Names of the Levant attributed to the region's easterly location on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The ancient Egyptians called the Levant "Reṯenu". Ancient Egyptian texts (c. 14th century BCE) called the entire coastal area along the Mediterranean Sea between modern Egypt and Turkey "rṯnw" (conventionally "Reṯenu"). Reṯenu was subdivided into four regions: "Kharu" ("ḥꜣ-rw"), North Syria, "Amurru", South Syria (the land of the biblical Amorites), "Rmnn", Lebanon, "Ysriar" ("ysrỉꜣr"), Israel, and "Ḏahy" ("ḏꜣhy";"Ṯahi", "Ḏahi"), the region of Palestine (comprising the southern and central Levant—west of the Jordan River and south of Lebanon—and all the kingdoms, territories, tribes, etc., that existed within that
Syria (region) Greater Lebanon, various Syrian-mandate states, Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. The Syrian-mandate states were gradually unified as the State of Syria and finally became the independent Syria in 1946. Throughout this period, pan-Syrian nationalists advocated for the creation of a Greater Syria. Antoun Saadeh and his party, the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, envisioned "Greater Syria" or "Natural Syria" as encompassing the Sinai Peninsula, Cyprus, modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, the Ahvaz region of Iran, and the Kilikian region of Turkey. The oldest attestation of the name 'Syria' is from the 8th century BC in a bilingual