associates the Phoenician homeland proper with the northwest coastal region of the Levant, centered at Phoenician cities such as Ugarit, Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. Today, this place is usually equated with modern Lebanon and the coast of modern Syria. Also, there is a modern town in Turkey called Finike which is thought to have derived by the Lycians who traded with Phoenicians in ancient times. Israel and Judea Israel: Egyptian: ysrỉꜣr ()i-i-z:Z1s*Z1s:r-i-A-r:Z1*T14-A1*B1:Z2 Canaanite: 𐤉𐤔𐤓𐤀𐤋 (j.s.r.ʔ.l) Ugaritic: 𐎊𐎌𐎗𐎛𐎍 (yšrʾil) (Israḗl) Hebrew Israeli (Yisrael) Tiberian Biblical Hebrew: 𐤉𐤔𐤓𐤀𐤋 Middle Persian: Adēr / Adēl (Esrajil) Judea: Akkadian: 𒅀𒌑𒁕𒀀𒀀 (ia-u2-da-a-a) (Ioudaía) Hebrew Israeli (Yehuda) Tiberian Hebrew: Yəhūḏā (Jæhudije / Jæhudija) The kingdoms of Israel and Judah were Iron Age Semitic nations spanning from Edom to Assyria. Today, the modern State of Israel controls much of the former territory of the ancient Israelite/Judean kingdoms. According to the Deuteronomic history in the Bible, the polities of Israel and Judah originally split off from an earlier, united Kingdom of Israel, ruled by illustrious kings such as David and Solomon; though modern archaeology, biblical scholarship, and historians are generally somewhat skeptical of the historicity of the alleged united monarchy of Israel, suggesting instead that the two kingdoms developed separately, with the southern kingdom of Judah probably dependent on the northern kingdom of Israel as a satellite state at first. The term Judaea is used by historians to refer to the Roman province that extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms. It was named after Herod Archelaus's ethnarchy of Judea of which it was an expansion, the name being derived from the earlier provincial designations Yehud Medinata (Achaemenid) and Yehud (Neo-Babylonian): all ultimately referring to the former Hebrew kingdom of Judah. Assyria and Syria During Persian rule of the Near East, the Greeks and Romans came to call the region "Syria", believed to have been named after Assyria and the Aramaic language they spread over the entire region. However, Herodotus used the combined name "Syria Palaistinē". "Greater Syria" refers to a larger area that is supported by some nationalists. During the Syrian Wars between the Seleucid dynasty and the Ptolemaic dynasty (274-168 BC), the region was known as Coele-Syria traditionally given the meaning 'hollow' Syria. The later Hellenistic term Koile Syria that appears first in Arrian's Anabasis Alexandri (2.13.7) in AD 145 and has been much discussed, is usually interpreted as a transcription