Efficient but destructive: a test of the dental wash technique using secondary electron microscopy

The Boyadjian et al dental wash technique provides, in certain contexts, the only chance to analyze and quantify the use of plants by past populations and is therefore an important milestone for the reconstruction of paleodiet. With this paper we present recent investigations and results upon the influence of this method on teeth. A series of six teeth from a three thousand years old Brazilian shellmound (Jabuticabeira II) was examined before and after dental wash. The main focus was documenting the alteration of the surfaces and microstructures. The status of all teeth were documented using macrophotography, optical light microscopy, and atmospheric Secondary Electron Microscopy (aSEM) prior and after applying the dental wash technique. The comparison of pictures taken before and after dental wash showed the different degrees of variation and damage done to the teeth but, also, provided additional information about microstructures, which have not been visible before. Consequently we suggest that dental wash should only be carried out, if absolutely necessary, after dental pathology, dental morphology and microwear studies have been accomplished.     

Reaction to Fire of Existing Timber Elements Protected With Fire Retardant Treatments: Experimental Assessment

Fire safety is an important issue of building safety, especially when the building’s fire load contents enhance the risks of fire deflagration. When existing timber structures are involved, the most usual way to improve its reaction to fire is to treat wood with fire retardants. This study focuses on the surface protection of existing timber roof structures against fire, through the use of fire retardant (FR) treatments applied on site. An experimental investigation was carried out to study the effect of FR treatments on timber reaction to fire, with a special emphasis on timber members with biological deterioration and previously treated with preservative products. The behaviour and effectiveness of intumescent and non-intumescent treatments was also investigated. The study showed that the application of FR treatments improved the reaction to fire of timber, even in the presence of previous preservative treatments. However, the choice of the specific FR treatment should take into account the substrate conditions. In addition, test results suggest that protection systems involving multi layers (intumescent and non-intumescent) with different functioning modes each are likely to have a good global performance on the protection of timber elements against fire.     

The Beauty of a Beam: The Continuity of Joan Torras’s Beam of Equal Strength in the Work of his Disciples—Guastavino,Gaudí, and Jujol

Joan Torras, professor of the strength of materials at the School of Architecture of Barcelona (1871–1910), considered the beam of equal strength not only as a structurally extremely efficient beam, but also as beautiful because of its ability to reflect the material’s strength. Torras’ structures have left their special mark on Barcelona and on the work of his most illustrious students: Rafael Guastavino in the United States published similar structures, but it was Antoni Gaudí and Josep Maria Jujol who transfigured them mimetically for Barcelona’s Park Güell and Tarragona’s Metropol Theatre, respectively. These examples will show how an expressive gesture can thoroughly transform a “technical form” into an “artistic form”, a fact that inevitably recalls the wisdom of classical Greek mimesis.     

Is cultural democracy possible in a museum? Critical reflections on Indigenous engagement in the development of the exhibition Encounters: Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum

Recent museological scholarship emphasises visitor participation and democratic access to cultural heritage as key to securing the ongoing relevance and future sustainability of museums. But do legacies of colonialist collecting practices and hierarchical conventions of representation in museums afford the possibility of genuine cultural democracy? This paper explores this question via detailed analysis of the Encounters exhibition, developed by the National Museum of Australia in partnership with the British Museum and promoted as an unprecedented partnership between the institutions and Indigenous Australian communities. Drawing on an extensive and emerging literature on museums, community engagement, participation and democracy, in tandem with analysis of public critiques and Indigenous responses to the exhibition, the paper suggests that the extent of Indigenous agency within the collaboration fell short of the articulated goals of the project. It concludes that the concept of maximal participation and release of agency to communities of interest may be difficult to achieve within existing museum frameworks.     

Inter-imperial Humanitarianism: The Macau Delegation of the Portuguese Red Cross during the Second World War

ABSTRACT

Focusing on the history of the wartime Macau Delegation of the Portuguese Red Cross (1943–46), this article aims to shed light on interactions between Macau and the occupied British colony of Hong Kong during the Second World War. It argues that the Macau Red Cross branch was a concrete example of Portuguese collaborative neutrality with the Allies, most particularly the British. In coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross, this local branch played an important role in humanitarian assistance to many victims of the war, particularly refugees and POW dependants, in Hong Kong and Shanghai when British authorities were unable to negotiate an exchange with Japan or provide direct assistance in those occupied cities.

The wartime Red Cross in Macau was a small-scale and temporary endeavour but, nevertheless, a multi-dimensional one: it was a local creation, a delegation integrated in a national and colonial context, an inter-imperial institution and part of a transnational organisation with global reach.     

Reviews

The Book in the Americas: The Role of Books and Printing in the Development of Culture and Society in Colonial Latin America. By JULIE GREER JOHNSON. Providence: The John Carter Brown Library, 1988. Pp. xx, 142.

Emigrants and Society: Extremadura and Spanish America in the Sixteenth Century. IDA ALTMAN. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. Pp. viii, 372.

Migration in Colonial Spanish America. Edited by DAVID J. ROBINSON. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. xvii, 399.

Trajinantes: caminos indígenas en la sociedad colonial, siglos XVI y XVII. By LUIS MIGUEL GLAVE. Lima: Instituto de Apoyo Agrario, 1989. Pp. 461.

Indigenous Migration and Social Change: The Forasteros of Cuzco, 1570–1720. By ANN WIGHTMAN. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990. Pp. 315.

Sátira hecha por Mateo Rosas de Oquendo a las cosas que pasan en el Pirú, año de 1598. Study and critical edition by PEDRO LASARTE. Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1990. Pp. xci, 181.

A sátira e o engenho: Gregório de Matos e a Bahia do século XVII. JOAO ADOLFO HANSEN. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras: Secretaria do Estado e da Cultura, 1989.

Obras completas de Juan del Valle y Caviedes. Edición y estudios de MARÍA LETICIA CÁCERES A. C. I., LUIS JAIME CISNEROS y GUILLERMO LOHMANN VILLENA. Lima: Banco de Crédito, 1990. Pp. 962.

Historia de la revolución de la Nueva España de Fray Servando Teresa de Mier. Edición crítica de A. SAINT‐LU y M‐C. BÉNNASY‐BERLING (Coordinadores). J. CHENU, J‐P. CLÉMENT, A. PONS, M‐L. RIEU‐MELLAN y P. ROCHE. Prefacio de DAVID A. BRADING. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1990. Pp. 690     

The Style of Blugzeimat and the “Masks” of the Prehistoric Rock Art of the Western Sahara: New Evidence for Long-Distance Contacts

Blugzeimat is a prehistoric rock-art site in the Tiris region (southern Western Sahara), with more than 100 engraved slabs. The major portion of these engravings represents zoomorphs, anthropomorphs and non-figurative signs. Based on the absence of protohistoric texts, chariots or horse riders, and the probable depiction of a halberd, the age of these engravings may correspond to the first half of the second millennium BCE. The stylistic attributes of the engraved bovines, which are the most commonly represented subject, allow us to relate Blugzeimat to several sites with pecked engravings located in the Tiris (Western Sahara) and Adrar (north-western Mauritania) regions. In addition to this first stylistic and geographic delimitation, we have also been able to identify signs, traditionally designated as “masks” in the literature, which relate Blugzeimat to several sites with incised engravings located in the northern Saguia el Hamra basin. As incised and pecked engraving techniques have been regularly considered examples of unrelated rupestrian traditions in the Western Sahara, the engraving of these highly specific signs using both techniques allows us to question that paradigm. Finally, the long-distance thematic coincidence represented by the presence of such signs, in regions far from one another, provides additional evidence to refute the common idea of an absence or scarcity of cultural contacts between the north and south of the Western Sahara before the adoption of the horse and camel.