Israelites. The Israelites were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt, dated to about 1200 BCE. According to the modern archaeological account, the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples and their cultures through the development of a distinct monolatristic, and later monotheistic, religion centred on the national god Yahweh. They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language, which was a regional variety of the Canaanite language, known today as Biblical Hebrew. According to the Bible, the Israelites are the descendants of Jacob, who was later renamed Israel. Following a severe drought, Jacob and his twelve sons fled to Egypt, where they eventually formed the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Israelites were later led out of slavery in Egypt and subsequently brought to Canaan by Moses; they eventually conquered Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. Modern scholars agree that the Bible does not provide an authentic account of the Israelites' origins, and instead view it as constituting their national myth. However, it is accepted that this narrative does have a historical core to it. A tribal period was followed by the rise of two Israelite kingdoms: Israel and Judah. The Bible portrays Israel and Judah as the successors of an earlier United Kingdom of Israel, although its historicity is disputed. The Kingdom of Israel, with its capital at Samaria, fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE; while the Kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem, was destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE. Some of the Judean population was exiled to Babylon, but returned to Israel after Cyrus the Great conquered the region. The Jews and the Samaritans are descendants of the ancient Israelites. Jews claim lineage from the Tribe of Judah and the Tribe of Benjamin, and partially from the Tribe of Levi since the ten northern tribes were considered lost following the Assyrian captivity. The Samaritans claim descent from the Tribe of Ephraim and the Tribe of Manasseh as well as from the Tribe of Levi. Other groups have also claimed affiliation with the Israelites throughout history. In the Hebrew Bible, the term Israelites is used interchangeably with the term Twelve Tribes of Israel. Although related, the terms Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews are not interchangeable in all instances. Israelites refers to the people whom the Hebrew Bible describes specifically as the direct descendants of any of the sons of the patriarch Jacob, and his descendants as a people are also collectively called Israel, including converts to their faith in worship of the national god of Israel, Yahweh. Hebrews, on the contrary, is used to denote the Israelites' immediate forebears who dwelt in the land of Canaan, the Israelites themselves, and the Israelites' ancient and modern descendants. Jews is used to denote the descendants of the Israelites who coalesced when the Tribe of Judah absorbed the remnants of the northern Israelite tribes.