Qatna (modern: Arabic: تل المشرفة, Tell al-Mishrifeh; also Tell Misrife or Tell Mishrifeh) was an ancient city located in Homs Governorate, Syria. Its remains constitute a tell situated about 18 km (11 mi) northeast of Homs near the village of al-Mishrifeh. The city was an important center through most of the second millennium BC and in the first half of the first millennium BC. It contained one of the largest royal palaces of Bronze Age in Syria and has an intact royal tomb that has provided a great amount of archaeological evidence on the funerary habits of that period.
First inhabited for a short period in the second half of the fourth millennium BC, it was repopulated around 2800 BC and continued to grow. By 2000 BC, it became the capital of a regional kingdom that spread its authority over large swaths of the central and southern Levant. The kingdom enjoyed good relations with Mari, but was engaged in constant warfare against Yamhad. By the 15th century BC, Qatna lost its hegemony and came under the authority of Mitanni. It later changed hands between the former and Egypt, until it was conquered and sacked by the Hittites in the late 14th century BC. Following its destruction, the city was reduced in size before being abandoned by the 13th century BC. It was resettled in the 10th century BC, becoming a center of the kingdoms of Palistin then Hamath until it was destroyed by the Assyrians in 720 BC, which reduced it to a small village that eventually disappeared in the 6th century BC. In the 19th century AD, the site was populated by villagers who were evacuated into the newly built village of al-Mishrifeh in 1982. The site has been excavated since the 1920s.
Qatna was inhabited by different peoples, most importantly the Amorites, who established the kingdom, followed by the Arameans; Hurrians became part of the society in the 15th century BC and influenced Qatna's written language. The city's art is distinctive and shows signs of contact with different surrounding regions. The artifacts of Qatna show high-quality workmanship. The city's religion was complex and based on many cults in which ancestor worship played an important role. Qatna's location in the middle of the Near East trade networks helped it achieve wealth and prosperity; it traded with regions as far away as the Baltic and Afghanistan. The area surrounding Qatna was fertile, with abundant water, which made the lands suitable for grazing and supported a large population that contributed to the prosperity of the city.
Etymology
Third millennium texts do not mention the name Qatna; the archive of Ebla mentions the toponym "Gudadanum" (or "Ga-da-nu"), which has been identified with Qatna by some scholars, such as Giovanni Pettinato and Michael Astour, but this is debated.
Aside from an obscure passage in the 20th-century BC Egyptian Story of Sinuhe, where the name Qatna is not clearly mentioned, the earliest occurrence of the name comes from the Middle Bronze Age archive of Mari, where the city is mentioned as "Qatanum", an Akkadianized format (ālQa-ta-nimki). In Alalakh, the name "Qa-ta-na" was used, an Amorite format that was shortened into Qatna during the Late Bronze Age. The name is Semitic; it derives from the root q-ṭ-n, meaning "thin" or "narrow" in a number of Semitic languages such as Akkadian, Syriac, and Ethiopian. "Ga-da-nu" from the Eblaite archive may also derive from that root. The toponym "Qatna" is strictly related to waterways and lakes; this could be a reference to the artificial narrowing that created a lake from the springs located southwest of the city, since Qatna grew on the eastern shore of a now dried-up lake.
Site
The city is located in the countryside, 18 km (11 mi) north of Homs. It was founded on a limestone plateau, and its extensive remains suggest fertile surroundings with abundant water, which is not the case in modern times. Three northward flowing tributary wadis (Mydan, Zorat and Slik) of the Orontes River cross the region of Qatna, enclosing an area 26 km (16 mi) north–south and 19 km (12 mi) east–west. The city lay along the central wadi (Zorat), surrounded by at least twenty five satellite settlements, most of them along the Mydan (marking the eastern border of the region) and Slik (marking the western border of the region) wadis. The wadis are now dry most of the year, but during the rainy season their discharge is disproportional to the size of their valleys, suggesting that the region was much more humid and water was more abundant in the past. The early city, dating to the Early Bronze Age IV (2200–2100 BC), was built in a circular plan; this circular site became the upper city (acropolis) of Qatna's later phases and was surrounded by a lower rectangular city.
Qatna's landmarks
Palaces
Building 8. The structure is dated to the transition period between the third and second millennia BC, and was abandoned in the late Middle Bronze Age II (1800–1600 BC). Its walls, which are still preserved, are 7.5 metres (25 ft) tall and 4 metres (13 ft) wide. The function of the building is not known, but its monumental nature and location on the upper city's summit, plus the existence of a pair of royal statues in it, suggest that it might have been a royal palace, especially since it preceded the erection of the main Royal palace of Qatna. In the 1970s, a concrete water tower was built to supply the modern village of al-Mushrifah; the new structure destroyed the eastern and northern walls of the building.
The construction of Qatna's Royal Palace was commissioned by the kings Išḫi-Addu and Amud-pi-El, two powerful rulers during Middle Bronze Age Syria. The palace was to be a physical representation of their strong identity, power, and control within the region. The Royal Palace was completed between 1790 and 1760 BC, the peak of the regional Syrian kingdom's power, before later becoming an Egyptian vassal and finally conquered by the Hittite kingdom towards the end of the Bronze Age. Though the palace was occupied by several empires throughout its existence, its architectural formal qualities maintained consistency until its destruction in 1340 BC. Qatna's royal palace was fully explored and exposed by the collaborative efforts of the national Syrian, Syro-Italian, and Syro-German teams. These excavations dating from 1999–2010 helped uncover new interpretations of the palace's rooms and their function. Capturing the full scale of the Royal Palace, the documentations were known to clash against the original discoveries of the Count Robert du Mesnil du Buisson's original excavation in the 1920s.
The royal palace. Covering an area of 16,000 square metres (170,000 sq ft), it was the biggest palace in the Levant of its time. The palace's northeastern part consisted of two stories, as did the northwestern wing. In total, the first story contained at least eighty rooms. Compared to other palaces of the era in the region, such as the Royal Palace of Mari, Qatna's palace was gigantic, including massive halls such as hall C, formerly known as the temple of Belet-Ekallim (Ninegal), which was 1,300 square metres (14,000 sq ft) in size, and hall A, which was 820 square metres (8,800 sq ft) in size. The palace was constructed during the Middle-to-Late Bronze Age transition period, c. 1600 BC, in the northern part of the acropolis above an abandoned necropolis.
The Central Representative Unit of the palace consisted of three primary halls, all roofed using imposing wooden beams, likely cedar. The audience, governmental, and cultic halls are known to be the heart of the palace's functional value. These units are built using the architectural Double-Hall Concept, seen as it consists of two rectangular halls A and B, followed by a significantly larger square Hall C; Used as a communal banquet and gathering hall, highlighting an immense ceiling of 39 x 39 meters, structurally reinforced with four wooden pillars placed 12 meters apart from each other. Hall B (46m x 14.6m) may be associated with the king's political/ governmental operations such as overseeing working efficiency, reviewing output of goods, and accounting of payments. Placed above the Palace's Royal Hypogeum, Hall A (41m x 20m) held strong religious connotation and was reserved for ritual practice. Altogether, the Central Representative Unit acts as the Royal Palace's functional identity, highlighting the roles that religious ritual, palatial politics, and commercial economy played into the identity of Qatna.
The southern palace. Located immediately south of the royal palace, it had at least twenty rooms and concrete floors. The structure is heavily damaged, making the dating of its construction difficult.
The Eastern Palace, situated east of the Royal Palace in the upper city at Qatna, was constructed during the Middle Bronze Age II by incorporating pre-existing Northern and Southern Buildings from the Middle Bronze Age I to II. The construction of the palace involved enlargement of previous buildings by addition of two new wings of rooms adjacent to the new Court I. A new Room E served a key role in the integration by compensating for the different elevation of the Northern and Southern Buildings with partial terracing and deeper foundational trenches. The completed palace consisted of twenty seven rooms and a possible western wing destroyed by a Late Bronze Age II pit immediately west of the large pebbled courtyard measured at 17 x 10 meters.
Excavations at the site were incomplete before cessation in 2011, notably in the south-eastern sector. The functions of various rooms are at present subject to preliminary conjectures based on existing archaeological findings. Aside from identification of Room A and Room C as entrances to the palace, archaeological findings suggest Room P as a metallurgical workshop based on evidence of continual floor repairs, traces of kilns, and unearthed metal fragments. In addition, the architectural layout of the Palace is reminiscent of Old Syrian palatial constructions with an elongated architectural plan and a peripheral open courtyard which allows access to different parts of the palace. The parallel with Old Syrian architectural tradition, found in Western Palace of Ebla and Yarim Lim's Palace at Alalakh, allowed for identification of the throne room and antechamber within the palace.
The palace was eventually abandoned in the Middle-to-Late Bronze Age transition period transition when the Royal Palace was constructed, owing to possible structural fragility and a need for reorganization of urban layout in the upper city.
The lower city palace. Located in the northern part of the lower city, it was built in the 16th century BC. It contains at least sixty rooms.
The Middle Bronze Age necropolis, located near the northern edge of the upper city and heavily damaged by the royal palace constructed above it. The necropolis contained three types of burials: simple graves bordered by bricks, cooking vessels, or shafts cut into the rocks. The most notable shafts are tombs I, II, III and V.
The Royal Hypogeum (tomb VI). This is located 12 metres (39 ft) beneath the royal palace, at the northern edge. The tomb consists of four chambers cut in the bedrock beneath the palace's foundations, and a corridor, 40 metres (130 ft) long, that connects it to hall A of the royal palace. Four doors divide the corridor, which then takes a turn to the east and stops abruptly; an antechamber 5 metres (16 ft) beneath the floor of the corridor follows and a wooden stair is used to descend to it, after which a door leads to the burial chambers. The hypogeum was in use for around 350 years, and bodies of both genders and different ages were interred in it; a minimum of 19–24 individuals were found in the tomb.
Tomb VII. This is located beneath the northwest wing of the royal palace. It consists of an antechamber, and a double chamber shaped like a kidney. The tomb contained at least 79 individuals, in a striking contrast with the much bigger tomb VI that contained far fewer remains. Peter Pfälzner suggested that tomb VII was a place for re-burial; the very long period of the Royal Hypogeum's usage, meant that it needed to be cleared sometimes to make room for new interments and the older remains were thus transferred to tomb VII.