Qatna Studien Band 15

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Peter Pfälzner
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 562686468

The project, for which printing costs are being requested, aims at the publication of volume 15 of the series “Qaṭna Studien”, authored by Ahmad al-Ali al-Rawi. The volume contains the first publication and comparative analysis of the bronze weapons found in the Late Bronze Age royal tomb of Qaṭna (Syria). They represent an exceptionally large group of 74 weapons (arrowheads and socketed spearheads). According to the author's detailed typological examination, the weapons can be assigned for the most part to the Late Bronze Age I-IIA, but also to the Middle Bronze Age II to a lesser extent. On this basis, the chronological sequence of the weapons at the same site can be traced. The weight classes of the weapons play an important role for the typology of the objects. On this basis, production series can be reconstructed which indicate local manufacture for the palace. Another special quality of the material is its contextualization. The weapons come from specific find spots within the royal tomb of Qatna, which are linked to individual burial places or groups of other grave goods, so that a contextualized analysis was possible. When analyzing the finds and find associations, it was possible to identify not only functional, but also symbolic and representative aspects of the weapons. For this reason, the metal weapons from the royal tomb of Qaṭna form an important group of finds, the analysis of which represents a fundamental expansion of our knowledge of the typology, function and significance of weapons in the Middle and Late Bronze Age. Through the detailed comparisons with weapons from numerous other sites in Syria, the northern and southern Levant and beyond, the volume will be a standard work on the bronze weapons of the second millennium BC in the Levant. Furthermore, the volume is of great relevance for the series "Qaṭna Studien" because it forms an important part of the systematic publication and analysis of the complete archaeological material from the royal tomb with the aim of investigating these objects in a broad cultural-geographical framework.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants