Names of the Levant

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Over recorded history, there have been many names of the Levant, a large area in the Near 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

Akkadian cuneiform
, Reṯenu is subdivided into five regions:

Canaan

  • Latin
    : Canaan
  • Persian: کنعان (Kænaan)
  • Ugaritic: 𐎋𐎐𐎓𐎐 (Knʿn)[3]
  • Turkish: Kenan

Prior to (and for some time after) the formation of the

Canaanite religion at their Mediterranean
ports, and referred to themselves natively as "Canaanites", and their land as "Canaan".

Phoenicia

Main article: Phoenicia

In ancient times, the

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:

biblical archeologists
translate a set of hieroglyphs as Israel, the first instance of the name in the record.

Judea:

  • Persian: یهودیه (Jæhudije / Jæhudija)
  • Turkish: Yahudi
  • Latin
    : IVDÆA

The kingdoms of

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

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

Greater Syria
" refers to a larger area that is supported by some nationalists.

During the

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:
Place names in Palestine, and Palestine (region)

Palestine:

  • Persian: فلسطین (Felestin)
  • Latin
    : Palæstina - same word as Philistia
  • Turkish: Filistin

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,

Palestinian state.[citation needed
]

Philistia

Philistia:

  • Canaanite: 𐤐𐤋𐤔𐤕 (p.l.ʃ.t)
  • Hebrew
  • Israeli Hebrew
    : פלשת (Pleshet)
  • Tiberian Hebrew: פְּלֶשֶׁת Hebrew pronunciation: [pəˈlɛʃɛθ]
  • Latin
    : Palæstina - from Greek

Eber-Nari and Transeuphratia

Persian viewpoint). It is also sometimes referred to as Transeuphratia (French Transeuphratène) by modern scholars.[citation needed
]

Medieval and modern history

Shaam

The Arabic name for the region of Levant is

Islamic conquest of the region, Shaam became the name of the Levant (Byzantine Syria).[12][13]

In ancient times,

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.[citation needed]

Outremer

Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and other Latin settlements scattered throughout the area.[citation needed
]

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

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. OCLC 276784070
    .
  5. OCLC 49493240
    .
  6. 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. OCLC 47916042
    .
  10. 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. C.E. Bosworth, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Volume 9 (1997), page 261. See also Name of Syria
    .
  13. Muslim
    Arabic usage.
  14. ISBN 9781400871391
    . Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  15. ISBN 9781858287188
    . Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  16. ISBN 978-90-04-11589-7
    . Retrieved 17 July 2012.
  17. 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. Liddell & Scott
  24. ^ Quran 5:1-96

External links

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