For about 2000 years the name Palestine has been used internationally for the lands on both sides of the Jordan river. Cisjordan and Transjordan. The Greek historian Herodotus called Cisjordan the Palestinian Syria or sometimes only Palaestina. [The name] is derived from the Akkadian Palastu, pilistu, in Hebrew pleset, Aramaean plistain, Egyptian p-r-st, which refer to the Philistines. Herodotus' use of the term shows that its content had expanded in the Persian period and that it referred to the people of the coastal areas from Gaza to Carmel. Greek merchants called the whole coastal area Syria. They distinguished between Syria of the Phoenicians (= Syria) and Syria of the Palestinians (= Palestine south of the Carmel range).
[...] Ahlstrom ("The History of Ancient Palestine"), The fact that such cities as Ai, Gibeon, and Jericho in Cisjordan and Heshbon in Transjordan did not exist in the thirteenth century BCE makes the conquest model unacceptable. Palestine and its population problems must always be seen in the light of the international stage. The collapse of the Hittite empire and other states created political and economic instability in the eastern Mediterranean around the twelfth century BCE. It terminated the Mycenaean 'monopoly' of the sea trade, as well as terminating the big powers' control of the overland trade routes. [...]
[...] he author of Genesis 10 ('The Table of the Nations') also presents an old opinion about the extent of Canaan, when he says that this country went from 'Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha' ( 10.19 Here again we meet the idea of Canaan as referring to the coastal area going inland south of the central hill country. This should be compared with the borders of Canaan as they are outlined in Num which stretch from the territory just north of Byblos down to Wadi el-'Arish in the south. [...]
[...] BCE) use kinahhu as a reference to the west, and in Egyptian inscriptions from the time of Amenhotep II (15th we meet the form nu. In Ugaritic there occurs the form kn'ny, meaning 'the Canaanite'. The etymology of the word is unknown, but with S. Moscati one may assume that kn'n was an old Semitic word for the country or part of it. However, there is really no information in the non-biblical texts about what territory it referred to other than a Hittite text that places Canaan between Alalakh and Amurru and follows it with a reference to Sidon and Tyre. [...]
[...] This assumption can be supported by the archaeological remains from these new villages, which show that the material culture of the new villages was mainly Canaanite . People may have moved up from the coastal areas, the lowlands, and valleys to the wooded regions in the mountains in order to escape the problems of war and devastation, taxes and corvee. An investigation of the burial system supports such a theory. As mentioned before, during the Late Bronze period the central hills had only a few settlements. [...]
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