Motifs in The Arabian Nights and in Ancient and Medieval European Literature: A Comparison

This paper is a contribution to the ongoing debate about the origins of parallel motifs in The Arabian Nights and in ancient and medieval popular and learned literature about exotic lands of the East. This preliminary survey focuses on seven related motifs: the magnetic mountain, the congealed sea, flying griffins, automata and genies, the mysterious walled city, the living island, and the underground river. This paper is intended as a contribution toward a motif-Index of The Arabian Nights in order to facilitate further comparative study of the motifs involved.     

Reverend James Macdonald Auld and the disintegration of traditional leadership in Xhosaland

This article examines the missionary assault on traditionalism and traditional leadership. It also analyses the origins of Columba Mission. The article sets out to unearth the role of missionaries in the colonial assault on traditionalism, using James Macdonald Auld (2 April 1848–5 December 1932) as a case study. It describes the operation of the Columba Mission from its small beginnings in Kentani (Centane today) in 1878 until the annexation of Gcalekaland by the Cape Colony in 1885. The Cape forces reopened Gatyana (Willowvale) to the colonial authorities following the acceptance of an amnesty. Many of the amaGcaleka remained in Xhorha (Elliotdale), including King Sarhili himself. King Sarhili’s vicissitudes at the hands of the colonial government are used as a scaffolding to see Columba in historical perspective. This article puts the spotlight on King Sarhili and James Macdonald Auld, the Presbyterian missionary at Columba, as a vehicle to explore the reorganisation of Centane. The article also broadens its base of sources by drawing on oral history with intent to add materially to our knowledge about the missions at that often opaque moment in Eastern Cape history. In attempting to examine the relations between the traditional leaders, the colonial governing authorities and the missionaries, this article shows the colonial conflict as an ongoing encounter between the missionaries and the heirs of Phalo, i.e. the amaGcaleka and the amaNgqika     

Cylinder seals and their use in the Arabian Peninsula

Cylinder seals were used in the ancient Near East from the fourth to the first millennium BC. Although the numbers known from sites in the Arabian Peninsula seem relatively small, more have been found there than is generally recognised. A comprehensive overview of the cylinder seals of Arabia is presented, and the cylinder and stamp sealing traditions of the region are discussed.     

A Comparison of Holocene and Historical Channel Change along the Macdonald River,Australia

Changes in channel morphology that occurred along the Macdonald River between 1949 and 1955 are often cited as an example of catastrophic channel change. However, the question of whether these changes represented one component of a cyclical evolutionary pattern, or a systematic and persistent shift to a new morphologic state remains to be clearly defined, as does the significance of these dramatic channel changes when viewed against the river's longer‐term Holocene history. In this paper, new measurements of the Macdonald River's channel morphology are used to resolve the river's evolution in the ～50 years since these major channel‐altering floods. By 2002, the Macdonald River's bed had narrowed considerably from its 1955 post‐flood maximum due to the construction of a new floodplain surface within the widened channel. In some locations, the 2002 bed width is comparable to that of the pre‐1949 channel. This aspect of the river's evolution follows models of cyclical channel evolution proposed for the region. However, in light of recent research into the river's longer term Holocene evolution, it is clear that other channel changes that occurred in response to the 1949–1955 floods, particularly the 2 metres of river bed aggradation and 7 kilometres down‐valley shift in the thalweg's intersection with mean sea level, are less cyclic in nature. The capacity of coastal rivers to prograde into estuaries, which in turn induces river bed aggradation, can be seen in this case to counteract the incisional tendencies associated with post‐flood channel contraction, such that persistent river bed aggradation occurs.     

Indo-Arabian stone anchors in the western Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea

This paper describes the current state of knowledge in the study of Indo-Arabian stone anchors in the western Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, and speculates on what they may be able to tell us about the provenance, size and handling of Arab and Indian ships and shipping during the period sixth-sixteenth centuries AD.     

River metamorphosis and environmental change in the Macdonald Valley,New South Wales,since 1949

A significant metamorphosis of channel form occurred on the lower Macdonald River between 1949 and 1955; width and width-depth ratio increased and depth, sinuosity and weighted mean per cent silt-clay in the channel perimeter decreased. The channel has remained unstable since 1955, exhibiting frequent variations in bed elevation and a recent period of minor channel contraction followed by slight enlargement. Since 1946 there has been an increase in summer and annual rainfall and an abrupt, upward shift of the annual series flood frequency curve. As a result an increased proportion of the total sediment load of the river is now being transported as bed-material load. The change in sediment load is a result of greater stream competence and the consequent reworking of sandy sediment temporarily stored within the channel as benches. The observed channel changes are a quasi-adjustment to the increased flood and bed-material load discharges.     

Human population groups and the distribution of lithic arrowheads in the Arabian Gulf

The distribution of lithic implements in the Arabian Gulf suggests two regions, each using a specific set of tools. It is argued here that this distinct pattern is the result of relations on various levels between several human population groups and not solely of ecological adaptions. Consequently, these contacts between indigenous groups might be held responsible, among others, for distributing goods, like'Ubaid pottery, initially brought along by Mesopotamian visitors from the Central Gulf down to the Lower Gulf.     

Oil and the House of Saud: Analysis of Saudi Arabian Oil Policy

This article analyzes the process of how the Government of Saudi Arabia determines oil policy. It focuses on oil production because it accepts that the Saudis are “price takers” rather than “price setters.” It applies economic and political explanations as determinants of how much oil is produced. Two periods of Saudi oil policy are compared—1987–1991 and 1997–2001—using open‐source data from various newspapers and newsletters. The article concludes that oil production in Saudi Arabia is, in large measure, a function of Saudi Arabian estimates of how its oil reserves may provide long‐term revenue and political stability at the risk of short‐term economic gains.     

Polylinear incursions and autochthonous adaptations: Neolithisation and sustainable sedentarisation of the Arabian Peninsula

This contribution’s broad and in parts essayistic approach to Arabia’s Neolithic is less a discussion of findings than an explicit advocacy for future holistic research strategies. Based on the contribution’s meta-theoretical inputs, it suggests two sets of theses to be tested by the hitherto gained fragmentary information and future research on Arabia’s Neolithic. It aims to encourage an “emancipation” of Arabia’s early to mid-Holocene research from conceptions developed outside its regions, and to identify the Neolithic elements and developments of the Arabian lands by distinguishing incursions from primarily autochthonous and/or autonomous adaptations in their own right. It is suggested that productive lifeways are considered to be the only crucial parameter to testify a Neolithic status. In our view this is the case, provokingly enough, for the productive foraging management of natural resources which attests surplus and pre-planning strategies and contacts with established Neolithic socio-economies. Polylinear incursions and autochthonous adaptations are discussed as the two poles between which early to mid-Holocene developments in Arabia took place. A set of basic and a set of trajectory hypotheses on Arabia’s neolithisation and finally sustainable sedentarisation (reliance on oases economies) is presented, offered as a possible framework for future multi-/ transdisciplinary research.     

The Lower Paleolithic of the Arabian Peninsula: Occupations,Adaptations, and Dispersals

To understand major processes of human evolution during the Plio- Pleistocene, it is necessary to consider the available evidence from key regions of the Old World. The Arabian peninsula is often depicted as a key geographic route for hominin dispersals in Out of Africa models, although the available primary evidence is rarely cited. And yet, significant Lower Paleolithic assemblages have been identified in many parts of the peninsula, including in areas near the Strait of Bab al Mandab. The presence of Oldowan-like and Acheulean assemblages may reflect at least two major dispersals outside of Africa. Acheulean localities are particularly abundant on the Arabian peninsula, and variations in stone tool manufacturing techniques and tool-type frequencies may reflect temporal changes in assemblages. Although there is good potential to chronometrically date sites in the Arabian peninsula, absolute dating methods have not been adequately applied, most temporal reconstructions relying on typotechnological change. If the Arabian peninsula is to provide solid evidence for understanding hominin adaptation and dispersal patterns, future fieldwork in secure depositional contexts needs to be conducted to overcome current limits in dating and environmental reconstructions.     

New evidence for specialised ceramic production and exchange in the southeast Arabian Iron Age

Results from a programme of PIXE-PIGME analysis of Iron Age ceramics from southeastern Arabia are presented. Compositional analysis indicates the existence of two discrete Iron Age II ceramic assemblages. A combination of geological and archaeological evidence suggests that one of these was produced in the inland oasis of al-Ain. Geological evidence in combination with previously published data on the elemental composition of southeast Iranian ceramics suggests Iran as a possible source for the other group.