The Crisis of Qatna at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age II and the Iron Age II Settlement Revival. A Regional Trajectory towards the Collapse of the Late Bronze Age Palace System in the Northern Levant

The paper explores the urban layout and organization of the city of Qatna during the LBA, focusing on the Royal Palace and the system of subsidiary palaces surrounding it (Lower City Palace and Southern Palace) and the domestic architecture in the upper and lower towns excavated up to now. The crisis that affected the site at the beginning of the LBA II and the continuation of life at the settlement until the end of the LBA are also investigated. The archaeological evidence indicates that the following Early Iron Age marks a break in the occupational continuity at the site, which appears to be settled again only from the end of the Iron Age I and the beginning of the Iron Age II onwards within a radically changed political, socio-economic and cultural context. The perspective on the occupation, crisis, and revitalization of the site is broadened by an analysis of the changes in the settlement system between the second and first millennia BC in the area directly surrounding Mishrifeh/Qatna, as well as in the wider region of the Middle Orontes Valley.