Author Response [to "Commentary" by Daniel E. Fleming, Virginia R. Herrmann, Marina Pucci and Valérie Matoïan, JNES 80/2:401-406]

This is a critical response to the "Commentary" by Daniel Fleming, Georgina Herrmann, Marina Pucci and Valerie Matoian (JNES 80/2:401-406), attached as a discussion forum to the article "Urban Squares in Late Bronze Age Ugarit". The response addresses in particular three debated questions concerning the Syrian city of Ugarit at the end of the Late Bronze Age: the economic and social differences within Ugarit’s urban population (moderate); the long-term existence and changing political meaning of urban squares - including their relationship to the political discourse of Ugarit’s ruling elite in the 13th century; and the possibility that squares may have had multiple functions (it was likely so).