History of Palestine

Early Bronze Age

Most of the towns that are known in historic times came into existence during the Early Bronze Age. The growth of these towns can be approximately correlated chronologically with the development of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, Early Bronze I corresponding to the late Predynastic Period and Early Bronze II being cross-dated by finds to the time of the 1st dynasty, c. 2925 bce. Evidence of the early phases of the Early Bronze Age comes mainly from Megiddo, Jericho, Tall al-Farʿah, Tel Beit Sheʾan, Khirbat al-Karak, and Ai (Khirbat ʿAyy). All these sites are in northern or central Palestine, and it was there that the Early Bronze Age towns seem to have developed. The towns of southern Palestine—for instance, Tel Lakhish, Kiriath-sepher, and Tel Ḥasi—seem only to have been established in Early Bronze III. The town dwellers, identified as the original Semitic population, can, for the sake of convenience, be called Canaanites, although the term is not attested before the middle of the 2nd millennium bce. (See Canaan.)

In the course of the 3rd millennium, therefore, walled towns began to appear throughout Palestine. There is no evidence that the next step of unification under the leadership of a single town took place in the region, as it had in Mesopotamia and Egypt; Palestine’s towns presumably remained independent city-states, except insofar as Egypt may at times have exercised a loose political control. By about the 23rd century bce the whole civilization had ceased to be urban. During the next phase it was pastoral and was influenced by the settlement of nomads probably from east of the Jordan River. Among the nomads, Amorites from the Syrian Desert may have predominated. It is not yet fully understood how these events are related to the creation of the Akkadian empire in Mesopotamia under Sargon of Akkad and his grandson Naram-Sin (24th and 23rd centuries bce) and to the latter’s destruction of the powerful kingdom of Ebla (modern Tall Mardīkh) in neighboring Syria, nor is the extent of Eblaite and Akkadian hegemony over Palestine in this period known. It does seem reasonable, however, to associate the incursion of nomads from the east with the invasions of Egypt by people from Asia that brought the Old Kingdom to an end. An initial date of 23rd–22nd century bce, depending on the interpretation of the Egyptian evidence, and a final date of the 20th century bce seem probable.

The picture of Palestine at this period is thus unequivocally that of a region occupied by a number of allied tribes; although they had many features in common, there were also many differences. The most significant point is that, with the possible exception of the northern group, they made no contribution at all to town life. The different groups had tribal centers, but they were essentially seminomadic pastoralists. This description fits well that given in the Book of Joshua of the Amorites who lived in the hill country, as opposed to the Canaanites who lived in the plains and on the coast—areas favorable to agriculture.

Middle Bronze Age

It was, in fact, the next period—the Middle Bronze Age—that introduced the Canaanite culture as found by the Israelites on their entry into Palestine. The Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000–c. 1550 bce) provides the background for the beginning of the story of the Hebrew Bible. The archaeological evidence for the period shows new types of pottery, weapons, and burial practices. Once more an urban civilization based on agriculture was established. It is not entirely clear whether the wave of urban development after the 20th century bce was the work of a new immigrant people accustomed to town dwelling or of the local inhabitants themselves, some of whom may have adopted a sedentary lifestyle and begun, as in Mesopotamia and Syria, to establish dynasties. But where they settled, towns of the widespread Middle Bronze Age civilization of Palestine emerged. This civilization was intimately connected with that of the towns of the Phoenician-Canaanite coast. Extant Egyptian documents provide valuable information about Palestine in the period of the Egyptian 12th dynasty (c. 1939–c. 1760 bce) and argue for significant Egyptian interest and influence in Palestine at this time. (Most notable are the popular literary work known as the Story of Sinuhe, detailing the hero’s exile in the Palestinian region, and the 20th–19th-century “Execration Texts,” inscriptions of Egypt’s enemies’ names on pottery, which was ceremonially broken to invoke a curse.) The culture introduced at this stage was essentially the same as the culture found by the Israelites who moved into Palestine in the 14th and 13th centuries bce.

A large repertory of new forms in pottery arose, and for the first time in Palestine the clay was turned entirely on a fast wheel. Comparisons of Palestinian early Middle Bronze pottery forms with metallic and ceramic forms at Byblos, dated by Egyptian contacts, suggest that these forms were brought to Palestine about the 19th century from coastal Syria. Bronze weapons of a distinctive type, paralleled also on the Syrian coast, have been found at Megiddo, Jericho, and Tall al-ʿAjjul. Town life in Palestine gradually expanded after the mid-19th century bce, but the material culture was essentially a direct development from the preceding stage. Several towns of Middle Bronze Age Palestine were defended by plaster-faced ramparts (clearly discernible at Jericho and many other sites), an imported method of fortification giving evidence of a new and alien influence superimposed on the existing Canaanite culture. These were probably introduced by the Asiatic Hyksos, possibly related to the Amorites, who secured control of northern Egypt about 1630. The Hyksos may have included elements of a grouping of people, largely Semitic, called the Habiru or Hapiru (Egyptian ʿApiru). (The term Habiru, meaning “Outsiders,” was applied to nomads, fugitives, bandits, and workers of inferior status; the word is etymologically related to “Hebrew,” and the relationship of the Habiru [and aforementioned Hyksos] to the Hebrews has long been debated.) The Habiru appear to have established a military aristocracy in Palestine, bringing to the towns new defenses and new prosperity (as well as many Egyptian cultural elements) without interrupting the basic character of the local culture; this was to survive the destruction of Megiddo, Jericho, and Kiriath-sepher that followed the Egyptians’ expulsion of the Hyksos into Palestine at the end of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1550).

Late Bronze Age

There was no sharp break between the Middle and Late Bronze Age in Palestine. Shortly before the death of Ahmose I (1515 bce), the first native pharaoh of the New Kingdom, the Egyptian armies began to conquer Palestine, and they probably completed their task during his successor’s reign. Under Queen Hatshepsut (1479–58) Palestine revolted against Egyptian domination, but the rebellion was put down firmly by her successor, Thutmose III, who established a stable administration, maintained through the reigns of his immediate successors. Egyptian administrative documents excavated in both Egypt and Palestine show in considerable detail how the provincial government was organized and even how it operated during the century 1450–1350 bce. Documents show, for example, that the land of Retenu (Syria-Palestine) was divided into three administrative districts, each under an Egyptian governor. The third district (Canaan) included all of Palestine from the Egyptian border to Byblos. This period is often known as the Amarna Age and is vividly illustrated by several hundred letters written in cuneiform script, found in Egypt at Tell el-Amarna, site of the capital of the “heretic king” Akhenaton. The unusual concern of the pharaohs with the affairs of Palestine was chiefly because control of it was necessary for the defense of Phoenicia and southern Syria, menaced by Mitanni until about 1375 and by the Hittite empire after that date.

About 1292 bce the increasingly weak rule of the last pharaohs of the 18th dynasty was replaced by the strong arm of the second and third kings of the 19th dynasty, Seti I and Ramses II (1279–13 bce). These kings blunted the southward thrust of the Hittites and consolidated the crumbling Egyptian empire. The exactions of foreign bureaucrats, however, combined with internal decay, had so enfeebled the Canaanite vassal princes of Palestine that it was comparatively easy for the incoming Israelites to occupy most of the hill country east of the Jordan River and in western Palestine during the closing decades of the 13th century bce. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Israelite settlement in Palestine was much more complex and disconnected than the biblical accounts indicate. During a short interlude of anarchy that followed the last weak kings of the 19th dynasty, Egyptian rule was completely extinguished, and the ephemeral victories of Ramses III in the early decades of the 12th century scarcely affected Palestinian history.

Subsequent histories of the region have relied heavily on biblical narrative. Although this narrative has been augmented to a great extent by information derived from modern archaeological excavations—and, for some historical periods, by outside written sources—it is frequently the major, or sole, source of historical information; however, its validity has often been disputed.