Economic Prosperity, Agricultural Growth in Early Byzantine Bilad ash-Sham

AMMAN – The early Byzantine period was a period of great economic prosperity in the southern Bilad ash-Sham. 

“Agriculture reached its peak during the fifth and sixth centuries AD in terms of the amount of tillable land that was exploited,” noted Konstantinos Politis, adding that other important factors which should be taken into consideration as part of this process of intensification include the fact that soldier-settlers were given plots of land to cultivate as well as tax reductions, besides their regular payments. 

"The fifth century was a period of intense state and private investment, explaining the prosperity during the early Byzantine period. Apart from the great investment in the construction of churches and monasteries there was also a significant input of capital from Christian pilgrims," Politis underlined, noting that published itineraries and records of individual visits demonstrate that the number of pilgrimages grew continually from the fourth century onwards. 

Many of these pilgrims would have spent money on their personal needs, and it is known that inns were established through public and private initiative. 

"Investment in water management systems was also marked during the early Byzantine period throughout the region of Bilad ash-Sham. Rural settlements in the early Byzantine period could broadly be divided into villages fortified by enclosures or built near military installations, agricultural villages and agricultural monasteries where the monks, like the peasants of the nearby villages, lived by exploiting the land," Politis underlined, adding that The Nessana papri provide information on the variety of crops which were grown, including wheat, barley, grapes, olives, figs and dates. 

Although these may mostly have been for local consumption, a series of entagia for requisitions of wheat and oil by the Arab governor in the late seventh century indicates that a surplus of crops beyond the needs of the local population may have been sometimes produced, though this may have been subject to taxation by the Byzantine state.

"The general picture perhaps confirms the idea that the Umayyads left the peasantry to continue to farm the fertile countryside. Archaeological surveys and excavations carried out in Hawran and Balqa demonstrate that farmland continued to be settled into the Umayyad period, prolonging the occupation of the same areas in early Byzantine, Roman and earlier times,” Politis elaborated. 

"Indeed, this pattern of Umayyad settlement on Byzantine sites is known throughout Bilad ash-Sham. Archaeological work has highlighted the waves of expansion of agriculture even into the arid desert-like areas of the Negev during the Byzantine period[5th to 7th centuries], followed by a second wave during the Umayyad period [7th to 8th centuries]," the Greek scholar underlined, adding that this has been attributed to the following factors: state policy deliberately encouraging agricultural settlements on the frontier, as well as the gradual shift of semi-nomads from nomadic to spontaneous settlements, culminating in state-sponsored settlement. 

An examination of the archaeological evidence for early Islamic occupation in the southern Negev and the Arabah suggests that new settlements were established and flourished throughout the region during the 8th to 10th/11th centuries, Politis highlighted.

"Their economic base included large-scale agriculture using sophisticated irrigation systems and the introduction of new crops, copper and gold mining and production, stone quarrying and the development of a road network used by traders and pilgrims," Politis underlined, adding that in further support of this hypothesis of economic continuity from the early Byzantine to Islamic periods, excavations at modern Aqaba have uncovered significant portions of the Nabataean, Roman and Byzantine city of Ayla, which flourished from the first century BC to the Islamic conquest ," Politis concluded.