This article presents a list of notable historical references to the name Palestine as a place name in the Middle East throughout the history of the region, including its cognates such as Filastin and Palaestina. The term Peleset is found in five inscriptions referring to a neighboring people or land starting from circa 1150 BC during the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt. The first known mention is at the temple at Medinet Habu which refers to the Peleset among those who fought with Egypt in Ramesses III's reign, and the last known is 300 years later on Padiiset's Statue. The Assyrians called the same region Palashtu/Palastu or Pilistu, beginning with Adad-nirari III in the Nimrud Slab in c. 800 BC through to an Esarhaddon treaty more than a century later. Neither the Egyptian nor the Assyrian sources provided clear regional boundaries for the term.The first appearance of the term Palestine was in 5th century BC Ancient Greece when Herodotus wrote of a district of Syria, called Palaistinê between Phoenicia and Egypt in The Histories. Herodotus was describing the coastal region, but is also considered to have applied the term to the inland region such as the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley. Later Greek writers such as Aristotle, Polemon and Pausanias also used the word, which was followed by Roman writers such as Ovid, Tibullus, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, Dio Chrysostom, Statius, Plutarch as well as Roman Judean writers Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. The word was never used in an official context during the Hellenistic period, and is not found on any Hellenistic coin or inscription, first coming into official use in the early second century AD. It has been contended that in the first century authors still associated the term with the southern coastal region.In 135 AD, the Greek Syria Palaestina was used in naming a new Roman province from the merger of Roman Syria and Roman Judaea after the Roman authorities crushed the Bar Kokhba Revolt. There is no evidence as to who was responsible for the name change, but circumstantial evidence links Hadrian to it, and the precise date is not certain. The common view that the name change was intended sever the connection of the Jews to their historical homeland is disputed.During the Byzantine period c. 390, the imperial province of Syria Palaestina was reorganized into: Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Salutaris. Following the Muslim conquest, place names that were in use by the Byzantine administration generally continued to be used in Arabic. The use of the name Palestine became common in Early Modern English, was used in English and Arabic during the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. In the 20th century the name was used by the British to refer to Mandatory Palestine, a mandate from the former Ottoman Empire which had been divided in the Sykes–Picot Agreement. The term was later used in the eponymous State of Palestine. Both incorporated geographic regions from the land commonly known as Palestine, into a new state whose territory was named Palestine.
Continue reading...From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.