Levant

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This article is about the historical geographical region in the Eastern Mediterranean. For Latin Catholics in the Ottoman Empire, see Levantines (Latin Christians). For other uses, see Levantine and Levant (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Levante or Levent.

Levant
Levant
  Countries and regions of the Levant in its broad, historical meaning (equivalent to the Eastern Mediterranean)[1][2]
  Countries of the Levant in 20th-century usage[3]
  Countries and regions sometimes included in 21st-century usage
Countries and regionsNarrow definition:
Broad definition:
PopulationNarrow definition: 44,550,926
AST)
Largest cities
List

The Levant (

Northern Africa.[3][2][7]

In the

Arabic: ٱلْمَشْرِق, [ʔal.maʃ.riq]),[8] meaning "the eastern place, where the Sun rises".[9]

In 1581, England set up the Levant Company to trade with the Ottoman Empire.[3] The name Levant States was used to refer to the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon after World War I.[3][2] This is probably the reason why the term Levant has come to be used more specifically to refer to modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and the island of Cyprus.[3] Some scholars mistakenly believed that it derives from the name of Lebanon.[3] Today the term is often used in conjunction with prehistoric or ancient historical references.

Another term for "Syria-Palestine" is Ash-

Arabic: ٱلشَّام, /ʔaʃ.ʃaːm/), the area that is bounded by the Taurus Mountains of Turkey in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the north Arabian Desert and Mesopotamia in the east, and Sinai in the south (which can be fully included or not).[10][5] Typically, it does not include Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor), the Caucasus Mountains, or any part of the Arabian Peninsula proper. Cilicia (in Asia Minor) and the Sinai Peninsula
(Asian Egypt) are sometimes included.

As a name for the contemporary region, several dictionaries consider Levant to be archaic today.

Levantine Christians.[17]

The Levant has been described as the "crossroads of

Arabian Plate".[19] The populations of the Levant[20][21] share not only geographic position, but cuisine, customs, and history. They are often referred to as Levantines.[22]

Etymology

See also: Names of the Levant
French medal commemorating the Franco-Turkish War in Cilicia, c. 1920

The term Levant appears in English in 1497, and originally meant 'the East' or 'Mediterranean lands east of Italy'.[23] It is borrowed from the French levant 'rising', referring to the rising of the sun in the east,[23] or the point where the sun rises.[24] The phrase is ultimately from the Latin word levare, meaning 'lift, raise'. Similar etymologies are found in Greek Ἀνατολή Anatolē (cf. Anatolia 'the direction of sunrise'), in Germanic Morgenland (lit. 'morning land'), in Italian (as in Riviera di Levante, the portion of the Liguria coast east of Genoa), in Hungarian Kelet ('east'), in Spanish and Catalan Levante and Llevant, ('the place of rising'), and in Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ ('east'). Most notably, "Orient" and its Latin source oriens meaning 'east', is literally "rising", deriving from Latin orior 'rise'.[25]

The notion of the Levant has undergone a dynamic process of historical evolution in usage, meaning, and understanding. While the term "Levantine" originally referred to the European residents of the eastern Mediterranean region, it later came to refer to regional "native" and "minority" groups.[26]

The term became current in

Ottoman Sultan in 1579.[27] The English Levant Company was founded in 1581 to trade with the Ottoman Empire, and in 1670 the French Compagnie du Levant [fr] was founded for the same purpose. At this time, the Far East was known as the "Upper Levant".[3]

1909 postcard depicting Ottoman Constantinople and bearing a French stamp inscribed "Levant"

In early 19th-century

French mandate of Syria and Lebanon (1920–1946) was called the Levant states.[3][2]

Geography and modern-day use of the term

Satellite view of the Levant including Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and the Northern Sinai (Egypt)

Today, "Levant" is the term typically used by archaeologists and historians with reference to the history of the region. Scholars have adopted the term Levant to identify the region due to its being a "wider, yet relevant, cultural corpus" that does not have the "political overtones" of Syria-Palestine.

Journal of Levantine Studies[30] and the UCL Institute of Archaeology,[18] the last of which has dated the connection between Cyprus and mainland Levant to the early Iron Age. Archaeologists seeking a neutral orientation that is neither biblical nor national have used terms such as Levantine archaeology and archaeology of the Southern Levant.[31][32]

While the usage of the term "Levant" in academia has been restricted to the fields of archeology and literature, there is a recent attempt to reclaim the notion of the Levant as a category of analysis in political and social sciences. Two academic journals were launched in the early 2010s using the word: the Journal of Levantine Studies, published by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute[33] and The Levantine Review, published by Boston College.[34]

The word Levant has been used in some translations of the term ash-Shām as used by the organization known as

ISIL, ISIS, and other names, though there is disagreement as to whether this translation is accurate.[35]

In archaeology: a definition

In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000–332 BCE (OHAL; 2013), the definition of the Levant for the specific purposes of the book is synonymous to that of the Arabic "bilad al-sham, 'the land of sham [Syria]'", translating in Western parlance to

greater Syria.[10] OHAL defines the boundaries of the Levant as follows.[10][5]
Subregions

A distinction is made between the main subregions of the Levant, the northern and the southern:[5]

The island of Cyprus is also included as a third subregion in the archaeological region of the Levant:[5]

  • Cyprus, geographically distinct from the Levant, is included due to its proximity and natural resources (copper in particular), which induced close cultural ties.[5]

History

Further information: Prehistory of the Levant, History of the ancient Levant, and Canaan
See also: History of the Middle East, History of Israel, History of Jordan, History of Lebanon, History of Palestine, and History of Syria

Demographics

See also: Demographics of the Middle East

Religious and ethnic groups

Historical population of the Levant
YearPop.±%
144,300,000—    
1644,800,000+11.6%
5004,127,000−14.0%
9003,120,000−24.4%
12002,700,000−13.5%
17002,028,000−24.9%
18973,231,874+59.4%
19143,448,356+6.7%
19223,198,951−7.2%
Source:[36][37][38][39]

The vast majority of Levantines are

Muslims. After the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century,[40] Islam was first introduced into the region. However, a Muslim majority in the Levant is presumed to have been reached by the 13th century.[41] The majority of Levantine Muslims are Sunnis adhering to the four madhhabs (Hanafi, Shafi'i, Hanbali and Maliki). Islamic minorities include the Alawites and Nizari Ismailis in Syria, and Twelver Shiites in Lebanon
.

Levantine Christian groups include

Roman Catholicism. There are also Assyrians belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church.[42]

Other religious groups in the Levant include

Yazidis and Druze.[43]

Languages

Map representing the distribution of the Arabic dialects in the area of the Levant

Most populations in the Levant speak

Bedouins) and Mesopotamian Arabic (in eastern Syria).[45]

Of the

Cypriot Maronite Arabic, a hybrid of mostly medieval Arabic vernaculars with strong influence from contact with Turkish and Greek, spoken by approximately 1,000 people.[46]

In Israel, the official language is Hebrew, which is spoken by the majority of its population. Its Arab minority speaks the Arabic language.

Western Neo-Aramaic is additionally spoken in three villages in Syria: Maaloula, Jubb'adin and Bakhah.[47][48][49][50][51][52][53]

Among diaspora communities based in the Levant,

Circassian
are also spoken.

Genetics

Further information: Genetic history of the Middle East

Ancient DNA analysis has confirmed the genetic relationship between

Natufians and other ancient and modern Middle Easterners. The presence of Neolithic Anatolian and Neolithic Iranian ancestry among modern Levantines can be attributed to migrations during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages.[54]

According to recent

Nawars and Armenians
.

See also

Overlapping regional designations

Subregional designations

Others

Other places in the east of a larger region

Explanatory notes

  1. ^ Total population by adding the populations of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey's Hatay Province.
  2. ^ "Nevertheless, despite such a well-reasoned basis for the identification of Levantine archaeology, the adoption of this term by many scholars has been, for the most part, simply the result of individual attempts to consider a wider, yet relevant, cultural corpus than that which is suggested by the use of terms like Canaan, Israel, or even Syria-Palestine. Regardless of the manner in which the term has come into common use, for a couple of additional reasons it seems clear that the Levant will remain the term of choice. In the first place scholars have shown a penchant for the term Levant, despite the fact that the term 'Syria-Palestine' has been advocated since the late 1970s. This is evident from the fact that no journal or series today has adopted a title that includes 'Syria-Palestine'. However, the journal Levant has been published since 1969 and since 1990, Ägypten und Levante has also attracted a plethora of papers relating to the archaeology of this region. Furthermore, a search through any electronic database of titles reveals an overwhelming adoption of the term 'Levant' when compared to 'Syria-Palestine' for archaeological studies. Undoubtedly, this is mostly due to the fact that 'Syria-Palestine' was a Roman administrative division of the Levant created by Hadrian (Millar 1993). The term 'Syria-Palestine' also carries political overtones that inadvertently evoke current efforts to establish a full-fledged Palestinian state. Scholars have recognized, therefore, that—for at least the time being—they can spare themselves further headaches by adopting the term Levant to identify this region" (Burke 2010)[page needed]
  3. ^ "At the beginning of this Introduction I have indicated how difficult it is to choose a general accepted name for the region this book deals with. In Europe we are used to the late Roman name 'Palestine,' and the designation 'Palestinian Archaeology' has a long history. According to Byzantine usage it included CisJordan and TransJordan and even Lebanon and Sinai. In modern times, however, the name 'Palestine' has exclusively become the political designation for a restricted area. Furthermore, in the period this book deals with a region called 'Palestine' did not yet exist. Also the ancient name 'Canaan' cannot be used as it refers to an older period in history. Designations as: 'The Land(s) of the Bible' or 'the Holy Land' evoke the suspicion of a theological bias. 'The Land of Israel' does not apply to the situation because it never included Lebanon or the greater part of modern Jordan. Therefore I have joined those who today advocate the designation 'Southern Levant.' Although I confess that it is an awkward name, it is at least strictly geographical." (Geus 2003, p. 6)

Citations

  1. ^ Gagarin 2009, p. 247; Oxford Dictionaries 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d e Encarta 2009, "Levant"
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Gagarin 2009, p. 247
  4. ^
    ISBN 081334994X
    .
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Steiner & Killebrew, p. 9 Archived 1 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: "The general limits ..., as defined here, begin at the Plain of 'Amuq in the north and extend south until the Wâdī al-Arish, along the northern coast of Sinai. ... The western coastline and the eastern deserts set the boundaries for the Levant ... The Euphrates and the area around Jebel el-Bishrī mark the eastern boundary of the northern Levant, as does the Syrian Desert beyond the Anti-Lebanon range's eastern hinterland and Mount Hermon. This boundary continues south in the form of the highlands and eastern desert regions of Transjordan."
  6. ^ a b Oxford Dictionaries 2015.
  7. ^ Pierre-Louis Gatier, E. Gubel, Philippe Marquis. The Levant History and Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean, Könemann, Page 7
  8. ^ Gagarin 2009, p. 247; Naim 2011, p. 921;
    • Amy Chua (2004), World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, p. 212;
    • Mandyam Srinivasan, Theodore Stank, Philippe-Pierre Dornier, Kenneth Petersen (2014), Global Supply Chains: Evaluating Regions on an EPIC Framework – Economy, Politics, Infrastructure, and Competence: "EPIC" Structure – Economy, Politics, Infrastructure, and Competence, p. 3;
    • Ayubi, Nazih N. (1996), Over-stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East p. 108;
    • David Thomas, Alexander Mallett (2012), Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History. Volume 4 (1200–1350), p. 145;
    • Jeff Lesser (1999), Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil p. 45
  9. ^ Naim 2011, p. 921.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Steiner & Killebrew, p. 2 Archived 1 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine.
  11. ^ LEVANT archaic The eastern part of the Mediterranean with the islands and neighbouring countries. New Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd ed., revised, 2005.
  12. ^ "LEVANT, THE". "A general term formerly given to the E shores of the Mediterranean Sea from W Greece to Egypt". The Penguin Encyclopedia, revised 2nd ed., 2004.
  13. ^ LEVANT, (vieilli) Le Levant: les pays, les régions qui sont au levant (par rapport à la France) et spécialt. les régions de la Méditerrranée orientale. Le Nouveau Petit Robert de la langue française, (1993 revised ed.).
  14. ISBN 1134937466
    . Thomas E. Levy, "The New Pragmatism", p. 8: "after 1994, it is possible to see an increase in the use of the less geographically specific and more political [sic] neutral words 'Levant' or 'Levantine' in scholarly citations.... It is important to highlight the pedigree of the term 'Syro-Palestinian' and its gradual replacement by the term 'Levant' or 'Levantine' because the latter is a more culturally and politically neutral term that more accurately reflects the tapestry of countries and peoples of the region, without assuming directionality of cultural influence.". Aaron A. Burke, "The Archaeology of the Levant in North America: The Transformation of Biblical and Syro-Palestinian Archaeology" p. 82ff: "A number of factors account for the gradual emergence during the past two decades of what is now widely identified as Levantine archaeology in North America... a growing consensus regarding the appropriate terminology... archaeological field research in the Levant"
  15. ISBN 0802867014
    , p. 249: "Today, however, the discipline is often called Palestinian, Syro-Palestinian, or Levantine archaeology."
  16. ^ Steiner & Killebrew (2013). p. 1-2.
  17. ISBN 1532607091
    p. 24: "The word 'Levantine' in the title is used on purpose instead of the 'Middle East' or the 'Near East'.... I use 'Levantine' more than the two other designations, because this is the term being used more often nowadays by Christian communities in the Middle East to describe their shared identity as al-maseeheyoun al-mashriqeyoun, Levantine Christians"
  18. ^ a b The Ancient Levant, UCL Institute of Archaeology, May 2008
  19. ^ Egyptian Journal of Geology, Volume 42, Issue 1, p. 263, 1998
  20. ^ "Ancient Ashkelon – National Geographic Magazine". Ngm.nationalgeographic.com. 17 October 2002. Archived from the original on 28 February 2008. Retrieved 17 October 2011.
  21. ^ "The state of Israel: Internal influence driving change". BBC News. 6 November 2011. Archived from the original on 9 July 2020. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  22. ^ Orfalea, Gregory (2006). The Arab Americans: A History. Olive Branch Press. Northampton, MA. Page 249.
  23. ^ a b Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary. "Levant". Dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  24. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition
  25. ^ Balme, Maurice; Morwood, James. "Chapter 36". Oxford Latin Course Part III (2nd ed.). p. 19.
  26. ^ "Journal of Levantine Studies". The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. Archived from the original on 30 January 2016. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
  27. ^ Braudel 1974, p. [page needed].
  28. ^ Sandra Rosendahl (28 November 2006). "Council for British Research in the Levant homepage". Cbrl.org.uk. Archived from the original on 2 June 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  29. UCLA
  30. ^ "About JLS". Journal of Levantine Studies. 2022. Archived from the original on 30 January 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2024.
  31. ^ Dever, William G. "Syro-Palestinian and Biblical Archaeology", pp. 1244–1253.
  32. ^ Sharon, Ilan "Biblical archaeology" in Encyclopedia of Archaeology Elsevier.
  33. ^ Anat Lapidot-Firilla, "Editor's Note", Journal of Levantine Studies 1:1:5-12 (Summer 2011) full text Archived 19 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine
  34. doi:10.6017/lev.v1i1.2154, full text Archived 28 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine
  35. ^ Irshaid, Faisal (2 December 2015). "Isis, Isil, IS or Daesh? One group, many names". BBC. Archived from the original on 15 April 2023. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
  36. ^ Mutlu, Servet. "Late Ottoman population and its ethnic distribution". pp. 29–31. Corrected population M8.
  37. ^ Frier, Bruce W. "Demography", in Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Dominic Rathbone, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History XI: The High Empire, A.D. 70–192, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 827–54.
  38. ISBN 0-299-09140-6
    .
  39. ^ "Syria Population - Our World in Data". www.ourworldindata.org. Archived from the original on 9 October 2023. Retrieved 11 September 2023.
  40. ISBN 978-0-306-81728-1
    .
  41. ISBN 978-0-521-51430-9
    .
  42. ^ "Christian Population of Middle East in 2014". The Gulf/2000 Project, School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University. 2017. Archived from the original on 21 April 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  43. ISBN 978-1-59884-362-0
    . Retrieved 26 May 2014.
  44. ^ Retsö, Jan. ""Aramaic in Levantine Dialects" in "Aramaic/Syriac Loanwords"". Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Brill Reference Online. Retrieved 7 February 2024. The Arabic spoken in Syria and Mesopotamia has replaced Aramaic dialects there and it can be assumed that a bilingual situation existed for a long time and that numerous Aramaic lexemes found their way into Arabic during this period. The presence of Aramaic lexemes is well studied in Lebanese Arabic (Féghali 1918; Freyha 1973) and the dialects spoken in the Anti-Lebanon (Arnold and Behnstedt 1993) but can be found in dictionaries from the entire Syro-Palestinian area (cf. Barbot 1961). The material collected by Féghali and Freyha shows that, unlike in the ʿarabiyya, most borrowings preserve the Aramaic phonology… The Aramaic vocabulary is likely to be the largest foreign element in the Arabic lexicon even if the exact extent is difficult to define.
  45. ^ "Jordan and Syria". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 30 July 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
  46. ISBN 978-90-04-14976-2
    .
  47. ISBN 9783446239005
    . Ich kenne das Dorf nicht, doch gehört habe ich davon. Was ist mit Malula?‹ fragte der festgehaltene Derwisch. >Das letzte Dorf der Aramäer< lachte einer der…
  48. ISBN 9783110199192. Archived
    from the original on 26 May 2024. Retrieved 12 August 2024. The fact that nearly all Arabic loans in Ma'lula originate from the period before the change from the rural dialect to the city dialect of Damascus shows that the contact between the Aramaeans and the Arabs was intimate…
  49. ISBN 9783643152619. Archived
    from the original on 26 May 2024. Retrieved 12 August 2024. Aramäer von Ǧubbˁadīn
  50. ISBN 9783447033268
    . Die arabischen Dialekte der Aramäer
  51. ISBN 9783447033268
    . Die Kontakte zwischen den drei Aramäer-dörfern sind nicht besonders stark.
  52. ISBN 9783447053136. Archived
    from the original on 26 May 2024. Retrieved 12 August 2024. Aramäern in Ma'lūla
  53. ISBN 9783447053136
    . Viele Aramäer arbeiten heute in Damaskus, Beirut oder in den Golfstaaten und verbringen nur die Sommermonate im Dorf.
  54. PMID 34352227
    .
  55. PMID 32470374
    .

General and cited references

Further reading
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