Reviews

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Reviews

     

“MY PUTREFACTION IS MYRRH:”THE LEXICOGRAPHY OF DECAY,GILDED COFFINS,AND THE GREEN SKIN OF OSIRIS

While the ancient Egyptian practice of mummification inhibited physical decomposition, the Egyptians believed that there was a liminal state during decomposition where the dead were vulnerable to spiritual attack. Spells and incantations were used as a measure to preserve the deceased by ritually converting and transforming the products of decomposition. This paper explores the lexicography of rot and decay in order to study idiomatic expressions that anticipate outcomes that preserve the dead, reverse decomposition, and transfigure the deceased. The paper relates the ritual conversion presumed through some of the Coffin Texts to religious beliefs and practices that include apotheosis, gilded coffins, and the green skin of Osiris.     

Lower Pecos and Coahuila peyote: new radiocarbon dates

Peyote, a psychoactive cactus native to the Chihuahuan Desert, has been preserved from excavations at only two archaeological sites: Shumla Caves in the Lower Pecos region of southwest Texas and shelter CM-79 near Cuatro Ciénegas in Coahuila, Mexico. We determined three indistinguishable radiocarbon ages of 5160 ± 45, 5200 ± 35, and 5210 ± 35 ¹⁴C years BP, yielding a mean age of 5195 ± 20 ¹⁴C years BP for the three specimens from Shumla Caves. For one of the Cuatro Ciénegas specimens we obtained the first direct radiocarbon date of 835 ± 35 ¹⁴C years BP. This study demonstrates the use of peyote by inhabitants of the Lower Pecos region of the Chihuahuan Desert about 6000 calendar years ago, and confirms its use by inhabitants of the Cuatro Ciénegas region of the Chihuahuan Desert in Late Prehistoric times. The Shumla Caves' specimens are composed of an aggregate of ground peyote mixed with other plant material, i.e., they appear to be manufactured peyote effigies, and are definitely not intact peyote buttons.