The Impact of the Arab Conquest on Late Roman Settlementin Egypt
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Pýý.ý577 THE IMPACT OF THE ARAB CONQUEST ON LATE ROMAN SETTLEMENTIN EGYPT VOLUME I: TEXT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY CAMBRIDGE This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Cambridge, March 2002 ALISON GASCOIGNE DARWIN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE For my parents with love and thanks Abstract The Impact of the Arab Conquest on Late Roman Settlement in Egypt Alison Gascoigne, Darwin College The Arab conquest of Egypt in 642 AD affected the development of Egyptian towns in various ways. The actual military struggle, the subsequent settling of Arab tribes and changes in administration are discussed in chapter 1, with reference to specific sites and using local archaeological sequences. Chapter 2 assesseswhether our understanding of the archaeological record of the seventh century is detailed enough to allow the accurate dating of settlement changes. The site of Zawyet al-Sultan in Middle Egypt was apparently abandoned and partly burned around the time of the Arab conquest. Analysis of surface remains at this site confirmed the difficulty of accurately dating this event on the basis of current information. Chapters3 and 4 analysethe effect of two mechanismsof Arab colonisation on Egyptian towns. First, an investigation of the occupationby soldiers of threatened frontier towns (ribats) is based on the site of Tinnis. Examination of the archaeological remains indicates a significant expansion of Tinnis in the eighth and ninth centuries, which is confirmed by references in the historical sources to building programmes funded by the central government. Second, the practice of murtaba ` al- jund, the seasonal exploitation of the town and its hinterland for the grazing of animals by specific tribal groups is examined with reference to Kharibta in the western Delta. Kharibta had apparently declined in size and prosperity by around the eleventh century. Chapter 5 considers the development of the important Pharaonic administrative centre of Edfu in Upper Egypt. Exposed archaeological sequences have clarified the movement of settlement in the town eastwards during the Islamic period. The final chapter proposes two factors that have hitherto not been given sufficient weight. First, the importance of military settlement in promoting settlement change; and second, the flawed nature of our understanding of the urban archaeological record for this important period. The thesis concludes with a suggested paradigm of urban transition, which will allow greater understanding of the changes in settlement in Roman and Islamic Egypt. Acknowledgements This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration. Nevertheless, I have received help and advice from many people over the last four years, not all of whom can be mentioned here. I would like to thank my supervisor, Barry Kemp, for his constant encouragement and guidance, and Pamela Rose for her support and for the many fruitful discussions about ceramics and other matters that took up so much of her time. My fieldwork in Egypt was greatly aided by a number of people. Gillian Pyke provided advice and more practical aid in generously inking the sherd drawings in chapter 5. I am also grateful to Janine Bourriau, Peter French and Roberta Tomber for their help in identifying ceramic material, to Alan Clapham for many valuable suggestions relating to environmental archaeology and sampling techniques and to Will Schenck for lessons in pottery illustration. Peter Sheehan and Sara Montgomery have provided encouragement, guidance and hospitality during my visits to Cairo. Kate Spence, Amanda Dunsmore and Nadine Moeller drew some of the sherds from Zawyet al-Sultan; I am also indebted to Nadine for her company and cheerfulness at Edfu. The generosity of Jane Faiers in allowing me to use parts of her fabric classification system also deserves mention, while Salima Ikram and Nicholas Warner kindly discussed a variety of issues with me. Of course, the fieldwork involved in this project would not have been possible without the help of the Egyptian Government's Supreme Council for Antiquities and its many representatives in Minya, Port Said, Alexandria, Cairo and Edfu. In particular, I should like to thank the inspectors Leila `Abd al-Basit (who provided great help and company in Kharibta), Said `Agami `Arafa and `Abbas `Abbas al- Shinawi (for their help and accommodating approach at Tinnis), Ibrahim `Abd al- Rahman at Fustat and Muhammad Said al-Din, Suzi Samir Labib and Nagwa `Abd al- Magid `Abd al-Basit at Edfu. Funding was provided by the Thomas Mulvey Egyptology Fund and the H. M. Chadwick Fund of Cambridge University and the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust; I am indebted to the administrators of all these funds. Another person who greatly facilitated the administration of the fieldwork was Rawya Ismael of the Egypt Exploration Society's Cairo office, who tirelessly visited various her help, government offices on my behalf; I am very grateful to her for all and to the EES for permitting me the time of their personnel and the use of their facilities. In Cambridge, I must acknowledge the generosity of members of the Middle Eastern Studies department. Kate Bennison has always been willing to answer my questions, and she, Rachael Harris and Nadira Auty gave much of their time to teach me Arabic. Rachael Harris also kindly looked over my translation of Ibn Bassam in the Appendix. I would like to thank Sarah Clackson for teaching me Coptic and for help and guidance through the field of papyrology, and John Ray and Kate Spence for their valuable comments on my research. I must also mention the staff of the Oriental Studies Faculty library, who have been a great help over the years. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their constant encouragement and support. They also provided more practical help. Jo Gascoigne advised me on the more scientific aspects of the work, while Paul Wingfield supplied much guidance on style. I am most deeply indebted to my parents, David and Christine Gascoigne, for help with a wide range of factors, most importantly practical support and proof- reading. Without them, this thesis would never have been written. /`ý7.1ý.5 ýý. List of Contents Abbreviations Chapter 1- Egyptian Urbanism and the Arab Conquest 1 Chapter 2- Source Problems: the Burning of Zawyet al-Sultan 20 Chapter 3- Ribat Settlement: the Example of Tinnis 46 Chapter 4- Murtaba ` al-Jund: the Example of Kharibta 74 Chapter 5- The Old Urban Order: Tell Edfu 87 Chapter6- Egyptian Urbanism: Causesof Change 113 120 Appendix - Translation of the Anis al-Jalis of Ibn Bassamal-Tinnisi Bibliography 128 Abbreviations Organisations ARCE American Research Center in Egypt CCMAA Comite de Conservation des Monuments et de 1'Art Arabe EEF Egypt Exploration Fund (former name of EES) EES Egypt Exploration Society IFAO Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale du Caire SCA Supreme Council for Antiquities, Egyptian Antiquities Service Journals/books ASAE Annales du Service des Antiquites Egyptiennes BAR British Archaeological Reports BASOR Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research BIE Bulletin de l'Institut d'Egypte BIFAO Bulletin de l'Institut Francaisd'Archeologie Orientale BSAC Bulletin de la Societed'Archeologie Copte BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies BS(R)GE Bulletin de la Societe (Royale) de Geographie d'Egypte CCE Cahiers de la Ceramique Egyptienne FIFAO Fouilles de l'Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale JARCE Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society JSSEA Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities LA Lexicon der Agyptologie MDAIK Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Abt. Kairo MIFAO Memoires (publies par les membres) de l'Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale ZAS Zeitschrift fir ägyptische Sprache ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik Chapter 1 Egyptian Urbanism and the Arab Conquest Conquest and colonisation: mechanisms for urban change The conquest and control of lands by external groups of people are recurrent and widespread features of human history. They also represent a significant mechanism by which civilisations extend and maintain cultural dominance over others. The expansion of Arab influence throughout the Middle East in the seventh century AD is no exception. By 642, Arab armies had overrun and occupied lands from Yemen to Syria, Egypt to Iraq, and incorporated them into an imperial structure with its religious centre at Mecca and its political one successively at Medina, Damascus and Baghdad. The colonisation of Egypt was to result in great cultural changes which would mould the shape of the modern state, and it was inevitable that such an event would affect the country's urban configuration. As Loomba explains: `The process of "forming a community" in the new land necessarily meant unforming or re-forming the communities that existed there already' (1998,2). A number of studies have been carried out concerning levels of social and economic change and continuity from the late Roman to the early Islamic period, mostly in areas east of Egypt (see for example Adams 1965; Morony 1984; papers in King and Cameron eds 1994; Schick 1995). Morony suggests that the tendency to regard the Muslim conquest as a cultural and political watershed is at least partly rooted in ignorance of developments during the period from c. 300-600 (1984,3). The continuation of trends of urban change which began in late Roman times and continued into the early Islamic period has been archaeologically demonstrated in Syrian, Jordanian and Palestinian settlements (Zeyadeh 1994; Tsafrir and Foerster 1994; MacAdam 1994). In Egypt, an account of late antique Alexandria provides as an epilogue a brief description of the city's post-conquest urban development, and again highlights continuity (Haas 1997; see below, pp.