The Making of Fired Clay Bricks in China Some 5000 Years Ago

Fired bricks are a hard and durable masonry material that has played a major role in the emergence of early human urban civilization. In China, fired clay bricks have been widely used as a building and flooring material since the Qin Dynasty (476?206 bc ), although a few lines of evidence show that fired clay bricks might have been invented as early as 5500 years ago in eastern central China. However, these burnt clumps of clay appear not to be bricks in the strict sense, and our knowledge about the origin of fired clay bricks in China still remains fragmentary. Archaeological excavations at a Middle Neolithic cultural site in northwestern China reveal that the making of fired clay bricks began some 5000 years ago. Our findings also open a window into the process of prehistoric brickmaking in East Asia.     

略论希腊化史学

希腊化时代史学按其发展大致可以分为希腊化初期、盛期和希腊-罗马时期三个阶段。初期是希腊化史学兴起阶段;盛期,由于空前的东西方文化交流使得人们的视野与认识都大大提高,加之东方君主制度的盛行,出现了所谓的“博学史学”、“考据史学”和“地方志”;到了希腊-罗马史学融合时期,整个地中海世界都处于罗马之鹰的笼罩之下,出现了真正意义上的世界史。总之,这一时期是总结的时期,而不是创造的时期。     

Space-Time Synergetics in Innovation Diffusion: A Nested Network Simulation Approach

The relevance of evolutionary dynamics theories for investigating the development of sociotechnical systems has recently been recognized. In this framework the logistic growth model is considered by many scientists as an extremely appropriate framework that is able to interpret the dynamics of innovation diffusion. Starting from recent results in the literature on technological dynamics, the present paper focuses on backgrounds leading to different shapes of the conventional logistic function. By embedding these motives in the socio-attitudinal context of the system at hand, the present paper tries to give a new interpretation for the rapid/slow “take off” and dynamics of a given innovation in a spatial setting. In particular, a nested logistic dynamic model is developed here, with particular emphasis on the dynamic growth rate of the logistic function expressing—by means of an accessibility cost function—the preference intensity concerning a given innovation for a certain region/country. Finally, various simulation experiments are carried out for the case of both a two-dimensional and a four-dimensional network. The possibility of both stable and unstable diffusion patterns, depending on the parameter values in the nested “attitudinal” dynamic function, is also investigated.     

The Harbour at Ptolemais: Hellenistic City of the Libyan Pentapolis

This article describes fieldwork undertaken in 1972 at the harbour of the Hellenistic city of Ptolemais at Tolmeita in Cyrenaica, Libya. This survey has shown that the city possessed a sophisticated Hellenistic harbour installation, now submerged by some 2 m. It consisted of a small fishing harbour and a larger commercial harbour protected by extensive stone breakwaters built around two offshore islands. Between the harbours, remains were found under water of an extensive block‐built quay connected to one island, where there was a system of submerged rock‐cut tanks. These are interpreted as the foundations of a fish‐processing factory. Changes in sea‐level are also discussed.     

希腊化时代研究的历史与现状

所谓希腊化是指亚历山大大帝东征(公元前334-前323年)后的三个世纪里,古希腊明和小亚细亚、叙利亚、美索不达米亚、埃及以及印度的古老明相融合的一种进程。时间范围通常认为开始于公元前323年亚历山大去世到公元前30年罗马吞并最后一个希腊化国家托勒密王朝为止。     

The Queen and the City: Royal Female Intervention and Patronage in Hellenistic Civic Communities

In 196 bce , Queen Laodike III issued a decree (I.Iasos 4, I) to Iasos in Caria, Asia Minor, announcing that she was giving the Iasians a ten‐year supply of grain to alleviate their penury after her husband's conquest of their city, and she specified that the grain ought to be sold and the income used to provide dowries for the daughters of poor citizens. This and other donations were part of rebuilding efforts in the wake of military violence by Laodike's husband Antiochos III. For her beneficence, Laodike was honoured by cities with foundations of festivals, priestesses and sacred areas dedicated to preserving her cult. This reciprocity of goodwill was gendered, not only in the establishment of priestesses, but in the nature of the honours given; for example Iasos celebrated Laodike III's birthday with a procession of a maiden priestess and couples who were about to wed (I.Iasos 4, II), and the people of Teos dedicated a fountain in their city centre to Laodike and required that all brides should draw from it the water for their baths (SEG 41, 1003). Laodike's patronage and the cities’ responses to her bring to light the role of female citizens within the structures, perpetuation and ceremonial of the civic body. At the heart of honours given Laodike and her own self‐promotion was the identity of sister and mother, roles shaping her own queenship and the civic participation and power of the women she assisted.     

The Bricks and Mortar of Revolutionary Administration

This article investigates office space during the French Revolution.It argues that material conditions played an important rolein configuring the post-Revolutionary state and its relationshipto the ‘public sphere’. In the 1790s, ministry employeesmoved from Versailles to Paris, from serving individual aristocratsto serving the Nation, from a state of operative obscurity toone of contentious publicity. Although an ideal regulation ofspace in new unified ministry buildings would invite the publicin and make government transparent (preventing a return to theOld Regime), Ministers had to balance this imperative with practicaloperational and financial concerns. By the Empire, ministrieswere consciously constructing antechambers to keep petitionerswaiting. Meanwhile, employees also engineered their physicalenvironment to protect their jobs, constructing corridors andmakeshift walls. The disjuncture between the aims and the outcomesof 1790s administrative reform developed out of the physicalimpossibility of making ‘transparent’ bureaucracywork.     

Hydraulic Analysis of a Self-Cleaning Drainage Outlet at the Hellenistic City of Priene

At the distal western end of a main drainage canal running along West Gate Street in the Hellenistic city of Priene, an unusual masonry outlet structure has been found. The housed structure contains a doubly curvilinear, contracting rectangular cross-section flow passageway that allows drainage water flow through the city perimeter wall. A computer model of the complexly-shaped drainage structure has been hydraulically analysed in order to determine the function of the curvilinear passageway. Results indicate that the internal shaping of the structure hydraulically conditions the flow to create multiple circulatory mixing flows that agitate and entrain debris in the outflow stream sufficient to “self-clean” the outlet, thus preventing clogging. Further calculations of flow free surface shapes at different flow rates indicate the maximum flow capacity that can be processed by the drainage system without overspillage to provide a lower-bound estimate of the steady-state water supply to the city. The design of a self-cleaning, continuous flow urban wastewater system implies that Greek city planners maintained a high level of awareness about the hygienic conditions needed to maintain the health of the populace. The Greek attitude toward technical refinements necessary to improve the quality of urban life could therefore not be better represented than in attention to detail related to water supply and waste water drainage systems as a key to improved life standards.     

The Hellenistic and Roman Syracuse (Sicily) Fine Pottery Production Explored by Chemical and Petrographic Analysis

The chemical composition and petrographic features of 51 samples of fine pottery selected from the archaeological site of Syracuse have been established by means of optical microscopy and X‐ray fluorescence spectrometry, with the aim of creating a reference group for the ceramics produced in this important Greek colony during the Hellenistic–Roman period. This reference group is constrained by the analysis of six kiln wasters and of raw materials outcropping in the studied area. Among the studied findings, the main part is assignable imputably to local production, while some specimens probably come from Greece and other colonies (Messina and Gela). The Syracuse fine pottery is characterized by inclusions formed mainly by quartz and micaceous and fossiliferous groundmass. The used pastes were more or less purified through the removal of the sandy‐to‐coarse silty granulometric fraction. The multivariate statistical analysis of chemical data permits the identification of production at Syracuse on the basis of comparison with the kiln wasters and the Plio‐Pleistocene clays.     

满城县新发现一批东汉画像石

本文介绍了近年来在满城县陆续发现的一批画像石墓门的形制特点、构图格局、画像内容及雕刻技法,认为它们与此前发现的一批满城画像石一样,均属于东汉晚期的作品。