Qatna, Syria

In the Middle Bronze Age, Qatna was one of the most important centres on the coastlands of the east Mediterranean. It lays on a tributary to the river Orontes, 90km from the Mediterranean, and thus on an important crossroads: east to west from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean, and south to north – from Egypt, into Palestine and up to Anatolia (modern Turkey) home of the Hittites. It reached its height in the middle Bronze Age, in the 18th to 17th centuries BC, when Qatna, together with Aleppo, were the two most important kingdoms in Western Syria. From the 16th -14th centuries it was a vassal of the Mitanni Empire, and it was destroyed – most probably – by the Hittites in 1340. There was also an extensive later Iron Age occupation on top. Today, it lies 20 km NE of the modern town of Homs, and is being excavated by three teams, a Syrian team from Damascus, an Italian team and a German team .

Source: World Archeology

N.H.Khider