The tent is one of the most primitive types of habitation known to man. The tent incorporates all the main elements of any small house : partitions, supporting pillars, a roof, flooring, entrance etc. Nevertheless, the tent is much more than just a rudimentary canopy under which an occupant can eat and sleep - the tent is a mobile shelter, a portable home par excellence.
The tent is associated with the earliest forms ofnomadism. As such it is an essential accessory for all human activities requiring a shelter capable of being erected and dismantled in a relatively short space of time. Nomadism however does not only refer to movement and to the concomitant need for a mobile dwelling – nomadic populations have always searched pastures where they could reside in a more sedentary manner.
This point is important since it undermines to some extent the division that has often been made between sedentary agricultural societies on the one hand and nomadic pastoral ones on the other. Until recently the two were considered as rivals, that is to say as two potentially conflicting ways of exploiting the land. One has only to think of the marauding barbarian tribes in contrast to the civilised Roman towns to grasp the point. Stereotypes such as these have long been models of thought. Today, thanks to new research, a new and more civilised form of nomadism has emerged.
Nomadism has always been prevalent in all the continents of the world – from the Sahara to Mongolia, from Arabia to America and from India to Siberia. The word “Arab” actually comes from the Semitic word “nomad” and is not specific to any one particular place. Over time the term has come to indicate the migratory Bedouin tribes – moving and trading with considerable success across the whole of Nabatea, Sinai and Mesopotamia. The common element however has always been the tent and with this, from the end of the 2nd Century AD, the rearing of camels and dromedaries. In the Bedouin language the word “beit” still refers to both the tent and the constructed urban dwelling.
The Bedouin tent has in general a rectangular base, measures 3 x 4 metres and is divided into two distinct areas, one public the other private. The public area is used to receive guests and is situated on the left of the entrance. The private area is to be found on the right and is reserved for women and other members of the family.
In the Old Testament, the place where the Jews worshipped God was in a tent erected by Moses, the very tent in which the Arc of the Covenant was placed (Exodus 39, 32-40, 38.) Such a desert sanctuary was conceived as a sort of portable temple, a tradition which became widely diffused .
The Arabs adopted it in ancient times and continued to use it right through to the present day. For religious purposes, the Bedouin made use of a small tent, a type of portable four poster bed that accompanied the tribe in all of their movements. It was the last object to be packed when leaving camp. It was transported on the back of a camel and during battles the daughter of the Sheik or some other beautiful young girl would sit upon it and shout encouragements to the combatants.
Tents were not only used as shelters and shrines, they were also part and parcel of standard military equipment. The Romans made extensive use of them and during their expansion the technique of camp building was refined almost to a fine art. Such was the size and sophistication of their camps that they actually gave birth to real cites such as Turin, Verona, Chester and York, all of which preserve to this day their camp-like form. Given that a Roman soldier would pass anything up to twenty eight years of his life in a camp and that a legion numbered nearly six thousand men, it is not difficult to imagine how many of them soon became small scale cities, attracting a whole network of associated activities (merchants, craftsmen and women).
The military camp was square or rectangular in shape, each side measuring around 500 meters in length. It was surrounded by a ditch about two metres deep behind which the soldiers through up an earth ramp surmounted by a
wooden palisade. The camp would be crossed by a perpendicular and a horizontal road that would meet in the middle outside the tent of the commander. The camp would be situated close to a river and the more permanent ones would be equipped with a bathhouse, storerooms, stables and a parade ground. The legionaries generally slept eight to a tent, the officers had tents that were larger and more luxurious according to their rank. Military camps of this kind appear on several Roman monuments on Trajan’s Column, on the column of Antoninus Pius and on the Arch of Septimius Severus. The roman tent tradition continued under the Byzantines and went on to influence European models. Viking tents were perhaps more remarkable than others in that they could even be deployed inside the boats themselves during long voyages.
In Asia the history of the tent is just as long. When describing the region between the Black Sea and what is now Mongolia, Herodotus explains that the inhabitants live in a “yurta,” that is to say a round structure built on a wooden framework and covered in felt. The word “yurta” is Turkish and originally referred to the land upon which the nomad camp was set. By extension, the word came to signify the camp and eventually the nomad tent itself (in Mongolian the tent is referred to as ger.) The “yurta” has also been described by the Franciscan monk, Giovanni da Pian Del Carpine who travelled through Central Asia in the 13th Century and who befriended the Tartars
Even today the Mongol people still use their traditional nomadic home. The average “yurta,” holding four to five people would have a surface area of approximately 18 - 20 square metres. The round walls would attain no more than 1.5 metres in height and the ventilation hole in the roof would be approximately 3 metres above the ground. The exterior of the “yurta” would often be coated in white earth or powdered bone in order to reflect the sun’s rays. Internal furnishings would be simple – bedding with mattresses made out of course wool and fur quilts, a couple of stools and numerous wicker cases containing arms, clothing and crockery. The “yurta” carried on being built in the same way for centuries. One still comes across them in the period of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane from China to Europe. The Mongol dynasty, originating in Central Asia, was responsible for introducing the tradition into India.
The Ottoman Turks were also great tent makers. An example of an Ottoman Turk tent, dating to the late 17th Century is preserved In the Real Armeria in Madrid. Needless to say the armies of the Ottoman Turks would have had thousands of them. The tent of the sovereign and his accompanying dignitaries would have been luxuriously decorated. Such a tent would have been used to receive guests, hold banquets, negotiate alliances and perform all sorts of other ceremonies. Not surprisingly they were fitted with every conceivable type of commodity, including baths and even en suite bathrooms, something the Turks had inherited from the Romans. The external covering was red, blue and white while the interior was lavishly decorated in golden and silk embroideries and embellished with all sorts of zigzag patterns.
The American Indians also made use of tents (wigwams, tipi etc.) The latter were usually made out of small pieces of hide sewn together and transported in general by the women and the dogs. With the introduction of horses in the 16th Century, the tents became even bigger.
The “tipi” was an invention of the Apache and the Black Foot Indians who resided in the Eastern half of what today is the United States. Construction consisted of three or four poles tied together at one end and covered with bison hides that were often decorated by the women. In warmer climes, the tents could be made of cotton. The tents belonging to the chiefs could attain anything up to 5 metres in height. The shape of the tent was oval and the summits possessed a hole allowing smoke to escape and the circulation of air. The bison hides were water proof and protected the interior from all outside elements. Furnishings were basic - willow branches tied together and supported by a trestle for the head and bison hides for the bed proper. Tools and other paraphernalia could be hung from the interior. The camps could count hundreds of tents all of which could be taken down and removed in a day
