To submit and to serve: forced native labour in the Cuchumatán highlands of Guatemala, 1525–1821

The Indian peoples of the Cuchumatán highlands of Guatemala, like their counterparts throughout Spanish America, were forced to render labour to their European conquerors in a variety of ways. Foremost among the institutional devices which controlled and exploited native labour were the encomienda, the tasación de tributos, and the repartimiento. Prominent and prestigious chiefly during the first century of colonial rule, the encomienda was a means whereby a privileged individual was granted the right to enjoy the tribute, and originally also the labour, of a certain number of Indians in a designated town or group of towns. The amount of tribute owed by a town was stipulated by the tasación de tributos, which assessed tribute-paying capacity principally in terms of age, sex, and marital status. Through the operation of repartimiento, labour was coerced from the Indians and channelled into a number of menial and servile tasks. During the eighteenth century, debt peonage was a further means of securing a work force in the Cuchumatán highlands, particularly on the large haciendas which dominated the commercial agricultural economy of the region.     

The Hellenic and Hippocratic origins of the spinal terminology

Numerous Hellenic terms have been gradually adopted during the development of modern medical science. Moreover, there are a significant number of words that derive directly from the Hippocratic texts. Hippocrates (ca. 460-ca. 377 BC), revered as the father of medicine, and his followers left behind a valuable heritage of medical knowledge that, practically, laid the foundations of Western medicine. Their theories, collected in Corpus Hippocraticum, transformed medicine by adding, mainly, clinical observation and inductive reasoning as significant parts of medical diagnosis and treatment. Additionally, Hippocratic writings have provided an invaluable heritage of medical terms for all medical fields. The present article examines the Hellenic and Hippocratic terminology referring to the spine and how this vocabulary has influenced and dominated upon modern spinal onomatology.     

An Investigation of Ceramic Forming Method Using Reverse Engineering Techniques: The Case of Oinochoai from Dion, Macedonia, Greece

A method for investigating the forming technique of ancient ceramic vessels is presented. The recording, analysis, and comparison of the vessels' metrical properties by means of computer tomography, three-dimensional laser scanning, and solid-modeling software enables the identification of the applied manufacturing methods. A finite elements method-based simulation of the developed deformations during the vessels' manufacture offers significant insight into the applied shaping procedures. By making possible the exact recording of both the internal and external form of the vessels as well as the simulation of the forming procedure, the method represents a marked improvement to hitherto applied methods based on radiography. The method is applied on two early iron age ceramic jugs (oinochoai) found as offerings in tombs in excavations in Dion, Greece.