The Levant ( ) is a subregion of West Asia that borders the Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west and forms the core of the Middle East. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is equivalent to Cyprus and a stretch of land bordering the Mediterranean Sea in Western Asia[Gasiorowski, Mark (2016). The Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa. p. 5: "... today the term Levantine can describe shared cultural products, such as Levantine cuisine or Levantine archaeology". .][Steiner & Killebrew, p. 9 : "The general limits ..., as defined here, begin at the Plain of 'Amuq in the north and extend south until the Wâdī al-Arish, along the northern coast of Sinai. ... The western coastline and the eastern deserts set the boundaries for the Levant ... The Euphrates and the area around Jebel el-Bishrī mark the eastern boundary of the northern Levant, as does the Syrian Desert beyond the Anti-Lebanon range's eastern hinterland and Mount Hermon. This boundary continues south in the form of the highlands and eastern desert regions of Transjordan."] that is, the historical region of Syria ("Greater Syria"), which includes present-day Syria, as well as Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and the southern part of Cilicia (modern-day Turkey). Its overwhelming characteristic is that it represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia.[ In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the Eastern Mediterranean with its islands;][.] that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece in Southern Europe to Egypt and Cyrenaica in Northern Africa.[Pierre-Louis Gatier, E. Gubel, Philippe Marquis. The Levant History and Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean, Könemann, Page 7]
In the 13th and 14th centuries, the term levante was used for Italian maritime commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, Anatolia, Syria-Palestine, and Egypt, that is, the lands east of Venice.[ It derives from the Italian levante, meaning "rising", implying the rising of the Sun in the east,][ and is broadly equivalent to the term Mashriq (, ),][; ;
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Amy Chua (2004), World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, p. 212;
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Mandyam Srinivasan, Theodore Stank, Philippe-Pierre Dornier, Kenneth Petersen (2014), Global Supply Chains: Evaluating Regions on an EPIC Framework – Economy, Politics, Infrastructure, and Competence: "EPIC" Structure – Economy, Politics, Infrastructure, and Competence, p. 3;
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Nazih Ayubi (1996), Over-stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East p. 108;
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David Thomas, Alexander Mallett (2012), Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History. Volume 4 ( 1200–1350), p. 145;
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Jeff Lesser (1999), Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil p. 45
meaning "the eastern place, where the Sun rises".
In 1581, England set up the Levant Company to trade with the Ottoman Empire.[ This is probably the reason why the term Levant has come to be used more specifically to refer to modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and the island of Cyprus.]
Another term for "Syria-Palestine" is Ash-Shaam (, ), the area that is bounded by the Taurus Mountains of Turkey in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the north Arabian Desert and Mesopotamia in the east, and Sinai in the south (which can be fully included or not).[Steiner & Killebrew, p. 2 .][ Typically, it does not include Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor), the Caucasus Mountains, or any part of the Arabian Peninsula proper. Cilicia (in Asia Minor) and the Sinai Peninsula (Asian Egypt) are sometimes included.
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As a name for the contemporary region, several dictionaries consider Levant to be archaic today.[LEVANT archaic The eastern part of the Mediterranean with the islands and neighbouring countries. New Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd ed., revised, 2005.]["LEVANT, THE". "A general term formerly given to the E shores of the Mediterranean Sea from W Greece to Egypt". The Penguin Encyclopedia, revised 2nd ed., 2004.][LEVANT, ( vieilli) Le Levant: les pays, les régions qui sont au levant (par rapport à la France) et spécialt. les régions de la Méditerrranée orientale. Le Nouveau Petit Robert de la langue française, (1993 revised ed.).] Both the noun Levant and the adjective Levantine are now commonly used to describe the ancient and modern culture area formerly called Syro-Palestinian or Biblical: archaeologists now speak of the Levant and of Levantine archaeology,[Thomas Evan Levy, Historical Biblical Archaeology and the Future: The New Pragmatism, Routledge, 2016 . Thomas E. Levy, "The New Pragmatism", p. 8: "after 1994, it is possible to see an increase in the use of the less geographically specific and more political sic neutral words 'Levant' or 'Levantine' in scholarly citations.... It is important to highlight the pedigree of the term 'Syro-Palestinian' and its gradual replacement by the term 'Levant' or 'Levantine' because the latter is a more culturally and politically neutral term that more accurately reflects the tapestry of countries and peoples of the region, without assuming directionality of cultural influence.". Aaron A. Burke, "The Archaeology of the Levant in North America: The Transformation of Biblical and Syro-Palestinian Archaeology" p. 82 ff: "A number of factors account for the gradual emergence during the past two decades of what is now widely identified as Levantine archaeology in North America... a growing consensus regarding the appropriate terminology... archaeological field research in the Levant"][William G. Dever, The Lives of Ordinary People in Ancient Israel: When Archaeology and the Bible Intersect, 2012, , p. 249: "Today, however, the discipline is often called Palestinian, Syro-Palestinian, or Levantine archaeology."][Steiner & Killebrew (2013). p. 1-2.] food scholars speak of Levantine cuisine,[ and the Latin Church of the Levant continue to be called Levantine Christians.][Michel Elias Andraos, "Levantine Catholic Communities in the Diaspora at the Intersection of Many Identities and Worlds", in Michael L. Budde, Scattered and Gathered: Catholics in Diaspora, 2017 p. 24: "The word 'Levantine' in the title is used on purpose instead of the 'Middle East' or the 'Near East'.... I use 'Levantine' more than the two other designations, because this is the term being used more often nowadays by Christian communities in the Middle East to describe their shared identity as al-maseeheyoun al-mashriqeyoun, Levantine Christians"]
The Levant has been described as the "crossroads of Western Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Northeast Africa",[ and in geology (tectonics) terms as the "northwest of the Arabian Plate".][ Egyptian Journal of Geology, Volume 42, Issue 1, p. 263, 1998] The populations of the Levant[Orfalea, Gregory (2006). The Arab Americans: A History. Olive Branch Press. Northampton, MA. Page 249.]
Etymology
The term Levant appears in English in 1497, and originally meant 'the East' or 'Mediterranean lands east of Italy'.[ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition] The phrase is ultimately from the Latin word levare, meaning 'lift, raise'. Similar etymologies are found in Greek Ἀνατολή Anatolē ( cf. Anatolia 'the direction of sunrise'), in Germanic Morgenland (), in Italian (as in Riviera di Levante, the portion of the Liguria coast east of Genoa), in Hungarian Kelet ('east'), in Spanish language and Catalan language Levante and Llevant, ('the place of rising'), and in Hebrew language מִזְרָח mizrah ('east'). Most notably, "Orient" and its Latin source oriens meaning 'east', is literally "rising", deriving from Latin orior 'rise'.
The notion of the Levant has undergone a dynamic process of historical evolution in usage, meaning, and understanding. While the term "Levantine" originally referred to the European residents of the eastern Mediterranean region, it later came to refer to regional "native" and "minority" groups.
The term became current in English language in the 16th century, along with the first English merchant adventurers in the region; English ships appeared in the Mediterranean in the 1570s, and the English merchant company signed its agreement ("capitulations") with the Ottoman Sultan in 1579.[.] The English Levant Company was founded in 1581 to trade with the Ottoman Empire, and in 1670 the French was founded for the same purpose. At this time, the Far East was known as the "Upper Levant".[
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In early 19th-century travel writing, the term sometimes incorporated certain Mediterranean provinces of the Ottoman Empire, as well as independent Greece (and especially the Greek islands). In 19th-century archaeology, it referred to overlapping cultures in this region during and after prehistoric times, intending to reference the place instead of any one culture. The French mandate of Syria and Lebanon (1920–1946) was called the Levant states.[
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Geography and modern-day use of the term
Today, "Levant" is the term typically used by archaeologists and historians with reference to the history of the region. Scholars have adopted the term Levant to identify the region due to its being a "wider, yet relevant, cultural corpus" that does not have the "political overtones" of Syria-Palestine. The term is also used for modern events, peoples, states or parts of states in the same region, namely Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey are sometimes considered Levant countries (compare with Near East, Middle East, Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia). Several researchers include the island of Cyprus in Levantine studies, including the Council for British Research in the Levant,[ Biblical and Levantine studies , UCLA] Journal of Levantine Studies[ The Ancient Levant, UCL Institute of Archaeology, May 2008] the last of which has dated the connection between Cyprus and mainland Levant to the early Iron Age. Archaeologists seeking a neutral orientation that is neither biblical nor national have used terms such as Levantine archaeology and archaeology of the Southern Levant.[Dever, William G. "Syro-Palestinian and Biblical Archaeology", pp. 1244–1253.][Sharon, Ilan "Biblical archaeology" in Encyclopedia of Archaeology Elsevier.]
While the usage of the term "Levant" in academia has been restricted to the fields of archeology and literature, there is a recent attempt to reclaim the notion of the Levant as a category of analysis in political and social sciences. Two academic journals were launched in the early 2010s using the word: the Journal of Levantine Studies, published by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute[Anat Lapidot-Firilla, "Editor's Note", Journal of Levantine Studies 1:1:5-12 (Summer 2011) full text ] and The Levantine Review, published by Boston College.[Franck Salameh, "From the Editors", The Levantine Review 1:1:1-6 (Spring 2012), , full text ]
The word Levant has been used in some translations of the term ash-Shām as used by the organization known as ISIL, ISIS, and other names, though there is disagreement as to whether this translation is accurate.
In archaeology: a definition
In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000–332 BCE (OHAL; 2013), the definition of the Levant for the specific purposes of the book is synonymous to that of the Arabic " bilad al-sham, 'the land of sham Syria'", translating in Western parlance to greater Syria.[ OHAL defines the boundaries of the Levant as follows.][
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To the north: the Taurus Mountains
[ or the Amik Valley][
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To the east: the eastern deserts, i.e. (from north to south) the Euphrates and the Jebel Bishri area for the northern Levant, followed by the Syrian Desert east of the eastern hinterland of the Anti-Lebanon range (whose southernmost part is Mount Hermon), and Transjordan's highlands and eastern desert (also discussed at Syrian Desert, also known as the Badia region).
[ In other words, Mesopotamia and the North Arabian Desert.][
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To the south: Wadi al-Arish in Sinai
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To the west: the Mediterranean Sea
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- Subregions
A distinction is made between the main subregions of the Levant, the northern and the southern:[
The island of Cyprus is also included as a third subregion in the archaeological region of the Levant:][
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Cyprus, geographically distinct from the Levant, is included due to its proximity and natural resources (copper in particular), which induced close cultural ties.
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History
Demographics
Religious and ethnic groups
The vast majority of Levantines are . After the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century,
Levantine Christian groups include Greek Orthodox (Antiochian Greek), Syriac Orthodox, Eastern Catholic (Syriac Catholic, Melkite and Maronite Church), Roman Catholic (Latin Church), Nestorian, and Protestantism. Armenians mostly belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church. There are also Levantines or Franco-Levantines who adhere to Roman Catholicism. There are also Assyrian people belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church.
Other religious groups in the Levant include Jews, Samaritans, and Druze.
Languages
Most populations in the Levant speak Levantine Arabic (شامي, ), a variety of Arabic descended from the pre-Islamic Arabic dialects of Syria and Hejazi Arabic, but retaining significant influence from Western Middle Aramaic.
Of the languages of Cyprus, the two official languages are Turkish and Greek. The most used languages by population are Greek in the south followed by Turkish in the north. Two minority languages are recognized: Armenian, and Cypriot Maronite Arabic, a hybrid of mostly medieval Arabic vernaculars with strong influence from contact with Turkish and Greek, spoken by approximately 1,000 people.
In Israel, the official language is Modern Hebrew, which is spoken by the majority of its population. Its Arab minority speaks the Arabic language.
Western Neo-Aramaic is additionally spoken in three villages in Syria: Maaloula, Jubb'adin and Bakhah.
Among diaspora communities based in the Levant, Greek language, Armenian and Circassian are also spoken.
Genetics
Ancient DNA analysis has confirmed the genetic relationship between Natufians and other ancient and modern Middle Easterners. The presence of Neolithic Anatolian and Neolithic Iranian ancestry among modern Levantines can be attributed to migrations during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages.
According to recent ancient DNA studies, Levantines derive most of their ancestry from ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of the Bronze Age and Iron Age age Levant.
See also
Overlapping regional designations
Subregional designations
Others
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French post offices in the Ottoman Empire ("Levant" stamps)
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History of the Levant
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Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Referred to in current events as ISIL or ISIS)
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Levantine Sea
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Levantines (Latin Christians), Catholic Europeans in the Levant
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Wildlife of the Levant
Other places in the east of a larger region
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Levante, Spain
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Riviera di Levante, Italy
Explanatory notes
Citations
General and cited references
Further reading
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Julia Chatzipanagioti: Griechenland, Zypern, Balkan und Levante. Eine kommentierte Bibliographie der Reiseliteratur des 18. Jahrhunderts. 2 Vol. Eutin 2006. .
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Levantine Heritage site. Includes many oral and scholarly histories, and genealogies for some Levantine Turkish families.
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Philip Mansel, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean, London, John Murray, 11 November 2010, hardback, 480 pages, , New Haven, Yale University Press, 24 May 2011, hardback, 470 pages, .
External links
