Definition: Canaan is the name of a Bronze Age culture and country in what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, and the southern portions of Syria and Lebanon.
The area was first occupied about 3300 BC, evidence shows occupation of the vicinity up to 550 BC, including a 300 year period of Egyptian rule. Just to be confusing, the Greeks called the eastern Canaanites Phoenicians and the Romans called the western Canaanites Punic. City states of Phoenicia included Ugarit, Aradus, Tripoli, Batrun, Byblos, Beirut, Sidon, and Tyre.
The area was first occupied about 3300 BC, evidence shows occupation of the vicinity up to 550 BC, including a 300 year period of Egyptian rule. Just to be confusing, the Greeks called the eastern Canaanites Phoenicians and the Romans called the western Canaanites Punic. City states of Phoenicia included Ugarit, Aradus, Tripoli, Batrun, Byblos, Beirut, Sidon, and Tyre.
Sources
de Miroschedji, Pierre 1999 Yarmuth: The dawn of city-states in southern Canaan. Near Eastern Archaeology 62(1):2-19.
Levy, Thomas E. and Augustin F. C. Holl 2002 Migrations, Ethnogenesis, and Settlement Dynamics: Israelites in Iron Age Canaan and Shuwa-Arabs in the Chad Basin. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21(1):83-118.
Rosen, Arlene M. 1995 The social response to environmental change in Early Bronze Age Canaan. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 14(1):26-44.
This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.
Also Known As: Palestine, Eretz-Israel, Bilad es-Shem, Djahy; also Phoenicia (Greek), Punic (Roman), Kinahna (Akkadian)
Examples: Archaeological sites include: Tel Beth Shean, Tel Beth Shemesh, Sarepta, Tell es-Sa'idiyeh. Tyre was a Phoenician capital, and colonies included Cadiz (Spain) and Carthage (Tunisia).
