A seal in the collections of the National Museum, Bahrain

This article describes a Murghab seal amulet recently identified in the collections of the National Museum of Bahrain and discusses some of the other evidence for contact between Central Asia and the Gulf in the early second millennium.     

Cartographical collections in America

ABSTRACT

The importance of maps in the construction of national territories has already received much attention from scholars; however, the discussion has mostly centred around the creation of political boundaries in emerging regions or states. Ethnic cartography, on the other hand, remains little studied, despite the fact that it also produced powerful symbolic meanings, advanced science and became a tool for various political ideologies. This article introduces the role that the mapping of ethnic territories played in political discourse in nineteenth-century Russia.     

馆藏壁画保护管理中的风险因素调查分析及对策

自1952年以来,被揭取迁移到博物馆中的墓葬壁画,在被修复、收藏、展示、运输、研究的过程中出现了画面污染、色彩褪变、颜料层粉化脱落、地仗层空鼓、支撑体变形等中度或重度腐蚀受损现象,使得现阶段对导致壁画藏品劣化、损毁的风险因素进行梳理和调查成为了一项亟待开展的基础工作。为此本工作从壁画保护的视角出发,在充分考虑其本体脆弱性的同时,将藏品管理中潜在的不确定性识别为明确的风险因素,提出有针对性的预防性保护措施,在规避风险的同时延缓藏品的老化进程,为加强藏品保护和零风险管理提供参考。     

Representing anthropological collections in the Gilded Age

In this essay I review two quite different works concerning the rise of American anthropology as a discipline. Both address the display of anthropology and the ways it presented itself to the public and represented itself to the field during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and provide alternative views of the coalescence of the field. I argue that each provides valuable insights into those formation processes without fully coming to grips with the contradictions inherent to the discipline during its formation, and which remain as fault lines in anthropological inquiry today.     

Studying museum material and collections

In modern post‐Renaissance western society, museums are the political and cultural institutions entrusted with holding the material evidence, real things, which constitute much modern knowledge. The paper considers some aspects of museums as institutions holding this material evidence – the institutional relationship to accepted knowledge and value, the implication in the social and economic system and the visible architectural display, – which make up the messages which museums communicate to their visitors through exhibitions and interpretive projects. Three related aspects of interpretation which belong with each museum object and specimen are examined, professional care, interpretive approaches and the nature of collections. Finally, these threads are drawn together to suggest a framework of research and investigation which underpins the approach to our understanding of this aspect of the heritage, and points the way to future work.     

Gender collections: Three approaches to the subject

Frese, Pamela R. and John M. Coggeshall, eds. Transcending Boundaries: Multi‐Disciplinary Approaches to the Study of Gender. New York: Bergin and Garvey, 1991. xvi + 208 pp. including chapter references and index. $42.95 cloth, $15.95 paper.

Jolly, Margaret and Martha Macintyre, eds. Family and Gender in the Pacific: Domestic Contradictions and the Colonial Impact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. xii + 296 pp. including collected bibliography and index. $49.50 cloth.

Sanday, Peggy Reeves and Ruth Gallagher Goodenough, eds. Beyond the Second Sex: New Directions in the Anthropology of Gender. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. viii + 350 pp. including chapter references and indices. $36.95 cloth, $16.95 paper.     

Context, curation, and bias: an evaluation of the Middle Paleolithic collections of Combe-Grenal (France)

The site of Combe-Grenal is arguably the reference site for the Mousterian of southwest France. Bordes excavated the site over a period of 13 years and generated a large collection of lithics and fauna from a deep series of 64 Lower and Middle Paleolithic levels. Though Bordes only partially published his work at the site, its long stratigraphic sequence and particularly its collections have been subjected to numerous studies over the years and have figured prominently in several long-running debates concerning the Mousterian. Recently, the authors undertook a project to inventory and analyzed these collections along with the documentation of their archaeological context. In so doing, however, a number of serious problems became apparent with the collection in its current state, problems that cannot easily be resolved given the state of the available documentation. These problems have important implications not only for results of studies based on these collections, but more generally, they also point to problems in terms of how archaeological collections are curated.     

《汉魏南北朝墓志汇编》标点辨误

赵超《汉魏南北朝墓志汇编》中,由于破散词语、文字释读不当、句子断限错误、语义层次不清等原因造成标点方面不少错误,本文从四个方面对此进行了分析与订正。     

纸质藏品修复用水考量

本工作借鉴已有的研究成果,并辅以相关调研,试图探究修复用水选择的重要性以及如何选择修复用水的问题。为此,通过对国内外文献的分析以及相关问题的调研,综述了生活饮用水中对纸张长期保存有害的污染物及其对纸张纤维的危害。通过对修复用水实例的讨论,指出:纸质藏品的修复须采用净化水,即通过逆渗透、去离子处理等方法净化后并达到一定电阻率的纯水,在条件许可的情况下,采用电阻率更高的超纯水更好;须现制现用以保证使用过程中净化水不被再次污染;在设备方面,选择小型纯水系统更能保证用水质量。     

Three unpublished collections of South Arabian coins

The author presents the South Arabian holdings of three museums in Israel, forty-eight coins in all. The coins comprise one Qatabanian coin and several coins each of three very common Himyarite and Sabaean types (two issues of 'Amdân Bayyin Yuhaqbid, kingdom of Saba' and dhû Raydân, and various coins of the Sabaean Bucranium series). The paper gives the opportunity to make some remarks on South Arabian Coinage.     

Michael J Clarke collections,from the Geological Survey of Tasmania,are transferred to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

Over 300 primary type and figured specimens of Late Palaeozoic invertebrates described by Michael J Clarke have been transferred to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collections.     

The remains of the saints: the evidence of early medieval relic collections

This article explores the materiality of early medieval devotion to the saints. It argues that, even though most of the material objects themselves no longer survive, there is nevertheless much to be gleaned from surviving caches of relic labels about what churches believed they possessed. It exploits the same evidence to explore how types of relic‐objects changed over time, track evidence for the importance of oral tradition in their formation, and identify pathways of circulation. In demonstrating how churches curated the relics in their care, it pinpoints the active participation of scribes and relic custodians in interpreting and re‐interpreting them.     

晚唐五代诗僧著述考

"诗僧",指善诗的或以诗名世的出家僧侣,也即孙昌武先生所说的"披着袈裟的诗人"①."唐代缁流,能诗者众"②.中唐以来,出现了一大批诗僧.刘禹锡说:"自近世而降,释子以诗名闻于世者相踵焉."(《秋日过鸿举法师院便送归江陵》诗序)③正是讲的这一情形.相较之下,晚唐五代却是诗僧自觉的时代.据《全唐诗》记载,终唐一代可考年者之诗僧共69人,僧诗2800余首,而晚唐阶段就有40人,僧诗近2000首.