Six thousand years on one stretch of coastline
Sixteen powers. Sixteen sets of gods, tongues, and flags. Scroll to follow every conquest from the first Canaanite city-states to today.
3000 BCE – 1550 BCE
For over a millennium, walled city-states ruled by local kings controlled the coast and inland valleys, developing the alphabet that would shape writing across the ancient world.
Egyptian Pharaohs (Thutmose III, Ramesses II) arrives from The Nile Valley, Egypt
1550 BCE – 1150 BCE
Pharaohs ruled the Levant indirectly through loyal local kings, garrisons, and tribute, as preserved in the Amarna letters.
How power changed hands Egyptian armies pushed north through repeated campaigns, folding the Canaanite city-states into Egypt's sphere as tribute-paying vassals.
Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, Phoenician city-states (Tyre, Sidon), the Philistine pentapolis arrives from Israelites: Levantine highlands. Phoenicians: the Canaanite coast. Philistines: Aegean and Anatolian migrants.
1150 BCE – 732 BCE
A mosaic of small, often rival kingdoms: Hebrew highland states, Phoenician trading ports that seeded colonies across the Mediterranean, and Philistine cities on the southern coast.
How power changed hands The Bronze Age collapse and the arrival of the seafaring "Sea Peoples" — including the Philistines — broke Egyptian control and let new local and migrant powers take root.
Assyrian kings (Tiglath-Pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib) arrives from Upper Mesopotamia (modern northern Iraq)
732 BCE – 605 BCE
The Levant became a fought-over frontier of the Assyrian war machine, with the northern Kingdom of Israel destroyed and its people scattered.
How power changed hands Assyrian armies swept west, destroying Damascus in 732 BCE and Samaria in 722 BCE, deporting populations and reducing Judah to a tribute-paying vassal.
Nebuchadnezzar II and his successors arrives from Babylon, southern Mesopotamia
605 BCE – 539 BCE
Babylonian rule ended Judah's independence and began the Babylonian Exile, a trauma that reshaped Israelite religion and identity.
How power changed hands Babylon crushed the retreating Assyrians and Egyptians at Carchemish in 605 BCE, then besieged and destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BCE, exiling much of Judah's population.
Persian Great Kings (Cyrus the Great, Darius I, Xerxes) arrives from Persia (modern Iran)
539 BCE – 332 BCE
Persian governors ruled a religiously diverse region with a comparatively light hand, allowing local law and worship to continue.
How power changed hands Cyrus the Great toppled Babylon in 539 BCE and absorbed the Levant into the satrapy of Eber-Nari, then let exiled Judeans return and rebuild their Temple.
Alexander the Great, then the Ptolemaic and Seleucid dynasties (briefly the independent Hasmonean kingdom after 140 BCE) arrives from Macedon and Greece
332 BCE – 63 BCE
Greek cities, language, and customs spread across the Levant, provoking both adoption and revolt — most famously the Maccabean uprising that won Judea a generation of independence.
How power changed hands Alexander the Great took the coast in 332 BCE after besieging Tyre and Gaza; his empire later split between his generals' Ptolemaic and Seleucid dynasties, who fought over the region for two centuries.
The Roman Republic and Empire, governing directly or through client kings such as Herod the Great arrives from Rome, Italy
63 BCE – 395 CE
Roman roads, garrisons, and client kings brought four and a half centuries of imperial order, punctuated by major Jewish revolts in 66–73 and 132–135 CE.
How power changed hands The Roman general Pompey marched into Jerusalem in 63 BCE, ending Hasmonean independence and folding the Levant into Rome's expanding eastern provinces.
Byzantine Emperors, ruling from Constantinople arrives from Constantinople, the Eastern Roman Empire
395 CE – 636 CE
Byzantine rule cemented Christianity across the region, surviving a dramatic but temporary Persian conquest before Arab armies arrived at its borders.
How power changed hands When the Roman Empire split in 395 CE, the Levant fell under the Christian Eastern half ruled from Constantinople.
The Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphs (ruling from Damascus), then the Abbasid Caliphs (ruling from Baghdad) arrives from The Arabian Peninsula
636 CE – 1099 CE
Damascus briefly became the capital of an empire stretching from Spain to Central Asia, before power shifted east to Abbasid Baghdad and the region settled into the broader Islamic world.
How power changed hands Arab Muslim armies broke Byzantine power at the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 CE, bringing the Levant into the rapidly expanding Islamic caliphate.
Frankish and other Western European nobility (the Kingdom of Jerusalem, County of Tripoli, Principality of Antioch, County of Edessa) arrives from France, Normandy, and other parts of Western Europe
1099 CE – 1291 CE
European knights built castles and ports that anchored Catholic rule for nearly two centuries, even as Muslim powers steadily reconquered the interior.
How power changed hands The First Crusade stormed Jerusalem in 1099 CE, carving four Crusader states out of formerly Muslim and Byzantine territory along the coast and into Syria.
Saladin and his Ayyubid successors arrives from A Kurdish-origin dynasty based in Egypt and Syria
1171 CE – 1260 CE
Saladin's reconquest restored Muslim rule to Jerusalem and became one of the most celebrated military campaigns in the region's history.
How power changed hands Saladin united Egypt and Syria, then crushed the Crusader army at the Battle of Hattin in 1187 CE and retook Jerusalem, though Crusader port cities clung on for another century.
Mamluk Sultans, ruling from Cairo arrives from Turkic and Circassian slave-soldiers from the Caucasus and Central Asia
1260 CE – 1517 CE
A unique slave-soldier aristocracy ruled for over two and a half centuries, defending the Levant from both Mongol invasion and Crusader remnants.
How power changed hands Mamluk soldier-commanders stopped the Mongol advance at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 CE, then seized power themselves and finished off the last Crusader strongholds, taking Acre in 1291.
Ottoman Sultans, ruling from Constantinople / Istanbul arrives from Anatolia (modern Turkey)
1517 CE – 1918 CE
Four centuries of remarkably stable Ottoman provincial rule followed, ending only with the Empire's defeat in the First World War.
How power changed hands Sultan Selim I defeated the Mamluks at the Battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516 CE and absorbed the Levant into the rapidly expanding Ottoman Empire.
The French Mandate (Syria and Lebanon) and the British Mandate (Palestine and Transjordan) arrives from France and the United Kingdom
1920 CE – 1946 CE
Drawn largely by European diplomats, new borders split the Levant into territories that would become Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine.
How power changed hands British and Arab Revolt forces broke Ottoman control during the First World War; the victorious powers then carved the Levant into League of Nations mandates along borders that still shape the region today.
The Republic of Lebanon (1943), the Syrian Arab Republic (1946), the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (1946), the State of Israel (1948), and the Palestinian Authority (1994, partial self-governance) arrives from The native populations of the region
1943 CE – Present
Today's Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories carry forward millennia of layered rule, with borders and identities still actively contested and renegotiated.
How power changed hands Independence movements — not invasion — ended foreign rule, as mandates gave way one by one to sovereign states.