Image Details

Richard T. Nowitz

The nomadic Life. The Bedouin build shelters suitable to the season and to their traveling lifestyle. Tents provide them refuge from the rain and cold of the winter season (shown here, compare with photos of thatched hut and flat bread). These tents are often woven from black goat hair, which expands when wet, thus making the tent waterproof. The glistening black tents may have inspired the lover in the Song of Songs to declare: “I am black and beautiful / O daughters of Jerusalem / like the tents of Kedar” (Song of Songs 1:5). Flocks of sheep and goats, like the one standing before the tents are one of the Bedouin’s principle economic sources.