Comment

This comment responds to Hibba Abugadeiri's ‘The Scientisation of Culture: Colonial Medicine's Construction of Egyptian Womanhood, 1893–1929’ and Laura Bier's ‘Modernity and the Other Woman’: Gender and Citizenship in the Egyptian Press, 1952–1970’. Both articles contribute to our understandings of the connections between constructions of gender identity, national identity, and imperial identity. After directing some questions to each author individually, this comment examines the ways in which the two articles combine to raise questions about the power of the press in an emerging public sphere, the importance of claims to modernity in assertions of national independence and the complexity of identity formation in periods of intense political change.     

Differential diagnosis of a calcified object from a 4th–5th century AD burial in Aqaba,Jordan

In 1997 a calcified object was recovered from the pelvic region of an adult male excavated from an ancient cemetery in Aqaba, Jordan. The cemetery (n = 48) dates to the middle 4th to early 5th century AD and is associated with the Byzantine‐period marine trading centre of Aila located on the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea. The oblong calcification consisted of linearly aligned tubules within a thin shell. Twenty‐eight conditions potentially resulting in calcification within the pelvic region were considered. Of these, five were retained as possible diagnoses due to the object's location and size and the presence of a thin shell and fully calcified tubules. In the end, the object appears to be a calcified, but unidentified, parasite. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Motives and opportunities for domestication: an ethnoarchaeological study in southwest Ethiopia

Farmers of southwest Ethiopia are currently transplanting yams (Dioscorea cayenensis) from wild contexts to home gardens. Ethnoarchaeological study of this practice can inform considerations of agricultural origins in prehistoric times by revealing motives and opportunities that shape decisions to adopt wild-growing plants. In one part of the study area, case studies demonstrate that decisions to manipulate yams may arise mainly among individuals of a particular gender or household composition. Comparisons across the study area illustrate the effects of slight variations in environment and human mobility upon adoption of wild-growing yams. The social and environmental factors that favor or impede manipulation of yams are highly specific and nuanced, and operate on both intra- and inter-community levels.     

Challenging “Islamic Fundamentalism”

The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder, Bassam Tibi. Comparative Studies in Religion and Society Series #9, Mark Juergensmeyer, editor. Against Islamic Extremism: The Writings of Muhammad Sa^cid al-^cAshmawy. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, editor. Qur'an, Liberation & Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Inter-religious Solidarity Against Oppression, Farid Esack.     

Reviews

My Uncle Napoleon, Iraj Pezeshkzad, trans. Dick Davis, Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers, 1996, 512 pp., $29.95.

Les textes vieil‐avestiques, vol. I: Introduction, text et traduction, Jean Kellens and Eric Pirart, Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1988, 195 pp.

Reading Nasta^cliq: Persian and Urdu Hands from 1500 to the Present, William L. Hanaway and Brian Spooner, Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1995, 278 pp.

Az Nima ta Ruzagar‐e Ma: Tarikh‐e Adab‐e Farsi‐ye Mo^caser (From Nima to Our Time: History of Contemporary Persian Letters), Yahya Arianpur, Tehran: Zavvar, 1374 (1995), 638 pp. + 48 pp. of photographs, title‐page reprints, etc.

The Green Sea of Heaven: Fifty Ghazals from the Diwan of Hafiz, trans. Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr., with an Introduction by Daryush Shayegan, Ashland, Ore.: White Cloud Press, 1995, x + 170 pp.

The Hafez Poems of Gertrude Bell, with the original Persian on the facing page, Bethesda, Md.: Iranbooks, 1995, 176 pp.

Iran und Turfan: Beiträge Berliner Wissenschaftler, Werner Sunder‐mann zum 60. Geburtstaggewidmet, ed. Christiane Reck and Peter Zieme, Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1995, viii + 296 pp., photographs.

The History of al‐Tabari, vol. XXXIII: Storm and Stress Along the Northern Frontiers of the ^cAbbasid Caliphate, trans. and annot. C. E. Bosworth, Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies and Bibliotheca Persica, State University of New York Press, 1991.

Tales of Two Cities, Abbas Milani, Washington, D.C.: Mage, 1996, 263 pp., $24.95.

Avicenna and I: The Journey of Spirits, Manouchehr Parvin, Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1996, 284 pp., $26.95 (cloth).

In A Voice of Their Own: A Collection of Stories by Iranian Women Written since the Revolution of 1979, trans. Franklin Lewis and Farzin Yazdanfar, Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1996, 153 pp.