Levant

The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the

Eastern Mediterranean

region of

Western Asia

. In its narrowest sense, it is equivalent to the historical region of Syria, which included present-day

Syria

,

Lebanon

,

Jordan

,

Israel

, Palestine and most of

Turkey

southwest of the middle Euphrates. 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

to

Cyrenaica

in eastern

Libya

.

The term entered English in the late 15th century from French. It derives from the Italian , meaning "rising", implying the rising of the Sun in the east, and is broadly equivalent to the term ''

al-Mashriq

'' ( ar, ٱلْمَشْرِق, ), meaning "the eastern place, where the Sun rises".

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. Eventually the term was restricted to the Muslim countries of Syria-Palestine and Egypt. In 1581, England set up the Levant Company to monopolize commerce with the Ottoman Empire. The name ''Levant States'' was used to refer to the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon after

World War I

. 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 Cyprus. Some scholars mistakenly believed that it derives from the name of Lebanon. Today the term is often used in conjunction with prehistoric or ancient historical references. It has the same meaning as "Syria-Palestine" or ''Ash-Shaam'' ( ar, ٱلشَّام, ), the area that is bounded by the Taurus Mountains of Turkey in the North, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and the north

Arabian Desert

and

Mesopotamia

in the east. Typically, it does not include Anatolia (also called 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.

As a name for the contemporary region, several dictionaries consider Levant to be archaic today. 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; food scholars speak of Levantine cuisine; and the Latin Christians of the Levant continue to be called Levantine Christians.

The Levant has been described as the "crossroads of

western Asia

, the eastern Mediterranean, and northeast Africa", and the "northwest of the Arabian plate". The populations of the Levant share not only the geographic position, but cuisine, some customs, and history. They are often referred to as ''Levantines''.

Etymology

The term ''Levant'' appears in English in 1497, and originally meant 'the

East

' or 'Mediterranean lands east of Italy'. It is borrowed from the French 'rising', referring to the rising of the sun in the east, or the point where the sun rises. The phrase is ultimately from the Latin word , meaning 'lift, raise'. Similar etymologies are found in Greek (''Anatolē'', ''cf.'' Anatolia), in

Germanic

''Morgenland'' (), in Italian (as in 'Riviera di Levante', the portion of the Liguria coast east of

Genoa

), in Hungarian ''Kelet'', in

Spanish

and Catalan ''Levante'' and ''Llevant'', ("the place of rising"), and in Hebrew (, ''

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

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 Compagnie du Levant was founded for the same purpose. At this time, the

Far East

was known as the "Upper Levant".

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.

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 it 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

Western Asia

). Several researchers include the island of

Cyprus

in Levantine studies, including the Council for British Research in the Levant, the UCLA Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department, '' Journal of Levantine Studies'' and the UCL Institute of Archaeology,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 and ''The Levantine Review'', published by Boston College.

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.

History

Demographics and religion

The largest religious group in the Levant are the

Muslim

s and the largest cultural-linguistic group are

Arabs

. Muslim Arabs became the majority due to the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century and subsequent Arabization of the region. The majority of Muslim Levantines are Sunni with Alawi and Shia minorities. Other large ethnic groups in the Levant include

Jews

, Maronites, Kurds, Turks, Turkmens, Antiochian Greeks, Assyrians, Yazidi

Kurds

, Druze and Armenians.

There are many Levantine Christian groups such as Greek, Oriental Orthodox (mainly Syriac Orthodox,

Coptic

, Georgian, and Maronite), Roman Catholic, Nestorian, and Protestant. Armenians mostly belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church. There are Levantines or Franco-Levantines who are mostly

Roman Catholic

. There are also

Circassians

, Turks,

Samaritans

, and Nawars. There are Assyrian peoples belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East (autonomous) and the Chaldean Catholic Church (Catholic).

In addition, this region has a number of sites that are of religious significance of the Syrian region, religious significance, such as Al-Aqsa Mosque, Antioch in Hatay Province, Hatay, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Western WallFrishman, Avraham; ''Kum Hisalech Be’aretz'', Jerusalem, 2004 in Jerusalem.

Language

Most populations in the Levant speak Levantine Arabic (, ), usually classified as the varieties North Levantine Arabic in Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Turkey, and South Levantine Arabic in Palestine and Jordan. Each of these encompasses a spectrum of regional or urban/rural variations. In addition to the varieties normally grouped together as "Levantine", a number of other varieties and dialects of Arabic are spoken in the Levant area, such as Levantine Bedawi Arabic and Mesopotamian Arabic.

Among the languages of Israel, the official language is Hebrew language, Hebrew; Arabic was until July 19, 2018, also an official language. The Arab citizens of Israel, Arab minority, in 2018 about 21% of the population of Israel, speaks a dialect of Levantine Arabic essentially indistinguishable from the forms spoken in the Palestinian territories.

Of the languages of Cyprus, the majority language is Greek, 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 Greek, spoken by approximately 1,000 people.

Some communities and populations speak Western Neo-Aramaic, Aramaic, Greek language, Greek, Armenian language, Armenian, Circassian language, Circassian, French language, French, Russian language, Russian, or

English

.

See also

Overlapping regional designations
* Fertile Crescent
* Mashriq
*

Mesopotamia

*

Middle East

* Near East
*

Western Asia

Subregional designations
*

Southern Levant

Others
* French post offices in the Ottoman Empire ("Levant" stamps)
* History of the Levant
* Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Referred to in current events as ISIL or ISIS)
* Levantine Sea
* Levantines (Latin Christians), Catholic Europeans in the Levant

''Other places in the east of a larger region''
* Levante, Spain
* Riviera di Levante, Italy

Notes

References

Bibliography

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Further reading

* Julia Chatzipanagioti: Griechenland, Zypern, Balkan und Levante. Eine kommentierte Bibliographie der Reiseliteratur des 18. Jahrhunderts. 2 Vol. Eutin 2006.

Levantine Heritage
site. Includes many oral and scholarly histories, and genealogies for some Levantine Turkish families.
* 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

''France and the Levant''

{{Authority control

Levant,
Eastern Mediterranean
Near East
Geography of the Middle East
History of Western Asia
Regions of Europe
Geography of Cyprus
Geography of Israel
Geography of Jordan
Geography of Lebanon
Geography of the State of Palestine
Geography of Syria
Geography of Hatay Province
Regions of Asia
Historical regions