Land and Landscapes in Mamluk and Ottoman Egypt (13th-18th Centuries) – EGYLandscape

This project grows out of a collaboration within the ANR-DFG project DYNTRAN: Dynamics of Transmission: Families, Authority and Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East (15th-17th Centuries). During that project, a subgroup of individuals discussed interest in continuing a partnership centered around transformations occurring within pre-modern rural Egypt, an issue of upmost importance at the current moment. Indeed, the state of research on natural and human spaces in Egypt has reached a threshold where reflection cannot progress without pooling together disciplines and periods (late Middle Ages, i.e. Mamluk, with the early modern, i.e. Ottoman). Archaeologists have become sensitive to the natural and human context of the settlements they study but face an absence of data for the Islamic period, especially after the twelth century. Historians, and especially medievalists, must deal with the limited corpus of available sources and move beyond traditionally Cairo-centric history in order to open the field of research to rural and environmental studies.

The environmental history of Egypt in the pre-modern period is a newly emerging field. Most extant work has primarily focused on Egypt’s agricultural history, especially its economic relevance for ruling regimes. Less research has explored the rural environment of Egypt within its ecological context or with regards to the impact of changing demography. The pre-modern hydraulic system is beginning to be better understood, but its evolution over centuries and its impact on human geography remains to be clarified. Furthermore, while land use has been considered in light of farming and food production, we know far less about the nature of land ownership and its evolution during the six centuries under scrutiny. Thus, it is important to widen the scope of study beyond the cultivator or the village, by exploring the interplay between the urban and rural as well as intra-village relationships. Large geographic stretches of Egypt remain nearly unstudied in both periods, especially the Western Desert and the Middle Nile Valley. Finally, there is a gap in the historical record regarding demographic settlement patterns, and how these patterns were driven by ecological factors and catastrophes – like the plague and regime direction.

In addressing these issues, this project proposes to bring together textual historians and archaeologists to build the foundations for perennial, interdisciplinary collaborations. Furthermore, the development of a GIS survey project will allow for a better visualization of the transformations happening within Egypt as regards land and water use, demography, and ecology; the GIS will remain an invaluable resource for later scholars. With a variety of sources and a multidisciplinary approach, the proposed project will further the discussion on the changes occurring within Egyptian agriculture, its countryside and peasantry, and its ecology during the periods discussed.