Editing Canaan (section)

=== Bronze Age collapse ===
{{main|Late Bronze Age collapse}}
[[File:CarteCanaanAuBronzeRécent.jpg|thumb|Map of Canaan during the Late Bronze Age]]
Ann Killebrew has shown that cities such as [[Jerusalem]] were large and important walled settlements in the pre-Israelite
[[Bronze Age|Middle Bronze]] IIB and the Israelite Iron Age IIC period ({{circa|1800–1550}} and {{circa|720–586}} BC), but that during the intervening [[Bronze Age collapse|Late Bronze]] (LB) and [[Iron Age]] I and IIA/B Ages sites like [[Jerusalem]] were small and relatively insignificant and unfortified towns.<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yYS4VEu08h4C |editor1-last=Killebrew |editor1-first=Ann E. |chapter=Biblical Jerusalem: An Archaeological Assessment |editor2-first=Andrew G. |editor2-last=Vaughn |first=Ann E. |last=Killebrew |title=Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology: The First Temple Period |publisher=Society of Biblical Literature |year=2003 |isbn=9781589830660 |access-date=9 October 2018 |archive-date=1 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701140948/https://books.google.com/books?id=yYS4VEu08h4C |url-status=live }}</ref>

Just after the Amarna period, a new problem arose which was to trouble the Egyptian control of southern Canaan (the rest of the region then being under Assyrian control). Pharaoh Horemhab campaigned against [[Shasu]] (Egyptian = "wanderers"),{{citation needed|date=January 2022}} [[nomadic pastoralist]] tribes who had moved across the [[Jordan River]] to threaten Egyptian trade through [[Galilee]] and [[Jezreel (city)|Jezreel]]. [[Seti I]] ({{circa|1290}} BC) is said to have conquered these Shasu, Semitic-speaking nomads living just south and east of the [[Dead Sea]], from the fortress of Taru (Shtir?) to "''Ka-n-'-na''". After the near collapse of the [[Battle of Kadesh]], [[Rameses II]] had to campaign vigorously in Canaan to maintain Egyptian power. Egyptian forces penetrated into [[Moab]] and [[Ammon]], where a permanent fortress garrison (called simply "Rameses") was established.

Some believe the "[[Habiru]]" signified generally all the nomadic tribes known as "Hebrews", and particularly the early [[Israelites]] of the period of the "[[Biblical judges|judges]]", who sought to appropriate the fertile region for themselves.<ref>{{cite web |last=Wolfe |first=Robert |title=From Habiru to Hebrews: The Roots of the Jewish Tradition |work=New English Review |url=https://www.newenglishreview.org/Robert_Wolfe/From_Habiru_to_Hebrews%3A_The_Roots_of_the_Jewish_Tradition/ |access-date=9 October 2018 |archive-date=22 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210522082405/https://www.newenglishreview.org/Robert_Wolfe/From_Habiru_to_Hebrews:_The_Roots_of_the_Jewish_Tradition/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> However, the term was rarely used to describe the Shasu. Whether the term may also include other related ancient Semitic-speaking peoples such as the [[Moab]]ites, [[Ammon]]ites and [[Edom]]ites is uncertain.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Boyer |first1=P. J. |title=The Book of Joshua |date=2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-65095-4 |pages=xiv–xv |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V9dkAwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14 |language=en |access-date=2022-02-24 |archive-date=2024-04-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240429061904/https://books.google.com/books?id=V9dkAwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>

There is little evidence that any major city or settlement in the southern Levant was destroyed around 1200 BC.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Millek |first=Jesse |date=2018 |title=Millek, J.M. 2018. Just how much was destroyed? The end of the Late Bronze Age in the Southern Levant. Ugarit-Forschungen 49: 239–274. |url=https://www.academia.edu/42097042 |journal=Ugarit-Forschungen |access-date=2022-11-11 |archive-date=2022-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209154855/https://www.academia.edu/42097042 |url-status=live }}</ref> At [[Lachish]], The Fosse Temple III was ritually terminated while a house in Area S appears to have burned in a house fire as the most severe evidence of burning was next to two ovens while no other part of the city had evidence of burning. After this though the city was rebuilt in a grander fashion than before.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Millek |first=Jesse |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1v2xvsn |title=Sea Peoples, Philistines, and the Destruction of Cities: A Critical Examination of Destruction Layers 'Caused' by the 'Sea Peoples'. in Fischer, P. and T. Burge (eds.), "Sea Peoples" Up-to-Date: New Research on Transformation in the Eastern Mediterranean in 13th–11th Centuries BC. |date=2017 |publisher=Austrian Academy of Sciences Press |isbn=978-3-7001-7963-4 |edition=1 |pages=127–128 |jstor=j.ctt1v2xvsn |access-date=2022-11-11 |archive-date=2023-02-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230213105036/https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1v2xvsn |url-status=live }}</ref> For [[Megiddo, Israel|Megiddo]], most parts of the city did not have any signs of damage and it is only possible that the palace in Area AA might have been destroyed though this is not certain.<ref name=":2" /> While the monumental structures at Hazor were indeed destroyed, this destruction was in the mid-13th century BC long before the end of the Late Bronze Age began.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ben-Tor |first1=Amnon |last2=Zuckerman |first2=Sharon |date=2008 |title=Hazor at the End of the Late Bronze Age: Back to Basics |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25609263 |journal=Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research |volume=350 |issue=350 |pages=1–6 |doi=10.1086/BASOR25609263 |jstor=25609263 |s2cid=163208536 |issn=0003-097X |access-date=2022-11-11 |archive-date=2022-11-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221104132835/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25609263 |url-status=live }}</ref> However, many sites were not burned to the ground around 1200 BC including: [[Ascalon|Asqaluna]], [[Ashdod (ancient city)]], [[Tell es-Safi]], [[Timnah|Tel Batash]], [[Tel Burna]], [[Tel Dor]], [[Tel Gerisa]], [[Tell Jemmeh]], Khirbet Rabud, [[Tel Zeror]], and [[Tell Abu Hawam]] among others.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />

Despite many theories which claim that trade relations broke down after 1200 BC in the southern Levant, there is ample evidence that trade with other regions continued after the end of the Late Bronze Age in the Southern Levant.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Millek |first=Jesse |url=https://www.academia.edu/41867831 |title=Exchange, Destruction, and a Transitioning Society. Interregional Exchange in the Southern Levant from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron I. RessourcenKulturen 9. Tübingen: Tübingen University Press. |date=2019 |access-date=2022-11-11 |archive-date=2022-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209154855/https://www.academia.edu/41867831 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Millek |first=Jesse |date=2022 |title=The Impact of Destruction on Trade at the End of the Late Bronze Age in the Southern Levant. In: F. Hagemeyer (ed.), Jerusalem and the Coastal Plain in the Iron Age and Persian Periods. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 39–60. |url=https://www.academia.edu/74756865 |journal=Jerusalem and the Coastal Plain in the Iron Age and Persian Periods New Studies on Jerusalem's Relations with the Southern Coastal Plain of Israel/Palestine (C. 1200–300 BC) Research on Israel and Aram in Biblical Times IV |access-date=2022-11-11 |archive-date=2022-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209160557/https://www.academia.edu/74756865 |url-status=live }}</ref> Archaeologist Jesse Millek has shown that while the common assumption is that trade in Cypriot and Mycenaean pottery ended around 1200 BC, trade in [[Cypriot pottery]] actually largely came to an end at 1300, while for [[Mycenaean pottery]], this trade ended at 1250 BC, and destruction around 1200 BC could not have affected either pattern of international trade since it ended before the end of the Late Bronze Age.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Millek |first=Jesse |url=https://www.academia.edu/41867831 |title=Exchange, Destruction, and a Transitioning Society. Interregional Exchange in the Southern Levant from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron I. RessourcenKulturen 9. Tübingen: Tübingen University Press. |date=2019 |pages=180–212 |access-date=2022-11-11 |archive-date=2022-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209154855/https://www.academia.edu/41867831 |url-status=live }}</ref> He has also demonstrated that trade with [[Egypt]] continued after 1200 BC.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Millek |first=Jesse |url=https://www.academia.edu/41867831 |title=Exchange, Destruction, and a Transitioning Society. Interregional Exchange in the Southern Levant from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron I. RessourcenKulturen 9. Tübingen: Tübingen University Press. |date=2019 |pages=217–238 |access-date=2022-11-11 |archive-date=2022-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209154855/https://www.academia.edu/41867831 |url-status=live }}</ref> Archaeometallurgical studies performed by various teams have also shown that trade in [[tin]], a non-local metal necessary to make [[bronze]], did not stop or decrease after 1200 BC, even though the closest sources of the metal were modern Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, or perhaps even Cornwall, England.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Yahalom-Mack |first=N. |date=2014 |title=N. Yahalom-Mack, E. Galili, E., I. Segal, A. Eliyahu-Behar, E. Boaretto, S. Shilstein and I. Finkelstein, New Insights to Levantine Copper Trade: Analysis of Ingots from the Bronze and Iron Ages in Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science 45 (2014), pp. 159–177. |url=https://www.academia.edu/30800615 |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science |access-date=2022-11-11 |archive-date=2022-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209160554/https://www.academia.edu/30800615 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ashkenazi |first=D. |date=2016 |title=Ashkenazi, D., Bunimovitz, S. and Stern, A. 2016. Archaeometallurgical Investigation of Thirteenth-Twelfth Centuries BC Bronze Objects from Tel Beth-Shemesh, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 6: 170–181 |url=https://www.academia.edu/28132010 |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports |access-date=2022-11-11 |archive-date=2022-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209160552/https://www.academia.edu/28132010 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Lead]] from [[Sardinia]] was still being imported to the southern Levant after 1200 BC during the early Iron Age.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Yagel |first1=Omri |last2=Ben-Yosef |first2=Erez |title=Lead in the Levant during the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages |url=https://www.academia.edu/88829580 |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports |year=2022 |volume=46 |pages=103649 |doi=10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103649 |bibcode=2022JArSR..46j3649Y |issn=2352-409X |access-date=2022-11-11 |archive-date=2022-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209160554/https://www.academia.edu/88829580 |url-status=live }}</ref>