Using Optical Coherence Tomography to Examine Additives in Chinese Song Jun Glaze

We use optical coherence tomography (OCT) to acquire microstructure images of Chinese Song Jun glaze to reveal the copper and quartz additives used and, in two typical samples, we show that the amount added is considerable. Focusing on these two additives, including the species, amount and granule (particle) size added in the glaze, the objective of the present study is to explore how they functioned in relation to the Jun glaze's visual characteristics, opalescence and sky‐blue colour, attributed to the unique liquid–liquid phase separation that occurs in Jun glaze.     

6. WHY WE NEED TO MOVE FROM TRUTH‐FUNCTIONALITY TO PERFORMATIVITY IN HISTORIOGRAPHY

The central challenge of the philosophy of history and historiography is to find a principled way to rank different interpretations of the past without assuming their truth in terms of correspondence. The narrativist insight of the narrative philosophy of historiography was to correctly question historical realism. It analyzed texts and showed that they cannot reflect the past as it is. However, the rejection of the truth‐functional evaluation threatens to lead to an “anything goes” approach in terms of cognitive evaluation of historiography. In any case, no adequate theory of evaluation has so far been developed, although clearly not all historiographical interpretations are acceptable. Postnarrativist philosophy of historiography suggests that any history book includes a content‐synthesizing unit, but that it is problematic to think that it is “narrative” that structures texts. It is better to think of historiography texts as presenting reasoning for views and theses about the past. Arguments for these theses should be considered not as being true but as more or less appropriate, fitting, or warranted. The historian aims to produce as highly rationally warranted and compelling a thesis of the past as possible; its rational appropriateness depends on three dimensions of cognitive evaluation: the epistemic, the rhetorical, and the discursive.     

清乾隆至道光年间的聊城商业——以山陕会馆碑刻资料为中心的考察

聊城是清代中叶山东运河沿线的重要转运码头,经由该城转运的商品以绸缎、布匹、皮毛、纸张、茶叶等为大宗。绸缎、纸张、茶叶等南来商品的转销范围大致包括鲁北、冀南、豫东以及山西;棉布和皮毛制品则为东昌本地所产,主要销往西北和口外。依据会馆抽厘率折算,乾隆初年山陕商人在聊城的经营规模每年仅数十万两,嘉庆时增至一百数十万两,道光年间即便从低折算也达到210万两。全城合计,嘉庆年间聊城的商业规模已达每年200万两;道光年间以1‰的抽厘率折算为300万两,若以0.3‰的抽厘率折算则高达1000万两。     

Tell Abraq during the second and first millennia BC: site layout,spatial organisation,and economy

Research recommenced at Tell Abraq in 2007, carried out by Bryn Mawr College with an international team in co‐operation with the Sharjah Archaeology Authority. Between 2007 and 2010 fieldwork was limited to documenting sections of the previous excavations and one small sounding while our attention focused mainly on the nearby shell‐midden site of Hamriya and the fortified Iron Age settlement site of Muweilah. Since 2010, large‐scale excavations have been conducted which have fundamentally altered our understanding of the layout of the settlement and its economic relations during the second and first millennia BC. In this report, we detail the results of this work and present preliminary interpretations.