Canaan

Canaan (/ˈkeɪnən/; Northwest

Semitic: knaʿn; Phoenician: ; Biblical
Hebrew: ‫ כנען‬/ Knaʿn; Masoretic: ‫ ככננְּעָען‬/ Kənā‘an)
was, during the late 2nd millennium BC, a region in
the Ancient Near East. In the Bible it corresponds
to the Levant, in particular the areas of the Southern
Levant that are the main setting of the narrative of
the Hebrew Bible, i.e. the area
of Israel, Phonecia, Philistia, and other nations.
The name Canaan (Kənā‘an ‫ )ככננְּעָען‬is used commonly
in the Hebrew Bible, with particular definition in
references Genesis 10 and Numbers 34, where the
"Land of Canaan" extends from Lebanon southward
to the "Brook of Egypt" and eastward to the Jordan
River Valley. References to Canaan in the Bible are
usually backward looking, referring to a region that
had become something else (i.e. the Land of Israel).
The term Canaanites is by far the most frequently used ethnic term in the Bible, in which they
are commonly described as a people who had been annihilated by the Israelites.
Archaeological attestation of the name Canaan in Ancient Near Eastern sources is almost
exclusively during the period in which the region was a colony of the New Kingdom of Egypt,
with usage of the name almost disappearing following the Late Bronze Age collapse. The
references suggest that during this period the term was familiar to the region's neighbors on all
sides, although it has been disputed to what extent such references provide a coherent description
of its location and boundaries, and regarding whether the inhabitants used the term to describe
themselves. The Amarna Letters and other cuneiform documents use Kinaḫḫu, while other
sources of the Egyptian New Kingdom mention numerous military campaigns conducted in Ka-
na-na.
The name "Canaanites" (kana`nīm, chanani) is attested, many centuries later, as the endonym of
the people later known to the Ancient Greeks from c. 500 BC asPhoenicians, and following the
emigration of Canaanite speakers to Carthage, was also used as a self-designation by
the Punics (chanani) during Late Antiquity. This mirrors later usage in later books of the Hebrew
Bible, such as at the end of the Book of Zechariah, where it is thought to refer to a class of
merchants or to non-monotheistic worshippers in Israel or neighbouring Sidon and Tyre, as well
as in its single independent usage in the New Testament, where it is alternated for
"Syrophoenician" in two parallel passages.
Canaan was of significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna period as the
area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, andAssyrian Empires converged.
Much of the modern knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area
at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo, and Gezer. Canaanite culture apparently developed in
situ from the Circum-Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex, which in turn developed from a
fusion of Near Eastern Harifian hunter-gatherers with Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) farming
cultures, practicinganimal domestication, during the 6200 BC climatic crisis. The Late Bronze
Age state of Ugarit (at Ras Shamra in Syria) is considered quintessentially Canaanite
archaeologically, even though its Ugaritic languagedoes not belong to the Canaanite
group proper.
The English term Canaan (pronounced /ˈkeɪnən/ since c. AD 1500, due to the Great Vowel Shift)
comes from the Hebrew ‫( כנען‬knʿn), via Greek Χαναάν Khanaan andLatin Canaan. It appears
as KUR ki-na-ah-na in the Amarna letters (14th century BC), and knʿn is found on coins
from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. It first occurs in Greek in the writings
of Hecataeus as Khna (Χνᾶ). Scholars connect the name Canaan with knʿn, Kana'an, the
general Northwest Semitic name for this region.
The etymology is uncertain. An early explanation derives the term from the Semitic root knʿ "to
be low, humble, subjugated". Some scholars have suggested that this implies an original meaning
of "lowlands", in contrast with Aram, which would then mean "highlands", whereas others have
suggested it meant "the subjugated" as the name of Egypt's province in the Levant, and evolved
into the proper name in a similar fashion to Provincia Nostra (the first Roman colony north of the
Alps, which became Provence).
An alternative suggestion suggested by Ephraim Avigdor Speiser in 1936 derives the term
from Hurrian Kinahhu, purportedly referring to the colour purple, so that Canaan
and Phoenicia would be synonyms ("Land of Purple"). Tablets found in the Hurrian city
of Nuzi in the early 20th century appear to use the term Kinahnu as a synonym for red or purple
dye, laboriously produced by the Kassite rulers of Babylon from murex shells as early as
1600 BC, and on the Mediterranean coast by the Phoenicians from a byproduct of glassmaking.
Purple cloth became a renowned Canaanite export commodity which is mentioned in Exodus.
The dyes may have been named after their place of origin. The name 'Phoenicia' is connected
with the Greek word for "purple", apparently referring to the same product, but it is difficult to
state with certainty whether the Greek word came from the name, or vice versa. The purple cloth
of Tyre in Phoenicia was well known far and wide and was associated by the Romans with
nobility and royalty. However, according to Robert Drews, Speiser's proposal has generally been
abandoned.
Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient

Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the
lower reaches of the Nile River in what is
now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of
six civilizations globally to arise
independently
Egypt (i/ˈiːdʒɪpt/; Arabic: ‫ ممصِر‬Miṣr, Egyptian
Arabic: ‫ ممصِر‬Maṣr), officially the Arab
Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental
country spanning the northeast corner of
Africa and southwest corner of Asia, via
a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula.
It is the world's only
contiguous Eurafrasian nation. Most of
Egypt's territory of 1,010,408 square
kilometres (390,000 sq mi) lies within
the Nile Valley. Egypt is a Mediterranean
country. It is bordered by the Gaza
Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of
Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.
Egypt has one of the longest histories of any modern country, arising in the tenth millennium BC
as one of the world's first nation states.[14] Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient
Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation,
organised religion and central government in history. Iconic monuments such as the Giza
Necropolis and its Great Sphinx, as well the ruins of Memphis, Thebes, Karnak, and the Valley
of the Kings, reflect this legacy and remain a significant focus of archaeological study and
popular interest worldwide. Egypt's rich cultural heritage is an integral part of its national
identity, having endured and at times assimilated various foreign influences, including Greek,
Persian, Roman, Arab, Ottoman, and European. Although Christianised during thecommon era, it
was subsequently Islamised due to the Islamic conquests of the 7th century.
With over 89 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and
the Arab World, the third-most populous in Africa (after Nigeria and Ethiopia), and the fifteenth-
most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of
the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable
land is found. The large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypt's territory,
are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread
across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in
the Nile Delta.
Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural,
political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and theMuslim world.[15] Its
economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, with sectors such as
tourism, agriculture, industry and services at almost equal production levels. In 2011, longtime
President Hosni Mubarak stepped down amid mass protests. Later elections saw the rise of
the Muslim Brotherhood, which was ousted by the army a year later amid mass protests.
The English name Egypt is derived from the Ancient Greek Aígyptos (Αἴγυπτος), via Middle
French Egypte and Latin Aegyptus. It is reflected in early Greek Linear B tablets as a-ku-pi-ti-yo.
The adjective aigýpti-, aigýptios was borrowed into Coptic as gyptios, and from there
into Arabic as qubṭī, back formed into ‫ قبط‬qubṭ, whence English Copt. The Greek forms were
borrowed from Late Egyptian (Amarna) Hikuptah"Memphis", a corruption of the
earlier Egyptian name

(⟨ḥwt-kȝ-ptḥ⟩), meaning "home of the ka (soul) of Ptah", the name of a temple to the
god Ptah at Memphis.[16] Strabo attributed the word to afolk etymology in
which Aígyptos (Αἴγυπτος) evolved as a compound from Aigaiou huptiōs (Aἰγαίου ὑπτίως),
meaning "below the Aegean".
Miṣr (IPA: [mii sˤr] or Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [mesˤɾ]; Arabic: ‫ )ممصِر‬is the Classical
Quranic Arabic and modern official name of Egypt, while Maṣr (IPA: [mɑsˤɾ]; Egyptian
Arabic: ‫ )ممصِر‬is the local pronunciation inEgyptian Arabic. The name is of Semitic origin,
directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew ִ‫( יַמכצעָריַים‬Mitzráyim). The
oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian KURmi-iṣ-ru miṣru, related
to miṣru/miṣirru/miṣaru, meaning "border" or "frontier".
The ancient Egyptian name of the country was

km.t, which means black ground or black soil, referring to the fertile black soils of the Nile
flood plains, distinct from the deshret (⟨dšṛt⟩), or "red land" of the desert. This name is
commonly vocalised as Kemet, but was probably pronounced [kuːmat] in ancient Egyptian. The
name is realised as kēme and kēmə in the Coptic stage of the Egyptian language, and appeared in
early Greek as Χημία (Khēmía). Another name was ⟨tꜣ-mry⟩ "land of the riverbank". The names
of Upper and Lower Egypt were Ta-Sheme'aw (⟨tꜣ-šmꜥw⟩) "sedgeland" and Ta-Mehew (⟨tꜣ
mḥw⟩) "northland", respectively.
Cush
Land of Cush — the term Cush is in the Old
Testament generally applied to the countries south
of the Israelites. It was the southern limit of Egypt
(Ezek. 29:10, Authorized Version “Ethiopia,”
Hebrew: Cush), with which it is generally
associated (Ps. 68:31; Isa. 18:1; Jer. 46:9, etc.).
It stands also associated with Elam (Isa. 11:11),
with Persia (Ezek. 38:5), and with the Sabeans (Isa.
45:14).
From these facts it has been inferred that Cush
included Arabia and the country on the west coast
of the Red Sea. Rawlinson takes it to be the country
still known as Khuzi-stan, on the east side of the
Lower Tigris. But there are intimations which
warrant the conclusion that there was also a Cush in Africa, the Ethiopia (so called by the
Greeks) of Africa.
Ezekiel speaks (29:10; compare 30:4-6) of it as lying south of Egypt. It was the country now
known to us as Nubia and Abyssinia (Isa. 18:1; Zeph. 3:10, Hebrew: Cush). In ancient Egyptian
inscriptions Ethiopia is termed Kesh.
The Cushites appear to have spread along extensive tracts, stretching from the Upper Nile to the
Euphrates and Tigris. At an early period there was a stream of migration of Cushites “from
Ethiopia, properly so called, through Arabia, Babylonia, and Persia, to Western India.”
The Hamite races, soon after their arrival in Africa, began to spread north, east, and west. Three
branches of the Cushite or Ethiopian stock, moving from Western Asia, settled in the regions
contiguous to the Persian Gulf. One branch, called the Cossaeans, settled in the mountainous
district on the east of the Tigris, known afterwards as Susiana; another occupied the lower
regions of the Euphrates and the Tigris; while a third colonized the southern shores and islands of
the gulf, whence they afterwards emigrated to the Mediterranean and settled on the coast of
Israel as the Phoenicians.
Nimrod was a great Cushite chief. He conquered the Accadians, a Tauranian race, already settled
in Mesopotamia, and founded his kingdom, the Cushites mingling with the Accads, and so
forming the Chaldean nation.

Ethiopia
Ethiopia, in the Horn of Africa, is a rugged, landlocked country split by the Great Rift Valley.
With archaeological finds dating back more than 3 million years, it’s a place of ancient culture.
Among its important sites are Lalibela and its 12th-13th century rock-cut Christian churches, and
Aksum, the ruins of an ancient city with obelisks, tombs, castles and Our Lady Mary of Zion
church.
Ethiopia, situated at the Horn of Africa is a landlocked country bordered by Sudan on the west,
Somalia and Djibouti on the east, Kenya on the south, and Eritrea on the north. Today, Ethiopia
is known as Nubia and Abyssinia. But until now, questions regarding the border between
Ethiopia and Eritrea and even the exact location of the boundary along Sudan have not been
settled.
Ethiopia: the Modern Cush
Ethiopia, a largely pastoral society has suffered drought since 1969. The persistent dry weather
resulted in famine, hunger, and death. An aerial map showed the eastern part of the country dry
with drought while the western half looked green with crops flourished by rain. On February
2011, there were reportedly areas in Ethiopia asking for assistance because of the lack of rain, a
state predicted to continue until the arrival of the rainy season on October. A supply of water was
sent by trucks.
In a settlement area at the north of Dire Dawa town, one of the most affected by drought, people
can’t stay outside where temperatures went beyond 104 F (40 degrees Celsius.) Aside from
famine, political problems, and war, the country has also faced large numbers of migrant
refugees since the 1980s. The Eritrean-Ethiopian War from 1998-2000, because of disagreement
over the border, badly affected the economy. And in March of 2011, thousands of Christians in
the west of Ethiopia has to vacate their houses when the Muslim extremist group Kawarja burned
their houses and churches. The Muslims occupied more than 30 percent of the total population,
and in a country where Muslims and Christians used to live together in harmony. The increasing
incidents of anti-Christian aggression were quite disturbing. And with all that, a small area of the
country is faced with hundreds of Eritreans refugees. Around 800-1000 Eritrean refugees arrive
every month, greatly surpassing the existing resources of Ethiopia for refugees.

Libya
Libya is a country in the Maghreb region
of North Africa bordered by the
Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to
the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad
and Niger to the south, and Algeria and
Tunisia to the west.
Libya (Arabic: ‫ ليبيا‬Lībiyā) is a country in
the Maghreb region of North
Africa bordered by the Mediterranean
Sea to the north, Egypt to the
east, Sudan to the
southeast, Chad and Niger to the south,
and Algeria and Tunisia to the west. The
three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. With an area of
almost 1.8 million square kilometres (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the fourth largest country in
Africa, and is the 16th largest country in the world. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil
reserves of any country in the world.
The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in western Libya and contains over one million of
Libya's six million people. The other large city is Benghazi, which is located in eastern Libya.
Libya has been inhabited by Berbers since the late Bronze Age. The Phoenicians established
trading posts in western Libya, and Ancient Greek colonists established city-states in eastern
Libya. Libya was variously ruled by Persians, Egyptians and Greek-Egyptians before becoming a
part of the Roman Empire. Libya was an early center of Christianity. After the fall of the Western
Roman Empire, the area of Libya was mostly occupied by the Vandals until the 7th century,
when invasions brought Islam and Arab colonization. In the sixteenth century, the Spanish
Empire and the Knights of St John occupied Tripoli, until Ottoman rule began in 1551. Libya
was involved in theBarbary Wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. Ottoman rule continued until
the twentieth-century Italian occupation of Libya and large-scale Italian immigration. Italian rule
ended during the Second World War, during which Libya was an important area of warfare. The
Italian population then went into decline. Libya became an independent kingdom in 1951.
In 1969, a military coup overthrew King Idris I, beginning a period of brutal suppression of
dissent. The most prominent coup conspirator, Muammar Gaddafi, was ultimately able to fully
concentrate power in his own hands during the Libyan Cultural Revolution. Muammar Gaddafi
remained in power until a civil war in 2011, in which the rebels were supported by NATO. Since
then, Libya has experienced instability and political violence which has severely affected both
commerce and oil production. The European Union is involved in an "operation to disrupt human
smuggling networks" fleeing the war for Europe.
At least two political bodies claim to be the government of Libya. The Council of Deputies is
internationally recognized as the legitimate government, but it does not hold ground in the
capital of Tripoli, instead meeting in the eastern city of Tobruk. Meanwhile, the new General
National Congress purports to be the legal continuation of theGeneral National Congress, which
was elected in July 2012 and was dissolved following the June 2014 elections but then
reconvened by a minority of its members. The Supreme Court in Libya Dawn-controlled Tripoli
declared the Tobruk government unconstitutional in November 2014, but the internationally
recognized government has rejected the ruling as made under threat of violence. Parts of Libya
are outside of either government's control, with various Islamist, rebel, and tribal militias
administering some cities and areas. The United Nations is sponsoring peace talks between the
Tobruk and Tripoli-based factions.
The name Libya (i/ˈlɪbiə/ or /ˈlɪbjə/; Arabic: ‫ ليبيا‬Līb(i)yā [ˈliːb(i)jæ] (Libyan Arabic: [ˈliːbjæ])
was introduced in 1934 for Italian Libya, reviving the historical name forNorthwest Africa, from
the ancient Greek Λιβύη (Libúē). The name was based on earlier use in 1903 by Italian
geographer Federico Minutilli. It was intended to supplant terms applied to Ottoman Tripolitania,
the coastal region of what is today Libya having been ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to
1911, as the Eyalet of Tripolitania.
Libya gained independence in 1951 as the United Libyan Kingdom (Arabic: ‫ المملكة الليبية المتحدة‬al-
Mamlakah al-Lībiyyah al-Muttaḥidah), changing its name to the Kingdom of Libya
(Arabic: ‫ المملكة الليبية‬al-Mamlakah al-Lībiyyah) in 1963. Following a coup d'état led by Muammar
Gaddafi in 1969, the name of the state was changed to the Libyan Arab Republic
(Arabic: ‫ الجمهورية العربية الليبية‬al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabiyyah al-Lībiyyah). The official name was
"Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" from 1977 to 1986, and "Great Socialist People's
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"[24] (Arabic: ‫[الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الشاتراكية العظمى‬25] al-
Jamāhīriyyah al-‘Arabiyyah al-Lībiyyah ash-Sha‘biyyah al-Ishtirākiyyah al-‘Uẓmá ) from 1986
to 2011.
The National Transitional Council, established in 2011, referred to the state as simply "Libya".
The UN formally recognized the country as "Libya" in September 2011, based on a request from
the Permanent Mission of Libya citing the Libyan interim Constitutional Declaration of 3 August
2011. In November 2011, the ISO 3166-1 was altered to reflect the new country name "Libya" in
English, "Libye (la)" in French.
The current name, "State of Libya" (Arabic: ‫ دولة ليبيا‬Dawlat Libya), was adopted unanimously by
the General National Congress in January 2013.

Arabian Peninsula

Arabian Peninsula, simplified Arabia (Arabic: ‫الجزيرة‬

‫ العربية‬al-jazīra al-ʿarabiyya, « Island of Arabs ») is
a peninsula of Western Asia situated north-east
of Africa on theArabian plate. From a geological
perspective, it is considered a subcontinent of Asia.
It is the largest peninsula in the world, at 3,237,500
square kilometers (1,250,000 square miles). The Arabian
Peninsula consists of the
countries Yemen, Oman, Qatar,Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as well as parts of
southern Iraq and Jordan.[2] The peninsula formed as a
result of the rifting of the Red Seabetween 56 and 23
million years ago, and is bordered by the Red Sea to the
west, the Persian Gulf to the northeast, the Levant to the north and the Indian Ocean to the
southeast. The Arabian Peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Middle East and Arab
world due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas.
Before the modern era, it was divided into four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd, Southern
Arabia and Eastern Arabia. Hejaz and Najd make-up most of modern-day Saudi Arabia. Southern
Arabia consists of modern-day Yemen and some parts of Saudi Arabia and Oman (Dhofar).
Eastern Arabia consists of the entire coastal strip of theArab side of the Persian
Gulf (the Khaleej).
The Arabian Peninsula is located in the continent of Asia and bounded by (clockwise) the Persian
Gulf on the northeast, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman on the east, the Arabian Sea on
the southeast and south, the Gulf of Aden on the south, the Bab-el-Mandeb strait on the
southwest, and the Red Sea which is located on the southwest and west. The northern portion of
the peninsula merges with the Syrian Desert with no clear border line, although the northern
boundary of the Arabian Peninsula is generally considered to be the northern borders of Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait.
The most prominent feature of the peninsula is desert, but in the southwest there are mountain
ranges which receive greater rainfall than the rest of the Arabian Peninsula.Harrat ash Shaam is a
large volcanic field that extends from the northwestern Arabian Peninsula into Jordan and
southern Syria.
The peninsula's constituent countries are (clockwise north to south) Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and
the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the east, Oman on the southeast, Yemenon the south
and Saudi Arabia at the center. The island nation of Bahrain lies off the east coast of the
peninsula.
Six countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman
form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This is however a disputed term. Iranians assert that
it is a historical and internationally recognized convention to name it the Persian Gulf, while
Arab States, and most notably the six GCC member countries, have been claiming that the Gulf
is Arabian since its shallow marine depths are a geological continuity of the Arabian peninsula's
Eastern low-lying coasts, from Kuwait to theUAE's Northern Emirates.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the greater part of the peninsula. The majority of the
population of the peninsula live in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen. The peninsula contains the
world's largest reserves of oil. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are economically the wealthiest in the
region. Qatar, a small peninsula in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home of
the Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera and its English-language subsidiary Al Jazeera
English. Kuwait, on the border with Iraq, is an important country strategically, forming one of
the main staging grounds for coalition forces mounting the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Phoenicia
Phoenicia (UK /fɨˈnɪʃə/ or US /fəˈniːʃə/;[2] from
the Greek: Φοινίκη, Phoiníkē; Arabic: ‫فينيقية‬, Fīnīqīyah)
was an ancient Semitic thalassocratic civilization
situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile
Crescent and centered on the coastline of
modern Syria and Lebanon. All major Phoenician cities
were on the coastline of the Mediterranean, some
colonies reaching the Western Mediterranean. It was an
enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across
the Mediterranean from 3200 BC to 300 BC. The
Phoenicians used the galley, a man-powered sailing
vessel, and are credited with the invention of
the bireme. By their innovations in shipbuilding and seafaring, the Phoenicians were enabled to
sail as far west as present-day Morocco and Spain carrying huge cargoes of goods for trade. They
were famed in Classical Greece and Rome as 'traders in purple', referring to their monopoly on
the precious purple dye of the murex snail, used, among other things, for royal clothing, and for
the spread of their alphabets, from which almost all modern phonetic alphabets are derived.

Although Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to Byblos to bring
back Lebanon Cedars as early as the 3rd millennium BC, continuous contact only occurred in the
Egyptian New Empire period. In the Amarna tablets of the 14th century BC, people from the
region called themselves Kenaani or Kinaani. Much later, in the 6th century BC, Hecataeus of
Miletus writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα (Latinized: khna), a name Philo of
Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was
afterwards called Phoinix".
Phoenicia is really a Classical Greek term used to refer to the region of the major Canaanite port
towns, and does not correspond exactly to a cultural identity that would have been recognised by
the Phoenicians themselves. The term in Greek means 'land of purple', a reference to the valuable
murex-shell dye they exported. It is uncertain to what extent the Phoenicians viewed themselves
as a single ethnicity and nationality. Their civilization was organized in city-states, similar
to ancient Greece. However, in terms of archaeology, language, life style and religion, there is
little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other Semitic cultures of Canaan. As
Canaanites, they were unique in their remarkable seafaring achievements.
Each city-state was a politically independent unit. They could come into conflict and one city
might be dominated by another city-state, although they would collaborate in leagues or
alliances. Though ancient boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city
of Tyre seems to have been the southernmost. Sarepta (modern day Sarafand) between Sidon and
Tyre is the most thoroughly excavated city of the Phoenician homeland.
The Phoenicians were the first state-level society to make extensive use of alphabets.
The Phoenician alphabet is generally held to be the ancestor of almost all modern alphabets.
They spoke Phoenician, a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup, closely related
to Hebrew. However, due to the very slight differences in language, and the insufficient records
of the time, whether Phoenician formed a separate and united dialect, or was merely a
superficially defined part of a broader language continuum, is unclear. Through their maritime
trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the alphabet to North Africa and Europe, where it was
adopted by theGreeks, who later transmitted it to the Romans. In addition to their many
inscriptions, the Phoenicians are believed to have left numerous other types of written sources,
but most have not survived.
The name Phoenicians, like Latin Poenī (adj. poenicus, later pūnicus), comes
from Greek Φοίνικες (Phoínikes), attested since Homer and influenced by phoînix "Tyrian
purple, crimson; murex" (itself from φοινόςphoinós "blood red",[12] of uncertain etymology; R. S.
P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the ethnonym).[13] The oldest attested form of the
word is the Mycenaean po-ni-ki-jo, po-ni-ki, ultimately borrowed from Ancient
Egyptian fnḫw (fenkhu)[14] "Asiatics, Semites". The folk-etymological association
of phoiniki with phoînix mirrors that in Akkadian which tied kinaḫni, kinaḫḫi "Canaan;
Phoenicia" to kinaḫḫu "red-dyed wool".[15][16] The land was natively known
as knʿn (cf. Eblaite ca-na-na-um, ca-na-na), remembered in the 6th century BC
by Hecataeus under the Greek form Chna, and its people as
the knʿny (cf. Punic chanani,Hebrew kanaʿani).

Origin
Herodotus' account (written c. 440 BC) refers to the myths of Io and Europa. (History, I:1).
According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began the quarrel. These
people, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated to the
Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to
adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria ...
— Herodotus
The Greek historian Strabo believed that the Phoenicians originated
from Bahrain. Herodotus also believed that the homeland of the Phoenicians was Bahrain. This
theory was accepted by the 19th-century German classicist Arnold Heeren who said that: "In the
Greek geographers, for instance, we read of two islands, named Tyrus orTylos, and Arad,
Bahrain, which boasted that they were the mother country of the Phoenicians, and exhibited
relics of Phoenician temples." The people of Tyre in particular have long maintained Persian
Gulf origins, and the similarity in the words "Tylos" and "Tyre" has been commented
upon. However, there is little evidence of occupation at all in Bahrain during the time when such
migration had supposedly taken place. Later classicist theories were proposed prior to modern
archaeological excavations which revealed no disruption of Phoenician societies between 3200
BC and 1200 BC.

Syria

Syria (i/ˈsɪ.rɪə/; Arabic: ‫سوريا‬

or ‫سورية‬, Sūriyā or Sūrīyah), officially the Syrian Arab
Republic, is a country in Western Asia. De jure Syrian
territory bordersLebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to
the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to
the south, and Israel to the southwest, but the
government's control now extends to approximately 30–
40% of the de jure state area and less than 60% of the
population.
A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts,
Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups,
including Syrian
Arabs, Greeks, Armenians,Assyrians, Kurds, Circassians
, Mandeans and Turks. Religious groups
include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans,
Shiites, Salafis and Yazidis. Sunni Arabs make up the largest population group in Syria.
In English, the name "Syria" was formerly synonymous with the Levant (known in Arabic as al-
Sham), while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires,
including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. Its capital Damascus is among
the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. In the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of
the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt.
The modern Syrian state was established after World War I as a French mandate, and represented
the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Arab Levant. It gained
independence as a parliamentary republic on 24 October 1945 when Syria became a founding
member of the United Nations, an act which legally ended the former French Mandate –
although French troops did not leave the country until April 1946. The post-independence period
was tumultuous, and a large number of military coups and coup attempts shook the country in
the period 1949–71. Between 1958–61, Syria entered a brief union with Egypt, which was
terminated by 1961 Syrian coup d'état. The Arab Republic of Syria came into being in late 1961
after December 1 constitutional referendum, and was increasingly unstable until the Ba'athist
coup d'état, since which the Ba'ath Party has maintained its power. Syria was under Emergency
Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, and
its system of government is considered to be non-democratic. Bashar al-Assadhas been president
since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000.
Syria is a member of one international organization other than the United Nations, the Non-
Aligned Movement; it is currently suspended from the Arab League and the Organization, and
self-suspended from the Union for the Mediterranean. Since March 2011, Syria has been
embroiled in an uprising against Assad and the Ba'athist government as part of the Arab Spring, a
crackdown that contributed to the Syrian Civil War and to Syria's becoming one of the least
peaceful countries in the world. The Syrian Interim Government was formed by the opposition
umbrella group, the Syrian National Coalition, in March 2013. Representatives of this alternative
government were subsequently invited to take up Syria's seat at the Arab League.

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographic region in the south-

western part of Asia comprising most of what is
present-day Turkey. The earliest reference to the
region comes from tablets of the Akkadian
Dynasty (2334-2083 BCE) where it is known as
“The Land of theHatti” and was inhabited by
the Hittites. The Hittites themselves referred to the
land as "Assuwa" (or, earlier, Aswiya) which
actually only designated the area around the delta
of the river Cayster inLydia but came to be
applied to the entire region. Assuwa is considered
the Bronze Age origin for the name `Asia' as the
Romans later designated the area. It was called,
by the Greeks, “Anatolia” (literally, 'place of the
rising sun’, for those lands to the east of Greece). The name 'Asia Minor’ (from the Greek `Mikra
Asia' - Little Asia) was first coined by the Christian historian Orosius (c. 375-418 CE) in his
work Seven Books of History Against the Pagans in 400 CE to differentiate the main of Asia
from that region which had been evangelized by the Apostle Paul (which included sites known
from Paul’s Epistles in the Bible such as Ephesus and Galicia). The Byzantine Empire of the 9th
century CE referred to the region as "East Thema" which meant, simply, Eastern Administrative
Division, and later sailors called it "The Levant" which meant `the rising' or `to rise' referring to
how the land rose up out on the horizon of the sea.

In the ancient world, Asia Minor was the seat of the kingdoms and cities of Thrace, Bythinia,
Paphlagonia, Aeloia,Phrygia, Galicia, Pontus, Armenia, Urartu, Assyria, Cilicia, Pamphylia,
Lycia, Pisidia, Lycanoia, Caria, Mysia, Ionia, Lydia and, most famously, Troy.

The accomplishments and advancements of the people of Asia Minor are vast and comprise a
catalogue of some of the most famous people, places, and events in ancient history. According to
the historian Philo of Byzantium (writing in 225 BCE) and later writers, Asia Minor was the site
of two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: The Temple ofArtemis at Ephesus (in the
region of Ionia) and the Tomb of Mauslos at Halicarnassus (also known as The Mausoleum of
Halicarnassus, in Caria). In the city of Miletus, in Ionia, the first western philosopher Thales,
and his followers Anaximanderand Anaximenes, sought the First Cause of existence, the matter
which gave birth to all things, and initiated scientific inquiry and method. Herodotus, the `Father
of History' was born at Halicarnassus. The great philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras was
born on the island of Samos and Heraclitus, another important philosopher, at Ephesus, where he
lived and wrote. Cilicia included the city ofTarsus where the Apostle Paul was born, a region
known for its expertise in tent making, which was Paul’s vocation.

Lydia was the kingdom of the great King Croesus who defied the
Persian Empire under Cyrus and claimed to be the happiest man in the world until his defeat and
capture by the Persians. Lydia was also the site where, in Greek mythology, the Titan called Asia
lived and, earlier, where the great mother goddess Potnia Aswiya (Mistress of Assuwa) was
worshipped (who became Artemis and whose great temple was dedicated in the capital of Lydia,
at Ephesus). Phrygia was the mythological birthplace of Rhea, the Greek Mother of the Gods and
the City of Troy was made famous in Homer’s 8th century BCE works the Illiad and
the Odyssey. The region of Asia Minor is regarded as the birthplace of coinage and the first to
use coined money in trade; which of the kingdoms were the first to do this, however, is much
disputed.

Between 1250 and 1200 BCE the Sea People's invaded from the south, making incursions into
Greece, harassingEgypt, and finally driving the Hittites from the region of Assuwa. The Sea
Peoples did not remain to colonize the area, however (at least not to any important degree) and
eventually moved on to settle, in part, to the south inCanaan. Greek colonists, mainly
from Athens and surrounding Attica, settled the coastline of Asia Minor from
theMediterranean up to the Black Sea. It was these Ionian colonies which, supported and funded
by Athens and Eretria, rose in revolt when the area came under Persian control, provoking the
wrath of the Persian king Darius Iand the first invasion of Greece in 490 BCE which was
repelled at the Battle of Marathon.

Alexander the Great defeated the Persians in 334-333 BCE and conquered Asia Minor.
In Gordium, capital of Phrygia, he is claimed to have famously cut the Gordian Knot which the
oracles claimed meant Alexander would be king of Asia. Following his death the land was
governed by his general Antigonus in the north and west and his other general Seleucus to the
south and east and was prominently involved in the Wars of the Diadochi (the wars of
Alexander's successors). The region remained unstable throughout the rule of
the Hellenistic governors until the coming of Rome in 133 BCE (King Attalus III
of Pergamon left his city to Rome in his will and thus invited theRoman presence into the
region). After 133, Rome steadily conquered or annexed the cities of Asia Minor until it was
wholly a Roman province.

Under Roman rule, the land became stabilized; roads were built and the infrastructures of many
of the cities improved. The coastal communities flourished and Ephesus, especially, enjoyed
great prosperity until the rise ofChristianity when `earthly' advances in the region were neglected
in anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ. The Byzantine Empire controlled the region after
the fall of Rome in 476 CE and, after the rise of Islam, the later Byzantine Christians fought the
Islamic Fatimids for the land until the coming of the Seljuq Turks in 1068 CE. Turkish control
increased in the region until 1299 CE when Asia Minor became part of the Ottoman Empire and,
after its collapse, became Turkey.

Armenia

Armenia (i/ɑr
ˈmiːniə/; Armenian: Հայաստան, tr. Hayastan, IP
A: [hɑjɑsˈtɑn]), officially the Republic of
Armenia (Armenian: Հայաստանի
Հանրապետություն, tr.Hayastani
Hanrapetut’yun), is a landlocked country in
the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located
in Western Asia, it is bordered by Turkey to the
west,Georgia to the north, the de
facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and
the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the
south.
Armenia is a unitary, multi-party, democratic
nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage. The Satrapy of Armenia was established in the 6th
century BC, after the fall of Urartu. In the 1st century BC the Kingdom of Armenia reached its
height under Tigranes the Great. Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity
as its official religion, in between late 3rd century to early years of the 4th century (the official
date is 301 AD), becoming the first Christian nation." As a result, previously
predominant Zoroastrianism and paganism in Armenia gradually declined. An Armenian
principality and later a kingdom, known as Cilician Armenia, existed on the coast of
the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries.
Between the 16th century and first half of the 19th century, the traditional Armenian homeland
composed of Eastern Armenia and Western Armenia came under rule of the
rivaling Ottoman and successive Iranian Empires, passing between the two over the centuries.
By the mid-19th century, Eastern Armenia had been conquered byRussia from Qajar Iran, while
most of the western parts of the traditional Armenian homeland still remained under Ottoman
rule. During World War I, the Armenians living in their ancestral lands in the Ottoman Empire
were systematically exterminated in the Armenian Genocide. In 1918, during the Russian
Revolution, all non-Russian countries were granted independence from the dissolved empire,
leading to the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia. By 1920, the state was
incorporated into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, a founding member of
the Soviet Union in 1922. In 1936, the Transcaucasian state was dissolved, leaving its constituent
states, including the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, as full Union republics. The modern
Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The Republic of Armenia recognizes the Armenian Apostolic Church, the world's oldest national
church, as the country's primary religious establishment. The unique Armenian alphabet was
invented by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 AD.
Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Council of Europe and the Collective
Security Treaty Organization. Armenia supports the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic, which was proclaimed in 1991.
The native Armenian name for the country is Hayk’. The name in the Middle Ages was extended
to Hayastan, by addition of the Persian suffix -stan (place). The name has traditionally been
derived from Hayk (Հայկ), the legendary patriarch of the Armenians and a great-great-grandson
of Noah, who, according to the 5th-century AD author Moses of Chorene, defeated
the Babylonian king Bel in 2492 BC and established his nation in the Ararat region. The further
origin of the name is uncertain.
The exonym Armenia is attested in the Old Persian Behistun Inscription (515 BC) as Armina (
). The ancient Greek terms Ἀρμενία (Armenía) andἈρμένιοι (Arménioi,
"Armenians") are first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 550 BC – c. 476 BC). Xenophon, a
Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian
village life and hospitality in around 401 BC. He relates that the people spoke a language that to
his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. According to the histories of both Moses of
Chorene and Michael Chamchian, Armenia derives from the name of Aram, a lineal descendant
of Hayk.

New Era
University
College of Evangelical Ministry

Project in the Bible Studies

(PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE BIBLE)

Presented by:
Abujen, Johnrey J.
Alicante, Bryan R.
Rollon, Gabriel R.
Tagala, Mike M.
Tuazon, Joseph Ryan C.
Tutuani, Allen B.
Vergara, Wilkinson Jay M.
Villa, John Chedrick L.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF
THE BIBLE