6.2 The near east: 1500 to 1000 b.c.

The arabian peninsula

Back to The Near East: 3000 to 1500 B.C.

There were multiple nomadic tribes in the Arabian Peninsula and very dry areas were opened for settlement by the use of lime plaster for watertight cisterns. In present day Jordan, Ammon became the capital of the Ammonite tribe and legend has it that this city was conquered by the Judean King David. The Aramic-speaking Arameans lived primarily around Palmyra and with their camels they began to attack the "fertile crescent" to the north and east. At about 1,000 B.C. they began to migrate east to Babylonia, north toward Asia Minor and west to Damascus. Their relatives, the Chaldeans, began to emerge from central Arabia and also started toward Babylon, and more particularly toward Ur, in Sumer. (Ref. 8 )

Mediterranean coastal areas of israel and lebanon

About 1,500 B.C. an entirely new type of writing was recorded for the first time, in the Sinai Peninsula. This was an alphabet in which each sign represented one consonant. It soon spread among the Phoenicians and other Semites on the coast. Although originally written in a cuneiform, the Phoenicians later replaced it with letters which could be written faster on paper. The derivation of various mid-eastern scripts is as follows: Note: Insert chart from p107

Israel: palestine: judea

Peoples of Semitic speech occupied Palestine in successive waves, including Amorites, Hebrews, Israelites and Arabs. Egypt, under Thutmoses III, conquered Palestine in 1,479 B.C. and controlled the area almost continuously thereafter in this period under review. This is probably the time of the "Exodus" of the Jews from Egypt back to the "Promised Land" in the vicinity of Palestine. The true history of their long migration back and the trials and tribulations with other tribes along the way and in the regions of Judea and Palestine are mixed with legend and myth in the Old Testament, which was written much later. Saul became the first king of the Jews in 1,025 B.C. and supposedly David became king in 1,010 B.C. Unfortunately there is no contemporary mention of this in any literature except the Bible and the later Greek historian, Procopius. Throughout this era the Jews were dominated by the Philistines who were probably refugees from the collapsing Cretan civilization, or were Luvians, or both. In one battle, dated at 1,141 B.C. by Trager (Ref. 222 ), the Israelites lost 4,000 men and later lost another 30,000. The Philistine invasion was a part of the Sea Peoples raids which plagued the entire Mediterranean coast at that period. (Ref. 88 ) Additional Notes

Lebanon: phoenicia

The Phoenicians, as a people, cannot be differentiated from the general mass of Canaanites until sometime in this 2nd half of the 2nd millennium B.C., but by 1,200 they had liberated themselves from Egyptian domination and they soon became the true masters of the Mediterranean seaways, sailing to Italy, Spain and all along the coast of north Africa. They may even have sailed around the continent of Africa. Present day Beirut, however, was still subject to the Amorites at that time. The importance of their alphabetic script is indicated in the chart above.