1,200 BC to 400 BC






The invasion of the "Sea Peoples" around 1200 BC changed the political landscape of Syria and Palestine dramatically. The Hittite empire was no more, Egypt's power was greatly reduced, and the Aramaeans, who had settled in Syria and along the banks of the Euphrates, were keeping the Assyrians from spreading into the region. This allowed a number of smaller kingdoms to grow both in strength and culture.

One of these smaller kingdoms would lay the foundation of some of today's largest religions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam; Israel. The Israelites established themselves as a power in Palestine around 1250 BC after defeating local Canaanite and Amorite tribes. Israel reached it's point of greatest influence under it's two best known leaders, king David, who subdued the Philistines, and king Solomon. On the death of Solomon in 922 BC the Israelite kingdom was split in two; Israel to the north and Judah to the south.

The Philistines, who had been a part of the raiding "Sea Peoples", had settled along the shores of Palestine around 1200 BC and had come into immediate conflict with the Canaanites and Israelites. To the north in Syria the Aramaeans held the land from Syria to the banks of the Euphrates, and the Phoenicians, a Canaanite people who are credited with the development of the alphabet, held the land on the shores of the Mediterranean. The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I, who began his reign in 1115 BC, crossed the Euphrates and fought his way through Aramaean resistance to set up trade routes with the Phoenician cities, but these trade routes were quickly closed by the Aramaeans after Tiglath-Pileser's death.


After a period of instability in Assyria, king Assurdan II re-established political and economic stability from 945 BC. By 745 BC, after another period of instability, the Assyrians defeated the Urartu, who had been applying pressure to their northern borders for over a century, and the Aramaeans. The Aramaeans, now no longer a military power, quickly turned their energies to trade, becoming so successful that their language, Aramaic, became the common language for trade throughout the Near East.

The Assyrians were known for both their brutality and their policy of redistributing conquered people throughout their empire. In 671 BC the Assyrian army marched 15 days across Sinia and captured the Egyptian capital of Memphis. Civil war broke out nineteen years later between king Ashurbanipal and his brother Shamash-Shumi-Ukin, ending in Shamash-Shumi-Ukin's death after a three year siege of Babylon.


A year after the death of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in 652 BC, the Chaldean chief Nabopolassar seized the Babylonian throne. In 612 BC the Chaldeans, with the aid of the Medes and Scythians, laid a three month siege of the Assyrian capital Nineveh, bringing an end to the Assyrian empire. In 604 BC, the great Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar II began his reign. He set about reconquering the land taken by the Medians and establishing the Babylonian empire, rebuilding Babylon and capturing land in Syria and Palestine that had come under Egyptian influence.


By 550 BC, king Cyrus the Great of Persia had conquered the Medians. Eleven years later he marched his armies against Babylon, capturing the city and bringing an end to the Babylonian empire. The Persians went on to capture Egypt in 525 BC, reaching the height of their power some seven years later. By 500 BC the Persians had unsuccessfully attempted to invade Greece, and with internal conflicts causing problems, they would face a long decline in power before eventually being defeated by the Macedonian leader Alexander the Great in 330 BC.