Search results for "bepress|Arts and Humanities|Digital Humanities"

The President of the gold diggers: Sources of power in a gold mine in Burkina Faso

2003

The article provides an example of how 'formal' and 'informal' modes of power and legitimacy, as well as material and symbolic leadership resources, may intersect and interrelate. It analyses the sources of power that a Big Man in West Africa mobilised in order to appropriate mining rights and to establish leadership in a gold mining camp. As an entrepreneur in an economic field directly regulated by state laws and authorities, he has to operate within these structures while at the same time subverting them by creating a 'system of personal power' that resembles Sahlins' classic model of the Big Man in Melanesia. Although he is elected to represent the gold diggers, his leadership position …

ROMAN DACIA IN THE DIGITAL ERA

2020

The study of Roman Dacia in the last two centuries produced thousands of articles, studies, monographs and proceedings and revealed at least 3800 archaeological sites from the short period of existence of the province between 106-270 AD. The large quantity of material evidence – epigraphic, figurative, ceramic, architectural and numismatic – is constantly growing due to the numerous rescue excavations in the last two decades. The emergence of digital humanities and the possibilities of digital era created new perspectives in cataloguing, collecting and presenting archaeological big data. The article presents some of the major results of digital humanities focusing on the digitization of the…

Ceramic production at Selinunte (Sicily) during the 4th and 3rd century BCE: New archaeometric data through the analysis of kiln wastes

2018

Abstract A set of 37 overfired ceramic samples was collected from the dump of two kilns sited in the productive area FF1 in the acropolis of Selinunte (south western Sicily), being specifically active in the period 409–250 BCE. The ceramic samples were analysed by thin-section petrography and chemical analysis, with the aim to establish a valuable ‘reference group’ representative of the ceramic produced at Selinunte during the Punic phase. The petrographic and chemical analyses allowed to state that the ceramic manufactures from the kilns operating in the FF1 insula are characterized by rather homogeneous textural/compositional features. The daily-use common ware here produced is characteri…

2019

Using the method of third-person elicitation and 171 interviews in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, I examine one form of forced marriage, ‘marriage on the mat’ (ndoa ya mkeka). In it, girls’ parents use t...

From pedologic indications to archaeological reconstruction: deciphering land use in the Islamic period in the Baida district (north-western Sicily)

2013

Abstract The aim of this work was to detect imprints on soil properties from former Islamic land use (9th to 11th century) using a multi-method, soil-chemical approach. Four soil profiles (with buried horizons) found in the vicinities of former Islamic settlements in Sicily were analysed for phosphorus (total, organic and inorganic), nitrogen (total, NO 3 − and NH 4 + ), carbon compounds (δ 13 C, lipids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and functional groups), physical and chemical C-fractions and the state of soil weathering. Two soil profiles contained ceramic sherds from the Islamic period. Inorganic nitrogen forms, phosphorous and the PAH content indicated strong impacts from trad…

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…

Life cycle assessment of building materials: A comparison by electre methodology

1996

There is a growing awareness that in selection of building materials the designer must also consider environmnental impacts, either in global and local scale. Unfortunately, design community has an inadequate knowledge about the factors that affects environmental consequences of producing and operating buidings. To increase understanding on selection criteria and comparison of building alternatives in an “energy and environmental point of view”, is a significant goal for restraining gloabl enevironmental degradation. An interesting approach for assessing comparable products is the so called “multicriteria decision making”, but there is much debate about aggregation of criteria and weights a…

On john maynard keynes's anti-semitism once again: A documentary note

2015

This note presents new archival evidence about John Maynard Keynes' attitudes toward Jews. The relevant material is composed of two letters sent by Robert G. Wertheimer to Bertrand Russell and Richard F. Kahn along with their replies. Between 1963 and 1964, Wertheimer - An Austrian-born Jewish immigrant then professor of economics at Babson College - wrote to Russell and Kahn asking for their personal reminiscences concerning Keynes' anti-Semitic utterances. In their brief but still significant responses, both Russell and Kahn firmly denied any hint of anti-Semitism in Keynes, thereby providing significant first-hand testimonies from two of his closest acquaintances.

The shaping of public economic discourse in postwar America: the 1947 meat shortage and Franco Modigliani's meat plan

2015

This paper discusses the American debate over price controls and economic stabilization after World War II, when the transition from a war economy to a peace economy was characterized by bottlenecks in the productive system and shortages of food and other basic consumer goods, directly affecting the living standard of the population, the public opinion, and political discourse. Specifically, we will focus on the economist Franco Modigliani and his proposal for a "Plan to meet the problem of rising meat and other food prices without bureaucratic controls." The plan prepared by Modigliani in October 1947 was based on a system of taxes and subsidies to foster a proper distribution of disposabl…

School Success

2013