Shuqba

Shuqba
Other transcription(s)
  Arabic شقبه

Roadside view of Shuqba, 2012
Shuqba

Location of Shuqba within the Palestinian territories

Coordinates: 31°59′13″N 35°2′18″E / 31.98694°N 35.03833°E / 31.98694; 35.03833Coordinates: 31°59′13″N 35°2′18″E / 31.98694°N 35.03833°E / 31.98694; 35.03833
Palestine grid 153/154
Governorate Ramallah & al-Bireh
Government
  Type Village council
Area
  Jurisdiction 13,390 dunams (13.4 km2 or 5.2 sq mi)
Population (2007)
  Jurisdiction 4,500
Name meaning The crevasse, cleft, or narrow pass.[1]

Shuqba (Arabic: شقبة) is a Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located 17.71 kilometers northwest of the city of Ramallah in Palestine. It is bounded on the southwest by the village of Qibya, on the southeast by Shabatin, on the northeast by Deir Abu Mish'al and on the north by the Israeli settlement of Ofarim.[2]

Shuqba has a total area of 13,990 dunams, and the built-up area comprises 616 dunams.[2] Shuqba was home to approximately 4,497 inhabitants in 2007.[3]

History

Dorothy Garrod studied the transition of Mesolithic to Neolithic culture represented in a cave on the northern bank of Wadi an-Natuf near Shuqba in 1928. The name "Natufian Culture" was then coined to describe the inhabitants of the southern Levant at this crucial juncture in human history.[4]

Sherds from Iron Age I-II, Iron Age II, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman Empire, Byzantine and Mamluk eras have been found.[5]

Ottoman era

Sherds from the early Ottoman era have been found here.[5] In 1596 Shuqba was a part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Ramla, which was under the administration of the liwa ("district") of Gaza. In the tax records that year it had a population of 49 household who were all Muslims. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 25 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and a press for olives or grape syrup; a total of 2,600 Akçe.[6]

Under the name "Schakba", an Ottoman village list of about 1870 found 39 houses and a population of 141, though the population count included men only.[7]

In 1882 the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as "A small village on high ground, surrounded with trees."[8]

British Mandate era

In a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Shuqba had a population of 530 inhabitants, all Muslims,[9] increasing in the 1931 census to 696, still all Muslims, in a total of 130 houses.[10]

In 1945, the population was 840, all Muslims,[11] while the total land area was 15,013 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.[12] Of this, 1,496 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 5,053 for cereals,[13] while 16 dunams were classified as built-up areas.[14]

1948-1967

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Shuqba came under Jordanian rule.

Post-1967

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Shuqba has been under Israeli occupation.

References

  1. Palmer, 1881, p. 245
  2. 1 2 The Israeli fever of house demolition continues in Shuqba village Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem 2006-03-02
  3. 2007 PCBS Census. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. p.113.
  4. Elizabeth Knowles (2000), The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-860219-7, p. 728
  5. 1 2 Finkelstein et al., 1997, pp. 188–189
  6. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 154
  7. Socin, 1879, p. 160
  8. Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 298
  9. Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p. 22
  10. Mills, 1932, p. 23.
  11. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 30
  12. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 68
  13. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 117
  14. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 167

Bibliography

External links

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