Multidisciplinary analysis of a mummified cranium claimed to be that of a medieval execution victim

This article presents a multidisciplinary analysis of a human skull with preserved soft tissue curated by a small museum in Boscastle, Cornwall, UK. The skull lacks a mandible and is coated in a black tar-like substance. Records left by a previous museum curator (now deceased) claimed the skull to be the head of a medieval execution victim. The skull was purportedly recovered from a London church that was destroyed during the Second World War where it had been kept in a carved oak box. If these details are correct, the skull would appear to have been venerated as a relic. The skull and box have been analysed using a range of techniques including computerised tomography, laser scanning, microscopy, infrared spectroscopy and radiocarbon dating. These analyses demonstrated the skull in fact to be that of an Egyptian mummy dating from the Ptolemaic period. Other instances have been noted of parts of Egyptian mummies being presented as European saintly relics, and the ‘Boscastle skull’ would appear to be an example of such. A wider point illustrated by the work presented here is that sufficient application of modern analytical techniques may reveal considerable information regarding human remains which otherwise have little or no provenance. This point strengthens arguments for the retention of such remains by curating institutions.     

Examining social isolation by gender and geography: conceptual and operational challenges using population health data in Canada

In 2003, the Canadian Federal/Provincial/Territorial Task Force on Seniors identified social isolation as an important issue for further study and policy development given that socially isolated persons are considered to be more vulnerable to both inappropriate use of the health care system and poorer health outcomes. In order to provide adequate support to this vulnerable population, it is critical to untangle the complex web of relationships that influence the need for care, and the health status and service utilization patterns of socially isolated older adults. Using data from the 2000–01 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), this article explores social isolation as a multidimensional social construct examining in particular the axes of gender and geography to try to tease out some of this complexity and its relationship to health status and service utilization. When individual characteristics like gender are considered together with broader contextual variables like place of residence, a more comprehensive and layered portrait of vulnerability among socially isolated persons begins to emerge with insights into their unique patterns of health and service use. For example, home care may be an extremely critical resource for keeping older women in their homes and out of hospital. On the other hand, among socially isolated older men, those living in rural communities may be particularly ‘invisible’, neither benefiting from home care nor having strong social supports. It seems plausible then that both men and women may be in need of special interventions or targeted programmes to help them to remain, or to become, more socially integrated in their communities as they age in place. In addition, this article addresses some of the limitations of using both a quantitative analytic approach and the CCHS dataset itself in grappling with such complexity.     

Gibrat Revisited: An Urban Growth Model Incorporating Spatial Interaction and Innovation Cycles. 再评吉尔布瑞特：顾及空间相互作用和创新周期的城市增长模型

We designed a geographical model for simulating the distribution of urban growth in systems of cities. The model incorporates the hierarchical and spatial diffusion of innovation cycles through gravitational interactions within a set of cities. Using theoretical simulations, we demonstrate that this model is able to reproduce the observed properties of urban systems for the log‐normal distribution of city sizes as well as the observed distribution of growth rates. Our experimentation was performed on a large harmonized historical database that includes a few hundred French urban agglomerations between 1831 and 1999 (Pumain‐INED database). Both spatial interaction and innovation cycles are necessary ingredients to explain the evolution of urban hierarchies. We suggest that Gibrat's generic stochastic growth model based on independent entities should be replaced by a more relevant model of spatially and temporally interdependent geographical entities.     

Let Them Eat Macarons? Dissonant heritage of Marie Antoinette at Petit Trianon

ABSTRACT

Through an analysis of the Petit Trianon, the historic house museum at the Château de Versailles associated with Marie Antoinette, the present article invites reflection over the topic of dissonant heritage (Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996 Tunbridge, J. E., and G. J. Ashworth. 1996. Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the past as a Resource in Conflict. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. [Google Scholar]) in connection with heritage commodification. The aim of this study is to heighten awareness of the difficulties which historic house legacies face in postmodern society through heritage analyses placed in the context of museology, art history and popular culture. This is achieved by building upon curatorial approaches and their reception by visitors, within an assessment of the 2008 restoration ethos of the Estate of Marie-Antoinette, and in parallel with a process of heritage commodification indirectly related to a twenty-first century Hollywood biopic of the last Queen of France - Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006). Competition surges between official and popular discourses of heritage (Groote and Haartsen 2008 Alderman, D. H. 2008. “Place, Naming and the Interpretation of Cultural Landscapes.” 195–213; Groote, P. and T. Haartsen “The Communication of Heritage: Creating Place Identities.” 181–194; Harvey, D. C. “The History of Heritage.” 19–36; McLean, F. “Museums and the Representation of Identity.” 283–297; Smith, L. “Heritage, Gender and Identity.” 159–178. In The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage & Identity, edited by B. Graham and P. J. Howard. Aldershot: Ashgate. [Google Scholar]), all dealing, however, with the power of the same clichés engraved onto the French ‘collective memory’ (Halbwachs [1950]1980 Halbwachs, M. (1950) 1980. The Collective Memory. New York: Harper & Row. [Google Scholar]). This article highlights issues that arise when curatorial interpretation and visitor perceptions find themselves under the auspices of postmodern visual culture, thereby setting traps for heritage authenticity (Ashworth and Howard 1999 Ashworth, G. J., and P. J. Howard. 1999. European Heritage Planning and Management. Exeter: Intellect. [Google Scholar]).     

Book reviews

CHINA

ZHIYUE BO. Chinese Provincial Leaders: economic Performance and Political Mobility since 1949. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2002. 183 pp. Appendix, bibliography, index. US$74.95, hardcover.

KIRK A. DENTON. The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature: Hu Feng and Lu Ling. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. 324 pp. A$90.00, hardcover.

ROSS GARNAUT and LIGANG SONG (eds). China 2002: WTO Entry and World Recession. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2002. x, 192 pp. Bibliography. A$35.00/US$30.00, paper.

NEIL C. HUGHES. China's Economic Challenge: smashing the Iron Rice Bowl. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2002. xv, 235 pp. Photographs, map, index. US$24.95, paper.

P. R. KUMARASWAMY (ed). China and the Middle East: the Quest for Influence. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999. 228 pp. Rs425, hardcover.

ROBERT H. SHARF. Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: a Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. 414 pp. US$47.00, hardcover.

STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR. and XIAOXIN WU (eds). China and Christianity: burdened Past, Hopeful Future. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2001. 520 pp. Illustration, table, notes, bibliography, glossary, index. $79.95, hardcover.

ANN BARROTT WICKS (ed). Children in Chinese Art. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. 216 pp. Illustrations (colour and b/w), glossary of Chinese characters. US$51.00, hardcover.

YONGJIN ZHANG and GREG AUSTIN (eds). Power and Responsibility in Chinese Foreign Policy. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2001. 293 pp. Index. A$36.00/US$32.00, paper.

JAPAN AND KOREA

DAVID BELL. Chushingura and the Floating World: the Representation of Kanadehon Chushingura in Ukiyo‐e Prints. Richmond: Japan Library, 2001. 170 pp. 41 b/w plates, synopsis, list of principal characters and roles, glossary, bibliography, dustjacket. US$48.00, hardcover.

EYAL BEN‐ARI and JOHN CLAMMER (eds). Japan in Singapore: cultural Occurrences and Cultural Flows. Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000. 238 pp. £40.00, hardcover.

MAHITO ISHIMOTO (ed). Remembering Aizu: the Testament of Shiba Gorō. Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by Teruko Craig. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999. 158 pp. US$37.00, hardcover; US$19.95, paper.

YASUHIRO NAKASONE. The Making of the New Japan: reclaiming the Political Mainstream (translated and annotated by Lesley Connor). Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999. 256 pp. £30.00, hardcover.

HIROSHI SHIMIZU and HITOSHI HIRAKAWA. Japan and Singapore in the World Economy: Japan's Economic Advance into Singapore 1870–1965. London: Routledge, 1999. 268 pp. £60.00, hardcover.

JULIA ADENEY THOMAS. Reconfiguring Modernity: concepts of Nature in Japanese Political Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. xv, 239 pp. Index. A$37.50, hardcover.

SOUTH, WEST & CENTRAL ASIA

BAABAR (Bat‐Erdene Batbayar). Twentieth Century Mongolia. Cambridge: White Horse Press, 1999. xiv, 448 pp. £50.00, hardcover.

WENDY DONIGER (ed). Splitting the Difference. Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999. xi, 376 pp. Bibliography, index. £38.50, hardcover; £15.50, paper.

DIANA L. ECK. Dar?an: seeing the Divine Image in India, 3rd edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. v, 115 pp. Appendices, bibliography, glossary. US$16.50, paper.

JEFFREY HOPKINS. Emptiness in the Mind‐Only School of Buddhism: dynamic Responses to Dzong‐ka‐ba The Essence of Eloquence: I. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 542 pp. US$45.00, hardcover.

FAREED KAZMI. The Politics of India's Conventional Cinema: imagining a Universe, Subverting a Multiverse. New Delhi: Sage, 1998. 252 pp. Rs 195.

BURTON WATSON, trans. The Essential Lotus: selections from the Lotus Sutra. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. 195 pp. US$16.95, paper.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

LEONARD BLUSSÉ Bitter Bonds: a Colonial Divorce Drama of the Seventeenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2002. x, 194 pp. US$49.95, hardcover; US$22.95, paper.

ERIK COHEN. The Commercialized Crafts of Thailand: hill Tribes and Lowland Villages. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000. xiii, 316 pp. Photographs, diagrams, tables, notes, bibliography, index. US$39.00, hardcover; US$19.95, paper.

VIRGINIA MATHESON HOOKER. Writing a New Society: social Change through the Novel in Malay. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. xviii, 492 pp. Notes, select bibliography, index. US$39.00, hardcover.

PETER RIDDELL. Islam and the Malay‐Indonesian World: transmission and Responses. London: C. Hurst and Co., 2001. xix, 349 pp. Maps, tables, index, bibliography. £45.00, hardcover.

GENERAL ASIA

RICHARD J. ELLINGS and AARON L. FRIEDBERG (eds). Strategic Asia: power and Purpose 2001–02. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2001. 378 pp. US$19.95, paper.

PETER FRANCIS, Jr. Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. to the Present. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. 305 pp. A$52.00, hardcover.

DAVID GOLDSWORTHY (ed). Facing North: a century of Australian Engagement with Asia, Volume 1:1901 to the 1970s. Carlton South: Melbourne University Press, 2001. 523 pp. A$59.95, hardcover; A$39.95, paper.

BRIAN MOERAN (ed). Asian Media Productions. Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001. £45.00, hardcover.     

Reforming Connoisseurship: State and Collectors in Shanghai in the 1950s and 1960s

This paper examines the relationship between the state and art collectors during the 1950s and 1960s in Shanghai. It explores how the state gained control over art and collecting, by building state museums, by co-opting connoisseurs and their collections, and by extending “socialist transformation” to the antiquities market in 1956. However, state control was far from complete, and some trade in antiquities continued outside of official channels. To crack down on this illegal trade, cultural authorities in Shanghai launched a Five-Antis Campaign in 1964 to punish alleged art speculators. Through its cultural institutions and political campaigns, the state controlled culture but did not monopolize it.     

Teresa's experiences

ABSTRACT

In this article, I examine the notion of personal experience in relation to mysticism. I observe that St. Teresa of Jesus includes both her ordinary and extraordinary experiences in her writings on prayer, and I argue that these experiences are essential to her theology.     

The space between: using ‘relational ethics’ and ‘relational space’ to explore relationship-building between care providers and care recipients in the home space

Geographers and other social scientists have a longstanding interest in ‘geographies of aging’ focused on the provision of care to vulnerable older populations and the challenges and experiences of caregivers [Skinner, M. W., Cloutier, D., & Andrews, G. J. (2014). Geographies of ageing: Progress and possibilities after two decades of change. Progress in Human Geography, 1–24]. This qualitative research project explores strategies for relationship-building used by home support workers and older residents according to a ‘relational ethics’ framework, enacted in the ‘relational space’ of the home environment. This framework rests on four principles: engagement, embodiment, mutual respect and environment, and argues that ‘relationships’ between care providers and care recipients must be preserved as the real essence or heart of the health care experience. Two linked conclusions are drawn from the research: that the treatment of the environment can be expanded using a social geographic lens to capture the more active influence of ‘homes’ on relationship-building and second, the relational ethics framework is useful in the home care context to characterize and ground the importance of relationships in the home care domain and the importance of home care to foster aging in place for vulnerable older persons.