In enemy hands: the Byzantine experience of captivity between the seventh and tenth centuries

The present paper deals with forced migration experienced by subjects of the Byzantine Empire captured by foreign enemies in the context of warfare between the seventh and the tenth centuries. The focus of the first part is on the scenarios faced by individuals and groups when an enemy had taken control of a settlement or a larger territory. The second part discusses aspects of the role social status and gender played in the process of being taken over and then (possibly but not necessarily) held in captivity. Although one can trace similarities in the way captors treated their captives on different occasions, an overgeneralizing approach can prove misleading, distracting us from the dynamics of the consequences that war and abduction had on both the agency of the victor and the fate of the loser in the early Middle Ages.     

Anthropology and alcohol: In search of a new paradigm

Jerrold E. Levy and Stephen J. Kunitz. Indian Drinking: Navajo Practices and Anglo‐American Theories. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1974. xii + 257 pp. Tables, notes, appendices, bibliography, and index. $12.50.

William Madsen. The American Alcoholic: The Nature‐Nurture Controversy in Alcoholic Research and Therapy. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1974. xvii + 248 pp. References, author and subject indices. $11.50.     

The myth of the Byzantine origins of the Osmanlis: an essay in interpretation

Abstract

The story that gave the Osmanlis a distant Comnenian origin emerges in sixteenth-century Italian and Greek histories, inspired by the twelfth-century accounts of the renegade prince John Komnenos, as related by Niketas Choniates Its invention and propagation might have served the legitimacy of Ottoman rule, in which case, it was addressed to gulams and converts rather than to the Christian subjects of the sultans. It can also be interpreted as fitting the ideals and the imaginations of highly positioned converts in the Ottoman service, who previously belonged to the Byzantine and Balkan aristocracies.     

In search of Egypt

R. Hrair Dekmejian, Egypt under Nasir: A Study in Political Dynamics, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1971, 368 pp.. $10.00.

Iliya F. Harik, The Political Mobilization of Peasants: A Study of an Egyptian Community, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1974, 309 pp., $12.50.

James B. Mayfield, Rural Politics in Nasser's Egypt: A Quest for Legitimacy, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1971, 288 pp., $10.00.

Amos Perlmutter, Egypt: The Preatorian State, New Brunswick, Transaction Books, 1974, 234 pp., $9.95.     

The canon of the Tibetan Bonpos

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

In search of Louisiana's past

Neuman, Robert W. An Introduction to Louisiana Archaeology. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984. xvi + 366 pp. including plates, references, and index. $27.50 cloth.     

Some intertexts of the Vita Stephani Junioris

Abstract

In the introduction to her newly published edition of the Life of St. Stephen the Younger, M.-F. Auzépy spares no effort in her attempt to uncover the original motives and intentions underlying this fascinating hagiographic work.! Her results, though not the first or only word on this matter, are nonetheless provocative and original. This brief note will raise some questions about those findings and offer an additional point of view on the VSJ in connection with the contemporary writings of Theodore of Stoudios.     

In search of negativism: Phenomenology and historical geography

The paper aims to investigate the nature and origin of the “phenomenological movement” in historical geography, by comparing and contrasting the fundamental principles of phenomenology as philosophy on the one hand, and the character of the so-called behavioural and perceptual approaches to historical reconstruction on the other. Questions are raised as to the methodological purity of the particular strand of non-positivist ideology which has entered into the annals of geographical literature; and, finally, the adoption of behavioural explanatory modes in historical geography is seen as a pragmatic response to substantive problems rather than a conscious or even strategic change in underlying philosophy.     

寻找尕玛珠

座落在青藏高原东部边缘,位于大渡河与雅砻江之间的贡嘎山,是我在二十五年前和一位藏族小姑娘结下深深友谊的地方,它带给我的不仅是宏伟的景观,也是我经常回忆这份友情的源头。     

Archaeomagnetic versus luminescence methods: the case of an Early Byzantine ceramic workshop in Thessaloniki,Greece

In this contribution, we present a combined archaeomagnetic and luminescence study of archaeologically dated structures. The investigated area is a ceramic workshop comprising several Early Byzantine kilns. Based on (a) the archaeological–anthropogenic stratigraphy of the site, (b) the structural characteristics of the kilns and (c) the few ceramic findings revealed within their context, the operation of this brick and tile factory is approximately dated between the middle of the fifth century until the first decades of the sixth century AD. Three of the well-preserved workshop kilns have been studied archaeomagnetically. The full vector of the geomagnetic field, accompanied by rock magnetic analyses of the studied material, has been defined. The archaeomagnetic study revealed similar directions among the three kilns indicating and confirming their contemporary use. Additionally, several luminescence measurements were obtained on material from the same kilns. The dating of the site was performed with both methods. The archaeomagnetic dating is convergent with the archaeological estimation only when its upper limit is considered. Concerning the luminescence dating, the calculated ages (corrected for anomalous fading and for the ⁴⁰K content) with their standard deviations are convergent with the archaeological estimations for the first kiln, while for the other two, the results seem to be incompatible. The possible factors that provoked this divergence are thoroughly discussed.     

A Byzantine Shipwreck from Cape Stoba,Mljet, Croatia: an interim report

The Cape Stoba shipwreck is located on the seabed off the island of Mljet in Croatia at a depth of 21–28 m. Following initial investigation in 1975, four seasons of excavation have been carried between 2010 and 2014 by the Department for Underwater Archaeology of the Croatian Conservation Institute, joined by the Department of Studi Umanistici of the Università Ca' Foscari of Venice from 2012. The wreck‐site is evidenced by a cargo of nine amphora types dated to the 10th‐11th century AD, produced in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea area, and glassware of Levantine production. The only direct evidence of the ship itself to date, is one iron anchor.     

A Byzantine hagiographical parody: Life of Mary the Younger

Abstract

In this paper, it is argued that The Life of Mary the Younger, an anonymous Byzantine text of the eleventh century, has a conscious intertextual dialogue with the oldest Byzantine Life venerating a holy woman, the Life of Macrina written by her brother, Gregory of Nyssa, between 380 and 383. The intertextual relation between these two female Lives takes the form of parody. Following Linda Hutcheon's theory of parody, this article shows how the anonymous hagiographer of Mary reworks Gregory's authoritative text to create a new work, a parody in terms of postmodern literary criticism, whose aim was to criticise old and contemporary customs, conventions and ideologies. In other words, the present article approaches and decodes the literariness, the function and ideology of Mary's Life in the light of Macrina's Life.     

Towards a Byzantine ecocriticism: witches and nature control in the medieval Greek romance

Abstract

Since its rise in the mid-1990s, ecocriticism, the study of the depiction of the built and natural environments in literature, has been deeply engaged with contemporary political and social issues surrounding anthropogenic ecological degradation and climate change. Such an ideological outlook, however, limits the application of the discourse in the case of medieval literature, which lacks such contemporary resonance. Ecocritical and ecofeminist analyses of the three witches with power over the environment in the Byzantine romances and their western analogues will nevertheless demonstrate the connection between nature control, femininity and patriarchal oppression and, as importantly, offer a theoretical framework for the application of an apolitical ecocriticism to Byzantine (and medieval) literature.