Iron Age hydraulic plaster from Tell es-Safi/Gath,Israel

Hydraulic plasters or mortars prior to the Roman period are rare. Here, we report the identification and characterization of 3000 year old (Iron Age) hydraulic plaster surfaces from the site of Tell es-Safi/Gath. This site, located in central Israel, was occupied almost continuously from prehistoric through modern times, and is identified as the Canaanite and Philistine city of Gath. A survey using an on-site Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) identified the presence of amorphous silicates, in addition to calcite, in each of two superimposed plaster layers. This suite of minerals is characteristic of hydraulic plaster. An in-depth characterization of the plasters using FTIR, acid dissolution, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray powder diffractometry (pXRD), heating experiments and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM–EDS), shows that special silicate-containing minerals were brought from some distance to the site in order to produce these plaster surfaces. We therefore conclude that the plasters were deliberately produced, and were not the result of a fortuitous addition of local silicate minerals. A layer of around 150 μm thick enriched in carbonate hydroxylapatite was found in both plaster surfaces, and the same mineral was identified by infrared spectrometry in the surrounding sediments. This suggests that organic materials were used on these surfaces. These surfaces are among the oldest hydraulic plasters known.     

Reviews

THE ECOLOGY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION. F. W. Riggs. Under the auspices of the Indian Institute of Public Administration. Bombay, Asia Publishing House, 1961. Pp. viii + 162. Price 20/‐ sterling.

THE NATURE OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY. C. A. W. Manning. London, G. Bell & Sons Ltd., 1962. Pp. xi + 220. English price 30/‐.

STRUCTURE OF AMERICAN FEDERALISM. M. J. C. Vile. London, Oxford University Press, 1962. Pp. x + 206. Australian Price 46/6.

AMERICAN DIPLOMACY IN A NEW ERA. Stephen D. Kertesz (ed.). University of Notre Dame Press, 1961. Pp. 601. U.S. $10.00.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA OP RUSSIA AND THE SOVIET UNION. Michael T. Florinsky (ed.). New York, McGraw Hill Book Company Inc., 1961. Pp. xiv + 624. U.S. $23.

THE TAPROOT OP SOVIET SOCIETY. Nicholas P. Vakar. New York, Harper & Bros., 1961. Pp. xiii + 204. U.S. $4.75.

INDONESIAN ECONOMICS: THE CONCEPT OF DUALISM IN THEORY AND POLICY. Selected Studies on Indonesia by Dutch Scholars, Vol. VI. The Hague, W. van Hoeve, 1961. Pp. xii + 443. U.S. $7.50.

KAUTILYA: A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS.

THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNIST CHINA 1949–1960. T. J. Hughes and D. E. T. Luard. Under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. London. O.U.P., 1961. Pp. viii + 215. Second Edition. Australian price 41/6d.

TOJO AND THE COMING OF THE WAR. R. J. C. Butow. Princeton University Press, 1961. Pp. 540.

PARTIES AND PEOPLE: A SURVEY BASED ON THE LA TROBE ELECTORATE. Creighton Burns. Melbourne University Press, 1961. Pp. x + 173. Australian price 28/6d.     

Book reviews—comptes rendus

Seventeenth‐Century France—France du dix‐septième siècle

Thomas WORCESTER, Seventeenth‐Century Cultural Discourse: France and the Preaching of Bishop Camus, Mouten de Gruyter, Berlin & New York, 1997, ix + 306p., ISBN 3–11–015220–7 DM 228

John A. LYNN, Giant of the Grand Siècle. The French Army 1610–1715, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997, 651pp. £45 ISBN 0 521 57273 8.

Themes in Cultural History—Thèmes en histoire culturelle

Susan PLANN, A Silent Minority: Deaf Education in Spain, 1550–1835, University of California Press, Berkeley, California & London, 1997, xvi + 323 pp. £40.

Charles DIERICK and Pascal LEFEVRE eds., Forging a New Medium: The Comic Strip in the Nineteenth Century, VUB University Press, Brussels, 1998.

Larry WOLFF, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of Enlightenment, Stanford University Press, Stanford 1994. xii + 419 pp. Paperback, £15.95.

Social History—Histoire sociale

Ann‐Louise SHAPIRO, Breaking the Codes: Female Criminality in Fin‐de‐siècle Paris, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1996, pp. viii + 265, ISBN 0–8047–2 693–0.

Nancy GREEN, Du Sentier à la 7e avenue. La confection et les immigrés, Paris‐New York, 1880–1980, Paris, Le Seuil, collection “L'univers historique”, 1998.

Nancy GREEN, Ready‐To‐Wear and Ready‐To‐Work. A Century of Industry and immigrants in Paris and New York, Duke University Press, 1997.

Lewis J. EDINGER & Brigitte L. NACOS, From Bonn to Berlin. German politics in transition, Columbia University Press, New York, 1998, ISBN 023108413729 £13.50£39.50

Themes in European Politics—Aspects du politique européenne

Dimitrije DJORDJEVIC, Scars and Memory: Four Lives in One Lifetime, Boulder, East European Monographs, 1997, pp. 463, ISBN 0–88033–368–5, £34.

Grigor MCCLELLAND, Embers of War: Letters from a Quaker reliefworker in war‐torn Germany, IB Tauris 1997, pp. xxiii + 230, ISBN 1–86064–312–4, £25.

Michael BERKOWITZ Western Jewry and the Zionist project, 1914–1933, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0 521 47087 0 hardback £40

Paul W. DOERR, British foreign policy 1919–1939, Manchester, Manchester University Press 1998, ISBN hb: 0–7190–4671–8 pb:0–7190–4672–6. £45.00 (hb) £14.99 (pb).     

Localisation and William Macewen's early brain surgery Part I: the controversy

Neurosurgery for the removal of brain tumours based on localising signs is usually dated from the 1884 operation by Bennett and Godlee. However, within weeks of that operation claims were made on behalf of William Macewen, the Glasgow surgeon, to have been the real pioneer of such surgery. According to Macewen's protagonists, he had conducted seven similar operations earlier than Bennett and Godlee and, in a notable 1888 address, Macewen described these seven pre-1884 cases and a number of others operated on after 1884. This paper, which is in two parts, contains an evaluation of the claims made for the priority of Macewen's pre-1884 operations. Part I deals mainly with Macewen's work in fields other than brain surgery that are relevant to it and sets out the facts of the controversy. It begins with a brief biography of Macewen, describes his pioneering work in antiseptic and aseptic surgery, his work on osteotomy and bone regeneration, and his use in brain surgery of the knowledge so gained. Part I concludes with an examination of the battle waged in the newspapers between Macewen's and Bennett's and Godlee's supporters, and of previously unpublished correspondence between Macewen himself, David Ferrier and Hughes Bennett. The primary records of the patients on whom Macewen operated, together with other materials relevant to the controversy, are examined in Part II.     

Reviews

Howard R. Penniman (ed.) Australia at the Polls: The National Elections of 1980 and 1983, Washington, DC, George Allen and Unwin for American Enterprise Institute, 1983, pp.351. $14.95 (paper)

Alexander Kouzmin (ed.) Public Sector Administration: New Perspectives, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1983. pp.329. $15.95

Blanche D'Alpuget, Robert J Hawke: A Biography, Schwartz, 1982, pp.418. $19.95

Frank Cain, The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia, Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1983, pp. 306. $24.95

Leonie Sandercock and Michael Berry, Urban Political Economy: The Australian Case, Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1983, pp.193. $22.50, $4.50 (paper)

Brian W. Head (ed.), State and Economy in Australia, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, pp. 305. $25.00, $12.99 (paper)

Bruce O'Meagher (ed.) The Socialist Objective: Labor and Socialism, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger 1983, pp. 198, $24.95, $11.95 (paper) and John Reeves and Kelvin Thomson (eds) Labor Essays 1983: Policies and Programs for the Labor Government, Blackburn, Drummond 1983, pp. 197. $12.95 (paper)

James Jupp, Ethnic Politics in Australia, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1984, pp.213. $22.95, $11.95 (paper)

Archives Guide to Collections, Melbourne, Archives Board of Management University of Melbourne, 1983, pp.210. $18.00, $9.50 (paper)

Nancy Viviani, The Long Journey: Vietnamese Migration and Settlement in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1984, pp.316. $26.60

Christopher Cunneen: Kings’ Men: Australia's Governors‐General from Hopetoun to Isaacs. Sydney, George Allen & Unwin Australia, 1983, pp. 237. $24.95, $12.95 (paper)

Dennis Phillips, Cold War Two and Australia, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1983. pp.122. $15.95, $6.95 (paper)

Harry Redner and Jill Redner, Anatomy of the World: The Impact of the Atom on Australia and the World, Melbourne, Fontana/Collins, 1983, pp. 368. $8.95 (paper)

David McKay, American Politics and Society, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp. 336. $55.00, $18.95 (paper)

David Martin and Peter Mullen (eds) Unholy Warfare: The Church and the Bomb. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1983, pp.247. $34.95, $13.95 (paper)

Barry Gustafson, Labour's Path to Political Independence — The Origins and Establishment of the New Zealand Labour Party 1900–19, Auckland, Auckland University Press/Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 199. $18.50

Christopher T. Husbands, Racial Exclusion and the City: The Urban Support of the National Front, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1983, pp.191. $49.50

Charles F. Sabel, Work and Politics: The Division of Labor in Industry, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 304. $45.50

David Coates and Gordon Johnston (eds) Socialist Strategies, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp.294. $49.50, $16.50 (paper)

R.J. Moore, Escape from Empire: the Attlee Government and the Indian Problem, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983, pp. 376. $48.75

T.H. Rigby & Bohdan Harasymiw (eds) Leadership Selection and Patron‐Client Relations in the USSR and Yugoslavia, London, Macmillan. 1983, pp.246. £20

Theodore H. Friedgut, Political Participation in the USSR, Princeton, Princeton U.P., 1979, pp.353. $16.25 (paper)

Mervyn Matthews, Education in the Soviet Union: Policies and Institutions Since Stalin, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1982, pp.225. $15.95 (paper)

Ronan Paddison, The Fragmented State: The Political Geography of Power, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1983, pp. 315. $54.00, $21.95 (paper)

William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1982, pp. 405. $39.95

David Held and others (eds) States and Societies, Oxford, Martin Robertson and the Open University, 1983, pp.629. $16.50 (paper)

Andrew Linklater, Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations, London, Macmillan/London School of Economics and Political Science, 1982, pp. 232. $36.00

Celso Furtado, Accumulation and Development: The Logic of Industrial Civilization, trans, by S. Macedo, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp.201. $39.95

Irving Louis Allen, The Language of Ethnic Conflict, Social Organization and Lexical Culture, New York, Columbia University Press, 1983, pp.162. US$12.50

Stephen P. Dunn, The Fall and Rise of the Asiatic Mode of Production, London, Routeledge and Kegan Paul, pp.124.

Preston King (ed.) The History of Ideas, An Introduction to Method, London & Canberra, Croom Helm, 1983, pp. 334. $16.50 (paper)

Howard Williams, Kant's Political Philosophy. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1983, pp. 292. £20

Gerard Bekerman, Marx and Engels: A Conceptual Concordance, Oxford, Blackwell, 1983, pp.205. $62

Nicholas Abercrombie and John Urry, Capital, Labour and the Middle Classes, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1983, pp. 169, $29.95, $13.95. (paper)

Rob Steven, Classes in Contemporary Japan, London, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 357. $45.50

R.W. Connell, Which Way Is Up? Essays on Sex, Class and Culture, Sydney, George Allen and Un‐win, 1983, pp.278. $19.95, $9.95 (paper)

Hester Eisenstein, Contemporary Feminist Thought Sydney, Unwin Paperbacks, 1984, pp 196. $16.95, $7.95

Bettina Cass et al. Why So Few? Women Academics in Australian Universities Sydney University Press, 1983, pp.253. $14.00

Jocelynne Scutt Even in the Best of Homes: Violence in the Family, Melbourne, Penguin, 1983, pp.303. $9.95