What is History of ancient Israel and Judah?
[[File:Kingdoms of Israel and Judah map 830.svg|thumb|250px|The northern [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|Kingdom of Israel]] and the Kingdom of [[Judah]] to the south.]] '''Israel and Judah''' were [[Iron Age]] kingdoms of the old [[Near East]]. The area of time covered in this page is from the first mention of the name [[Israel]] in the [[Archaeology|archaeological record]] (1200 BCE) to the end of a independent [[Judea|Judean]] kingdom near the time of [[Jesus Christ]]. The two kingdoms arose on the eastern coast of the [[Mediterranean]], the most western part of the [[Fertile Crescent]], between the old empires of [[Egypt]] to the south, [[Assyria]], [[Babylonia]], later [[Persia]] to the north and east, [[Greece]] and later [[Rome]] across the sea to the west. The area is small, maybe only 100&nbsp;miles north to south and 40 or 50&nbsp;miles east to west. Israel and Judah were from the [[Canaan]]ite culture of the late [[Bronze Age]], and were based on villages that formed and grew in the southern [[Levant]] highlands (today for the region between the coastal plain and the [[Jordan River|Jordan Valley]]) between c. 1200-1000 BCE. Israel became an important local power in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE before falling to the [[Assyria]]ns. The southern kingdom, Judah, became rich inside the greater empires of the region before a revolt against [[Babylon]] led to it being destroyed early in the 6th century. Judean exiles returned from Babylon early in the following [[Achaemenid Empire|Persian]] period, starting a [[Judahite]] presence in the province of [[Yehud Medinata|Yehud]], as Judah was now called. Yehud was absorbed into the subsequent Greek-ruled kingdoms which followed the conquests of [[Alexander the Great]]. In the [[2nd century BC]], the Jews went up against [[Hellenistic Greece|Greek]] rule and created the [[Hasmonean]] kingdom, which became first a Roman dependency and soon went under the rule of the [[Roman Empire]]. == Late Bronze Age background (1550-1200 BCE) == ===Geography and human settle