In the spring of his fifth year as ruler of Egypt,
Ramesses I1 was once more campaigning in the
Asiatic territories of his empire.  Ever since his
predecessor Seti I had restored control over
Canaan two decades earlier, following the disturb-
ances and decline of the later 18th Dynasty,
Egyptian ambition had been to reassert itself in
Syria and so to revive the power and prestige it
had enjoyed in the days of Thutmose III, who had
been able to hold the northern Mesopotamian
kingdom of Mitanni in check on the banks of
Euphrates. Since Thutmose's time the Hittites had
replaced Mitanni as the major power in the north
and the main obstacle to Egypt's expansionist
designs, and it was against them that Seti and now
Ramesses had taken up arms. In his fourth year
Ramesses had swept through Canaan and along
the coast of what is now Lebanon, meeting little
opposition from the local rulers; a year later he
decided to strike inland and risk confrontation
with the main Hittite army. This had been sent
south by the Hittite king, Muwatallis, and was
now based in the upper Orontes valley. The
meeting which took place there beneath the walls
of the city of Kadesh resulted in the most famous
military engagement in ancient history prior to
that at Marathon.

Peter Parr is head of the Western Asiatic Department at
the Institute of Archaeology, London, and Field Director
of the Institute's archaeological mission at Tell Nebi
Mend in Syria.  In the 1950s he worked with Kathleen
Kenyon at Jericho and in 1958 began five seasons of
research at Petra in Jordan. Mr. Parr is an ISLS Re-
search Associate specialising in Levantine archaeology.

  The fame of the battle of Kadesh rests not so
much on its military or political importance - its
outcome was in fact indecisive and Egyptian-
Hittite rivalry was not resolved for another
generation - as on the fact that Ramesses' scribes
have left lengthy and detailed descriptions of it,
together with illustrations, on the walls of his
temples at Thebes and at Abu Simbel.  On the
evidence of these, many of the tactical aspects of
the battle have been reconstructed and much
information concerning Egyptian and Hittite war-
fare accumulated.  More important in the present
context, however, is the fact that it was the
depiction of the topography of the battle ground
and the nearby city which enabled W. M. Thomp-
son as long ago as 1840 to identify Kadesh with
the mound known today as Tell Nebi Mend, some
30 kilometres south-west of Homs in Syria.* This
identification was later reinforced by a detailed
study of the location by C. R. Conder in 1881,3
and has now been confirmed (if confirmation
were needed) by inscribed tablets discovered
during the course of recent excavations.

According to most authorities the battle of
Kadesh took place in the early years of the 13th
century BC: the Cambridge Ancient History puts
it at 1299, while K. A. Kitchen opts for 1275.
The editor of this journal would, of course, argue
for a date considerable lower, in the 10th century.
It is not the purpose of this paper to address this
controversy and to adduce new evidence relevant
to it; the matter is mentioned only to draw
attention to just one of the many chronological
problems which beset the study of the history of

78 JACF VOL. 4



lSlS - 1990/91

the ancient Near East and (as we shall see later)
to the enormous potential which controlled
archaeological investigations at a site such as
Kadesh have for elucidating some of those
problems. Kadesh is mentioned on a number of
other occasions in the ancient records: its ruler led
the coalition of Asiatic princes which was
defeated by Thutmose 111 at the battle of Megiddo;
it was captured by the same pharaoh a few years
later; first fell into the hands of the Hittites (who
knew it as Kinza) just over a century later; and
was taken for the Egyptians again by Seti I, who
erected his victory stela there. By the time of
Ramesses it was back in Hittite control. Its history
in the Late Bronze Age therefore reflects faithfully
the great imperial struggle between the two world
powers of the time.  Nothing is known of the city
from textual sources before the battle of Megiddo,
while after the battle to which it gave its own
name it almost disappears from history again,
being overshadowed in all likelihood during the

Iron Age by Hamath and Ribla, the latter only a
few kilometres away, further up the Orontes.
Mention in a text from Nimrud of an Assyrian
military post at Qi-di-si possibly refers to the site.6
However, a revival in its fortunes came at the
beginning of the Hellenistic period when, some-
time in the 4th century, a new settlement was
established there, called either Laodiceia-ad-
Libanum, to distinguish it from the many other
Seleucid foundations with the same dynastic
name, or, occasionally, Laodiceia Scabiosa, per-
haps in reference to the then unhealthy malarial
climate of the Orontes valley. The history of the
new foundation is obscure. It is mentioned several
times in accounts of the Syrian Wars between the
Seleucids and Ptolemies; it appears in some of the
Roman itineraries; and was still important enough
to figure in several of the Byzantine church
histories, being apparently the seat of a suffragan
bishop and having had (so it is claimed) its own
stylite. But the settlement clearly never achieved

JACF VOL. 4 79



View of the north-east slopes of Tell Nebi Mend from the River Orontes.  [Photo: P. Parr]

the prominence of its Late Bronze Age predeces-
sor and seems to have been soon eclipsed as a
major centre by Emesa (modern Homs) a short
distance away to the north. There is no evidence,
textual or archaeological, that it survived as late
as the arrival of the Muslim Arabs in Syria in the
7th century AD.

The fact that Tell Nebi Mend had enjoyed
such an eventful history and had been in its day
one of the most imprtant city states in the Levant
certainly contributed to its being chosen as the site
of the excavations which began in 1975 under the
auspices of the University of London's Institute of
Archaeology (now part of UCL).7 But there were
other reasons as well. Most important of these was
the tell's situation in a part of the Near East which
had, and still has, been strangely neglected by
archaeologists. Compared with the archaeology of
Israel and Jordan in the south, and of Mesopota-
mia and the Euphrates valley to the east and
north-east, this part of central Syria is poorly
known. On the coast, sites such as Ras Shamra
(Ugarit), Ras Ibn Hani, Sukas, and Byblos have,
of course, been thoroughly (if not always reliably)
investigated; but these are sites with a Mediterra-
nean orientation, whose history and culture have
not always been the same as those of the inland
cities. The major military and commercial routes
(and thus the cultural links) between Anatolia,
Mesopotamia, and Egypt passed preponderantly
through inland Syria, and here only the Danish
excavations at Hama and, more recently, the work
of the Italian archaeologists at Tell Mardikh (Ebla)
have provided a basis for an understanding of the

80

historical role of this crucial region. The discover-
ies at Tell Mardikh, spectacular and of outstanding
importance though they are, relate at present to
only a relatively short period of time in the long
history of human settlement in Syria, while its
location south of Aleppo and only about 100 kilo-
metres from the Euphrates perhaps places it too
close to the Mesopotamian sphere of influence (as
its culture in the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium
BC demonstrates) to provide a truly balanced
picture of the cultural amalgam between north and
south which characterised the Levant. As for
Hama, further south in central Syria, although the
work there has produced a long sequence of
evidence stretching from at least the 5th millen-
nium BC to the Islamic period, the results have
been disappointing, largely on account of the lack
of precise and well-documented stratigraphic
control and of the failure, by modem standards,
to collect all the relevant data, such as that
pertaining to environmental and economic condi-
tions. In 1975 it was therefore felt that what was
needed was the investigation of a site with a long
history of occupation in an area where the varied
cultural influences of Egypt, Anatolia and Meso-
potamia might be expected to be revealed in equal
measure, and where there was sufficient textual
documentation to enable a correlation of archaeo-
logical and historical events to be attempted; a site
where, with careful stratigraphic excavation and
the retrieval of all categories of artefactual and
ecofactual evidence, as complete a picture as
possible of the varying historical, cultural and
economic fortunes of a community - or perhaps,

JACF VOL. 4



rather, a succession of communities - living in one
environmental niche, might be reconstructed. Such
a site is Tell Nebi Mend.

The mound to which the otherwise completely
unknown prophet Mend or Mindu has given his
name occupies a strategic position in the fork
formed by the confluence of the Orontes and one
of its most important tributaries, the Mukadiyah.
The Orontes valley itself is not the main north-
south route through Syria, being in antiquity too
frequently impeded by marshes and dense vegeta-
tion to attract travellers. The location of the site
is rather determined by its control of the east-west
crossing of the valley by the route from central
Syria, and ultimately from Anatolia and Mesopo-
tamia, to the Mediterranean through the Homs-
Tripoli Gap, one of the few natural breaks in the
formidable coastal mountain chain. This route
also forms the natural boundary between the
northern and southern Levant, and the region of
Tell Nebi Mend seems throughout its history to
have both suffered and benefited from the vicis-
situdes of a frontier zone. The tell itself, the town
site of Kadesh, covers an area of approximately
10 hectares, rising above the fertile flood plain of
the rivers to a height of 30 metres. South of the
tell is an equally large but much lower mound,
nowhere more than 7 metres high but strewn with
Roman and Byzantine sherds - clearly the site of

Laodiceia in its final centuries.
Delimiting this part of the site on
the south is a 30 metres wide
artificial ditch, a feature which re-
appears on the far side of the river
Mukadiyah where it runs westwards
for about 400 metres before making
a right-angled turn to the north and
continuing for another 800 metres
before it merges into the country-
side. Along part of this western
ditch can be seen the remains of an
inner embankment, today almost
entirely ploughed away. The enclo-
sure formed by the ditch and
embankment is remarkably similar
in plan to the enclosures at Mish-
rifeh (ancient Qatna) and Hazor, for
example, and has in the past been
assumed to be of the same 2nd
millennium date, the ditch being
taken to be the means whereby the
city of Kadesh was encircled by
water, as shown in the Egyptian
reliefs. However, recent investiga-
tion suggests rather that the enclo-

JACF VOL. 4

sure is a late feature, perhaps Byzantine, though
its function remains obscure.
The task of investigating the archaeological
history of a large multi-period settlement such as
Tell Nebi Mend in a hitherto poorly known region
involves, above all, the establishment of as com-
plete as possible a sequence of structural remains
and associated material.  In order to achieve this
the site has to be adequately sampled in a number
of different places; all phases of occupation have
to be treated equally, with no preference given to
periods of presumed `greater' importance; and
sampling methods have to be meticulous and con-
sistent.* The task is therefore arduous and slow,
and reliable results cannot be expected until all the
collected data are analysed and collated. The brief
account which follows, therefore must of necessity
concentrate on the more general results and should
be taken as being still tentative.

So far as is known at present the first settle-
ment on the spur of well drained marly land
between the Orontes and Mukadiyah took place
some time in the 6th millennium BC. In a small
area at the eastern end of Trench VIII a succession
of white plaster floors interspersed with occupation
material has been found immediately overlying the
bed-rock. These floors curve up to the surrounding
walls, but the walls themselves have been very
difficult to isolate, being apparently made of terre

The northern section of the tell showing the trenches which were
re-opened for the 1990 excavation season.  I = MBA; 11 = LBA;
111 = MBA & LBA; V = IA & Hellenistic; VIII = Neolithic. [Plan
reproduced by courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, London]

81



lSlS - 1990/91

pise'e which has almost entirely disintegrated. In
so far as they have been traced the plans are of
rectilinear houses, and compare with those
published from the Pottery Neolithic levels of Tell
Sukas and Byblos. The pottery and chipped stone
assemblages are also identical, the former being
characterised by Dark Faced Burnished Ware and
by Incised and Cord Impressed Wares, all typical
of the coastal NColithique Ancien. Further inves-
tigation is needed before this apparently earliest
settlement at Tell Nebi Mend can be more fully
characterised and dated, but there is no doubt that
it is another example of the many small agri-
cultural villages which were being established at
this time in the Mediterranean Forest zone of the
Levant by the first pottery-using peoples.
For reasons presently unknown this early
settlement was abandoned and the site - or at least
that small part of it excavated - deserted for
between one and two millennia; determination of
a more exact figure necessitates further study of
the pottery and of the radiocarbon samples. The
region was not abandoned, however, since during
this time an extensive settlement existed about one
kilometre away at a locality called Arjoune, on the
opposite bank of the Orontes. This was character-
ised by habitation and/or rubbish pits containing
large quantities of painted Halaf and Syrian Ubaid
pottery, side-by-side with late types of Dark Faced
Burnished and Incised Wares. The site seems to

Pe'zards great cutting (of 1921 -22) within which
Trenches I & VIII are located.  [Photo: D. Rohl]

82

have been occupied for a surprisingly long period
of time, from early in the 5th millennium to early
in the 4th, according to uncalibrated radiocarbon
determinations. Analysis of the animal bones has
shown that its economy was largely based upon
the rearing of pigs, for which the environment of
the Orontes valley is ideally suited.9

It was in the latter part of the 4th and the early
3rd millennium (on the conventional chronology)
that Syria began to experience the 'urban revolu-
tion'. Although much light has recently been
thrown on this stage of human history in the north
and east of the country by work at such sites as
Habuba Kabira, Tell Brak and Tell Leilan, the
situation in the west is much less clear, largely
owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence
from Ras Shamra, Byblos and Hama. It has, in
particular, proved difficult to compare develop-
ments in the northern Levant with those in the
south, in Palestine, where the archaeological evi-
dence for the beginnings of towns is relatively
abundant. It had always been hoped that Tell Nebi
Mend would help rectify this situation, and this is
now proving to be the case. Following the gap in
occupation during the 5th and 4th millennia an
entirely new settlement was established, with
strikingly new types of architecture and ceramics.
Still only revealed in one part of the site, Trench
VIII, the buildings of the 3rd millennium are
substantially constructed of solid mud-brick faced
with mud plaster, which also covers the floors.
The spaciousness of the lay-out and the thickness
of the walls suggest that these remains are those
of urban architecture, though whether of public or
private buildings cannot yet be determined.  A
sequence of four or five sub-phases has been
established. No evidence of a town wall has yet
come to light, but the edge of the mound at this
point has suffered a great deal of erosion and
mud-brick defences could well have disappeared;
one of the priorities for future seasons of work
will be to search for them in other parts of the
site. Few objects have been recovered other than
pottery. As might be expected this has its closest
analogies with that from Hama Period K; it is less
close to the Ras Shamra and Byblos Early Bronze
Age material, thus demonstrating yet again the
cultural differences which often existed between
the two sides of the coastal mountains. Further
investigation of this period at Tell Nebi Mend
should help determine to what extent urbanism in
the southern Levant was stimulated from the
north-east and ultimately Mesopotamia,  and to
what extent it was a more coastal henomenon

stimulated by the trade with Egypt. Po

JACF VOL. 4



It is in the latter part of the 3rd
millennium that the requirement for
archaeological data from inland cen-
tral Syria, linking the northern and
southern Levant, is felt most keenly,
for at this time (the EB IV or EB-
MB period) the fortunes of two parts
of the region are strikingly diver-
gent. Ebla dominates the north, with
its rich literate urban civilisation and
its extensive commercial hegemony,
whereas in Palestine a number of the
Early Bronze Age towns have al-
ready been abandoned by c. 2500
BC, and by c. 2300 BC the land has
become one entirely of villagers and
pastoralists. Much more work needs
to be done at Tell Nebi Mend before
its place in this polarised Levantine
situation can be assessed, but the
sequence which has already been
established for these centuries en-
ables some interesting observations
to be made. In the first place, the

View from the Hellenistic town (Trench V) looking north towards
the confluence of the Orontes and Mukadiyah. [Photo: D. Rohl]

substantial structures of the 3rd millennium refer-
red to above are destroyed (though whether by
natural or human depredation is not certain) and
are replaced, after an interval of time when the
ruins were utilised by squatters, with much more
flimsy buildings of rough stones set in mud.  A
charcoal sample from this phase has given a radio-
carbon determination of 2490 +/- 160 bc (uncali-
brated). These poor structures in turn are replaced
- perhaps after another short interval - by a new
phase of good quality mud-brick architecture
which is, however, characterised by the use of
white lime plaster for floors and wall surfaces. A
change in the ceramic repertoire also seems to
take place now, and in particular the first appear-
ance, in association with these plastered floors, of
the Plain Simple Ware goblets typical of early
Hama J and Mardikh ITA (the palace G phase) and
a type-fossil of Syrian EB IV. While it would be
premature to use the evidence so far obtained from
a very restricted area of Tell Nebi Mend to draw
far-reaching conclusions concerning the rest of
central Syria, the significance of the discoveries is
clear.

The early 2nd millennium - preliminary pot-
tery analysis indicates the 17th century BC - saw
the erection of substantial fortifications at Tell
Nebi Mend. Although these are the earliest so far
discovered it is most unlikely that they were the
earliest built, those of the 3rd millennium town
having, in all probability, been eroded. The new

JACF VOL. 4

defences, in Trench I (the western extension of
Trench VIII), overlie the white plastered houses
mentioned above, though whether these were
already in ruins or were deliberately destroyed by
the military builders is not yet clear. The defences
comprise a complicated casemate system of three
parallel mud-brick walls joined at intervals by
cross-walls; the outer wall is some 2.50 metres
thick, the inner walls less than 1.00 metre. Con-
struction methods, especially the use of lime
plaster on wall and floor surfaces, are close to
those of preceding houses, suggesting that no
major cultural break coincided with the erection of
the new defensive system. Pottery from the latest
floors associated with the casemates includes
storage jars with incised decoration characteristic
of Hama Period H and Mardikh IIIA - one of the
type-fossils of the Syrian Middle Bronze Age.

The work on these fortifications is throwing
light on one of the most interesting problems of
2nd millennium Syrian archaeology. For many
years controversy has raged over whether or not
there is a lacuna in the Syrian archaeological
record between the Middle and Late Bronze Ages,
perhaps indicating a decline in urban settlement
during the middle centuries of the millennium.
The controversy has implications, of course, for
wider issues, such as the history of the initial
stages of Egyptian expansion into Syria and - less
directly but still significantly - on conditions in
Palestine at the same period and their relevance

83



lSlS - 1990/91

to the hotly debated problem of the Exodus. The
possibility of such a gap was fist suggested by
confusion over the dating of Hama Periods H and
G, the latter being clearly of the Late Bronze Age
(with imported Cypriot Base Ring vessels, for
example), while the former contains nothing
which, in terms of the better known Palestinian
ceramic sequence (long since the yardstick of
Levantine archaeologists), seems attributable to
the final phases of the Middle Bronze Age.  A
similar absence of developed Palestinian MB
pottery forms is noticeable also at Mardikh and
elsewhere in inland Syria. However, a recent
detailed investigation of this problem has shown
that - as might be expected - regional variations
in pottery assemblages have to be recognised, and
has concluded that Palestinian types cannot neces-
sarily be used to date Syrian deposits. The
evidence from Tell Nebi Mend bearing on this
problem is of the greatest importance. On the one
hand, the stratigraphy shows quite clearly that
after the fortifications were destroyed their ruins
were abandoned for a time and subjected to
degradation by natural forces before this part of
the mound was re-occupied. When this took place
domestic buildings were constructed over the site
of the previous town wall and in a quite different
style of building; if a new town wall was built at
the same time it must have been further to the east
of the MB defensive line, and has since been
eroded away. On the other hand, a detailed statis-
tical study of the pottery from these levels shows
that there was no significant break in the typo-
logical development, and suggests that the gap in
occupation lasted no more than a generation at
most, probably in the first half of the 16th century.
What the historical significance of this is, and
whether a similar change in the occupational and
architectural history of other contemporary Syrian
sites can now be detected, remains to be seen. l1

It was during the Late Bronze Age that,
according to the textual sources, Kadesh was at
the apogee of its fortunes. To some extent archae-
ology has confiied this; on both the north-
eastern and western sides of the mound (in
Trenches I1 and 111 respectively) parts of monu-
mental mud-brick structures have been exposed,
certainly pertaining to public rather than to private
architecture. In both areas there are several phases
of these, apparently spanning the whole of the
Late Bronze Age. The building in Trench I11 is
particularly interesting,  since its massive walls
indicate that it was originally of some consider-
able height, while its position on the very edge of
the tell suggests that it could have been part of

84

Letter to `Niqma-Addu, prince of Kadesh'; one of
five cuneiform texts found at Nebi Mend. [Photo
by courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology]

the city defences, perhaps one of the tower-like
structures which Egyptian representations of
Asiatic towns habitually show.  The excavations
have been less fortunate, however, in producing
artefactual evidence of the wealth and importance
of Late Bronze Age Kadesh. On present showing
- and somewhat to the disappointment of the
archaeologists - there are no levels of violent
destruction, containing hurriedly abandoned pot-
tery vessels or other material, to be associated
with the turbulent political events of the period.
Architectural change and development appears to
have occurred peacefully, and whatever mark the
activities of Thutmose, Seti and Ramesses and of
their Hittite adversaries left on the archaeological
record has yet to be discovered.

One small group of Late Bronze Age finds is,
however, of the greatest importance. From the
destruction debris of the Trench 11 monumental
buildings mentioned above has come a number of
inscribed clay tablets, mostly fragmentary, but two
complete. These are letters from the ruler of
Aleppo to Niqmadda, prince of Kadesh, and must
derive from a royal archive which  still awaits
discovery. l2 Niqmadda is known to have been the
son of the Aitakama of Kadesh mentioned in the

JACF VOL. 4



lSlS - 1990/91

Amarna Letters; Aitakama had rebelled against the
Hittites, but Niqmadda had him assassinated and
secured the city for them.  On conventional his-
torical grounds the tablets must date from about
1320 BC; their discovery in a well-stratified con-
text, with associated pottery and carbon samples
for radiometric determinations, provides a superb
opportunity for interdisciplinary research into
Levantine chronology.

What happened at the end of the 2nd millen-
nium at Tell Nebi Mend is obscured, as it is at
most other Levantine sites; the Late Bronze - Iron
Age transition is one of the major historical
problems being addressed by the excavations, but
although stratified deposits of the period are
known to exist they have yet to be investigated.
The archaeological picture becomes clearer in the
9th-8th century, with the uncovering of part of a
substantial building on the NE crest of the tell
(Trench V). This is of mud-brick and timber con-
struction, the main features of its plan being a
cobbled courtyard with rooms, also cobbled, on at
least two sides, and a stairway leading to either
an upper storey or to the roof. The building had
been destroyed by an intense fire which had left
its spectacular imprint on the mud-brick walls;
contrary to the norm at Tell Nebi Mend the floors
were covered with broken pottery, preliminary
study of which suggests a date in the 8th century
BC for the conflagration. A radiocarbon date
(uncorrected) of 750 +/- 40 bc from one of the
timbers may corroborate this, though the material
may already have been old when it was burned,
and a calibrated date of some two centuries earlier
may be preferable. The temptation to attribute the
destruction to the invasion of an Assyrian army is
strong, but should perhaps be resisted until more
evidence is forthcoming. Whatever the historical
occasion, the destroyed building was replaced by
a similar one, not quite on the same plan; this in
turn was destroyed - though with no apparent
signs of violence - and its ruins left to decay. In
the small area excavated this marks the end of
Kadesh (Assyrian Qi-di-si); the next event in
Trench V is the levelling over of the ruins and the
construction of a street of houses by the founders
of Laodiceia-ad-libanurn in the 4th century BC.
However, again caution has to be expressed about
drawing too many conclusions from a very small
archaeological sample.
Little is known of the history of the new town
of Laodiceia, but there is reason to suppose that
it will prove to have been as eventful as that of
its predecessor. It clearly played a less prominent
role in the history of Greco-Roman Syria than did

JACF VOL. 4

large sites such as Baalbek, Apamea, or Palmyra,
but this very fact makes it of especial importance
for the archaeologist of today, since research
hitherto has concentrated on the more famous sites
and their monumental remains, at the expense of
the less spectacular relics which throw light on the
everyday life of the population. Although much is
known from the written record concerning the
economy of Syria during this period, the archaeo-
logical sources have been scarcely tapped. The
excavation of such a site as Laodiceia will provide
a unique opportunity to reconstruct the economic
and social life of a small market town and to
investigate its role in the complex of commercial
and cultural interactions between the intrusive
Greco-Roman populations and the customs of the
major cities on the one hand, and the indigenous,
rural, Asiatic population and their traditions on the
other. Only a beginning to this aspect of the Tell
Nebi Mend Project has so far been made, but, if
resources can be found for its continuation, the
results can confidently be predicted to be as
spectacular in their own way as the temples of
Palmyra and Baalbek are in theirs.
Despite years of excavation and analysis, the
task of reconstructing the history of the successive
communities who lived at the confluence of the
Orontes and the Mukadiyah in Syria has hardly
begun. 0

Notes and References

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

For full discussions, see J. H. Breasted: The Battle of Qadesh (Chicago,
1904); A. H. Gardiner: The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses I1
(Oxford, 1960).
W. M. Thompson: `A Joumey from Aleppo to Mount Lebanon' in
Bibliothecu Sacra V (1848), pp. 691-92.
C. Conder: Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement (1891),

R. 0. Faulkner: `Egypt: From the Inception of the Nineteenth Dynasty
to the Death of Ramesses III' in CAH II. p. 225; K. A. Kitchen: `The
Basics of Egyptian Chronology in Relation to the Bronze Age' in
HML?, Part I, p. 52.
For further details see above all H. Klengel: Geschichte Syriens im
2. Jahrtausend v.u.Z II. (Berlin, 1969). pp. 139-77.
B. Oded: `Two Assyrian references to the town of Qadesh-m-the-
Orcmtes' in IEI 14 (1964). pp. 272-73.
The excavations have been funded mainly by the British Academy,
the British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History, the British
School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. the University of London Central
Research Fund, the Gordon Childe Fund of the Institute of Archaeol-
ogy, and the Palestine Exploration Fund. Since the 1990 season the
project has been jointly sponsored and funded also by the University
of Melbourne.
For a fuller statement of strateev and methods. see P. J. Parr: `?he

pp. 163-73.

Tell Nebi Mend Project' in AnGIes Archblogiques Arabes Syriennes

For a full report on this site, see P. J.  Parr et al.: Evovations ut
Arjoune in Syria, forthcoming 1991.

10. For a fuller preliminary account of the 3rd millennium levels at Tell
Nebi Mend, see V. T. Mathias and P. J. Parr: Levant XXI (1990).
11. This whole matter has been the subject of a University of London PhD
thesis by Stephen Bourke, a summary of which will appear in the next

  volume of Levant.
12. See A. R. Millard: `Qadesh et Ugarit' in Andes Archlologiques
Arubes Syriennes XXM-XXX (1979-80). pp. 201-05.

XXXI (1983). pp. 99-117.

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