ABSTRACT

Here I met again many old friends from Sina i w h o m I had first met excavating wi th Petrie and who, when the work had come to an end at Sheikh Zuweyed , had moved back into Palestine. These were ma in ly semisettled Bedu of the G a z a Str ip , nomadic B e d u of the north S ina i tribes such as the Te r r ab in , my brothers, or the local tr ibesmen like the A m o r i n e . These men used to come wi th their tents and some of their families and settle i n for the whole season. M a n y of them had been do ing this work for about ten to twelve years, as they had started as smal l boys wi th Petrie when he was digging the sites in the W a d i G h u z z e h area in the late 1920s. A s wel l as this trained elite, we employed local labour from the sur rounding villages as basket boys, shovellers and workers on the light ra i lway. These villagers were a constant source of trouble, as they were usual ly at loggerheads, one village wi th another, and they d i d not leave their disputes at the side of the trench.