Is a Canaanite Empire feasible?

From what I have been reading (granted, it's been Wikipedia, mostly), our knowledge of the region of Canaan in the early Iron Age is pretty spotty. But, would it be possible for some kind of an empire to rise out of the area following the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire? Something that could perhaps dominate the Levant, or even Mesopotamia? If so, what would be a good PoD for this? I haven't been able to turn up anything in my preliminary research on the matter that we know for sure, as many of the accounts given in the Bible are hotly debated.
 

Deleted member 67076

Nah. The issue is there wasn't a set Canaanite confederation or anything of the sort. Canaanite is an exonym to describe a variety of different ethnic/tribal groups that shared a language and pottery, but thats about it.

The geography makes empire building difficult too.

An Israelite empire would be much easier.
 
What we could see is the e Phoenicians (After being united somehow.) set up a naval empire and rule what's OTL Israel and then some. The Philistines might hold onto the Israeli coast, but they can't last long against the Phoenicians.

If there no Jewish People/the Hebrew are an non-issue, The Edomites will expanding into OTL Israel and be coming into conflict with the Philistines and Phoenicians. Moab might get absorbed into Edom.
 
From what I have been reading (granted, it's been Wikipedia, mostly), our knowledge of the region of Canaan in the early Iron Age is pretty spotty. But, would it be possible for some kind of an empire to rise out of the area following the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire? Something that could perhaps dominate the Levant, or even Mesopotamia? If so, what would be a good PoD for this? I haven't been able to turn up anything in my preliminary research on the matter that we know for sure, as many of the accounts given in the Bible are hotly debated.

I was actually thinking about doing an alternate history in this area at some point, although probably not for a while because I'm already working on something, so here are my thoughts:

The Canaanites existed in the shadows of the Egyptians for most of their history up until the Bronze Age collapse, in which the Canaanite culture was replaced with the Israelites in the south and the Phoenicians in the north. Any Canaanite empire would have to either be Israelite or Phoenician, as the old Canaanite culture was subservient to the Egyptians. In our timeline, the Phoenicians did create a sea based empire, and the Israelites conquered a lot of land in the Levant before splitting into two kingdoms. A scenario I could imagine would have a divergence point around the time of King Solomon. Israel would some how have to remain united and then integrate the Phoenicians into their Kingdom. This would boost Israel's trade and wealth, and then allow them to spread perhaps into Arabia or Mesopotamia in addition to the Mediterranean.
 
The Canaanites existed in the shadows of the Egyptians for most of their history up until the Bronze Age collapse, in which the Canaanite culture was replaced with the Israelites in the south and the Phoenicians in the north. Any Canaanite empire would have to either be Israelite or Phoenician, as the old Canaanite culture was subservient to the Egyptians.

I think you're giving much too much credit to the Israelites here, and not enough to the (other) Canaanites. Moab, Edom, and Ammon continued to exist well into the Iron Age, such that plenty of Jews became refugees in their respective kingdoms. I don't think it's too far a stretch at all to think that, had the Exile never ended (hint, hint for a timeline I'm thinking of bringing out in the next few days), the four nations could have found a common identity. If the linguistic situation plays out as OTL and Aramaic replaces all of the Canaanite languages, the distinction between them could then have been lost entirely.

Even religious differences aren't as much of an obstacle here as we'd think today; people really overestimate the distinctiveness of Judaism prior to the Second Temple.
 
It could be. I have this notion inspired by this guy's post of an ATL Israel establishing a religiously tolerant Levantine empire while an ATL Rome establishes itself as monotheistic. IDK, it's an interesting idea.
 
I was actually thinking about doing an alternate history in this area at some point, although probably not for a while because I'm already working on something, so here are my thoughts:

The Canaanites existed in the shadows of the Egyptians for most of their history up until the Bronze Age collapse, in which the Canaanite culture was replaced with the Israelites in the south and the Phoenicians in the north. Any Canaanite empire would have to either be Israelite or Phoenician, as the old Canaanite culture was subservient to the Egyptians. In our timeline, the Phoenicians did create a sea based empire, and the Israelites conquered a lot of land in the Levant before splitting into two kingdoms. A scenario I could imagine would have a divergence point around the time of King Solomon. Israel would some how have to remain united and then integrate the Phoenicians into their Kingdom. This would boost Israel's trade and wealth, and then allow them to spread perhaps into Arabia or Mesopotamia in addition to the Mediterranean.


My understanding was that the historicity of King Solomon, or at least his reign as it is described in the Bible, is debated. It was also my understanding that post-Exile Judaism was exclusively monotheistic as well, which makes it fairly distinctive from the religions surrounding it.


I think you're giving much too much credit to the Israelites here, and not enough to the (other) Canaanites. Moab, Edom, and Ammon continued to exist well into the Iron Age, such that plenty of Jews became refugees in their respective kingdoms. I don't think it's too far a stretch at all to think that, had the Exile never ended (hint, hint for a timeline I'm thinking of bringing out in the next few days), the four nations could have found a common identity. If the linguistic situation plays out as OTL and Aramaic replaces all of the Canaanite languages, the distinction between them could then have been lost entirely.

Even religious differences aren't as much of an obstacle here as we'd think today; people really overestimate the distinctiveness of Judaism prior to the Second Temple.


Do you have any pointers in terms of material that I might look at for verified history in these areas in the early Iron Age? I wasn't married to the idea of an empire centered on Israel, although that is admittedly what I had had in mind. The idea would be to butterfly Jewish monotheism by creating a more diverse empire that would require some level of integration of local pantheons into the court pantheon to satiate local populations. I also liked the idea of Hebrew as a court language, or at least... Hebrew names for monarchs...
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
Even in the bible the Canaanites are not depicted as a monolithic people-there are countless tribes and city states each with their own kings and rulers.

While they had what was in essence the same basic religion and likely the same language they were a rather divided lot.

I would be interested in seeing the levant region united under one Levantine kingdom-maybe an ambitious Canaanite king or leader uses the vacuum of Egyptian power to to unify the region.

You would need the Canaanites to forge an identity that wasn't jebusite, hivite, perezzite, girkashite, arkite, sinite and sidonian.

It's possible but you need a very capable Canaanite King.
 
Even in the bible the Canaanites are not depicted as a monolithic people-there are countless tribes and city states each with their own kings and rulers.

While they had what was in essence the same basic religion and likely the same language they were a rather divided lot.

I would be interested in seeing the levant region united under one Levantine kingdom-maybe an ambitious Canaanite king or leader uses the vacuum of Egyptian power to to unify the region.

You would need the Canaanites to forge an identity that wasn't jebusite, hivite, perezzite, girkashite, arkite, sinite and sidonian.

It's possible but you need a very capable Canaanite King.


Is there a king you have in mind whose historicity isn't under intense debate?
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
Well you could just mine names from the bible-though the historicity would be a hotly debated point if you use that source.
 
was also my understanding that post-Exile Judaism was exclusively monotheistic as well, which makes it fairly distinctive from the religions surrounding it.
Post-Babylonian exile it was, not so much post-Egypt. The israelites in Jerusalem (particularly its elites) would've been strictly monotheists, but the surrounding people would deviate from that.

This guy talkes about it in the context of a possible consort of YHWY
 
I seem to recall from one of my classes at college that there's no proof of the existence of King David - or rather, that the deeds attributed to him (fortresses and war-making etc) seemingly left no historical evidence (although this is contentious). However, there is a suggestion that the deeds of Omri (king of the Northern kingdom centred at Megiddo/Samaria) were co-opted for Judaism's golden boy, David, by the (Southern Kingdom's) writers of what later became the Old Testament. (A place where you can possibly see that David is rather a questionable historical figure, is where Goliath is killed twice - once by David and once by El-Hanan). Of course, had Judah (the southern kingdom) fallen before Israel (the Northern kingdom) - and there's contention about whether they ever were one kingdom to start with - the story might be very different.

But considering that the Northern kingdom was regarded by the south to have strayed from YHWH (Omri gets on the throne via murder - like so many of his predecessors and successors; his son, Ahab, and his wife Jezebel are notorious as the persecutors of YHWH's prophets (most notably Elijah)). So, would a lasting Northern Kingdom fill the "Canaanite Empire" mandate? Particularly if they were to conquer Sidon and Tyre next door, or try to conquer JUdah etc.?
 
I seem to recall from one of my classes at college that there's no proof of the existence of King David - or rather, that the deeds attributed to him (fortresses and war-making etc) seemingly left no historical evidence (although this is contentious). However, there is a suggestion that the deeds of Omri (king of the Northern kingdom centred at Megiddo/Samaria) were co-opted for Judaism's golden boy, David, by the (Southern Kingdom's) writers of what later became the Old Testament. (A place where you can possibly see that David is rather a questionable historical figure, is where Goliath is killed twice - once by David and once by El-Hanan). Of course, had Judah (the southern kingdom) fallen before Israel (the Northern kingdom) - and there's contention about whether they ever were one kingdom to start with - the story might be very different.

I remember reading that the House of Omri is the first Israelite dynasty attested outside of the Bible.

But considering that the Northern kingdom was regarded by the south to have strayed from YHWH (Omri gets on the throne via murder - like so many of his predecessors and successors; his son, Ahab, and his wife Jezebel are notorious as the persecutors of YHWH's prophets (most notably Elijah)). So, would a lasting Northern Kingdom fill the "Canaanite Empire" mandate? Particularly if they were to conquer Sidon and Tyre next door, or try to conquer JUdah etc.?

YES. This is exactly what I was thinking. Jezebel puts down her own reforms, establishes the worship of Ba'al Yahweh and the pantheon under him, and her sons establish a dynasty that stands firm for decades, eventually becoming one of the contenders for the legacy of the Assyrians during their downfall and establishing their own Samarian empire.

And then, centuries later, after overthrowing the last of their Kings, the Romans worship only Jupiter Optimus Maximus, establishing His laws, writing them and their histories on tablets of stone and scrolls of papyrus.
 
YES. This is exactly what I was thinking. Jezebel puts down her own reforms, establishes the worship of Ba'al Yahweh and the pantheon under him, and her sons establish a dynasty that stands firm for decades, eventually becoming one of the contenders for the legacy of the Assyrians during their downfall and establishing their own Samarian empire.

Perhaps at this point the earlier, local henotheism could be reinterpreted or incorporated into a new mythos that established Ba’al Yahweh as the successor to El/El Elyon as the King of the Divine Court, ruling over the lesser Ba’alim like Yam, Mot, Hadad, Shahar, Moloch, etc... Ba’al Yahweh would still have his chosen people and rule as the highest god; the conquered kingdoms, now provences, would acknowledge Yahweh as the God of Gods, but each continue to worship their national deities.
 
I’m not familiar with the history of the of this particular split: how does that effect the timeline of the Samaritan Torah vs. the Masoretic Text?
 
Perhaps at this point the earlier, local henotheism could be reinterpreted or incorporated into a new mythos that established Ba’al Yahweh as the successor to El/El Elyon as the King of the Divine Court, ruling over the lesser Ba’alim like Yam, Mot, Hadad, Shahar, Moloch, etc... Ba’al Yahweh would still have his chosen people and rule as the highest god; the conquered kingdoms, now provences, would acknowledge Yahweh as the God of Gods, but each continue to worship their national deities.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...monotheistic-religion-s.357454/#post-10919556
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...empire-oppressing-a-tiny-rome-by-ad-0.358905/
 
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