishrifeh. The triangle
determined by the confluence of the Wadi Mydan,
Zora and Slik (locally known also as Wadi Aswad)
and the town of Mishrifeh to the south appears to
be empty throughout all periods. Such a lack of
30
CREMASCHI - MORANDI BONACOSSI - VALSECCHI in press and
MORANDI BONACOSSI - PEÑA-CHOCARRO in press.
31
During the preceding periods of the Chalcolithic and EBA
only three settled sites were recorded in the region.

71
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi
sites could actually disguise limits of the archaeo-
logical survey to be considered in a future field
season.
This ‘conquest’ of the Mishrifeh region, by means
of the foundation during the EBA IV of a network
of villages distributed like a group of satellites
around the central town, was accompanied by the
territory’s agricultural colonization. As discussed
elsewhere32, the geometry assumed by the settle-
ment landscape, with its extremely regular linear
distribution of sites along watercourses (which
during the Bronze Age would have carried more
water than today)33, indicates that all potentially
cultivable land lay approximately within 1 km of
each site and could therefore be easily reached by
farmers residing in this network of villages. The
areas located beyond the cultivated zone along the
watercourses were most likely those that would
have remained as pasture. In the surveyed region
pasture land seems therefore to have been concen-
trated in two north-south ‘pastoral corridors’
included between the river valleys and in the area
to the south of Mishrifeh.
These data suggest that the settlement process of
the Mishrifeh hinterland during the second half of
the third millennium was driven by the synergy
between two principal factors: on one hand, an
increase in population pressure on local resources,
and, on the other, the development for the first
time in the region of a strong agricultural economy
based mainly on extensive dry-farming cereal cul-
tivation, supplemented at least locally by irrigated
horticulture and tree crops (vines and olives)34.
The available archaeological evidence, therefore,
suggests that the sudden growth of a two-tiered
settlement system, consisting of a network of rural
villages regularly distributed around Mishrifeh,
was strictly connected to (and probably the conse-
quence of) the emergence at the site during the
EBA IV of an urban centre acting as regional cen-
tral place.
The results of the geoarchaeological research con-
ducted in Mishrifeh and the surrounding area also
show how the development of a town at this loca-
tion in about the middle of the third millennium
BC resulted not only in a radical transformation of
the local settlement landscape, but also in a signif-
icant modification of the natural landscape around
the site. The likely capture of the karstic springs
rising from the limestone bedrock immediately to
the SW of the city and most probably the con-
struction of a threshold to slow drainage down-
72
stream determined the creation of an artificial lake
immediately to the W of the city35.
Similar sudden and important changes in the nat-
ural environment, settlement and agriculture
around Mishrifeh may only be imagined as conse-
quences of the growth – in the wider context of the
‘second urban revolution’ which was transforming
all of Syria in this period – of a medium to large-
sized urban centre of regional importance.
3.The new Middle Bronze Age city: the rise of Qatna as
a large urban centre and regional capital
A new and radical change in the organization of
Mishrifeh’s urban layout occurred at the transition
between the EBA and MBA. This development
and its implications have been discussed in detail
elsewhere36; the main points are outlined below.
The city probably acquired its characteristic quad-
rangular shape in the early second millennium BC.
This remained basically unchanged until Mishrifeh
was abandoned in about the middle of the first
millennium BC and was due to the construction of
a mighty system of fortification earthworks,
equipped with four principal and possibly at least
three additional gates giving access to the city. In
the absence of specific archaeological studies of
these square fortifications which surround the
city37, considerations based on their appearance
and typology and, above all, a comparison with the
ramparts of Tell Mardikh lead to hypothesize that
they were probably constructed at the beginning
of the MBA I38.
32
MORANDI BONACOSSI - PEÑA-CHOCARRO in press.
33
CREMASCHI - TROMBINO - SALA 2002; CREMASCHI - TROMBINO -
SALA - VALSECCHI 2003. See also CREMASCHI, this volume.
34
MORANDI BONACOSSI - PEÑA-CHOCARRO in press.
35
For a more detailed presentation and discussion of the evi-
dence, see CREMASCHI, this volume.
36
MORANDI BONACOSSI 2007a and in press a.
37
Cf. most recently, BURKE 2004.
38
See also AL-MAQDISSI 2002: 26. This proposed date is not
without its problems, since the AMS-radiocarbon date of
the peat from core samples taken in the area of the lake,
immediately outside the west rampart, and relevant to lacu-
strine peat – which is also found incorporated into the same
west earthwork – is 1650 BC (mean calibrated; calibrated
interval 2 sd: 1730-1520 BC), in other words, at the end of
the MBA II; cf. CREMASCHI, this volume and VALSECCHI, this
volume, Table 1. Furthermore, it should be remembered
that the only studies conducted on one of the main city
gates of the town, the ‘three-entrance’ western city gate,
indicated a relatively late date for its construction, which
was attributed to a late phase of the Middle Bronze Age
 Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and Iron Ages
It is probably to this period, which saw a more
than fourfold increase in the site’s area with
respect to the previous one39, that the first record-
ed use of the place name Qatna in written sources
also dates40.
Although the relevant information at our dis-
posal is still minimal, since the archaeological
excavations under way at various locations have
only reached Middle Bronze Age levels in a few
points, it is clear that at the transition between
the third and second millennia also the organi-
zation of the upper town changed markedly
(Fig. 7).
On the summit of the central hill, in Operation J,
the buildings and numerous installations for the
intensive storage of agricultural produce and pro-
cessing of cereals were replaced by an extensive
area devoted to large-scale pottery production.
The excavated archaeological evidence indicates
that in MBA Qatna pottery manufacture had
reached a well-developed level of mass production
based on the use of permanent and well organized
workshops, fast wheels, and large and technologi-
cally diversified kilns41.
The ceramic workshop was probably controlled by
an adjacent monumental building of (as yet)
unknown function; unfortunately, it has survived
in a very poor state of conservation, but occupied
a central position in the city and surely had a pub-
lic function42.
During the MBA I and early MBA II, to the
north of Operation J, on a plateau of the upper
town overlooking the lower town, a large funer-
ary area appeared43. In the northern part of the
upper town, above the EBA IV residential area,
a large necropolis with graves of members of the
urban elite of Qatna as well as of individuals of
lower social rank was located. The graveyard was
subsequently largely destroyed by the construc-
tion of the Royal Palace and its massive founda-
tion system.
To sum up, during the transition from the EBA IV
to the MBA I a drastic change in the urban and
functional layout of the upper town took place. A
large public area consisting of a monumental
building with a well-equipped factory-like pottery
manufacturing area was erected on the summit of
Qatna’s upper town. At the same time (MB I-early
MB II), a large cemetery with high status shaft
graves and ordinary pit burials of adults, children
and newborn babies, was established to the north
of this central public area, above the abandoned
EBA IV residential quarter.
These deep-seated changes in the town layout of
(GREGORI 1986: 92 and note 65) and the late fifteenth-four-
teenth century BC (HULT 1994: 193-195). Lastly, du Mesnil
du Buisson, although he did not take up a clear position
regarding the chronology of the earthworks, indicated (on
the basis of rather vague considerations) the eighteenth
century as terminus post quem for their construction (1935:
40-46). The possibility cannot be excluded that Qatna’s
earthen ramparts and city gates were built later than the
early MBA I, such as at the end of the MBA or during the
MB-LB transition.
39
It passed from an estimated 25 ha in the EBA IV to a nota-
ble 110 ha.
40
According to a recent interpretation of a much-discussed
passage of the ‘Sinuhe-tale’, dating to the reign of Pharaoh
Sesostris I at the beginning of the XII Dynasty (proposed by
SCHNEIDER 2002). The meaning of the toponym Qatna has
not been discussed so far in the literature (cf. most recently,
Richter 2006, 159). The name derives from the root ‘q - # - n’
meaning ‘thin, fine, narrow’ in many ancient Semitic langua-
ges (e.g. Akkadian, Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopian). The Akka-
dian verb qatªnu means ‘to become thin, narrow’ (CAD Q,
163), ‘dünn sein, werden, dünn machen’ (AHw 907); the
adjective qatnu has the meaning of ‘narrow’ and is said for
example of streets, roads, gates, quay walls but also textiles,
scarves, and belts (CAD Q, 173-175; AHw. 908). The
Hebrew verb ( __ ) also means ‘to be, to make short, small,
thin’ and Syriac qa##‰na has the meaning of ‘small, narrow’
(KÖHLER and BAUMGARTNER 2001, 1092-1093).
The same root is probably also found in the later toponym
Qattine, which lies south of Homs, close to the ancient Oron-
tes dam which forms the Lake of Homs (Arab. Ba‹ret el-
Qa##ine). It should be stressed that both toponyms (and also
the OB, MA and NA place name Qa##unªn/Qatun/Qatni in
the Lower Khabur Valley, which is formed from the same root;
for a discussion of the toponym, cf. MORANDI BONACOSSI 1996,
216-217 with further literature) are strictly related to water-
courses and/or lakes. From the same root may also derive the
toponym Ga-da-nuKI mentioned in a text from the Ebla archi-
ves (for a discussion of its identification, cf. ASTOUR 1988, 145;
ARCHI - PIACENTINI - POMPONIO 1993, 226; BONECHI 1993, 162).
As discussed above, the Qatna Lake probably had an – at
least partially – artificial origin during the EBA IV, resul-
ting from the capture of local karstic springs and (most
probably) the construction of a threshold to slow drainage
downstream.
As for the Qattine Lake, WEULERSSE (1940, 17) and CALVET
and GEYER (1992, 27) agree that «le lac de Homs a été natu-
rel, l’Oronte étant sans doute barré par un affleurement
rocheux, constitué des coulées basaltiques. Cette disposi-
tion naturelle a pu être exploitée par l’homme qui, dès l’an-
tiquité, aurait amélioré l’obstacle rocheux en édifiant un
mur de pierre, destiné à surélever le niveau de la retenue».
The ancient dam of the Homs Lake, which incorporated
the natural barrier that led to the formation of the lake, has
been variously dated to the LBA or to the Roman period (cf.
CALVET and GEYER 1992, 33-39 with literature and PHILIP, this
volume). In a Mari letter (M. 5423), however, a lake (Akkadian
tªmtum, Mari letters t®mtum), most probably the Lake of
Homs (CHARPIN 1998, 87 and ZIEGLER, this volume), is men-
73
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi
Fig. 7. The Early MBA at Mishrifeh (drawing A. Savioli).
Qatna and the function of the different regions of its
upper city44, taken together with the site’s fortifica-
tion by means of an impressive enclosure of earth-
works with main and subsidiary entrances, which
resulted in the city’s fourfold enlargement in com-
parison with the late third millennium BC45, imply
that the early MBA urban transformations should be
seen as a wholesale re-foundation of the city.
The interpretation of this programme of urban
and functional reorganization of the site as the
redesign of an already existing town, which was
characterized by entirely different size, plan and
functions, is also supported by the profound
change which occurred in the man-made land-
scape around Qatna. The alteration of the
anthropogenic landscape was brought about by
the erection of the town’s western and southern
fortifications. These ramparts divided the lake
which was – as described above – probably cre-
ated artificially during the late third millennium
BC, into an external lake, fed by the karstic
springs located at the southwestern corner of the
town, and an internal lake located in the north-
ern lower city, at the foot of the scarp leading to
the upper town46.
Thus, not only Qatna’s urban landscape, but also
the surrounding man-made landscape – which had
74
probably been to a certain extent created ex novo
during the EBA IV – was remodelled as a result of
tioned close to the fortress of Dur-Ishkhi-Addu, which had
perhaps been erected at the southern border of the king-
dom of Qatna. Therefore a lake (natural or already artifi-
cial?) must have existed here already during the MBA. A
natural origin and a later man-made improvement of the
barrage, as in the case of the Homs Lake, seems plausible
also for the Qatna Lake.
The integration of linguistic and geoarchaeological eviden-
ce makes it possible to frame the hypothesis that the
toponym Qatna referred to a natural or artificial topo-
graphic feature characterizing the landscape, such as a ‘nar-
rowing’ or a ‘threshold’ damming up local karstic springs
and forming a small lake.
In this respect the fact that the first mention of the
toponym Qatna occurs at the very beginning of the second
millennium BC, not far from the period in which the Qatna
Lake most likely originated, may not be accidental.
41
MORANDI BONACOSSI 2003 and in press a-b.
42
For hypotheses concerning the function of this building,
see MORANDI BONACOSSI 2006b and in press a.
43
MORANDI BONACOSSI 2007b.
44
Precise data on the Qatna lower town during the MBA are
still lacking. A programme of geophysical prospecting
using georadar and magnetometry on the part of the joint
Italo-Syrian Mission is currently under way.
45
At present information regarding the existence of a fortifi-
cation system around the city during the EBA IV is not yet
available.
46
CREMASCHI, this volume; CREMASCHI et al., this volume.
 Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and Iron Ages
Fig. 8. Map of the Mishrifeh
region with distribution of
MBA archaeological sites
(drawing A. Savioli).
a public building project of extraordinary propor-
tions.
In the MBA, the settlement pattern in the Qatna
countryside also underwent modifications (Fig. 8).
The MBA witnessed a decrease in the number of
settled sites to 13. This drop in the occupational
density with respect to the preceding EBA IV seems
especially to have affected the Wadi Mydan valley to
the east of Qatna, where the number of occupied
sites declined from eight to only three during the
MBA. The majority of the sites settled during the
second half of the third millennium, though, was
still in use during the MBA, and only two new set-
tlements were founded (nos. 03 and 25).
Settlement size remained unchanged with respect
to the EBA IV; sites appear to have been small vil-
lage communities built on small tells (1-2 ha) of
still limited height. The settlement pattern also
remained substantially unaltered, with small vil-
lages distributed in linear fashion at regular inter-
vals – although more distantly spaced than in the
third millennium – along watercourses, the flow of
which, in the MBA, was still much greater than
that of today47. The north-south ‘pastoral corri-
47
Palaeoenvironmental research, however, indicates a
widespread change towards a more open landscape at
around 1680 cal. BC, which is clearly indicated by a dra-
matic decrease in shrubs, a consequent increase in the
percentage of herbs and a drop in the level of Qatna’s
lake. The parallel dramatic rise in the proportion of
sheep and goats in the domestic fauna assemblages and
the disappearance of wheat in favour of the less water-
demanding barley could be the consequence of economic
choices rather than progressive aridification (see CREMA-
SCHI, this volume; VALSECCHI, this volume; CREMASCHI et al.,
this volume).
75
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi
Fig. 9. The MB-LB transition and the LBA at Mishrifeh (drawing A. Savioli).
dors’ that had developed during the EBA IV in
the zones between the wadis and to the south of
Qatna were probably still used for sheep and
goat husbandry during the MBA as well.
The reconstructed MBA settlement pattern of
Qatna’s hinterland, together with palaeoenviron-
mental data and the archaeobotanical record48,
indicates that (as during the earlier EBA IV) agri-
culture continued to be mainly based on extensive
dry-farming cereal cultivation (now almost exclu-
sively barley, no longer wheat), probably supple-
mented, at least in some areas, by irrigated horti-
culture, vineyards and olive groves.
The same information sources also suggest a sig-
nificant deterioration of the natural environment
of the region from the late MBA II onwards, prob-
ably due (at least on a local scale) to an increased
anthropogenic impact (deforestation and over-
grazing). This might be interpreted as the direct
consequence of the notable growth Qatna experi-
enced during the MBA and the increased demo-
graphic pressure on the natural resources. At the
same time this process must be seen though, at
least on a regional scale, also against the back-
ground of a widespread trend towards increasing
aridity, which is suggested by the available
palaeoenvironmental evidence49.
76
4. Qatna’s urban revival at the end of the MBA and the
beginning of the LBA: a mid-second millennium ‘hol-
low city’?
Recent work by the Syrian, Italo-Syrian and Ger-
man-Syrian Missions have radically changed our
understanding of ancient Qatna from the late Mid-
dle Bronze Age-early Late Bronze Age, one of the
city’s periods of maximum splendour and urban
development. By this time, the city had already lost
the political rank of capital of a vast and powerful
regional kingdom that it had held during the early
part of the Middle Bronze Age. And yet it was dur-
ing this epoch that Qatna’s royal dynasty initiated
a centralized programme of public and institution-
al building, which appears to have involved both
the upper and lower cities, thus launching a fur-
ther important phase of urban and functional reor-
ganization of the town (Fig. 9).
At the end of the MBA II, the large and articulated
pottery workshop located on the summit of the
upper town expanded westwards and the public
building which had been erected here in the early
48
See RIEHL, this volume; VALSECCHI, this volume; PEÑA-CHO-
CARRO - ROTTOLI, this volume.
49
Cf. note 47.
 Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and Iron Ages
Fig. 10. Schematic plan of the Royal Palace, Operations G, H and R.
second millennium was demolished and the space
partly incorporated in the pottery production area50.
Roughly during the same period or immediately
after, during the MB-LB transition, above the
abandoned necropolis, a new and imposing Royal
Palace measuring 153 m x 107 m was built (Fig.
10)51. This monumental building encompasses
over 16,000 sq m and is the largest Syrian palace of
the mid-second millennium BC52.
Furthermore, as part of a vast and complex public
building programme which served to equip the
city with a series of monumental buildings in
which the ceremonial, administrative, bureaucrat-
ic, productive and residential activities of its mem-
bers and dignitaries could be organized, the Qatna
court built a sumptuous monumental residence
which flanked the Royal Palace to the south (Fig.
9)53 and another impressive building immediately
east of the Royal Palace. This latter construction,
on the basis of the results of the first excavations
conducted by the Syrian and Italo-Syrian Missions
in 2006 in Operation T, may perhaps be a further
palace complex adjacent to the Royal Palace and
associated with structures (also discovered during
the excavation), possibly productive in nature,
which border on the Palace.
In addition, another vast palace, the ‘Lower City
Palace’ (Fig. 11), was built at the base of the northern
slope of the upper town54.
50
MORANDI BONACOSSI 2007b and in press a-b.
51
The location of the actual MBA royal palace is still unk-
nown. For the dating of the construction of the palace
excavated by the Syrian, Italian and German teams in Ope-
rations G, H and R to the very late MBA II or the MB-LB
transition, see MORANDI BONACOSSI 2007b. For a different
chronology, however, see NOVÁK 2004 and PFÄLZNER, this
volume, who place the erection of this monumental com-
plex during the MB I/MB II transition and the MBA IIA
respectively (i.e. during the ‘Mari period’). This early dates
have also been rejected by AL-MAQDISSI 2003a, 1510-1513.
52
For a description and analysis of its plan, cf. DU MESNIL DU
BUISSON 1935; DARDAILLON 2000; NOVÁK - PFÄLZNER 2002;
eid. 2003; AL-MAQDISSI 2003a; NOVÁK 2004; MORANDI BONA-
COSSI 2007b; PFÄLZNER, this volume.
53
AL-MAQDISSI 2003a: 1500-1505; AL-MAQDISSI 2003b: 235-
239; AL-MAQDISSI - MORANDI BONACOSSI 2005: 20-21.
54
LUCIANI 2003: 146-157.
77
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi

Fig. 11. Schematic plan of the ‘Lower City Palace’, Operation K (drawing A. Savioli).

In mid-second millennium BC Qatna, therefore, a – perhaps arranged in concentric circles55 – in the

nuclear-type palace model, based on a single
large palace building in which, besides residen-
tial functions, those of political power and con-
trol and economic interface of the redistributive
system were concentrated, was replaced by a
decentralized model in which these functions
were distributed among several public buildings
vast area of the upper town around the Royal
Palace, which remained the focus of the ruling
dynasty’s power, and in the lower town.
55
An inner circle could have been composed of the residen-
ce just to the south of the Royal Palace and the building

78
 Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and Iron Ages
A similar pattern can be observed in the contem-
porary city of Ugarit, where the royal core of the
city with the Palais royal at its centre consisted of
a series of monumental buildings surrounding the
palace, such as the Maison de Yabninou (Palais
sud) to the south, the Palais nord, the Résidence de
la Reine-Mère and the Résidence nord to the north
and the Quartier résidentiel with its magnificent
residential houses to the east56.
In the context of this modified town layout,
besides the Royal Palace, the ‘Lower City Palace’
is of particular interest as well: this vast building,
not yet fully excavated, covered over 2,200 sq m
and contained at least 68 rooms. It was built
according to a style typical of palace architecture,
with doorways decorated with basalt slabs and
provided with column bases, Aegean-type wall
paintings like those found in the Royal Palace and
contained valued Middle Cypriot (Red-on-Black
and White Painted), Late Cypriot (White Slip I and
Base Ring I-II) and Mycenaean (LH IIIA2) type
pottery, imported from the eastern Mediterranean
and Argolis, hundreds of pieces of ivory inlay and
administrative documents such as seals, clay seal-
ings and a small archive of cuneiform tablets57.
Amongst the tablets – all administrative in nature –
found in the ‘Lower City Palace’ archive58, there is
one that stands out for the particular interest of its
content59. The text lists quantities of beer issued to
about 500 men from different localities. These
groups of men, probably soldiers, were placed
under the supervision of named individuals in
important structures, almost certainly in Qatna
itself. The structures mentioned include five
‘houses of the big gate’ (bit abullim) and a ‘palace’
under the supervision of an individual named
Shep-shenni, probably a high-ranking officer. It is
a fascinating possibility that the Operation K
‘Lower City Palace’ could be the ‘palace’ con-
trolled by Shep-shenni60.
The meaning of the term ‘house of the big gate’ is
also controversial; it could refer to the spaces and
rooms in the Qatna gate structures themselves or,
more probably, to fortresses controlling the ram-
parts located close to the city gates, like those
excavated on the ramparts of MBA II Ebla61.
Some of the Ebla fortresses were indeed connect-
ed to city gates, whilst others were devoted to the
control of sections of the rampart. Their size
appears in some cases quite considerable and one
could imagine that the Ebla fortresses were manned
with numerous soldiers. In this respect it seems
worthwhile to mention that in the text rather large
numbers of men are recorded in connection with
the different ‘houses of the big gate’62.
If this interpretative hypothesis is correct, Qatna’s
earthen ramparts might have been controlled by at
least five fortresses – possibly built during the pre-
ceding MBA – called bit abullim and housing up
to 500 soldiers.
As is clear from the discussion so far, the over-
whelming majority of archaeological data regarding
the city during the MB-LB transition and the LBA
I comes from the upper town zone. The lower town,
in contrast, is still virtually unknown, with the
exception of the ‘Lower City Palace’, which faces
the northern city gate, and the final LBA II residen-
tial quarter unearthed by the Syrian Mission at the
foot of the western side of the Coupole de Loth63.
Notwithstanding the scarce availability of archaeo-
logical evidence regarding Qatna’s lower town,
recent field observations allow us to add a further
detail concerning the northern lower town to the
general picture. Between the small internal lake
and the northern rampart, to the west of the
north gate, there is an extensive area distin-
guished by the superficial presence of reddish
earth derived from the deterioration of structures
in mud brick (Fig. 9). Observation of the exposed
section of a large modern pit which crosses the
area revealed the existence of thick mortar floors
belonging to buildings, probably houses, with
stone-built foundations and mud-brick standing
walls and datable – on the basis of pottery visible
on the floors – to the LBA I. It thus seems that in
this period part of the northwestern lower town
may have been occupied by a residential quarter.
In 2005 the Italo-Syrian Mission began a pro-
gramme of geophysical prospecting in the lower
– perhaps palatine in character – located immediately to
the east of the same, whereas a possible outer circle would
have included the ‘Lower City Palace’.
56
Such as the Maison aux albâtres, the Maison de Rapanou,
the Maison de Rashapabou etc. For an overview of the zone
royale, see YON 1997, 45-87 with further literature.
57
LUCIANI 2003: 146-157; ead. 2004: 134-142, 2005; ead. 2006.
58
EIDEM 2003; id. in press.
59
Text MSH.03K.3849.701; EIDEM, this volume.
60
Eidem, however, considers it more likely that this building
was Qatna’s Royal Palace (EIDEM, this volume).
61
MATTHIAE 1997a: 11; id. 1998: 577-582 and id. 2002; PEYRO-
NEL 2000.
62
From 20-40 to 100-120; see EIDEM, this volume.
63
Four houses of this quarter have been excavated so far
(Prof. al-Maqdissi, personal communication).
79
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi
Fig. 12. Map of the Mishrifeh
region with distribution of LBA
archaeological sites (drawing
A. Savioli).
town using a new multi-channel radar device,
GSSI Terravision, linked with a differential GPS
receiver64. The entire northwestern lower town
and a small portion of the eastern lower town were
covered; with the exception of the possible resi-
dential area mentioned above and few other struc-
tures, the zone would not appear to have been
densely inhabited65.
These observations are clearly preliminary, partial
and not yet verified by archaeological excavation,
but point to the possibility that during the LBA
the city of Qatna was a sort of ‘hollow city’, a city
containing numerous and impressive administra-
tive buildings, concentrated in the upper town or
at its margins, together with open areas free of
buildings, perhaps occupied – as in Mari – by gar-
dens, as well as fields and bodies of water, but with
only limited areas of domestic architecture.
80
From the information available we know that, dur-
ing the LBA, in Qatna’s northwestern lower town,
at the foot of the scarp leading to the upper town,
below the Royal Palace, there was an internal lake.
Palaeoenvironmental evidence indicates that this
body of water underwent contraction from the
end of the MBA and gradually became a swamp in
the late LBA or early Iron Age66. Between this lake
64
The project, which is still on-going, is coordinated by prof. E.
Finzi (University of Padua) and dr. Roberto Francese (National
Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics, Trieste)
and will be continued in 2007 with a magnetometer survey.
65
The scarcity of archaeological features identified by the geophy-
sical survey cannot be ascribed to inability of the Terravision
signal to penetrate the ground to a sufficient depth, but must
rather be related to a substantial dearth of buried structures.
66
CREMASCHI, this volume; CREMASCHI et al., this volume.
 Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and Iron Ages
and the northern earthwork there was perhaps a
residential quarter, but no evidence of other sig-
nificant constructions67.
In the upper town, on the other hand, no traces of
normal dwellings have yet been found.
According to the available archaeological evi-
dence, the ‘hollow cities’ phenomenon seems to
arise in Syria and Northern Iraq at the beginning
of the second millennium BC. In contrast with
many mid- and late third millennium BC urban
centres, which are distinguished by close-packed
urban neighbourhoods68, various large second mil-
lennium cities seem rather to have been adminis-
trative shells characterised by numerous and often
imposing public buildings, low residential densi-
ties and a population basically consisting of insti-
tutional personnel, such as administrators and
high-ranking officers, but essentially lacking an
extensive ordinary domestic occupation. Evidence
of this development has been recovered from
northern Mesopotamian and Syrian MBA sites,
such as Tell ar-Rimakh69, Tell al-Hawa70, Tell
Leilan71 and perhaps also Mari72 and Ebla73.
We may tentatively suggest that LBA Qatna might
also be added to this list of vast second millennium
disembedded capitals, which exemplified a new –
possibly ‘Amorrean’ – concept of the city that
emerged at the beginning of the MBA. These ‘new’
cities were essentially devoid of common residents
and enclosed enormous fortified areas. These con-
siderably exceeded the needs of the individual
centres and can be viewed as an expression of the
emulation and competition processes characteris-
tic of peer-polity interaction and as an extreme
protection for the inhabitants of the surrounding
countryside in the face of enemy attack74.
Archaeological survey conducted in the territory
around the site has led to the identification of sev-
eral villages in which the population of Qatna’s
hinterland lived (Fig. 12). With respect to the pre-
ceding MBA, the number of settlements remains
basically unchanged (in fact, there is a slight
reduction from 13 to 11 sites). The middle and
lower course of Wadi Slik now seem to be unin-
habited but, in general, the settlement pattern
does not seem to have altered greatly since the first
half of the second millennium BC.
The cuneiform texts from the ‘Idanda Archive’
found in the Royal Palace and the tablets from the
‘Lower City Palace’ administrative archive make
reference to the existence of numerous small set-
tlements in the countryside surrounding Qatna. It
would appear, therefore, that the number of sites
identified during fieldwork is inferior to that of
67
Apart, of course, for the ‘Lower City Palace’ further to the
east.
68
For example – to cite but the most evident examples – sites
such as Tell Taya in northern Iraq (READE 1973), Beydar
(LEBEAU - SULEIMAN 1997) and Khuera (PFÄLZNER 1997 and id.
2001; DOHMANN-PFÄLZNER - PFÄLZNER 1996), in northeastern
Syria, Selenkahiye (VAN LOON 2001: 3.31-3.86), Halawa A
(ORTHMANN 1989), Hadidi (DORNEMANN 1979) and Sweyhat
(HOLLAND 1976; PEREGRINE et al. 1997; ZETTLER 1997) along
the Middle Euphrates, ar-Rawda (CASTEL et al. 2004 and eid.
2005; GONDET - CASTEL 2004), Sha’ayrat (DU MESNIL DU BUISSON
1930; AL-MAQDISSI 1990a and id. 1995), Moumassakin (BOUN-
NI - AL-MAQDISSI 1992; AL-MAQDISSI 1988; id. 1989; id. 1990b
and id. 2000), probably, Mishrifeh itself, with its large and
densely populated residential quarter in the northern part of
the upper town, in west-central Syria, and Khirbet el-Umba-
shi in southern Syria (BRAEMER et al. 1993 and eid. 1996).
69
OATES 1985.
70
BALL et al. 1989.
71
WEISS 1985; RISTVET - WEISS 2005.
72
AYNARD - SPYCKET 1987-1990; DURAND 1998, 520; FLEMING
2004. In MBA Mari extensive residential quarters have not
yet been identified (MARGUERON 2004: 442-458), only pala-
tial buildings (the Grand Palais Royal and Petit Palais orien-
tal), monumental residences (the Grande Résidence orienta-
le and Grande Résidence occidentale) and a building of as
yet unknown function (the bâtiment du chantier E). Part of
an Old Babylonian Zimri-Lim epoch residential quarter has
recently been explored in Area K, immediately east of the
Grand Palais Royal (ibid.: 455-456). Here, two central-
courtyard houses have been partly brought to light, and in
one of these (the maison des Tablettes) a considerable quan-
tity of tablets was found, some of which were scholastic
texts. However, though this could perhaps be in part a
result of the choice of priorities made for excavations at
Mari since 1933, during this lengthy period ordinary Old
Babylonian residential quarters with modest dwellings –
rather than large and sumptuous ones like the maison des
Tablettes and the house to the south of it, which each
occupy c. 170 m2 – have never been found. Texts from Mari
indicate the presence of open areas in the lower town, par-
tly occupied by gardens (ibid.: 446) and, although Margue-
ron excludes the possibility that the lower town was «un
espace pratiquement vide d’hommes et d’habitats» (ibid.:
457), the archaeological evidence currently available cer-
tainly offers no confirmation that Mari’s urban space was,
in this period, entirely and densely settled and occupied
also by residential quarters inhabited by ordinary people.
Written sources from Mari, on the other hand, do not
describe the principal cities of the kingdom of Mari (Terqa,
Saggaratum and Qattunan) as important cities with high
densities of urban inhabitants, but rather as sparsely popu-
lated centres. For Terqa, e.g., on the basis of texts dealing
with the mobilization of a workforce for the purpose of
building flood barriers, a population not exceeding 2000
has been estimated (DURAND 1998: 520-521). For Mari
itself, unfortunately infrequently referred to in written
sources, particular importance is attached to texts which
list numerous bâbtum in the capital; the term could refer to
workers gathering at one of the gates (bâbum) of Mari.
From these texts one gathers that, in Old Babylonian times,
81
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi
place names documented in the close vicinity of
the site75. This may be related to the fact that cer-
tain toponyms refer to tiny settlements or even
individual farms76, but also to the probability that
Qatna’s territory extended beyond the area cov-
ered by our research in the field.
A similar situation is shown by a comparison of
survey evidence and the study of written sources
for the urban centre of Alalakh IV and its terri-
tory during the LBA. Here, archaeological exca-
vation has brought to light the ‘Palace of
Niqmepa’, a temple, part of the city wall with two
gates, and four huge residences, but no ordinary
residential quarter77. Furthermore, although texts
from Alalakh IV indicate the existence of many
small settlements in the surrounding country-
side78, the number of sites discovered during
repeated field walking campaigns in the area is
somewhat limited79.
In about the mid-fourteenth century BC the pub-
lic buildings belonging to the large official hub
which distinguished the urban landscape of the
Qatna upper town seem to have been destroyed or
abandoned – possibly at the same time – and were
not replaced by other official buildings. The Royal
Palace was set on fire80, the ‘Lower City Palace’
was deserted and the area not resettled until the
late IA I-early IA II81, whilst the large residence to
the south of the Royal Palace was abandoned and
in its place a new pottery workshop appeared82.
Finally, during the LBA II, after over half a mil-
lennium of continuous activity, the large, state-run
pottery ‘factory’ built at the very beginning of the
second millennium on the summit of Qatna’s
upper town was also abandoned.
The work conducted at Mishrifeh has not yet
yielded evidence that the site was continually
occupied from the end of the LBA II to the IA I.
The oldest IA levels recorded here at present are
those from Operation K (Phases K 9-4), which
have been dated to the late tenth-ninth century BC
(Iron Age IC and IIA)83.
It is therefore possible that, whilst the site was con-
tinuously inhabited from the EBA III until the
LBA II, there was a gap in the settlement history
between the LBA II-IA I transition and the first
phases of the IA I (IA IA-B, twelfth-eleventh cen-
turies BC). On the other hand, given the huge
extension of the site and the relatively small area
excavated to date, the possibility exists that future
excavations at Mishrifeh will uncover initial IA I
82
occupation layers, thus sheding light on the ‘Dark
Age’ centuries at the site.
most of the population of Mari lived in rural villages sur-
rounding the capital (ibid.). The villages belonging to this
network of rural satellites of Mari reveal a large population,
which, according to the bâbtum texts, was divided into
various professional classes. This leads Durand to conclude
that «le tell de Mari peut donc pour une bonne parte être
considéré comme vide d’habitations privées à l’époque de
Zimrî-Lîm, sa population se répartissant dans les campa-
gnes avoisinantes», ibid.: 521).
73
The only Old Syrian buildings in Ebla which may be inter-
preted with certainty as private dwellings were found
between Sanctuary B2 and the Southern Palace (Palace FF)
and to the northeast of the Damascus Gate (BAFFI 1989;
MATTHIAE 1997b: 125, 133 and id. 2006: 5). It is uncertain
whether the structures discovered northeast of the Temple N
should be interpreted as houses (MATTHIAE 1997b: 125). In
general, Matthiae notes that, notwithstanding the considera-
ble surface area of urban Old Syrian Ebla which has been
brought to light, «the total surface…which might be classi-
fied as private houses area is extraordinarily limited»; he
hypothesizes, though, that other residential quarters may be
found in a concentric band beyond the ring of temples and
palaces which surrounds the base of the Ebla upper town
(ibid.: 125-126). Due to the absence both of large residences
and of marked differences in size or internal organization
between the houses identified to date, the MBA dwellings
that have been so far discovered at Ebla have been interpre-
ted as belonging to the numerous personnel of the palace
and temple economic organizations (ibid.: 133). Only the
continuation of the excavation of that portion of the lower
town between the earthworks and the ring of public buil-
dings around the upper town will make it possible to verify
the existence of residential quarters with houses belonging to
both the higher and lower social classes of Old Syrian Ebla.
If such residential areas were not found, we should conclude
that a large portion of the Ebla society lived in the villages in
the surrounding countryside and not in the city itself, which
would thus be another example of a MBA ‘hollow city’.
74
See also, in this regard, ARMT V 36, 37 and 43, in which the
governor of Karana, Hasidanum, reports to Iasmakh-Addu
concerning the measures adopted for the protection of the
inhabitants of the rural villages in the countryside around
Karana during an enemy attack. They are taken to safety
within the defensive structures of various fortified towns.
75
EIDEM in press and this volume; RICHTER 2003 and this volume.
76
In the conscription lists from the ‘Idanda Archive’, which list
people according to their social position or future assign-
ments, the fact that only a few personal names are recorded
for each individual settlement indicates that they were proba-
bly small settlements or farmsteads (see RICHTER, this volume).
77
WOOLLEY 1955. For a recent review of the Level IV archi-
tecture, see YENER 2005: 108-110.
78
The texts refer to circa 200 villages in the kingdom of
Mukish, which roughly coincides with the ‘Amuq Plain,
many of which were small or tiny (from three to about
eighty houses); see WISEMAN 1953. The situation in the
kingdom of Ugarit must have been similar; see HELTZER
1976 and id. 1982.
79
BRAIDWOOD 1937; CASANA - WILKINSON 2005.
80
DU MESNIL DU BUISSON 1935: 74-104; BARRO 2003: 92; NOVÁK -
PFÄLZNER 2003: 134-135. On the destruction of the Royal Pala-
 Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and Iron Ages
Fig. 13. The Iron Age at Mishrifeh (drawing A. Savioli).
5. The last city: Mishrifeh during the Iron Age II and III
After a period during which the site was perhaps
deserted, in the late IA I and especially the IA II
and III, Mishrifeh witnessed again a dramatic
change in its urban and functional layout, within
a totally new historical and socio-economic con-
text84.
Archaeological evidence relating to the terminal
phase of the IA I (Iron Age IC) has been found in
only two excavation areas (Operations H and K),
located in the central and northern parts of
Mishrifeh’s upper town, out of the 14 areas inves-
tigated by du Mesnil du Buisson in the 1920s85 and
16 areas dug by the Syrian, Italo-Syrian and Syro-
German Missions between 1994 and 2006. Equal-
ly significant, on the other hand, is the fact that
layers from the following IA II with finds in situ
have come to light in 25 of the 30 areas excavated
in the upper town and surrounding lower town86.
Even though this picture may be altered by the
fact that IA I pottery has only in recent years been
identified in central-western Syria, and that only a
tiny proportion of the material from the French
excavations has been published87, it is also true
that the excavations of the last 13 years have found
IA II settlement levels in 14 of the 16 new areas
dug since 1994.
Data concerning the earliest IA settlement (IA IC)
are therefore rather scarce. They allow us, howev-
ce of Qatna by fire – perhaps (but not necessarily!) during a
military attack against the city in about the middle of the four-
teenth century during the reign of King Idanda, ally of the Hit-
tite king Shuppiluliuma I, (after the Einjähriger Feldzug on the
part of the sovereign) by an unidentified enemy, perhaps Tush-
ratta of Mitanni – cf., most recently, RICHTER 2002, 614-616, in
particular note 58 (with previous bibliography), RICHTER 2003:
168-171, 178-182; NOVÁK - PFÄLZNER 2003: 133-135; PFÄLZNER,
this volume. Even if the attack on Qatna actually occurred, it
does not seem to have caused the violent destruction of the
whole city, but just that of the Royal Palace. By the same token,
the conquest and sack of Qatna by Shuppiluliuma I, which fol-
lowed soon after, during the reign of Idanda’s successor Akiz-
zi, and which are mentioned in the introduction to the Treaty
of Shattiwaza, do not seem to have caused extensive damage to
the city (cf. CTH 51 and BECKMAN 1999: 43, No. 6 § 4).
81
LUCIANI 2004: 135, 143.
82
AL-MAQDISSI 2002: 196-198; AL-MAQDISSI - BADAWI - TARAQJI
2002: 47.
83
LUCIANI 2003: 158-161. Among the various chronologies of
the Syrian Iron Age which have been drawn up by different
archaeologists (and in merit of which no clear consensus has
yet been reached amongst scholars), the system devised by
Stefania Mazzoni on the basis of the stratigraphic sequence
discovered at the site of Tell Afis has been here followed
(MAZZONI 1990 and ead. 2000a). The Iron Age is divided into
three sub-periods: Iron IA-C (c. 1200-900 BC), Iron IIA-B (c.
900-700 BC) and Iron III (c. 700-550 BC). For other chrono-
logical systems of reference regarding the Syrian Iron Age, see
MOOREY 1980 and LEBEAU 1983.
83
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi
er, to estimate that the late tenth-early ninth cen-
tury BC settlement most likely occupied a fairly
small area and was rural in character, without spe-
cialization or public architecture, consisting rather
of quite sizeable buildings which covered a small
rise in the northern part of the upper town, slop-
ing down towards the lower town (Operation K;
Fig. 13), and combined residential and productive
functions under one roof88.
In Operation H, in what had been the eastern por-
tion of the Royal Palace89, sporadic traces were
uncovered of an activity which is difficult to inter-
pret, consisting of pits cut into the razed second mil-
lennium palace walls, without buildings of any kind.
The early IA II sees a vigorous return to urban life
on the site (Fig. 13), the IA name of which we do
not know. The name Qatna is not recorded from
written sources after the LBA II90 and is absent
from Luwian-Aramaic and Neo-Assyrian sources
regarding central Syria91.
With respect to layout, organization, size and char-
acter, the IA II settlement was profoundly differ-
ent from the small late tenth century village with
its all-purpose buildings which even contained
small craft workshops, such as the jeweller’s work-
shop in Building 1.
After having been used for centuries as a pottery
mass production area probably supervised by a
central institution residing in an adjacent public
building, the summit of the upper town reverted
to stockpiling function (as during the EBA IV).
Intensive food storage in Operation I involved
more than a hundred storage pits and small and
large granaries92, whilst during the latest phase of
use of the area, which can be dated to the late IA
II and IA III, houses and work installations
appeared on top of the earlier storage facilities93.
In Operations G, H and T, above the abandoned
Royal Palace and immediately to the east of it a
large semicircular crafts quarter was constructed.
This artisans’ quarter was specialized in the pro-
cessing and storage of food and agricultural pro-
duce and in the weaving and dyeing of textiles94.
Dyeing installations identical to those excavated
in the crafts quarter had already been discovered
– though wrongly interpreted – by du Mesnil du
Buisson in the so-called Maisons area near the
southern city gate and in the Ouvrage Ronzevalle95.
The production quarter, which during the IA II
manufactured coloured textiles and processed
foodstuffs on a large scale (cereals, grapes, olives
and almonds), and the intensive stockpiling area of
84
Operation J with its storage pits were possibly con-
nected to and dependent on the adjacent and con-
temporary administrative building, which was
equipped with a large central courtyard and stor-
age rooms packed with conservation jars excavat-
ed by the Syrian team in Operation C96.
A large, multipurpose official building with large
storage rooms for agricultural produce, cellars,
and installations for pottery and textile production
has recently been discovered by the Syrian team at
the northeastern foot of the upper town97.
Finally, Iron Age II and III living areas were iden-
tified in Operations A, K, and J98.
84
For a comprehensive study of the occupation and function
of the site during the first half of the first millennium BC,
85
see now MORANDI BONACOSSI 2006a.
DU MESNIL DU BUISSON 1935.
86
The IA II was not found only in the two excavation areas
on the earthworks, one near the northeast corner of the
north rampart (DU MESNIL DU BUISSON 1926: 293) and the
other in the ‘Clermont-Ganneau’ site, on the eastern
earthwork (DU MESNIL DU BUISSON 1935: 42-46; AL-MAQDISSI
2001: 146-153), and in the region of the north, east and
south city gates. For IA levels in the vicinity of the west
gate, cf. AL-MAQDISSI 2001: 143.
87
Furthermore, the pottery published by du Mesnil du Buis-
son was not chosen, in all probability, as a representative
sample of the entire corpus.
88
See the ‘Jeweller’s House’ excavated in Operation K; LUCIA-
NI 2003: 159-161.
89
Now abandoned and already largely demolished to the
level of its foundations.
90
The last possible mention of the place name is in the test Emar
VI 263: r. 24 from the early twelfth century, which refers to the
destruction of a land of KURqa-ad/t-na by a «governor of the
land of Sukhi» (ARNAUD 1986-1987). Adamthwaite (2001: 275-
278) recently identified this toponym as Mishrifeh (cf. also
RGTC 12/2, 226), although the possibility that the reference is
to the site of Qattunam/Qattun/Qatni, located on the Lower
Khabur, cannot be ruled out.
91
On the eighth century BC inscribed slabs found at Hama, the
place name qt _ ¬ n¬ is found. Its possible correspondence to
the Qatna known from second millennium cuneiform sources
has recently been denied by LIPIŃSKI, who interprets the
toponym as the old name for Qastun (2000: 273, No. 138).
For the region’s place names during the Neo-Assyrian period,
see NA’AMAN 1995; PARPOLA - PORTER 2001; FALES 2002.
92
For the rich assemblage of archaeobotanical remains reco-
vered, see PEÑA-CHOCARRO and ROTTOLI, this volume and in
press.
93
MORANDI BONACOSSI 2003; id. 2004; id. in press a.
94
MORANDI BONACOSSI 2003; id. in press a.
95
DU MESNIL DU BUISSON 1935: 49-53, pls. VIII-IX; id. 1927,
290, pls. LXX: 5, LXXIV.
96
For this building, see AL-MAQDISSI 2003a: 1495-1500; id. 2003b:
225-235; AL-MAQDISSI - MORANDI BONACOSSI 2005: 19-20.
97
Prof. al-Maqdissi, personal communication.
98
Cf. AL-MAQDISSI 1996: 3 and id. 1997, 132; LUCIANI 2003:
158-161; MORANDI BONACOSSI 2006a: 99-101 and in press a.
 Qatna and its Hinterland during the Bronze and Iron Ages
Fig. 14. Map of the Mishrifeh
region with distribution of IA
II-III archaeological sites
(drawing A. Savioli).
The archaeological evidence summarised above
shows that in the IA II we have, for the first time, sig-
nificant information concerning the urban and
functional layout of not only the upper town of
Mishrifeh, but also the lower town, where living,
productive and storage areas and buildings have
been discovered.
The excavations have also demonstrated that, dur-
ing the IA II and III, most of the Mishrifeh site
was inhabited99. The evidence would seem to indi-
cate that the ramparts no longer fulfilled their
defensive role and that the city gates, although it is
likely that they still constituted the principal access
routes to the settlement, no longer – with the pos-
sible exception of the west gate100 – retained their
original function.
In the surrounding region, an important new phase
of settlement growth started during the IA II, when
19 sites, representing nearly 80% of the total number
of identified settlements, were inhabited (Fig. 14).
The IA II and III correspond to the period of
greatest and most widespread development in the
occupation of Mishrifeh’s territory. The course of
Wadi Slik/Aswad was inhabited again, and the
Wadi Mydan valley was more densely settled, with
respect to the LBA, whilst the tell cluster associat-
ed with Wadi Zora grew, up-valley from Mishrifeh.
Although there was an increase in the number of
occupied sites compared with the second half of
the second millennium BC, the settlement pattern
99
With the exception of several areas of the site – the northea-
st, northwest and southwest portions – which have never
been investigated and for which data are therefore lacking.
100
See AL-MAQDISSI 2001: 143.
85
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi
found in the Mishrifeh region during the IA rep-
resents the continuation of that already established
in the second half of the third millennium BC, dis-
tinguished by villages usually sited on small tells
(1-2 ha) and mostly distributed in linear fashion
along the watercourses.
During the IA II-III, then, the regional archaeo-
logical evidence illustrates the diffusion through-
out the countryside around Mishrifeh of dispersed
rural settlements dependant on a larger central site
located at the geographical centre of the system, fol-
lowing a ‘scattered’ model also found in the Syrian
and Iraqi Jezira – which seems to constitute a devel-
opmental pattern shared by northern Mesopotamia
and inner Syria in the IA II and III101.
The presence on Mishrifeh’s acropolis of a palace
building which probably exercised direct control
over large areas devoted to the specialized pro-
duction of coloured textiles, the warehousing and
processing of crops on a larger-than-domestic
scale, the vast size of the city and its location at
the centre of a local settlement pattern, com-
posed of rural villages spaced at regular intervals
throughout the surrounding countryside, are all
evidence that Mishrifeh continued to occupy the
role of regional central place during the IA II
and III.
After its probable abandonment in the course of
the LBA II, the site first re-emerged most likely
as a rural village during the late IA I and then,
immediately afterwards, as an urban centre,
probably not politically independent, but rather
under the control of the nearby city of Hamath,
capital of one of the major Luwian-Aramaean
kingdoms in IA II Syria102. It seems reasonable
to suppose that in this period the city of
Mishrifeh performed the role of local political
and administrative centre for the southern part
of the kingdom of Hamath.
Occupation of the entire site of Mishrifeh ended,
apparently not as a result of catastrophic
upheavals, during the IA III. Precise information
is not available concerning the factors which led to
the abandonment of the city and many of the sur-
rounding villages in the countryside nearby. These
events, however, should probably be seen as a con-
sequence of the profound political, economic and
social transformations which accompanied the dis-
aggregation of the Syrian Luwian-Aramaean state
entities, in particular that of the kingdom of
Hamath, as a result of the Assyrian conquest and
deportations during the reign of Sargon II and the
86
absorption of the Luwian and Aramaic-speaking
states into the new imperial territorial organiza-
tion103.
Although palaeoenvironmental information for
this period is quite inadequate, the available geo-
morphological evidence points towards the
severe erosion of soils in the Mishrifeh region and
a significant decline in water availability104. Fur-
thermore, the pollen record and faunal and
archaeobotanical assemblages apparently show
that during the IA the local environment suffered
greater deterioration than in the late second mil-
lennium BC. Palaeoclimate data from the
Mishrifeh region seem therefore to indicate that,
in the complex interplay of causes which resulted
in the site’s abandonment and the (at least par-
tial) desertion of the region during the sixth cen-
tury BC, ecological factors may have been impor-
tant, as a consequence of a notable reduction in
water availability and increased environmental
deterioration105.
101
For Upper Mesopotamia, see MORANDI BONACOSSI 1996 and
id. 2000 and WILKINSON - BARBANES 2000 and, for Western
Inner Syria, CIAFARDONI 1992; MAZZONI 2000b; WAKITA et al.
1994; IWASAKI - TSUNEKI 1999; COURTOIS 1973. For a similar
trend in the settlement history of Palestine during the Iron
Age, cf. FINKELSTEIN - LEDERMAN - BUNIMOVITZ 1997.
102
On the Hamath kingdom during the Iron Age, see SADER
1987; DION 1998; LIPIŃSKI 2000. Although several impor-
tant sites in the kingdom of Hamath to the north of the
capital, such as Tell Afis, probably ancient Hazrek (CECCHI-
NI - MAZZONI 1998), Tell Mastuma (WAKITA - WADA -
NISHIYAMA 2000) and Tell Qarqur (DORNEMANN 2000 and id.
2003) have been the object of archaeological excavations,
no site of this period has been investigated south of
Hamath. The recent discovery of a stela with an inscription
in hieroglyphic Luwian which refers to the kingdom of
Hamath, found in the Shamiyah steppe to the east of the
modern town of Salamiyeh, indicates that the semi-arid
region east and southeast of Hama was part of the king-
dom’s territory (Prof. B. Geyer, personal communication).
103
For south-central Syria in the epoch of Neo-Assyrian domi-
nation, see, most recently, SAPIN 1989; NA’AMAN 1995; FALES
2002.
104
CREMASCHI, this volume.
105
At present, records regarding central Syria are not available
for comparison, although data from cores taken from Lake
Van and from other sources outline a picture of the late
second and first millennium BC as a period of prolonged
aridity in the Near East; see LEMCKE - STURM 1997; NEUMANN
- PARPOLA 1987; WILKINSON - BARBANES 2002: 399-400; CRE-
MASCHI, this volume.
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