Old Wusum and New Rumuz: a Note on the Visualisation of the Identity of the Sinai Bedouins (original) (raw)
Related papers
This article reports on the results of the 2008 and 2009 field seasons to survey and record rock engravings in the Wadi al-Hayat. The project started in 2004 with the intention of systematically surveying a 160km long section of the wadi, centred on the Garamantian settlement at Germa. This was completed in 2009 in collaboration with the Desert Migrations project. Over 600 previously unrecorded engraved panels were identified in 2008/9. These appear to range in date from the early Pastoral period to the post-Garamantian period. Clear links have been noted in previous seasons in the distribution of the engravings with respect to specific topographic and cultural features. The 2008/9 survey showed that rock carvings also mark patterns of movement through the wadi, and that these patterns appear to shift over time between the Pastoral and post-Garmantian periods. Some of the areas investigated provide relative easy access into the Wadi al-Hayat from the south and may have represented important corridors for the migration of people and animals for thousands of years. In tandem with the systematic survey, targeted survey of selected Late Pastoral and Garamantian cemetery and settlement sites was undertaken during the 2008 season. No positive relationship was found between rock engravings and Garamantian burial or settlement sites. However, a definite association was demonstrated between rock art and Late Pastoral burials and temporary camp sites.
Over the course of the past two millennia, the Negev Desert in southern Israel has accommodated fluctuating numbers of pastoral nomads who migrated from the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring territories. These groups, particularly with the last major wave of Bedouin migration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, introduced a style of rock art consisting primarily of combinations of abstract marks, footprints, and Arabic inscriptions. Large numbers of Bedouin rock markings created in the last two centuries (1800s–1900s) are found at almost every Negev rock art site. With few exceptions, Bedouin rock art is aniconic in nature and stands in contrast to pre-existing Negev rock art styles. Nearly all the panels that the Bedouin marked with abstract motifs already featured other images such as riders on donkey-, horse-and camelback; combat and hunting scenes; orante (anthropomorphs with upraised arms, usually interpreted as a stance of prayer); and numerous ibex. This chapter will focus on the most recent period of Negev rock art and considers how the Bedouin markings were not intended as art per se, but were a form of insignia that performed as a " visual communication system, " with a unique socio-functional role of transmitting messages of personal and/or community ownership. Engraved alongside or superimposed over older motifs, these signatory symbols related to the past while presently conveying to their often non-present Bedouin audiences land ownership rights and resource usage entitlement (Schmidt and Eisenberg-Degen, 2015). Considering this notion via examples from a variety of landscape vantage points, the chapter discusses how Negev rock art contains multiple discourse messages formed from a diachronic series of narratives and counter narratives apparently reflecting the diverse belief systems and mindsets of past inhabitants.
pubcouncil.kuniv.edu.kw
Setting itself against the social and cultural background of southeastern Arabia, this paper explores the social and symbolic boundaries of the peasant and pastoralist Bedouin of the Western Hajar range of the Emirates. In this context, the modes of livelihood, associated ritual symbolism, and the rhetorical devices of tales and metaphors are examined in order to discover how boundaries are contructed and manipulated by the members of the Hajari community and the rest of the world. In order to arrive at such a result, the Hajar ecology, social organization and economic practices are delineated and used as a context for examining the constructions and manipulations of these boundaries.
Hela Zahar, 2018
The topic of this thesis is the political implications of the contemporary visual culture of Arabic calligraffiti, a form of urban art that is inspired both by graffiti and Arabic calligraphy. Calligraffiti has spread in both Arab and Western cities, including Montreal, Paris and certain Tunisian cities. Its visibility underlines inherent tensions in the art form. Calligraffiti explores various conflicts and power relations, such as Arab-Western tensions in the visual culture of Western cities, tensions around the religious role of Islamic calligraphy in Arab cities, tensions around urban art in all cities, and around the various digital spaces where these works are disseminated. To examine these questions, this thesis employs an analytical framework based on three groups of concepts. The first group defines and applies concepts of space, place and regimes to analyze visibility in physical and virtual public realms. The second group of concepts describes urban art, including Arabic calligraffiti, as a blending of visual practices (remix, distribution, aggregation) within these spaces and regimes of visibility. The third group introduces the concept of the visual scene to illustrate the visibility of Arabic calligraffiti within the systems of articulation of local, translocal and digital visual scenes. Arabic caligraffiti politically « reworks » the regimes of visibility in which it evolves, and in turn transforms these regimes. Concurrently, these regimes of visibility « rework » Arabic calligraffiti, which is also transformed to adapt to the political pressures of the regimes. As such, calligraffiti becomes an Arab form of cultural appropriation of a globalized urban art form of Western origin (New York graffiti), a hybrid typical of remix culture where the « dialogism of the script » actively participates in visual culture, its heterogeneity, and the public visibility of urban art. In this study, we advance the hypothesis that there is a modulation of practices that explain its participation and contribution to the visual scene of urban art. To test this hypothesis, this thesis follows the development of calligraffiti since its appearance in abandoned warehouses in Montreal in 2008 to its most recent appearance in several Western and Arab cities. From 2008 to 2017, we conducted a digital and physical ethnography in three locations, Montreal, Tunisia and Paris. This fieldwork followed a complex chronology containing four main stages. Each stage illustrates an important step of the development of calligraffiti and consists of one or more specific artworks. The final stage illustrates the geographical fragmentation of calligraffiti, with the exacerbation of Arab-Western tensions after the Charlie Hebdo incident in Paris. During this final stage, calligraffiti expanded beyond Paris, Montreal and Tunisia, appearing in other locations including Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, the United States and Australia. Ethnographic study of these four segments allowed me to define various regimes of visibility, to identify key actors, to describe the physical and digital visual practices, and to reveal the different systems of articulation implied in the visibility of Arabic calligraffiti. My results include a summary and discussion of the visibility of Arabic calligraffiti, the modulation of practices and the characteristics of its visual mise en scène. The scholarly contribution of this thesis is both theoretical and ethnographic. My analytical framework allows us to better understand the political implications of Arabic calligraffiti. My ethnographic study broadens and clarifies this framework, introducing new methods of visual analysis. My objective is to conceptually and ethnographically explore the ambiguity created both by the effervescence of local, translocal and digital visual scenes and by the visibility of Arab-Western tensions.
2015
Chapter 2: The status and development of marking systems in relation to linguistic writing Section 1: Marks and their relation to the development of linguistic writing a: Marking systems influence the formal development of linguistic writing b: Marking systems and linguistic writing develop independently c: Marking and linguistic writing systems draw from the same pool Section 2: Concluding remarks Plate III1-1 Plate III1-2 Conclusion Bibliography List of Figures, Tables and Plates i FOREWORD THE DISSERTATION that lies before you concerns the workmen's identity marks from Deir el-Medina. Deir el-Medina is the modern name for the site of the New Kingdom village on the West Bank of ancient Thebes, which housed the workmen who constructed the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. Deir el-Medina is known among Egyptologists for the major corpus of written documentation on all sorts of topics including private business, legal matters, religious and literary texts as well as administration of the work in the Theban Necropolis. The number of documents that derive from the village is truly unsurpassed. The reason for this, as well as for their good state of preservation, is first of all the fact that the village lay isolated in the desert protected from the more humid conditions in the Nile Valley. A second important fact is that the village was only inhabited for a certain period of time and was left untouched after abandonment. Therefore, the site itself remained well-preserved, which provided us with a wealth of archaeological material as well. On the basis of these rich documentary and archaeological sources, not only the work carried out by the Necropolis workmen can be studied in more detail than anywhere else in Egypt, also the personal life of the villagers reveals itself in all its facets. They appeared to have been active artisans, writers, and businessmen, who lived their daily lives working, settling business or arguments with other villagers, practicing religion and celebrating feasts. Their lives are known to a great degree of detail. Construction of the village began under Thutmosis I, the period to which we can date the earliest evidence concerning the history of Deir el-Medina. 1 With a hiatus during the Amarna period the village was inhabited until the reign of Ramesses XI. The lifespan of habitation in Deir el-Medina is therewith estimated from approximately 1550 to 1070 BCE. During this timespan the workmen made intensive use of marks to convey their identity on ostraca, pottery, tools and all kinds of domestic and funerary objects, as well as in graffiti throughout the Theban Mountains. The marks were also used in administrative records with the aim to identify the workmen in relation to their work in the Theban Necropolis. The earliest marks on ostraca that could be dated with certainty come from the reign of Amenhotep III, but it is possible that some go back as far as the reign of Thutmosis III. The last dated marks come from the reign of Ramesses XI. The marks have been known to Egyptologists since the first archaeological excavations of the village proper along with its cemeteries by Bruyère under the auspices of the Institut Franςais d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo. Bruyère published his results in the series Rapports sur les fouilles de Deir el Médineh (1922-1951), in which he included several potsherds and ostraca with marks. 2 He did not, however, study them in detail, and he designated the marks generally as 'marques' or 'marques de potérie'. 3 Also after Bruyère the marks were noted, but as nobody could read or interpret them they remained to be variously called 'signes', 'marques', 'enigmatic' or 'cryptic' signs', 'signes cabalistiques' or 'funny signs'. 4 It was only after a study by 1 Especially revealing was the discovery of bricks which were used in the village's surrounding walls, and which were stamped with the cartouche of Thutmosis I.
Signposts in the Landscape: Marks and Identity among the Negev Highland Bedouin
Nomadic Peoples
Over the course of the past millennia pastoral nomads migrated from the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring regions into the Negev desert. Particularly with the last major wave of Bedouin migration in the 18 th and 19 th centuries, these groups introduced the "Bedouin Phase" into the Negev rock art, a tradition that was central to the Negev Bedouin culture through the mid-late 20 th century. The "Bedouin Phase" is mostly made up of combinations of abstract marks, many of which signify tribal affiliations, and a limited number of Arabic inscriptions. Frequently engraved near earlier motifs, the Bedouin tribal markings formed a link with the past while also indicating to their intended audience, landownership rights and resource-use entitlement. Rapid and broad changes took place in Bedouin society and culture as it transformed from being semi-nomadic and pastoral-based to more dependent on agriculture and finally to a broad-based wage labor economy. The article describes how the placement of rock art within the landscape and the function it played for the Bedouin in the region reflects these changes. In the absence of official documentation, the study of Bedouin rock art is of special interest since these engravings enable a fresh perspective on current-day Bedouin claims to ancestral of historical land ownership rights.