Arabs,Latins and Persians bearing gifts: Greek translations of astrolabe treatises,ca. 1300 D. M. Angeliki E. Laiou

Abstract

Although translation of foreign literature was rare in Byzantium, in c. 1300 three Greek translations of treatises on using the astrolabe appeared, two from Latin and one from Persian or Arabic; all three are assessed in terms of Greek style and significance for Byzantine culture. The Islamic treatise translated by Shams al-Din al-Bukhari includes a translator's preface, edited in full and translated into English here for the first time. In the preface, Shams describes a deluxe astrolabe sent to Andronikos II with the treatise in the hope, it is argued, of some personal benefit in return.     

An astrolabe from Passa Pau, Cape Verde Islands

Mariner's astrolabes seem to have been in use from the 15th to the end of the 18th centuries. They evolved at about the same time as quadrants and cross-staffs. Their precursor, the astronomer's astrolabe and kamal, were either too cumbersome or not sufficiently accurate for sea-going use. An astrolabe found on the Passa Pau wreck is unique in that it is the only know/specimen coated with silver. It is dated 1645 and has the maker's name, Nicolao Rvffo, inscribed on it.     

A Cut‐marked and Fractured Mesolithic Human Bone from Kent's Cavern,Devon, UK

An isolated adult human ulna fragment recovered from the ‘black mould’ layer of Kent's Cavern by William Pengelly in 1866 exhibits a series of stone tool cut marks. The specimen has been directly AMS ¹⁴C‐dated to 7314–7075 cal bc (OxA‐20588: 8185 ± 38 bp ) and may be from the same individual as a maxilla fragment dated to the same period. The cut marks are located on the olecranon process, in a position indicative of dismemberment, whereas the fracture characteristics of the bone furthermore suggest peri‐mortem breakage, typical of butchery for the extraction of marrow. We here present and discuss the specimen and consider both ritual mortuary treatment and anthropophagy as possible explanations. Although it is difficult to interpret a single element in isolation, the latter scenario seems to be better supported and is not without parallel in prehistoric Europe, as indicated by a review of the available literature. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The application of 3D‐microprofilometry as a tool in the surface diagnosis of fossil and sub‐fossil vertebrate hard tissue. An example from the Pliocene Upper Laetolil Beds,Tanzania

Non‐contact optical 3D‐profiling instruments are often used in the study of surface modifications on fossil mammalian bone. The advantage of optical laser scanning for the study of fossil and sub‐fossil bone is its non‐contact nature, allowing the investigation of fragile and poorly preserved surfaces. The high resolution and fast measuring rate of this method make it an alternative to scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigation if topography is to be visualized. This study analyses clusters of incisions in a suid humeral fragment from the Pliocene Upper Laetolil Beds. The marks show a characteristic crest structure that is also frequently found in mandible marks produced by the Australian termite species Mastotermes darwiniensis. The marks from the Laetolil Beds are, therefore, interpreted as also being caused by insect mandible action. An as yet unknown large insect species capable of modifying bone with their mandibles is thus postulated in the palaeohabitat represented by the hominid‐bearing Upper Laetolil Beds. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performing the nation in anti‐colonial protest in interwar Morocco

This article applies a process approach to the study of nationalism, analysing anti‐colonial protest in interwar Morocco to address how and why elite‐constructed national identity resonates for larger audiences. Using Alexander's social performance model to study nationalist contention, it examines how a Muslim prayer ritual was re‐purposed by Moroccan nationalists to galvanise mass protest against a French divide‐and‐rule colonial policy towards Moroccan Berbers that they believed threatened Morocco's ethno‐religious national unity. By looking at how national identity was forged in the context of contentious performances and why certain religious (Islam) and ethnic (Arab) components were drawn on to define the Moroccan nation, this study offers a model for answering why national identity gets defined in specific ways and how the nation gains salience for broader publics as a category of collective identity.     

Heroes and the renegotiation of national identity in American history textbooks: representations of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, 1982–2003

ABSTRACT. American history textbooks for the USA's public schools act as quasi‐official loci for the renegotiation of national identity and are, as such, subject to much controversy. The choice of heroes and the way in which textbooks depict them display the interplay between competing visions of popular ethno‐history and scholarly historiography. This article examines contemporary renegotiation of the national narrative through an analysis of the evolving representation of the USA's two most prominent traditional national heroes – George Washington and Abraham Lincoln – in history textbooks for elementary‐school students published from the early 1980s to 2003. This period marks the development of the multiculturalist movement and its subsequent conservative backlash, with debates intensifying in the wake of the events of 11 September 2001.     

Cynophagia in the Púchov (Celtic) Culture Settlement at Liptovská Mara,Northern Slovakia

This paper deals with the remains of butchered dogs from the La Tène and Early Roman sites in northern Slovakia. A large settlement revealed at Liptovská Mara was inhabited by the Celtic tribe of Cotini, representing the so‐called Púchov culture. The long‐term excavation of the site has yielded one of the largest collections from that time in Slovakia. During archaeozoological analysis, the skeletal remains of dogs were identified. Interestingly, a large portion of the specimens represent the cranial skeleton, and the majority of mandibles bear distinctive marks of butchery. On the basis of their placement and similar characteristics, the authors conclude that they resulted from tongue‐removal procedures. Moreover, their frequent occurrence clearly supports the idea of the use of dog flesh at the site. The authors argue that cynophagia occurred mainly for economic reasons; however, it might also have been part of the rituals documented in the sanctuary of Liptovská Mara. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE DISCOVERY OF AN ANGLO‐SAXON GRUBENHAUS AT NEW BEWICK,NORTHERN UK USING ELECTRICAL SURVEYING AND PREDICTIVE DECONVOLUTION

Twin‐probe and 33‐fold multiplexed Wenner electrical resistivity surveys were carried out at New Bewick, northern UK to examine the extent of crop marks and potential Grubenhäuser (sunken‐featured buildings, sunken‐floored buildings or SFBs). The twin‐probe method was faster, but provided data with a lower spatial resolution. However, the Wenner array data was affected by characteristic ‘M’‐ or ‘W’‐shaped responses over filled excavations such as those expected to represent a Grubenhaus. The raw Wenner array data have been analysed using one‐dimensional and two‐dimensional predictive deconvolution in order to remove these artefacts. The deconvolution was carried out using an inverse matrix element method. The filtered results indicate the presence of anomalies consistent with the presence of at least six Grubenhäuser and other anomalies concurrent with the linear crop‐marks. One particular anomaly measured about 5 m by 4 m and with a pit depth of 0.6 m below 0.3 m of topsoil. This anomaly was subsequently excavated and a Grubenhaus was discovered at the site. The excavated Grubenhaus measured 4.7 m by 3.9 m with a pit depth of 0.5 m below the base of the topsoil, confirming the electrical survey results.     

Mobile diasporas,postcolonial identities: the Green Line in Cyprus

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the scope for understanding postcolonial and hybrid identities through the theory of ontological security in International Relations. It examines the circulation of identity for a dispersed postcolonial population, namely Cypriots. This circulation happens amongst a deterritorialised public, through media and movement of people. It carries meaning that is formative of the identity of the diaspora and of the identity of the home state, implicating both in a complex and relational ontological security comprising identity, memory, state and society. The Green Line dividing North from South in Cyprus represents the bifurcation of the island, rupturing the possibility of a territorially unified Cypriot identity. The line also represents a rupturing of contiguous ethnic identities, marking the creation of refugee populations and Cypriot diasporas. The Green Line is both a physical location and circulating symbol of ontological insecurity. On one hand, the Green Line marks the creation of Cypriot refugees and diasporas. On the other, it marks a gateway to Europe for asylum seekers attempting to enter the Southern part of the island. I theorise the Green Line as an emblem of ontological insecurity whose meaning is (re)constituted in the lived experience of Cypriot diaspora and migrants seeking security, revealing a hybrid and fluid identity.     

‘If You Can't Pronounce My Name,You Can Just Call Me Pride’: Afro‐German Activism,Gender and Hip Hop

The history of the black German minority, now estimated at around 500,000, goes back several centuries. It is only since the twentieth century, however, that Germans of African descent have been perceived as a group. This did not lead to their recognition as a national minority, but rather, from the 1910s to the 1960s, they were defined as a collective threat to Germany's racial and cultural ‘purity’. When a sense of identity emerged among Afro‐Germans themselves in the 1980s, the majority population continued to deny the existence of ethnic diversity within German society. At the turn of the twenty‐first century, Afro‐Germans seemingly suddenly appeared as a new, ‘hip’ minority. This appearance was largely focused on the immense public success of the Hip Hop collective ‘Brothers Keepers’, conceived as an anti‐racist, explicitly Afro‐German intervention into German debates around national identity and racist violence. This article explains the success of ‘Brothers Keepers’ by contextualising it within the tradition of two decades of Afro‐ German feminist activism and the transnational Hip Hop movement of European youth of colour.     

Reconciling custom,citizenship and colonial legacies: Ni‐Vanuatu tertiary student attitudes to national identity

Nation‐building remains a key challenge in Vanuatu. From the origins of this new nation in 1980, it was clear that creating a unifying sense of national identity and political community from multiple languages and diverse traditional cultures would be difficult. This paper presents new survey and focus group data on attitudes to national identity among tertiary students in Vanuatu. The survey identifies areas of common attitudes towards nationalism and national identity, shared by both Anglophone and Francophone Ni‐Vanuatu. However, despite the weakening ties between language of education and political affiliation over recent years, the findings suggest that there remain some key areas of strong association between socio‐linguistic background, and attitudes to the nation, and national identity. These findings cast new light on the attitudes of likely future elites towards regional, ethnic, intergenerational and linguistic fault lines in Vanuatu and the challenges of building a cohesive sense of political community and national identity.     

Date,Rituals and Socio‐Cultural Identity in the North‐Western Roman Provinces

This article explores issues of socio‐cultural identity in the north‐western Roman provinces, using all the available archaeobotanical evidence of date (Phoenix dactylifera L.). This fruit does not conform to the general social distribution pattern of other Roman exotic food plant imports in this area, but instead indicates a strong ceremonial connection. Through an in‐depth contextual approach the role of date in both domestic and ceremonial sites is investigated to reach beyond the simple ‘date‐Roman‐ritual’ association. The results suggest strong temporal, spatial and contextual patterning and an overall rare occurrence and selective use of the fruit in certain rituals and mystic cults. Date may have been employed not necessarily as a food, and was probably an affordable luxury for some in their ritual pursuits. As such, date can now be regarded as part of specific ceremonial expressions rather than a standard ingredient of a normative ceremonial or ‘Roman’ identity.     

The Rio Grande do Norte Astrolabe

The Rio Grande do Norte astrolabe may have been found in Brazilian waters, although its provenance is unclear. It was bought and sold at auction in the Unites States in 2011, and the instrument represents a well-preserved specimen within a small and poorly understood collection of published marine astrolabes. It is signed by Agostinho de Goes Raposo, a member of a line of documented Portuguese astrolabe makers, and dated to 1656. This paper relates the condition, treatment, and ethical situation of the artifact, and hopes to advance our understanding of this class of navigation instruments.     

A century on the edge: from Cold War to hot world, 1945–2045

The article argues that the century from 1945 is likely to prove seminal in terms of human progress. It marks the period when the human community has to come to terms with its capacity for self‐destruction through the invention of weapons of mass destruction and its ability to exceed the homeostatic capabilities of the global ecosystem in an era of deep socio‐economic divisions. Two‐thirds of the way through this century the progress has been mixed. Nuclear war has been avoided more by luck than by wisdom, there remain risks of nuclear proliferation and it is not evident that humankind has acquired the ability to deal with the destructive potential of bio‐, nano‐ and other emerging technologies. Recognition of the extent of anthropogenic impacts on ecosystem stability is evident, but not at the level necessary for the radical responses required. Even so, there are signs of progress and potential for change, suggesting that the final one‐third of the century will be singularly important in ensuring long‐term emancipation and environmental sustainability.     

Domestic troubles,national identity discourse,and China's attitude towards the West, 2003–2012

Prior to its recent, much discussed international ‘assertiveness’, China's attitude to the West had deteriorated, as reflected in official discourse of national identity. Drawing from political science and social psychology literature on identity studies, I argue that the discursive pattern of national identity can shift as a function of an elite strategy to exclude internal others through opposition to foreign others. Internally exclusionary nationalism, often employed by elites during major crises, is instrumental to consolidating control and maintaining order. But when targeting internal opponents alone is politically inconvenient or lacks public resonance, elites will accentuate ethnocentric national identity discourse vis‐a‐vis foreign nations in order to reinforce internal battles and divert popular discontent externally. An interpretive analysis of the official texts of Chinese national identity discourse during the Hu Jintao decade, supplemented by quantitative data, shows a significant correlation between the regime's fear of internal instability and bottom‐up political opposition on the one hand and the timing and intensity of ethnocentric identity discourse regarding the West on the other. The party‐state negatively framed the West in order to shift the blame for domestic troubles onto foreigners and discredit internal resistance.     

Erotic Attachment,Identity Formation and the Body Politic: The Woman‐as‐nation in Canadian Graphic Satire, 1867–1914

Using depictions of ‘Miss Canada’ in editorial cartoons and political campaign posters published in English Canada between 1867 and 1914 as a case study, this article argues that the repetitive deployment of feminised and eroticised images of the nation summoned particular gender, sexual and political identities into being and entangled viewers’ psychic investments in masculine, heterosexual and nationalist subjectivities. It also considers how Miss Canada's normative representation as white conflated racial whiteness and Canadian‐ness, and how images hailed viewers into racial subjectivities that were leashed to national identity. Rather than querying how or why the woman‐as‐nation trope elicited nationalist sentiment in an already‐constituted subject, this analysis examines how imagery provoked viewers’ identification with subject positions that were co‐constituted with nationalism. Impassioned and even violent nationalism becomes more comprehensible when we consider that the woman‐as‐nation was capable of producing attachments to national identity that, for some, were inseparable from and tantamount to psychic investments in gender, sexual and racial identities. While Canadian scholars have recognised that Miss Canada was a significant popular culture icon during the long nineteenth century and acknowledged this icon's embeddedness in gender, sexual and national discourses, studies have tended to describe Miss Canada's role in consolidating hegemonic ideologies and power relations and underestimate visual culture's constitutive capacities. The extent of Miss Canada's hetero‐erotic coding has also largely escaped historians’ notice. Although a few scholars have explored visual culture's role in Canadian national identity formation during this era, this study makes a unique contribution by foregrounding the productive work of popular imagery in co‐constituting and entwining national and sexual subjectivities.     

The orange and the ‘Cross in the Crescent’: imagining Palestine in 1929

Abstract. This article analyses a public discussion held in Palestine during the last months of 1929 over proposals for a particular Palestinian flag. Based on readers' reactions published in the daily newspaper Filastin and on letters sent to the Arab Executive, the article examines the character of Palestinian identity as it was imagined by a certain segment of the Palestinian elite. The three main leitmotifs of the flag proposals – the four colors of the Arab flag, the color orange and the ‘Cross in the Crescent’ emblem – serve as a starting point for discussing the tensions between Palestinian particularism and pan‐Arabism, as well as the status of Muslim‐Christian partnership in a period of increasing Islamisation of Palestinian identity. The second part of the article incorporates a comparative discussion that aims to explain the failure of the color orange and the ‘Cross in the Crescent’ to be accepted as emblems in the national flag. By comparing the unsuccessful proposals with the Arab flag (that eventually became the official Palestinian flag) and with the Lebanese flag, the article suggests their failure was due to three main reasons: (a) they reflected the interests of relatively marginal social groups; (b) they were not raised at a time of sweeping change in the socio‐political order; and (c) they lacked a profound basis in local tradition and the potential to be attached to an ancient past.     

The rise of Islamic finance: post‐colonial market‐building in central Asia and Russia

Islamic finance signifies more than a projection of religious affiliation. The importance of Islamic finance is increasing in central Asia, both as a source of capital and as a form of post‐colonial market‐building. In central Asia, it is an important facet of the new phenomena of ‘nation‐branding’ and a means of reinvigorating the economy. In identity politics, Islamic finance projects an attitude of religious tolerance allowing states in the region to reposition their geopolitical identity relative to the Islamic community. This creates a ‘performance’ of Islamic finance that facilitates the creation of legitimacy for the state. Adopting Islamic finance projects images of the state's religious tolerance and diversity without changing the underlying structures; it suggests an ‘Islamicness’ that is useful to the development and post‐colonial goals of the state. As such, it creates opportunities for geopolitical alliances with Muslim countries. Economically, it appeals to rising financial‐industrial elites seeking new investment‐opportunities, which reduces pressure on the state to democratize. Meanwhile, in Russia, Islamic finance is an alternative source of capital for the sanctions‐hit state and a useful identity marker with which to connect to the increasingly wary Caucuses and Commonwealth of Independent States countries, lending it a wider significance across Eurasia.