Artas, Bethlehem - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Palestinian territories

The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...

village located four kilometers southwest of Bethlehem

Bethlehem

Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...

in the Bethlehem Governorate

Bethlehem Governorate

The Bethlehem Governorate is one of 16 Governorates of the West Bank and Gaza Strip within the Palestinian Territories. It covers an area of the West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Its principal city and district capital is Bethlehem...

in the central West Bank

West Bank

The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...

. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics is the statistical organization under the umbrella of the Palestinian Cabinet of the Palestinian National Authority....

, the town had a population of 3,663 in 2007.

History

Archeological sites and historic remains dating from the Iron Age

Iron Age

The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...

to Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

times are located in the village. Until the 19th century, the Artas' residents were responsible for guarding the Solomon's Pools

Solomon's Pools

Solomon's Pools , are located immediately to the south of al-Khader and about 5 kilometres southwest of Bethlehem. The pools consist of three open cisterns, each pool with a 6 metre drop to the next, fed from an underground spring. With each pool being over 100 metres long, 65 metres wide and 10...

, a unique water system conducting water to Bethlehem and Herodium

Herodium

Herodium or Herodion is a volcano-like hill with a truncated cone located south of Jerusalem, near the city of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Herod the Great built a fortress and palace on the top of Herodium, and may have been buried there...

and the Temple Mount

Temple Mount

The Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...

or Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem. The village had a tradition of hosting foreign and local scholars, not a few of whom were women. As a result, there is a great body of work on all aspects of the village,

Christian missionary activity

In the mid-19th century, James Finn

James Finn

James Finn was a British Consul in Jerusalem, in the then Ottoman Empire . He arrived in 1845 with his wife Elizabeth Anne Finn. Finn was a devout Christian, who belonged to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, but who did not engage in missionary work during his years in...

, the British Consul of Jerusalem (1846-1863), and his wife Elisabeth Ann Finn, bought land in Artas to establish an experimental farm where they planned to employ poverty-stricken Jews from the Old City of Jerusalem. Johann Gros Steinbeck (grandfather of the author John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...

) and his brother Friedrich, settled there under the leadership of John Meshullam

John Meshullam

John Meshullam was a British born Jew. His family was killed on their way to Jerusalem in riots between Turks and Greeks. John as the only surviving sibling inherited the considerable family assets. John then moved to Berlin to study the German language and decided to move to the Levant...

, a converted Jew and member of a British missionary society. Clorinda S. Minor

Clorinda S. Minor

Clorinda S. Minor was an American woman from Philadelphia who became influenced by William Miller. When his prophecy failed to materialize she decided to set sail for Palestine. She first traveled to Palestine in May 1849 and came to support the experimental farm set up by the Finn family at Artas...

also lived in Artas in 1851 and 1853.

In the 1870s the Palestine Exploration Fund

Palestine Exploration Fund

The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society often simply known as the PEF. It was founded in 1865 and is still functioning today. Its initial object was to carry out surveys of the topography and ethnography of Ottoman Palestine with a remit that fell somewhere between an expeditionary...

and Claude Conder visited the village and remarked that it was "a small village perched against hill-side...with a good spring behind it whence an acqueduct led to Jebel Furedis...remains of a reservoir Humman Suleiman."

Foreign missionaries as well as local and foreign scholars continued to come to Artas. One of the best known of the latter was the Swedish-Finnish anthropologist Hilma Granqvist

Hilma Granqvist

Hilma Granqvist was a Swedish-speaking Finnish anthropologist who conducted long field studies of Palestinians. She was a student of Edward Westermarck.-Studies:...

who arrived at Artas in the 1920s as part of her research on the women of the Old Testament. She "arrived in Palestine in order to find the Jewish ancestors of Scripture. What she found instead was a Palestinian people with a distinct culture and way of life. She therefore changed the focus of her research to a full investigation of the customs, habits and ways of thinking of the people of that village. Granqvist ended up staying till 1931 documenting all aspects of village life. In so doing she took hundreds of photographs." Her many books about Artas were published between 1931 and 1965, making Artas one of the best documented Palestinian villages.

Geography

Artas and the surrounding area is characterized by the diversity of landscapes, flora and fauna due to its location at a meeting place of ecosystems.

Culture

Just across the valley from the village is the Christian Convent of the Hortus Conclusus. The Artas Folklore Center (AFC)was established in 1993 by Mr. Musa Sanad to document, preserve and share the rich heritage of the village. The village has a small folklore museum, a dabka and a drama troupe. The Artas Lettuce Festival has been an annual event since 1994. Artas is a popular destination for visitors to Bethlehem who want to experience traditional Palestinian life and groups interested in ecotourism

Ecotourism

Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.