Names of the Levant
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Over recorded history, there have been many names of the Levant, a large area in the Middle East, or its constituent parts. These names have applied to a part or the whole of the Levant. On occasion, two or more of these names have been used at the same time by different cultures or sects. As a natural result, some of the names of the Levant are highly politically charged. Perhaps the least politicized name is Levant itself, which simply means "where the sun rises" or "where the land rises out of the sea", a meaning attributed to the region's easterly location on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.
Antiquity[]
Retenu[]
Ancient Egyptian texts (c. 14th century BC) called the entire coastal area along the Mediterranean Sea between modern Egypt and Turkey rṯnw (conventionally Reṯenu). In the Amarna letters, written in Akkadian cuneiform, Reṯenu is subdivided into five regions:
- knʿnw (Kananu) or Canaan proper (Idumea, Judea, Samaria);
- Ḏahy (ḏꜣhy;Ṯahi, Ḏahi), roughly Galilee and coastal plain to Ashkelon dominated by Hazor;
- Rmnn, coast of Lebanon;
- Amurru, (the Amurru kingdom of the Amorites);
- Kharu (ḥꜣ-rw), the chief city of which was Ugarit.[2]