HISTORIA MAGISTRA VITAE,INTERRUPTING: THUCYDIDES AND THE AGONISTIC TEMPORALITY OF ANTIQUITY AND MODERNITY

In this essay I discuss Koselleck's thesis on the dissolution of historia magistra vitae in modernity with a view to exploring how the modern historiographical engagement with Thucydides entails qualifications of this argument. Focusing on Barthold Georg Niebuhr's contextualization of Thucydides in a new temporality of “ancient and modern history,” I examine how modernity is caught between conflicting notions of its own prehistory, and that this conflict suggests that the forward‐leaping qualities of Neuzeit were co‐articulated with other temporal notions, and particularly an idea of historical exemplarity associated with historia magistra vitae. This plurality of times highlights an agonistic temporality linking antiquity and modernity: a model of conflicting times inscribed in a dialogue through which modern historiography interrupted the “useful” history of antiquity, while simultaneously being itself interrupted by it. By following this dialogue, I seek to test two interrelated hypotheses: a) that modernity produced a multitemporal scheme in which the ideas of differential time and the future were intertwined with a notion of historia magistra vitae as meaningful and sense‐bearing time; and b) that contradictions in this scheme arising from the modern confrontation with Thucydides's poetics challenges the opposition between historia magistra vitae and modern historical sense and configures a temporality that is self‐agonistic in the sense that it confronts historical actors before and beyond the terms through which they may be able to give it meaning. Formulated as a poetics of the possible, this notion is approached as a corrective alternative to the modern consideration of the future as distanced from the space of experience, but nonetheless as grounded in actuality and therefore largely mastered by human knowledge and action.     

HUNTITE,A MINERAL USED IN ANTIQUITY

An unusual occurrence of huntite CaMg₃(CO₃)₄, found in a wooden box pertaining to the cargo of a sunken Roman ship of imperial age in the Golfo di Procchio on the north coast of Elba is described. The huntite has been identified on the basis of chemical analysis, thermo-gravimetric analysis, differential thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction and electron microscope images. Having ruled out its origin by the reaction of sea water on some pre-existing material it is concluded that the huntite represented the original content of the box. The origin and the provenance of huntite and its possible use are discussed.     

PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY OF ROMAN LEAD‐GLAZED POTTERY AND ITS CONTINUANCE INTO LATE ANTIQUITY

A broad selection of Roman lead‐glazed pottery dating from the first century ad through the fifth century ad was studied to establish locations of workshops and to address their technology of production. The ceramic bodies were analysed by ICP–AES. In addition, lead isotope analysis was undertaken on a selection of glazes. These findings suggested that there were several regions responsible for the production of lead‐glazed ceramics in the western Roman world, including central Gaul, Italy and, probably, Serbia and Romania. Using the body compositions as a starting point, the glazing techniques employed by each of the potential workshops were examined using electron probe microanalysis. It was determined that there were two primary methods of glazing. The first method used lead oxide by itself applied to non‐calcareous clay bodies, and the second method used a lead oxide‐plus‐quartz mixture applied to calcareous clay bodies. Based on these data for clay composition and glazing method, transfer of technology from the Hellenistic east to the western Roman world was proposed. Likewise, the inheritance of lead‐glazing technology into late antiquity was established by making comparisons to lead‐glazed ceramics dating to the seventh to ninth centuries from Italy, the Byzantine world and Tang Dynasty China.     

BLACK AND RED GRANITES IN THE EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITY MUSEUM OF TURIN: A MINERO‐PETROGRAPHIC AND PROVENANCE STUDY

A recent project to investigate the stone artefacts preserved in the Egyptian Antiquity Museum of Turin has been undertaken, with the aim of supplying their systematic classification and suggesting the provenance site of the original raw materials. This paper focuses on seven sculptures dating back to the New Kingdom (18th–19th Dynasties): the statue of Ramses II, three of the 21 sculptures of the goddess Sekhmet, the statue of the goddess Hathor, the Ram‐headed Sphinx and the sarcophagus lid of Nefertari. Petrographic observations have shown that all the sculptures are made of granitoid rocks, with variable composition from granite to granodiorite and tonalite. The observation of strong macroscopic analogies with the so‐called black and red granites outcropping in the Aswan area has suggested a common origin of all the raw materials used for their manufacture. In order to verify this provenance hypothesis, several samples were collected in the Aswan quarry districts. According to results of a minero‐petrographic and geochemical comparison between the statues and the Aswan quarry samples, it was possible to identify the source area of the stone sculptures and finally to highlight the importance of an archaeometric approach to the solution of archaeological problems.     

THOMAS WATSON,PEASANT-POET: THE READING,WRITING AND RELIGION OF A CUMBRIAN DRY-STONE WALLER

Abstract

This article describes and elucidates the making of Manchester Chartism, with special reference to the Reform Crisis of 1830–32 and its role in highlighting and confirming divisions within and between groups of radicals. For all the importance of personalities, ideas, organisations and national as well as local reform issues, the history of Chartism in Manchester was shaped above all by the town's political configuration. Political and class identities became stronger in 1830–32. This, and subsequent differences of opinion on key questions, ensured that no inclusive reform alliance was possible in Manchester. After examining the Reform Crisis of 1830–32, tracing the separation of middle-class from working-class activists and exploring the internal schisms within plebeian and respectable middle-class campaigns, this article shows how the polarisation of the early 1830s continued into the Chartist period. Problems of contact, communication and sympathy between the different groups were never overcome, and Manchester Chartism would itself experience fragmentation and resistance, just as earlier popular mobilisations in the town had been divided and opposed.