Book Chapter - Inscribing history The Complex Geographies of Bedouin Tribal Symbols in the Negev Desert, Southern Israel (original) (raw)
Related papers
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.
Archaeoastronomy and Bedouin Star-Lore in the Rock Art of the Negev Desert
Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, 2017
The archaeological record of the Late Neolithic – Chalcolithic – Early Bronze Age periods in the Negev exhibits prevalent east to west orientations, which is understood in the literature as an expression of the preoccupations with afterlife beliefs, mortuary cult and ancestor worship. These archaeological remains are often described as astronomical alignments and are related to the setting sun on the day of the summer solstice. They are attributed to an emerging pastoralist elite. Orientation seems to be also the central theme in the oral traditions of contemporary pastoralists. While the material remains express orientation in space, the oral traditions, which are illustrated at their best in star-lore, express an orientation in time: the cyclic renewal of seasons is observed in the east to west passage of stars and asterisms. The seasons and the constellations, which define them, are related to equinoxes. As material and spiritual expressions of the beliefs that characterize pastoral nomads, the archaeological record and star-lore seem to be closely related. However, due to polar shift and the precession of the equinoxes, contemporary star-lore orientates itself differently from its Chalcolithic – Early Bronze Age forerunner, and it cannot reflect the orientation exhibited by tumuli fields, walls, masseboth and other remains, except in a very approximate way. A significant pre-cession of equinoxes occurred in the early phases of the Middle Bronze Age. The event left a deep mark on cultures worldwide and it was paralleled by a shift in symbolism. In the Negev it also meant a deterioration of the climate. Nomadic mythology and star-lore had to re-orientate themselves, to adjust to the new coordinates, which superseded an apparently perfect previous order. The majority of the rock art corpus in the Negev is dated roughly to the period that preceded the shift. However, a few of the engravings dated to the Early Bronze Age become meaningful only when related to the changes, which occurred during and after the precession of the equinoxes. Other engravings reflect precisely Chalcolithic – Early Bronze Age realities, but their symbolic implications outlived the astronomic context in which they were conceived and they are actual even in our days.
Chronological trends in Negev rock art
Negev rock art comprises a large and diverse corpus of motifs and compositions developed over the course of several millennia. As dating of specific elements is at present not possible, the rock art was analyzed statistically through the study of individual panels where internal sequences of engraving could be discerned. Examining the set of such individual sequences, larger scale reconstruction of engraving phases, sequences and patterns were recognized. Additional chronological markers, such as the presence of domestic camels or other chronologically diagnostic features, offer benchmarks for tying the general trends to more absolute frameworks. The reconstructed patterns reflect the long term history of the Negev and some of the most significant cultural and social transitions in the region are reflected visually through the rock art, notably a form of self-expression, a crucial complement to the historical sequences derived from sedentary peoples living farther north. For example the introduction of the domestic camel and its symbolic and economic significance is well evident in the rock art. Similarly, the emergence of Islam is expressed through the mark makers’ preference for "abstract" (non-figurative) motifs. One motif found throughout all engraving phases, transcending the religious, political and economic structures of Negev society, is the “ibex”. Although Negev societies have all focused, to one degree or another, on sheep and goat pastoralism, these animals are rarely present in the Negev rock art and never as herds. Ibex, whose role in the diet and daily subsistence was minimal, was the most commonly depicted zoomorphic motif.
Chronological Trends in Negev Rock Art: The Har Michia Petroglyphs as a Test Case
Negev rock art comprises a large and diverse corpus of motifs and compositions developed over the course of several millennia. As dating of specific elements is at present not possible, the rock art was analyzed statistically through the study of individual panels where internal sequences of engraving could be discerned. Examining the set of such individual sequences, larger scale reconstruction of engraving phases, sequences and patterns were recognized. Additional chronological markers, such as the presence of domestic camels or other chronologically diagnostic features, offer benchmarks for tying the general trends to more absolute frameworks. The reconstructed patterns reflect the long term history of the Negev and some of the most significant cultural and social transitions in the region are reflected visually through the rock art, notably a form of self-expression, a crucial complement to the historical sequences derived from sedentary peoples living farther north. For example the introduction of the domestic camel and its symbolic and economic significance is well evident in the rock art. Similarly, the emergence of Islam is expressed through the mark makers' preference for "abstract" (non-figurative) motifs. One motif found throughout all engraving phases, transcending the religious, political and economic structures of Negev society, is the "ibex". Although Negev societies have all focused, to one degree or another, on sheep and goat pastoralism, these animals are rarely present in the Negev rock art and never as herds. Ibex, whose role in the diet and daily subsistence was minimal, was the most commonly depicted zoomorphic motif.
Hunting and Gender as Reflected in the Central Negev Rock Art, Israel
There are thousands of panels with hundreds of thousands of petroglyphs that occupy the rock outcropping of the Negev Highlands in southern Israel. These include abstract, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic elements, which are sometimes presented as hunting scenes. In this paper we will define hunting scene, review the themes and relate these figures to the economy, mundane, and spiritual realms of the artist. We argue that a clear panel grammar is in operation whereby the artist is creating a formulaic narrative that conveys a number of underlying messages that include the subsistence strategies and the success of the hunt. There is also subtle gender encoding that accompanies such imagery.
Geopolitics, 2023
Experimenting with a new materialist diffractive approach, this article offers an insight into the agential capacities of lines by juxtaposing two apparently unrelated cases of large-scale drawing practices: the aesthetic process involved in an event of artistic creation and the scientific process of visual representation of data-supported meteorological measurements. The article makes use of the analysis of Jim Denevan’s land art as a tool with which to approach cartography-based colonial politics in the Naqab/Negev Desert (Israel). Such an unusual methodological strategy assists in exposing how political decisions based on the system of scientific classification of land have contributed to the substantial reconfiguration of settlement patterns in the region, negatively affecting the life of a significant number of Bedouin Arabs, indigenous to this land. By investigating the possibly harmful, highly politicised potentials of cartographic endeavours while uncovering their material-semiotic contingency, the article reveals how the enterprise of mapping space can benefit colonialism and discriminatory politics. The aim is to offer a cultural studies understanding of the problematic political and environmental developments taking place in the Naqab/Negev, explaining how the science-based politics of drawing has been mobilised for the purpose of colonial policy, translating into the discriminatory treatment of the indigenous population while extrapolating spatial injustices in the region.
Thoughts on Why the Negev Rock Art, Israel, Turned towards the Non-Figurative
Anthropomorphs were always part of the Negev rock art, but never the main focus. The first documented change in the attitude towards the depiction of anthropomorphs and the animated seems to have been based on doctrinal. In the Negev we see evidence of this change in the Early Islamic period when there seems to have been a distinction between the secular and religious rock art. The prohibition expressed in the religious realm of the Early Islamic period transferred to the secular realm in the Bedouin phase of rock art.