01 Who do we mean by 'Canaanites'?
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This article is from the Canaanite/Ugaritic Mythology FAQ, by Christopher B. Siren cbsiren@hopper.unh.edu with numerous contributions by others.
01 Who do we mean by 'Canaanites'?
Linguisticly, the ancient Semites have been broadly classified into
Eastern and Western groups. The Eastern group is represented most
prominently by Akkadian, the language of the Assyrians and Babylonians,
who inhabited the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys. The Western group
is further broken down into the Southern and Northern groups. The South
Western Semites inhabited Arabia and Ethiopia while the North Western
Semites occupied the Levant - Syria and ancient Palestine, the
region often referred to in the Bible as Canaan.
Recent archaeological finds indicate that the inhabitants of the region
themselves refered to the land as 'ca-na-na-um' as early as the mid-third
milenium B.C. (Aubet p. 9) Variations on that name in reference to the
country and its inhabitants continue through the first millenium B.C. The
word appears to have two etymologies. On one end, represented by the
Hebrew "cana'ani" the word meant merchant, an occupation for which the
Canaanites were well known. On the other end, as represented by the
Akkadian kinahhu, the word reffered to the red-colored wool which was a
key export of the region. When the Greeks encountered the Canaanites, it
may have been this aspect of the term which they latched onto as they
renamed the Canaanites the Phoenikes or Phoenicians, which may derive
from a word meaning red or purple, and descriptive of the cloth for which
the Greeks too traded. The Romans in turn transcribed the Greek phoinix
to poenus, thus calling the descendants of the Canaanite emmegrees to
Carthage 'Punic'. However, while both Phoenician and Canaanite refer to
approximately the same culture, archaeologists and historians commonly
refer to the pre-1200 or 1000 BC Levantines as Canaanites and their
descendants, who left the bronze age for the iron, as Phoenicians.
It has been somewhat frustrating that so little outside of the Bible and
less than a handful of secondary and tertiary Greek sources (Lucian of
Samosata's _De_Syria_Dea_ (The Syrian Goddess), fragments of the
_Phoenician_History_ of Philo of Byblos_, and the writings of
Damasacius) remain to describe the beliefs of the people of the area.
Unlike in Mesopotamia, papyrus was readily availible so that most of the
records simply deteriorated. A cross-roads of foreign empires, the
region never truly had the chance to unify under a single native rule;
thus scattered statues and conflicting listings of deities carved in
shrines of the neighboring city-states of Gubla (Byblos), Sidon, and
Tyre were all the primary sources known until the uncovering of the city
of Ugarit in 1928 and the digs there in the late 1930's.
The Canaanite myth cycle recovered from the city of Ugarit in what
is now Ras Sharma, Syria dates back to at least 1400 B.C. in its written
form, while the deity lists and statues from other cities, particularly
Gubla date back as far as the third millenium B.C. Gubla, during that time,
maintained a thriving trade with Egypt and was described as the capital
during the third millenium B.C. Despite this title, like Siduna (Sidon),
and Zaaru (Tyre), the city and the whole region was lorded over and colonized
by the Egyptians. Between 2300 and 1900 BC, many of the coastal Canaanite
cities were abandoned, sacked by the Amorites, with the inland cities of
Allepo and Mari lost to them completely. The second millenium BC saw a
resurgence of Canaanite activity and trade, particularly noticible in Gubla
and Ugarit. By the 14th century BC, their trade extended from Egypt, to
Mesopotamia and to Crete. All of this was under the patronage and
dominance of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. Zaaru managed to maintain an
independent kingdom, but the rest of the soon fell into unrest, while
Egypt lost power and interest. In 1230, the Israelites began their invasion
and during this time the possibly Aachean "Sea Peoples" raided much of
the Eastern Mediterranian, working their way from Anatolia to Egypt.
They led to the abandonment of Ugarit in 1200 BC, and in 1180, a group of
them established the country of Philistia, i.e. Palestine, along Canaan's
southern coast.
Over the next three or four hundred years, the Canaanites gradually
recovered. Now they occupied little more than a chain of cities along
the coast, with rival city-states of Sidon and Tyre vying for control over
larger sections of what the Greeks began to call Phoenicia. Tyre won out
for a time and the unified state of Tyre-Sidon expanded its trade through
the Mediterranian and was even able to establish colonies as far away as
Spain. The most successful of these colonies was undoubtedly Carthage,
said in the Tyrian annals to have been established in 814 BC by
Pygmailion's sister Ellisa. She was named Dido, 'the wandering one', by
the Lybian natives and escaped an unwelcome marriage to their king by
immolating herself, a story which Virgil also recounts in the Aeneid.
Her dramatic death brought about her deification while the colonists
continued to practice the Canaanite religion, spreading it under Carthage's
auspices while that state expanded during sixth and fifth centuries B.C.
Carthage outlasted its patron state as Tyre and Sidon were crushed under
Assyrian expansion begining during the reign of Sennacherib around 724
BC and ending under Nebuchadnezar around 572 BC.
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