Ancient period
c.1150 BCE: Medinet Habu (temple): records a people called the P-r-s-t (conventionally Peleset) among the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign.[1]
c.1150 BCE: Papyrus Harris I: "I extended all the boundaries of Egypt; I overthrew those who invaded them from their lands. I slew the Denyen in their isles, the Thekel and the Peleset (Pw-r-s-ty) were made ashes"[26]
c.1000 BCE: Onomasticon of Amenope and Story of Wenamun
c.900 BCE: Statue of Pedeset, inscription: "envoy - Canaan - Peleset"[27]
c.800 BCE: Adad-nirari III in the Nimrud Slab
c.717 BCE: Dur-Sharrukin, Annals of Sargon II'': records the region as Palashtu or Pilistu[2][3][3][4]
Classical antiquity
Persian (Achaemenid) Empire period
c.450 BCE: Herodotus, The Histories, First historical reference clearly denoting a wider region than biblical Philistia. Refers to a "district of Syria, called Palaistinê"[28][29][30] One important reference refers to the practice of male circumcision associated with the Hebrew people: "the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine themselves confess that they learnt the custom of the Egyptians.... Now these are the only nations who use circumcision"[31]
c.340 BCE: Aristotle, Meteorology, "Again if, as is fabled, there is a lake in Palestine, such that if you bind a man or beast and throw it in it floats and does not sink, this would bear out what we have said. They say that this lake is so bitter and salt that no fish live in it and that if you soak clothes in it and shake them it cleans them.". This is understood by scholars to be a reference to the Dead Sea[12]
Hellenic Kingdoms (Ptolemaic/Seleucid/Hasmonean) period
c.150 BCE: Polemon of Athens, Greek Histories, quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea in Praeparatio Evangelica: "In the time of Apis son of Phoroneus a part of the Egyptian army was expelled from Egypt, who took up their abode not far from Arabia in the part of Syria called Palestine"[32]
c.130 BC: Pausanias (geographer), Description of Greece: "In front of the sanctuary grow palm-trees, the fruit of which, though not wholly edible like the dates of Palestine, yet are riper than those of Ionia."[33] and "[a Hebrew Sibyl] brought up in Palestine named Sabbe, whose father was Berosus and her mother Erymanthe. Some say she was a Babylonian, while others call her an Egyptian Sibyl."[34][35]
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