Smoking Out Ottoman Sites in Northern Sinai, Egypt: The Use of Clay Tobacco Pipes for Identifying the Nature of Settlements in the Ottoman Period

Abstract

In this study clay tobacco pipes collected by the North Sinai Expedition are used to provide insights into settlement patterns and the structure of archaeological sites in the region. At many sites in northern Sinai, clay tobacco pipes are the only evidence of human activity. The absence of contemporary material culture and the recovery typically of one smoking pipe per site can be interpreted as evidence for ephemeral occupations. From this information it is argued that many of these sites were occupied by bedouin and transient Egyptian fellahin, perhaps on a short-term basis. The variations in the distribution of clay smoking pipes in north Sinai between the 17^th-18^th centuries and the 19^th-early 20^th centuries most likely represent the physical remains of different adaptive responses to varying socio-economic conditions in northeastern Egypt and Ottoman Palestine.