What can we make of these fragments? Excavation at ‘Mamilla’ Cave,Byzantine period,Jerusalem

This paper reports on the pathology and discrete traits of 1388 vertebrae uncovered from a mass burial site at ‘Mamilla’ cave, Jerusalem, dated to the Byzantine period. Observations of the vertebrae were aimed at reconstructing an anthropological profile of the population, by describing such factors as the frequency of pathology and discrete traits, and age at death of the population. The results show that most of the victims were relatively young, and that they differed significantly in their epigenetic traits from Jews and nomadic Arabs. The results reinforce earlier assumptions that the skeletal material excavated at Mamilla cave represents the Christian population of the city, massacred by the Persians in 614 ad . Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sarah and Her Sisters: Letters,Emotions, and Colonial Identities in the Early Modern Atlantic World

This article uses letters by indigenous converts to explore how early modern Moravian missions in the Atlantic imagined themselves as emotional communities. Moravian missions were the most successful Protestant mission enterprise in the Atlantic and established numerous missions across several empires and vastly different indigenous cultures. By comparing the letters from indigenous converts across the Atlantic rim (North America, Caribbean and Greenland) I argue that indigenous people used the medium of the written letter to participate in an imagined emotional community of Moravians while at the same time they negotiated inescapable social and gendered differences in very specific colonial contexts.     

Mud Silk and the Chinese Laundress: From the South China Silk Industry to Mud Silk Suits in Maine

In 1921, bride Toy Len Goon (1892–1993), a peasant from Guangdong (Canton) South China, emigrated to Portland, Maine, USA where she and her husband ran a suburban laundry. She became a respected member of the community and, in 1952, American ‘Mother of the Year’. This article follows her biography by investigating a group of four recently rediscovered tunic and trouser suits preserved from her trousseau. The suits are made of Guangdong mud silk, a two-colour fabric distinguished by its black upper surface and brown underside. Mud silk is a little recognised, studied or collected South-East Asian textile. By examining mud silk and its manufacture within the context of Guangdong’s rise and decline as a major silk producer and exporter, this article contributes a new perspective to the present limited body of research on this regional textile.     

Book Reviews

‘WE GATHER TOGETHER’: FOOD AND FESTIVAL IN AMERICAN LIFE. Edited by THEODORE H. HUMPHREY and LIN T. HUMPHREY. Utah State University Press, 1991. 289pp. $17.95 paper, ISBN 0-87421-155-7. Reviewed by Jennifer Chandler.

SPOKEN IN JEST. Edited by Gillian Bennett. Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1992. ISBN 1850752575. 296pp., 3 plates, 22 figures. £25 (cloth). Reviewed by Susan Storrier.

WEDDING CAKES AND CULTURAL HISTORY by SIMON CHARSLEY. Routledge, London, 1992. 162pp. 4 illustrations. ISBN 0-415-02648-2 (hbk); 0-415-02649-0 (pbk). Reviewed by George Monger.

NORSE MYTHS. By R. I. PAGE. London: British Museum Press, 1990. 80pp. £5.95. ISBN 0 7141 2062 6. Reviewed by Carolyne Larrington.

DIE MAUS IM JUMBO-JET: NEUE SAGENHAFTE GESCHICHTEN VON HEUTE. By ROLF WILHELM BREDNICH, Beck'sche Reihe 435. München: Beck, 1991. 143 pp. Reviewed by W. F. H. Nicolaisen.

THE RISE OF MAGIC IN EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE by VALERIE J. FLINT. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991. 452 pp. ISBN 0-19-820093-5. Reviewed by Jacqueline Simpson.

INTERNATIONAL PROVERB SCHOLARSHIP: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. SUPPLEMENT I (1800–1981). WOLFGANG MIEDER. Garland Publishing Inc., New York and London, 1990. 436 pp. Reviewed by Malcolm Jones.

THE CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF PROVERBS. Ed. JOHN SIMPSON and JENNIFER SPEAKE. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York (2nd ed.), 1992. 316 pp. ISBN 0-19-866177-0. Reviewed by Malcolm Jones.

A DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PROVERBS. Ed. WOLFGANG MIEDER, S. A. KINGSBURY and K. B. HARDER. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1992. 710 pp. £27.50. ISBN 0-19-505399-0. Reviewed by Malcolm Jones.

ETHNIC MUSIC ON RECORDS. By RICHARD K. SPOTTSWOOD. University of Illinois Press, 1990. Volumes 1-7. Pp. 4,347. Illustrated. ISBN 0-252-01718-8 (set). Reviewed by Gordon Ashman.

DUNBAR THE MAKAR. By PRISCILLA BAWCUTT. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1992. 196pp. £50. ISBN 0-19-812963-7. Reviewed by Jacqueline Simpson.

SIGNS FROM THE ANCESTORS by M. JANE YOUNG, 1990. Reviewed by Donald Taylor.

THE NIGHTWAY by JAMES C FARIS, 1990. Reviewed by Donald Taylor.

FORMS OF DEFORMITY. By LYNN HOLDEN. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 131. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991. 370pp. Appendix and bibliography. ISBN 1-85074-327-X. £40. Reviewed by Jennifer Chandler.

CITY, MARRIAGE, TOURNAMENT ARTS OF RULE IN LATE MEDIEVAL SCOTLAND. By LOUISE OLGA FRADENBURG. University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. 390pp, ill. ISBN 0-299-12954-3. Reviewed by Sandra Billington.

GEORGE EWART EVANS. By GARETH WILLIAMS. Writers of Wales Series, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1991. 93pp. £3.50. Reviewed by Trefor M. Owen.     

The pilgrimage economy of Early Roman Jerusalem (1st century BCE–70 CE) reconstructed from the δN and δC values of goat and sheep remains

Religious and historical sources suggest that pilgrimage formed a major source of Jerusalem's economy during the Early Roman period due to the Temple's role as a religious and judicial center for the Jewish diaspora. Until now, this assertion has been supported by little material evidence. In this study, the carbon and nitrogen isotope values of local arcahaeological and, modern wild herbivores from known environments were used to determine the environmental origins of domesticated sheep and goat that were traded and consumed in Early Roman Jerusalem. Pinpointing the environmental origins of these herd animals can determine if they were raised in specialized farms in the vicinity of Jerusalem, brought to the city by local pilgrims, or were part of organized importation of sacrifice animals from desert regions that lie beyond the boundaries of the province of Judea. The results indicate that at minimum 37% of the goat and sheep consumed in Jerusalem during the Early Roman period were brought from desert regions. The inter-provincial importation of animals to Jerusalem to meet high demands for sacrifice by pilgrims is the first material evidence for large scale economic specialization in the city. Furthermore, the results imply that desert animals were further marketed for domestic use in contemporaneous farm sites out of Jerusalem.