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Canaan [i] [1] [2] was a Semitic-speaking civilization and region of the Southern Levant in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC.Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna Period (14th century BC) as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Assyrian Empires converged or overlapped.
The seven nations are all descendants of Canaan, son of Ham and grandson of Noah, from whom they derive their collective name Canaanites. When enumerated separately, one of the seven nations is called Canaanites, while the others are called the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Jebusites and the Perizzites. [3]
Locations of Canaan's descendants. According to the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 (verses 15–19), Canaan was the ancestor of the tribes who originally occupied the ancient Land of Canaan: all the territory from Sidon or Hamath in the north to Gaza in the southwest and Lasha in the southeast.
In 1868, Charles Warren identified Tell es-Sultan as the site of biblical Jericho. [4] Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger excavated the site between 1907 and 1909 and in 1911, finding the remains of two walls which they initially suggested supported the biblical account of the Battle of Jericho.
The Hebrew Bible describes the Jebusites as dwelling in the mountains beside Jerusalem in Numbers 13:29 and Joshua 11:3. In the narration of the burning bush in Exodus 3:18, the "good and large land, flowing with milk and honey" that was promised to Moses as the future home of the oppressed Hebrews included the land of the Jebusites. [ 21 ]
The tribes of Judah and Simeon attacked the Canaanites and the Perizzites at Bezek and defeated him. The historical reality of events described in the book of Judges is the subject of ongoing dispute among scholars, who vary in their opinions about how much of the book is historical. [3]
After the destruction of Jericho and Ai, the Hivite people of Gibeon sent ambassadors to trick Joshua and the Israelites into making a treaty with them. According to the writer of the book of Deuteronomy (Deut 7:1–2; 20:16–20), the Israelites were commanded to destroy all non-Israelite Canaanites in the land.
The "Adullam" mentioned in the Hebrew Bible is thought to be identical with Tell Sheikh Madkhur. [ 8 ] [ 20 ] [ 2 ] [ 21 ] The so-called "Biblical period", for time reference-sake, has been referred to by historians and archaeologists as the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age , meaning, the Late Canaanite and Israelite periods, respectively. [ 22 ]