Living in an Egyptian Oasis: Reconstruction of the Holocene Archaeological Sequence in Kharga

Within the Egyptian Western Desert, the Kharga Oasis was a particularly favourable and highly frequented area during the Holocene thanks to a permanent ground water supply. The high concentration and accessibility of archaeological sites here allows the cultural and economic changes to be documented at a local scale, when northeastern Africa was experiencing strong climatic variations and the transition to a food production economy. An expansive program led by the Institut français d’archéologie orientale (IFAO) which included systematic survey, sampling collections, tests and stratigraphic excavations has dramatically increased the amount of data available concerning the prehistory of the Kharga Oasis. Typo-technological analyses focusing on the lithic industries, and other aspects of material culture, plus a series of ¹⁴C dates have led to the definition of four main successive cultural phases: Kharga A, B, C and D. This paper describes this proposal of a new archaeological sequence for human occupation in the Kharga Oasis and discusses its integration in the wider frame of Egypt and the Eastern Sahara.     

Book reviews

The Agguyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire. A Study in 15th/9th Century Turko‐Iranian Politics. By John E. Woods. (Studies in Middle Eastern History, No. 3), xv + 348 pp. Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976.

A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism. By Mary Boyce. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. 284 pp. $19.95.

The Crowned Cannibals: Writings on Repression in Iran. By Reza Baraheni. With an introduction by E. L. Doctorow. New York: Random House/Vintage Books, 1977. 279 pp. $3.95.

Tarikh: Bulletin of the Department of History, Faculty of Letters and Humanities. Tehran: University of Tehran. Vol. 1, Nos. 1–2 (1976–77).

Middle East Economies in the 1970's: A Comparative Approach. By Hossein Askari and John Thomas Cummings. New York: Praeger Publishers (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development). 1976. xxxiii + 581pp.

The Caspian Circle: A Novel. By Donné Raffat. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978. 350 pp. $10.

The Agricultural Development of Iran. By Oddvar Aresvik. New York: Praeger, 1976. 271 pp.

Dschalaluddin Rumi, Licht und Reigen: Gedichte aus dem Divan des grössten mystischen Dichters persischer Zunge. Selected, translated and explained by Johann Cristoph Burgel. UNESCO Collection of Representative Works. Masterpieces of Persian Literature Series, No. 26. Bern, Herbert Lang, and Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1974. 191 pp.     

Reviews

Maurice Leenhardt. Le lien d'un homme avec un peuple qui ne voulait pas mourir. By Jean Guiart . Noumea: Le Rocher‐a‐la‐Voile. 1997. Pp. 156. Jules Calimbre. Chronique de trois generations, trois femmes et trois maisons. By Jean Guiart Noumea: Le Rocher‐a‐la‐Voile. 1998. Pp. 162.     

Machiavélisme et Staats-Raison au XVIIIe siècle d’après L’Universal-Lexikon de Zedler

This article examines the manner in which the Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexikon published by Johann Heinrich Zedler from 1732 to 1750 and considered as the most important german language encyclopedia of its time, welcomes and restructures the classical doctrine of the reason of State. Contrary to the interpretation in which the concept of the State developed by the Lexikon would fit into a pure jusnaturalistic logic, it shows the permanence, parallel to wolffian natural law, of a prudential tradition of political thought. The Lexikon, a contemporary of the Anti-Machiavel of Frederic II, thus appears to be the faithful mirror of the heterogeneous tendencies which then illustrate the field of the problems in the reason of State.     

The settlement patterns of north-eastern and south-eastern Arabia in late antiquity

The east Arabian settlements in antiquity were never large urban sites. However, they were the main centres of the communities that inhabited that area, interfacing between the nomadic and sedentary societies. A study of the distribution and characteristics of these sites reveals different, complementary functions. They were organized in local networks forming the essential structure of the settlement pattern and delineating the territories of communities having their own political identity.