Search

Palaces, in many respects, represent the main outcome of the great socio-economic transformation that characterised the outgrowth of urban societies during the first half of the second millennium BC. In the Levant, the type of building that appeared was characterised by traits that make it quite different from similar and contemporaneous buildings located in Mesopotamia. This fact suggests the existence of an independent local tradition in the Levant which has thus usually been analysed in distinct chronological segments, with separate discussions of the relevant Middle Bronze Age (MBA) and Late Bronze Age (LBA) evidence to hand. This work uses two case studies of palace architecture dating to the MBA and LBA from Qatna to propose an analysis that highlights the existence of several shared traits. Via comparisons with contemporary examples, in particular Alalakh, a common genesis that developed along a unique and continuous path is suggested for both MBA and LBA palaces. The social role of northern Levantine palaces is thus seen as an expression of new local leaderships and as the vehicle of a common language whose origin might be traced back to the emergence of the so-called Amorite Koine.

In 2009 and 2010, the Syrian-German mission excavated the richly furnished Tomb VII at Qaṭna which yielded an inventory dating to the Middle Bronze Age IIA-IIB. The inventory comprised a large assemblage of gold jewellery including pendants, rings, toggle pins and long bands. While some of these jewellery items represent types already known from Syria and the Northern Levant, other types from Tomb VII have previously been attested only in the Southern Levant. Hence, the jewellery assemblage from Tomb VII is composed of types referring to both the Syrian/Northern Levantine and the Southern Levantine region. In this study, a selection of the gold jewellery from Tomb VII will be discussed against the background of similar items from other sites in the Syro-Levantine region. This approach aims at embedding the assemblage from Tomb VII into its wider cultural context which will ultimately illuminate how the interregional relations between the Syro-Levantine states are reflected in the material culture of the ruling class of Middle Bronze Age Qaṭna.

Статья представляет собой компендиум, посвященный изложению современного состояния археологического изучения памятников, расположенных на территории Сирии, и основных событий политической истории этой страны со второй половины III тыс. до н.э. до 332 г. до н.э., This paper summarizes information describing the current status of archaeological studies of the sites located in Syria and major developments in political history of the country in the period from the second half of 3000 BC to 332 AD.

Despite its early identification with the modern Mishrifeh and its numerous mentions in Akkadian, Egyptian and Hittite texts, the history of Qatna remains largely unknown. This article attempts to reconstruct the landscape and the history of the city between the 15th and 14th cent. In this reconstruction it is assumed that the expression “the Lands of Nuhashe”, that occurs frequently in the texts, had two different meanings, a geographical one and a political one. In this way, the identification of the Addu-nirari mentioned in the texts found at Qatna with the homonymous king of EA 51, proposed by Thomas Richter, can be accepted, but without the need to assume that he was also king of a coalition called Nuhashe. During his reign and those of his successors, Idanda and Akizzi, the city faced many threats from the great kingdoms of Egypt and Hatti, as well as from the small neighbouring kingdoms. Their struggle for survival and a couple of political turnovers were not enough to let the city outlive those turbulent years.

International audience

International audience

In a region of ca 7 000 km2, the geoarchaeological survey, carried out by the “ Arid Margins of Northern Syria” mission, discovered more than one thousand sites. They were in a rather good condition, and for some of them in an exceptional state of preservation. All placed within their environmental context, they shed new light on the knowledge of the steppe regions for all periods in the history of Syria and the Middle East. This article discusses the period of the Middle Bronze Age, which saw an accentuation of the defensive character of the sites and, above all, the protection of the useful territory. The question of borders and, more broadly, of territorial boundaries in the ancient Orient is one of the subjects often debated and the discoveries made in the Arid Margins area have several times contributed significantly to this debate. Thus, one of the oldest boundaries marked on the ground is the “ Very Long Wall” that we connect with the Early Bronze Age IV. The kind of fortification of the “ Arid Margins” zone in the Middle Bronze Age has a different system of logic. At that time was set up what appears to be a genuine network, relying on a hierarchized system (in terms of distribution and dimensions) of fortresses, forts, towers and small towers. This article describes this system which has only been briefly mentioned in our previous publications. It presents the plans of each type of fortified site, specifies their mode of construction and installation, and places them in their environmental context. Since this system was mainly located within the area we were surveying, it has been possible to define on the ground its implantation modalities and morphological characteristics. The constructions are built on naturally fortified locations or more rarely on artificial embankments and are built mostly with large polygonal basalt blocks. One of the decisive criteria for their location is the visibility between establishments, which are spaced at a maximum of 20.8 km, to allow signals-based communications. According to this logic, we were able to reconstruct the extension of this network well beyond the limits of the zone we have been surveying, on a distance north-south of ca 150 km for an average depth of 30 km (but which can reach more than 70 km). This research, using satellite imagery, has allowed to discover unknown and unpublished sites, some of them reaching up to 50 ha. Finally, the geometrical characteristics of their geographical distribution, too regular to be due to chance, show that there is a unity between this network and the large contemporary cities known around the steppe : Yamhad (Aleppo), Qatna (Tall Mišrifa), Ebla (Tall Mardiḫ), Tall al-Nāṣirīya, Tall al-Ṭūkān and Tall al-Ṣūr. These largely unpublished data, connected with the context of the settlement of the margins of the steppe during the Middle Bronze Age, allow us to propose a first interpretation of the primary functions of this network. It was established for the most part at the eastern edge of fertile basaltic plateaus, making the most of the relief, decidedly turned towards the east, and its role would consist in the defense of the territory, the surveillance and protection of the axes of circulation (some of which have been stated by our study), communication (by signals), but also and above all the protection of the most attractive lands in terms of potential for settlement and agricultural development. It is at least towards these conclusions that the analysis of the geographical and material data provided by the survey of the arid margins area of Northern Syria leads. Our research, based on the analysis of a corpus of nearly a hundred sites, shows that, from the end of the Middle Bronze Age I, a defense organization would have been set up on a regional scale and as well, most likely, the coordination of the defensive systems of several kingdoms involving an overall design, a concerted project. This structuring would have been based on the creation of new sites, fortifications at the edge of the basaltic plateaus dominating the steppe and their network of secondary installations : forts and towers, which protected the lowlands agglomerations during the Middle Bronze Age II. The findings of the “ Arid Margins of Northern Syria” mission thus make it possible to reinterpret the results of the study of the neighboring regions and sites and to consider the whole from a broader and systemic point of view, thanks to a diachronic and multidisciplinary method of survey and global analysis, developed, tested and validated by our team. The purpose of this article is to present to the specialists of this period the primary data collected during the survey of the arid margins and by the study of aerial imagery in an analysis detached from the historical considerations, but which we wanted rigorous. The description of this network is only a first step. While waiting to be able to return to the field, we leave it to the historians and archaeologists specialists of the period to deepen these lines of reflection., La mission de prospection géoarchéologique des «Marges arides de Syrie du Nord » a découvert plus d’un millier de sites qui apportent un éclairage nouveau à la connaissance des régions steppiques pour toutes les périodes de l’histoire de la Syrie et du Proche-Orient. Cet article évoque la période de l’âge du Bronze moyen, qui voit une accentuation du caractère défensif des sites et, surtout, de la protection du territoire. De Salamya à Qinnasrīn, des forteresses, des fortins et des tours, pour la plupart inconnus, s’organisent en un réseau de fortifications hiérarchisées qui longent le relief dominant la steppe. Cet article décrit ce réseau, présente les relevés de chaque type de construction et avance une hypothèse quant à sa fonction première : la protection des terres les plus attractives en terme de mise en valeur agricole., Rousset Marie-Odile, Geyer Bernard, Awad Nazir, Shabo Shadi. Un réseau défensif de l’âge du Bronze moyen dans les Marges arides de Syrie du Nord. In: Paléorient, 2017, vol. 43, n°2. Recheches archéologiques récentes en préhistoire et protohistoire en Syrie / Recent archaeological research in Syria (13th mill. BC – 2nd mill. BC) pp. 115-163.

In the second half of the 18th Century BCE Yarim-Lim of Alalakh gave instructions to decorate his palace with wall paintings. Instead of following the inner-Syrian or ‘Mesopotamian’ tradition of al secco painting on dark mud plaster, he decided in favor of a technical and iconographical innovation known from the Aegean, a bright, shiny lime plaster with a griffin as a depiction. Later, similar decorations appeared in palaces and houses in Syria and beyond. My paper analyzes why this technical and social innovation was successful within the local life world. Secondly, it takes a closer look at the impact of the murals by exploring the use and meaning of Aegean-related motifs in the following centuries and the production of a Levantine Aegeanness in different media of expression., In der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts BCE gab Yarim-Lim von Alalakh Anweisung, seinen Palast mit Wandmalereien zu schmücken. Statt innersyrischer oder ,mesopotamischer‘ Tradition von al secco-Malerei auf dunklem Lehmputz zu folgen, entschied er sich für eine technische und ikonographische Innovation der Ägäis, einen hellen, glänzenden Kalkputz mit einer Greifendarstellung. In der Folge treten ähnliche Wandverzierungen in Palästen und Häusern in Syrien und darüber hinaus auf. Mein Beitrag analysiert, warum diese technische und soziale Innovationen in einer lokalen Lebenswelt erfolgreich war. Zweitens werfe ich einen genaueren Blick auf die Auswirkungen der Wandmalereien, indem ich auf die Verwendung und Bedeutung der ,ägäisierenden‘ Motive in den folgenden Jahrhunderten eingehe und die Herstellung einer levantinischen ,Aegeanness‘ in anderen Medien untersuche.

In the light of the recent discoveries at Tell Mishrifeh-Qaṭna, especially the textual material, this paper checks the various texts excavated on this archaeological site. It sums up the old findings, which were published separately (the inventories, the contract’s fragment, the astrological text and the economic documents), and compare them with the new discovered texts., À la lumière des très nombreuses découvertes, notamment épigraphiques, qui ont eu lieu dans les années 2000 à Tell Mishrifeh-Qaṭna, cet article fait le point sur les différents textes provenant des fouilles anciennes de ce site (inventaires, fragments de contrat et de texte astrologique, et documents économiques), qui ont été édités de manière éparse. De plus, l’article les met en parallèle avec les nouvelles découvertes.

Review of an exhibition catalogue from the exhibit "Beyond Babylon" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, NY, Nov 15 2008-Mar 15 2009.

International audience

Since 2005, the excavations of the Italian Archaeological Mission of the University of Udine at Tell Mishrifeh / Qatna, under the direction of D. Morandi Bonacossi, brought to light a number of Egyptian and egyptianising stamp seals: three scarabs and a bulla with impressions made by a scarab-shaped seal. The present article aims at presenting two of these scarabs and the bulla by contextualising them in their individual archaeological context and evaluates their presence on the site.

The king of Mari, Zimri-Lim, undertook a journey in 1765 BC that took him to Ugarit. This is documented by a large number of texts from the palace archives of Mari and the reader can refer to the contribution of D. Charpin in the same volume. On the other hand we have relatively few sources on the western regions for the two previous decades. Ugarit itself is never mentioned in the documentation prior to Zimri-Lim, but the distribution of forces in the time of Yahdun-Lim and Samsi-Addu can be examined. Western Syria was then dominated by two competing kingdoms, Yamhad and the kingdom of Qatna. The communication aims to draw up an inventory of our current knowledge., Le roi de Mari, Zimri-Lim, entreprit en 1765 av. J.-C., un voyage qui le conduisit jusqu’à Ugarit. Ce déplacement est bien documenté par un grand nombre de textes issus des archives palatiales de Mari et on se référera pour cela à la contribution de D. Charpin dans ce volume. Par contre nous disposons de relativement peu de sources sur les régions occidentales pour les deux décennies précédentes. Ugarit elle-même n’est jamais mentionnée dans la documentation antérieure à Zimri-Lim, mais la distribution des forces de l’époque de Yahdun-Lim et de Samsi-Addu peut être examinée. La Syrie occidentale était alors dominée par deux royaumes concurrents, le Yamhad et le royaume de Qatna. Cette communication dresse l’état des lieux de nos connaissances actuelles.