Terracotta figurines from the National and Military Museums in Sana'a, Yemen

This study focuses on sixty-five terracotta figurines in the National Museum and the Military Museum in Sana'a, Yemen.     

西安市南郊马腾空唐墓发掘简报

2001年4月至10月间,我们在西安市南郊马腾空清理了15座唐代墓葬。所有墓葬皆为南北向,单室墓室,墓道在南,墓室居北。墓葬形制可分为A、B、C三型。可以看清的几例葬具、葬式皆为单棺单人,仰身直肢。随葬品以陶俑最为丰富,计有镇墓俑、男俑、女俑、动物俑等,其中男俑、女俑的中的半身俑时代特征明显,女俑的发式新颖奇特,造型生动,在隋唐考古中较为少见。加之又出土了四盒墓志,具有明确的纪年,可以作为判断其年代的标形器。这批墓葬的发掘为关中地区唐墓谱系的建立增加了新资料,同时对其它地区唐墓的研究也有借鉴作用。     

河南孟津县上店村唐代壁画墓

2010年4~5月,洛阳市文物工作队在孟津县上店村清理了1座唐代土洞墓。墓葬由墓道、过洞、天井、壁龛、甬道、墓门、墓室等组成。壁龛内出有较多盛唐时期的彩绘骑马俑、立俑和陶猪、狗、马、牛、鸡、羊等遗物。该墓葬的发掘,为研究洛阳地区盛唐时期大型墓葬的形制、出土器物组合、制陶工艺等提供了实物资料。     

The terracotta figurines from ed-Dur (Umm al-Qaiwain, U.A.E.): the human representations

The present article proposes an examination of the human terracotta figurines found during the course of eight archaeological seasons carried out by a Belgian team at the coastal site of ed-Dur in the Emirate of Umm-al-Qaiwain. Since most fragments lack a secure archaeological context, the figurines will be studied mainly in comparison with similar data occurring at other contemporary sites throughout the Gulf and Mesopotamia. We shall see that the ed-Dur figurines appear mostly to be isolated cases coming from abroad instead of objects playing a prominent part in local religious or ritual beliefs.     

徐州西汉墓陪葬陶俑述论

徐州作为两汉重要的诸侯王封国所在地,有较多西汉墓陪葬有陶俑。从总体上看,徐州西汉墓陪葬陶俑经历了萌芽、繁荣和衰落的全面发展过程,每一阶段都有其自身的特点和表现形式,并与社会的发展及葬制、葬俗的演进等密切相关。徐州西汉墓陪葬陶俑还与本地区东汉墓葬及周边地区西汉墓葬的陪葬陶俑存在一些相同和不同之处,综合反映出相关丧葬内容、物质文化等的时代特点及地域特征。     

Si Satchanalai Figurines: Reconstruction of Ancient Daily Life,Beliefs, and Environment in Siam during the Sixteenth Century

The Si Satchanalai figurines and ceramics applied with figurines in various shapes of humans and animals were one type of ceramics produced especially in the sixteenth century at the Si Satchanalai kilns located in Si Satchanalai city under the territorial control of the Sukhothai and the Ayutthaya Kingdoms which foreigners recorded the name of this region as “Siam.” They represent the mixed culture that came along with the unofficial and official foreign relations on politics and trade. Indian, Khmer, Lanna, Chinese Yuan and Ming, and Vietnamese arts and cultures were transmitted to Siam and became to be the important sources of inspiration for the local potters to create figurines and other forms of ceramic objects. The local daily life diet supplies, relationships in community, social organization, neighborhoods, activities, occupations and environments were other important sources of inspiration for the local potters.     

The Origins and Ethics of Maritime Archaeology – Part I

Abstract

For archaeologists, the principal value of prehistoric figurines is that they offer a means – however limited – into the cultures and lives of prehistoric peoples. There is a long tradition of archaeologists assuming that the figurines they unearth had a religious significance for the people who created them (since anthropomorphic figurines have a religious use in many cultures with which we are familiar). However, just as archaeologists began questioning their attribution of divine status to prehistoric figurines in the 1960s, practitioners of neopagan and goddess spiritualities – particularly those in the feminist spirituality movement – were adopting it. Moreover, in addition to describing prehistoric figurines as images of a Great Goddess who dominated prehistoric religious life, these contemporary feminist neopagans use reproductions of prehistoric figurines to inspire and enact their own spirituality. Feminist neopagan appropriation of prehistoric figurines has been problematic for many archaeologists, who quarrel – legitimately – with the conclusions feminist neopagans make about prehistory based on these artefacts. Yet, as this article argues, the contemporary religious use of prehistoric figurines should not be a matter for archaeologists to decide.     

秦兵马俑一号坑后五方遗物清理简报

为了保护一号坑内的金属遗物,秦始皇兵马俑博物馆考古队对秦兵马俑一号坑内东北部后五方暴露的遗物进行了清理与提取,主要有兵器、车马器和杂器三大类共173件组,为秦俑秦文化的历史学和考古学研究提供了新资料。     

The terracotta figurines from ed-Dur (Umm al-Qaiwain, U.A.E.): The animal representations

Ten fragments of animal figurines from ed-Dur, the largest site of the 1^st century A.D. in southeastern Arabia, are published and compared with material from other sites in the Near East. The figurines are discussed in light of broader issues relating to the representation of birds and animals in pre-Islamic Arabia.     

Identifying Female in the Halaf: Prehistoric Agency and Modern Interpretations

This article considers ways that representations of anthropomorphic imagery in the form of figurines from prehistoric village communities have been interpreted and provides a new framework for analyzing figurines. It has been long suggested that prehistoric figurines should be interpreted as representations of female gendered qualities related to ritual, fertility, and motherhood combined into a concept called “mother goddess.” The impetus for the adoption of this interpretation and evidential association with prehistoric figurine assemblages and bound to binary gender is briefly critiqued. The methodology for studying figurine assemblages presented here utilizes typological, archaeological, and comparative analysis and is cognizant of inherent ambiguities in the object biographies of the full assemblage. This study applies this methodology to a corpus of figurines excavated from sixth millennium settlements associated with the Halaf material culture. This approach is then operationalized with case studies of figurines excavated from Domuztepe (Turkey) and Chagar Bazar (Syria) as examples of engagement with those who conceived, made, used, and discarded them. The Halaf figurine corpus is shown as nuanced, displaying sexual difference and humanness on a spectrum from overt to ambiguous. Considered as a whole, the Halaf corpus is shown to have had mundane and mutable use lives related to embodied identities entangled with culture and community, unconnected to gender binaries, ritual, fertility, or motherhood.     

Chasing the Halcyon Light – Human-Kingfisher Relations in Eastern Han-Dynasty China (CE 25–220) and Their Material,Sociocultural and Ecological Articulations

ABSTRACT

This article takes a fresh look at human-kingfisher relations in Eastern Han-dynasty China (CE 25–220). It argues that the confined appearance of kingfisher figurines in graves excavated in the southwest of the modern-day People’s Republic of China reflects the structural differences in human-kingfisher interactions between the centre(s) of the Han empire and its peripheries. By re-visiting the archaeology of the figurines and placing them into the wider cultural and ecological context, it is shown that distinct sociocultural transformations such as urbanisation processes and infrastructural projects profoundly changed the exposure and interactional dynamics between humans and kingfishers in the northern parts of the realm. This situation contrasted sharply with human-kingfisher interfaces in the southwest, where relatively ‘untamed’ environments harbouring a great number and diversity of kingfishers provided more favourable conditions for encountering them. I propose that this framework, in turn, fostered conceptualizations of kingfishers in which the birds came to encapsulate an experience fundamentally opposed to the type of human preponderance showcased in the core areas. By discussing a set of local practices and beliefs that might have further promoted this view, I suggest that they served as catalysts for the emergence of the kingfisher figurines at a particular time in a specific place. In this wider context, the article finally considers whether the southward expansion of the Eastern Han, with which the appearance of the figurines coincides, contributed to a re-configuration of north–south dynamics, shaping the general logic of human-kingfisher relations at the time.     

馆藏唐代彩绘人物俑颜料分析与修复保护

为确定深圳博物馆藏唐代彩绘人物俑颜料的矿物成分,利用X射线荧光能谱仪、X-射线衍射仪等对这批俑的颜料成分进行了分析,结果表明:红色颜料为铅丹、朱砂;黑色颜料为无定形碳黑;白色颜料为铅白和高岭土等.同时,将其与陕西省内相关地区的彩绘陶俑或壁画颜料进行了对比,得知其所使用的颜料与后者基本一致.在此基础上,针对这批人物俑的保存现状,遵循最小干预等文物保护的基本原则,对其实施了表面附着物清理、拼对、粘接、修复补全等保护修复技术措施,使其恢复了原有面貌,取得了较为理想的保护效果.     

SOCIAL NETWORKS AND CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTION: A NEW INTERPRETATION OF THE FEMALE TERRACOTTA FIGURINES OF HELLENISTIC BABYLON

Summary.   In the study of the Hellenistic period in Babylon, cross-cultural interactions between Greeks and native Babylonians have been primarily interpreted using colonialist theories of Hellenisation, domination, and cultural isolation. This paper finds, however, that such theories cannot adequately explain the types of cross-cultural combinations seen in the archaeological record of female Hellenistic Babylonian terracotta figurines. The forms and functions of these terracotta figurines were substantially altered and combined throughout the Hellenistic period, resulting in Greek-Babylonian multicultural figurines as well as figurines that exhibited new features used exclusively in Hellenistic Babylonia. In order to facilitate a greater understanding of the full complexity of these Greek–Babylonian interactions, a new interpretation of cross–cultural interaction in Hellenistic Babylon is developed in this paper. This Social Networks model provides an alternative framework for approaching both how a hybrid material culture of terracotta figurines was developed and how Hellenistic Babylon became a multicultural society.     

基于力矩平衡原理的秦兵马俑重心测量及临界地震加速度计算

随着近年来地震灾害的频发,分析浮放于俑坑中的秦兵马俑在地震波影响下的运动方式是秦俑地震灾害防御研究中的首要环节。本研究利用力矩平衡的原理测量秦兵马俑的重心位置,进而初步计算得到陶俑的临界地震加速度,依据陶俑的形体特征计算出每类陶俑的抗倾倒极限地震加速度,验证了测量结果的可靠性,为制定秦俑的地震设防等级和防震保护工作提供了基础数据。     

Iron Age Gold Mining: A Preliminary Report on Camps in the Al Maraziq Region, Yemen

Ancient geologists in Yemen and Egypt recognized that quartz veins surrounding caldera-collapse complexes (exhumed explosive volcanoes) were gold bearing and actively sought out these geologic environments. Rock hammerstones, anvils and grinders are found in camps on both sides of the Red Sea, indicating that mining and metallurgical extraction technology and knowledge were also widespread during the Iron Age. The technology and overall layout of the Yemen sites is equivalent with New Kingdom to Late Period Egyptian sites, and there is no evidence of smelting, which is a Greco-Roman Period development. It is not known who controlled the Yemen mines, but the large number of adits in the Al Maraziq area suggests that these gold mines may have been important to local, regional and possibly international economies.     

The Women of Brassempouy: A Century of Research and Interpretation

  The discovery of female figurines at Brassempouy in the 1890's would launch more than a century of debate and interpretation concerning Paleolithic representations of women. The figurines emerged from the ground into a colonial intellectual and socio-political context nearly obsessed with matters of race. This early racial interpretive frame would only be replaced in the mid 20th century, when prehistorians turned to questions such as fertility and womanhood. The first figurines were discovered in 1892 under rather tortured circumstances in which their very ownership was the subject of a heated dispute between Edouard Piette and Emile Cartailhac. Their toxic relationship would lead Piette, in his subsequent excavations, to be extremely precise about issues of stratigraphic and spatial provenience. Piette's publications and archives enabled Henri Delporte to confirm the Gravettian attribution of the figurines and have allowed the present author to create a map of their spatial distribution within the site. Technological and microscopic analysis of the Brassempouy figurines resolves some lingering questions about the sex of certain of the figurines and suggests an original context of figurine fabrication and the abandonment of unsuccessful sculpting attempts.

洛阳唐代乐舞陶俑二论

20世纪70～80年代,洛阳地区考古发掘的诸多唐墓中出土了60余件乐舞陶俑,这些乐舞俑以独有的审美观照方式,向人们展示了唐人独具魅力的审美观和无羁无绊的想象力。从像俑那一颦一笑的表情,刚柔相济的舞姿,绚丽斑斓的彩绘,让人感受到梦幻般的美丽,看到一种充满生命激情的民族文化,以及塑艺大师那浪漫离俗的情怀和卓越非凡的创造力。     

丝路胡俑外来风

“丝路胡俑外来风—唐代胡俑展”将于7月25日在陕西乾陵博物馆开展,此展集中陈列了陕西1949年以来出土的胡俑精品和近年新出土的珍贵文物,展示以丝绸之路为主线的国际文化交流背景下胡人在长安的活动状况,彰显其为唐文化的形成与发展所做出的积极贡献,揭示文化交流与民族融合在历史文明发展过程中的促进作用。     

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.     

Iran and Political Dynamism in the Arab World: the Case of Yemen

This article examines the role of Iran in Yemen within the context of Arab‐Iranian relations. It also examines the debate on the involvement of Iran in the ongoing political developments in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. The article focuses on the Houthi Movement in Yemen, its origin, growth and political expansion. It also investigates its relations with Iran and its allies in the region, and discusses other factors that strengthened its political image in Yemen. The article also provides an early assessment of the implication of the Decisive Storm military led by Saudi Arabia.