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Template:Infobox Palestinian Authority municipality

Artas (Template:Lang-ar) is a Palestinian village located four kilometers southwest of Bethlehem in the Bethlehem Governorate in the central West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 3,663 in 2007.

History

Pre-Ottoman period

Archeological sites and historic remains dating from the Iron Age to Ottoman times are located in the village.

Nasir Khusraw wrote that: "a couple of leagues from Jerusalem is a place where thehre are four villages, and there is here a spring of water, with numerous gardens and orchards, and it is called Faradis (or the Paradises), on account of the beauty of the spot." According to le Strange, the name Urtas is probably a corruption of Hortus, which has the same meaning as Firdus (Paradise).

From a spring below the village an aqueduct used to carry water to Birket el Hummam by Jebel el Fureidis.

Ottoman period

In 1596, Artas appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Quds. It had a population of 32 Muslim households.

Until the 19th century, the Artas' residents were responsible for guarding the Solomon's Pools, a unique water system conducting water to Bethlehem and Herodium and the Temple Mount 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,

In the mid-19th century, James Finn, 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) and his brother Friedrich, settled there under the leadership of John Meshullam, a converted Jew and member of a British missionary society. Clorinda S. Minor also lived in Artas in 1851 and 1853.

In the 1870s the Palestine Exploration Fund 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."

British Mandate period

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 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.

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Urtas had a population of 433, 192 male and 197 female Muslims, and 1 male and 43 female Christians. In the 1931 census the population of Artas was a total of 619 in 123 inhabited houses. There were 272 male and 273 female Muslims, while there was 5 male and 69 female Christians.

In 1945 the population of Artas was 800, all Arabs, who owned 4,304 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 894 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 644 for cereals, while 54 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

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.

References

1. 2007 PCBS Census Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. p.118.
2. Le Strange, 1890, p. 440
3. Conder & Kitchener, vol 3, 1883, p. 161
4. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 116
5. A Century and a Half of Women's Encounters in Artas
6. Recommended Reading and Selected Bibliography of Artas
8. Mountain of Despair, Haaretz
9. Conder and Kitchener, 1883, Vol III, 'Urtas'. p. 27.
10. Other Palestines 24 - 30 May 2001 Al-Ahram Weekly Online
11. J. B. Barron, ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine. Table VII, Sub-district of Bethlehem.
12. E. Mills, ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas (PDF). Jerusalem: Government of Palestine. p. 35.
13. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in S. Hadawi, Village Statistics, 1945. PLO Research Center, 1970, p. 56
14. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in S. Hadawi, Village Statistics, 1945. PLO Research Center, 1970, p. 101
15. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in S. Hadawi, Village Statistics, 1945. PLO Research Center, 1970, p. 151
16. Artas Valley
17. Hortus Conclusus (the Sealed Gardens)
18. Musa Sanad 1949 - 2005 A Modern Day Palestinian Folk Hero By Leyla Zuaiter
19. Welcome To Bethlehem.ps

Bibliography

• Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, Herbert H. (1883). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 3. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• 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.
• E. Mills, ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas (PDF). 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.
• Rogers, Mary Eliza (1865). Domestic life in Palestine. Poe & Hichcock.
• Sharon, Moshe (1997), Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, Vol. I, A, BRILL, ISBN 90-04-10833-5 (Artas; p.117)
• le Strange, Guy (1890), Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500, Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, London,

External links

• Artas Village (Fact Sheet)
• Artas Village Profile
• Artas Areal Photo
• The priorities and needs for development in Artas village based on the community and local authorities’ assessment
• Welcome To Artas
• Artas Folklore Center
• Satellite View of Artas
• Sacrilege in the Bethlehem District Villages of Artas and El Walajeh 02, September, 1999, ARIJ
• Report about violated and confiscated lands in Artas village 10, February, 2003, ARIJ
• The Palestinian Village Artas Falls in the Vortex of the Segregation Wall 21, July, 2004, ARIJ
• The Segregation Wall threatens the lands of Artas Village, Southwest Bethlehem City 17, May, 2006, ARIJ
• Dabke Artas Lettuce Festival 2007 Part One, youtube.com
• Dabke Artas Lettuce Festival 2007 Part Two, youtube.com

v t e Bethlehem Governorate
Cities	Beit Jala Beit Sahour Bethlehem (Beit Lahm)
Municipalities	Battir Beit Fajjar al-Dawha Husan Jannatah (Rakhme, al-Asakra, Khallet al Karaneen, Al ‘Ukab, Harmala, and Abu Njeim) al-Khader Nahalin Tuqu' al-Ubeidiya Za'atara
Villages	'Arab al-Rashayida Artas Beit Ta'mir Dar Salah Hindaza Jab'a Jubbet ad-Dib Juhdum Jurat ash Sham'a Khallet al-Haddad Khallet al-Louza Khirbet Beit Zakariyyah Kisan al-Ma'sara al-Maniya Marah Ma'alla Marah Rabah Nuaman Umm Salamuna ash-Shawawra Wadi al-Arayis Wadi Fukin Wadi an-Nis Wadi Rahhal al-Walaja
Religion	Chapel of the Milk Grotto Chapel of the Shepherds' Field Church of Saint Catherine, Bethlehem Church of the Nativity Mosque of Omar (Bethlehem) St. George's Monastery, Al-Khader Al-Hamadiyya Mosque Monastery of Saint Theodosius Mar Saba Rachel's Tomb
Refugee camps	Aida 'Azza Dheisheh
Other	Solomon's Pools ‘Ayn Fashkhah

• Villages in the West Bank
• Bethlehem Governorate