out of Egypt and back to Canaan aft er 40 years of wandering
the desert in the Sinai region. At the beginning of this jour-
ney the Red Sea is said to have parted to allow the Israelites to
pass through it and then closed upon the Egyptian army.
Historians are not at all sure that any of these events re-
ally happened. It is known that some Canaanite tribes lived
in Egypt during the fi rst half of the second millennium b.c.e.
Some scholars have suggested that the Exodus from Egypt
under Moses happened during the 13th century b.c.e. under
Ramses II. Still, Egyptian archaeologists have announced
that there is no physical evidence suggesting that the Red Sea
parted.
If the Exodus did occur during the 13th century, the so-
called Sea Peoples may have played a part in the events of the
time. Th e Sea Peoples were a group of seafarers who wan-
dered the eastern Mediterranean during the second millen-
nium b.c.e. Th eir identities and origins are unknown. Th ey
may have come from Crete, the Aegean, southern Anatolia, or
the coast of Lebanon and Israel. What is known is that there
were numerous marauding seafarers roaming the eastern
Mediterranean, especially during the late Bronze Age. Many
of them ended up in Egypt aft er attempting to attack it and
being captured during the reign of Ramses III (ca. 1194–ca.
1163 b.c.e.).
Th e Philistines may have belonged to the Sea Peoples.
Th ey moved into Canaan during the 12th century b.c.e. In
about 1180 b.c.e. they took the southern Canaanite cities
Gaza, Gath, Ashqelon, Ashdod, and Ekron. Th ey appear not
to have been Semitic peoples; in the Old Testament they are
oft en described as “uncircumcised,” which diff erentiated
them from Israelites. What little is known of their language
seems to indicate that it was an Indo-European and not a
Semitic language. Th eir culture seems to have shared some
similarities with Mycenaean Greek culture, and Philistine
pottery resembles Mycenaean work of that period. Th ey may
have belonged to the Sea Peoples. Some historians believe that
the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses III imprisoned the Sea Peoples
in Egypt and then settled the Philistines in southern Canaan,
where he could tax them.
According to the biblical account, when the Israelites
arrived back in Canaan, they found the land inhabited by
Canaanites. Th ey attacked and conquered several cities, in-
cluding Jericho, Ai, and Hazor. Historians are unsure of what
happened; if these events occurred in about 1200 b.c.e., they
took place in a setting of general chaos and destruction at the
end of the Bronze Age. Th e Sea Peoples and Philistines were
active in the region and may have participated in the over-
throw of the Canaanite cities.
In any case, the Israelites did move back into Canaan at
some point, perhaps around 120 0 b.c.e. Th ey divided the land
among the ancestral tribes. Around 920 b.c.e. the Hebrews
divided into two kingdoms, Israel to the north and Judah to
the south. Th e Babylonian captivity or the fi rst diaspora, as
it was called, came when Mesopotamian armies conquered
Israel in 722 b.c.e. and Judah in 586 b.c.e. When Israel fell
to Assyria, the Assyrians attempted to move the Israelites en
masse to Media. Many Israelites instead fl ed south into Ju-
dah, settling in the capital city of Jerusalem. Th e Assyrians
moved their own people into Israel in an attempt to create a
new noble class there.
In 586 b.c.e. Judah fell to Babylon. Much of the nobility
was deported to the cit y of Babylon. Other Jews were enslaved
and taken to Assyrian cities to work. Still others fl ed to Egypt,
Persia, or Syria. In 539 b.c.e. the Persian emperor Cyrus con-
quered Babylon. He allowed the Jews in Babylon to go back
to Jerusalem and surrounding areas. Th ere they remained for
the next six centuries. In 70 c.e., at the end of the fi rst Jew-
ish-Roman War, the emperor Titus destroyed the temple at
Jerusa lem and deported some 100,000 Jews to Rome as slaves.
Many thousands of others fl ed the Levant to Mesopotamia
and other nations in the Mediterranean region. In 135 c.e.
Rome put down a revolt by some of the Jews remaining in
Judea. Th ereaft er, Judea ceased to exist as a political entity,
the province was renamed Syria-Palestine, and the Jewish
people were dispersed from the region they considered their
homeland. Th is is known as the second diaspora of the Jews.PHOENICIANS
Th e Phoenicians occupied the coast of Lebanon between 1200
and 800 b.c.e. Historians have debated the origin of the Phoe-
nician people for millennia. Some modern archaeologists
believe that they were simply the descendants of previous
Canaanite peoples who lived in the area. Other historians,
including the Greek historian Herodotus, argue that the
Phoenician people came to Lebanon from some other place,
bringing with them their knowledge of the sea. Suggested
places of origin include Minoan Crete, eastern Africa, or the
land of the Philistines. Some historians believe that the Phoe-
nicians learned their sailing skill from the Sea Peoples.
Wherever they came from, the Phoenician people spread
their culture quite a distance. Th e Phoenician people were
skilled traders and seamen. Th ey sailed throughout the Med-
iterranean on galleys to sell their major products, chief of
which was a deep purple dye known as Tyrian purple made
from the murex snail. Th ey built settlements along the en-
tire southern coast of the Mediterranean as well as in Sicily,
Sardinia, Cyprus, Crete, and Spain. Th eir most important
settlement was Carthage in modern Tunisia, founded in 814
b.c.e. Other major cities included Tyre, Sidon, Tripoli, Hippo
(in present-day Algeria) and Abdera (in modern-day Spain).
Th ey took with them an alphabet, which the Greeks adopted
and later turned into the Greek alphabet, and the worship of
a god called Baal.
Th e heyday of the Phoenicians ended with the rise of the
Assyrians. Th e city of Tyre remained strong, and the Leba-
nese Phoenician population was concentrated there until
539 b.c.e. when Cyrus the Great conquered the city. Histo-
rians believe that many of the Phoenician people migrated
to Carthage and the other Mediterranean colonies around
that time.700 migration and population movements: The Middle East