ON THE DATING OF THE TYRRHENIAN GROUP1

Iconographic and epigraphic evidence suggest that the Attic black-figure vases of the Tyrrhenian Group should be dated to the period c.560–530 BC rather than to the second quarter of the sixth century BC. Imagery on some vases, particularly those of the later painters, points to a lowering of the date for the end of the group to c. 530 BC. Epigraphic evidence, particularly the absence of crossed theta , closed heta and qoppa from almost all of the vases of the earlier painters allows the start of the group to be lowered to c. 560, closer to Exekias than to Kleitias.     

Asimah: Neue 14C-Datierungen zum späten 3. vorchristlichen Jahrtausend auf der Halbinsel Oman

The third millennium BC domestic sites of Asimah (Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, U. A. E.), excavated in 1988 and published in 1994, produced a common Umm an-Nar inventory, but with a high percentage of imported Indus Valley pottery. A comparison of finds with the well-stratified Hili-8 sequence is contrasted with five new radiocarbon dates which, together with the artefacts recovered, place Asimah in the late third millennium BC chronological and cultural context of Tell Abraq.     

"WHEN THE GREAT PLANES CAME AND MADE ASHES OF OUR CITY …"1: TOWARDS AN ORAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE DISASTERS OF WAR.

This paper reconstructs a view of armed violence from the personal testimony of civilians who survived massive bombing of their neighborhoods. A majority of raid victims are “ordinary” civilians, primarily women, children, and the elderly. In World War II the most destructive city-wrecking campaigns were directed against the “morale” of these civilians. Their concerns and experience receive little consideration in the literature of air war, yet huge wartime and postwar surveys recorded first hand testimonies of those in heavily bombed cities in Germany, Japan and England. Women's words are given priority: they represent the majority of able-bodied persons under the bombs, and bear witness to the human ecology of violent experience: the disruptions of everyday life; the worlds of blackout and underground; the losses of home places and urban culture. They testify as well to the uneven social and spatial distribution of harm within cities, where death, damage and homelessness overwhelmingly affected working class and inner city areas. The paper also suggests that personal testimony should be recovered and incorporated into studies of neglected and disadvantaged people in “oral geography.” Some of the radical departures and methodological rethinking involved are considered in a final section.     

ELECTROCHEMISTRY AND AUTHENTICATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL LEAD USING VOLTAMMETRY OF MICROPARTICLES: APPLICATION TO THE TOSSAL DE SANT MIQUEL IBERIAN PLATE

An essentially non‐invasive electrochemical methodology addressed to the authentication of archaeological lead is described. The method is based on the record of the voltammetric response of nanosamples from the archaeological artefact mechanically transferred to a graphite ‘pencil’ electrode in contact with aqueous buffers. Three diagnostic criteria for authentication are described based on the appearance of: (i) oxidative dissolution signals for trace metals like copper, arsenic, antimony and, often, tin and silver accompanying stripping peaks for lead, (ii) peak potential shifts for reduction peaks for patination products, and (iii) the presence of reduction peaks for PbO₂. The method is applied to the authentication of an Iberian lead plate from the Tossal de Sant Miquel (Llíria, Spain) site using a series of genuine and false pieces from different provenances in the Valencian region (Spain).