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
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