Burning Aromatic Plants to Worship Deities

Burning aromatic plants is a religious ritual indispensable forworshipping activities.BURNING AROMATIC PLANTS ON THE 15TH DAY OFTHE 5TH TIBETAN YEARLegend has it that King Gesar subdued many demons andwiped out evil in the interest of his people. One day, he summoned his men, and sang:"Whom should deity protect d there are no people ?Everything will turn upside down if there is no deityWhen there are both the people and the deity, everything willbecome auspicious.The 15th…     

Practical and Auspicious: Thai Handbook Knowledge for Agriculture and the Environment

This article is the first thorough examination of the Thai handbooks that are produced to explain agricultural and environmental knowledge. These khu-meu (handbooks) and tamra (textbooks) come into use when knowledge is moving from one party to another. They also establish symbolic correlations within the human, terrestrial world, or between the human, terrestrial world and the worlds of the gods, spirits, ancestors, or the unseen. Despite the fact that handbooks are pervasive for the organising, preserving, retrieving, transmitting and consuming of knowledge throughout the Southeast Asian region, there has been very little concerted study of handbook knowledge. Our analysis of environmental handbooks in Thailand shows that simplified mastery is a common goal of the handbook genre in both its “how to” and “reading signs” forms. The knowledge captured by the Thai language handbooks is of a practical, predictive kind and suited to particular circumstances. Such knowledge can ultimately bridge and blur the dichotomy between scientific and local epistemologies.     

The Business Lives of Wangdu and Lodran in Lhasa

In a travel guide about Lhasa, it tells us ＂Dongzesur Antique Shop on the southeast side of the Barkhor Street contains many ancient articles. Wangdu and his wife Lodran are recognized as nice people. Even though you may not plan to buy anything, it still deserves a visit.＂ What the guide talks about is the Dongzesur Antique Shop run by the Tibetan peasant businessmen, Wangdu and Lodran.     

Hindi Films, Shah Rukh and Kajol Are Hits in Lhasa

If you hire a cab in Lhasa don‘t be surprise if the driver is playing the song from Aamir Khan‘s award winning film Lagaan. Indian films and music is a hit in Tibet. Nobody understands the language but everybody loves to listen to Indian film songs.     

契丹覆面、毁器、焚物葬俗小议

覆面葬俗与毁器葬俗、焚物葬俗是契丹族葬俗的三种文化形态,表现为对与人世间相对应的文化不完整性、个人物品通过焚烧转到死亡和终结生命、隔绝生死界限的复杂而神秘的文化内涵,这三种葬俗应用整体观察方可认识契丹族的生死观念.     

便携式X射线荧光现场分析壁画颜料适用性研究——以西藏拉萨大昭寺壁画为例

便携式X射线荧光光谱仪作为快捷的无损分析技术,广泛应用于壁画文物的现场分析中.本文利用便携式X射线荧光光谱仪分析了西藏拉萨大昭寺转经廊壁画,选取部分样品,利用实验室X射线荧光分析,发现所分析颜料的主要显色元素具有一致性,并利用拉曼光谱确定了壁画颜料的成分.通过比较研究,发现便携式X射线荧光光谱仪可确定大部分色彩较为纯正的颜料的成分,同时,由于西藏拉萨大昭寺壁画颜料的杂多性,对于含砷的橙色颜料、含砷或含铅与含铁的黄色颜料、含铜砷的绿色颜料、含钙硫的白色颜料、群青与孔雀石的混合颜料则需结合拉曼光谱确定之.本研究工作显示,利用便携式X射线荧光光谱仪开展现场检测,可极大地减少实验室分析样品的取样数量,有利于壁画颜料的无损分析与微损分析.     

论越窑青瓷的装烧工艺

作者以实物资料为依据,总结了越窑瓷器的主要装烧工艺,并指出装烧工艺在越窑青瓷制作中所起的独特作用。     

Fire,Smoke, and Judah in Judges: A Response to Gregory Wong

Abstract

In a recent SJOT article, Gregory Wong set out to “[reexamine] the evidence for the alleged pro-Judah polemic in Judges.” His conclusion is that “even though the body of evidence commonly cited in support of a direct pro-Judah polemic [in Judges] seems impressive at first glance, a case-by-case examination seems to suggest that it is, unfortunately, a case of all smoke but no fire.” As a member of the rapidly growing group of scholars who believe otherwise, I would like, in my turn, to examine the arguments presented by Wong in support of this conclusion. I will demonstrate that although some of these arguments, mainly those having to do with Judah’s presentation in Judges 1, are valid and rightfully refute certain vulnerable interpretations, overall Wong’s case against seeing Judges as a profoundly pro-Judah text is extremely weak.     

藏北小拉萨 历史城市景观框架下的索县城市设计研究与探索

正西藏拥有与大自然相融合的文化景观,在世界范围内都称得上独特而突出。索县属那曲地区,位于藏北高原和藏东高山峡谷结合部。针对索县自身的情况,我们从宏观的文化线路、中观的上水格局与文化资源、微观的产业容器设计三个层面对这个藏北小城予以研究和探索,构建为一个全面立体的城市设计体系,希望从空间上助推其早日实现"藏北小拉萨"的美好愿景。     

黄帝受命有云瑞 夷巫事神琢瑞云

在红山文化墓葬发掘出土的上百件玉器中,玉箍和玉勾云形器是重要的玉神器,尤以玉勾云形器为最最重要之事神用巫玉。其表面器形构架由(?)三种图案组合成复合勾云纹造型,反映了红山文化群体对"云"、"雨"的崇敬和期盼。其深层内涵则是云上有天、天上有神,天神是至高无上之神,具有权威性和震慑性,也为红山文化群体视为保护神加以膜拜。玉勾云形器、玉龙、兽面饰块形器等红山文化玉神器均以云纹作结构框架并普遍应用,说明其群体以崇敬云天为己任,并创建了高度发达的东夷玉文化板块。此一玉文化或可能与"黄帝受命有云瑞"、"官名皆以云命,为云师"的记载有关联。而"玉勾云形器"之名称不甚准确,经考证古文献,应为"吉云饰玉神器"、"玉吉云形器",宜定名为"玉瑞云纹饰"。     

‘No Smoke without Fire’: Citizenship and Securing Economic Enclaves in Mozambique

This article explores the complicated interrelationship between economic enclaves, their associated security practices and the formation of national citizens in Mozambique. From the colonial era of company rule to the large‐scale foreign direct investments of the present day, investors have feared the destructive fires of rampant ‘mobs’, unruly workers and the potentially rebellious populace more generally. Signs of smoke point to trouble for investors, who can draw on complex security arrangements, including corporate social responsibility programmes, unions, private security companies, community leaders, state police and specialized state and rapid response units with the latest communications and transport technologies, to try to protect their investments from labour unrest and political demands. Through a variety of ethnographic materials on mega‐investments in the sugar industry over the last two decades, the article explores the centrality of complex security arrangements to strategies of governance that use such arrangements in an attempt to produce disciplined national subjects.     

The Archaeology and Technology of Early-Modern Lime Burning in the Yorkshire Dales: Developing a Clamp Kiln Model

Abstract

Compared with commercial or field lime kilns of the industrial period, very little detailed work has been undertaken to investigate post-medieval and early modern clamp kilns apart from a few notable site-specific studies. Clamp kiln terminology thus far has been unable to distinguish between clamp, sod and sow kilns. Recent field surveying and archaeological excavation across a wide area within the Yorkshire Dales, with associated documentary and archival research, has shed new light on clamp kiln technology and morphology. The results of this work have informed the development of a provisional clamp kiln model which, it is argued, is appropriate to the Central Pennines.     

The Burning of Sampati Kuer: Sati and the Politics of Imperialism,Nationalism and Revivalism in 1920s India

Sati, the immolation of a Hindu widow on her husband's funeral pyre, is a rare, but highly controversial practice. It has inspired a surfeit of scholarly studies in the last twenty years, most of which concentrate on one of two main historical sati ‘episodes’: that of early‐colonial Bengal, culminating with the British prohibition of 1829, and that of late twentieth‐century Rajasthan, epitomised by the immolation of Roop Kanwar in 1987. Comparatively little detailed historical analysis exists on sati cases between these two events, however, a lacuna this paper seeks to address by exploring British and Indian discourses on sati as they existed in late‐colonial India. The paper argues that sati remained a site of ideological and actual confrontation in the early twentieth century, with important implications for ongoing debates about Hindu religion, identity and nation. It focuses on the intersection between various colonial debates and contemporaneous Indian social and political concerns during the controversy surrounding the immolation of Sampati Kuer in Barh, Bihar, in 1927, emphasising resonances with postcolonial interpretations of sati and the dissonance of early nineteenth‐century tropes when reproduced in the Patna High Court in 1928. Thus, while Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid have suggested that ‘ad hoc’ attempts to piece together a ‘modern’ narrative of widow immolation began in the 1950s, this paper will suggest that various contemporary discursive formations on sati can be observed in late‐colonial India, when discussions of sati became entwined with Indian nationalism and Hindu identity politics and evoked the first organised female response to sati from an emergent women's movement that saw it as an ideological, as well as physical, violation of women.