Further Insight into Mesoamerican Paint Technology: Unveiling the Colour Palette of the Pre‐Columbian Codex Fejérváry‐Mayer by Means of Non‐invasive Analysis

Here, we report on the analytical findings and their cultural implications of a multidisciplinary study of the pre‐Columbian Codex Fejérváry‐Mayer. Today conserved at the World Museum in Liverpool, it is one of the finest Mesoamerican codices among the few extant. Thanks to the exploitation of non‐invasive analytical methodologies accessible through the MOLAB European mobile facility, the study allowed us to disclose the chemical composition of the painting materials used in the codex, which have never been analysed before. The results are discussed and compared with the outcomes of previous studies on other Mesoamerican codices.     

Multi-analytical techniques for the study of pre-Columbian mummies and related funerary materials

Due to a paucity of original written information, we base our knowledge of the pre-Columbian civilizations of Latin America on archaeological and archaeometric analysis. Particularly, the analytical study of funerary materials collected by conquerors in historical times and archaeologists nowadays during their travels and expeditions contributes to a better understanding of religious practices and social organisation. In the present study, a multi-analytical approach is presented which was used for the characterisation of red and blue organic dyes, inorganic pigments and embalming materials in various archaeological finds from the necropolis of Ancòn (Peru). These included the funerary clothes belonging to a set of three mummies, dated between the 11th and the 13th century AD. Chromatographic and spectrometric techniques were used: high performance liquid chromatography with UV-Visible detector (HPLC-UV-Vis) for identifying organic dyes, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (SEM-EDX) for recognising pigments, and gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection (GC/MS) for analysing organic embalming materials. This multi-analytical approach enabled us to characterise a range of materials. The presence of red anthraquinoid dyes and blue indigoid ones was assessed, although it was not always possible to identify the original source with certainty. Cinnabar was identified as the colouring material applied to one mummy's hair. The molecular markers of conifer resin were detected in the bandages. The analytical results highlighted the use of a number of hitherto unknown dyes and embalming materials in Peruvian funerary rituals.     

The Context and Significance of Copper Artifacts in Postclassic and Early Historic Lamanai,Belize

Abstract

We consider the archaeological contexts in which copper objects have been recovered at the ancient Maya site of Lamanai in northern Belize and the significance these objects had for the residents of the community during Postclassic (ca. A.D. 950–1544) and Spanish colonial (post 1544) times. More copper objects have been recovered from controlled archaeological contexts at Lamanai than any other site in the southern Maya lowlands area. Bells make up the majority of the assemblage during the centuries just prior to and during historical times, but high status objects such as rings and clothing ornaments found in elite burials dominate in the Early Postclassic period. All of these objects were imported from outside the Maya area. Utilitarian objects, including needles, axes, and fish books, are found in a variety of contexts during Late Postclassic and Spanish colonial times, as are bells and rings. Production materials, including prills, blanks, and pigs/ingots, in addition to mis-cast objects that are production failures, also appear during this time. Nearly all of the copper objects found at Lamanai are distinctly Mesoamerican in form and design, and based on metallurgical analyses it appears that manufacturing technologies were distinctly Mesoamerican as well. The presence of production materials and mis-cast piecesy along with the results of chemical compositional and microstructural analyses, support the idea that the Maya at Lamanai were engaged in the on-site production of copper objects by late precolumbian times.     

唐代以前福建宗教信仰的地域分布格局

福建宗教信仰的研究一直倍受关注, 相关的研究成果已取得长足的进展, 但对于唐代以前福建宗教信仰的研究却相当薄弱, 而早期的状况对此后福建宗教信仰的发展具有不可忽视的奠基意义。本文在相关史料勾稽的基础上, 试图尽可能地揭示唐代以前福建佛教与道教信仰分布、播迁与传衍的地域分布格局。     

Histoire et dialectique des idéologies et significations religieuses

The aim of this article is to consider the possibility of a new analytical methodology that could include multidisciplinary approaches into the study of religious ideologies and practices, taking benefit from historical and ethnographic interpretations, but also from linguistic and philological, psychoanalytical, philosophical, sociological, and anthropological considerations. If one tries to study the role or function played by religion in society, considering human beings as builders of symbolic worlds, one should set out to analyze, if not rules, at least general processes of the religious readjustment with respect to the rest of social life, whenever the gap is much too wide, or the religious transfer from one realm to another entirely different.     

Structures of feeling in seventeenth-century cultural expression

ABSTRACT

As the English church splintered during the mid-seventeenth century, the resultant religious diversity overwhelmed contemporary observers, who struggled to make sense of rapidly advancing theological, political, and cultural changes. This religious chaos has, in turn, produced a similar sense of disorientation among scholars attempting to understand it, and questions of how to best categorise radical religion have generated intense controversy. One of the most important, but perhaps most misunderstood, of these emerging religious expressions were the so-called General Baptists. This article reassesses the utility and coherence of “General Baptist” as an overarching conceptual category to describe historical actors between 1609 and 1660. Historians have traditionally applied this label to any religious dissenters who both rejected paedobaptism and embraced Arminian soteriology. This standard interpretation, however, is misleading and cannot account for the historical record. As the present article demonstrates, the label “General Baptist” had no coherent, stable historical referent during the first half of the seventeenth century.     

Visual Memory of the 1911 Revolution,edited by Yang Tianshi and Tan Xufeng

The history of religious societies under the puppet Manchukuo regime has not been studied to a great extent. By examining the historical materials of the Red Swastika Society, an eclectic religious association that blended Daoist and Buddhist practices and notions, this article attempts to delineate the activities of that religious organization in northeast Chinese society, and argues that the apolitical and non-partisan philanthropic activities of the Red Swastika Society were challenged by both nationalism and imperialism. Prior to World War II, collaboration between the Red Swastika Society and a new Japanese religion, ōmotokyō, had been politicized by right-wing Japanese politicians. During the period of Japanese rule in Manchukuo, the Red Swastika Society had to abandon its political neutrality after being politically suppressed. To some extent, it was transformed into a propagandistic society that advocated the legitimacy of the puppet Manchukuo regime, of which it became a vassal.     

Recent trends in the archaeology of the southeastern United States

The archaeological literature pertaining to the southeastern United States is examined for the 5-year period between 1988 and 1992 inclusive. Research traditions identified in an earlier article by Patty Jo Watson (Southeastern Archaeology 9: 43–54, 1990) as characteristic of the Southeast in the previous half-century are considered in light of recent contributions. Topics examined include Mesoamerican connections, trade, pottery typology, historical archaeology, subsistence studies, bioarchaeology, and lithic artifact research.     

A testimony of Carolingian rule? The Codex epistolaris carolinus,its historical context,and the meaning of imperium

In the preface to the Carolingian collection of papal letters, known as the Codex epistolaris carolinus, the word imperium is used in the context of describing what is in the collection. In this article, I shall argue that a reinterpretation of the preface's statement about what imperium refers to will shed a different light on the CC as a collection in its entirety. What imperium refers to exactly can be debated, yet studying the Codex carolinus as a Carolingian product of its time, in combination with a reappraisal of its preface, may help to understand the source's historical context and its value to the Carolingian court. As I hope to demonstrate, the CC was an essentially purposeful collection, which underlined the shared history of the Carolingian family and the papacy in Rome.     

文本话语与行为规范:西藏宗教人物传记的史学史意义

From the perspective of historical anthropology, this article examines a great deal of the biographies of religious figures in Tibetan history, reveals their special way of writing, classification, and circulation. In Tibetan Buddhism, biographies of religious figures are considered as a subject’s demise (lung-rgyun) and have their special meanings. They are the text of the largest quantity in the historical works of Tibet and had great influence on Tibetan historiography. A comprehensive research on their cultural characteristic, historical evolvement and historical influence will help us understand the Tibetan culture in depth. __________ Translated from Shixueshi Yanjiu 史学史研究 (Journal of Historiography), 2007, (4): 67–77     

影响晚清西方来华传教士宗教旅游的因素分析

本文从旅游的视角,认为西方来华传教士的活动是一种宗教旅游活动,论文选取西方传教士大规模进入我国的晚清时期作为研究时段,根据旅游系统三体论的思路,对晚清西方来华传教士宗教旅游的影响因素进行系统分析,研究结论表明:影响晚清西方来华传教士宗教旅游的主要因素有三个。其一是西方传教士旅游客源地的文化和经济因素;其二是中国作为西方传教士旅游目的地的政治开放、宗教政策以及安全保障因素;其三是西方传教士从其客源地到中国旅游目的地之间及其内部的交通因素。     

Hiding in plain sight: the Coptic Museum in the Egyptian cultural landscape

Abstract

Museums have long been important tools of nation building and of helping nations deal with their increasing diversity. The Arab Spring of 2011 brought massive social upheaval and change to the Middle East. Egypt experienced particularly dramatic changes. Long-standing fissures around who qualifies as an Egyptian, which groups dominate in this secular or religious nation, and what it means to be an Egyptian today came to the fore. How did different groups fare within this negotiation and what role did cultural institutions play? We explore these struggles through the lens of the Coptic Museum and the experiences of the Coptic community. We argue that the Museum historici s es Copticism, or depicts it as an historical, bounded period in Egyptian history. It also embraces a historical narrative that sees Copts as the direct descendants of the Pharaohs, and therefore the original Egyptians, although some later converted to Islam. By so doing, the Museum positions the community centrally but unchallengingly within the ever-changing ‘master’ national narrative, whether in its more religious or secular form. By telling this particular story, the community saves itself and its materials, but it also constructs and perpetuates its paradoxically central, but marginal position in the nation.     

Accounts of early Christian history in the thought of François Guizot,Benjamin Constant and Madame de Staël 1800–c.1833

This article compares different historical accounts of early Christianity written by François Guizot, Benjamin Constant and Madame de Staël and shows that they played a significant role in the construction of their ideas about religious tolerance and political liberty in ancient and modern states. In his 1812 translation of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Guizot used his editorial footnotes to oppose Gibbon’s sceptical representation of the early Church and to assert that the development of Christianity had been crucial in condemning slavery, establishing religious toleration and fostering individual liberty. Benjamin Constant also opposed Gibbon’s representation of early Church history but he argued in his posthumously published Du polythéisme romain (1833) that the key achievement of the early Christians had been to revive the idea of individual religious sentiment against the anti-individualist Roman state. As Guizot developed his historical research in the 1820s he rejected this view and came to see the early Christians as demonstrating the inherently social nature of all religious practice. Some of these ideas were anticipated by Madame de Staël in De la littérature (1800), but all three thinkers sought to reintegrate religion into their ideas of modern liberty in ways that merit greater attention.     

硅酸酯低聚体在石材保护中的应用研究

石质文物是中华民族的灿烂文明,是无价的不可再生的文化遗产和旅游资源,对其进行必要的保护势在必行。现阶段封护材料主要是有机高分子和一些在位聚合低聚体材料,高分子封护剂由于渗透性差、固化应力大等原因应用已被限制,低聚体以其良好的渗透性,无固化应力,与石材相容性好等原因受到更多的应用。研究了一类以甲基三乙氧基硅烷(MTEOS)、正硅酸乙酯等为单体、溶液缩聚的硅酸酯低聚体石质文物封护材料。探讨了单体用量对硅酸酯封护材料性能的影响,进行了硅酸酯封护材料的附着力、憎水性、透气性、耐可溶性盐、耐酸碱老化以及耐紫外光老化等分析测试,还进行了红外、扫描电镜等分析。通过试验分析表明,聚合过程中,MTEOS用量控制在40%(wt)时附着力及接触角达到最佳。封护后试样的耐酸碱性、耐可溶性盐、耐紫外光、透气性和抗冻融性均有不同程度的提高,结果表明研究的硅酸酯低聚体材料能够满足石质文物的封护要求。     

Writing Witness History: The Historiography of the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania

From their humble origins as small, loose‐knit groups of Bible students in Pennsylvania in the 1870s, Charles Taze Russell and his followers laid the foundations of a highly visible, and frequently controversial, worldwide religious organisation known since 1931 as the Jehovah's Witnesses. Despite the Witnesses' broad historical role in defining and shaping understandings of religious tolerance, freedom of conscience, and civil liberties around the world, historians have paid very little attention to the Witnesses, with the notable exception of their treatment in Nazi Germany and the United States and Canada in wartime. The paucity of historical knowledge is all the more surprising given their visibility and notoriety. This article aims to initiate discussion of this under‐researched history by addressing what has been written, by whom, and for what purpose. It represents the first effort to evaluate the English‐language historical literature on the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.     

碑刻资料所见明清山西忻州地区民间信仰

明清时期,山西忻州地区民间信仰内涵十分丰富,既有对自然神、历史人物的崇拜,也有对宗教神灵、其他民间神灵的敬奉,这一现象在当地的碑刻资料中记载甚为详尽。民众对神灵的信仰集中体现了功利性、自发性以及地方性的特点,透过这些特性,可以窥探到明清时期忻州地区干旱少雨、战争频发的地理、社会环境。而民间信仰在保护自然环境、稳定社会秩序、调节民众心理方面亦生产了一定的积极影响。     

The Iranian Chapter in the History of the Chuvash

The influence of the Iranian culture on Eastern Europe is undisputable. Scholars write of the Southern-Iranian road which stretched from the south, from the Parthians, Persia, and the Transcaucasia, to the north Iranian way through Khwarezm and as far as the Volga. The extent of the Iranian influence on the tribes populating southern Siberia prior to the Common Era however, is much less clear. It is believed that the Savirs/Suvars were the ancestors of the Chuvash. Although this theory has not yet been proven fully, it has served as a theme for historical and philological research. Drawing on geographic, religious, and linguistic materials this study attempts to trace the relationship between Iranian tribes and the Savir ancestors of the Chuvash.     

东南亚史研究的新史料、新方法和新视角——以哈里·本达奖获奖著作为例

哈里·本达奖是美国亚洲研究学会旨在表彰东南亚研究领域杰出成果的国际学术大奖,代表了当代国际学界东南亚历史研究的重要成果。本达奖获奖著作涵盖东南亚殖民主义史、社会史、文化史等领域,并不断拓展到宗教史、女性史等专题史研究,反映第二次世界大战后东南亚史研究范式的重大转向,并从史料、方法、视角领域探讨了东南亚历史发展的本土性、自主性与能动性。获奖作品在当代东南亚史研究领域的理论探讨与实践研究方面都做出了积极贡献,值得中国东南亚史学界进一步学习与借鉴。