The Northern Levant is a region in the

Eastern Mediterranean Eastern Mediterranean is a loose definition of the eastern approximate half, or third, of the Mediterranean Sea, often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It typically embraces all of that sea's coastal zones, referring to comm ...

, part of the wider region of the

Levant The Levant () is an approximation, approximate historical geography, historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology an ...

, going south as far as the

Litani River The Litani River ( ar, نهر الليطاني, Nahr al-Līṭānī), the classical Leontes ( grc-gre, Λέοντες, Léontes, lions), is an important water resource in southern Lebanon. The river rises in the fertile Beqaa Valley, west of ...

. In archaeology, the Northern Levant can be defined as the northern section of what in Arabic is called "''bilad al-sham'', 'the land of sham yria", in other terms the northern part of

greater Syria Syria ( Hieroglyphic Luwian: 𔒂𔒠 ''Sura/i''; gr, Συρία) or Sham ( ar, ٱلشَّام, ash-Shām) is the name of a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in Western Asia, broadly synonymous with the Levant. Other ...

.Steiner & Killebrew, p
2
''The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000–332 BCE'' (OHAL; 2013) defines its boundaries, for the specific purposes of the book, as follows. * To the north: the

Taurus Mountains The Taurus Mountains (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Toros Dağları'' or ''Toroslar'') are a mountain range, mountain complex in southern Turkey, separating the Mediterranean Region, Turkey, Mediterranean coastal region from the central Anatolia# ...

or the Plain of 'AmuqSteiner & Killebrew, p
9
* To the east: the eastern deserts, i.e. (from north to south) the Euphrates and the Jebel el-Bishrī area for the northern Levant, followed by the

Syrian Desert The Syrian Desert ( ar, بادية الشام ''Bādiyat Ash-Shām''), also known as the North Arabian Desert, the Jordanian steppe, or the Badiya, is a region of desert, semi-desert and steppe covering of the Middle East, including parts of so ...

east of the eastern hinterland of the

Anti-Lebanon The Anti-Lebanon Mountains ( ar, جبال لبنان الشرقية, Jibāl Lubnān ash-Sharqiyyah, Eastern Mountains of Lebanon; Lebanese Arabic: , , "Eastern Mountains") are a southwest–northeast-trending mountain range that forms most of th ...

range (whose southernmost part is

Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( ar, جبل الشيخ or جبل حرمون / ALA-LC: ''Jabal al-Shaykh'' ("Mountain of the Sheikh") or ''Jabal Haramun''; he, הַר חֶרְמוֹן, ''Har Hermon'') is a mountain cluster constituting the southern end of th ...

), also known as the Badia region. In other words,

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

and the North Arabian Desert. * To the south: the Litani River, which marks the boundary towards the

Southern Levant The Southern Levant is a geographical region encompassing the southern half of the Levant. It corresponds approximately to modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan; some definitions also include southern Lebanon, southern Syria and/or the Sinai ...

. * To the west: the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

References

Bibliography

* {{refend Levant Geographical regions

See also

References

Bibliography