A zoomorphic horticultural urn from Gosport,Hampshire

Abstract

A large ceramic urn with elaborate relief decoration was recently recovered in Gosport, Hampshire. It had been treated externally to imitate the stone urns used to contain shrubs and small trees in 17th- and early 18th-century formal gardens. This was only the second example of its kind known from Britain and its discovery in the backland of a small county town showed that such vessels were not restricted to high-status sites.     

A zoomorphic sickle terminal from the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan

Excavations at the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan undertaken in 2014 led to the discovery of several new portable art pieces, including the representation of an ungulate mammal (RN 140226), probably intended as a gazelle, carved in the round from bone. The small object was extensively damaged by fire and had become separated at its neck from longer pieces of fragmented, burnt bone lying distally to it. This configuration and the style of the animal head leads us to interpret the piece as the decorated terminal of a bone sickle haft. The piece is unusual in that is it is one of the few figurative Natufian art pieces with incised geometric decoration added to its surface. Its finding extends the distribution of the ‘gazelle-headed’ sickle haft from Mount Carmel, where three well-known examples were unearthed in the early twentieth century, to the northern Jordan Valley. The piece adds to the limited repertoire of zoomorphically rendered Natufian artefacts associated with plant gathering and processing.     

Portable XRF analysis of zoomorphic figurines, “tokens,” and sling bullets from Chogha Gavaneh,Iran

This study examines small finds from the site of Chogha Gavaneh, Iran, including zoomorphic clay figurines, geometric-shaped objects (often referred to as “tokens”), and sling bullets in order to investigate the possible social and economic functions of these artifacts. While Chogha Gavaneh has been occupied from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) (ca. 9000 B.C.E) period to the present, we focus on 87 small finds from the Early Chalcolithic period (ca. 5000–4000 B.C.E.). We explore how portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) provides a new line of data with which to test the conventional wisdom about the uses of these small finds. Our findings suggest that local production is unlikely to account for the diversity in the elemental composition of the small finds. We argue that this supports claims that Neolithic and Chalcolithic people exchanged “tokens”. The presence of non-local zoomorphic figurines also raises interesting questions regarding their possible role in past societies.     

How God Disappeared from Europe: Visions of a United Europe from Erasmus to Kant

This article traces the development of European ideas of peace and unity from the time of Desiderius Erasmus to Immanuel Kant. The argument will be made that these ideas, which were initially strongly determined by Christian religious thinking, gradually changed, and from the seventeenth century onwards were put forward in more political and legal terms. Erasmus's way of reasoning about peace and war was still strongly influenced by his firm orientation on the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Emeric Crucé, a French writer, was of the opinion that all human beings in the end had God in common, and so had to live peacefully together. Duc de Sully was one of the first not to argue as a religious man but as a politician: a system of balance of power could bring international stability. According to the English Quaker William Penn and the French Abbé de Saint-Pierre only the acceptance of international rules of justice could produce everlasting peace. Immanuel Kant finally directed attention to the form of government and to the founding of a federation of free republics. So God seems to have disappeared from Europe?…?but with what consequences for today?     

比德聚精 质美艺精 明晚期直生（尤侃）款犀角镂空仙人乘槎杯赏析

我国作为《濒危野生动植物种国际贸易公约》签字国,从1993年起,国家禁止犀牛角贸易,并取消了犀牛角药用标准,对出售、收购、运输、携带和邮寄犀牛角的行为都要依法查处。在外部环境制约和犀角本身名贵身价双重刺激下,     

犀角雕琢艺术赏析

我国早在《汉书》“南越王赵陀献文帝犀角十”、《汉书·平帝纪》“二年春,黄支国献犀牛”中已有犀牛角的记载。现存最早的犀牛造型是东汉的错金银青铜器（中国国家博物馆减）（图1）,还有大清乾隆年制的仿生瓷器（图2）,在跨越历史1600年之后,两件非常相似,栩栩如生的犀牛造型,让我们见证了中国原有的犀牛是双角形、前角长后角短的亚洲苏门答腊犀。     

Letter from Europe, June 2004

This is the first episode of our new column 'Letter from Europe', in which Keith Hart reflects on life. Ed.     

Early Devonian Pacificocoelia sinica (Brachiopoda) from Northeastern Inner Mongolia

Leptocoeliid brachiopods from the Early Devonian Baruntehua Formation of Dong Ujimqin Qi, northeastern Inner Mongolia were assigned to Leptocoelia by Su (1976) and Zhang(1983), and subsequently to Pacificocoelia by Hou & Boucot (1990). Transverse serial sections of Pacificocoelia sinica are illustrated hère, for the first time, based on topotype specimens. The known geographic range o Pacificocoelia is from northern China, North America, South America and Kazakhstan (Eastern Americas Realm and also occurs in east-central Asia). Atlanticocoelia is regarded hère as a junior synonym of Pacificocoelia.     

Material culture as memory: combs and cremation in early medieval Britain

This paper argues that mortuary practices can be understood as 'techno-logies of remembrance'. The frequent discovery of combs in early medieval cremation burials can be explained by their mnemonic significance in the post-cremation rite. Combs (and other objects used to maintain the body's surface in life) served to articulate the reconstruction of the deceased's personhood in death through strategies of remembering and forgetting. This interpretation suggests new perspectives on the relationships between death, material culture and social memory in early medieval Europe.     

On Weapons and Armour Formed of Horn

Abstract

Excavations in 1975 and 1976 at a Republican healing-sanctuary, situated on the Via Praenestina, nine Roman miles to the east of Rome, yielded more than eight thousand terracotta ex-votos. The great majority represented parts of the body. Quantitative and medical studies suggest that the sanctuary specialised particularly in the cure of foot and hand injuries, and in the main served a rural population. Some other sanctuaries also appear to have had their areas of medical specialisation. The origins of the practice of dedicating votives in Italy are examined, as is the apparent demise of the cult in the second to first centuries B.C.     

A new Jungle-fowl from the Pleistocene of Europe

The domesticated Red Jungle-fowl G. gallus is believed to have been dispersed by man from India during the Holocene. The distal end of a radius from the Ipswichian Interglacial deposits at Crayford, Kent, was indistinguishable from that of the wild form of Red Jungle-folw. A coracoid from the early Middle Pleistocene of N Norfolk was also very similar to that species but showed differences comparable with those found between different species of Gallus. At least one species referable to Gallus is known from the Pliocene of South-eastern Europe. Extrapolating from zoogeographical speciation patterns it would be possible for a Gallus species to have evolved through Pleistocene speciation in the European region. The species might have become extinct during a glaciation or have been exterminated by early man. A new species Gallus europaeus is described with the coracoid as a holotype, and the radius from Kent is tentatively referred to it.     

萨满教与东北民间文化

据考证 ,我国东北亚地区是萨满教的发源地。无论从自然条件和社会环境来讲 ,这里都天然地具备产生原始宗教的丰厚土壤。东北处于儒家文化的边缘地带 ,萨满教文化在民间的影响一直比较深远 ,对人们的生活方式和文化心理取向发挥着能动作用 ,成为塑造东北民间文化精神的决定性因素