Search results for "Rites"
showing 10 items of 427 documents
Il culto dei gatti in India. Continuità ed evoluzione di credenze e pratiche religiose dall’India vedica all’India contemporanea
2019
Cat as an animal is a sporadic presence in Vedic mythology and Brahmanic works on rituals, while it appears in a few cult practices of contemporary popular religiosity in India. This article holds that in Indian devotional practices, the cat is conceived as an animal with an ambiguous nature. It also suggests that the cat cult is linked with the need to tame chaos, violence, and con$ict, and to place them in a controlled, orderly, and pacified cosmos. To understand these phenomena, this article studies, from a multidisciplinary perspective, contemporary religious practices in the light of the Indian tradition, and suggests that the cat cult was subject to substantial Brahmanization.
Gli occhi, il fuoco, il grano. Simboli, pratiche e credenze tradizionali nel culto di santa Lucia di Siracusa
2020
The folkloric traditions related to Saint Lucia of Syracuse are characterized, in Sicily as well as elsewhere in Italy, by a peculiar mythical-ritual symbolism. The eyes, fire, wheat are the main elements. The Saint is invoked to solve the problems of sight and all ophthalmic pathologies (both in a cult context and in a magical-medical one) and as such she is the recipient of ex voto objects and the protagonist of prayers and spells. On the eve of her dies natalis, bonfires are lit and processions of torches take place; for her festival, celebrated in some centers with solemn functions and processions, foods based on wheat seeds, sometimes added with other legumes, are widely prepared. This…
I ricordi figurati: «foto di famiglia» in Sicilia
2006
Today we are witnessing the increasingly insistent formation of visual stereotypes. The continuous repetition of these modules, used in similar situations, makes it easier to interpret them, so much so that they can now be considered elements of a common language: a figurative language to be investigated in the context of the anthropology of visual communication. The Sicilian family photos collected in this essay belong to this category of cultural products and allow us to reflect on the different articulations of cultural phenomena.
ХЛЕБ И ПРАЗДНИК НА СИЦИЛИИ (Bread and Festivities in Sicily)
2011
Among the important parts of the traditional calendar rites in Sicily are bakery and pastry products made in special shapes. Being produced and consumed during certain rituals and being shaped to reflect their mystic connotations, these products become the integral signs of these rituals in both the constitutive and functional sense. What is refl ected in their symbolism, beliefs, and related practices is the deeply archaic peasant worldview in the framework of which these rituals had been shaped; and in particular, it is the meaning that is attached to the infl uence of chthonic forces in the cyclic reproduction of natural and social life.
Dissection of the structure-forming activity from the structure-guiding activity of silicatein: a biomimetic molecular approach to print optical fibe…
2020
Silicateins, a group of proteins forming the proteinaceous axial filaments of the inorganic biosilica spicules of the siliceous sponges, are unique in their dual function to exhibit both structure-guiding (providing the structural platform for the biosilica product) and structure-forming activities (enzymatic function: biosilica synthesis from ortho-silicate). The primary translation product of the silicatein gene comprises a signal peptide, a pro-peptide and, separated by an autocatalytic cleavage site glutamine/aspartic acid [Q/D], the sequence of the mature silicatein protein. In order to dissect the biocatalytic, structure-forming activity of silicatein from its structure-guiding functi…
Isolation and characterization of two T-box genes from sponges, the phylogenetically oldest metazoan taxon
2003
It is now well established that all metazoan phyla derived from one common ancestor, the hypothetical Urmetazoa. Due to the basal position of Porifera (Demospongiae) in the phylogenetic tree of Metazoa, studies on the mechanisms controlling the development of these animals can provide clues on the understanding of the origin of multicellular animals and on how the first organization of the body plan evolved. In this report we describe the isolation and genomic characterization of two T-box genes from the siliceous sponge Suberites domuncula. The phylogenetic analysis classifies one into the subfamily of Brachyury, Sd-Bra, and the second into the Tbx2 subfamily, Sd-Tbx2. Analyses of the Sd-B…
Species-Specific Aggregation Factor in Sponges
1978
An aggregation receptor (AR) from the siliceous sponge Suberites domuncula has been isolated and purified by chromatography to about 55% purity. The AR consists primarily of neutral carbohydrate and is characterized by a buoyant density of 1.59 g/ml and by an apparent molecular weight of 42,500. The average density of the AR on Suberite cells is about 3.8 × 10 5 per μm 2 . The AR contains considerable amounts of hexuronic acid. The isolated AR can bind not only to receptor-depleted Suberites cells but also to receptor depleted cells from another siliceous species (Geodia cydontum) . After being charged with Suberites ARs, Geodia cells form aggregates in the presence of the species-specific …
Formation of silicones mediated by the sponge enzyme silicatein-α
2010
The sponge-restricted enzyme silicatein-α catalyzes in vivo silica formation from monomeric silicon compounds from sea water (i.e. silicic acid) and plays the pivotal role during synthesis of the siliceous sponge spicules. Recombinant silicatein-α, which was cloned from the demosponge Suberites domuncula (phylum Porifera), is shown to catalyze in vitro condensation of alkoxy silanes during a phase transfer reaction at neutral pH and ambient temperature to yield silicones like the straight-chained polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The reported condensation reaction is considered to be the first description of an enzymatically enhanced organometallic condensation reaction.
Molecular Mechanism of Spicule Formation in the Demosponge Suberites domuncula: Silicatein-Collagen-Myotrophin
2003
In living organisms four major groups of biominerals exist: (1) iron compounds, which are restricted primarily to Prokaryota; (2) calcium phosphates, found in Metazoa; (3) calcium carbonates, used by Prokaryota, Protozoa, Plantae, Fungi and Metazoa and (4) silica (opal) present in sponges and diatoms (reviewed in: Bengtson 1994; Baeuerlein 2000). It is surprising that the occurrence of silica as a major skeletal element is restricted to some Protozoa and to sponges (Porifera). The element silicon (Si) contributes to 28% of the earth crust and is - after oxygen - the second most abundant element on earth (Windholz 1983).
A cryptochrome-based photosensory system in the siliceous sponge Suberites domuncula (Demospongiae)
2010
Based on the light-reactive behavior of siliceous sponges, their intriguing quartz glass-based spicular system and the existence of a light-generating luciferase [Muller WEG et al. (2009) Cell Mol Life Sci 66, 537–552], a protein potentially involved in light reception has been identified, cloned and recombinantly expressed from the demosponge Suberites domuncula. Its sequence displays two domains characteristic of cryptochrome, the N-terminal photolyase-related region and the C-terminal FAD-binding domain. The expression level of S. domuncula cryptochrome depends on animal’s exposure to light and is highest in tissue regions rich in siliceous spicules; in the dark, no cryptochrome transcri…