In this graphic about early historical Israel, the pink area is a rough approximate map of the near-maximum boundaries of the lands that were inhabited by Israelites or under direct central royal administration during the United Monarchy period of ancient history (according to the Bible) -- excluding states (such as Damascus, Geshur, Ammon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistine city-states) which sometimes acknowledged some degree of Israelite suzerainty or overlordship, but were never integral or directly-administered parts of the unified Israelite kingdom of David or Solomon. This is basically what is referred to by the Biblical phrase "from Dan to Beersheba" (which occurs nine times in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament -- at Judges 20:1, 1 Samuel 3:20, 2 Samuel 3:10, 2 Samuel 17:11, 2 Samuel 24:2, 2 Samuel 24:15, 1 Kings 4:25, 1 Chronicles 21:2, and 2 Chronicles 30:5). So the passage 1 Kings 4:24-25 (1 Kings 5:4-5 in Jewish verse numbering) describes Solomon's larger empire with the phrase "from Tiphsah to Gaza", these being the northeasternmost and southwesternmost noteworthy cities that recognized some allegiance to Solomon (Tiphsah was a trade outpost in northern Syria, at the bend in the Upper Euphrates) — but the actual land "where Judah and Israel dwelt in safety" was described as being "from Dan to Beersheba".
The dark red area in the graphic shows the central core of ancient Judea. This area (more or less the southern half of the west bank hill-chain, roughly from Ramallah to Hebron or slightly north of Hebron) was almost always part of a Jewish kingdom or a Jewish province within a larger empire for over a thousand years, from the days of King David down to 135 CE.
The only cities shown on the map were capital cities, or were important landmarks in demarcating ancient Israel or Judea. The areas to the immediate south and east of the map frame were more sparsely inhabited, with a lower proportion of settled agriculture, so that boundaries were rather indefinite there. The borders of the 1923-1947 British mandate territory (i.e. the modern Israel + West Bank + Gaza) are shown in grey.
Date
Source
Own work based on visual inspection (not scanning) of a variety of sources, the single most important source probably being the Administrative Districts of Solomon's Kingdom Map, map no. 113 on page 86 of the MacMillan Bible Atlas (3rd edition, 1993) by Yohanan Aharoni, Michael Avi-Yonah, Anson F. Rainey, and Ze'ev Safrai ISBN0025006053 (and to a lesser degree the Kingdom of David Map, map no. 104 on page 80).
For a published map showing an outline similar to the light pink on this map, see the "Israel in the Time of David" map on page 222 of The Atlas of World History (second edition, 2005; general editor Jeremy Black) ISBN978-0-7566-5348-4 (not seen by me when I made this image).
This graphic is also available in resizable vector PDF format on request (various technical and font problems have made an SVG conversion difficult).
This historical map image could be re-created using vector graphics as a SVG file. This has several advantages; see Commons:Media for cleanup for more information. If a SVG form of this image is available, please upload it and afterwards replace this template with {{vector version available|new image name}}. It is recommended to name the SVG file “Early-Historical-Israel-Dan-Beersheba-Judea.svg”—then the template Vector version available (or Vva) does not need the new image name parameter.
This work has been released into the public domain by its author, AnonMoos. This applies worldwide.
In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: AnonMoos grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.
(In this graphic about early historical Israel, the pink area is a rough approximate map of the near-maximum boundaries of the lands that were inhabited by Israelites or under direct central royal administration during the United Monarchy period )
en.wikipedia File upload history
12:57, 19 September 2005 . . en:User:AnonMoos AnonMoos ( en:User_talk:AnonMoos Talk) . . 860x1210 (59529 bytes) (Added arrow pointing to location of Edom )
16:05, 13 September 2005 . . en:User:AnonMoos AnonMoos ( en:User_talk:AnonMoos Talk) . . 860x1210 (58639 bytes) ( In this graphic about early historical Israel, the pink area is a rough approximate map of the near-maximum boundaries of the lands that were inhabited by Israelites or under direct central royal administration during the United Monarchy period)
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Reverted to version as of 10:47, 25 March 2006 -- Quasipalm, upload your own image under a different name, don't overwrite this one to impose your personal agenda
'''eo:''' La bildo estas kopiita de wikipedia:en. La originala priskribo estas: == Summary == In this graphic about early historical Israel, the pink area is a rough approximate map of the near-maximum boundaries of the lands that were inhabited by Israe
La bildo estas kopiita de wikipedia:en. La originala priskribo estas: == Summary == In this graphic about early historical Israel, the pink area is a rough approximate map of the near-maximum boundaries of the lands that were inhabited by Israelites or