The lesser gods of the Sahara

Abstract

Following a highly publicised expedition in the 1950s, the Tassili-n-Ajjer mountains of the Central Sahara (Algeria) were presented to the world as ‘the greatest museum of prehistoric art in the whole world’. Many of the claims of the expedition's leader, Henri Lhote, were misleading. A number of the paintings were faked, and the copying process was fraught with errors. The ‘discovery’ can only be understood within the political and cultural context of the time, namely the Algerian Revolution, France's attempt to partition Algeria, and the prevailing views of the Abbé Breuil, the archadvocate of foreign influence in African rock art. The expedition's methods caused extensive damage to the rock art while the accompanying looting of cultural objects effectively sterilized the archaeological landscape. Any restitution process must necessarily include a full recognition of what was done and the inappropriateness of those values.     

天神崇拜:儒家的大自然敬畏思想

对自然物、自然现象的困惑、恐惧,以自身类比方法,远古人想象出了种种神灵,产生了多神崇拜.夏商周时代,多神崇拜演变为统一至上神即天神崇拜.春秋末期,孔子创立儒学,接纳了天神崇拜观念;西汉中叶之初,董仲舒代表的儒家集天神崇拜观念之大成,创立了系统的天神崇拜思想体系.天神崇拜实质上是自然力崇拜、大自然崇拜,它凸显了儒家对大自然的敬畏思想.     

A Nabataean and Roman shrine with civic and military gods at Humayma,Jordan

The lifecycle of a Nabataean and Roman community shrine at Humayma, Jordan reflects the evolving values of the town's inhabitants from the first to the third century CE. This paper reviews the evidence for the shrine's appearance and significance over this period, as well as the nature of the cult practised there. Beginning its existence as a Nabataean shrine, whose design incorporated the rising sun and the town's primary peak, the building was damaged when the Romans converted Nabataea into Provincia Arabia. The Roman garrison initially dismantled the shrine to build their fort, but a few decades later the shrine was restored with a centrally placed Nabataean betyl and legionary altar symbolising harmony between the garrison and the town. The garrison's god, Jupiter‐Ammon‐Serapis, and possibly Isis, were now worshipped alongside the town's Nabataean deity. This shrine stressing military‐civilian harmony was later deliberately damaged, most likely during Zenobia's revolt.     

Polytheism impossible; or,the empty gods: Reasons behind a void in the history of roman religion

From the first decades of the nineteenth century, the gods of Rome have suffered discredit with respect to both the influence of Greek polytheism and the fervor of pre‐Christian and Christian monotheism. This attitude, not yet espoused by Gibbon and Herder, goes back to Hegel, whose system proclaimed the distressing emptiness of the mechanical gods of a religion already dead at the end of the third century B.C. This way of looking at Roman polytheism, propounded by a series of specialized studies published throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, gained even more ground with the appearance, in 1854, of Theodore Mommsen's History of Rome. The influence of the book as well as the personality of this unchallenged master of the German Universities were such that the theory of the death and the incoherence of the Roman gods spread throughout the universities of Europe, and continues even today to be determining in an important number of studies.     

白鹿洞书院的环境艺术

依山傍水是白鹿洞书院自然环境的特色。白鹿洞书院与嵩阳书院、岳麓书院、睢阳书院并称古代四大书院,被誉为“天下书院之首”。它位于世界文化景观——庐山的东南,现存元明清古建筑面积5000多平方米。由于书院所处四面环山,俯视似洞,唐代江州(九江)刺史李渤曾在此隐居读书,养一白鹿自娱,故名白鹿洞。南唐在此兴办“白鹿国学”,北宋时更名为白鹿洞书院。书院座东北朝西南,前有一溪,名贯道溪,水自五老峰的凌霄峰来,汇入鄱阳湖,溪南有卓尔山为屏障,书院后有后屏山,左有左翼山和回流山,右有五老峰．     

论凌濛初刻本《西厢记》

凌濛初刻本《西厢记》受到今日学人的高度重视,《西厢记》印本一般都以凌刻本《西厢记》作为底本。凌刻本受到人们的关注绝非偶然,因为凌刻本《西厢记》系唯一未受传奇体制影响,体例保存完好、改动较小,与元杂剧最相契合的《西厢记》刊本,此外,凌刻本的校注与批评也有自己的成就与特色,所以,凌刻本《西厢记》在《西厢记》诸多版本中无疑应占据突出而重要的位置。     

浅析近世误读进化论所产生之负面效应

本文分别从个人主义的泛滥与新道德和民主政治构建的难产、理想主义的滥觞与激进主义者实践道路的迷惘、唯科学主义思潮的横行与国人人生观的困惑等视角发掘出误读进化论所产生的近代社会转型问题,希望唤起学界对进化论展开深刻反思,审视它在近代所带来的负面效应.     

试论地方治理的特殊性——宋人对“蜀乱”的认识与辨析

"蜀人好乱"之说起源于南朝,在宋代尤其是北宋仍是社会各界的主流认识。但随着形势的发展,巴蜀社会稳定、地位不断提升,以蜀人为主的一部分士大夫从乱蜀者、蜀中及全国形势、治蜀政策等多个方面,极力批判蜀人好乱之说,为蜀人辩诬。明清以来,蜀人好乱之说更为流行,宋人的辨析无疑在巴蜀史上成为独特的现象,其深厚的历史及思想文化内涵值得人们反思。