Timeline of the Palestine region

[4] The Babylonian period began with the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II in 587 or 586 BCE.

[4] The Roman period lasted from Pompey's conquest of Palestine in 66 BCE, until the legal establishment of Christianity in the realm.

Suggestions for the end date vary between the Edict of Milan in 313 CE by which Constantine the Great and co-emperor Licinius declare Christianity a permitted religion, and the declaration of Nicene Christianity as the sole state religion by three co-emperors including Theodosius, emperor of the East, through the Edict of Thessalonica of 380.

Allowing for varying starting dates (see above under Roman period), this timeline chooses for convenience's sake to set the starting year of the Byzantine period as 313, when Constantine declared Christianity a permitted religion.

The Crusader period, sometimes referred to as the medieval period, as it was the only time when the Western-type societal organisation was transplanted to the region, lasted from 1099 when the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, to 1291 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem's last major possession in the Holy Land, Acre, was overrun by the Mamluks.