Share
AMMAN — Mamluk administration in the region grew out of the Ayyubid one, but both systems reveal a deeper cultural cohesiveness that could serve state interests.
For the function(s) of smaller centres, one must go beyond the literary sources and study the site itself, its physical relationship to the landscape and other sites around it, said Professor Bethany Walker from the University of Bonn.
"Its hot climate and good soil, ample water supplies, and easy access to transport corridors connecting the Jordanian interior with Mediterranean ports, in addition to a long history of village and urban development rooted in antiquity, suggest the multiple strategic and economic functions of this rural centre for the Mamluk state," Walker said.
Much can be learnt about the structure and function of the Mamluks’ rural administration in this manner. Ultimately, "a dialectical relationship exists between textual and archaeological sources in this kind of social history, with a critical reading of one source frequently resulting in a re-reading of the other," said the professor.
This kind of give-and-take can allow us to explore new themes not readily accessible from one source used alone, she added.
"The Northern Jordan Project [NJP], based in the hill country between Irbid and the Syrian border, has demonstrated ways in which the dialogue between 'text and tell' remains our understanding of Mamluk social history.”
“In order to more fully explore the nature and long-term impact of Mamluk rule in Jordan, the NJP has adopted a methodology that is rather new to Mamluk archaeology: Research on contemporary documents in archives, done simultaneously with archaeological fieldwork and environmental studies," Walker elaborated.
In addition to the regular mix of narrative and administrative sources, research designs aim at identifying and analysing documentary sources to address a range of questions related to land use and local society that emerge from a critical “reading” of both texts and archaeological remains, Walker said.
The professor noted that one focal research problem of the project has been identifying factors behind the settlement shifts of the 15th century. Outside of political events, climatic change (identified by long episodes of drought) has frequently been cited in archaeological literature as a catalyst behind the abandonment of villages and fields in this period.
"Fieldwork has aimed, in part, at determining whether climatic changes coincided with any decline in settlement and agricultural productivity on the village and regional levels and whether land use changed with the collapse of the Mamluk state," Walker said.
The preliminary results have presented a different settlement history for the late Mamluk period than that which pervades the archaeological and historical literature. Rather than the disruption of settlement viewed in other parts of Jordan, the villages of the northern hill country continued to be occupied and generally productive.
Climatic conditions did change in the late Mamluk period, with dryer conditions than before, and some fields were abandoned for cultivation. Nonetheless, local villages appear to have adjusted by transforming their agricultural regime, through diversification of crops and smaller scale of production.
"In short, the collapse of the Mamluk state may have disrupted village life in some districts, but it certainly did not lead to the widespread decline of rural society or general dispersal of population, as suggested by archaeological surveys elsewhere.”
“There is, in fact, evidence for a change in climatic conditions less conducive to export-oriented agriculture, but local communities in some areas were able to adapt effectively," the professor added.
