Names of the Levant homeland proper with the northwest coastal region of the Levant, centered at Phoenician cities such as Ugarit, Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. Today, this place is usually equated with modern Lebanon and the coast of modern Syria. Also there is a modern town in Turkey called "Finike" which is thought to have derived by the Lycians who traded with Phoenicians in ancient times. Israel: Judea: The kingdoms of Israel and Judah were Iron Age Semitic nations spanning from Edom to Assyria. Today the modern State of Israel controls much of the former territory of the ancient Israelite/Judean kingdoms. According to the
Geology of Lebanon deposits, often housed in Oligocene and Miocene deposits. Deposition has continued since the Cretaceous, with periods of tectonic contraction, including one that is still slowly ongoing, resulting in the erosion of the Palmyride fold belt in Syria. The oldest exposed rocks in Lebanon date to the early Jurassic. Although the basement geology of the area remains poorly studied, geologically similar locations are known from deep drilling in Syria, Israel and Jordan. In those areas (inferred to be nearly the same in Lebanon), the Paleozoic is marked by thick siliclastic deposits, while Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks are typically carbonates or evaporates.