Palestine: The Ancient Land of Canaan
In the ancient world, Palestine was part of the region known as Canaan, where the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were located. The term “Philistia” (from which “Palestine” comes) initially referred to an area of land in southern Canaan, which the people known as the Philistines occupied a very small part of.
The Canaanites, Canaanite-Phoenicians, and the Israelites, among others, established themselves in the area much earlier. The Philistines are thought to have come to the area toward the end of the Bronze Age, circa 12th century BCE, and established themselves on the southern coastal plain of the Mediterranean Sea in an area afterwards known as Philistia.
The whole of the region was referred to as Canaan in Mesopotamian texts and trade records found at Ebla and Mari as early as the 18th century BCE, while the term “Palestine” does not appear in any written records until the 5th century BCE in the Histories of Herodotus. After Herodotus, the term Palestine came to be used for the entire region, which was formerly known as Canaan.
The region is part of the so-called Fertile Crescent, and human habitation there can be traced back to before 10,000 BCE. The lands were originally inhabited by nomadic hunter-gatherers who most likely immigrated from Mesopotamia but became sedentary agriculturalists by the Early Bronze Age (circa 3300 to circa 2000 BCE). In the Middle Bronze Age (circa 2100 to circa 1550 BCE), trade with other nations expanded and Canaan prospered. In the Late Bronze Age (circa 1550 to circa 1200 BCE), this affluence continued as the region was incorporated into the Egyptian Empire (circa 1570 to circa 1069 BCE).
As Egypt’s influence and power waned, that of the Assyrians grew, and there were Assyrian incursions into other lands as early as 1295 BCE. The entire Near East suffered during the so-called Bronze Age Collapse of circa 1250 to circa 1150 BCE, and Canaan was no exception. According to the biblical book of Joshua, the Israelite general Joshua invaded the land and divided the region among his people. The late-date theory of the event places it at circa 1250 BCE, and archaeological evidence shows signs of widespread destruction in the region around that time. However, the Sea Peoples (whose identity remains unknown) arrived in the region at approximately that same time and could have been responsible for the evident destruction of towns and cities, as they were in other nations.
The Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and the armies of Alexander the Great all conquered the region in succession, and, finally, so too, the armies of Rome. By the time Rome appeared in the land, it was long known as Judea, a term taken from the ancient Kingdom of Judah, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians.
It was also referred to, however, as Palestine and, after the Bar-Kochba Revolt of 132-136, the Roman emperor Hadrian renamed the region Syria-Palaestina to punish the Jewish people for their insurrection (by naming it after their two traditional enemies, the Syrians and the Philistines). The designations Philistia, Roman Judea, and Palestine were all in use afterwards.
When the Western Roman Empire fell, Palestine was taken by the Eastern or Byzantine Empire and held until circa 634, when it was taken by invading Muslim armies from Arabia.
The name Palestine is thought to derive from either the word plesheth (meaning “root palash,” an edible concoction carried by migratory tribes, which came to symbolize nomadic peoples), from the Egyptian word Peleset (“Land of the Philistines”), or from Philistia (“Land of the Philistines”). The author Tom Robbins has suggested the term Palestine originates from the ancient androgynous god Pales, who was worshipped in the region of Canaan. If this is so, then Palestine means “Land of Pales.”
It has been established that there was an androgynous deity named Pales (referred to in texts as both a god and a goddess) who was recognized by the Romans as the patron deity of shepherds and sheep and whose festivals were celebrated on 21 April and 7 July in Rome in the area of the Palatine Hill (Adkins & Adkins, 269).
There is, however, no documentation from ancient times linking this deity to the name of the region, and most likely “Palestine” derives from “Philistia,” as noted by scholars J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes:
Along the southern coastal plain of the Eastern Mediterranean seaboard (roughly south of present-day Tel Aviv) were settled the Philistines. They came to that region as a part of the general ‘Sea Peoples’ migrations at the end of the Bronze Age and inhabited five main cities – Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza.
Although historically the Philistines are to be associated specifically with the coastal plain, during Classical Times the name 'Philistia’ (“Land of the Philistines”) came to be applied more generally to the whole southern end of the Eastern Mediterranean Seaboard…In short, then, the English term 'Palestine’ derives ultimately from 'Philistia’.
Following Herodotus’ use of the term in his work in the 5th century BCE, other writers adopted it in their own, and Palestine gradually replaced Canaan as the name of the region.
⇒ Palestine: The Ancient Land of Canaan
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