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The Canaanites...
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The Canaanite Period - 3000-1200 BCE
1. Early Bronze Age - 3000-2000 BCE
Stone Age settlements have been found dating back well over 9,000 years,
some of which are still inhabited even today. By the end of the Early Bronze
Age, the people are farmers and herders. By 3000 BCE there is emigration
from the mainland to Cyprus. And the people of Byblos have been carrying on
a lively trade with Egypt and
Mesopotamia for quite some time. The physical
setting is somewhat like California, pleasant coastal regions dotted with
bays, cool mountains, and extreme deserts arranged along a north-south axis,
with hot dry summers and rainy winters, with snow in the high mountains.
During the second millennium BCE camels are domesticated in the region, and
horses are introduced into the Middle East from the north or north-east, the
Russian steppes or Central Asia. Around 2000 the Ammuru or
Amorites, which
means "Westerners," move from the Sinai desert and invade
Mesopotamia,
Syria
and Old Kingdom Egypt. They are considered to be proto-Arameans. Their main
political center is Mari in northeastern Syria. Many older settlements are
burned and a period of confusion follows. |
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2. Middle Bronze Age - 2000-1500 BCE
By 2000 BCE, after this unsettling period of disruptive migrations, the area
returns to urban life, the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age. This is the
peak of Ugarit, called today Ras Shamra, a city with major
temples to Ba`al
and Dagan which was excavated beginning in the 1920's and the source of much
of what we know about the religion of the Canaanites from their own hand.
They are the first known peoples in the whole world to use an alphabet.
But beginning around 1700 BCE there are two hundred years of disruption and
consolidation. In Europe, the Dorians, rude mountain tribes, migrate from
northern Greece to the Mycenaean area, beginning something of a northern
Aegean Dark Ages. Meanwhile, the inland Amorites reach their zenith in
Babylonia under Hammurabi, who collates and organizes his various peoples'
laws, and fuses the cultures of Mesopotamia, but they fall within 200 years.
At the same time, the "Hyksos," whose exact origin is still unknown, but who
are probably Asiatic, invade and settle in the Egyptian delta.
Between 1700 and 1600 (same time that the Hyksos advance from Asia to the
Egyptian Delta), less refined Indo-European peoples penetrate south and
intermingle with the Syrian Canaanites. Originally from the mountainous
regions of Eurasia, they had migrated into Anatolia (Turkey) around 3000
BCE. The Hittites and the Hurrians (aka Horites), who then move to Iraq in
the early 2nd millennium BCE, bring the light horse-drawn chariot and
composite bow, while their "relatives," the Kassites take over and are
eventually absorbed into Babylon. In 1580 the Egyptians finally drive the Hyksos from Egypt and advance into Canaan, beginning a period of conflict
during which Egypt demands submission from Canaanite cities, but refuses to
aid their vassels in combat against the Amorites and
Hitties of northern
Syria. |
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3. Late Bronze Age - 1500-1200 BCE
The Canaanites were already oriented to the sea with an economy based on
navigation and trade by 1550 BCE. Tyre,
Sidon, and Byblos (now all in
Lebanon) are their major ports, and they have established colonies on the
island of Cyprus. They carry on trade with their old patron
Egypt, the Mittani in Mesopotamia, and the
Hittite Empire in what is now
Turkey.
Correspondence of this period mentions maurauding warriors called Khabiru,
but they appear to be a class rather than an ethic group because their
personal names reflect origins in a variety of cultures.
But around 1200 BCE the Indo-European "Sea Peoples," whose origin is still
unknown, but who may be northern European or Baltic, armed with iron weapons
pour in from the northern Aegean, invading the coastal Levant, driving back
the Egyptians and Assyrians. They destroy Ugarit, among other cities, and
found the state of the Philistines. By destroying cities which were economic
and political focal points in the region, they open the way for many other
smaller groups of migrating Semitic peoples to found a diverse scattering of
tiny states, including the Israelites, Edomites, Moabites, Middianites, and
Ammonites, and for the Arameans to dominate Syria and spread into
Mesopotamia. |
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