Office Cultures and Corporate Memory: Some Archaeological Perspectives

It is only when one moves home or office that one really thinks about what gets left behind, what is discarded, and what we decide to keep. How we deal with this in our personal lives is interesting enough, where senses of loss and discard are potentially heightened given the intimate heritage which many familiar objects and items possess. But what happens when the transition is corporate, when an organisation moves? Here, briefly, is an archaeological perspective on the move English Heritage made in 2006, from its long-time HQ in Savile Row (London, UK) to new accommodation in Holborn and elsewhere.     

Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

The centrality of the Reconquista in the historiography of medieval Spain has meant that there has been little examination of the evidence for interaction on and across political boundaries in pre‐Islamic Spain. This article re‐examines existing theories about the defence of the Byzantine province of Spania that had been established by Justinian in the 550s and was taken by the Visigoths in 625. The two existing and opposing models for the extent, defence, and – therefore – the importance of the province to the empire do not explain the evidence convincingly. Rather, a fluid zone of interaction was established in which diplomacy and ‘propaganda’ was the primary means by which opposition was articulated.     

Sticks and Stones: Byzantine Material Culture

Abstract

Suddenly last summer, research on Byzantine Material Culture, La belle aux bois dormant, was awakened from a prolonged siesta. In the 20th International Congress of Byzantine Studies held in Paris two papers were given in an attempt to chart out the progress made in this particular field in the past decades. T. Kolias assembled the various projects undertaken by individuals or institutions dealing with the different aspects of Byzantine daily life and material culture. M. Mundell Mango focused more on the archaeological evidence at hand and illustrated through the examples of architecture and industrial products how these could be used to detect and explain the interaction between centre and periphery. Just two weeks later, in September 2001 a conference entitled ‘Material Culture and Well-Being in Byzantium (400–1453)’ was organised in Cambridge. A number of suggestions were made during the conference, as for example to initiate a website to host a continuously updateable bibliography and to act as a forum of scholarly exchange in the numerous fields covered by research on material culture. Finally in April 2002 the Spring Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks was devoted to ‘Realities in the Arts of the Medieval Mediterranean’ in an attempt to reposition topics as exchange, influence and impact of the material culture between the Byzantine, the Western and the Islamic world. All the above has made clear the potential that the analysis of material culture has for Byzantine studies.     

The Byzantine silk industry: Lopez and beyond

The Byzantine silk industry played a major role in the history of the Byzantine Empire. Silk, a key economic asset, had strong political overtones, and the effects of its multiple influences were felt far and wide, both within Byzantium and abroad. This article highlights some of the difficulties encountered in the interpretation of important documentation surrounding the Byzantine silk industry in the period up to 1204 A.D.     

Islam,Human Rights and Interfaith Relations: Some Contemporary Egyptian Perspectives

Abstract

This paper explores current discussions and debates on Islam, human rights and interfaith relations in Egypt through an analysis of the public statements and writings of various religious scholars and spiritual teachers and the textbooks used to teach Islam in public secondary schools. It is well known that Islamist perspectives have become mainstream in Egypt, a largely devout and socially conservative country that is also the source of most of the major Islamic trends and political ideologies that have impacted the Muslim world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Nonetheless, there is a broad tendency in government-issued textbooks on Islam and in the population at large to equate Islam with democracy and human rights, despite the authoritarianism of the state and the contradictions between traditional interpretations of Islam and international human rights norms. The rhetoric of democracy and human rights is linked to the threat of terrorism, which is labeled un-Islamic. Among ordinary Egyptian Muslims, even those who support Islamist politics, there seems to be a new concern to eradicate Islamic extremism and more openness to unconventional Muslim approaches. The most liberal example of this is an association that teaches the unity of all religions from a somewhat Sufi perspective, promotes interfaith dialogue, and advocates reinterpreting the Shari'a to promote gender equality and equal human rights for all Egyptians.     

拜占庭文明——独特的历史文明模式

本文探讨研究拜占庭文明的方法,分析拜占庭东正教和拜占庭神学的特点及其对社会发展的影响。通过对拜占庭文明与中世纪西欧文明的比较,说明拜占庭文明的独特性以及拜占庭文明在中世纪基督教世界历史发展中的地位。     

Some Aspects of Byzantine Military Technology from the Sixth to the Tenth Centuries

Abstract

Byzantine military technology remains to be examined thoroughly, despite its importance in demonstrating the Byzantines' ability to absorb ideas and practices from areas outside the Empire as well as developing their own traditions. This article examines arms and armour from the mid-sixth century to the end of the tenth century and puts the military panoply into a wider context, that of the development of offensive and defensive military equipment in Europe and the lands to the north and east of the Empire. Finally, it examines the relationship between military affairs and the economic and political situation of the Empire and attempts to account for the use of particular weapons and methods of equipping the soldiers at particular times.     

Byzantine Planning: Site Management in Istanbul

Abstract

A new site management plan for Istanbul’s Historic Peninsula was approved in late 2011. In this paper, we examine its institutional setting, preparation process, and contents from organizational and administrative perspectives. The result of a participatory process, the plan is professional, logically consistent, and effectively identifies challenges facing cultural heritage. The heart of the plan is a complex architecture of Objectives, Strategies, and Actions that are integrated into forty-nine Project Packages. Surprisingly, however, the plan specifies neither concrete activities nor financial resource­s. Moreover, cultural heritage is consistently downplayed: rather than substantive interventions at monuments or museums, attention is focused on managerial and urban planning buzzwords (coordination, capacity-building, participation, awareness-raising, marketing). This arose from the preparation process, which was participatory but nonetheless dominated by urban planners and government agencies. The case suggests the potential risks of the uncritical application of managerial and urban planning tools to cultural heritage.     

Human Ecology in India Some Historical Perspectives

Abstract

Before the spread of extensive settled cultivation, the Indian subcontinent would have been inhabited by territorial hunter–gatherers and shifting cultivators with cultural traditions of prudent resource use. The disruption of closed material cycles by export of agricultural produce to centres of non-agricultural population would have weakened these traditions. Indeed, the fire-based sacrificial ritual and extensive agricultural settlements might have catalysed the destruction of forests and wildlife and the suppression of tribal peoples during the agricultural colonization of the Gangetic plains. Buddhism, Jainism and later the Hindu sects may have been responses to the need for a reassertion of ecological prudence once the more fertile lands were brought under cultivation. British rule radically changed the focus of the country's resource use pattern from production of a variety of biological resources for local consumption to the production of a few commodities largely for export. The resulting ecological squeeze was accompanied by disastrous famines and epidemics between the 1860s and the 1920s. The counterflows to tracts of intensive agriculture have reduced such disasters since independence. However, these are quite inadequate to balance the state-subsidized outflows of resources from rural hinterlands. These imbalances have triggered serious environmental degradation and tremendous overcrowding of the niche of agricultural labour and marginal cultivator all over the country.     

Byzantine glass mosaic tesserae: some material considerations

Abstract

Issues about the manufacture of Byzantine mosaics and the implications of these in wider terms relating to social and economic questions about the art form have been little discussed. This paper brings together evidence about Byzantine glass mosaic tesserae gathered from archaeology, glass technology and glass analysis, and synthesizes these into a discussion of three aspects: distribution; manufacture; trade and price. It looks to examine how these different elements can be used to form a more detailed composite picture about the production and distribution of Byzantine mosaics. It also proposes ways in which glass analysis can be used in a more coherent way to extend our understanding of mosaic glass production.     

6—7世纪拜占庭帝国与西突厥汗国的交往

公元1世纪罗马人建立的横跨欧、亚、非三大洲的庞大帝国,实际上可分为以希腊化为主和以拉丁化为主的东、西两大区域。在最初的两个世纪中,罗马帝国强有力的统治掩盖了它们之间的区别。3世纪的社会危机使罗马帝国由盛转衰。     

Two Byzantine Albanian icons: a non-destructive archaeometric study

The present work is part of a project aimed at studying the pigments and painting techniques used by Albanian iconographers to produce Byzantine and post-Byzantine icons dating from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries; the state of conservation of these icons was also explored. Inorganic pigments are identified by means of X-ray fluorescence, reflectance spectrophotometry and UV fluorescence analysis. These analysis techniques were performed to discriminate between pigments on the basis of their typical features. Moreover, the study of the optical properties of paintings is of fundamental importance for correct restoration. This work enabled us to recognise the palette used in two artworks by anonymous painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Only three small samples were taken from the edge and the back of the wooden tables in order to achieve information on preparatory layers. Twelve to fourteen non-destructive measurements were made to characterise the palette used by the two anonymous painters.     

西方理论与中国研究--从《白银资本》谈几点看待西方理论架构的意见

《白银资本》目前在国内理论界享有盛誉．但也有人质疑其经济史内容的有效与可靠。此书一些结构性欠缺影响了其以“全球视野”为核心的论证体系的落实,从而削弱了此书的理论号召力。对此书理论价值的过誉或脱离其理论框架抨击所述内容有失片面．但却颇能代表国内史学界认识西方史学理论的总体状况。看待西方理论时应注意几个问题：1、中国史学界的内部隔膜是导致对西方理论态度失衡的重要原因。2、推荐者应重视对所引介理论的实际研究效果作出可靠分析。3、引进批判西方中心论的理论时,不能轻视“现代化”对中国学术谱系的深刻影响。4、注意中西学术思维的差异．西方学者好以自我创新为主旨,中国学者惯以整体之力建构普适性理论。5、应认识到西方学术界得以活跃的观念性和制度性原因,并择善用之。