Sarta

Sarta
Other transcription(s)
• Arabic	سرطّه
• Also spelled	Sarta (official)
Sarta village, 2014
Sarta Location of Sarta within the Palestinian territories
Coordinates: 32°06′15″N 35°05′25″E / 32.10417°N 35.09028°ECoordinates: 32°06′15″N 35°05′25″E / 32.10417°N 35.09028°E
Palestine grid	158/167
Governorate	Salfit
Government
• Type	Village council
Population (2007)
• Jurisdiction	2,530
Name meaning	Serta[1]

Sarta (Arabic: سرطّه‎‎) is a Palestinian town located in the Salfit Governorate in the northern West Bank, 22 kilometers southwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of approximately 2,530 in 2007.^[2]

History

Sarta is situated on an ancient site, where cisterns and columbariums carved into rock have been found.^[3]

Yakut mentions "Suratah", as being in "a village in Jabal Nabulus".^[4] It has been suggested that this was Sarta.^[5]

Ottoman era

The village was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the nahiya of Jabal Qubal in the liwa of Nablus. It had a population of 6 households, all Muslim. The villagers paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives.^[6]

French explorer Victor Guérin travelled through the village in 1870, and found it to have around 40 houses, some better built than in the average village. The stones of the houses were alternately red and white. Several ancient cisterns dug into the rock provided water for the residents.^[7] In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's "Survey of Western Palestine" described Serta as a small stone village.^[8]

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Sarta had a population of 275 Muslims and 1 Jew,^[9] increasing in the 1931 census to 317, all Muslim, in a total of 76 houses.^[10]

In 1945 the population was 420, all Muslims,^[11] while the total land area was 5,584 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.^[12] Of this, 1,858 were used for plantations and irrigable land, 766 for cereals,^[13] while 23 dunams were classified as built-up areas.^[14]

1948-1967

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Sarta came under Jordanian rule.

Post-1967

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Sarta has been under Israeli occupation.

References

1. Palmer 1881, p. 241
2. 2007 PCBS Census Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. p. 112.
3. Dauphin, 1998, p. 811
4. Le Strange, 1890, p. 540
5. Finkelstein et al, 1998, p. 274
6. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 135
7. Guérin, 1875, p. 146
8. Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 287
9. Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Nablus, p. 26
10. Mills, 1932, p. 65
11. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 19
12. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 61
13. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 107
14. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 158

Bibliography

• Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
• Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, H. H. (1882). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. 2. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Dauphin, Claudine (1998). La Palestine byzantine, Peuplement et Populations. BAR International Series 726 (in French). III : Catalogue. Oxford: Archeopress. ISBN 0-860549-05-4.
• Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
• Finkelstein, Israel; Lederman, Zvi, eds. (1997). Highlands of many cultures. Tel Aviv: Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Publications Section. ISBN 965-440-007-3.
• Guérin, Victor (1875). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 2: Samarie, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
• 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. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
• Mills, E., 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.
• Strange, le, 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.

External links

• Welcome To Sarta
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Sarta Village Profile
• Land Confiscation, Tree Burning and Uprooting Campaigns against the Village of Sarta 23, September, 2004, ARIJ
• Israeli Occupation Forces Embark on the Expansion of Burkan Industrial Compound, 03 September, 2008 ARIJ
• Palestinian land bulldozed for colonial expansion in Sarta village 08, July, 2009, ARIJ
• Extension of Take Over lands in Bruqin, Sarta, and Haris villages 02, January, 2012, ARIJ
• A new Israeli military order to grant more security for the settlement of Barqan 25, February, 2012, ARIJ
• Barkan colony map