Old photos of Bedouin nomads, 1898
rarehistoricalphotos.com
rarehistoricalphotos.com
They were really nice people who just stopped some travelers for tea and a chat. They weren’t selling anything and wouldn’t take any gives or thank yous. Frequently when traveling you’ll get some fake hospitality experiences that end up just “gift shopping” but this experience was neat to me as they seemed just interested in travelers.
I wonder how frequently they do that as the road wasn’t super busy, but also wasn’t abandoned. We maybe spent half an hour and no else came by.
We hadn't realised (or ignorantly) but we were scrambling over a lived in area, peoples property. The reaction from everyone we randomly met was the same, warm, smiling.
I guess when you’re a Bedouin, you adopt some good hospitality traits.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZaZgfe2Gyk0/XqHI23JcnqI/AAAAAAAAW...
The animals are in a line bunched up close and alternating facing so that one animal has its head on the shoulders of the two animals next to itself and looking towards their rear.
I haven't seen that before. More peculiar is that I can't see them eating anything. Normally when animals are milked, it's lunch (or dinner) time. They line up in front of their troughs and they're milked while they eat. Typically there's some kind of divider or railing to keep them more or less still also. Otherwise you need to have really well disciplined and calm animals or you'll get lots of hooves in milk pots and so on.
It's also very interesting to see how they dried their cheeses on top of their tents. These look like small, lactic cheeses. If they had a good source of salt they would probably be very high on salt both to help preserve and sanitise them and also to replenish the salt lost by the people to the heat of the desert. Anyway that must have been really strong cheese: sun-dried, very salty, goat's milk cheese. Yum.
But that's a herd that's been allowed to go wild and we were primarily milking them for their relief. They're anarchist goats. If I stay longer on the farm (which is not mine) I may give it a go taming and training them, though. Should be fun :D
I didn't see any mention of the provenance of these photos. Anyone know?
On a side note, other than the deception, if these are "fake" current photos that's still be interesting.
Maybe someone who knows more about historical firearms than me can confirm whether the guns and ammo belts (which are the most visible bits of industrial technology) in the photos are viable for late 19th C.
https://www.thephoblographer.com/2013/01/31/behold-the-magni...
In contrast the 120 year old three channel photos of Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky from Tsarist Russia look like they were taken yesterday. https://www.loc.gov/collections/prokudin-gorskii/about-this-...
most people have never seen a real photography exhibition and don't realize the extreme detail and depth that can be achieved with analog photography, and has been possible for over a hundred years. consumer cameras are oriented to convenience, but film is so much more powerful than the toy cameras you might remember from when you were a kid.
The photographer kept the camera and his supplies in a horse-drawn wagon, which was also the darkroom.
"American colony, Jerusalem"
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-63S7WQRnp8k/XqHIqQjNkZI/AAAAAAAAW...
The "American colony, Jerusalem" only existed from 1881-late 1940s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colony,_Jerusalem
60. Bedouin mother and baby
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FlxLhh3aAJI/XqHInAmrTcI/AAAAAAAAW...
From the side of the picture, it looks like it's on film. Was it possible to have a film camera in 1889? Yes, barely.
"The use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing paper film in 1885 before switching to celluloid in 1889. His first camera, which he called the "Kodak," was first offered for sale in 1888."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_camera#Early_ph...
109. Bedouin sweethearts
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gdxkp8n0lnc/XqHI34__C_I/AAAAAAAAW...
The number 109 (sweethearts) is much higher than 60 (mother and child). That implies that there were many more worse photos that were not selected for uploading.
Far more recently, in 1937, my grandpa went on a cycling trip through Germany, Austria, and Italy, then back to the UK. My mum made a photo website about it, including links to some hotels that are still operating.
http://drmarionb.free.fr/1937CyclingTour/
He had been inspired by another book, Blue Skies and Good Companions. There's an archive of that available:
https://wdc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/cycling/id...
My mum then wrote an article about it for the CTC cycling magazine in the UK, and it was published in the Feb/Mar 2021 issue, page 47-49. (paywall, free registration required to view)
https://www.cyclinguk.org/publication/cycle-magazine-februar...
Some of these photos look amazing when colourised using DeOldify, via MyHeritage.
Lots of light, in the Sahara.
With all that light, they didn't need a flash, and the shutter could be fairly fast.
I am pretty sure they are real, but the dates given are kind of unverifiable, by looking. The Bedouin still pretty much look like that, today, but you might see the occasional watch, and probably more shoes, these days.
these photos are genuine — they come directly from the
- Library of Congress Matson (G. Eric and Edith) Photograph Collection [0]
- Library of Congress American Colony (Jerusalem). Photo Department [1]
- New York State Education Deparment Instructional lantern slides [2][3][4]
> These photos are of stunning quality. I'm not sure I've seen any 19th century photos that come close, even with retouching and postprocessing.
While lensmaking has become more industrialized and specialized, raw photographic technology has not advanced much over the past ~100 years.
This goes viral on reddit every so often, so I assume most are already familiar, but I recommend looking through the Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky[5] collection[6] on the LOC for examples of medium to large format color photography from 1905-1915, for example. Gorsky's field work of Tsarist Russia (with what was most likely some version of the Miethe Dreifarben-Kamera[7][8][9], given the rectangular shape of the glass negatives) is stunning.
[0]: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?sp=1&co=matpc&st=galler...
[1]: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/related/?va=exact&st=gallery&q=...
[2]: http://www.archives.nysed.gov/education/lesson-topic-syria
[3]: https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Brow...
[4]: https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Deta...
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Prokudin-Gorsky
[6]: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?co=prok&st=gallery
[7]: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/making.html
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/matpc/item/201969826...
"The American Colony and the Matson Photo Service"
And I emphasis, protection is not the only Bedouin occupation. But it is one and there is no need to sugar coat it.
This discussion is somewhat sureal to me.
Second, I see very well where people are making the very much false IMO parallels.
You are comparing modern states to opportunistic self-serving shortsighted violent families. Yes, states used and use violence also, but, no, they did not evolve from the kind of behavior that we are talking about, if anything they evolved in opposition to this. "Parallels"? similarity? maybe in some broad sense, but the differences are Hugh.
There is no structure here, there is no idea of a shared identity, there is no law. There is just the extended family (tribe) an the opportunity and willingness to do harm to others for profit. And no, historically this is not where we all came from, and no, this was not how most states where formed, and no, this is not what taxes are about.
That seems to me to be a very fair comparison
Stop romanticizing it.
Yes, some states started from violent protection based tribes (not all of them). This was not taxation. There were/are states and actual laws in the places Bedouin extort people for money under threat of violence. They provided no service in return execpt the promise that they themselves would not harm you.
Absolutely no, extorting "protection" money is not OK and it is not taxation.
I mean he literally didn't say that. He said that he risks being put in prison.
In general, that's in effect the same. You lose your property, and largely fall into cycles of institutionalized crime.
Although, I don't really agree with it since I don't see many modern countries putting people in long term prison for just taxation issues.
Rubbers like the one we're discussing shot you where you stand there is no "system" or "state" or "prison".
Time for a coffee.
Not a marginal difference, but I give up. You need to discuss the matter with people who went through the latter.
I pay taxes. Seems pretty different to me.
At the end of the day they're still taking your resources under threat of violence.
Small difference.
Yeah. Depending on the details of how you go about not paying your taxes I can see it happening. Heck, even if you pay your taxes the tax men might do it to you anyway if you do the kind of business they don't like they think you're unsympathetic enough and can get some political brownie points for screwing you[0](though thankfully this is very rare).
> There were/are states and actual laws
What makes them "actual laws". Surely the Bedouin have customs regarding the right and wrong amounts to charge, methods of payment, penalties for non-payment, etc, etc and those who work outside of those customs would be subject to penalty as a corrupt or rogue agent of the state would be in a "normal" state.
[0] https://i.redd.it/y57gwp4y81q01.jpg
Just because they didn't write it down in legalese doesn't mean it's not a law in practical terms.
From what I can understand the point here is that you cannot choose not to pay
If you live in a democracy, 'the government' is a consensus agreed by the people around you that you live amongst. The government is your family, neighbours, employer, all your fellow citizens. If you really don't like it vote, campaign, go into politics and change it. People do that.
Tax on property is justified as long as a base level is tax free, e.g. the first 500.000 USD in property (including pension funds, home, car, stocks).
Also, i can support other taxes like tax on imported goods for example (to protect internal markets that are of importance to a countries well-being).
The problem with income tax is that low income people risk being put in jail if they can't pay their taxes. And rich people can easily avoid income tax anyway (e.g. earn 1 USD a year from the job and get paid in stock or donate most income to a foundation that is in their own control).
An extra tax on luxury goods (private airplanes, yachts) would also be ok by the way.
The problem with consumption taxes is they can be bypassed in many ways, such as by spending your earnings abroad. I do think income taxes at higher brackets can be counter productive because they also can be bypassed in various ways, but that’s a practical matter not a moral one.
I have links to China and I think the growing implementation and use of income tax in China is a good thing. I hope that it will give Chinese people a sense that they are personally funding government, and that therefore the government should be accountable to them, the people paying its way.
As a citizen I feel a lot more of a direct connection between myself and responsibility for and accountability of government through the income taxes I pay than anything else. I’m proud of my contribution through income tax, but not so much for things like VAT.
With the taxation you not only pay them to not rob you but their presence also protects you from other robbers, who may not be willing to negotiate and just shoot you.
I really don't see a principled difference to taxation by states, the only difference is the size and a more formalized institution surround the racket.
You can decide for yourself on the morality of it, I will avoid to offer an opinion on it.
It's not their territory, similarly to how guerrilla groups in Columbia/Nepal do not own the Jungle/Himalaya/etc, and you don't get a choice whether you want their protection. If you brought your own armed man with you, you will get fired upon.
There where/are rubbers in Europe and in the USA, and we call them "rubbers"/"criminals". Why all of a sudden when we're discussing an "exotic" tribe we can't call it what it is? and again I'm emphasizing that not all Bedouin tribes practic(ed) violent rubbery, but some really did(do), and it was/is really nothing like taxation.
If we want to discuss a general claim that rubbery is the same as taxation, that's fine (and I disagree), but there is no reason to drag a specific type of rubbers into focus.
Who decides that?
They lived there since generations. They had weapons. They controlled who goes in their land.
I think that mattered more in reality, than some arbitary lines drawn on some map far away, by people never been close to the land in the first place.
And taxation in its oldest shape was indeed just protection money.
You had to pay your lord/king for safety. Otherwise the noble knights came to your farm and took what they wanted and might have burned it down, if they felt like it. And if you passed through foreign land, you had to pay hundreds of local lords for safe passage.
Same here. You pay the nomads for safety - they keep other tribes/rubbers away from their territory, providing you safety.
So you can claim, they did provide a "service".
But sure, you cannot really compare it to the taxation and services of the modern national states.
And sure, for the caravans it would be better, if just no one was around they needed to pay for protection of someone else.
It is parasitism. But this is how most states started. By preying on the weak for the benefit of a ruling class.
> They lived there since generations. They had weapons. They controlled who goes in their land.
A bit like the Israeli settlers in the West Bank then.
Until the governments in question were able and willing to project the power necessary to take the Bedouin controlled territory by force it was their state. Regardless of what the .gov claimed on paper. The Bedouins were the government there in practice.
For crying out loud "raiding" is listed in the Bedouin Wikipedia page under "traditions". (Again not the only practice, but it is what it is).
Also note that raiders are not generally also herders or traders and don't act in some common good and share their loot with the formers. (they share with their own close family) (most Bedouin families suffer from the raiders)
If you still have issues with seeing this as bandits also note that these tribes come with child abuse and women slavery bundled, but hey who are we to judge.
This all thread now reminds me of the movie Dogville. Highly recommend.
And don't get me wrong. They could have easily formed an autonomous territory and collect passage taxes. They didn't. The raiders, "protectors", were exactly, literally what we call gang or bandits anywhere else. Now you can go philosophical about how raiders and gang families are just tiny states, but use general terms please, these raiders are generally not different than others
No. "Taxes" in the modern sense implies that the taxees [1] as a group receive something in return. Are the bedouins building and maintaining roads? I don't think so. "Pay us money or else we'll torture, rape, and/or kill you" alone doesn't qualify as taxes, but as extortion.
[1] Is that a real word? I use it to refer to the people who have to pay taxes.
You'd be surprised.
Olson, 'Dictatorship, Democracy and Development', APSR 1993.
If I said deed registration fees, you would be correct.
Who says that though? Is it a straw man argument or is there some real point to it? Is it bad when the government and the tribe does it, or good when they do it?
> The tribe has just as much right (that is, might), as a "legitimate government".
It's as good or as bad as when a state does it.
It's likely that part of their success in doing so was by having effective alliances with Bedouin tribes of the region.
>"Palmyra’s role in all this was to help get the merchandise over the eight hundred miles that separated the cities and ports of Syria from the Persian Gulf and the sea route, by crossing the Syrian desert to the welcoming banks of the Euphrates and the fertile Persian territory; this was the annual adventure of the large caravans. The bartering and the palavers with tribal chiefs and the bribing of the Roman and Persian customs officers were done in Greek and Aramaic, the international languages of business."
So this "taxation" likely has a history going back over 2,000 years and would be a known feature of trading relations, not very different from paying a fee to use the Suez canal today.
I saw Lawrence of Arabia in its original format when the Cinerama in Seattle reopened.
Blew my mind.
Sure, I had seen it on cable and thought "meh". In its original format, it's a totally different movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_of_Arabia_%28film%29#...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CinemaScope
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Cinerama#Major_1990s_r...
I have no idea how 4K and CinemaScope compare.
It seems the film has been further restored since I last viewed it.
https://www.powells.com/book/lawrence-in-arabia-978030747641...
No clue if it is accurate or not but a good song.
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/matpc/colony.html
As to the history of photography, when these were taken Fenton's [in]famous pictures of the Crimean War were already 50 years old. Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky colour pics of the Russian empire are of about the same early 20th century vintage.
The majority of the images depict Palestine (present day Israel and the West Bank) from 1898 to 1946.For reference this color photo was made about 10 years after these: https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsc.03959/
- Bedouin Oracle, 1898
I don't know what kind of pipe this is, but compare to the French Bodega and Bulgarian Kaba Gaida.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaba_gaida#/media/File:Bulgari...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodega_(bagpipe)#/media/File:B...
Maybe cameras of the time were too big and serious looking, and everyone ended up posing.
What am I missing?
Did you censor yourself? Just curious.
My godparents are indigenous Maya peasants from southern Mexico, and until the last decade or two no adult in their village would ever smile to a camera, and certainly not in a formal portrait. Nowadays they are more exposed to mainstream Mexican/World culture, and norms are changing fast, but if you tell some adult you want to take their portrait you are still likely to get a very serious expression.
Younger kids would put their index finger & thumb in the shape of a gun and hold that under their chin and they would smile.
When I take pictures of my own kids (toddlers) they also have no idea about smiling, you have to "teach them" but then you end up with super fake expressions.
---
T.E. Lawrence: My friends, we have been foolish. Auda will not come to Aqaba. Not for money...
Auda abu Tayi: No.
T.E. Lawrence: ...for Feisal...
Auda abu Tayi: No!
T.E. Lawrence: ...nor to drive away the Turks. He will come... because it is his pleasure.
Auda abu Tayi: Thy mother mated with a scorpion.
But in recent years, surprisingly, Saudi Arabia is well into farming! The have borrowed the idea used in dryer parts of the US called center point irrigation. So, from a central pivot, they have a long boom, on wheels, that goes round and round spraying water drawn from the center point.
For the water? There was lots of it in the area some thousands of years ago, and it accumulated in fresh water aquifers now some hundreds of feet down.
In addition, on their west coast, that is, along the Red Sea, there are some mountains and, surprisingly, moisture blows in from the west and generates rain in the mountains. Soooooo, they've been capturing the runoff from that rain and using it for more agriculture.
though once the aquafers are empty, they won't refill anytime soon with the current precipitations
Another reason is the structure of the garment - it's a robe that is open from top to bottom, this allows air currents to flow along the skin, drawing away moisture and cooling the person.
The heat of the sun acts as the engine that causes that airflow (i.e. it's worth slightly higher temperature, which will then cause the hotter air to rise up, and out the neck carrying moisture with it).
And finally, you don't want a sunburn.
Modern heat control is all about exposing the skin for the cooling, but it relies on shelter and sunscreen to block the sun.
If you can't block the sun then you want a garment to do it.
https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Pol...
I didn't realize there was a more specific form of polygamy that is thought to be the fundamental mating system of animals
Their eyes seem quite large to me.
I'm guessing the "spectacular" was omitted from the original title to be less clickbaity, but the "and" should be removed as well.
Imagine what will become of our memories?
Maybe future us can simulate the past so well that we can recreate it. Maybe we're just echoes of the past in this very moment, playing out for dwellers of an advanced future.
Maybe they're omnipotent. They can capture all the radiation that gets emitted and reverse calculate everything. Our brain states. No simulation at all, but a recreation.
We could be in a mundane No Mouth Cannot Scream or Roko's Basilisk scenario this very moment. Implausible, but just maybe...
Maybe we're ads for a fancier metaverse platform.
I hope that isn't reflective of how their lives were.
1. there were plenty of societies where one sex had it worse than the other. From what I know of theirs, I'd be shocked to here they were egalitarian.
2. Women had what we'd recognize today as jobs, and in a tribal society those were just as hard as they needed to be - it was more or less an extended family. Men on the other hand used weapons, which suggest they were quite a lot more exposed to being killed. Women would have been harmed only in a wipeout, but as a man you're never sure you'll still be alive next year. Romance aside, I know what I'd chose.