Abstract
For a number of years before the discovery of Mari, the tablets of Khana were the only cuneiform texts from Syria known to Assyriologists. Incremented considerably in number by the ongoing excavations at Terqa, they shed light on an important period of ancient Syrian history, corresponding to the Late Old Babylonian period. But more important than the philological construct conveyed by the Khana tablets is the historical construct of the kingdom of Khana, of which first Mari and then Terqa was the capital. This article outlines the unique and hitherto unrecognized geopolitical configuration of the region of Khana, and it shows why Khana after the fall of Mari did not become a petty local kingdom. Documentation is given for a proposed sequential order of the 11 kings who ruled Khana in the second quarter of the second millennium B. C., based on stratigraphic and textual considerations. Finally, a case is made for a pattern of urban-rural interaction, that was unique to Khana society within the whole ancient Near East.
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