Qatna Studien 13: Ivana Puljiz, The beads of Qatna – a comparative study ofthe Middle and Late Bronze Age bead assemblages

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The series Qaṭna Studien aims to make the final publications of the German-Syrian excavations in Qaṭna available to the specialist community. The thirteenth volume, presented by Ivana Puljiz, deals with the bead assemblages from Tomb I of the Middle Bronze Age, from Tomb VII of the Middle Bronze Age IIA-IIB and from the Royal Hypogeum of the Late Bronze Age I-IIA. It is the first time that a chronological sequence of three bead assemblages from the 2nd millennium BC has been systematically evaluated and presented in detail.In order to ensure the comparability the beads of the three contexts, a uniform typology was developed with which all beads were classified and which is in principle also suitable as a classification scheme for beads from other sites and other periods. The simple but very systematic and detailed formal classification key is intended to provide a tool for making a supra-regional and diachronic comparison of all beads of the Near East in the future. In the volume presented, numerous bead finds from a variety of comparative sites in the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean are already comparatively classified on the basis of this form typology.The three bead assemblages studied are each very extensive and have a distinctly different quantitative and qualitative typological composition. Both the form types and the preferred use of different materials for beads (gold, carnelian, lapis lazuli, amber, glass, Egyptian blue, etc.) reveal a clear chronological development over the second millennium BC. This shows that, contrary to common belief, beads or bead assemblages have a high chronological value. Through detailed comparisons with bead finds from Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Eastern Mediterranean and other regions, it was also possible to determine the chronological and geographical distribution of the bead types documented in Qaṭna. Consequently, the volume presented here can be considered an important reference work for the analysis of beads from the ancient Near East.