Near East Kingdoms

Early Canaan / Kena'ani / Kinakhna

Ancient Canaan (Intro) Canaanite States & Groups Israelites & Israel Mesopotamian States & Groups Rome Syrian States & Groups

The Levant of which ancient Canaan formed a large part was the centre of the Neolithic Farmer revolution in the Near East between about 10,000-3000 BC. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic oversaw the transition from hunter-gatherer and wild crops to sedentary groups and domesticated crops.

The subsequent Pottery Neolithic established settlement structures which later turned into city states. This process gathered momentum in Syria in the third millennium BC as people benefited from interaction with Sumer. The same process took longer to benefit early Canaan, not appearing there until the very end of the third millennium BC and the start of the second.

Semitic-speaking tribes occupied much of the area between about 4000-3000 BC, creating a patchwork of city states of their own. Their Canaan was the region of the coastal Near East which stretched from the Sinai near today's border with Egypt, to the border with modern Syria (and partially across it too). For the origins of the name, see under 'Canaan / Kena'ani / Kinakhna'.

Canaan's largest settlements underwent a process of becoming small walled cities. During the second millennium BC these cities further emerged as city states, with arable territory around their walls often jealously guarded. The social fabric somewhat fell apart during the climate-induced social collapse of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries BC, but by then the region was already well into its subsequent Bronze Age.

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(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information by Sean Bambrough, Wayne McCleese, and from the John De Cleene Archive, from The Amarna Letters, William L Moran (1992), from the Illustrated Dictionary & Concordance of the Bible, Geoffrey Wigoder (Gen Ed, 1986), from Palestine, Joshua J Mark (available via the Ancient History Encyclopaedia website), from Easton's Bible Dictionary, Matthew George Easton (1897), from the NOVA/PBS documentary series, The Bible's Buried Secrets, first broadcast 18 November 2008, from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, from Melchizedek, King of Sodom: How Scribes Invented the Biblical Priest-King, Robert R Cargill (Oxford Scholarship Online, 2019), from Jewish War & Jewish Antiquities, Flavius Josephus, and from External Links: Time Maps, and The Land of Gerar, Y Aharoni (Israel Exploration Journal 6, No 1, 1956, pp 26-32, available via JSTOR), and Ancient History Encyclopaedia, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Shechem (Ancient Near East).)

c.9000 BC

The settlement of Jericho is founded around this time by hunter-gather folk (probably of the Natufian culture) who are adopting to the recent emergence of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic farming revolution which has swept the Near East. Within a millennium their descendants in Canaan have formed an organised community which is capable of building a massive stone wall around the settlement.

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) lasted in the Levant until the middle of the sixth millennium BC, but the lack of pottery certainly did not prevent rapid advances in early farming techniques and the creation of settled town life, as shown by this sample PPN house at Beidha

c.8000 BC

By this date the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Jericho in Canaan has been inhabited for about a thousand years. An organised community has become capable of building a massive stone wall around the settlement, which is strengthened at one point before this date by the addition of massive stone towers (although these may even predate the wall).

c.7000 BC

A fresh wave of arrivals into Jericho, possibly from more advanced centres in Syria, bring cultural depth and population increase to the town, but not pottery. This phase of advancement lasts a further millennium before the town seems largely to be abandoned for reasons unknown (although it coincides with the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B culture (PPNB)).

c.5000 BC

Gebal is founded as a permanent settlement within Canaan. This follows an initial settlement phase which can be dated to 8000-7000 BC, during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. Archaeology can still find Neolithic traces of the earliest occupation (during the Pottery Neolithic cultural period).

However, the first sophisticated buildings which go towards forming a town only appear in the third millennium BC. Megiddo similarly appears at this time but flourishes earlier than Gebal.

Ahirom of Gebal (fl 1000s BC) is not attested in any other ancient source, becoming famous to modern scholars only through his Phoenician-inscribed sarcophagus which was discovered in 1923 by the French excavator, Pierre Montet, in Tomb V of the royal necropolis of Byblos

c.4000 BC

Both Arad and Sidon are founded as permanent settlements in Canaan, although on somewhat different scales. This is at the same time as a structure of concentric stone circles known as Rujm al-Hiri is built as an astrological temple or observatory, or perhaps a burial complex.

A 2011 theory proposes that it is part of an ancient method of disposing of the dead, where the flesh is removed from a body prior to the bones being buried in an ossuary, a common practice in the region at this time, during the Pottery Neolithic.

The site's name means 'stone heap of the wild cats' in Arabic. In Hebrew it is known as Galgal Refaim, or the 'wheel of ghosts'. It lies close to the militarised Golam Heights in modern Israel and is therefore seldom visited.

It consists of four circles - the outermost more than 152 metres across - made up of an estimated 42,000 tons of basalt stone, the remains of massive walls that experts believe could rise as high as nine metres. It is an enormous feat of construction which is carried out by a society about which little is known.

The site at Rujm al-Hiri dates to 4000 BC, but it was re-used around 3000-2000 BC to house a tomb, legendarily belonging to King Og of Bashan (who actually lived about 1135 BC)

It seems likely that Rujm al-Hiri serves residents of villages nearby which are part of the same Chalcolithic period agrarian civilisation which exists in the region between 4500-3500 BC. There is a tomb at the centre of the site which it is generally agreed is added a millennium or two later (but still too early for it to be Og of Bashan).

c.3000 BC

Perhaps energised by the recent arrival of Semitic-speakers into Canaan, Beroth is founded as a permanent settlement. This is the start of the region's Bronze Age, bringing an end to the Pottery Neolithic and introducing a complicated political structure of city states and their interaction.

At this time Beroth's location is made up of two islands in the delta of the River Beirut. The river later silts up to form a contiguous landmass, connecting the site fully to the land around it. Even so, the river supplies the settlement's water needs, principally via the wells which give the later city its very name, meaning 'city of the wells'.

c.2800 BC

Hazor is founded as a permanent settlement, using the 'upper city' site. Later expansion into the 'lower city' only occurs in the eighteenth century BC, during a period of trade domination in the region by Egypt.

During the second millennium BC, Hazor was one of the region's largest cities, including the upper city and the lower city, and extending to about eight hundred dunams in size

c.2334 - 2279 BC

Sargon 'the Great' claims to be the first king to unite Mesopotamia (Sumer and Agade - although Enshakushanna of Uruk had already achieved that). He expands his territory by defeating Lagash and Kazallu, subsequently invading Syria and Canaan four times, and campaigns against the Gutians, the Hatti, and Marhashi.

c.2200 - 2000 BC

Beginning around 2400 BC but greatly accelerating from about 2200 BC, a cold, dry period begins in the Near East which lasts for three hundred years. Both Sumer and Egypt endure a short (climate-induced) dark age at this time, and almost every site in Canaan is either completely abandoned or is greatly reduced in size.

The same circumstances force various waves of semi-nomadic invaders to seek new territory, including the Amorites who engulf Syria and northern Mesopotamia, as well as northern areas of Canaan.

c.2000 BC

Arvad is founded as a permanent settlement in Canaan, as is Dor. Perhaps two hundred years before this event, the primitive settlement of Ai is destroyed (the site is now in the Palestinian highlands of the West Bank).

Amorites, Semitic-speaking farmers from the south who integrated into Mesopotamia, and then Syria and Canaan

Archaeology proves this level of destruction, which had previously been ascribed to the Israelite settlement period (about 1170 BC during the region's part in the 'Bronze Age Collapse'), but the cause is unknown (the climate-induced collapse around this time would seem to be a likely enough reason though).

c.2000 - 1800 BC

Egypt's 'Middle Kingdom' can be noted at this time for its expansion of trade outside of the kingdom. This includes maintaining a trading presence along the Mediterranean coast while Amorites settle and found several cities in the north.

The city of Arqa is also mentioned in Egyptian tablets of this period, but as an enemy rather than a subject or ally. Megiddo may be another enemy. As for Hazor, it appears to be one of the few cities to remain inhabited throughout the short dark age in this very period, following the climate-induced decline of Sumer and urban living in Canaan.

Once the Amorite infiltration into the area settles down, the area becomes prosperous again. The principle Canaanite cities or small states at this time include Ammon, Amrit, Arvad, Beroth, Edom, Gebal, Gerar, Hazor, Shalem, Sidon, and Tyre, but there are also many other, smaller cities in this new 'Bronze Age Canaan'.

Mount Sodom near the Dead Sea may have overlooked the 'Vale of Siddim' and the five cities which are mentioned in this instance of attempted eastern domination of Canaan