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The Mirage of the Saracen
Christians and Nomads in the Sinai Peninsula in Late Antiquity
By Walter D. Ward UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Copyright © 2015 The Regents of the University of California
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-95952-1
CHAPTER 1
Saracens
When the Piacenza pilgrim had surmounted the summit of Mount Sinai, his party was "totally amazed" by a supernatural occurrence. This was to be expected, of course. Christians, elaborating on the Exodus account, had long described the noises and divine fire emanating from Mount Sinai. It had long been tradition that no one could sleep on the summit, because of its sanctity and because the thunder and mystical happenings were too frightening. What is surprising about this incident is that the Piacenza pilgrim was witnessing a "Saracen" ritual, in which a priest, who was said to reside on the mountainside, tended to a white marble idol. When the Saracens began to worship the idol at the beginning of their festival, the idol's color changed to black. After the festival, the idol reverted to its original white color.
This passage stands as a reminder that Christians did not occupy an uninhabited Sinai. In addition to the Pharanites, inhabitants of the town of Pharan who cultivated a Christian connection to Moses described in chapter 3, the Sinai was home to nomadic pastoralist groups who lived among the settled population and roamed widely throughout the semiarid region. These nomads were the peoples whose lands became dotted with monastic dwellings. And these were the people described in pejorative language by the Sinai Christian sources.
Ethnographic, archaeological, and literary evidence suggests that the nomads and the settled communities interacted in complex ways, depending on the political, social, economic, and cultural environment, despite what our sources say. Much of the research on the interaction between these groups has occurred in the Negev Desert, which is an extension of the Sinai el-Tih Plateau. Modern nomads there are dependent on the sedentary population for survival. This seems true for earlier periods as well and likely extends to the nomads of the southern Sinai in late antiquity. Whereas the pastoralists required food supplies from the sedentary population to survive, the settled communities acquired animal products from the nomads, a fact suggesting that these two populations could engage in mutually beneficial economic activities. Nevertheless, the cooperative view is largely absent in the extant literary sources from the later Roman Near East. In the Sinai sources, almost exclusively written by Christian monks and pilgrims, the nomadic inhabitants are accused of being anything but cooperative. Rather, these sources almost universally present an antagonistic relationship between the sedentary communities of the Sinai and the nomadic inhabitants. These inhabitants are known in the literary sources as Saracens, although other names are occasionally used. The sources accuse the Saracens of being uncivilized, pagan, traitorous, and dangerous. Despite these accusations, some nomads proved valuable as Roman allies against the Sassanid Empire on many occasions, and there were even several military units composed of Saracen troops. In addition, there is ample evidence that many nomads were not pagan but Christian, though often of a nonorthodox variety.
In contrast to other regions of the Near East, where nomadic populations were limited to peripheral areas on the edge of settled communities, Saracens could be encountered throughout the entire province of Third Palestine and the Sinai in particular. According to Pseudo-Nilus, the nomads "dwell in the desert lying between Arabia, Egypt, the Red Sea, and the Jordan River," or in other words, the province of Third Palestine and the southern half of the province of Arabia. Even pilgrimage accounts mention that nomads were encountered throughout the Sinai. Egeria wrote that she could see Egypt, Palestine, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the borders of the "infinite" territories of the Saracens from the top of Mount Sinai. When the Piacenza pilgrim crossed the north Sinai desert, he encountered a family of Saracens and was told by one of his guides that the number of Saracens in the desert was 12,600. Surely this precise number lacks historical value, but the impression that there was a wide distribution of nomads in the region must be correct.
NOMADS IN THE LATE-ANTIQUE NEAR EAST FROM AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
According to the literary sources, peoples who practiced nomadic lifestyles lived throughout the Sinai Peninsula and the wider region in the late-antique period. It was long argued that these peoples left no archaeological traces; however, recent research in the Negev Desert and in southern Jordan has demonstrated that archaeological surveys are in fact able to identify the remains of nomadic groups. Because few archaeological remains of the nomads of the Sinai in the late-antique period have been sources of investigation, the material from the Negev and southern Jordan must be utilized to understand Sinai nomadic behaviors. This appears intellectually sound—the Sinai was not isolated from the Negev or southern Jordan, and the sources indicate that human movement occurred easily between and through these zones. To provide just one representative example, the nomads who attacked the monks at Mount Sinai in Pseudo-Nilus's Narrationes were based in the north Sinai desert and sold slaves to the communities in the Negev.
Though the relationship between the sedentary and nomadic populations could be quite complex, modern scholarship on the nomads of the region has tended to focus on two extreme positions: mutual codependence and outright hostility. The position taken by anthropologists suggests that there were a number of possible relationships between these two groups; however, they tend to stress mutual economic codependence. Historians, on the other hand, are more likely to trust the depiction of the Saracens in the literary sources that describe hostile relationships.
According to anthropologists, economic behaviors range between the extremes of sedentary agriculturalism and nomadic pastoralism. Between these polar opposites are an unlimited number of hybrid options, such as the permanent settlement of a majority of the population with a small group continuing to practice pastoralist economic activities, to the exploitation and enslavement of sedentary populations by militarily superior nomadic groups, to the seasonal migration of sedentary farmers to pasture areas, to a mostly nomadic lifestyle with limited opportunity farming. Some hybrid groups develop gender-specific tasks in which the females cultivate agricultural crops while the men continue some forms of pastoralist tradition.
The pastoralist economy is based primarily on animal resources, especially the secondary products of animals. Meat is eaten only rarely, normally either for religious reasons or if an animal is incapacitated. Male or unproductive female animals are the most likely to be butchered, because of the importance of maintaining a virile but small herd. The most important dietary commodities are renewable animal products such as milk, butter, and blood. Most pastoralist societies are not self-sufficient and require provisions, such as grain, from agricultural communities. If a pastoralist group itself does not practice a form of agriculture, however limited, such needs must be met from outside the group. These nomadic groups are thus dependent on sedentary groups for survival.
In order to obtain necessary goods, the pastoralists generally exchange animal products—such as leather, hair, milk, butter, cheese, manure, yogurt, and even whole animals—with sedentary populations. Whole animals are generally sold in the spring, after new animals are born, in order to cull the herd before the population exceeds the fodder potential of the grazing lands during the dry seasons. Sedentary communities often have the advantage in these commercial transactions, because they do not need the pastoralist goods for survival. When trade does not provide adequate sustenance for the pastoralists, or when an easy opportunity presents itself, goods can be obtained by the pastoralists through violence, coercion, or theft from other nomadic or sedentary groups. Nomadic groups also engage in raids to kidnap for ransom or enslavement.
In extremely arid environments, the camel and the goat are the most important animals to the pastoralist. The camel requires the least amount of water, being able to subsist even on brackish water and to obtain moisture from vegetation. In addition to providing its famous carrying capacity, the camel also produces milk and hair. The goat, while requiring more water, produces a larger volume of milk and hair than the camel. Today, winter Bedouin tents are made from goat hair, demonstrating the importance of this product. Sheep are the less resilient ovicaprids in an arid climate, but their wool makes them attractive. Among nomadic groups, bovine cattle are rarely herded in the Near East, and horses are kept only as prestige animals.
Moving from the general to the more specific, there have been several studies of late-antique nomadic lifestyles in the Negev and southern Jordan. Though the archaeological remains are difficult to interpret, the authors of these studies emphasize the importance of cooperation between the nomadic and sedentary populations of the region. An emergency survey in the Ramon Crater region, conducted just before the Israeli military began using the Negev for training exercises in 1982, revealed extensive evidence of pastoralist activities from the second to the late seventh century. Steven Rosen concluded, based on the lack of farmsteads and the limited irrigation dams and terraces, that the region was largely inhabited by pastoralists who subsisted by herding sheep, camels, goats, and donkeys. Another survey of an area between the Negev towns and the Ramon Crater discovered a large number of animal pens and a few small irrigated terraces. Mordechai Haiman argues that these fields could not support the populations, who would therefore have needed to acquire grain from elsewhere.
Archaeological discoveries at these pastoralist campsites suggest that the nomadic groups interacted with the sedentary inhabitants, possibly in mutually beneficial ways. First, a number of millstones have been discovered, suggesting that grain was ground into flour at the nomadic campsites. Since there is limited evidence of agricultural activity, the pastoralists must have acquired the grain from the agriculturalist society. Second, the sites are dated by the presence of fine-ware ceramics, known as Late Roman Red Wares (LRRW), such as African Red Slip, which must have been obtained in the towns of the region. The presence of these wares, and not handmade sherds, attests to economic contacts with the towns of the Byzantine Negev. Archaeology cannot answer the question whether these goods were acquired through trade or violence or some other mechanism such as payment for services.
The remains of sheep and goat bones discovered at Nessana in the Negev may support this evidence of economic links between the sedentary and nomadic populations. Analysis by Joel Klenck suggests that, in the fourth and the fifth century, sheep and goats were kept alive to reproduce. Because a majority of animals survived until age four, they seem to have been exploited for their hair and milk. Later, in the sixth century, the majority of animals were slaughtered between six months and two years of age, suggesting that these animals were more commonly used for meat. Cattle and pigs were also represented in the archaeological record. The evidence from the fourth and fifth centuries suggests that the animals were produced by a largely nomadic group whose subsistence was based on animal products rather than on the production of animals for meat as in the sixth century, implying that some of the population of Nessana was engaged in sedentary animal production of cattle and pigs, whereas another segment of the population was occupied with pastoralist or semipastoralist herds. That animal pens surround another Negev town, Shivta, implies that some portion of the sedentary population probably raised pastoral animals there as well.
In addition to the evidence from the Negev, evidence from southern Jordan indicates a close connection between pastoralists and agricultural communities. For example, a survey of the Wadi al-Hasa revealed intensive late-antique occupation suited to both agricultural and pastoralist behaviors. The scholarly team that investigated this area divided the microclimatic zones of the wadi in six different occupation zones. Four of the zones were better suited for agricultural exploitation (Zones 1, 3, 5, and 6), whereas two were ideal for nomadic economic activities (Zones 2 and 4).
Although the various ecological niches could be shared by agriculturalists and pastoralists in the region in late antiquity, the schedules of these two groups conflict in the modern period. During the winter, the modern Beni Atiyah tribe establish themselves inside the Wadi Araba, to the southwest of the Wadi al-Hasa, and in the summer they migrate to the east of Karak. When the first rains arrive, the Bedouin head west toward the Wadi Araba, when small springs and ample forage become available. This schedule means that their movements cross through the agricultural fields before harvesting, a timing that could easily damage crops and cause conflict with the agriculturalists.
According to E. B. Banning, if the migration during late antiquity began two months earlier than in modern times, then the migration would be in concert with the agricultural cycle. The presence of grain stubble would enable the nomads to begin seasonal migrations earlier, and the flocks could therefore graze and fertilize the fields without harming the crops. Before returning east, the pastoralists could shear their sheep and sell the wool to the sedentary population. Surplus animals could also be sold for food, and mules and donkeys could be rented for plowing the fields before planting. A system of mutual dependence could be created, with the pastoralists providing the sedentary populations with labor, animal products, and manure, and the agriculturalists could provide goods, such as grain, which the pastoralists could not manufacture themselves. Currently, there is no evidence about when the migration occurred in the late-antique period, an absence suggesting that the cooperative model is just as plausible as the antagonistic model demonstrated by the modern Beni Atiyah tribe.
Animal remains discovered in southern Jordan, like those in the Negev towns, also suggest that pastoralists may have played an important role in supplying animal products to the sedentary population. The majority of faunal remains discovered at Aila were of sheep and goats, with very few examples of bovine cattle, pigs, or chickens. The sheep and goats were imported into Aila "on the hoof" for dietary consumption, probably from the semiarid regions around Aila itself. S. Thomas Parker suggests that the animals were raised by nomadic groups, possibly members of Thamudic tribes. This same pattern is remarkably similar to the finds from the monastery at Jabal Harun, outside Petra. The majority of mammal remains there were sheep and goats, with some bovine and pig bones. The survival of bovine and pig remains suggests that some members of the sedentary societies practiced animal husbandry, since bovine cattle and pigs are generally not raised by fully nomadic groups in the Near East.
In conclusion, archaeological survey and excavation have provided ample evidence that sedentary and nomadic populations were interacting economically in the southern Levant in late antiquity. These sources, however, cannot explain how that activity was taking place or what the relationships between these groups were. Only the literature of the period can do this, which almost uniformly describes the nomads as a threat to the settled communities. Of course, as discussed in the introduction, we must be critical of using the ethnographic descriptions in the ancient sources without taking into account the reasons why the texts were written.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Mirage of the Saracen by Walter D. Ward. Copyright © 2015 The Regents of the University of California. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS.
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