PalmyraPalmyra (pæl'maɪrə ; Palmyrene: (), romanized: Tadmor; Tadmur) is an ancient city in the eastern part of the Levant, now in the center of modern Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early second millennium BC. Palmyra changed hands on a number of occasions between different empires before becoming a subject of the Roman Empire in the first century AD. The city grew wealthy from trade caravans; the Palmyrenes became renowned as merchants who established colonies along the Silk Road and operated throughout the Roman Empire.
Transjordan (region)Transjordan, the East Bank, or the Transjordanian Highlands (شرق الأردن), is the part of the Southern Levant east of the Jordan River, mostly contained in present-day Jordan. The region, known as Transjordan, was controlled by numerous powers throughout history. During the early modern period, the region of Transjordan was included under the jurisdiction of Ottoman Syrian provinces. After the Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule during the 1910s, the Emirate of Transjordan was established in 1921 by Hashemite Emir Abdullah, and the Emirate became a British protectorate.
Syria (region)Syria (Hieroglyphic Luwian: 𔒂𔒠 Sura/i; Συρία) or Sham (ash-Shām) is the name of a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in Western Asia, broadly synonymous with the Levant. Other synonyms are Greater Syria or Syria-Palestine. The region boundaries have changed throughout history. In modern times, the term "Syria" alone is used to refer to the Syrian Arab Republic. The term is originally derived from Assyria, an ancient civilization centered in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq.
LihyanLihyan (لحيان, Liḥyān; Greek: Lechienoi), also called Dadān or Dedan, was a powerful and highly organized ancient Arab kingdom that played a vital cultural and economic role in the north-western region of the Arabian Peninsula and used Dadanitic language. The Lihyanites ruled over a large domain from Yathrib in the south and parts of the Levant in the north. In antiquity, the Gulf of Aqaba used to be called Gulf of Lihyan. A testimony to the extensive influence that Lihyan acquired.
EdomEdom (ˈiːdəm; Edomite: 𐤀𐤃𐤌 ; אֱדוֹם , lit.: "red"; Akkadian: 𒌑𒁺𒈪 , 𒌑𒁺𒈬 ; Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom in Transjordan, located between Moab to the northeast, the Arabah to the west, and the Arabian Desert to the south and east. Most of its former territory is now divided between present-day southern Israel and Jordan. Edom appears in written sources relating to the late Bronze Age and to the Iron Age in the Levant. Edomites are related in several ancient sources including the Tanakh, a list of the Egyptian pharaoh Seti I from c.
JudeaJudea, Judaea or Judah (dʒuːˈdiːə or dʒuːˈdeɪə; from יהודה, Standard Yəhūda, Tiberian Yehūḏā; Ἰουδαία, ; Iūdaea) is a mountainous region in the southern Levant traditionally dominated by Jerusalem, and now part of the modern States of Palestine and Israel. The name is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and modern-day term originating from the Hebrew name Yehudah, a son of the biblical patriarch Jacob/Israel, with Yehudah's progeny forming the biblical Israelite tribe of Judah (Yehudah) and later the associated Kingdom of Judah.
PetraPetra (Al-Batraʾ; Πέτρα, "Rock"), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō (Nabataean: *Raqēmō), is a historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. It is adjacent to the mountain of Jabal Al-Madbah, in a basin surrounded by mountains forming the eastern flank of the Arabah valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. The area around Petra has been inhabited from as early as 7000 BC, and the Nabataeans might have settled in what would become the capital city of their kingdom as early as the 4th century BC.
IshmaelitesThe Ishmaelites ( Yīšməʿēʾlīm, بَنِي إِسْمَاعِيل Banī Ismā'īl; "sons of Ishmael") were a collection of various Arabian tribes, confederations and small kingdoms described in Islamic tradition as being descended from and named after Ishmael, a prophet according to the Quran, the first son of Abraham and the Egyptian Hagar. According to the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, Ishmael had one daughter and twelve sons, the "twelve princes" mentioned in Genesis 17:20.
QedaritesThe Qedarites were a largely nomadic ancient Arab tribal confederation centred in the Wādī Sirḥān in the Syrian Desert. Attested from the 9th century BC, the Qedarites formed a powerful polity which expanded its territory over the course of the 9th to 7th centuries BC to cover a large area in northern Arabia stretching from Transjordan in the west to the western borders of Babylonia in the east, before later moving westwards during the 6th to 5th centuries BC to consolidate into a kingdom stretching from the eastern limits of the Nile Delta in the west till Transjordan in the east and covering much of southern Palestine, the Sinai Peninsula and the Negev.
NabataeansThe Nabataeans or Nabateans (ˌnæbəˈtiːənz; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as Nabāṭū; Arabic: ٱلْأَنْبَاط, , singular النبطي, ; compare Ναβαταῖος; Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Levant. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city of Raqmu (present-day Petra, Jordan)—gave the name Nabatene (Ναβατηνή) to the Arabian borderland that stretched from the Euphrates to the Red Sea.