Talk:Hamama

"Underlying Hamama's Late Ottoman and British Mandate toponymy, is a limited stratum of pre-Ottoman village names. To this pre-existing stratum, residents added new place names referring in cases to families living in or around the village. The great importance of land as the main means of production in Hamama's agrarian society, is reflected by many place names relating to the soil and its characteristics.^[1]"

1. Copied almost word by word (totally insufficient paraphrasing effort).
2. It was picked up from the abstract, w/o any input from the actual paper.
3. Makes no sense in parts: it refers to "village names", and here we have just one village. I guess the paragraph means to say that there are places in & around Hamama called by the name of the families living there or by the agric. characteristics of those places. But then say so!
4. It's an utter commonplace, I know of no village anywhere in the world where that's not precisely the case. Might feel good for activists ("roots in the soil of the motherland"), but so what.
5. Wikilinks to the most common of common nouns, maybe to mask lack of paraphrasing & pretend wikification (family, village, arguably soil).

If it is to be put back in, then only after proving relevance (the actual paper might offer valid arguments) and thoroughly reworking it. One interesting question: see paragraph here-above - maybe toponyms offer clues re. the habitation gap (missing Early Muslim through Crusader/Ayyubid periods), and even more likely for the reasons or context for reestabl. during Mamluk period. Then we'd be going somewhere.

Arminden (talk) 08:31, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! I seem to have missed this section. It's indeed a very close paraphrase. Here's a suggested revise. What do you think?

Scholarly research on Hamama’s toponymy notes that, like many villages in Palestine, its place names reflect multiple historical layers. While the village itself is of later foundation, some of the surrounding localities preserve older, pre-Ottoman names. Over time, additional names developed, often connected either to prominent families living in or near Hamama or to distinctive features of the soil and terrain. These naming practices reflect both the agrarian character of the settlement and the importance of land in its social organization

רמרום (talk) 08:38, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Not really.

• Did you read the paper? If not, we're back at square 1. Pls mind all 5 issues I have raised.
• Mostly commonplace (can be said about ANY OLD VILLAGE) or unsupported ("like many villages in Palestine, its place names reflect multiple historical layers" - not just there, universal; "village itself is of later foundation" - is it proven?; "some of the...": abstract made clear they're few, a limited "substrate", and that's a notable fact; "Over time, additional names developed..." etc. till the end - commonplace, universal).

Again: either the paper (not its very brief abstract) is offering useful info, or it belongs at best under "External links". Cheers, Arminden (talk) 09:02, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

To make very clear: I'm not "anti-Palestinian" or of any other bias, but I am anti-WP activism and against lowering the editing requirements for "nostalgia articles". There's a real need for that, but it's for Remember Palestine and arguably Khalidi to cover, not for Wiki. I'm dying to learn about any well-researched facts, no matter where they're pointing to. Thanks. Arminden (talk) 09:08, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

I've read the full paper, it's a historical toponymic analysis of the Palestinian Arabic placenames within the pre-1948 village territory of Hamama. According to Marom, the area contains place names of previously inhabited villages attested in the 16th century Ottoman defters. This point is also raised by Marom and Taxel 's 2023 peer-reivewed paper published in the Journal of Historical Geography, a highly prestigious and trusted academic source. What I meant by "the village *name* itself is of later foundation" (more properly) than the pre-Islamic toponyms themselves. The section "Over time, additional names developed, often connected either to prominent families living in or near Hamama or to distinctive features of the soil and terrain. These naming practices reflect both the agrarian character of the settlement and the importance of land in its social organization" is wp-quality and relevance.

On a separate note, this is not WP-activism, and all statements are based on verifiable sources. It's surely not a nostalgia article more than any study of a Celtic site, a Jewish Second Temple ruin, or an Indian tribe.רמרום (talk) 09:46, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

רמרום, sorry, I'm happy to apologise if I got something wrong or carried away. I didn't check who has introduced the etymology, now I see it was you, and I had no intention to get personal.

The facts which remain are that

• the main/first paragraph there is unsourced and
• it states that the Arabic name is a direct translation and continuation of the Greek Peleia, but the "History" section (this time sourced) clearly states that it's far from sure that Hamama stood at the same site as Peleia. The unsourced "Etymology" paragraph presents it as fact.
• The now expanded version of the sourced, 2nd paragraph isn't giving any of the actually relevant info (names of former villages in the area still found in place and taxed by the Ottomans), instead offers, w/o any concrete data, a commonplace statement about peasants relating to their land and places around a village being named after families living there and farming-related characteristics, which remain unnamed. That's totally unnecessary, as it's completely unspecific, virtually all names around any village anywhere are of that exact nature. Unless, of course, Marom has interesting unusual examples worth quoting.

I'd be as unhappy about unspecific sentences if relating to any village anywhere, but Palestinian ones tend to attract more than their fair share of it, and for a very understandable reason; but Wiki isn't the right place for that. Real, substantive info I'm devouring when I come across it, and I'm actually very reluctant when others remove material with even a small bit of good info. But good it must be, and never editorialising or being left unsourced.

Thanks for your effort and for giving me such a comprehensive reply. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 19:19, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I understood: Does Marom deal with the reëstablishment of a village there? If he does, that might be worth adding to the history section. The disappearance of other villages in the area during the Ottoman period is also worth quoting. The khirba phenomenon and the devastation by, say, the Egyptian invasion and maybe the repression of a local rebellion having such consequences is highly relevant and interesting, as are internal migrations, Bedouin-to-fellaheen processes and vice versa, and Mamluk or any other settlement efforts - if mentioned in a good source. Arminden (talk) 19:28, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi User:Arminden, I've read your critique several times, and here is a suggested revised paragraph with citations etc. to include the abandoned village names, and express the tentative link with Peleia:

== Etymology and toponymy ==

The site of Ḥamāma has been inhabited since at least the Hellenistic period, with remains from the Roman and Byzantine eras, and it has sometimes been identified with the settlement of *Peleia/Palaia* (Greek for "dove"), though this identification is not conclusive and may have been closer to Ascalon.^[1][2][3] The Arabic name *Ḥamāma* likewise means "dove," and may preserve this association, though alternative explanations exist, including traditions linking the name to a military encampment at the site (*Wādī al-Ḥima*).^[4][5]

Ottoman fiscal registers and later surveys show that by the seventeenth century many villages in the Gaza district were abandoned due to nomadic pressure and over-taxation, with their territories absorbed into surviving settlements such as Ḥamāma.^[6] Among the localities whose lands were annexed to Ḥamāma’s territory were Ṣandaḥanna (صندحنة) and Miʿṣaba (مصعبة), both of which appear in earlier records but were deserted by the eighteenth century.^[5] רמרום (talk) 08:28, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Wonderful! Thank you so much! I've really learned something from it, thanks for doing the work of summarising all those sources.

One observation if I may: Two bits clearly fit much better in the history section; I would move them myself, but the first one has 3 sources indicated, and I wouldn't know which of them correspond to it:

• "The site of Ḥamāma has been inhabited since at least the Hellenistic period, with remains from the Roman and Byzantine eras,"
• The entire second part, from "Ottoman fiscal registers" to "by the eighteenth century."

For the etymology section, this would fully suffice:

The site of Ḥamāma has sometimes been identified with that of Peleia/Palaia (Greek for "dove"), a city mentioned in ancient sources, though this identification is not conclusive and Peleia may have been closer to Ascalon.[source a, b, c]

Thanks again! Arminden (talk) 09:24, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

PS: If you write "has been inhabited since at least the Hellenistic period" it will be easily confused with "continuously inhabited", which apparenty it was not: habitation gap from the end of the Byz. period to the establishment of Hamama under the Mamluks. Wording... Arminden (talk) 09:27, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Pls. note that part of what I suggested should be moved to the history section is already mentioned there. The identif. w. Peleia is already both there and in the lead section, but that's OK, we should just coordinate and harmonise those bits & their sources (choose different wording, sometimes point to the other section). Arminden (talk) 09:46, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi Arminden, each source corresponds exactly to the statements preceding it. Fill free to make your suggested edits (fully agreed to) in the main text. I would go through them later . רמרום (talk) 10:17, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

It is clearly NOT clearcut or consensual, but "Etymology" section fails to take this into consideration.

Btw: Is Marom the source for the entire "Etymology" section? So far it's unsourced (paragraph sourced on Marom re. various local secondary toponyms was set apart from main etymological discussion re. the village name). Arminden (talk) 08:42, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

The Peleia identification is also mentioned in Khalidi's all that Remains, the Marom and Taxel paper, and other sources.רמרום (talk) 09:47, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

The possibility that Hamama=Peleia is in multiple sources, though it is not unanimous. Zero^talk 11:38, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

So this should be stated as a contested possibility. רמרום (talk) 16:35, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi all, see reply in the section above רמרום (talk) 08:29, 3 September 2025 (UTC)