North and south in the current crisis

The Italian Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Carlo Trigilia, reviews the current condition of the Italian south (the Mezzogiorno) and sets out the policies that the present government is seeking to implement. Underlining the need for long-term strategies and for close cooperation with European Union funding agencies, the Minister emphasizes the need to remove the political and institutional obstacles to development and promote human capital through measures designed to improve training, education and welfare programmes. He concludes the lack of economic growth in the southern regions poses serious dangers to the growth prospects of the national economy.     

土库曼尼萨城的色彩：雕塑的彩饰和古代土库曼斯坦的建筑

帕提亚帝国（公元前二世纪）最有意义的遗址之一当属现今位于土库曼斯坦南部的旧尼萨城。从二十世纪到今天,土库曼斯坦,俄罗斯和意大利的探险队已经带回来了一些纪念性的东西和一些我们所熟知的这段重要历史和文化时期里的工艺品。尤其是意大利都灵的考古探险队从上世纪90年代就已经活跃在这个地区,与当地的博物馆合作挖掘了许多有纪念价值的藏品并对这个藏品进行了一些研究。对挖掘出的藏品的彩饰的初步研究已经进行了很久。因为很明显在很多情况下这些藏品是无法移动的,采样也很困难,所以我们决定直接在现场（Ashgabat国家博物馆）测量鉴定。我们用了许多实验性的技术,无破坏性、无伤害性的测量以及传统的方法（包括分层部分碎片的研究和衍射分析）。这个研究是关于从所谓的RoundHall和RedBuilding（1990—2006）出土的粘土塑像、陶瓦建筑元素、壁画以及石膏等。尽管意大利专家所收集到的数据还没有完全处理,但已经可以帮助我们更好的了解这些出土品的生产过程,让我们对古尼萨的工艺品制造者的“调色板”有了一个更清楚的认识。这篇文章的目的是展示这些初步的研究成果,并同时提出对古尼萨主要内部建筑重建的假设。     

A Byzantine Shipwreck from Cape Stoba,Mljet, Croatia: an interim report

The Cape Stoba shipwreck is located on the seabed off the island of Mljet in Croatia at a depth of 21–28 m. Following initial investigation in 1975, four seasons of excavation have been carried between 2010 and 2014 by the Department for Underwater Archaeology of the Croatian Conservation Institute, joined by the Department of Studi Umanistici of the Università Ca' Foscari of Venice from 2012. The wreck‐site is evidenced by a cargo of nine amphora types dated to the 10th‐11th century AD, produced in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea area, and glassware of Levantine production. The only direct evidence of the ship itself to date, is one iron anchor.     

Social practices and lifestyles in Italian youth cultures

Abstract

In recent decades, social research on youth in Italy has explored a wide range of issues through different interpretative and methodological approaches. However, there are very few studies that seek to identify the keynote features of the juvenile condition. This article argues that collective identities and forms of identification among youth are shaped more and more frequently through the sharing of social practices, of the meanings connected to these practices, and of more comprehensive lifestyles. With reference to four main fields (sport, music, politics, religion) and focusing on youth cultures, it analyses the connections between behaviours, attitudes, values and representations of youth actively involved in each of these different fields. The aim is to identify transversal processes through which young people today elaborate and adopt social practices and cultural profiles, create new social forms, and develop innovative signification processes.     

Institutional Arrangements and Political Mobilization in the New Italian Regionalism: The Role of Spatial Policies in the Piedmont Region

The paper focuses on the resurgence of the regions as protagonists of the process of the state rescaling in many European countries. In the EU countries this process can be seen as a result of a mix of economic and institutional factors, which have been producing an increasing competition between the central governments and the regional authorities. The rise of the multi-level governance and of the so-called Euroregionalism has reinforced the role of the regional scale in the territorial development: on one hand, with new actors like agencies and organizations engaged in the economic development (FDI attraction, place marketing, innovation and learning), on the other hand by the resurgence of “old” actors, such as the regions, in many cases empowered by processes of institutional devolution. The literature has investigated this re-composition of the political space with regard to the “hollowing out” and the “rescaling” of the state. On the base of these theoretical underpinnings, we discuss some empirical evidence from the Italian experience, in order to show whether and how the regional structures are not only “spaces for policies”, but also “spaces for politics”. Over the last decade, the changes in legal framework, the external inputs from supranational levels of government—the European Commission—and the re-territorialization processes have introduced many elements of innovation in the role of the regions. By illustrating the case of the Piedmont Region, we try to demonstrate that the transition towards the region as an active space of politics can be mediated by the sphere of the policies, especially the spatial ones.     

Underwater Investigation on a Marble Cargo Wreck at Capo Bianco near Isola di Capo Rizzuto,Crotone, Italy

The cargo of marble blocks off Capo Bianco was dated to the Roman period. New sampling and analysis has identified Carrara marble, and also Rosso di Francia and Portargento, which strongly suggests a post‐medieval date. This leads to the suggestion that nearby finds dating between the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th may come from the same ship, perhaps sailing from France and Liguria to deliver stone in southern Italy. This is rare evidence of the post‐medieval marble trade and demonstrates the importance of archaeometric analysis for the interpretation of wrecked cargos. © 2011 The Authors     

Synchrotron radiation-based x-ray analysis of bronze artifacts from an Iron Age site in the Judean Hills

Seven bronze bangles from Tell en-Nasbeh, northern Judah, were investigated to understand the phase composition and manufacturing process of the artifacts, and possibly suggest a provenance for their origin. Synchrotron x-ray radiation diffraction (XRD) and fluorescence (XRF) were used in the analysis to avoid any destructive sampling and at the same time penetrate through the surface into the core metal. These techniques enabled us to determine that the bangles were not just tin bronze, but leaded tin bronze. Based on excavation reports, it is unlikely that the metal objects were manufactured locally at Tell en-Nasbeh; rather, preliminary XRD and XRF data point towards the neighboring region of Edom as their origin. Despite their political enmity during the Iron Age II, the data suggest that Judahite social demands for bronze may have fostered a strong economic relationship between these two polities.