Decentralization of power in a Late Bronze Age Syrian city: the Lower City Palace of Qatna

The Lower City Palace was built during a massive urban reorganisation of Qatna that likely started some time before the mid-2nd millennium with the erection of the Royal Palace on the northern part of the acropolis. The presence of three different monumental buildings, in use at the same time and clearly with public functions (among others), suggests that in Qatna at the beginning of the LBA a decentralised palace model prevailed and that ceremonial, political, administrative, residential, and production activities, instead of being concentrated in a single large palace, were distributed among several.