Hamama
The Palestinian Countryside in Bloom (1750–1948)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jia.26586Keywords:
Ḥamāma, Palestinians, Ottoman Palestine, British Mandate, rural history, globalization, migration studiesAbstract
This article explores the history of Hamama, an Arab village in the Gaza Sub-District during the Late Ottoman and British Mandate period c. 1750–1948 CE, combining the often disparate fields of Ottoman/Levantine archaeology and Ottoman/Palestinian history for tracing its rise from an ordinary village into the Sub-District’s third largest settlement. Ethnographic sources and historical evidence testify that the village of Hamama had been inhabited continuously from the Mamluk period until 1948. The paper uses the case of Hamama to argue that the detailed history of specific villages and towns cannot be reconstructed out of a synchronous (specific point-in-time) reading of the sources without considering the influence of previous stages in their socioeconomic development. Using a vast array of primary sources and archaeological materials, this study explores the interaction between local topography and existing social fabrics with broader transformative processes on the regional and trans-regional levels. It shows how the region of Hamama underwent a significant economic growth and settlement expansion. In the 1860s, local administrative re-structuring took hold as part of the implementation of the tanzimat reforms at the district level. The establishment of the “quarter system”—the division of village land between the groups of families—led to considerable economic development, which was evident in village land uses by the early 20th century. Later, British town plans and building permits testify to the involvement of the colonial administration in the architectural and spatial planning of the Arab countryside. These were local manifestations of globalization and the modernization efforts of the Ottoman Empire and later the British Mandate.
References
Atran, S. 1986. “Hamula organisation and masha'a tenure in Palestine.” Man 21.1: 271–295. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2803160
Barak, O. 2020. Powering Empire: How Coal Made the Middle East and Sparked Global Carbonization. Oakland: University of California Press.
Baram, U. 2002. “Entangled objects from the Palestinian past: Archaeological perspectives for the Ottoman period, 1500–1900.” In A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire: Breaking New Ground, edited by U. Baram and L. Carroll, 137–159. New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Baram, U., and Carroll, L., eds. 2002. A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire: Breaking New Ground. New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Barron, J. B. 1923. Palestine-Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922 Taken on the 23rd of October, 1922. Jerusalem: Greek Convent Press.
Beckett, J. 2013. Writing Local History. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Ben-Bassat, Y., and Buessow J., eds. 2022. From the Household to the Wider World: Local Perspectives on Urban Institutions in Late Ottoman Bilad al Sham. Tubingen: Tubingen University Press.
Berman A. and Barda L. 2005. Archaeological Survey of Israel: Map of Nizzanim (West-87, East-88). Jerusalem.
Boas, J. A. 2000. “Pottery and small finds from the late Ottoman village and early Zionist settlement.” In, Ramat Hanadiv Excavations. Final Report of the 1984–1988 Seasons, by Y. Hirschfeld, 547–580. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.
Busse, J. 2020. “The historical and social embeddedness of the post-Ottoman space in world society.” In The Multidimensionality of Regions in World Politics, edited by P. J. Kohlenberg and N. Godehardt, 75–93. London: Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429319853-7/
Büssow, J. 2011. Hamidian Palestine: Politics and Society in the District of Jerusalem 1872–1908. Leiden: Brill.
Canaan, T. 1933. The Palestinian Arab House: Its Architecture and Folklore. Jerusalem: Syrian Orphanage Press.
Carmel, A. 2011. Ottoman Haifa: A History of Four Centuries under Turkish Rule. New York: I. B. Tauris.
Clermont-Ganneau, C. 1896. Archaeological Researches in Palestine During the Years 1873–1874. London: Palestine Exploration Fund.
Conder, C. R., and Kitchener, H. H. 1882. The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Geography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 2: Samaria. London: Palestine Exploration Fund.
Cook, Thomas 1891. Cook’s Tourists’ Handbook for Palestine and Syria. London: T. Cook & Son.
al-Dabbagh, M. M. 1991. Biladuna Filastin, Vol. 1.II. Kafr Qar': Dar al-Huda.
Doumani, B. 1995. Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Elhassani, A. K. 2011. Hatta La Nansa. Min Hamama ila Montreal. Cairo: Shams.
al-Farani', A. H. 2008. “Qaryat Hamama.” In Awraq fi al-Ta’rikh al-Shafawi al-Filistini, 43–79. Qura Filistiniya Muhajjara 2. Gaza: Badil.
Fischer, M., and Taxel, I. 2021. “Life in the dunes: The western hinterland of Yubna/Yavneh in late Ottoman and British Mandate times.” Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 9.1-2: 29–63. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/785245
Fuchs, R. 1998. “The Palestinian Arab house and the Islamic ‘primitive hut’.” Muqarnas 15: 157–77.
Goadby, F. M., and Doukhan, M. J. 1935. The Land Law of Palestine. Tel Aviv: Shoshany’s Printing Co.
Gophna, R., Taxel, I., and Feldstein, A.2007. “Kafr 'Ana: A rural settlement in the Lod Valley.” Salvage Excavation Reports 4: 3–138.
Government of Palestine. 1946. A Survey of Palestine. Jerusalem: Government Printer.
Grossman, D. 1994. Expansion and Desertion: The Arab Village and its Offshoots in Ottoman Palestine. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi (Hebrew).
–––. 2004. Arab Demography and Early Jewish Settlement in Palestine: Distribution and Population Density During the Late Ottoman and Early Mandate Periods. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi (Hebrew).
Guérin, V. 1869. Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine: Judee, 2. Paris: E. Leroux.
Gautier, L. 1898. Souvenirs de Terre-Sainte. Lausanne: Georges Bridel.
Halevy, D. 2015. “The rear side of the front: Gaza and its people in World War I.” Journal of Levantine Studies 5.1: 35–57. https://levantine-journal.org/product/the-rear-side-of-the-front-gaza-and-its-people-in-world-war-i-2/
Hanssen, J. 2005. Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hassuna, Kh. I. 2002. Hamama…'Asqalan: al-Jimal wal-Rijal. Gaza [missing publisher].
Hartmann, M. 1883. “Die Ortschaftenliste des Liwa Jerusalem in dem türkischen Staatskalender für Syrien auf das Jahr 1288 der Flucht (1871).” Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins 6: 102–149.
Hey, D., ed. 1996. The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hirschfeld, Y. 1995. The Palestinian Dwelling in the Roman-Byzantine Period. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi.
Holland, L. 1986. “Ratl weights in Ottoman Palestine.” Equilibrium. Quarterly Magazine of the International Society of Antique Scale Collectors 3: 907–312.
Huster, Y. 2015. Ashkelon 5: The Land Behind Ashkelon. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
Israel, Y., and Saidel, B. A. 2021. “Archaeological evidence for the production of black Gaza Ware pottery at the former Arab village of Faluja, Israel.” Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies 9.1–2: 116–134. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/785248/pdf
Juda, A. H. 2015. Isdud: Qal'at al-Janub al-Filistini. Dirasa Ta’rikhiyya, Ijtima'iyya, Iqtisadiyya wa-siyasiyya. Dalton, GA: Amazonpress.
Kana'na, S., and al-Madani, R. 1986. Majdal 'Asqalan. al-Qura al-Filistiniya al-Mudammara 2. Birzeit: Birzeit University.
Khalidi, W. 1992. All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestinian Studies.
Kontogiannis, N. D. 2015. “Marbled Ware in Ottoman Greece: Pottery that Doesn’t Like Itself, or Pre-industrial Kitsh?” In Medieval and Post-Medieval Ceramics in the Eastern Mediterranean: Fact and Fiction (Proceedings of the First International Conference on Byzantine and Ottoman Archaeology, Amsterdam, 21–23 October 2011), edited by J. Vroom, 173–198. Medieval and Post-Medieval Mediterranean Archaeology Series I. Turnhout: Brepols.
Kressel, G. M., and Gideon, M. 2004. “Immigrations of population from Egypt to the Levant in the 19th and 20th centuries.” Jama'a 12: 201–45.
–––. 2013. Egyptian Émigrés in the Levant of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. https://jcpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Egypt2.pdf
Levin, N., Elron, E., and Gasith, A. 2009. “Decline of wetland ecosystems in the coastal plain of Israel during the 20th century: Implications for wetland conservation and management.” Landscape and Urban Planning 92.3–4: 220–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2009.05.009
LeVine, M. 2005. Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv, and the Struggle for Palestine, 1880–1948. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Marom, R. 2008. From Time Immemorial: Chapters in the History of Even Yehuda and Its Region in Light of Historical and Archeological Research. Even Yehuda: Even Yehuda Local Municipality. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dr993bn
–––. 2019. “A short history of Mulabbis (Petah Tikva, Israel).” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 151.2: 134–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/00310328.2019.1621734
–––. 2020a. “The village of Mullabes and its residents: Before the establishment of Petah Tikva.” Cathedra 176: 49–76. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8tz3m4s6
–––. 2020b. “RAF Ein-Shemer: Forgotten case of Jewish and Arab work in a British Army camp in Palestine during the Second World War.” War & Society 39.3: 189–209. https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2020.1786889
–––. 2022. “Arabic toponymy around Ashkelon: The village of Hamama as a case study.” In Ashkelon: Landscape of Peace and Conflicts. Studies of the Southern Coastal Plain and the Judean Foothills, edited by R. Y. Lewis, D. Varga and A. Sasson, 371–409. Tel Aviv: Resling (Hebrew; English summary p. XXIX). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0h50791z
–––. 2023a. “al-Sheikh Muwannis: Transformations in the Arab countryside between the mountainous interior and the city of Jaffa, 1750–1848.” Cathedra 183: 9–34 (Hebrew). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5hd572t9
–––. 2023b. “The Abu Hameds of Mulabbis: An oral history of a Palestinian village depopulated in the late Ottoman period.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 50.1: 87–106. https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2021.1934817
Marom, R. and Taxel, I. 2023. “Hamama: The historical geography of settlement continuity and change in Majdal 'Asqalan’s hinterland, 1270–1750 CE.” Journal of Historical Geography 82: 49–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2023.08.003
Marom, R., Tepper, Y., and Adams, J.A. 2023. “Lajjun: Forgotten provincial capital in Ottoman Palestine.” Levant 55.2: 218–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/00758914.2023.2202484
–––. 2024. “al-Lajjun: A social and geographic account of a Palestinian village during the British Mandate period.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2023.2279340
Mikhail, A., and Philliou, C. M. 2012. “The Ottoman Empire and the imperial turn.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 54.4: 721-745. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417512000394
Mills, E. 1933. Census of Palestine 1931: Report (Vol. 1). Alexandria: Whitehead Morris. https://ecf.org.il/media_items/1090
Morris, B. 2004. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nasrallah, I. 2014. The Lanterns of the King of Galilee. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nevo, Y. 1995. “The shift to the metric system of weights in Eretz-Israel.” Cathedra 77: 100–108 (Hebrew).
–––. 2001. “Ottoman weight units and the transition to the metric system in Eretz-Israel.” In Measuring and Weighting in Ancient Times (Exhibition Catalogue), edited by O. Guri-Rimon and R. Shchori, 45–53. Haifa: Hecht Museum (Hebrew).
Otte, J. P. W., and Priestman S. M. N. 2022. “European trade ceramics on the Arabian Peninsula 1800–1960.” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 33: 248–93.
Petersen, A. 2001. A Gazetteer of Buildings in Muslim Palestine (British Academy Monographs in Archaeology 12). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Petersen, A., and Pringle, D., eds. 2021. Ramla: City of Muslim Palestine, 715–1917: Studies in History, Archaeology and Architecture. Oxford: Archaeopress. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1xsm8wq
Philipp, T. 1990. “The rise and fall of Acre: population and economy between 1700 and 1850.” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée. 55.1: 124–40. https://www.persee.fr/doc/remmm_09971327_1990_num_55_1_2338
Roskin, J., and Taxel, I. 2021. “‘He who revives dead land’: Groundwater harvesting agroecosystems in sand along the southeastern Mediterranean coast since early medieval times.” Mediterranean Geoscience Reviews 3.3: 293–318. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42990-021-00058-5
Salha, M. 1999. al-Majdal: Ta’rikh wa-Hadara. Gaza [missing publisher].
Saidel, B., Hallote, R., Erickson-Gini, T., Schecter, B., and Hardin, J. W. 2020. “An archaeological survey of the Arab village of Bureir: Perspectives on the late Ottoman and British Mandate period in southern Israel.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 383.1: 141–173. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/707772
Saidel, B., and Erickson-Gini, T. 2021. “From the guest editors.” Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 9: 1–5.
Sasson, A. 2019. “Historical geography of the Palestine southern coastal plain in the late Ottoman period—the Ashkelon region as a case study.” Middle Eastern Studies 55.6: 974–1004. https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2019.1596896
Sasson, A., and Marom, R. 2022. “'Asqalan al-Jadida: Egyptian rule and the settlement of Egyptians in the vicinity of Ashkelon, 1831–1948.” In Ashkelon: Landscape of Peace and Conflicts. Studies of the Southern Coastal Plain and the Judean Foothills, edited by R. Y. Lewis, D. Varga and A. Sasson, 255–291. Tel Aviv: Resling (Hebrew; English summary p. XXIV). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2wb2x85k
Schlaepfer, A., Bourmaud, P., and Hassan, I. 2020. “Ghosts of empire: Persistence and claims of Ottomanity(ies) in post-Ottoman spaces. Introduction.” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 148: 33–56. https://doi.org/10.4000/remmm.15109
Schölch, A. 1993. Palestine in Transformation 1856–1882: Studies in Social, Economic and Political Development. Transl. C. William Young and M. C. Gerrity. Washington D.C.: Institute of Palestine Studies.
Socin, A. 1879. “Alphabetisches Verzeichniss von Ortschaften des Paschalik Jerusalem.” Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins 2: 135–163.
Taxel, I. 2017. “Majdal Yaba: More insights on the site in medieval and late Ottoman to Mandatory times.” Journal of Islamic Archaeology 4.1: 49–86.
–––. 2023. “Imported table wares in the Palestinian countryside in the 19th and early 20th centuries and their integration into (and influence on?) local dining habits.” Journal of Islamic Archaeology 10.2: 195-223. https://doi.org/10.1558/jia.25921.
–––. 2024. “Revising the chronology and typology of Gaza Ware, a hallmark of Late Islamic Palestinian pottery.” Tel Aviv 51(1): 118–156. https://doi.org/10.1080/03344355.2024.2327803
Taxel, I., Paran, N. S., Kogan-Zehavi, E., and Fraiberg, A. 2019. “Ashqelon, Kh. Hammama.” Hadashot Arkheologiyot–Excavations and Surveys in Israel 131. http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/Report_Detail_Eng.aspx?id=25584&mag_id=127 accessed 1 April 2023.
Taxel I., Paran, N. S. and Weiss, I. 2020a. “Khirbat Khaur el-Bak (North).” Hadashot Arkheologiyot–Excavations and Surveys in Israel 132. http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/Report_Detail_Eng.aspx?id=25740&mag_id=128
Taxel, I., Paran, N. S. and Weissbein, I. 2020b. “Tel Poran.” Hadashot Arkheologiyot–Excavations and Surveys in Israel 132. http://www.hadashotesi.org.il/Report_Detail_Eng.aspx?id=25738&mag_id=128
Taxel, I., Sivan, D., Bookman, R., and Roskin, J. 2018. “An Early Islamic inter-settlement agroecosystem in the coastal sand of the Yavneh dunefield, Israel.” Journal of Field Archaeology. 43.7: 551–569. https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2018.1522189
Tobler, T. 1859. Dritte Wanderung nach Palästina im Jahre 1857: Ritt durch Philistäa, fussreisen im gebirge Judäas und
nachlese in Jerusalem. Gotha: J. Perthes.
Tsoar, H., and Zohar, Y. 1985. “Desert dune sand and its potential for modern agricultural development.” In Desert Development. Man and Technology in Sparselands, edited by Y. Gradus. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 184–200. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5396-3_12
Tsuk, T., Bordowicz, I., and Taxel, I. 2016. “Majdal Yaba: The history and material culture of a fortified village in late Ottoman-and British Mandate-Palestine.” Journal of Islamic Archaeology 3.1: 37–88. https://doi.org/10.1558/jia.v3i1.31876
Van De Velde, C. 1854. Narrative of a Journey through Syria and Palestine in 1851 and 1852. Edinburgh: W. Blackwood.
Vroom, J. 2005. Byzantine to Modern Pottery in the Aegean. An Introduction and Field Guide. Utrecht: Parnassus.
Wachtel, I., S. Kisilevitz, E. Ayalon, H. Drawshi, N. Amitai-Preiss, Y. Gadot and A. Nadan. 2020. “An interdisciplinary study of Qalunya.” In The Mega Project at Motza (Moza), edited by H. Khalaily, A. Re’em, J. Vardi and I. Milevski, 381–405. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority.
Warren, C. 1871. “The plain of Philistia.” Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement 1871.2: 82–96.
Yazbak, M. 2013a. “The politics of trade and power: Dahir al-Umar and the making of early modern Palestine.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 56.4–5: 696–736. https://doi.org/10.1163/1568520912341338
–––. 2013b. “Europe, cotton and the emergence of Nazareth in 18th-century Palestine.” Oriente Moderno 93.2: 531–546. https://doi.org/10.1163/22138617-12340031
–––. 2018. The Orange City, Yafa: Culture and Community 1700–1840. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies (Arabic).
Ze’evi, D. 2004. “Back to Napoleon? Thoughts on the beginning of the modern era in the Middle East.” Mediterranean Historical Review 19.1: 73–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/0951896042000256652
