Ptolemais, Cyrenaica Ptolemais, Cyrenaica Ptolemais (Greek: Πτολεμαΐς) was one of the five cities that formed the Pentapolis of Cyrenaica, the others being Cyrene, Euesperides (later Berenice, and now Benghazi), Tauchira/Teuchira (later Arsinoe, and now Tocra), and Apollonia (now Susa). Its ruins are at a small village in modern Libya called Tolmeita ("Arabic" طلميتة), after the ancient name. The city was founded by and named after one of the rulers of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, probably Ptolemy III Euergetes (246–221 BC). What had been a small Greek settlement of unknown name that originated in the late 7th century BC and that acted as a
Palestine (region) as the southern portion of wider regional designations such as Canaan, Syria, ash-Sham, and the Levant. Situated at a strategic location between Egypt, Syria and Arabia, and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The region has been controlled by numerous peoples, including Ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites and Judeans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Achaemenids, ancient Greeks, the Jewish Hasmonean Kingdom, Romans, Parthians, Sasanians, Byzantines, the Arab Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Mongols, Ottomans, the British, and modern Israelis, Jordanians, Egyptians and Palestinians.