Book Chapter - Inscribing history The Complex Geographies of Bedouin Tribal Symbols in the Negev Desert, Southern Israel (original) (raw)

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.