Urban and Natural Landscapes

This volume, fruit of an international conference held at the University of Udine in 2004, presents the results of an interdisciplinary Syro-Italo-German archaeological research project dedicated to understanding the ancient urban landscape and natural environment of Tell Mishrifeh, the ancient city of Qatna, during the Bronze and Iron Ages (3rd to mid-1st millennium BC). The first section of this important work, which is made up of 27 articles by archaeologists, philologists, and experts in various fields of natural science (geoarchaeology, archaeometry, archaeobotany, palynology, archaeozoology, physical anthropology and biochemistry), furnishes a complete panorama of the recent archaeological discoveries made in Mishrifeh and its hinterland since 1999. In the second, central section of the book a detailed study of the palaeoenvironment of the region and its evolution between the 3rd and 1st millennia BC is presented, whilst the third part covers the results of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research in central-western Syria. The fourth section is dedicated to an analysis of human settlement and the regional landscape on the basis of written sources from Qatna and Mari. The volume concludes with two chapters which critically summarize and comment upon the results of the conference, and propose preliminary diachronic reconstructions ‒ with the aid of reconstructive drawings ‒ of the urban and natural landscapes of the Qatna region and the settlement of the nearby ‘marges arides’ of the Syrian Badiya.