Clay Tobacco Pipes and Coffee Cup Sherds in the Archaeology of the Middle East: Artifacts of

Social Tensions from the Ottoman Past

Author(s): Uzi Baram
Source: International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 3, No. 3 (September 1999), pp. 137151
Published by: Springer
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International Journal ofHistorical

Archaeology,

Vol. 3, No. 3,1999

Clay Tobacco Pipes and CoffeeCup Sherds in

theArchaeologyof theMiddle East: Artifacts
of Social Tensions from theOttoman Past

Uzi Baram1

Nearly all discussion in historical archaeology exploring issues of consumption

and commodities isfocused on theEuro-American world This paper contributes
data from archaeological investigations in theMiddle East for exploring modern
consumption Commodities ofpleasure, such as tobacco and coffee, enteredMiddle
Eastern social life after thefifteenth century and greatly impacted the cultural
landscape of theMiddle East, entangling the peoples of the region into larger
socio-political arenas. Examples from provincial corners of theOttoman Empire
illustrate thepotential of historical archaeology for uncovering thematerial self

MiddleEast andforbreaking
downperceiveddivisions
ofpeoples inthe
definition
between components of themodern world

KEYWORDS:

OttomanEmpire;tobacco;coffee.
commodities;

INTRODUCTION
During excavations in Istanbul, JohnW. Hayes (1992) uncovered several
thousand clay tobacco pipe bowls. From the remains of a shipwreck on thefloor of
theRed Sea, Cheryl Ward (n.d.) recovered over 540 complete and several hundred
partial Chinese porcelains along with still uncounted numbers of clay tobacco
pipes. A survey of a rural area of Israel similarly brought forward large numbers

of such artifacts (Baram, 1996, pp. 227-233). These two classes of objects, dating
over several centuries, have been found in archaeological excavations from the
Balkans through theMiddle East. They have often been found in association with
each other (see, for example, Ben Dov's [1982] excavations outside of the south
ofSouthFlorida,5700 NorthTamiami
'Divisionof Social Sciences,New College of theUniversity
Trail

Sarasota, PL 34243.

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1999 PlenumPublishing
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Corporation

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138

Baram

wall of Jerusalem). As archaeological artifacts, until recently, theywere avoided

and ignored. Now a growing corpus of studies (e.g., Baram and Carroll, n.d.;
Simpson, n.d.) are documenting, cataloguing, and analyzing these artifacts of the
modern Middle East.
As part of an historical archaeology of themodern world (see Paynter, 1988;

Orser, 1996), these objects have the potential for illustrating aspects of social
and historical change for theOttoman Empire. That empire, which reigned for
six centuries, set the foundations for ethnic and national identities and polities of
the twentieth century easternMediterranean. While understandings of the empire
have been undergoing historiographic transformations (e.g., Abou-el-Haj,
1991;
Kafadar, 1995), the archaeology of the empire lags behind. This article presents an
interpretationof thegrowing corpus of archaeological evidence toprovide greater

social and global context for the dynamics of change in the region. The larger
goal of examining thematerial culture of theOttoman centuries is to challenge

ofMiddle Eastern identities

with a contingent
conceptualizations
primordialist
anthropological understanding of the roots of thepresent.
What can porcelain sherds and clay tobacco pipes tell us about social change

in theOttomanEmpire?By avoidingor negatingtheOttomancen

and identity

turies, social identities are traced from the present to the deep past. Rather than
examining the historical and contingent development and complexities of social
identities, a timelessness is created with this gap in time. Even if theOttoman
centuries are included in analyses, passivity is assumed in traditional understand
ings of the era.Westernization is typically understood as thedriving force for the

transformation of the region in the nineteenth century, with the triumph of the
West precipitating the collapse and dissolution of the empire in the aftermath of
theFirstWorld War (e.g., Kinross, 1977). The dominant scholarly approach em

thesubordinate
Middle East in
ploysWesterngoods to illustrate
positionof the
relation to theWest (e.g., Lewis, 1995; Kark, 1995). I argue that the archaeological
evidence embodies a more dynamic process of change for the region over the last
several centuries. The clay tobacco pipes and porcelain sherds aid in building this
perspective on change for the region. This approach follows a suggestion from

Kohl (1989): thearchaeology

of theOttomanEmpirecan takethediscourseof
archaeology, which has been used to negate the achievements of modern Middle
Eastern peoples (Silberman, n.d.) and use themethods of the discipline to aid us
in rethinking the impact of colonialism and imperialism.
Rather than conceptualizing the artifacts of themodem period as simply the
reflection of theWest in theMiddle East, the consumption of goods can illustrate
"creative variants of social processes based around the possession and use of
commodities" (Miller, 1995, p. 144). That agency was atwork during theOttoman

centuries, encouraging the acceptance of the new commodities. The large-scale

processes includedWesternization (ormore properly,Western Europeanization),
centralization, and the separation of identities intonationalities. Those trends over

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ArtifactsofSocial Tensionsfrom theOttoman Past

139

theOttoman centuries, especially as they relate to issues ofmodernity and identity,

have been receiving illumination by Ottoman historians (e.g.,Wheatcroft, 1993;

Abou-el-Haj, 1995;Kafadar,1995).With thecritiqueof the"decayanddecline"

forthe
OttomanEmpire(e.g.,IslamogluandKeyder,1977),localized
hypothesis
studies have brought out the social complexities and social tensions in thecities of

theempire(seeMarcus, 1989,forAleppo;Goffinan,1990,forIzmir).Contextual

archaeological interpretationsofmaterial culture can help in thisproject, to rethink

the processes of change for thepeoples of the region.

PLEASURES
OF THEMIDDLE EAST
The archaeological record for theOttoman centuries contains a wide range
of artifacts; clay tobacco pipes and porcelain coffee cup sherds are chosen because

forthe"Big
association
of their
withpleasure.They are thematerialcorrelations
Fix" ofmodernity
of pleasureand recreation
(Wolf,1982,p. 310), commodities
For theMiddle East,
thatgainedglobal popularityafterthesixteenth
century.
thewidespread consumption of coffee and tobacco represents the advent of new
social behaviors. Those behaviors appear early in the process that leads to the
emergence of themodern world. The consumption of the commodities became

embeddedintodaily lifefortheinhabitants
of theregion:thetobaccopipe as a
of
the
Ottoman
symbol
Empire (Kinross,1977,p. 329) and coffeeas a signof
hospitality (Birnbaum, 1956). These commodities of pleasure exist at the nexus of

the
powerand socialrelationships.
Thoughimpacted
byglobalspatialinequalities,
behaviors did not arise because of theWest;

the social relationships engendered

canbe tracedtothetransformations
Middle East during
inthe
by thecommodities
the early Islamic period.

waterandshadeas sourcesofMiddleEastern
describe
EarlyIslamic
writings

pleasures. Poetry and painting illustrate the place of runningwater, shaded parks,
and other images of coolness as essential topleasure (e.g., Blair and Bloom, 1991).
These images are not surprising for people who came out of thedesert. However,
places were not the only sources of pleasure for the people of theMiddle East.

whichareprohibited
by theQuran,severaltypes
Excludingalcoholandnarcotics,

of commodities provided pleasure.

One example is embodied by the twelfthcentury historian Ibn Asakir, who
defined pleasure as "eating a banana in the shade of theDome of theRock" (Elon,
1989, p. 59). In thisearly example fora commodity providing pleasure, we can find
the nexus of internaland external social dynamics. In the twelfthcentury,bananas
were an innovation for the peoples of theMiddle East. A stream of goods flowed

from the Indian subcontinent towards southwesternAsia and northernAfrica, The

movement came with the wave of Islamic conquests from the seventh century
onward. The introductionof sugar cane, cotton, spinach, and mangos, along with

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140

Baram

bananas created an "agricultural revolution'9 in theMiddle East (Watson, 1983),

one thatcontributed
toa socialunityin theregionunderIslamicrule.
The sixteenth century witnessed

the start of another transformation,bring

Middle East.That transformation

ingnew commoditiesto the
similarlyinvolved
with theinternal
externalprocesses intersecting
social dynamicsof theMiddle

East. Not only did theColumbian exchange impact the easternMediterranean on

financial, economic, and political levels, the consumption of new commodities
converged with social changes in theOttoman Empire.
An ethnographic analogy can illuminate the intersectionof consumption and

social change in the region. In an important study,Shelagh Weir (198S) examined

the intersection of economic life, social bonds, and social status with the spread
of qat consumption in the highlands of northernYemen. Qat, whose leaves are
chewed as a mild stimulant, has been cultivated since the early 1600s inArabia

its consumption remained confined to small, urban

twentieth
the
century did that change. Weir documents an
populations. Only in
increase in theconsumption of qat after 1970and argues the increased consumption
is related to transformations in social stratification.Consumption spread from the
small urban elite to nearly three-quartersof theYemenite population and included
bothmen and women. Though qat is addictive, itsrapid expansion, Weir argues, is
related to the transformations in social and economic life.Those transformations
and theHorn of Africa. Yet

are related to Yemen's increased dependence on wage labor from abroad and
external agricultural goods. That led small scale farmers to turn to growing qat.
With changes in thedistribution of wealth and with thedecline of traditional social
hierarchies, new patterns of social life developed. The social gatherings for qat
chewing facilitated participation in new social hierarchies and in new discourses

on socialstatus(foran analysisof theintersection

see
ofqat andnationalidentity,

Varisco, 1986).
This new pleasure intersectedwith economic and social transformations that

fromboth theglobal and local levels(see also,Cassanelli, 1986).This

radiated

example of a present-day pleasure provides insights intochanging social discourses

intimes of social and political-economic transformations.

The details for the cultivation of tobacco and coffee in theOttoman Empire
are not as clear as for the above example (see Quataert, 1973). We do know
from historians that economic and political dynamics changed, and we can trace
the changes in thematerial culture and attempt to connect the social history and
thematerial history.The sixteenth-century commodities were interconnectedwith
social and economic transformations, though the interconnections are, for themost
part, left in the shadows. We know from historical documentation about theuse of
coffee and tobacco inurban areas; thearchaeological record provides the evidence
for the spread and embeddedness of the consuming behaviors across all sectors

and regionsof theempire.

As an historicalarchaeology
ofOttomanlife,boththe

historical background and artifactswill be presented toexplore the social meanings

and implications of the new pleasures.

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141

ArtifactsofSocial Tensionsfrom theOttoman Past

THEHISTORICALTRANSITION
In thefifteenthcentury, theeasternMediterranean was divided by the remnants

of theByzantineEmpire,severalindependent
polities,dieMamluk Empireof

Egypt, and the expanding Ottoman Empire. By the early sixteenth century, the
Ottomans were conquering all of theMiddle East and Southeastern Europe.

of Syria,the
In 1516,on theeve of theOttomaninvasion
Mamluk leaders
inCairo ordereda ban cmall pleasures,specifically
wine andhashish(Salmon,
whatmostof
1921).Both areexcludedbyQuranic law.The ban only illustrates
us know:lawsthatbangoodsexistbecausepeopleareusingthesubstances.
With superior
theOttomanarmywas able tosweep through
firepower,
Syria
andEgypt(Hourani,1991,p. 215).TheMamluk leadership
ofEgyptwas removed
and a new era begun in theMiddle East. Soon afterwards,from the shores of the

eastern
totheEuphratesand theTigristothe
Mediterranean
Danube, Istanbulruled
the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

wine andhashishfromthepopulation
Mamluks soughtto remove
While the

in the face of Ottoman military might, a century later,other sources of pleasure

and recreation were banned by the Sultan. Murad m (1574-1595) banned cof
fee houses?a policy thatwas unsuccessful both on the local and imperial levels

Murad IV (1623-1640), in 1633bannedboth

(Bimbaum,1956).His successor,

coffee and tobacco. The trioof tobacco, coffee, and coffeehouses serve as mark
ers of a great cultural change, the political and social unification of the eastern
Mediterranean under Istanbul and the startof themodern age in theMiddle East.
These commodities and theplaces to consume themwere innovations for the
region but also seen as threats to the social order.With war being waged

against

inYemen,Egypt,andLebanon (Lewis, 1995,p. 403), the

Persia, insurrections
Sultan moved against the local places and commodities perceived as threatening
toOttoman rule.The contrast in thebans on pleasures illustrate transformations in

Middle East betweenthe

Mamluk andOttomanworlds,between
social lifeinthe
thepast and the foundations of the present.
Please note that the Sultan's analysis of coffee houses was accurate. They
served as places to gather, to discuss current affairs, and, forexample in 1703, to

(Hourani,1991,p. 237-238).At
explode intorebellionagainstthegovernment

the start of themodern age, the coffee houses were places for renegotiating the
social hierarchy and for challenging the social order. The social dynamics of the

of theelitetotheconsumption
of
and thereactions
incommodities
transformation
those commodities frame the archaeological

investigations into tobacco and coffee.

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPEARANCE OF THE COMMODITIES

What

brought these commodities of pleasure to theMiddle

East? Tobacco

their
andcoffeehave twoseparatestoriesregarding
origins.

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142

Barani

Coffee came fromYemen and/or Ethiopia, Sufis, Islamic mystics, were said
to the seventeenth century Ottoman chronicler

to use coffee beans. According

IbrahimPe$evi, twoSyriansnamedHakm and Shams broughtcoffeeand the

coffeehouse
fromtheArabian landsto Istanbulin 1555 (Hattox,1985,p. 77). By
were foundthroughout
theOttoman
theearly1600s,bothcoffeeandcoffeehouses
was regionalinorigin,the
materialcultureusedwith
Empire.Thoughtheproduct
of coffeepointtoentanglement
of the
Middle Eastwith largerscale
thedrinking

processes. The archaeological record contains uncounted numbers of sherds of

Chinese porcelains, Iznik wares, and British wares, a subset of which were used
for coffee consumption.
Tobacco is, of course, from theNew World. Documentary sources point to
English sailors bringing tobacco to Istanbul. Those documentary sources provide
dates ranging within the first decade of the seventeenth century (Baram, 1996,
p. 124-125). Ibrahim Pecevi tells us that:
[t]hefetidand nauseatingsmokeof tobaccowas broughtin (1601) byEnglish infidels

who

...
and
sold it as a remedy for certain diseases of humidity. Some
pleasure-seekers
became addicted, and soon even those who were not pleasure-seekers began

sensualists...

touse it(quotedinLewis, 1995,p. 161).

That description fits theorigins of tobacco for Istanbul. However, the empire

was biggerthanitscapital.
While Englishsailorsmighthavebroughttobaccoto
Istanbul, thewidespread and seemingly instantaneous appearance of a different
type of clay tobacco pipe across the region points to a separate origin for the
commodity across the imperial realm. Tobacco was typically introduced around
theworld as a herb tobe smoked ina pipe. Clay was widely used forpipes, and being

readily breakable, they entered the archaeological record inmassive numbers. An

interestingdivision existed before cigarettes overcame clay pipes at the turnof the
present century.While northwestern Europeans primarily used kaolin pipes, the
peoples of Africa and theMiddle East used an earthen-colored clay bowl with a
replaceable wood stem or reed. The archaeological evidence points to an African
rather thanNorthwestern European diffusion of thematerial culture of tobacco
during the seventeenth century.

MATERIAL CULTURE OF TOBACCO

A brief history of the Ottoman style of tobacco pipes, with its clay bowl,
replaceable stem and mouthpiece, finds a great diversity in shapes and styles over
time. The archaeological component is the clay bowl, the other pieces rarely are
uncovered because of issues of preservation (in thecase of the stem) and re-use of
themouthpiece.

The first
pipemaker'sguildwas establishedinSofia in1604(Robinson,1985,

p. 151). Guilds manufactured clay pipes for theempire. In provincial regions such

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ArtifactsofSoda! TensionsfromtheOttoman Past

143

as Palestine, both regional and village-level production were important (Baram,

1996, p. 161-167). Over the centuries, there are interestingpatterns of change for

theclay tobaccopipes ofOttomanPalestine.The limitedrangeof stylesin the

seventeenth century is replaced in the eighteenth century with a wide diversity

of shapes, colors, and styles. The shapes included rounded, disc-shapes, and lily
shaped bowls. The colors span the browns and earthen shades. The wide range
of motifs include simple line drawings, stars, triangles, and wreaths. That diver

thenineteenth
sityisdisplacedby a standardization
through
centuryto thepoint
a
that
handful
of
existed.
That
occurred
standardization
when tobacco
styles
only
cameunderthecontrolof a Frenchmonopolyas partof theOttoman
cultivation
EvenOttomanstylepipeswere producedbyFrenchfirmsforthe
DebtAuthority.
easternMediterranean markets. By the early twentieth century, large red brown
lily shaped bowls dominated assemblages. The last clay tobacco pipe manufacturer

closed inIstanbulinthe1920s,endingthepopularuse of theseitemsintheregion

(Robinson,1985,p. 152).

The patterns of material changes in this class of material culture illustrates

a point that certain Ottoman historians have been arguing. Owen (1981, p. 2)
notes that the passive view ofmodernization penetrating the region, thedominant
paradigm for understanding theOttoman centuries, rests on "the assumption that

theeconomicimpact
ofEuropeonlyreallybegantobe feltinthe
MiddleEast after

in an uneven and disjointed way some such impact is ap

the
parent throughout"
post-fifteenth century period. The pre-nineteenth-century
of
tobacco
illustrates
those impacts as interactingamong internalsocial
appearance
about 1800, whereas

dynamics.

MATERIALCULTUREOF COFFEE
The sequencefortheceramicsused forcoffeedrinkingisclear in itsbroad
ofEvliyaQelebi (vonHammer,1834)describesthecoffee
sweeps.The travelogue

cups found in the Istanbul markets in regards to the varying levels of prestige
associated with thedifferent types. From excavations across the region have come
examples of thatrange of ceramics. However, theceramics are best contextualized
in the coffeehouse.

is thekeytounderstanding
the
material
The sociabilitythatcoffeelubricates
forthe
of thiscommodity.
Thematerialarenaforcoffeeis thecoffeehouse;
culture

Middle East, the coffeehouse became the alternative to themosque as a place for
socializing outside of the home. Before coffeehouses, people entertained in their
homes. With coffeehouses, men went out at night; the spatial divisions of urban
areas were transformedby centrally located coffeehouses where people frommany
areas congregated (Hattox, 1985, p. 128).
Hattox (1985, p. 80-82) lists the three types of places to consume coffee: the
coffee stall, which was simply a place to prepare coffee fordelivery tomerchants

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144

Baram

as a place
and theirclients;thecoffeeshop,whichwas commoninneighborhood
witha fewbenchesandwhichdeliveredcoffeelikethestall;and thecoffeehouse,
which was found in cities and on themajor routes in the countryside. The cof
feehouse would be surrounded by a park or garden, a largemain room would be
both the place to prepare coffee and a salon for patrons to sit on long benches

ordivansstretching
offeredto thepatron
along itswalls. The physicalcomforts
included cool shade trees and the splashing of waters. The park-like environment,
similar to the pleasures of earlier time periods, provided a contrast to the heat,

The preferred
smell,and noiseofMiddle Easternurbansummers.
place todrink
but inthis
coffeewas not in thehome,althoughitwas preparedanddrunkthere,
publiccoffeehouse.
of coffee,
Thematerialculture
duringtheearlyexpansionof itsconsumption
in theMiddle East, includes earthenware and metal coffee bean roasters (circular
plates pierced with small holes forcooking over coals), cylinder coffeemills, metal
coffee boilers, and small cups of Chinese porcelains for drinking. The apparatus
included eithermortar and pestles or mills for grounding the coffee beans, large

caldrons for cooking the coffee, large clay vessels (major) and vats (mirkan) for
storing the coffee, and small copper kettles. Because coffee became associated with
sociability, the objects took on social meanings. The serving cups were made of

either earthenware or porcelain, depending on the establishment and its clientele.

Inparticular,
theChinese and Iznikporcelaincups became symbolsof prestige
andauthority
(seeCarroll,thisvolume).
Archaeologically,

the porcelain sherds from those coffee cups are themost

ofcoffee.Typically
finds
dismissedas 'toomodern*by
fromtheconsumption
likely

archaeologists, few archaeological

assemblages are extant Evidence

comes from

centos of Iznik
shipwrecks(see Raban, 1971;Ward, n.d.) and theproduction
(Aslanapa et al,

1989). The patterns for this class of material culture seems to

of theChinese
fromlocalproduction
consistof a shiftinorientation:
of imitations
styles to the dominance ofWestern European

styles and products.

the
That patternfitstheshiftin theuse of coffeeas it spreadthroughout
empireandfrom theempiretoCentralandWesternEurope.As in thecase of
sugar, coffee production was taken over by Europeans in theircolonial lands. By
the early eighteenth century,mass cultivation in Java, theCaribbean, and Brazil

overwhelmed
Middle Easternproduction(Wolf,1982,p. 336-339;Ukers, 1935,
the
twentieth
Middle Eastweredrinking
coffee
century,
p. 733). By
peoplesof the
imported from those colonial lands (Winter, 1992, p. 246).
What was the impact of changing production patterns? Though consumption
of the commodities is continuous throughout the seventeenth through twentieth
centuries, the social meaning of consuming these items changed. Why did the
consumption of these commodities flourishwhile their cultivation was incorpo

What does thistellus aboutthesocial

ratedintotheEuropeandivisionof labor?

dynamics of theOttoman centuries?

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ArtifactsofSocial TensionsfromtheOttoman Past

145

THE SOCIALLIFEOF THINGS

of thecommodities
As EricWolf (1982) notes,theadditiveproperties
do not
must
in
the
Ottoman
Social
conditions
be
their
explored.
Empire.
explain
spread
Was

theOttoman world more sociable than theMamluk world? The coffee

thestimulants;
house induced
peopletositintheeveningandpartakeinconsuming
as a place to see and be seen, itmet a social need. But why in themid-sixteenth

Was thesociabilityrelatedtochanges in thepoliticaleconomyof the

century?
socialcomplexity
correlatesto theincreasing
of the
MiddleEast?The sociability
modern era. With

increasing internal and external trade and the creation of new

bonds among producers and consumers, therearose competition among landown
ers, peasants, merchants, soldiers, religious groups, government officials, and mi
norities as all those groups increased in number.
One of the key issues forunderstanding the changes inpleasures and the in

of globalgoods intotheeverydaylivesof thepeoplesof theOttoman

corporation

Empire revolves around agency. There is nothing particularly natural about the
choice of coffee and tobacco as pleasures. Hashish and wine were also avail
able; to the south of the Empire, qat is a widespread narcotic that could fill
the same roles as tobacco. Later, teawas used ina similar social manner as coffee.
The finds in Istanbul of thousands of clay tobacco pipes as well as theplentiful cof
fee cup sherds must be situated within questions regarding social practices during
thepost-sixteenth century period ofOttoman history.
Moving away from assumptions of decline in the empire after the sixteenth
century?where Westernization is seen as imposed upon the peoples of the em
pire?we

can explore the intersectionof social and material worlds. Let us use one

forIstanbul.
thatpossibility
class ofpeoplefromtheEmpireto illustrate

The Janissaries are probably better remembered at the end of the twentieth
century for their, let us say, interestinguniforms and the struggles over theirhats
than for theirmilitary prowess. The Janissaries, a slave army of impressed Chris
tian youth from throughout theempire, fought for theSultan during thegreatwave
ofOttoman conquests of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. The sixteenth
century witnessed changes in the structure of thismilitary force. Suleiyman the

tobemarriedandhave
from1520to 1566)allowedJanissaries
Magnificent(sultan
andprivilegesof the
receivedsomeof therights
The sonsof Janissaries
children.
corps (Lewis, 1995, p. 124-125). After the sixteenth century, a sizable population

Even someOttomanhistorians
familieslivedinIstanbul.
of thesesoldiersand their
refer to the "riff-raff" thatmade up the Janissaries (Kocu Bey, as cited inLewis,

1995,p. 124).

The Janissaries, often understood to have been reactionary forces in theEm

pire, prevented various Sultans from modernizing the imperial organization. In
1826, Sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839) proclaimed the fez the new headgear for
theOttoman army.To booster this transformation in social life,he orchestrated the

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146

Banun

slaughter of seven thousand Janissaries to destroy that institution.The headgear

a clash betweencompeting
notionsfortheempire,usuallyportrayed
triggered
as thenew versustheold.Going beyondthatsimpledichotomy,
Quataert(1997,

p. 403) uses this event as a focal point to examine the processes of "transforma
tion, elite formation, centralization, and state building" for the nineteenth century

empire.
Rather than seeing the thousands of soldiers as reactionary, one can link
thepresence of thesemultitudes to a more sociable Istanbul under theOttomans.

tourbanworkersand their
Quataert(1997,p. 404) connectstheJanissaries
guilds.
The Janissaries, one ofmany classes to develop during thepost-sixteenth century

Middle East, had theresourcesand timetodrinkcoffeeand smoke

periodin the
tobacco;Wolf

(1982) refers to themas surplus-receiving. They also underwent the

socialdisciplining
thatencouragedtheingesting
of thesedrugfoods.This turning

of tradition around?because

coffee and tobacco became quintessential Middle

significant consequences forOttoman society. The peoples
who picked up themodern habits of the sixteenth and seventeenth century became
Eastern customs?had

theoppositionto the
of thepalace.
modernizingimpulses

This framework situates theconsumption of thecommodities and thevariation

in theirmaterial culture within societal tensions and historical dynamics. This

dynamicis foundinprovincialregionsof theempireaswell.

From excavations in Jerusalem come many more examples of theartifacts (see

BenDov, 1982,p. 355-373;Baram, 1996,p. 151-155).Singer(1994) helpsus to

contextualize the social dynamics throughher study of urban-peasant relationships
found in the court documents of Jerusalem.

To situate the social meaning for drinking coffee and smoking tobacco in
Jerusalem, let us turn to Singer's (1994) analysis of the social tensions and dy

namics in theJerusalem
The courtrecords(sijills)describerebellious
distinct.

peasants and oppressive officials. Yet therewas no revolt in sixteenth-century

Palestine. According to Singer (1994, p. 116-177), the peasants:
and
floor,beat up officials,
punchedholes inwater lines,stolegrainfromthe threshing
triedto cheat thetaxcollectorsby variousartifices.
Had all theseacts been coordinated
and contrivedtoachievea singlegoal, thenone could label themthemanifestations
of
a revolt. Yet

they were

individual actions, mounted

by single persons, one village, or a

or coordination
of defined
villageplusBedouin help.Therewas nowider organization

common

purpose. The "rebellious" deeds of the peasants were meant to achieve some
local, immediate benefit; theywere not aiming to overthrow theOttoman governor or bring
down the empire.

These social tensions between the local rulers and the ruled were part of a larger
scale tension between the sultan and his officials. Singer (1994, p. 121) finds

thatthepeasants"participated
activelyin thestruggle,
defendingtheroutines

established by the sultan and theirown custom." Those customs were not uniform;

thepeasants,asmuch as officialdom,
had socialstratifications.
Ties ofkinshipand

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ArtifactsofSoda! TensionsfromtheOttomanPast

147

geography between the countryside and the urban areas "wove the peasants into
other hierarchies of power, wealth, and influence" (Singer, 1994, p. 124).
Similar to the ethnographic example regarding the connection between qat
and changing social stratifications in late twentiethcenturyYemen, thedynamics
of social change inOttoman Palestine played a role in the consumption of coffee
and tobacco. Consumption

did not serve as an act of resistance to any mono

butwas partof a socialdynamicthatreactedto localofficials

lithicauthority,
while retaining
allianceswith imperialrule.For instance,in therevoltof 1703
170S, a coalition of peasants, Bedouin, and urbanites lasted only long enough to
remove the local officials in Jerusalem; Ottoman rule was not threatened. Sim

ilarly,thelateeighteenth
century
polityruledbyDahir al-'Umaral-Zaydaniin

northernPalestine organized imperial rule in a manner more advantageous, in the

short run, for the peasantry of die region. Archaeologically, we find the pottery
sherds that articulate thatworldview: resistance with available resources making
the new theirown, against, but not in explicit opposition to, the existing social
structure.

The social and economic intersectionwith consumption of these commodities

canalso be foundintheindividual
level.KhaterandKhater(1993,p. 35) describe

theirpeasant ancestor ofmid- to late nineteenth centuryMount Lebanon based on

oral histories and family papers. As theKhater family gained financial resources
from selling silkworm cocoons to the French inBeirut during the last quarter of
the nineteenth century, they replaced Yemenite coffee with themore expensive

coffee. For Assaf, returning to the village in 1898 after eight years in
South America, he displayed a conspicuous consumption at the village coffee
thatalienated his wife and children (Khater and Khater, 1993,
house?behaviors
Those
p. 40).
consuming habits had a negative impact on Assaf s family, resulting
in a "juggling ways of life that sometimes flowed almost effortlessly,and at other
times came crashing down with a loud bang" (Khater and Khater, 1993, p. 42).

Brazilian

The habits of theJanissaries, theactions of peasants around Jerusalem, and the

lifehistory of a Lebanese peasant are examples of the social dynamics articulating

thecommodities.
The actionsof thesepeoplewerepartof a subordinate
through

discourse, whose traces can be found in court records (e.g., Singer, 1994), family
histories (e.g., Khater and Khater, 1993), and the travelogues ofWestern Europeans
(e.g., Baram, 1996, p. 73-77). The artifacts give thepresent tangible evidence for
the contradictions and struggles of the people during theOttoman centuries. By

theend of theOttomanperiod,a rippingof thesocial fabricoccurredwith the

full incorporation of theOttoman Empire into theEuropean division of labor and

then direct colonial rule over most of the eastern Mediterranean after the First
World War. The tearingof the social fabric removed all but the negative images of
Ottoman rulefrom the collective memories of the peoples of theMiddle East and
replaced the social dynamics and tensions of the regionwith small states based on
nationalisms.

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148

Baram

Ifcommodities
(Orser,1996,p. 113)and social
embodyhumanrelationships
what
did
the
1996,
coffeehouses,
p. 115),
porcelaincups,and
meanings(Orser,
mean
to
the
of
the
Ottoman
tobacco
Empire?Itseemsclear that
clay
pipes
people
were
of the
of
not
Western
the
thecommodities
Europeanization
simply agents
of
the
nor
thedominantideology
empire.
region did theyreflect
It seems thatat the start of themodern era, around the seventeenth and early
eighteenth century, these commodities embodied thenew, themodern, the rebellion
against the social order. But by the end of the nineteenth century and into theearly
twentiethcentury, these items became old fashioned, thevestiges of an old empire,

commodities controlled byWestern European powers, items tobe replaced by tea,

cigarettes, and nationalism, which only furtherentangled thepeoples of the region

were a partof thesocial re

withglobalprocessesof change.The commodities
was
as
of
world
these
the
continually
being reconstructed
peoples
lationships
and recreated. The standardization of clay tobacco pipes and the replacement of
Chinese porcelains byWestern European produced ceramics provide archaeolog
ical correlates to thatprocess.
This historical and material transformation is over/determinedwith social
identities for the region. The Ottoman divisions of millet, religious-ethnic com

munities, are usually understood to have formed thebasis for the nationalist move
ments thatcolonial powers manipulated to construct themap of themodern Middle
East. While thematerial culture of certain commodities point to the divide in
the region between the elite {khassa) and thecommon people (iamma\ the simple
dichotomies hide the complexities of classes and social positions in the empire
(Winter, 1992, p. 244-247). From those tensions, and the external pressures of
the emerging capitalist world system, came even greater social tensions. Those
social dynamics incorporated the new commodities, used them for pleasures and
recreation, and in theprocess created a new social world in theMiddle East.

of theregion
withglobalprocessesofchange
Thismodel fortheentanglement

moves us away from thedominant paradigm forOttoman history and opens up the
material record as a source for understanding the social processes that led to the
formation of the present-dayMiddle East. The juxtaposition of the archaeological
record and themultilevel intersections of various social groupings of theOttoman
Empire with external processes of change opens up avenues forunderstanding the
meanings of consuming the commodities over the last several centuries. Further
explorations of local circumstances are needed to better understand the layers of

social complexities that included these artifactswithin the formation of themodern

Middle East.

CONCLUSIONS
The archaeology of theOttoman Empire is still in its infancy.Many more
excavations and research projects are needed to All out the sketchy outlines of

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ArtifactsofSocial Tensions fromtheOttoman Fist

149

material changes over the last several centuries. However, as an avenue for explor
ing history and agency as well as social tensions, commodities and consumption
seem very promising.

inthearchaeology
of theOttomanEmpirecan help in
The growinginterest

offering suggestions for the broad scope of archaeology in theMiddle East (e.g.,

ofartifacts
withinsocialcontextsisa necessarystep
Kark, 1995).The complexities
inMiddle Easternarchaeology.
inthedevelopment
of theory
For globalhistorical
a
of
the
the
Ottoman
fills
archaeology, archaeology
Empire
largegeographicgap
instudiesaroundtheworld.
theOttomanEmpire,thearchaeologyissignificant
In terms
ofunderstanding
for locating the local impact of large-scale processes of change. The cross-cultural
influences are found in thematerial record, evidence that is significant for concep

Middle East.AssumptionsaboutMiddle
tualizingthehabitsandpleasuresof the

Eastern isolation and thebarriers between East andWest are belied by thearchaeo

NewWorld andOld
logicalevidence;goodswerecyclingamongthepeoplesof the

World all through themodern era. Rather than a period of stasis, theOttoman cen

turies
containthedynamicsthatproducedthefoundations
forthepresent
Middle
East.Avoidingthisperiodhas allowedprimordial
of
conceptualizations ethnicity
to be assumed?that
the groupings of the region have always been homogenetic
and separate. The evidence from thearchaeology and the archives challenges those
assumptions.

andchangingsocialmeaningsof themoderncommodities
Tlie introduction
fortheempire.By the
bringforwardissuesof socialdynamicsandclass tensions
nineteenth century across the eastern Mediterranean,

the commodities were part

of the"devastating
with theemergence
changes"(Lewis, 1995,p. 3) involved

of themodern world system. However, rather than external changes, the trans
formations involved both external and internal dynamics. Those transformations
are not ethnically linked, rather class and social status are significant for con
ceptualizing the various strategies taken by groupings in the region. Decentering

is a further
of socialchange.
challengetoprimordialist
understandings
ethnicity

The approach oudined here foran archaeology of theOttoman Empire can open up

of thedevelopment
of socialdynamicsandethnictensionsin the
understandings

present.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper is part of a larger project on the archaeology of theOttoman
Empire. An earlier version of this argument was presented at the 1998 Society for
Historical Archaeology annual meeting inAtlanta. The participants in the session
'Commodities inGlobal Perspective" contributed useful feedback. New College

I would like to thank

LyndaCarroll for
providedsupportforthatpresentation.
comments on the paper. All errors are my responsibility.

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150

Baram

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