Journal Article

Imperial Interventions in Daily Life: The Eastern Mediterranean under Early Ottoman Rule

Walker, Bethany J.

2023

Overview

The following article considers the imperial as experienced through the daily lives of peasants in southern Syria during the early Ottoman period. Control of critical resources was a flashpoint in the relationship between the state and village communities; thus, it is through the lens of land use that peasant dependency and agency in the face of the Ottoman state can be best evaluated. Two archaeological sites in Jordan and Israel provide data for detailed investigation of patterns noted in the scholarly literature. After a critical assessment of the contributions of archaeology to the large field of (overwhelmingly text-dominated) Ottoman studies, I turn to three areas of peasants’ lives that reflected, to different degrees, encounters with the imperial: land tenure and land use, household consumption, and material culture.

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: 16th century / Activities of daily living / Agricultural land / Agricultural production / Archaeological sites / Archaeology / Archives & records / Community / Consumption / Cultural heritage / Dependency / Diplomatic & consular services / Dominance / Empires / Everyday life / Historians / Historic buildings & sites / Land tenure / Land use / Material culture / Original Article / Peasants / Private libraries / Social Sciences