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Home , 12th century BC, 13th century BC, 15th century BC, 16th century BC, 1st millennium BC, 2nd millennium BC

Son of Ham, grandson of Noah, who laid a curse upon him ( Ge 9:18,22-27). In Ge 10:15-19 eleven groups who historically inhabited in particular and - in general are listed as his descendants. See also the following article.

K.A.K.

CANAAN, CANAANITES

A Semitic-speaking people and their territory, principally in Phoenicia. Their racial affinities are at present uncertain.

I. The name

The name Canaan (Heb. e ) of people and land derives from that of their forebear Canaan or Kna‘ (see previous article) according to both Ge 10:15-18 and native Canaanite- Phoenician tradition as transmitted by Sanchuniathon and preserved by Philo of Byblos. Kna‘(an) is the native name of the Canaanites-Phoenicians applied to them both in Greek sources and by the Phoenicians themselves ( e.g. on coins; see W. F. Albright, p. 1, n. 1, in his paper, ‘The Rôle of the Canaanites in the History of Civilization’, in The and the Ancient , Essays for W. F. Albright , 1961, pp. 328-362; cited hereafter as BANE Vol.). The meaning of Kn‘(n) is unknown. Outside the Bible, the name occurs both with and without the final n This n could be either a final n of a common Semitic type, or else a Hurrian suffix (Albright, op.cit. , p. 25, n. 50). Formerly, some linked kn‘(n) with words for ‘purple dye’, esp. in Hurrian (with Speiser, Language 12, 1936, p. 124), but this was disproved by Landsberger ( JCS 21, 1967, p. 106f.).

II. Extent of Canaan

‘Canaan’ in both Scripture and external sources has threefold reference.

1. Fundamentally it indicates the land and inhabitants of the Syro-Palestinian coastland, especially Phoenicia proper. This is indicated within Ge 10:15-19 by its detailed enumeration of Sidon ‘the first-born’, the ARKITE , the Sinite, the Zemarite and Hamath in the Orontes Valley. More specifically Nu 13:29; Jos 5:1; 11:3; Jdg 1:27ff. put the Canaanites on the coastlands, in the valleys and plains, and the Jordan valley, with and others in the hills. Notably the inscription of Idrimi, king of  in the 15th BC, mentions his flight to Ammia in coastal Canaan (S. Smith, The , 1949, pp. 72-73; ANET 3, pp. 557-558).

2. ‘Canaan(ite)’ can also cover, by extension, the hinterland and so Syria-Palestine in general. Thus, Ge 10:15-19 includes also the Hittite, , Amorite, Hivite and Girgashite, explaining that ‘the families of the Canaanite spread abroad’ (v. 18); this wider area is defined as extending coastally from Sidon to Gaza, inland to the Dead Sea Sodom and Gomorrah and apparently back up N to LASHA (location uncertain). See also Ge 12:5; 13:12; or Nu 13:17-21; 34:1-2, with the following delimitation of W Palestinian boundaries; Jdg 4:2,23-24 calls Jabin (II) of Hazor titular ‘king of Canaan’. This wider use is also encountered in early external sources. In their ( BC) kings of and elsewhere sometimes use ‘Canaan’ for 's Syro-Palestinian territories generally. And the Egyptian Papyrus Anastasi IIIA (lines 5- 6) and IV (16:line 4) of BC mention ‘Canaanite slaves from Huru’ (= Syria- Palestine generally) (R. A. Caminos, 8, 1954, pp. 117, 200).

3. The term ‘Canaanite’ can bear the more restricted meaning of ‘merchant, trafficker’, trading being a most characteristic Canaanite occupation. In Scripture this meaning may be found in Job 41:6; Isa 23:8; Eze 17:4; Zep 1:11; the word kn‘t in Je 10:17 is even used for ‘wares, merchandise’. A stele of the Amenophis II ( c. 1440 BC) lists among his Syrian captives ‘550 maryannu (= noble -warriors), 240 of their wives, 640 Kn‘nw , 232 sons of princes, 323 daughters of princes’, among others ( ANET , p. 246). From this, Maisler ( BASOR 102, 1946, p. 9) infers that the 640 Kn‘nw (Canaaneans) found in such exalted company are of the merchant ‘plutocracy of the coastal and the trading centres of Syria and Palestine’; but this is uncertain.

III. Canaanites and Amorites

Alongside the specific, wider and restricted uses of ‘Canaan(ite)’ noted above, ‘ AMORITES ’ also has both a specific and a wider reference. Specifically, the Amorites in Scripture are part of the hill-country population of Palestine ( Nu 13:29; Jos 5:1; 11:3). But in its wider use ‘Amorite’ tends to overlap directly the term ‘Canaanite’. ‘Amorite’ comes in under ‘Canaan’ in Ge 10:15- 16 for a start. Then, Israel is to conquer Canaan (= Palestine) in Nu 13:17-21, etc. , and duly comes to dwell in the land of the Amorites, overcoming ‘all the people’ there, namely Amorites ( Jos 24:15,18). reaches, and is promised, Canaan ( Ge 12:5,7; 15:7,18), but occupation is delayed as ‘the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete’ ( Ge 15:16). Shechem is a Canaanite principality under a Hivite ruler ( Ge 12:5-6; 34:2,30), but can be called ‘Amorite’ ( Ge 48:22).

The documentary theory of literary criticism has frequently assayed to use these overlapping or double designations, Canaanites and Amorites (and other ‘pairs’), as marks of different authorship (see, e.g. , S. R. Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament 9, 1913, p. 119, or O. Eissfeldt, The Old Testament, an Introduction , 1965, p. 183). But any such use of these terms does not accord with the external records which have no underlying ‘hands’, and it must therefore be questioned.

In the BC Amurru is part of Syria in the   tablets, while Amorite princes are mentioned in a Mari document in relation to Hazor in Palestine itself ( cf. J.-R. Kupper, Les Nomades en Mésopotamie au temps des Rois de Mari , 1957, pp. 179-180). As Hazor is the Canaanite par excellence of N Palestine, the mingling of people and terms is already attested in Abraham's day. In the 14th/13th BC the specific kingdom of Amurru of -   , Aziru, and their successors in the mountain region secured a firm hold on a section of the Phoenician coast and its Canaanite seaports by conquest and alliance ‘from Byblos to ’ (Amarna Letter No. 98). This AMORITE control in coastal Canaan is further attested by the Battle of Qadesh inscriptions of Rameses II (13th century BC) mentioning the timely arrival inland of a battle force from a ‘port in the land of Amurru’ (see Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica I, 1947, pp. 188*-189*, and Gardiner, The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses II , 1960, on this incident). This is independent evidence for a contiguous use of Amor(ites) and Canaan(ites) in ' . The use of these terms as the distinguishing marks of different literary hands is thus erroneous. In any case the situation reflected in the Pentateuch and Joshua by this usage was radically changed by the impact of the at the end of the 13th century BC, after which date the emergence of that usage would be inexplicable.

IV. The language

The definition of what is or is not ‘Canaanite’ is much controverted. Within the general group of the NW Semitic languages and dialects, ( cf. Isa 19:18) and the W Semitic glosses and terms in the Amarna tablets can correctly be termed ‘S Canaanite’ along with Moabite and Phoenician. Separate but related are and Ya'udic. Between these two groups comes Ugaritic. Some hold this latter to be a separate NW Semitic language, others that it is Canaanite to be classed with Hebrew, etc. Ugaritic itself betrays historical development linguistically, and thus the Ugaritic of the 14th/13th centuries BC is closer to Hebrew than is the archaic language of the great epics (Albright, BASOR 150, 1958, pp. 36-38). Hence it is provisionally possible to view NW Semitic as including S Canaanite (Hebrew, etc. ), N Canaanite (Ugaritic) and Aramaic. Cf. S. Moscati ( The Semites in , 1959, pp. 97-100), who (rather radically) would abolish ‘Canaanite’; and J. Friedrich ( Scientia 84, 1949, pp. 220-223), on this question. The distinction between ‘Canaanite’ and ‘Amorite’ is almost illusory, and little more than dialectal. On NW Semitic  versus Canaanite  , cf. Gelb, JCS 15, 1961, pp. 42f. They differ in little more than the sibilants. Texts from the N Syrian city of are written in a dialect that appears to be W Semitic and to show affinities with S Canaanite, according to the decipherer, G. Pettinato, who calls it ‘Palaeo-Canaanite’ ( Orientalia n.s. 44, 1975, pp. 361-374, esp. 376ff.). ( LANGUAGE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT .).

V. Canaanite history

The presence of Semitic-speaking people in Palestine in the 3rd BC is so far explicitly attested only by two Semitic place-names in a text of that age: Ndi’ which contains the element ’il(u) , ‘god’, and n.k. which begins with ain , ‘spring, well’, both these names occurring in an Egyptian tomb-scene of 5th/6th Dynasty, c. 2400 BC.

However, the question as to whether these indicate the presence of Canaanites, and just when Canaanites appeared in Palestine, is a matter of dispute. It is certain that Canaanites and Amorites were well established in Syria-Palestine by 2000 BC, and a NW-Semitic-speaking element at Ebla in N Syria by c. 2300 BC.

Throughout the BC, Syria-Palestine was divided among a varying number of Canaanite/Amorite city-states. For the 19th/18th century BC, many names of places and rulers are recorded in the Egyptian Execration Texts. On the organization of some of the separate states in Palestine in this, the patriarchal period, see also A. van Selms, Oudtestamentische Studiën 12, 1958 ( Studies on the Book of Genesis ), pp. 192-197. During the period roughly 1500-1380 BC, these petty states were part of Egypt's Asiatic empire; in the 14th century BC the N ones passed under Hittite suzerainty, while the S ones remained nominally Egyptian. Early in the 13th century BC Egypt regained effectual control in Palestine and coastal Syria (the retaining N and inner Syria), but this control evaporated as time passed ( cf H. Klengel, Geschichte Syriens , 1-3, 1965-70). Thus Israel in the late 13th century met Canaanite/Amorite, but not specifically Egyptian, opposition (except for Merenptah's abortive raid). The ‘conquest’ by Rameses III, c. 1180 BC, was a sweeping raid, mainly via the coast and principal routes, and was superficial.

At the end of the 13th century BC the sway of the Canaanite/Amorite city-states, now decadent, was shattered by political upheavals. The , under Joshua, entered W Palestine from across the Jordan, gaining control of the hill-country first and defeating a series of Canaanite kings. For the Hebrews, the conquest of Canaan was the fulfilment of an ancient promise to their forefathers ( Ge 17:8; 28:4,13-14; Ex 6:2-8). They were to dispossess the peoples of the land as expelled by God, and to destroy those who remained ( cf. Dt 7:1,2ff.); this was in consequence of divine judgment on long centuries of persistent wickedness by these peoples ( Dt 9:5, cf. Ge 15:16), and not from any merit on Israel's part.

Meantime, the sea-peoples of the Egyptian records (including Philistines) had destroyed the Hittite empire and swept through Syria and Palestine to be halted on the Egyptian border by Rameses III; some, especially PHILISTINES , establishing themselves on the Palestinian coast. Finally, Aramaean penetration of inland Syria swiftly increased in the century or so following. The result was that the Canaanites now ruled only in Phoenicia proper with its ports and in isolated principalities elsewhere. From the BC onwards, the former Canaanites in their new, restricted circumstances emerged as the more-than-ever maritime PHOENICIANS of the BC, centred on the famous kingdom of TYRE and SIDON . On the history of the Canaanites, especially as continuing as Phoenicians, see Albright, BANE Vol., pp. 328-362.

VI. Canaanite culture

Our knowledge of this is derived from two main sources: first, literary, from the N Canaanite and Babylonian texts discovered at UGARIT (Ras Shamra, on the Syrian coast) with odd fragments elsewhere; and second, archaeological, in the sense of being derived from the excavated objects and remains from and of towns and cemeteries in Syria and Palestine.

a. Canaanite society

Most of the Canaanite city-states were monarchies. The king had extensive powers of military appointment and conscription, of requisitioning lands and leasing them in return for services, of taxation, including tithes, customs-dues, real-estate tax, etc. , and of corvée requisition the labour of his subjects for state purposes. This is directly reflected in Samuel's denunciation of a kingship like that of the nations round about ( 1Sa 8, c. 1050 BC), and clearly evident in the tablets from   (18th-15th centuries BC) and Ugarit (14th-13th centuries BC) (see I. Mendelsohn, BASOR 143, 1956, pp. 17-22). Military, religious and economic matters were under the king's direct oversight; the queen was an important personage sometimes appealed to by high officials; the court was elaborately organized in larger states like Ugarit (for the latter, cf. A. F. Rainey, The Social Stratification of Ugarit , 1962).

The basic unit of society was the family. For the period of the 19th-15th centuries BC, the great N Canaanite epics from Ugarit (see Literature , below) betray the main features of family life (see A. van Selms, Marriage and Family Life in Ugaritic Literature , 1954). Further information is afforded by legal documents for the 14th/13th centuries BC. Among larger social units, besides the obvious ones of towns with their associated villages (in Ugarit state, see Virolleaud, Syria 21, 1940, pp. 123-151, and cf. briefly, C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Literature , p. 124), for which compare the assignment of towns with their villages (‘suburbs’) in Jos 13ff., one may note the widespread organization of guilds. These include primary producers (herdsmen, fowlers, butchers and bakers), artisans (smiths, working in copper [or bronze] and silver, potters, sculptors, and house-, boat-and chariot-builders), and traders, both local and long-distance. Priests and other cult-personnel (see below), also musicians, had guilds or groups; and there were several special classes of warriors. Several inscribed javelin-or spearheads found in Palestine perhaps belonged to late-Canaanite mercenary troops of the 12/11th centuries BC, the sort of people commanded by a Sisera or Jabin ( Jdg 4, etc. ); these also illustrate the free use of early W Semitic alphabetic script in the Palestine of the Judges. It has been suggested that in Canaanite society in 13th-century BC Palestine there was a sharp class distinction between upper-class patricians and lower-class, half-free serfs, the contrast with the relatively humble and homogeneous Israelites possibly being reflected in the excavated archaeological sites.

b. Literature

This is principally represented by N Canaanite texts from UGARIT . These include long, but disordered and fragmentary, sections of the Baal Epic (deeds and fortunes of Baal or ), which goes back linguistically to perhaps c. 2000 BC; the legend of Aqhat (vicissitudes of the only son of good king Dan'el) perhaps from c. 1800 BC; the story of King Keret (bereft of family, he gains a new wife virtually by conquest, and also incurs the wrath of the gods) perhaps about BC; and other fragments. All extant copies date from the 14th/13th centuries BC. The high-flown poetry of the early epics has clearly demonstrated the archaic flavour of much Hebrew OT poetry in its vocabulary and turns of speech. For full translations of the epics, so important for early Canaanite religions, see C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Literature , 1949; G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends , 1956; A. Caquot, M. Sznycer, A. Herdner, Textes Ougaritiques I, 1974. Selections are given in ANET , pp. 129-155, by H. L. Ginsberg, and in DOTT by J. Gray.

c. Religion

The Canaanites had an extensive pantheon, headed by El. More prominent in practice were BAAL (‘lord’), i.e. Hadad the storm-god, and DAGON , with temples in Ugarit and elsewhere. The goddesses ASHERAH , Astarte ( ASHTAROTH ) and Anath—like Baal—had multi- coloured personalities and violent characters; they were goddesses of sex and war. Kothar-and- Hasis was artificer-god ( cf. Vulcan), and other and lesser deities abounded. Actual temples in Palestine include remains at Beth-shan, Megiddo, Lachish, Shechem and especially Hazor (which had at least three), besides those in Syria at Qatna,   or Ugarit. The Ugaritic texts mention a variety of animals sacrificed to the gods: cattle, sheep (rams and lambs) and birds (including doves)—plus, of course, libations. Animal bones excavated in several Palestinian sites support this picture.

The title of high priest ( rb khnm ) is attested for Canaanite religion at Ugarit. That the   of the Ugaritic texts were cult prostitutes is very possible; at any rate, the   were as much an integral part of Canaanite religion there as they were forbidden to Israel ( Dt 23:17-18, etc. ). Human sacrifice in 2nd-millennium Canaanite religion has not yet been isolated archaeologically with any certainty, but there are indications that it was customary. That Canaanite religion appealed to the bestial and material in human nature is clearly evidenced by the Ugaritic texts and in Egyptian texts of Semitic origin or inspiration; cf. Albright, Archaeology and Religion of Israel 3, 1953, pp. 75-77, 158-159, 197, n. 39; see also CALF, GOLDEN . When the full import of this is realized it will be the more evident that physically and spiritually the sophisticated crudities of decaying Canaanite culture and emergent Israel with a unique mission could not coexist.

Bibliography

A. R. Millard, ‘The Canaanites’, in POTT , pp. 29-52. For discoveries at Ugarit, see Schaeffer's reports in Syria since 1929, and the fully documented series of volumes, Mission de Ras Shamra by Schaeffer, Virolleaud and Nougayrol.