Overview There are several periodization systems for Canaan. One of them is the following. • Prior to 4500 BC (prehistory –
Stone Age): hunter-gatherer societies slowly giving way to farming and herding societies • 4500–3500 BC (
Chalcolithic): early metal-working and farming • 3500–2000 BC (Early Bronze): prior to written records in the area • 2000–1550 BC (Middle Bronze):
city-states • 1550–1200 BC (Late Bronze): Egyptian hegemony • 1200–various dates by region (
Iron Age) After the
Iron Age the periods are named after the various empires that ruled the region:
Assyrian,
Babylonian,
Persian,
Hellenistic (related to
Greece) and
Roman. Canaanite culture developed
in situ from multiple waves of migration merging with the earlier
Circum-Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex, which in turn developed from a fusion of their ancestral
Natufian and
Harifian cultures with
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) farming cultures, practicing
animal domestication, during the
6200 BC climatic crisis which led to the
Neolithic Revolution/First Agricultural Revolution in the
Levant. The majority of Canaan is covered by the
Eastern Mediterranean conifer–sclerophyllous–broadleaf forests ecoregion.
Chalcolithic (4500–3500 BC) , Jordan The first wave of migration, called
Ghassulian culture, entered Canaan circa 4500 BC. This is the start of the
Chalcolithic in Canaan. From their unknown homeland, they brought an already complete craft tradition of metalwork. They were expert coppersmiths and their work is similar to artifacts from the later
Maykop culture, leading some scholars to believe they represent two branches of an original metalworking tradition. Their main copper mine was at
Wadi Feynan. The copper was mined from the Cambrian Burj Dolomite Shale Unit in the form of the mineral
malachite. All of the copper was smelted at sites in
Beersheba culture. Genetic analysis has shown that the Ghassulians belonged to the
West Asian haplogroup T-M184. The end of the Chalcolithic period saw the rise of the urban settlement of
'En Esur on the southern Mediterranean coast.
Early Bronze Age (3500–2000 BC) in Gaza was inhabited by the Canaanites from approximately 2600 BC to 2300 BC, reinhabiting an earlier Egyptian settlement.|alt=A view downhill of a landscape consisting of yellow lithified sand dunes. There is a man in a light coloured shirt and a cap descending the slope, making his way been two projecting parts of the dune, and moving away from the camera. By the
Early Bronze Age other sites had developed, such as
Ebla (where an
East Semitic language,
Eblaite, was spoken), which by BC was incorporated into the
Mesopotamia-based
Akkadian Empire of
Sargon the Great and
Naram-Sin of Akkad (biblical Accad). Sumerian references to the
Mar.tu ("tent dwellers", later
Amurru, i.e.
Amorite) country west of the
Euphrates River date from even earlier than Sargon, at least to the reign of the
Sumerian king,
Enshakushanna of
Uruk, and one tablet credits the early Sumerian king
Lugal-Anne-Mundu with holding sway in the region, although this tablet is considered less credible because it was produced centuries later. Amorites at
Hazor,
Kadesh (Qadesh-on-the-Orontes), and elsewhere in
Amurru (Syria) bordered Canaan in the north and northeast. (Ugarit may be included among these Amoritic entities.) The collapse of the Akkadian Empire in 2154 BC saw the arrival of peoples using
Khirbet Kerak ware (pottery), coming originally from the
Zagros Mountains (in modern
Iran) east of the
Tigris. In addition,
DNA analysis revealed that between 2500 and 1000 BC, populations from the Chalcolithic Zagros and Bronze Age
Caucasus migrated to the Southern Levant. The first cities in the southern Levant arose during this period. The major sites were
'En Esur and
Meggido. These "proto-Canaanites" were in regular contact with the other peoples to their south such as
Egypt, and to the north
Asia Minor (
Hurrians,
Hattians,
Hittites,
Luwians) and
Mesopotamia (
Sumer,
Akkad,
Assyria), a trend that continued through the
Iron Age. The end of the period is marked by the abandonment of the cities and a return to lifestyles based on farming villages and semi-nomadic herding, although specialised craft production continued and trade routes remained open. Archaeologically, the Late Bronze Age state of
Ugarit (at
Ras Shamra in
Syria) is considered quintessentially Canaanite, A disputed reference to a "Lord of
ga-na-na" in the Semitic
Ebla tablets (dated 2350 BC) from the archive of
Tell Mardikh has been interpreted by some scholars to mention the deity
Dagon by the title "Lord of Canaan" If correct, this would suggest that Eblaites were conscious of Canaan as an entity by 2500 BC. Jonathan Tubb states that the term
ga-na-na "may provide a third-millennium reference to
Canaanite", while at the same time stating that the first certain reference is in the 18th century BC. See
Ebla-Biblical controversy for further details.
Middle Bronze Age (2000–1550 BC) (1762), indicating "Canaan" as limited to the
Holy Land, to the exclusion of Lebanon and Syria Urbanism returned and the region was divided among small city-states, the most important of which seems to have been Hazor. Many aspects of Canaanite material culture now reflected a Mesopotamian influence, and the entire region became more tightly integrated into a vast international trading network. Additional unpublished references to Kinahnum in the Mari letters refer to the same episode. Whether the term Kinahnum refers to people from a specific region or rather people of "foreign origin" has been disputed, such that Robert Drews states that the "first certain cuneiform reference" to Canaan is found on the Alalakh statue of King Idrimi (below). A reference to Ammiya being "in the land of Canaan" is found on the
Statue of Idrimi (16th century BC) from
Alalakh in modern Syria. After a popular uprising against his rule, Idrimi was forced into exile with his mother's relatives to seek refuge in "the land of Canaan", where he prepared for an eventual attack to recover his city. The other references in the Alalakh texts are: • AT 154 (unpublished) • AT 181: A list of 'Apiru people with their origins. All are towns, except for Canaan • AT 188: A list of Muskenu people with their origins. All are towns, except for three lands including Canaan • AT 48: A contract with a Canaanite hunter. Around 1650 BC, Canaanites invaded the eastern
Nile delta, where, known as the
Hyksos, they became the dominant power. In Egyptian inscriptions,
Amar and
Amurru (
Amorites) are applied strictly to the more northerly mountain region east of Phoenicia, extending to the
Orontes. showing Egyptian
nswt-bjt and
ankh symbols bordering a
cartouche with an
undeciphered sequence of hieroglyphs, c. 1648–1540 BC Archaeological excavations of a number of sites, later identified as Canaanite, show that prosperity of the region reached its apogee during this Middle
Bronze Age period, under the leadership of the city of
Hazor, at least nominally
tributary to Egypt for much of the period. In the north, the cities of
Yamkhad and
Qatna were
hegemons of important
confederacies, and it would appear that biblical Hazor was the chief city of another important
coalition in the south.
Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BC) In the early Late Bronze Age, Canaanite confederacies centered on
Megiddo and
Kadesh, before being fully brought into the
Egyptian Empire and Hittite Empire. Later still, the
Neo-Assyrian Empire assimilated the region. According to the Bible, the migrant
ancient Semitic-speaking peoples who appear to have settled in the region included (among others) the
Amorites, who had earlier controlled Babylonia. The
Hebrew Bible mentions the
Amorites in the
Table of Peoples (
Book of Genesis 10:16–18a). Evidently, the Amorites played a significant role in the early history of Canaan. In Book of Genesis 14:7
f.,
Book of Joshua 10:5
f.,
Book of Deuteronomy 1:19
f., 27, 44, we find them located in the southern mountain country, while verses such as
Book of Numbers 21:13, Book of Joshua 9:10, 24:8, 12, etc., tell of two great Amorite kings residing at
Heshbon and
Ashteroth, east of the Jordan. Other passages, including Book of Genesis 15:16, 48:22, Book of Joshua 24:15,
Book of Judges 1:34, regard the name
Amorite as synonymous with "Canaanite". The name
Amorite is, however, never used for the population on the coast. around 1400 BC In the centuries preceding the appearance of the biblical Hebrews, parts of Canaan and southwestern Syria became tributary to the Egyptian
pharaohs, although domination by the Egyptians remained sporadic, and not strong enough to prevent frequent local rebellions and inter-city struggles. Other areas such as northern Canaan and northern Syria came to be ruled by the Assyrians during this period. Under
Thutmose III (1479–1426 BC) and
Amenhotep II (1427–1400 BC), the regular presence of the strong hand of the Egyptian ruler and his armies kept the Amorites and Canaanites sufficiently loyal. Nevertheless, Thutmose III reported a new and troubling element in the population.
Habiru or (in Egyptian) 'Apiru, are reported for the first time. These seem to have been mercenaries, brigands, or outlaws, who may have at one time led a settled life, but with bad luck or due to the force of circumstances, contributed a rootless element to the population, prepared to hire themselves to whichever local mayor, king, or princeling would pay for their support. Although Habiru (a
Sumerian ideogram glossed as "brigand" in
Akkadian), and sometimes (an Akkadian word) had been reported in Mesopotamia from the reign of the
Sumerian king,
Shulgi of
Ur III, their appearance in Canaan appears to have been due to the arrival of a new state based in Asia Minor to the north of Assyria and based upon a
Maryannu aristocracy of horse-drawn
charioteers, associated with the
Indo-Aryan rulers of the
Hurrians, known as
Mitanni. Temple of
Hazor (c. 1500–1300 BC) Hazor was violently destroyed during the Bronze Age collapse. The Habiru seem to have been more a social class than an ethnic group. One analysis shows that the majority were Hurrian, although there were a number of Semites and even some
Kassite and
Luwian adventurers amongst their number. The reign of
Amenhotep III, as a result, was not quite so tranquil for the Asiatic province, as Habiru/'Apiru contributed to greater political instability. It is believed that turbulent chiefs began to seek their opportunities, although as a rule they could not find them without the help of a neighbouring king. The boldest of the disaffected nobles was
Aziru, son of
Abdi-Ashirta, who endeavoured to extend his power into the plain of
Damascus.
Akizzi, governor of Katna (
Qatna?) (near
Hamath), reported this to Amenhotep III, who seems to have sought to frustrate Aziru's attempts. In the reign of the next pharaoh,
Akhenaten (reigned 1352 to 1335 BC) both father and son caused infinite trouble to loyal servants of Egypt like
Rib-Hadda, governor of
Gubla (Gebal), by transferring their loyalty from the Egyptian crown to the Hittite Empire under
Suppiluliuma I (reigned 1344–1322 BC). Egyptian power in Canaan thus suffered a major setback when the Hittites (or Hatti) advanced into Syria in the reign of Amenhotep III, and when they became even more threatening in that of his successor, displacing the Amorites and prompting a resumption of Semitic migration. Abdi-Ashirta and his son Aziru, at first afraid of the Hittites, afterwards made a treaty with their king, and joining with the Hittites, attacked and conquered the districts remaining loyal to Egypt. In vain did Rib-Hadda send touching appeals for aid to the distant Pharaoh, who was far too engaged in his religious innovations to attend to such messages. The Amarna letters tell of the Habiri in northern Syria.
Etakkama wrote thus to the Pharaoh: in the Gaza Strip and now displayed in the
Israel Museum Similarly,
Zimrida, king of
Sidon (named 'Siduna'), declared, "All my cities which the king has given into my hand, have come into the hand of the Habiri." The king of
Jerusalem,
Abdi-Heba, reported to the Pharaoh: Abdi-heba's principal trouble arose from persons called
Iilkili and the sons of
Labaya, who are said to have entered into a treasonable league with the Habiri. Apparently this restless warrior found his death at the siege of
Gina. All these princes, however, maligned each other in their letters to the Pharaoh, and protested their own innocence of traitorous intentions. Namyawaza, for instance, whom Etakkama (see above) accused of disloyalty, wrote thus to the Pharaoh, Around the beginning of the
New Kingdom period, Egypt exerted rule over much of the Levant. Rule remained strong during the
Eighteenth Dynasty, but Egypt's rule became precarious during the
Nineteenth and
Twentieth Dynasties.
Ramses II was able to maintain control over it in the
stalemated battle against the Hittites at
Kadesh in 1275 BC, but soon thereafter, the Hittites successfully took over the northern Levant (Syria and Amurru). Ramses II, obsessed with his own building projects while neglecting Asiatic contacts, allowed control over the region to continue dwindling. During the reign of his successor
Merneptah, the
Merneptah Stele was issued which claimed to have destroyed various sites in the southern Levant, including a people known as "Israel". Egypt's withdrawal from the
southern Levant was a protracted process lasting some one hundred years beginning in the late 13th century BC and ending close to the end of the 12th century BC. The reason for the Egypt's withdrawal was most likely political turmoil in Egypt proper rather than the invasion by the
Sea Peoples, as there is little evidence that the Sea Peoples caused much destruction ca. 1200 BC. Many Egyptian garrisons or sites with an "Egyptian governor's residence" in the southern Levant were abandoned without destruction including
Deir al-Balah,
Ascalon, Tel Mor,
Tell el-Far'ah (South),
Tel Gerisa,
Tell Jemmeh,
Tel Masos, and Qubur el-Walaydah. Not all Egyptian sites in the southern Levant were abandoned without destruction. The Egyptian garrison at
Aphek was destroyed, likely in an act of warfare at the end of the 13th century. The Egyptian gate complex uncovered at
Jaffa was destroyed at the end of the 12th century between 1134–1115 based on C14 dates, while
Beth-Shean was partially though not completely destroyed, possibly by an earthquake, in the mid-12th century.Just after the Amarna period, a new problem arose which was to trouble the Egyptian control of southern Canaan (the rest of the region then being under Assyrian control). Pharaoh Horemhab campaigned against
Shasu (Egyptian = "wanderers"),
nomadic pastoralist tribes who had moved across the
Jordan River to threaten Egyptian trade through
Galilee and
Jezreel.
Seti I ( BC) is said to have conquered these Shasu, Semitic-speaking nomads living just south and east of the
Dead Sea, from the fortress of Taru (Shtir?) to "''Ka-n-'-na''". After the near collapse of the
Battle of Kadesh,
Rameses II had to campaign vigorously in Canaan to maintain Egyptian power. Egyptian forces penetrated into
Moab and
Ammon, where a permanent fortress garrison (called simply "Rameses") was established. Some believe the "
Habiru" signified generally all the nomadic tribes known as "Hebrews", and particularly the early
Israelites of the period of the "
judges", who sought to appropriate the fertile region for themselves. However, the term was rarely used to describe the Shasu. Whether the term may also include other related ancient Semitic-speaking peoples such as the
Moabites,
Ammonites and
Edomites is uncertain. There is little evidence that any major city or settlement in the southern Levant was destroyed around 1200 BC. At
Lachish, The Fosse Temple III was ritually terminated while a house in Area S appears to have burned in a house fire as the most severe evidence of burning was next to two ovens while no other part of the city had evidence of burning. After this though the city was rebuilt in a grander fashion than before. For
Megiddo, most parts of the city did not have any signs of damage and it is only possible that the palace in Area AA might have been destroyed though this is not certain. However, many sites were not burned to the ground around 1200 BC including:
Asqaluna,
Ashdod (ancient city),
Tell es-Safi,
Tel Batash,
Tel Burna,
Tel Dor,
Tel Gerisa,
Tell Jemmeh, Khirbet Rabud,
Tel Zeror, and
Tell Abu Hawam among others. Archaeologist Jesse Millek has shown that while the common assumption is that trade in Cypriot and Mycenaean pottery ended around 1200 BC, trade in
Cypriot pottery actually largely came to an end at 1300, while for
Mycenaean pottery, this trade ended at 1250 BC, and destruction around 1200 BC could not have affected either pattern of international trade since it ended before the end of the Late Bronze Age. He has also demonstrated that trade with
Egypt continued after 1200 BC. Archaeometallurgical studies performed by various teams have also shown that trade in
tin, a non-local metal necessary to make
bronze, did not stop or decrease after 1200 BC, even though the closest sources of the metal were modern Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, or perhaps even Cornwall, England.
Lead from
Sardinia was still being imported to the southern Levant after 1200 BC during the early Iron Age.
Iron Age By the
Early Iron Age, the southern Levant came to be dominated by the
kingdoms of Israel and Judah, besides the
Philistine city-states on the Mediterranean coast, and the kingdoms of
Moab,
Ammon, and
Aram-Damascus east of the Jordan River, and
Edom to the south. The northern Levant was divided into various petty kingdoms, the so-called
Syro-Hittite states and the Phoenician city-states. The entire region (including all Phoenician/Canaanite and
Aramean states, together with
Israel,
Philistia, and
Samaria) was conquered by the
Neo-Assyrian Empire during the 10th and 9th centuries BC, and would remain so for three hundred years until the end of the 7th century BC. Emperor-kings such as
Ashurnasirpal,
Adad-nirari II,
Sargon II,
Tiglath-Pileser III,
Esarhaddon,
Sennacherib and
Ashurbanipal came to dominate Canaanite affairs. During the
Twenty-fifth Dynasty the Egyptians made a failed attempt to regain a foothold in the region but were vanquished by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, leading to an
Assyrian conquest of Egypt. Between 616 and 605 BC the Neo-Assyrian Empire collapsed due to a series of bitter civil wars, followed by an attack by an alliance of
Babylonians,
Medes, and Persians and the
Scythians. The
Neo-Babylonian Empire inherited the western part of the empire, including all the lands in Canaan and
Syria. They successfully defeated the Egyptians and remained in the region in an attempt to regain a foothold in the
Near East. The Neo-Babylonian Empire itself collapsed in 539 BC, and the region became a part of the
Achaemenid Empire. It remained so until in 332 BC it was conquered by the
Greeks under
Alexander the Great, later to fall to the
Roman Empire in the late 2nd century BC, and then
Byzantium, until the
Arab conquest in the 7th century AD.
Egyptian hieroglyphic and hieratic (1500–1000 BC) as on the
Merneptah Stele in the 13th century BC During the 2nd millennium BC,
Ancient Egyptian texts use the term "Canaan" to refer to an Egyptian-ruled colony, whose boundaries generally corroborate the definition of Canaan found in the
Hebrew Bible, bounded to the west by the Mediterranean Sea, to the north in the vicinity of
Hamath in Syria, to the east by the
Jordan Valley, and to the south by a line extended from the
Dead Sea to around
Gaza. Nevertheless, the Egyptian and
Hebrew uses of the term are not identical: the Egyptian texts also identify the coastal city of
Qadesh in northwest Syria near Turkey as part of the "Land of Canaan", so that the Egyptian usage seems to refer to the entire
Levantine coast of the Mediterranean Sea, making it a synonym of another Egyptian term for this coastland,
Retjenu. Lebanon, in northern Canaan, bordered by the
Litani river to the watershed of the
Orontes River, was known by the Egyptians as upper
Retjenu. In Egyptian campaign accounts, the term
Djahi was used to refer to the watershed of the Jordan river. Many earlier Egyptian sources also mention numerous military campaigns conducted in
Ka-na-na, just inside Asia. depicting Archaeological attestation of the name "Canaan" in
Ancient Near Eastern sources relates almost exclusively to the period in which the region operated as a colony of the
New Kingdom of Egypt (16th–11th centuries BC), with usage of the name almost disappearing following the
Late Bronze Age collapse ( BC). The references suggest that during this period the term was familiar to the region's neighbors on all sides, although scholars have disputed to what extent such references provide a coherent description of its location and boundaries, and regarding whether the inhabitants used the term to describe themselves. 16 references are known in Egyptian sources, from the
Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt onwards. •
Amenhotep II inscriptions: Canaanites are included in a list of prisoners of war • Three topographical lists •
Papyrus Anastasi I 27,1" refers to the route from Sile to Gaza "the [foreign countries] of the end of the land of Canaan" •
Merneptah Stele •
Papyrus Anastasi IIIA 5–6 and
Papyrus Anastasi IV 16,4 refer to "Canaanite slaves from Hurru" •
Papyrus Harris After the collapse of the Levant under the so-called "
Peoples of the Sea"
Ramesses III ( BC) is said to have built a temple to the god
Amen to receive tribute from the southern Levant. This was described as being built in
Pa-Canaan, a geographical reference whose meaning is disputed, with suggestions that it may refer to the city of Gaza or to the entire Egyptian-occupied territory in the southwest corner of the
Near East.
Greco-Roman historiography The Greek term
Phoenicia is first attested in the first two works of
Western literature,
Homer's
Iliad and
Odyssey. It does not occur in the
Hebrew Bible, but occurs three times in the
New Testament in the
Book of Acts. In the 6th century BC,
Hecataeus of Miletus affirms that Phoenicia was formerly called , a name that
Philo of Byblos subsequently adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called
Phoinix". Quoting fragments attributed to
Sanchuniathon, he relates that
Byblos,
Berytus and
Tyre were among the first cities ever built, under the rule of the mythical
Cronus, and credits the inhabitants with developing fishing, hunting, agriculture, shipbuilding and writing. Coins of the city of
Beirut / Laodicea bear the legend, "Of Laodicea, a metropolis in Canaan"; these coins are dated to the reign of
Antiochus IV (175–164 BC) and his successors until 123 BC.
Saint Augustine also mentions that one of the terms the seafaring Phoenicians called their homeland was "Canaan". Augustine also records that the rustic people of
Hippo in North Africa retained the
Punic self-designation
Chanani. Since 'punic' in Latin also meant 'non-Roman', some scholars, however, argue that the language referred to as Punic in Augustine may have been
Libyan. The Greeks also popularized the term
Palestine, named after the Philistines or the Aegean
Pelasgians, for roughly the region of Canaan, excluding Phoenicia, with
Herodotus' first recorded use of
Palaistinê, BC. From 110 BC, the
Hasmoneans extended their authority over much of the region, creating a
Judean-
Samaritan-
Idumaean-
Ituraean-
Galilean alliance. The Judean (Jewish, see
Ioudaioi) control over the wider area resulted in it also becoming known as
Judaea, a term that had previously only referred to the smaller region of the
Judean Mountains, the allotment of the
Tribe of Judah and heartland of the former
Kingdom of Judah. Between 73 and 63 BC, the
Roman Republic extended its influence into the region in the
Third Mithridatic War, conquering Judea in 63 BC, and splitting the former Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts. Around 130–135 AD, as a result of the suppression of the
Bar Kochba revolt, the province of Iudaea was joined with
Galilee to form a new province of
Syria Palaestina. There is
circumstantial evidence linking
Hadrian with the name change, although the precise date is not certain, is disputed.
Later sources Padiiset's Statue is the last known Egyptian reference to Canaan, a small statuette labelled "Envoy of the Canaan and of
Peleset, Pa-di-Eset, the son of Apy". The inscription is dated to 900–850 BC, more than 300 years after the preceding known inscription. During the period BC, the dominant
Neo-Assyrian and
Achaemenid Empire make no mention of Canaan. ==Canaanites==