In which ancient region did the Hanukkah events occur? The Hanukkah events occurred in Judea.
Judea was the Jewish region centered on Jerusalem during the Second Temple period. In the second century BCE, it was under the control of the Seleucid Empire, a Hellenistic kingdom that emerged after Alexander the Great’s conquests.
The Maccabean Revolt began in 167 BCE after Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes imposed measures that restricted Jewish religious practice and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem. Mattathias and his sons, including Judah Maccabee, led the rebellion from the Judean countryside.
In 164 BCE, the rebels captured Jerusalem, cleansed the Temple, and rededicated its altar. Hanukkah commemorates that rededication. Rome, Babylon, and Egypt are associated with other major periods and powers in Jewish history, but they are not the region in which the central Hanukkah events took place.
Judea was also the setting of the later Hasmonean state, which grew out of the Maccabean struggle and eventually achieved independence from Seleucid rule.