How the Romans got themselves into hot water: temperatures and fuel types used in firing a hypocaust

Abstract

The remains of hypocausts are noted as being widespread throughout the Roman Empire but, whereas the structure of hypocaust systems has been widely documented, primary knowledge of operating temperatures is limited. The petrographic technique of reflectance microscopy is used here to quantify cell wall reflectance values for charcoals from the hypocaust furnace of a bath suite forming part of small Romano-British villa complex at Groundwell Ridge near Swindon (Wiltshire, UK). The technique utilises material of archaeological origin to infer operating temperatures of the hypocaust furnace using established calibrations. The charcoals recovered from the furnace were identified as being predominantly Quercus (Oak) with some Populus/Salix (poplar/willow). Mean random reflectance of the samples indicated furnace-operating temperatures of 330–410°C. These temperatures fall below that of charcoal fuel production and hence suggest that it was wood that was used to fuel the hypocaust at Groundwell Ridge and not charcoal. Knowledge of the operating temperature of the furnace is a starting point in further calculations to understand, using primary evidence, the operating temperatures throughout the hypocaust system.     

河南卫辉市大司马村一号汉墓及墓前建筑

大司马墓地位于河南省卫辉市唐庄镇大司马村北面,在太行山余脉谷驼岭以南,为西北高东南低的丘陵地带(图一)。墓地中心的地理坐标为东经113'59'34、北纬35'     

Canal projects in the isthmus of Panama and adjacent regions

This article examines some of the problems of studying patterns of internal trading and the operation of periodic market centres in the context of seventeenth‐century Scotland. The changing distribution of periodic market centres throughout the century is discussed, and the difficulties of moving from a theoretical framework based on networks of authorised centres, towards the one which existed in practice, is examined by means of a case study from Perthshire.     

"The Big and the Small of it" Perspectives in Latin American-U.S.Relations

Linda B. Hall. OIL, banks, and Politics: The United States and Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1917–1924
Thomas F. O'brien. The Revolutionary Mission: American Enterprise in Latin America, 1900–1945     

Rationalization and Conservation: Ecology and the Management of Nature in the United Kingdom

Nature conservation in the UK comprises not only a response to the perceived impacts of rationalization on nature but is itself a dimension of that process of rationalization. The paper describes the development of conservation institutions and ideologies in the UK and considers the ways in which ecology (and particularly ideas of nature as equilibrium) have provided the intellectual framework for conservation. Ecology underpinned the establishment of government conservation institutions, provided intellectual strategies for classifying and objectifying nature, and provided the knowledge base for the control and management of nature. The paper discusses the implications of non-equilibrial ideas in ecology for ideas and practice in conservation and the implications of responses to them in the form of re-rationalization.     

秦陵7号坑铜水禽彩绘保护及分析

K0007号陪葬坑出土了一批青铜水禽,在其中发现了少量残存的彩绘。本文从铜禽彩绘的保护、清理、彩绘颜料分析和彩绘施彩工艺分析等方面对铜水禽彩绘进行了分析研究。     

Conservation and Management Strategies Applied to Post-Recovery Analysis of the American Civil War Submarine H. L. Hunley (1864)

The 12-m long submarine H. L. [Horace Lawson] Hunley was successfully recovered from the Atlantic in August 2000 after nearly 140 years of immersion, and immediately brought to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center to be excavated in a controlled environment. In 2001 a multi-disciplinary team excavated the crew compartment and uncovered numerous fragile artefacts and human remains. This paper describes the conduct of the excavation and technological advancements developed to work with this complex and unstable iron vessel. Impressed current technologies, automated tank controls and water monitoring systems; laser mapping; fibre-optics; database management; in situ x and gamma rays; moulding and protection of fragile archaeological features; and protocols for moving artefacts to the laboratory will also be discussed.
© 2004 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

The Empire Meets the New Deal: Interwar Encounters in Conservation and Regional Planning

British imperial and American experiences in conservation and planning are providing fresh interdisciplinary challenges for university teaching and research. The Roosevelt administration's ‘New Deal’ included government‐sponsored interventions in soil erosion and water management and sophisticated regional development agendas. Reviewing samples of the latter areas of concern, this article explores the proposition that, although the British Empire was scarcely bereft of comparable interwar programmes and was becoming somewhat preoccupied with centrifugal tendencies, persistent porosity, exhausting struggles with postwar reconstruction, and comprehensive economic depression, New Deal evangelism was in fact variously anticipated, harnessed, challenged and ignored. A discussion of widely separated national and regional examples locates a layered interplay between uneven imperial and US pulsations, independent local manoeuvres, and critical inputs from key individual agents. The most important filters included the presence of comparatively robust bureaucratic infrastructures and the cultivation of international relationships by scientists and technologists. Encounters with convergent revisionism suggest cautionary leads for students, researchers and teachers alike. Reconstructions of selected contexts underline the presence of familiar posturing, opportunism, and astute patriotic deployment during the emergence of modern styles of globalization.     

武汉国民政府时期邓演达关于农民问题的理论建构及其思想基础

武汉政府时期,邓演达在复杂、激荡的时局下,就农民在国民革命中的地位、农民解放、农民政权和武装等问题,建构了具有自身特色的农民理论.各种因素的困扰,形势的变幻,又使他在土地问题上的主张具有双重性质.所有这些,都可从其思想同社会的关联上得到诠释.     

Building the nation in Timor-Leste and its implications for the country's democratic development

This article contributes to the discussion of the international democratisation of the so-called ‘post-conflict’ or ‘fragile’ countries by addressing one of the most important but least studied issues in the literature—the relationship between democracy and nation-building. It does so by analysing the major socio-political aspects of the democratic nation-state-building process in Timor-Leste in the post-1999 period. It argues that contemporary international democratisation policies and practices prioritise the ‘stateness’ problem, conceptualised by reference to a set of organisational, procedural and functional concerns. Little attention is, however, paid to the ‘nationness’ question. As the experience in Timor-Leste indicates, it is the national ideas that determine the structural and operational parameters of democratisation, which is, after all, a process of socio-political transformation by which political power and wealth are redistributed amongst a variety of competing societal interests.     

Building in Colonial Louisiana: Creolization and the Survival of French Traditions

Documents and limited archaeological evidence indicate that the building methods of the Louisiana Acadians during the colonial period strongly reflected a heritage of late-medieval and early-modern French methods and techniques of constructing vernacular buildings.     

中西遗产保护比较的几点思考:一个跨文化的视角

近年来,西方国家世界遗产保护体系的实践经验对中国遗产保护产生了深远的影响。从跨文化的视角看,中国遗产保护在借鉴西方的遗产保护体制时,需要注意保护体制和管理对象的差别,也要注意东西文化的差异导致的对遗产保护中"原真性"的不同理解。因此,中国遗产保护既要重视传统历史文化和物质遗产中的精神元素,也要考虑在保护、传承和利用文化遗产的基础上充分发挥其社会功能,更要从中西方的文化差异出发,在遵守国际保护理论精神的基础上,探索出符合中国国情和文化特征的保护理论和方法。     

安特生与丁文江的早期中外考古合作及其影响——读《中国之前的中国》

马思中(Magnus Fiskesjo)博士[瑞典]和陈星灿博士合著《中国之前的中国:安特生、丁文江和中国史前史的发现》(China before China)由瑞典东方古物博物馆出版发行。本文对该书内容作了详尽的介绍,重现了当年安特生和丁文江等早期科学家在中国史前田野考古合作的历史,以及评价他们对中国早期考古学发展的贡献。作者强调了当前中国考古学国际合作的意义,特别是涉及了对中国文物海外收藏政策的制定。     

Making the Lancastrian capital at Leicester: the battle of Boroughbridge,civic diplomacy and seigneurial building projects in fourteenth-century England

Though a community of some note throughout the Middle Ages, Leicester really came to the forefront of England's consciousness following a series of political and economic crises in the first decades of the fourteenth century. Thereafter the relationship between the town and its Lancastrian lords was forced to shift from one of sometimes indifferent, sometimes overwhelming, clientage to a more balanced and mutually beneficial association. This increasingly positive relationship found physical expression in two projects in particular: the renovation of Leicester Castle and the foundation of the Newarke Hospital and College. This building programme gave the Lancastrian dynasty not only a place to stay, entertain and pray in southern England, but also a solid base from which to face the political and economic turmoil of the fourteenth century. This fact, along with Leicester's growing connection to the English royal family, would distinguish the town, and bequeath it an importance even once its Lancastrian lords had become kings of England. Leicester exemplifies important themes in later-medieval urban history. The town not only derived concord out of conflict with its lords in the face of difficult economic circumstances; it also brought some of the most potent aspects of both the English and continental traditions of urban-seigneurial relations together, especially in terms of the lord's political and physical connections with the town under his control.     

三国吴朱然及其家族墓保护工程概述

本文介绍了朱然家族墓地的概况以及地质、土壤、墓体状况,分析了保护中需要解决的主要问题。通过对朱然墓及其家族墓的墓体保护,防止了墓体中墓道、墓壁和穹隆顶的开裂和塌陷。     

从《缁衣》看,《都人士·诗序》的编辑时代

《小雅·都人士·诗序》所言与《札记·缁衣》第九章在文字表述上极其相近。本文分析对比了与之相关的五条传本与简本文献资料,通过考证,认定今传《礼记·缁衣》中该资料保存了先秦七十子或其后学所记原貌,其写定的时间下限当在先秦。同时,本文在对《诗序》与《记》的关系,以及简本与传本《缁衣》关系加以分析的基础上。认为《都人士·诗序》应在今传《礼记·缁衣》定本后作了进一步的整理,其转抄《缁衣》的时间并不一定是汉代,有可能在先秦就已完成。     

四川九寨沟县中查村传统村落的遗产价值及保护研究

九寨沟中查村作为第四批中国传统村落,面临的威胁远大于其他少数民族传统村落,通过田野调查总结出其六大建筑特征,作为九寨沟片区安多藏族民居的基础研究成果。同时,在对中查传统村落濒危民居调研的基础上,揭示村落保护需要以"人"为本,从生存基础建设、社会关系建设、精神场所建设的三个维度来探索,这是从产业到社区,再到文化建设的一个动态过程,为中国西南少数民族地区传统村落保护提供切实可行的理论依据和发展思路。