Names of the Levant

Over recorded history, there have been many names of the Levant, a large area in the Middle East, or its constituent parts. These names have applied to a part or the whole of the Levant. On occasion, two or more of these names have been used at the same time by different cultures or sects. As a natural result, some of the names of the Levant are highly politically charged. Perhaps the least politicized name is Levant itself, which simply means "where the sun rises" or "where the land rises out of the sea", a meaning attributed to the region's easterly location on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

Antiquity

Retjenu

Ancient Egyptian texts (c. 14th century BC) called the entire coastal area along the Mediterranean Sea between modern Egypt and Turkey rṯnw (conventionally Reṯenu). In the Amarna letters, written in Akkadian cuneiform, Reṯenu is subdivided into five regions:

Canaan

Prior to (and for some time after) the formation of the Israelite/Hebrew identity and polities in the region, the land was referred to natively as Canaan (first attested in Assyrian Akkadian as Kinaḫnu). Though it was once thought that the Hebrews were foreign settlers in Canaan, the modern consensus of most scholars is that Hebrew identity developed in situ as a direct indigenous evolution of earlier Canaanite tribes; the continuity from Bronze Age Canaanite civilization to Iron Age Israelite/Judean civilization is indeed so seamless that many scholars stress that any dichotomy between the two is essentially arbitrary—with culture, language, etc., being indistinguishable during the transition from Bronze Age to Iron Age.[4][5] The Phoenicians—also descended from the Bronze Age Canaanites, and close relatives and neighbors of the Israelites—likewise continued to speak a Canaanite language and practice Canaanite religion at their Mediterranean ports, and referred to themselves natively as "Canaanites", and their land as "Canaan".

Phoenicia
Main article: Phoenicia
  • Arabic: فِيْنِيْقِيَّة [fiːniːqjaː]
  • Greek: Φοινίκη (Phoiníkē)
  • Hebrew

In ancient times, the Greeks called the whole of Canaan Phoiníkē, literally "[land] of the purple[-producing shell]". Today, general consensus associates the Phoenician homeland proper with the northwest coastal region of the Levant, centered at Phoenician cities such as Ugarit, Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. Today, this place is usually equated with modern Lebanon and the coast of modern Syria. Also, there is a modern town in Turkey called Finike which is thought to have derived by the Lycians who traded with Phoenicians in ancient times.

Israel and Judea

Israel:

  • Egyptian: ysrỉꜣr (/iːsriɑr/)
    iiz
    Z1s Z1s
    r    		 iAr
    Z1 T14    		 A1 B1
    Z2
  • Arabic: إِِِسْرَائِيْل [ʔisraːʔiːl]
  • Canaanite: 𐤉𐤔𐤓𐤀𐤋 (yšrʾl)
  • Ugaritic: 𐎊𐎌𐎗𐎛𐎍 (yšrỉl)
  • Greek: Ισραήλ (Israḗl)
  • Hebrew

Judea:

  • Arabic: یَهُوْدَا [jahuːdaː]
  • Akkadian: 𒅀𒌑𒁕𒀀𒀀 (ia-u2-da-a-a)
  • Greek: Ἰουδαία (Ioudaía)
  • Hebrew

The kingdoms of Israel and Judah were Iron Age Semitic nations spanning from Edom to Assyria. Today, the modern State of Israel controls much of the former territory of the ancient Israelite/Judean kingdoms. According to the Deuteronomic history in the Bible, the polities of Israel and Judah originally split off from an earlier, united Kingdom of Israel, ruled by illustrious kings such as David and Solomon; though modern archaeology, biblical scholarship, and historians are generally somewhat skeptical of the historicity of the alleged united monarchy of Israel, suggesting instead that the two kingdoms developed separately, with the southern kingdom of Judah probably dependent on the northern kingdom of Israel as a satellite state at first.[6]

The term Judaea is used by historians to refer to the Roman province that extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms. It was named after Herod Archelaus's ethnarchy of Judea of which it was an expansion, the name being derived from the earlier provincial designations Yehud Medinata (Achaemenid) and Yehud (Neo-Babylonian): all ultimately referring to the former Hebrew kingdom of Judah.

Assyria and Syria
Main article: Name of Syria

During Persian rule of the Near East, the Greeks and Romans came to call the region "Syria", believed to have been named after Assyria and the Aramaic language they spread over the entire region. However, Herodotus used the combined name "Syria Palaistinē". "Greater Syria" refers to a larger area that is supported by some nationalists.

During the Syrian Wars between the Seleucid dynasty and the Ptolemaic dynasty (274-168 BC), the region was known as Coele-Syria traditionally given the meaning 'hollow' Syria. The later Hellenistic term Koile Syria that appears first in Arrian's Anabasis Alexandri (2.13.7) in AD 145 and has been much discussed, is usually interpreted as a transcription of Aramaic kul, "all, the entire", identifying all of Syria.[7]

Palestine
See also: Timeline of the name Palestine, Place names in Palestine, and Palestine (region)

Palestine:

  • Arabic: فِلِسْطِيْن [filistˤiːn]
  • Greek: Παλαιστίνη (Palaistinē) - from Hebrew: פְּלִשְׁתִּים [pəliːʃˈtiːm]; or perhaps Greek παλαιστής (palaistēs, "wrestler"), in reference to Israel[8][9]
  • Hebrew
  • Israeli Hebrew: פלשתינה (Palestina) – from Latin, English etc., or Israeli Hebrew: פלסטין (Falastin) – from Arabic.

An early version of the name Palestine was first recorded by the ancient Egyptians as Peleset. Herodotus later called the whole area Syria Palaistinē in his Histories (c. 450 BC), and included the entire territory of ancient Israel and Judea (which he noted for the practice of circumcision), not specifically the coastal Philistine territory (whose people notably did not practice circumcision).[10] The Romans applied the term Syria Palaestina to the southern part of the region—beginning in AD 135, following the Bar Kokhba revolt—to complete the disassociation with the former identity of Judaea. The name continued to be used for the province throughout later Byzantine and Islamic rule.

†As a side note, Standard Hebrew has two names for Palestine, both of which are different from the Hebrew name for ancient Philistia. The first name Palestina was used by Hebrew speakers in the British Mandate of Palestine; it is spelled like the name for Philistia but with three more letters added to the end and a Latin pronunciation given. The second name Falastin is a direct loan from the Arabic form, and is used today specifically to refer to the modern Palestinians and to political aspirations for a Palestinian state.

Philistia

Philistia:

  • Israeli Hebrew: פלשת (Pleshet)
  • Tiberian Hebrew: פְּלֶשֶׁת Hebrew pronunciation: [pəˈlɛʃɛθ]
  • Latin: Palæstina - from Greek

Eber-Nari and Transeuphratia

Eber-Nari was the name of a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire which roughly corresponded with the southern Levant. It means "Beyond the River" or "Across the River" in both Akkadian and Aramaic (that is, the western side of the Euphrates from a Mesopotamian and Persian viewpoint). It is also sometimes referred to as Transeuphratia (French Transeuphratène) by modern scholars.

Medieval and modern history

Shaam

The Arabic name for the region of Levant is Shaam (Arabic: أَلشَّام, romanized: al-Shām) comes from the Arabic root meaning "left" or "north".[11] After the Islamic conquest of the region, Shaam became the name of the Levant (Byzantine Syria).[12][13]

In ancient times, Baalshamin or Ba'al Šamem (Imperial Aramaic: ܒܥܠ ܫܡܝܢ, romanized: Lord of Heaven(s)),[14][15] was a Semitic sky-god in Canaan/Phoenicia and ancient Palmyra.[16][17] However, the syllable "sham" in Baalshamin has nothing to do with the name shaam but is just by chance the middle syllable of the word for "sky", comparable to Hebrew שָׁמַיִם (shamayim).

Levant

Medieval Italians called the region Levante after its easterly location where the sun "rises"; this term was adopted from Italian and French into many other languages.

Outremer

Frankish Crusaders called the Levant Outremer in French, which means "overseas." In France, this general term was colloquially applied more specifically to the Levant because of heavy Frankish involvement in the Crusades and the foundation of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and other Latin settlements scattered throughout the area.

Eastern Mediterranean

Eastern Mediterranean is a term that denotes the lands or states geographically in the eastern, to the east of, or around the east of the Mediterranean Sea, or with cultural affinities to this region. The Eastern Mediterranean includes Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Jordan.[18][19][20][21][22] The term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning "in the middle of earth" or "between lands" (medius, "middle, between" + terra, "land, earth"). This is on account of the sea's intermediary position between the continents of Africa and Europe.[23]

Holy Land
Main article: Holy Land

In different languages:

  • Arabic: اَلْأَرْض الْمُقَدَّسَة (Al-Arḍ al-Muqaddasah in the Islamic holy book, the Quran)[24]
  • Greek: Άγιοι Τόποι (Hagioi Topoi, modern Greek pronunciation: [aji topi]), literally: "Holy Places")
  • Hebrew: ארץ הקדש (Erets ha-Kodesh)
  • Latin: Terra Sancta
  • Turkish: Kutsal Topraklar

The Holy Land is a term used in Abrahamic tradition to refer to sacred sites of the Levant — such as Shiloh, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth — but is also often used to refer to the Levant (and historical Canaan) as a whole.

See also

References
  1. Tammuz, Oded. "Canaan - A Land Without Limits, Ugarit Forschungen 33: 510". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. Sir Alan Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1961) 1964 pp.131, 199, 285, n.1.
  3. KTU2 4.96
  4. Gnuse, Robert Karl (1997). No other gods : emergent monotheism in Israel. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press. p. 54. ISBN 9780567374158. OCLC 276784070.
  5. Smith, Mark S. (2002). The early history of God : Yahweh and the other deities in ancient Israel (2nd ed.). Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. pp. 19–24. ISBN 9780802839725. OCLC 49493240.
  6. Israel., Finkelstein (2001). The Bible unearthed : archaeology's new vision of ancient Israel and the origin of its sacred texts. Silberman, Neil Asher, 1950-. New York: Free Press. ISBN 9780684869124. OCLC 44509358.
  7. M. Sartre, "La Syrie creuse n'existe pas", in G. L. Gatier, et al. Géographie historique au proche-orient (1988:15-40), reviving the explanation offered by A. Schalit (1954), is reported by Robin Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer (2008, notes p378f): "the crux is solved".
  8. "When Palestine Meant Israel". The BAS Library. 2015-08-24. Retrieved 2018-03-25.
  9. Price, Randall (2001). Unholy war. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers. pp. 133. ISBN 9780736908238. OCLC 47916042.
  10. Avi, Faust (April 2016). Israel's ethnogenesis : settlement, interaction, expansion and resistance. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon. pp. 88–91. ISBN 9781134942084. OCLC 945975573.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. "Nine Divine Connections Between the Blessed Lands of Shaam and Yemen | Muslim Hands UK". muslimhands.org.uk. 21 October 2020. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
  12. Article "AL-SHĀM" by C.E. Bosworth, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Volume 9 (1997), page 261. See also Name of Syria.
  13. Salibi, K. S. (2003). A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered. I.B.Tauris. pp. 61–62. ISBN 978-1-86064-912-7. To the Arabs, this same territory, which the Romans considered Arabian, formed part of what they called Bilad al-Sham, which was their own name for Syria. From the classical perspective however Syria, including Palestine, formed no more than the western fringes of what was reckoned to be Arabia between the first line of cities and the coast. Since there is no clear dividing line between what are called today the Syrian and Arabian deserts, which actually form one stretch of arid tableland, the classical concept of what actually constituted Syria had more to its credit geographically than the vaguer Arab concept of Syria as Bilad al-Sham. Under the Romans, there was actually a province of Syria, with its capital at Antioch, which carried the name of the territory. Otherwise, down the centuries, Syria like Arabia and Mesopotamia was no more than a geographic expression. In Islamic times, the Arab geographers used the name arabicized as Suriyah, to denote one special region of Bilad al-Sham, which was the middle section of the valley of the Orontes river, in the vicinity of the towns of Homs and Hama. They also noted that it was an old name for the whole of Bilad al-Sham which had gone out of use. As a geographic expression, however, the name Syria survived in its original classical sense in Byzantine and Western European usage, and also in the Syriac literature of some of the Eastern Christian churches, from which it occasionally found its way into Christian Arabic usage. It was only in the nineteenth century that the use of the name was revived in its modern Arabic form, frequently as Suriyya rather than the older Suriyah, to denote the whole of Bilad al-Sham: first of all in the Christian Arabic literature of the period, and under the influence of Western Europe. By the end of that century it had already replaced the name of Bilad al-Sham even in Muslim Arabic usage.
  14. Teixidor, Javier (2015). The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East. Princeton University Press. p. 27. ISBN 9781400871391. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  15. Beattie, Andrew; Pepper, Timothy (2001). The Rough Guide to Syria. Rough Guides. p. 290. ISBN 9781858287188. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  16. Dirven, Lucinda (1999). The Palmyrenes of Dura-Europos: A Study of Religious Interaction in Roman Syria. BRILL. p. 76. ISBN 978-90-04-11589-7. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
  17. J.F. Healey (2001). The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus. BRILL. p. 126. ISBN 9789004301481. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  18. "Lands Of The Eastern Mediterranean Map By National Geographic". Archived from the original on July 14, 2011.
  19. "The Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age". Archived from the original on June 20, 2010.
  20. "The Eastern Mediterranean 1600-1200 BC". Archived from the original on June 28, 2011.
  21. "Eastern Mediterranean By National Geographic". Archived from the original on July 14, 2011.
  22. "Countries Surrounding the Eastern Mediterranean Sea". Archived from the original on 2020-02-25. Retrieved 2011-02-20.
  23. entry μεσόγαιος Archived 2009-12-02 at the Wayback Machine at Liddell & Scott
  24. Quran 5:1-96
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