Palestine
Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
In the broad geographical sense, Palestine refers to an area that includes contemporary Israel and the Palestinian territories, parts of Jordan, and parts of Lebanon and Syria.
Today, Palestine may also refer to the State of Palestine proposed by the Palestinian National Authority.[http://web.archive.org/web/20060404211437/http://www.pna.gov.ps/Government/gov/recognition_of_the_State_of_Palestine.asp]
Within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the term Palestine has weighty political connotations and arouses fierce controversy.[Said and Hitchens, 2001, p. 199.]
Name and boundaries
The name and the borders of Palestine have varied throughout history, though Palestine has certain natural boundaries that justify its historical individuality.[ Jewish Encyclopedia ]
'Palestine' ( ; ; Palestina; ) is a Latinized name given to the region by the Roman emperor Hadrian to blot out the name of Israel.[http://www.levitt.com/essays/palestine.html][Greek from , see e.g. Josephus, Antiquities I.136; cf.] In the Bible, the area inhabited by the Philistines was known as Pleshet Genesis, X.13. The Philistines were a seafaring people who lived in cities along the coast. During the Late Bronze Age, Philistia was located approximately where the Gaza Strip and the cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod are situated today in modern Israel. Philistia was a confederation of five city states: Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod on the coast, and Ekron and Gath inland.[Carl S. Ehrlich "Philistines" The Oxford Guide to People and Places of the Bible. Ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan. Oxford University Press, 2001.]
The ethnic affiliation of the Philistines is not clear. The Philistine names preserved on inscriptions appear to "contradict the notion that they were Greek-speakers."[M.L. West, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1997 p. 38 n148] Some scholars argue however that they were a non-Semitic group, with roots in Southern Greece dating back to the period of early Mycenaean civilization.[Killebrew, 2005, p. 231.] A link to the Anatolian people speaking the Palaic language, on mere phonological similitude, seems difficult as hypothesis but not that impossible.
Non-Biblical texts
Ancient Egyptian texts called the entire coastal area along the Mediterranean Sea between modern Egypt and Turkey R-t-n-u (conventionally Retjenu). Retjenu was subdivided into three regions and the southern region, Djahy, shared approximately the same boundaries as Canaan, or modern-day Israel and the Palestinian territories, though including also Syria.[Sir Alan Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs,Clarendon Press, Oxford (1961) 1964 pp.131, 199, 285, n.1]
Early archeological textual reference to the territory of Palestine is found in the Merneptah Stele, dated c. 1200 BCE, containing a recount of Egyptian king Merneptah's victories in the land of Canaan, mentioning place-names such as Gezer, Ashkelon and Yanoam, along with Israel, which is mentioned using a hieroglyphic determinative that indicates a nomad people, rather than a state.[Carol A. Redmount, 'Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt' in The Oxford History of the Biblical Word, ed: Michael D. Coogan, (Oxford University Press: 1999), p. 97]
Egyptian texts of the temple at Medinet Habu, record a people called the P-r-s-t (conventionally Peleset), one of the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign. This is considered very likely to be a reference to the Philistines. The Hebrew name Peleshet ( Pəléshseth), usually translated as Philistia in English, is used in the Bible to denote their southern coastal region.
The Assyrian emperor Sargon II called the region the Palashtu in his Annals. By the time of Assyrian rule in 722 BCE, the Philistines had become 'part and parcel of the local population',[Shahin (2005), p. 6 ]["Philistines" A Dictionary of the Bible. W. R. F. Browning. Oxford University Press, 1997. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.] and the history of the Philistine people effectively ended.
In the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian and geographer Herodotus wrote in Greek of a "district of Syria, called (Palaistinê)."[ Palestine and Israel David M. Jacobson Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 313 (Feb., 1999), pp. 65-74][The Southern and Eastern Borders of Abar-Nahara]
Steven S. Tuell
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 284 (Nov., 1991), pp. 51-57
[Herodotus' Description of the East Mediterranean Coast]
Anson F. Rainey
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 321 (Feb., 2001), pp. 57-63 Syria, at that time, referred rather imprecisely to the region lying between Asia Minor, Sinai, the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. The boundaries of the "district" of Palaistinê described by Herodotus are even more imprecise, as is the ethnic nature of its people; sometimes it denotes the coast north of Mount Carmel, and elsewhere it seems to extend down all the coast from Phoenicia to Egypt, and as far east as the Jordan River.[Herodotus, The Histories Bk.7.89]
During the Roman period, the province of Iudaea covered much of modern Palestine, although the Galilee and other northern areas remained distinct administratively. However, many writers continued to use the Greek name. For example, in the first century C.E., the Roman writer Pliny the Elder mentions a region of Syria that was "formerly called Palaestina" among the areas of the Eastern Mediterranean.[Pliny the Elder, Natural History V.66 and 68.] The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in Greek, used the name Palaistinê for the smaller coastal area which most of his contemporaries preferred to call Philistia.[e.g. Antiquities 1.136.] the Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria, also writing in Greek, used the terms Palestine and Canaan interchangeably, noting that the region's Jewish population was larger than that of any other single country.[Palestine and Israel]
David M. Jacobson
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 313 (Feb., 1999), pp. 65-74
After the Jewish rebellions of the first and second centuries CE, the Romans merged the province of Iudaea with Galilee, Samaria and Idumaea, uniting the entire area in a new province bearing the Greco-Latin name, Syria-Palaestina.[Palestine and Israel]
Jacobson, David M. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 313 (February 1999), pp. 65-74
During the Byzantine Period, this entire region (including Syria, Palestine, Samaria, and Galilee) was renamed Palaestina and then subdivided into Diocese I and II. The Byzantines also renamed an area of land including the Negev, Sinai, and the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula as Palaestina Salutoris, sometimes called Palaestina III. Since the Byzantine Period, the Byzantine borders of Palaestina (I and II) have served as a name for the geographic area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Biblical texts
In the Biblical account, the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah ruled from Jerusalem a vast territory extending far west and north of Palestine for some 120 years. Archaeological evidence for this period is very rare, however, and its implications much disputed.
The Hebrew Bible calls the region Canaan () (), while the part of it occupied by Israelites is designated Israel (Yisrael). The name "Land of the Hebrews" (, Eretz Ha-Ivrim) is also found, as well as several poetical names: "land flowing with milk and honey", "land that swore to your fathers to assign to you", "Holy Land", "Land of the Lord", and the "Promised Land".
The Land of Canaan is given a precise description in () as including all of Lebanon, as well (). The wide area appears to have been the home of several small nations such as the Canaanites, Hebrews, Hittites, Amorrhites, Pherezites, Hevites and Jebusites.
According to Hebrew tradition, the land of Canaan is part of the land given to the descendants of Abraham, which extends from the Nile to the Euphrates River (). This land is said to include an area called Aram Naharaim, which includes Ur Kasdim in modern Turkey, where Abraham's father was born.
In , "And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt."
The events of the Four Gospels of the Christian Bible take place almost entirely in this country, which in Christian tradition thereafter became known as The Holy Land.
In the Qur'an, the term ("Holy Land", Al-Ard Al-Muqaddasah) is mentioned at least seven times, once when Moses proclaims to the Children of Israel: "O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin." ()
Paleolithic and Neolithic periods (1 mya–5000 BCE)
Human remains found at El-'Ubeidiya, 2 miles (3 km) south of Lake Tiberias date back as early as 500,000 years ago.[Shahin (2005), p. 3][Galilee, Sea of. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 12, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online] The discovery of the Palestine Man in the Zuttiyeh Cave in Wadi Al-Amud near Safad in 1925 provided some clues to human development in the area.[Shahin (2005), p. 3][ Amud. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 12, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online]
In the caves of Shuqba in Ramallah and Wadi Khareitun in Bethlehem, stone, wood and animal bone tools were found and attributed to the Natufian culture (c. 12800–10300 BCE). Other remains from this era have been found at Tel Abu Hureura, Ein Mallaha, Beidha and Jericho.[Belfer-Cohen and Bar-Yosef, 2000, pp. 19–38.]
Between 10000 and 5000 BCE, agricultural communities were established. Evidence of such settlements were found at Tell es-Sultan, Jericho and include mud-brick rounded and square dwellings, pottery shards, and fragments of woven fabrics.[Shahin (2005), page 4][Stearns, 2001, p. 13.][Harris, 1996, p. 253.]
Chalcolithic period (4500–3000 BCE) and Bronze Age (3000–1200 BCE)
Along the Jericho-Dead Sea-Bir es-Saba-Gaza-Sinai route, a culture originating in Syria, marked by the use of copper and stone tools, brought new migrant groups to the region contributing to an increasingly urban fabric.[Rosen, 1997, pp. 159–161.][Neil Asher Silberman, Thomas E. Levy, Bonnie L. Wisthoff, Ron E. Tappy, John L. Meloy "Near East" The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Brian M. Fagan, ed., Oxford University Press 1996.]
By the early Bronze Age (3000–2200 BCE) independent Canaanite city-states situated in plains and coastal regions and surrounded by mud-brick defensive walls were established and most of these cities relied on nearby agricultural hamlets for their food needs.[Canaan. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 12, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.]
Archaeological finds from the early Canaanite era have been found at Tel Megiddo, Jericho, Tel al-Far'a (Gaza), Bisan, and Ai (Deir Dibwan/ |
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