#I am infinity tired of this ahistorical nonsense
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infiniteglitterfall · 9 months ago
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Yep. That was when the Greco-Roman Empire renamed the area "Syria Palaistinea" ("Palestinian Syria" - It's hard to read the ancient Greek lettering on this map, but it looks like it ends in an A here too).
Renaming and making it a part of Syria were ways to erase the indigenous population whose revolt it had just brutally crushed.
You can see that the "large red letters" are still smaller than the ones below them that say "ARABIA PETREA." That's because Arabia Petrea was a Roman province, while Palestine was a region in the province of Syria.
Wikipedia has a completely different version of this map for some reason. This is what they show as Ptolemy's map from 150 CE:
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On this one it's labeled "Palestina-Iudea."
Wikipedia also has a modern reproduction of one from 135 CE, right after the Bar Kokhba Revolt that had been crushed.
In this one, the region is a province named "IUDAEA," or Judea. That's the pre-revolt name. You can see how the transition progressed.
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The kingdoms of Judea, or Judah, and of Israel, went back more than 1,000 years.
Judah "was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands of Judea, the landlocked kingdom's capital was Jerusalem.
"Jews are named after Judah and are primarily descended from it."
This is Wikipedia's map of what the region looked like around 3,000 years ago:
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The indigenous Jews had already been invaded by the Babylonian Empire, persevered through its widescale massacres, regained their independence, been invaded and oppressed by the Greeks, and revolted against them twice.
The third revolt was their last. After achieving three years of freedom, all the hundreds of thousands of indigenous Jewish rebels were either killed or enslaved.
Historian Cassius Dio wrote, "50 of their most important outposts and 985 of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. 580,000 men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate."
Emperor Hadrian outlawed Judaism entirely. Executed Jewish scholars. Publicly burned sacred scrolls at the Temple Mount, and built giant statues of Roman gods there.
He expelled the indigenous Jews from Jerusalem, made Judea a part of Syria, and renamed it "Palaestina" after the horrible Philistines (who had basically been very violent pirates).
He died three years later, and many of his proclamations ended.
But Wikipedia's page on the Bar Kokhba Revolt adds, "A further, more lasting punishment was also implemented by the Romans. In an attempt to erase any memory of Judea or Ancient Israel, the name Judaea was dropped from the provincial name, and Provincia Iudaea was renamed Syria Palaestina" - the only time the Empire reacted to a revolt by expunging a nation's name.
And it worked.
Even though the Jews managed to maintain a presence in the region, and to become the majority population again, the Arab Empire would eventually take over.
It's been nearly two thousand years after the area was renamed. About 1300 years since it became majority Arab. Roughly 100 years since Arab people living there slowly started calling themselves Palestinians.
And people assume that the Palestinians, not the Jews, are the indigenous people there.
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The oldest Ptolemy map of Palestine is dated 150 AD. The large red letters in the center say in Greek: Παλαιστινης or Palaistinis.
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