Life in the Dunes: The Western Hinterland of Yubna/Yavneh in Late Ottoman and British Mandate Times

abstract:This article discusses a section of the Israeli coastal plain known as Yavneh Sands between 1800 and 1948. This sand-dune strip, which legally belonged to the large village of Yubna/Yavneh and to the waqf of the major pilgrimage site of Nabi Rubin, was a peripheral territory, both economically and socially. The area was de facto controlled by wandering and sedentary Bedouin groups, who were accompanied by (seasonal?) peasant villagers, fishermen, and—in late summertime—numerous pilgrims from various coastal towns and villages who made their way to and from Nabi Rubin. These people usually left behind quantitatively and qualitatively modest material traces, which reinforce the assumption that the various Late Ottoman and Mandatory sites documented in the Yavneh Sands area were not permanent settlements but rather seasonal farmsteads and mainly temporary and even one-time campsites.