The earliest prehistoric cultures of Lebanon, such as the Qaraoun culture gave rise to the civilization of the Canaanite period, when the region was populated by ancient peoples, cultivating land and living in sophisticated societies during the 2nd millennium BC.

Early Canaanite civilization was characterized by small walled market towns, surrounded by peasant farmers growing a range of local horticultural products, along with commercial growing of olives, grapes for wine, and pistachios, surrounded by extensive grain cropping, predominantly wheat and barley.

The fall of later Canaanite civilization occurred with the incorporation of the area into the Greco-Roman world ( as Iudaea province ), and after Byzantine times, into the Muslim Arab and proto-Muslim Ummayad Caliphate.

Western Aramaic, one of the two lingua francas of Canaanite civilization, is still spoken in a number of small Syrian villages, whilst Phoenician Canaanite disappeared as a spoken language in about 100 AD.

A portion of the Canaanite period wall from 3700 years ago was uncovered in an attempt to ascertain if this was the first evidence of civilization.

In their minds, the Jewish People were a part of a larger Hebrew civilization bound together by Canaanite languages and nationhood in Canaan.

Israelites of course abstained from pork, but Ahab was married to a Phoenician / Tyrian princess Jezebel, who was one of the most " powerful and notorious women of monarchic times " yet who died of a similarly seemingly random death like her husband, and his capital of Samaria was said to follow Canaanite gods.

A cadastral survey seems also to have been instituted, and one of the documents relating to it states that a certain Uru-Malik, whose name appears to indicate his Canaanite origin, was governor of the land of the Amorites, or Amurru as the semi-nomadic people of Syria and Canaan were called in Akkadian.

The apostasy of the people was rampant, having turned away from God in order to serve the calves of Jeroboam II and Baal, a Canaanite god.

According to Howard Schwartz, " the myth of the fall of Lucifer " existed in fragmentary form in Isaiah 14: 12 and other ancient Jewish literature ; Schwartz claims that the myth originated from " the ancient Canaanite myth of Athtar, who attempted to rule the throne of Ba ' al, but was forced to descend and rule the underworld instead ".

Enlil ( nlin ), ( EN = Lord + LÍL = Storm, " Lord ( of the ) Storm ") was the name of a chief deity listed and written about in Sumerian religion, and later in Akkadian, Hittite, Canaanite and other Mesopotamian clay and stone tablets.

Baal was the Canaanite god responsible for rain, thunder, lightning, and dew.

Settlement was concentrated in cities along the coastal plain and along major communication routes ; the central and northern hill country which would later become the biblical kingdom of Israel was only sparsely inhabited although letters from the Egyptian archives indicate that Jerusalem was already a Canaanite city-state recognising Egyptian overlordship.

The Canaanite city-state system broke down at the end of the Late Bronze period, and Canaanite culture was then gradually absorbed into that of the Philistines, Phoenicians and Israelites.

The process was gradual rather than swift: a strong Egyptian presence continued into the 12th century BCE, and, while some Canaanite cities were destroyed, others continued to exist in Iron I.

Modern Rabbinical Judaism is monotheistic, but its Canaanite religion antecedent in ancient Israel and Judah ( 10th to 7th centuries BC ) was henotheistic.

Several Biblical stories allude to the belief that the Canaanite gods all existed and possessed the most power in the lands that worshiped them or in their sacred objects ; their power was real and could be invoked by the people who patronised them.

John Day argues that the origins of biblical Yahweh, El, Asherah, and Ba ' al, may be rooted in earlier Canaanite religion, which was centered on a pantheon of gods much like the Greek Pantheon.

Jericho's name in Hebrew,, is thought to derive from Canaanite word Reaẖ, though an alternative theory holds that it is derived from the word meaning " moon " ( Yareaẖ ) in Canaanite, since the city was an early centre of worship for lunar deities.

According to carbon dating the Canaanite city ( Jericho City IV ) was destroyed between 1617 and 1530 BCE, but rounded as c. 1550 BCE.

In ancient Canaanite mythology, the morning star is pictured as a god, Attar, who attempted to occupy the throne of Ba ' al and, finding he was unable to do so, descended and ruled the underworld.

The best-known is the Trojan Horse of the Trojan War, and a similar story tells how the Canaanite city of Joppa was conquered by the Egyptians in the 15th century BC.

Yahweh, however, was not a Canaanite god, and modern scholars see him originating in Edom, the region south of Judah.

If Yahweh was not a Canaanite god, this raises the question of where he originated and how he became the national god of Israel and Judah in Iron Age II ( 1000-586 ).

The Phoenician text has long been known to be in a Semitic, more specifically Canaanite language ( very closely related to Hebrew, and also relatively close to Aramaic and Ugaritic ); hence there was no need for it to be " deciphered.

The fact that Shoshenq I left behind " explicit records of a campaign into Canaan ( scenes ; a long list of Canaanite place-names from the Negev to Galilee ; stelae ), including a stela at Megiddo " supports the traditional interpretation.

During the periods of the collapse of Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia and the First Intermediary Period in Egypt, the Hyksos invasions and the end of the Middle Bronze Age in Assyria and Babylonia, and the Late Bronze Age collapse, trade through the Canaanite area would dwindle, as Egypt, Babylonia, and to a lesser degree Assyria, withdrew into their isolation.

In addition, the Book of Judges and Book of Joshua may be parallel accounts referring to the same events, rather than describing different time periods, and thus that they refer to the same Jabin, a powerful king based in Hazor, whose Canaanite confederation was defeated by an Israelite army.

In the Middle Bronze Age an apparently " alphabetic " system known as the Proto-Sinaitic script is thought by some to have been developed in the Sinai peninsula during the 19th century BC, by Canaanite workers in the Egyptian turquoise mines.

File: Cristo e la cananea di Alessandro Allori detail. jpg | Christ and Canaanite woman by Alessandro Allori.

An alliance of Amorite kingdoms headed by the Canaanite king of Jerusalem is defeated with Yahweh's miraculous help, and the enemy kings are hanged on trees.

The association of the serpent with a monstrous opponent overcome by a heroic deity has its roots in the mythology of the Ancient Near East, including Canaanite ( Hebrew, Ugaritic ), Hittite and Mesopotamian.

Dating of remains to the biblical history is made difficult by the Bible's lack of datable events and its unreliable internal chronology ; the interpretation of remains has been influenced by religious and nationalistic arguments, as evidenced by arguments over burials from the highland settlement phase ; and no material remains have been found which can reliably separate Israelite from non-Israelite ( Canaanite ) sites in the earliest period.

For example, the Moabites worshipped the god Chemosh, the Edomites, Qaus, both of whom were part of the greater Canaanite pantheon, headed by the chief god, El.

* Jebusite, a Canaanite tribe who inhabited and built Jerusalem prior to its conquest by King David

Northern Canaanites are commonly thought to develop into Phoenicians by the 8th century BC-a claim which has recently been verified by genetic comparison analysis of ancient Canaanite and Phoenician burial sites in modern Lebanon.

According to a widely accepted theory ( the " Kenite hypothesis "), the Edomite god YHW could have been brought north to the Canaanite hill country and the early Israelites by migratory Edomite desert tribes, of whom the Kenites were one.

In the narrative of the later Hebrew conquest, it is under Canaanite control and ruled by the three sons of Anak, descendants of the Nephilim ( Joshua 10: 5, 6 ).

This polarity, between coastal towns and agrarian hinterland, was illustrated in Canaanite mythology by the struggle between the storm god, variously called Teshub ( Hurrian ) or Ba ' al Hadad ( Semitic Amorite / Aramaean ) and Ya ' a, Yaw, Yahu or Yam, god of the sea and rivers.

In 1967, at Deir Alla, Jordan, archaeologists found an inscription apparently containing a previously unknown prophecy by Balaam written in a previously unattested dialect with Aramaic and South Canaanite characteristics and employing an idiosyncratic script.

The Canaanite equivalent of Ishtar was Astarte, and according to the contemporary Christian writer Eusebius temple prostitution was still being carried on in the Phoenician cities of Aphaca and Heliopolis ( Baalbek ) until closed down by the emperor Constantine in the 4th century.

It was first settled in the Middle Canaanite ( Bronze ) II period by the Phoenicians.