Eveline van der Steen - Near Eastern Tribal Societies During the Nineteenth Century

Series Editor: Thomas E. Levy, University of California, San Diego

Editorial Board

Guillermo Algaze, University of California, San Diego; Geoffrey E. Braswell, University of California, San Diego; Paul S. Goldstein, University of California, San Diego; Joyce Marcus, University of Michigan

This series recognizes the fundamental role that anthropology now plays in archaeology and also integrates the strengths of various research paradigms that characterize archaeology on the world scene today. Some of these different approaches include New or Processual archaeology, Post-Processual, evolutionist, cognitive, symbolic, Marxist and historical archaeologies. Anthropological archaeology accomplishes its goals by taking into account the cultural and, when possible, historical context of the material remains being studied. This involves the development of models concerning the formative role of cognition, symbolism, and ideology in human societies to explain the more material and economic dimensions of human culture that are the natural purview of archaeological data. It also involves an understanding of the cultural ecology of the societies being studied, and of the limitations and opportunities that the environment (both natural and cultural) imposes on the evolution or devolution of human societies. Based on the assumption that cultures never develop in isolation, Anthropological Archaeology takes a regional approach to tackling fundamental issues concerning past cultural evolution anywhere in the world.

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Near Eastern Tribal Societies during the Nineteenth Century: Economy, Society and Politics between Tent and Town

Eveline van der Steen

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Economy, Society and Politics between Tent and Town

Eveline van der Steen

First published 2013 by Equinox, an imprint of Acumen

Published 2014 by Routledge

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Eveline J. van der Steen 2013.

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Notices

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

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ISBN: 978-1-908049-83-4 (hardback)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Steen, E. J. van der (Eveline J.)

Near Eastern tribal societies during the nineteenth century : economy, society and politics between tent and town / Eveline J. van der Steen.

p. cm. (Approaches to anthropological archaeology)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-908049-83-4 (hardcover)

1. TribesMiddle East. 2. Middle EastSocial conditions. I. Title.

GN492.5.S74 2013

305.800956dc23

2012026868

Typeset by JS Typesetting Ltd, Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan

Acknowledgements

When I started my explorations into nineteenth-century tribal territories, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. It all started on a cold wintry night back in the early 1990s, at the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (now the Kenyon Institute), itself a monument from that exciting era of discovery. In search of suitable bedtime reading, I took Gertrude Bells letters from the library and was soon hooked. Gertrude was a woman who had not only a brilliantly gifted pen, but also a sharp political mind, and a profound understanding of the fascinating power games played among the tribes, tribal leaders and governments in an era that was about to end. After Gertrudes letters I delved into the accounts of other travellers, mostly from the nineteenth century, and realized that here was a world explored but largely forgotten in late twentieth-century anthropology, in which the shots were called not by the great powers and dynamics of Western capitalist society, but by players of a different game, in which the rules were set by local power structures and a tribal ideology.