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°ECoordinates: 31°59′13″N 35°2′18″E / 31.98694°N 35.03833°E
Palestine grid	153/154
Governorate	Ramallah & al-Bireh
Government
• Type	Village council
Area
• Jurisdiction	13,390 dunams (13.4 km^2 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. 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. 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

• Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
• Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, H. H. (1882). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. 2. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
• Finkelstein, Israel; Lederman, Zvi, eds. (1997). Highlands of many cultures. 1. Tel Aviv: Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Publications Section. ISBN 965-440-007-3.
• Hadawi, Sami (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
• Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
• Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
• Palmer, E. H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Socin, A. (1879). "Alphabetisches Verzeichniss von Ortschaften des Paschalik Jerusalem". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 2: 135–163.

External links

• Welcome to Shuqba
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Shuqba (fact sheet)
• Shuqba village profile
• Shuqba (aerial photo)