Levant, (from the French lever, “to rise,” as in sunrise, meaning the east), historically, the countries along the eastern Mediterranean shores. Common use of the term is associated with Venetian and other trading ventures and the establishment of commerce with cities such as Tyre and Sidon as a result of the Crusades. It was applied to the coastlands of Asia Minor and Syria, sometimes extending from Greece to Egypt. It was also used for Anatolia and as a synonym for the Middle or Near East. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the term High Levant referred to the Far East. The name Levant States was given to the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon after World War I, and the term is sometimes still used for those two countries, which became independent in 1946. An equivalent term, Al- Mashriq (“where the sun rises”) exists in Arabic.
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Asia: Semidesert and desert…subtropical deserts extends through the Levant, the Iranian highlands, and the southern edge of Middle Asia. Beneath the semideserts, with their mosaic of desert and arid-steppe vegetation, light chestnut and light brown semidesert soils form; those are low in humus but contain an abundance of strongly alkaline soil. Beneath the…
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Lebanon: Colonies…along the coast of the Levant by a series of settlements, some well known, some virtually nothing but names. Well known throughout history are Joppa (Jaffa; later incorporated into Tel Aviv–Yafo, Israel) and Dor in the south. However, the earliest site known to possess important aspects of Phoenician culture outside…
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Homo sapiens: Bodily structure…the Middle East, called the Levant, is often regarded as a biogeographic extension of Africa, so perhaps the discovery of this fossil in this particular location is not surprising. The specimen is a fractured but quite complete example of an individual whose skeleton is typically
H. sapiens but whose cultural… -
Syro-Palestinian art and architecture…the 2nd millennium
bce , the Levant and its coastal cities became a dependency of Egypt. Local rulers imported Egyptian works of art, which afforded some stimulation to regional craftsmanship. The tombs of the rulers—at Byblos, for instance—were furnished with objects of fine craftsmanship in gold, ivory, ebony, and obsidian. The… -
Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea , an intercontinental sea that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean on the west to Asia on the east and separates Europe from Africa. It has often been called the incubator of Western civilization. This ancient “sea between the lands” occupies a deep, elongated, and almost landlocked irregular depression lying…
More About Levant
4 references found in Britannica articlesAssorted References
- Homo sapiens
- Phoenicia
- physiography
- Syro-Palestinian arts
