Search results for "Ancient history"

Osteological evidence for the Battles of Zürich, 1799: a glimpse into soldiery of the past

2003

Institute of Anthropology, University of Mainz, GermanyABSTRACT Four human skeletons probably could be attributed to people killed during the Battles ofZu¨rich in 1799. Cranial and postcranial gunshot wounds are consistent with those made byblack powder weapons using lead balls as ammunition. Additional finds include a probablecase of Scheuermann’s Disease and a pipe smoker’s facet. Copyright 2003 John Wiley S Switzerland; gunshot wounds; Scheuermann’s disease; pipesmoking; palaeopathology

Odeion and imperial cult at Scythopolis - GABRIEL MAZOR AND ARFAN NAJJAR, with contributions by EDNA AMOS, RACHEL BAR-NATHAN, ARIEL BERMAN and DÉBORA…

2009

Practical Movements: Kinetic rituals in the Ancient Western Mediterranean

2011

Scholars have studied the long-distance movements of people and goods in Phoenician and Punic society between the eighth and the second centuries BC in considerable depth. However, little attention has been paid to travelling, walking and sailing as common activities in their daily lives. it was through living in and moving through landscapes and seascapes that people constructed their sense of place. Sacred places may have been nodal points in these settings and everyday movements may well have become ritualized. This article develops the idea that journeys to shrines might be considered as pilgrimages and stresses the kinetic aspect of these practices. I suggest that trips to shrines were…

The ivory workshop of Valencina de la Concepción (Seville, Spain) and the identification of ivory from Asian elephant on the Iberian Peninsula in the…

2013

During excavations in the huge ditched enclosure of Valencina de la Concepcion (Seville, Spain), the main centre from the first hierarchical framework-settlement in the Guadalquivir Valley, a pit with remains of a context for producing ivory artefacts, dating from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, was discovered in the large metallurgical nucleate workshops. Scientific (Optical Microscopy, FIRT and Raman Spectroscopy, C/N Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry) analyses revealed that the ivory belonged to Asian elephants and the archaeological study, which was made in a specialized workshop context. In this paper we present the archaeological context, the study of the ivory artefacts and th…

KINGS M. PHIRI, JOHN McCRACKEN, WAPULUMUKA O. MULWAFU, editors, Malawi in Crisis: the 1959/60 Nyasaland State of Emergency and its legacy. Zomba: Kac…

2014

Historical and Technical Notes on Aqueducts from Prehistoric to Medieval Times

2013

The aim of this paper is to present the evolution of aqueduct technologies through the millennia, from prehistoric to medieval times. These hydraulic works were used by several civilizations to collect water from springs and to transport it to settlements, sanctuaries and other targets. Several civilizations, in China and the Americas, developed water transport systems independently, and brought these to high levels of sophistication. For the Mediterranean civilizations, one of the salient characteristics of cultural development, since the Minoan Era (ca. 3200-1100 BC), is the architectural and hydraulic function of aqueducts used for the water supply in palaces and other settlements. The M…

Todavía unas palabras sobre las venas cefálica y basílica

1993

Ever since 1879, when Josef Hyrtl first formulated his thesis that the names of the cephalic and basilic veins, as applied to the arm veins, were of Arab origin, a dis­cussion began between philologists and historians of medicine as the former defen­ded the Greek source of such denominations whilst the latter shared the view of the Viennese anatomist. The author, after making a critical review of the -relevant works published hit­herto, unearthes a text drawn from a Persian manuscript dating back to the 15th century that, in his view, confirms the rigthness of the Viennese anatomist's thesis.

On the Borana Calendrical System: A Preliminary Field Report

1988

This article addresses the astronomical functioning of the lunar calendar of the Oromo Borana (Ethiopia and Kenya). It is based on the participant observation method, observing the night sky over a time of about one year with Bante Abbagala, a Borana expert in time reckoning. Differently from previous ethnographic accounts and hypotheses, the author suggests that the Borana implicitly add an intercalary month that allows keeping correspondence between season and the name of the lunar month, even if they do not acknowledge it. They do not consider the declination of the moon, sun or stars. They rather apply a complex devise that allows the direct evaluation of the relative right ascension po…

Ocher and cinnabar in the argaric funerary record

2012

The known cases of Bronze Age Argaric stained skeletons found in the Southeast of the Iberian Peninsula, have been analysed. The various hypotheses proposed relating to the origin of these colorations have been evaluated in light of new data provided by SEM, XRD and RAMAN spectroscopic analysis carried out on five Argaric graves of Murcia and Alicante. The results have indicated the presence of ochre and cinnabar on some of the skeletons. Without discarding the possibility that both substances were used in dyeing fabrics, it is proposed that their main use was for face and body make-up, being higher the number of recorded cases on female skeletons compared to male.

The genomic history of the Aegean palatial civilizations

2021

Summary The Cycladic, the Minoan, and the Helladic (Mycenaean) cultures define the Bronze Age (BA) of Greece. Urbanism, complex social structures, craft and agricultural specialization, and the earliest forms of writing characterize this iconic period. We sequenced six Early to Middle BA whole genomes, along with 11 mitochondrial genomes, sampled from the three BA cultures of the Aegean Sea. The Early BA (EBA) genomes are homogeneous and derive most of their ancestry from Neolithic Aegeans, contrary to earlier hypotheses that the Neolithic-EBA cultural transition was due to massive population turnover. EBA Aegeans were shaped by relatively small-scale migration from East of the Aegean, as e…