Talk:Time periods in the Palestine region

Ardh-u Filistin

This was never used in the Ottoman administrative sense Koakhtzvigad (talk) 13:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The column does not represent administrative names - just names applied to the region during that period according to WP:RS Oncenawhile (talk) 22:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Ardh-u means 'cultivated' land, i.e. one plowed for crops, and not left for pasture. Its an agronomic term, and not a geographic one. It was used in Ottoman property law to assess taxable crop on the farmers, in this case the term Filistin was used derisively, i.e. implying they were "Romans" paying tax (which they refused) Koakhtzvigad (talk) 23:30, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure your position here is source-able - as you say, there are Ottoman tax records which refer to Palestine, but that in no way suggests that that was the only way the Ottomans used the word. Anyway, there are contemporary European sources which while not conclusive at least show the name Palestine was in common use by diplomats during this period in French, German and English - search through the attached which shows the source text of letters and memos from the British/French/German diplomats in the region using the word Palestine freely. Oncenawhile (talk) 01:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Firstly we are after Ottoman use of Filistin, and not European use of Palestine.

Secondly, the use is not free, but commences in 1849. PROTECTION OF RUSSIAN JEWS IN PALESTINE.--THE AGREEMENT OF 1849 The significance of this is that this in 1839 Gulhane decree inaugurates the Tanzimat, and the Ottoman Empire enters a period of rapprochement with Europe, and modernity. For European citizens of their respective empires it was too much to try and say sandjak of Jerusalem because the Crusades and the wars with Mahammedans were not ended. Just read some of the volumes now available in GoogleBooks from the 19th century. Lots of Christian fervour for the Holy Land, etc. Today people have a different mindset and are unable to appreciate 19th century Europe by and large. Koakhtzvigad (talk) 07:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

It's easier if we base the discussion on facts and sources. Here's some dates when the name Palestine has been used in the English language:

• 1639 - Thomas Fuller here
• 1688 - John Milner here
• 1746 - Modern history or the present state of all nations here Importantly, this is a reference book, and states "Jerusalem is still reckoned the capital city of Palestine"
• 1751 - The London Magazine here
• 1799 - Napoleon here

It is pretty clear that the region was widely known as Palestine in Europe throughout the period of the Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately since neither of us can read Ottoman Turkish, we cannot discuss similar Turkish sources. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I have found the "the original and authoritative Ottoman-English dictionary" online - see James Redhouse's dictionary here. The translation for "Holy Land" is dari-filastin which i believe translates to "house of Palestine" Oncenawhile (talk) 01:29, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

part 2

There was never a 'state' of Palestine, only a People, Plishtim, known from the Bible since the Covenant made by Abraham

They were at various times allies and enemies of Israel, in the last part of their history a buffer state between Judea and Egypt

After that the name was used by various occupying powers as an administrative name, in some case having several Palestines

So, how did the Palestine name come to be adopted by the British? After all, the Ottoman subjects at the time didn't call it that.

The British were, before the First World War, occupying Egypt. Now recall what I said about one of the sources used in the Palestine article that Palestine in the 2nd millennium BCE was a buffer state between Egypt and Judea. Yigal Sheffy in British military intelligence in the Palestine campaign, 1914-1918 pp.2-3 says "The British government viewed its strategic relations with the Ottomans mainly within the context of its imperial power struggles with other European powers in the east, or its endeavours to secure British sea and land routes to India. The Eastern Question acquired a new aspect in early 1906, when the Ottomans turned into a potential enemy for the first time, as a consequence of sudden tension between the Sublime Porte and Whitehall over delineating the Palestine-Egypt border in the Sinai Peninsula." But, there was no Palestine in the Ottoman Empire! The article says "Nonetheless, the old name remained in popular and semi-official use.[[no citation] Many [if many, then there should be no difficulty in producing many examples?] examples of its usage in the 16th and 17th centuries have survived.[132] During the 19th century, the Ottoman Government employed the term Ardh-u Filistin (the 'Land of Palestine') in official correspondence, meaning for all intents and purposes the area to the west of the River Jordan which became 'Palestine' under the British in 1922.[133] However, the Ottomans regarded "Palestine" as an abstract description of a general region but not as a specific administrative unit with clearly defined borders." [no reference]

I bolded the references because they are ‘’crucial’’ to understanding the issue. The first is Gerber, Haim (1998) "Palestine" and Other Territorial Concepts in the 17th Century", in: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol 30, pp. 563–572. The reference ‘’does not’’ give a page number, meaning the editor simply read the abstract that proposes the name may have been in use communally as a reflection of communal identity aside from the official Ottoman one. The second reference says Mandel, Neville J. (1976) The Arabs and Zionism Before World War I. University of California Press, where it says "Despite these administrative divisions and changes, the concept of a geographic area called "Palestine" was used by the three main parties figuring in this book: the Ottoman Government, the Arabs and the Jews. The Ottoman Government employed the term "Arz-i Filistin" (the "Land of Palestine") in official correspondence, meaning for all intents and purposes the area to the west of the River Jordan which became "Palestine" under the British in 1922. The Arabs used the term "Filastin" to designate an area whose limits had varied at different historical periods, and thus their notion of its precise dimensions was necessarily vague, especially in the decades before World War I, given the recent administrative changes which had taken place. The Jews' use of "Palestine" was equally imprecise, because for them it was a translation of "Eretz Yisra'el" (the "Land of Israel"), the dimensions of which had also varied at different stages of Jewish history." However, that was 1976. Today I can look up what the word land is in Turkish. It turns out there are many names for land: toprak, kara parçası, ülke, vatan, aynı türden toprak parçası, alan, arazi, kişisel arazi, arsa, karaya çıkmak, karaya indirmek, karaya getirmek, iniş yapmak, yere inmek, düşmek, karaya ayak basmak, yenmek, kazanmak, indirmek, karaya çıkartmak, sokmak, çakmak, vurmak, yapmak, diyar, kara, memleket, yer, karaya çıkarmak/çıkmak, yere indirmek/inmek, (gemiden yük, yolcu v.b.´ni) indirmek, (balık) tutup karaya çıkarmak, elde etmek, (yumruk) indirmek, iniş yap, aşk etmek, inmek (yere), kara parçası (piece of), yapıştırmak, yerey, yerleştirmek, arazi, toprak Ardh-u is not one of the words used in Turkish for land And a Turkish source from Filistin ve Şark-ül-Ürdün,(Orient-ul-Palestine and Jordan) Celâl Tevfik Karasapan - 1942, says Cities and villages of this land must be at least half an hour walk [wide]. Palestine is empty, all terrain cover is included in this class. This land is owned on the applicable current laws of the land public property.(my translation) However in Osmanlı kanunnâmeleri ve hukukî tahlilleri: Kanunî Sultân Süleyman (And legal analysis of the Ottoman code of law: Suleyman the Magnificent) the word arazi means "public property land revenues of the foundation of the authentic subject another [unique] person land, the land is as public property...called a section around the public property land", so while the translation is not great, the legal use of arazi is more for taxation assessment purposes than an administrative or geographic use. Mandell not only didn't write it correctly, but misunderstood the finer point of the term, and of course it was used in official documents, in the same way that allotment was used in the English tax records, but one would never say "the region of the allotments of Southampton" for example. So where did Ardh-u come from? In his Land Ownership in Palestine/Israel, http://www.ap-agenda.org/nasser/nasser3.htm Nasser Abufarha says, “To understand the land ownership system in the society of the fellahin, one needs to understand the concept of the feddan. There is widespread misconception that the feddan is a unit of measurement for an area of land. This is an inaccurate understanding of the concept. The feddan is a measurement of a share of land that varies in size from village to village and may vary from year to year, even within the same village.

Villages owned their land collectively by the village residents or by the hamoula (family). Physical features and traditional names of lands were used to describe the boundaries of a certain village land and were respected by neighboring villages. In the plowing and seeding season, lands were divided between village residents every fall based on ability to cultivate. Zalameh wa 'ammal (a man and a working animal) would get one feddan share. A man without 'ammal would get half a feddan. A man would get half a feddan for each additional working animal he owned that was available for work.

This system was used by the villages for the distribution of ‘’ardh as-sahil’’ (the lands of the fields) for cultivation. The concept is still used today in some villages in the West Bank.” The word ardh therefore refers to cultivated land (or more correctly, plough land; see Governing Property p.196; the cultivated land, the Turkish term for which I don’t yet know, referred to the pasture for herding) in English, and not to taxable property land as in a geographical area. This is a fine distinction, and an important one. Ardh-u Filistin means cultivated land of Filistin, but “In 1858 the Ottoman Authority introduced the law of tabu to establish rights of land ownership. Landowners were instructed to have their property inscribed in the land register. The tabu was resisted by the fellahin. They saw a threat to their community in registering their land for two main reasons: 1) the cultivated fields were classified as ardh ameriyeh (the land of the emirate) and were taxed, so owners of registered fertile land were forced to pay tax on it; 2) data from the land register were used by the Turkish Army for the purpose of the draft. Owners of registered lands were often drafted to fight with the Turkish Army in Russia.

By the way, etymologically ‘ploughed land’ resembles that of a ground ‘ploughed over’ by the horse hooves, and not surprisingly the national dance of be Bedouin kingdom of Saudi Arabi is the ‘al Ardha’ the may be derived from ‘Ardhal Kheil’ meaning displaying the horses, as for centuries, Arabs used to train their horses and show them off during special events when they prepared to go to battle. Ardha: The Warrior's Dance 19/03/2008 By Khaled al Oweigan http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=7&id=12148

The Turkish Land Register was not able to document the state of land ownership in Palestine (Falah, 1983). People continued their traditional communal ownership of the land. This tradition continued with the exception of some families or individuals who took advantage of the loose manner in which the tabu registered lands. They registered large pieces of land that were not necessarily theirs in their names, especially those who held positions in government.” Since pretty much only Turks were in the government, essentially there was no organised registration of cultivated land in that part of Syria (as the administrative province of the Empire). He then says “Under the British system, the Land Settlement Ordinance was introduced in 1928. Rights of ownership were confirmed only after the land survey was completed. The registration of land was to be in the names of specific individuals and not in the name of the village, the family, or the tribe (Falah, 1983). This was an attempt to break village or tribe solidarity and an effort to promote the capitalist system of private ownership and individualism. The British Land Settlement Ordinance was resisted by fellahin society mainly because it did not allow for their tradition of collective ownership. Individual ownership posed a threat to the power structure in the village social order. The village mukhtar and wujuh el-'alih (the notables of the family) and the Bedouin tribes' sheikhs took their power from this system of collective land ownership.

In addition to the practical reason mentioned above, the fellahin saw the land register as an insult to tradition. This system had been working for generations as an efficient and fair use and distribution of the land.”

So essentially the British tried to implement a modern land management to go with the taxation system, and this was again resisted for cultural reasons. In other words there was no Ottoman legacy land management system, and the British were unable to create an effective one after the completion of the survey sometime in the early 1930s (yet to identify this) “Following land registration in 1933, much of the leapfrogging of rights resulting from this history was finally eliminated.” (Governing Property, p.201)

For more on this, see ‘’Governing Property, Making the Modern State: Law, Administration and Production in Ottoman Syria’’ by Martha Mundy and Richard Saumarez Smith, I.B. Taurus, 2007 This work makes great pains to emphasize the importance of Ottoman legal terms used throughout the land administration, notably on pp.51-52 where’ “This can be seen in a textbook such as Kavanin-i Tasarrufiye – Notları of Ebül’ula Mardinizade.77 The text criticizes the logical basis of earlier categories of land and provides doctrinal support for what were to be the last reforms of property right under the empire. In 1912 laws were issued that marked a break in Ottoman juridical language: these decreed a cadastral survey on European models, the introduction of mortgage (termed hypothèque) on the model of ‘other civilized nations’, and the unification of property categories across all types of land. The legislation of 1912 appeared too late to be introduced into the Arab provinces. Nor does it appear to have been treated in practice as part of the Ottoman legal corpus by the French and the British who at the end of the First World War occupied and divided the Arab provinces between them. British officials under the Mandate in Palestine and Jordan were to implement a similar programme but were to celebrate their land registration not as part of Mandate legal responsibility to apply Ottoman law, but as evidence of the progress in civilization that European forms of property represented.” The name Palestine therefore had nothing to do with earlier use in the Ottoman Empire in a gepographic , political or even administrative sense, but was PERHAPS (I find no documented support yet) a cultural ‘’tradition’’ of purely local self-identification in the face of Imperial attempts at Ottomanization of the area, resisted on similar grounds that any traditional society resists systematic incorporation into larger administrative entities they see as detached from and destructive to their way of life. This is why I agreed with Paddy Ryan’s assertion that there may well be sociological basis for apartheid claim, though not by Israel, but by the Ottoman Empire (and genocidal towards Armenians).

Just so we understand how the word Palestine is misused, here is another, this time geographical description from the same work. “The ‘Ajlun district formed the southernmost part of the sanjak of Hauran in the vilayet of Suriye, of which Damascus was provincial capital (Map 5.1). Bounded by the Yarmuk River on the north and the Zarqa River on the south, the district was one of settled agriculture, comprising mountains in the Jabal ‘Ajlun, rolling hills in the Kura and Kafarat, and the southernmost extension of the great Haurani plain in the Bani ‘Ubayd and Bani Juhma nahiyes (Map 5.2). Over the centuries of Ottoman rule the region of ‘Ajlun had at times been attached to urban centres in Palestine or, as in the later nineteenth century, linked to Damascus as a subdivision of the Hauran.1 Nevertheless, it formed a relatively stable administrative delimitation, and several of its sub-districts (notably, the Kura, Kafarat, Jabal ‘Ajlun and Bani Juhma) were units recognized by the administration since the Ottoman conquest. In the late nineteenth century the district contained just over one hundred villages.2 See Map 5.3.3 I’d be happy to send the map to you. It shows central East Bank of what is today Jordan. As you will have noticed, there is no mention of the Ottoman administration of this sanjak in the Wikipedai article. This is because the PLO no longer claims Jordan as an indivisible part of Palestine so certain editors chose to ‘forget’ to edit there. It does say that “The Hauran is mentioned in the Bible (Ezekiel 47:16-18) describing the boundary area of the Israelite Kingdom at the time.” but the link is to Israelites rather than to the Kingdom of Israel!

And here we get into theological reasons for the name use by the British. The reason British called the 'area' Palestine is because of the name on their maps for the area bordering Egypt. Look at the colour map from USA in the article subtitled ‘’An 1882 rendering of Canaan, as divided among the Twelve Tribes, by the American Sunday-School Union of Philadelphia.’’ It has a large yellow area at the south-western extreme. This was the area through which the British Army and its allied troops attacked in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. Look carefully at the map from 1917 "The Times History of the War" Volume X, p.368 titled Map of north and central Sinai, 1917. The border on the Turkish side has Palestine, but the inset map? It only correctly shows the Ottoman province of Syria. Here is another contemporary English Maps from Palestine Campaign by Wavell. No Palestine.

However, almost all European historical maps produced in the 19th century, regardless of the period, are titled "Map of Palestine" as here Wavel at the time served as a staff officer on the HQ OF the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) that was formed in March 1916 to command the British and British Empire military forces in Egypt during World War I. And who was facing them? The Ottoman 4th Army in Filistina under Cemal PASHA. But where was this 100,000 strong Army? It was not dispersed over the entire area of what later became the mandate territories, but was located Western Front style dug in on the Egyptian border with advanced posts in Sinai, and main positions around Gaza. Its last positions during retreat were over-run by Australians at Beersheva after which the British Empire forces literally walked in unopposed into Jerusalem. There is a little known fact that for much of European history all maps of the Holy Land had to be approved by the Roman Catholic Church (until Reformation). The Church had certain views about use of anything connected with the Jews (reconquest for the Church was still policy until the 20th century), and therefore all maps until the time when Biblical textual criticism emerged in the late 19th century (NOTE in Germany) depicted Holy Land at the time of Christian era, i.e. one of Roman occupation, hence Palestine. Although most historical maps produced in Europe during the 19th century deal with other historical periods, they are still named ‘’Map of Palestine’’ though often there would be no actual Palestine name on the map named for historical reasons.

The majority of political elite of the early Zionist movement was German-speaking, and ‘progressive’ in that they accepted the Biblical textual criticism theory of the time that the Torah is a composite document. Use of maps depicting borders of Israel derived from the Torah were therefore theologically inconvenient to the Zionist cause, so the ‘scientific’ maps were used, which were still derived from those approved by the Church. Hence, Palestine. By the by, Palestinian Arabs make great use of Israel destruction of ‘their’ villages and houses for political purposes. However, none of these were ‘their’. In 1915 the Ottomans exiled to the ‘Syrian desert’ (as described by a Turk in 1942 above) a vast number of Anatolian Armenians. It is these people that built these villages, and later, after establishment of the mandate territories, and re-establishment of independent Armenia following the Russian Revolution, abandoned them. How do I know this? Because if you look at the images of the house you can see they were not built by or lived in my Muslims. Here is a quote to confirm this “Thus, in respect of true architectural value, modern Eastern houses, whether Mahometan, Armenian, or Greek, are, as before said, much one level, and that level a low one. Each has, however, something that individualises it to a certain extent, and acts the sign-board to make known the nationality of the in-dweller. Thus, the Greek is apt to try his hand, not over-successfully, at European imitation; while the Armenian displays a more Oriental taste by projecting ledges, strong colouring, and so forth. The Mahometan townsman has also his own distinctive marks, whereby his house may be very generally recognised at first sight. Pious inscriptions, wherein the name of God figures always, and that of Mahomet sometimes, decorate the corners and the upper roof-sheltered lines of the walls, in all the graceful intricacy of Arab caligraphy. Thus, for instance, a blessing on the Prophet takes the form of a dodo-like bird, resolving itself, legs, wings, beak, and all, on laborious anatomical deciphering, into words and sentences; an invocation of the Deity contracts itself into a scriptural egg, or expands into what may lie supposed to represent a cypress, a palm-tree, &c. Bona-fidc flowers, too, wreaths, spears, swords, drums, banners, and other cheerful or martial objects are often depicted ; and, in their complicated combination of form and hue, recall something of the gorgeous Saracenic colour school, familiar to Europeans in the relics of the Alhambra. Curious carving, too, is bestowed on lintels, eaves, and doorposts; the wood-work of the windows also is often tasteful, if considered in itself, though wanting harmony with the general lines and proportions of the building in which it is set. Lastly, the greater extent of lattice along some of the window ranges, those, of course, belonging to tho Harem, decisively indicates the Mahometan proprietor. p.310 Mahometani&m in the Levant. [September Fraser's magazine, Volume II - No. IX New Series 1870 By Thomas Carlyle

K, I'm really sorry as i'm sure the above has some really good info in it, but it was simply WP:TLDR. I would like to discuss further but wiki discussions don't work unless there is a simple dialectical discussion rather than well researched but overly dense monologues. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Thats because Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia written by people who actually read, but those that just googlesearch for extracts of visible content in "well researched, but overly dense monologues", aka "authored works in print", or "books", that will back up what they want to express in an article. Koakhtzvigad (talk) 12:19, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

K, I wrote what I wrote because I guessed that you thought what you just wrote. Having worked on a number of articles with you, I think your contributions and perspectives are very valuable - I think it is a real shame when you write so much good content but noone engages with it. I know it is easy to disdain wikipedians as you have done, but a strong argument can made that the dialectical method used in wikipedia discussions is superior even to academic peer review processes - short paragraphs make it easy for allcomers to add their perspectives while long essays are often too challenging to penetrate and break down. I honestly don't think the moral high ground argument that some academic anti-wikipedians take is justified. Oncenawhile (talk) 13:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Coele-Syria

Is Latin and should be spelled Cœle-Syria Koakhtzvigad (talk) 13:11, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree - have made the change Oncenawhile (talk) 22:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The Crusader Period

I don't know that anyone called the area Palestine during this period Koakhtzvigad (talk) 13:16, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

This is widely documented - the Christian world had officially known the region as Palestine (or Palaestina in Latin) since the initial Christianization of the Roman Empire. See e.g. here [1] Oncenawhile (talk) 22:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, but I'm saying a contemporary source. It seems to me that during Crusades the term was not in use. The term that was used I believe was Terra Sancta Koakhtzvigad (talk) 23:33, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Technically we are not supposed to use WP:PRIMARY sources, and unfortunately my knowledge of the crusades is not good enough to know where to look. Perhaps I should get myself a copy of Steven Runciman's magnum opus. Oncenawhile (talk) 01:37, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you re terra sancta (latin for holy land) of course - i have added holy land as another name used during the period. Oncenawhile (talk) 01:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

More work needed

I know the editors of this article have put a lot or work into it, and I respect that, but it really needs some decent sources if it's going to reflect reality. First of, the division of any period of time into periods is purely a matter of convention - people at the time wouldn't have considered themselves to be living in the Bronze Age of the Persian Age or whatever. These terms are modern, and conventional, and we need to simply and accurately reflect those conventions.

So, some for examples: The Iron Age is pretty universally seen as taking up the period 1200-586. Not 1100-721. There's no particular reason why it shouldn't be 1100-721, but scholars have agreed, somehow, that 1200-586 is it. And likewise for other time-periods. Anyway, I've gone through and corrected these for the period from the opening of the Iron Age to the late Hellenistic period, which is the period I know a little about.

Also: the descriptions as I found them were far too skewed towards the history of Israel/Judah. That's fine for articles on those two kingdoms, but they shared the region with others, and this table has to reflect the big picture.

And some of the column headings are a bit strange: "name of the region" according to who? Quite often it didn't have a name - "southern Levant" is a totally modern name in any case (well, pretty modern) - the locals in, say the 5th century BCE wouldn't have known what you were talking about if you told them they lived in the Levant. My point is, there's not always a name, and it's pretty meaningless given the way concepts change over time.

Anyway, please be assured I'm not trying to disrupt here, but if you want the table to be useful, it needs a lot of work, and it needs good sources. PiCo (talk) 03:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You are right that the table is not fully accurate, and should be changed accordingly. However, your radical changes should be discussed on this page, and should include sources. I'm now working on combining your changes with the previous one.--Hmbr (talk) 11:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Can I suggest we start by looking at the columns? Two of them ask for information that all too often doesn't exist - "ruling regime" and "region names".

For much of the time there was no "ruling regime" in the region - in the Late Bronze, for example, New Kingdom Egypt exercised tight control over the Canaanite city-states, but those cities continued to have their own kings, and internal autonomy (they even went to war with each other), so who was ruling? Similarly in Iron II, there were eight separate political entities at the beginning (counting Phoenicia and the Philistines as two, which is incorrect in itself as they were each collections of autonomous city-states) - who was ruling? The idea of a "ruling regime" only makes sense at those times when the region was controlled by one of the great imperial powers - Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Egypt, Syria, Rome, Byzantium, etc. At other times, such as Iron II and during the Crusader period, this didn't apply, and at still other times, as during the Late Bronze, the situation was complex. So overall this column is trying to squeeze facts into one size that just can't fit all.

For regional names, the situation is equally complex. The Egyptians called the region Canaan, but the local inhabitants didn't call it anything. The Canaan of the Egyptians was not the Canaan of the Bible (different contents - the Egyptians excluded the interior highlands, and the Israelites saw these as the most important part). Nobody knows exactly what the Greeks meant by Philistinia, certai9nly the coast, but we have no idea what they called Judah - the records just aren't available. All in all, the column is asking for information that we just can't provide.

I suggest these two columns be deleted. They can be replaced with a brief discussion of the relevant subject-content in the lead, and it will leave room for a more full description of major developments in the end column, which will have much more room.

PiCo (talk) 12:04, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

This suggestion seems fair enough. --Hmbr (talk) 12:41, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

To comment on the above:

• Agree with the need for more sources.
• I agree that "Period name" is subjective, albeit i don't believe it hurts to have it in.
• The ruling regime column is very important, and to remove it would be extremely unhelpful as it is the most "neutral" / "secular" / unchallengable way of categorising the periods. If Ruling Regime is not the best title, we should change it, but the information is needed and notable. The suggestion in the comments above about New Kingdom Egypt ("internal autonomy") can only have been based on biblical evidence - what is descibed in the comment is the system of tribute used throughout all ancient empires - egypt and the biblical holy land was no different (see Amarna letters).
• The same goes for the name column - each period in the column shows many names to reflect the complexity of the situation - these can be easily sourced and are unquestionably helpful and relevant to the reader (see some discussion above re the ottoman period). The suggestion that in the canaanite period "the locals didn't call it anything" doesn't make sense - there just isn't evidence at the moment. For "nobody knows exactly what the Greeks meant", I can only suspect what you mean is you don't know, since it is pretty clear in this article - see the original quotes. All of the info in this column is helpful to the reader - just because you weren't aware of it before coming to this page doesn't negate it, rather the opposite.
• We should be seeking to improve and strengthen this article, not rip the heart out of it.

Oncenawhile (talk) 22:39, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Name change

Hmbr, I understand why you changed the name but it is not correct to do so re a potentially controversial move without discussing it first. Your move note referred to the "main article" - i'm not sure that is really the case, as Palestine (region) could equally be the main article. The history article you referred to used to be called History of Palestine until it was moved two years ago to the current name without any discussion. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't much care what it's called, but two points: (1) the "the" in "the Palestine" is not normal English usage; and (2) the Levant is usually taken to be a wider area than Palestine - it includes Syria, and Palestine doesn't. Personally I see advantages in including Syria. PiCo (talk) 00:34, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I support renaming the article back to this. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 01:53, 29 January 2011 (UTC) On second thought I object to changing the name - including Syria will mean that we can not use the current Period name and Ruling regime columns. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 03:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Dunno about that - it can probably include anything you like, irrespective of the name. PiCo (talk) 03:09, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Periods

The first column is headed Periods. The usual periods used by archaeologists and historians are given in this book by King and Stager (see page xxiii): King, Philip J.; Stager, Lawrence E. (2001). Life in Biblical Israel. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0664221483.

The periods given there are:

• Bronze Age: 3500–1200
• Iron Age: 1200–586
• Babylonian: 586–539
• Persian: 539–332
• Hellenistic: 332-53

King/Stager subdivide each of Bronze and Iron into many subdivisions, but I see no advantages in us following them. There are two reasons: first, more divisions makes for a more cluttered table; and second, the important and really noteworthy thing about the Bronze was the way there were three successive waves of urbanisation followed by state-formation followed by collapse, and that's best explained if we treat them as a unit. Similarly, the three Iron Ages (Babylonian and Persian are sometimes called Iron III) were in effect just a Bronze IV - after the Late Bronze collapse (meaning that the city-states of the Late Bronze were mostly abandoned and people went back to living in villages or even to herding), there was a period of increasing population and settlement leading to the establishment of kingdoms c.1000 throughout the region (not just Israel); but at the same time the Mesopotamian empires, which had also collapsed in the Late Bronze, were also reviving, and by Iron II they were returning into the Levant/Palestine, leading to ultimately to the absorption of the little kingdoms in Iron III. The big difference this time was that there was no collapse at the end of Iron III (or Bronze IV, though nobody uses that term) - instead we just have a neat segue into the Classical age via the Greeks and Romans.

Anyway, that's very long-winded, but the point I'm really trying to make is that King/Stager give the normal periods, and their dates, for Late Bronze to Persian, and we should follow them. PiCo (talk) 01:15, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem is these are biblical archeologists - they do not have a NPOV. Oncenawhile (talk) 01:31, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I can assure you that Stager is a leading archaeologist - he's using the mainstream periodisation. These (Chalcolithic/Bronze/Iron) are terms from archaeology, and we have to agree with the archaeologists. (Incidentally, what do you mean by "biblical archaeolgists? In the middle of the 20th century there was a movement called biblical archaeology associated with Albright, but it's pretty archaic these days, except in strange places cut off from the march of history, like Wikipedia). PiCo (talk) 02:53, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Biblical archaeologists in the wider sense are scholars who take as fact that the bible is basically a historically document, and work from there - the majority are devoted to proving the Biblical narrative. Their POV is through the lenses of the biblical understanding of history, with a clear example being their splitting of the Iron Age and Babylonian periods at 586BC in light of the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), rather than 627BC which was when the Neo-Babylonian Empire replaced the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the region (following the death of Ashurbanipal and the successful revolt of Nabopolassar). Oncenawhile (talk) 11:39, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Let's leave aside the question of ther article's title. Onceawhile I assure you that Stager is a mainstream archaeologist, and does not set out to prove the historical value of the bible. These periods are a normal scholarly convention, followed by all archaeologists studying the region - and by the historians too for that matter. If you like you can check with other archaeologists who have been called "minimalist" - look up books by William Dever, Niels Peter Lemche, and Thomas Thompson. They all use these periods. It's a convention, nothing more. PiCo (talk) 12:33, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

There isn't a neutral point of view of looking at the periodisation of the area. The very title of this article is POV since it uses a British name, spelled in the late 19th century fashion to reflect a Roman post-Jewish revolt (132CE) of the region. This is a very discrete cultural point of view given British religious attitudes of the late 19th century Koakhtzvigad (talk) 12:26, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The multitude of historical names for the regions shown in this article illustrates that there is no single answer to the naming question. The rule WP:COMMONNAME says we should use the name that is most commonly used in the English language (since we are editing English wikipedia), which is Palestine. Oncenawhile (talk) 13:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

PiCo, please ensure that your sources are relative to the region. Periodisation for the materials technology is subject to transfer and occurred in different times and at different rates on the globe (but you probably know this)Koakhtzvigad (talk) 10:50, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes thanks, I do know. The archaeological periods for the Levant are quite fixed - if they weren't, archaeologists wouldn't be able to talk to each other. The dates I've given for the two Iron Ages, 1200-1000 and 1000-586, are found in ALL sources - not just some, all. PiCo (talk) 06:38, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

(Undent) I'm honestly puzzled why you don't want to accept my periods for the era up to the end of the Iron Age. I know I haven't really provided sources - just one book - but I don't think sources are the problem, since you seem to be more interested in preserving a date in the 700s as a significant one. Any date at all is going to be arbitrary, but we really should follow the conventions used in scholarly sources. It's usual to follow the archaeological periods down to 586 (fall of Jerusalem), and historical periods after that. I don't really care, it seems quite trivial, but I just don't understand why you don't want to do it this way. Can you explain? PiCo (talk) 03:59, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi PiCo, sure: (1) Three-age_system#Criticism and (2) Tiglath-Pileser III. Oncenawhile (talk) 19:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

As Three-age_system#Criticism explains, Lewis Morgan has been dead for over a century, his ideas never caught on. The wiki-article says that "The characterizing of ancient society continues, still with Thomsen's names", meaning stone/bronze/iron. I can't see what Tiglath-Pileser III has to do with it - one ancient king out of many.PiCo (talk) 23:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

As alluded to in the link, the three age system has not proven a very helpful structure for the history of regions with complex bronze age and iron age civilisations. While many historians of the levant mention these "ages", they are usually used in passing and certainly not used as the primary structure for categorising periods of the region's history. If you are familiar with the extraordinary changes Tiglath-Pileser's conquests brought by uniting a region which had been fragmented since the Bronze Age Collapse, you must then agree that the beginning of the Neo-Assyrian empire heralded the dawn of a new era in the region. Oncenawhile (talk) 13:01, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I give up, it's your article. PiCo (talk) 03:52, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Pre-history additions needed

Kebaran, Natufian, Harifian, Pre-Pottery Neolithic, and Halaf culture (among others?) should be added before the current first entry. Tiamut^talk 16:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Outdated Israeli terminology discarded, not helpful ("Canaanite", "Egyptian", "Israelite" periods)

There is no reason to more than mention these terms for users accustomed to older books. The terms have been discarded because they are over-simplistic. They focus on just a couple of cultures or create the sense that they were unified, clearly defined, and dominant throughout those periods, which is wrong. Arminden (talk) 16:04, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Useless article

The "period names" are literal translations of OUTDATED Israeli terms, not accurate under any point of view and not used by anyone anymore.

The "Palestine region" term was plastered over this obvious translation of a Hebrew-language article. It's like putting a kuffiyeh on Netanyahu.

Several of the periods are wrong in many other regards - years, names, even confusion between era and period. Practically all that could be wrong, is wrong.

Such an article is needed and it's a shame that this one is well & truly useless. Arminden (talk) 20:59, 30 May 2021 (UTC)