ABSTRACT
Nomads in the Near East are the stuff of myth. The nomadic horde sweeping out of the desert, plundering and pillaging the hapless village and laying siege to the city has long been a theme of Near Eastern history, both ancient and modern, from the Amorites as eaters of raw fl esh to Lawrence of Arabia. These myths have provided a convenient deus ex machina for naive historical explanation. The collapse of states, and indeed civilizations, and the rise of new ones have been ascribed countless times to nomadic invasions; the rise of true religions has been attributed to nomadic desert tribes.
