Walter the Chancellor on Ilghazi and Tughtakin: a prisoner’s perspective

This article concerns two leading Turkish rulers, active in the Near East during the crusading era: Tughtakin of Damascus and Ilghazi of Mardin. They were important commanders, but the surviving sources create difficulties when outlining the contours of characters and cultural perspectives. Muslim authors typically present them as idealised Islamic rulers and yet it is difficult to accept such stereotyped portraits. This article sheds new light on these men, seeking to understand how far they had transitioned from the steppe culture of their forefathers into a more distinctively Islamic mould. It focuses in particular on the Antiochene chronicle written by Walter the Chancellor. He witnessed both rulers at first hand when he was their prisoner in Aleppo in 1119, an experience which left him deeply scarred. This is tainted evidence, yet it will be shown that many of Walter’s observations also provide invaluable insights that deserve to be taken seriously.     

CONTRASTS MARRIAGE AND IDENTITY IN WESTERN FIJI

You see how people get married here, how much work it involves. The mats, the drums, the animals, it's murder! If it's a woman, that's all right, you just go and eat. But if you've got a young man, you have to start raising cattle. With you foreigners, it's easy. You have a small party and that's it. It's better that way, here it is just too much. You know how the Indians get married, Niko? The man goes to the woman's father and says, ‘Here's a thousand dollars. How about it?’ He says, ‘That's not much.’ Then the man offers fifteen hundred, he says ‘Ummm.’ Then when the man offers two thousand, he says, ‘All right.’ Different customs, say!     

A Jupiter Temple (?) Outside the West Gate of Venta Belgarum and the Development of Winchester’s Western Suburb

This paper deals with the Roman discoveries made in 1836–37 when the railway cutting was excavated on the west side of Winchester. These were studied by Charles Roach Smith and reported in The Gentleman’s Magazine and in the 1846 Winchester Transactions of the BAA. Several of the finds were of particular importance, including a copper-alloy head of Jupiter, a unique statuette of Omphale, likewise of copper-alloy, an intact copper-alloy jug, and two jug handles. The Omphale is still lost, but it emerged that the other objects were subsequently acquired by the British Museum.

These finds and such records of the excavation as were reported allow a re-evaluation of the western side of Venta Belgarum, which would seem to have had a special character throughout the Roman period, perhaps as a temple quarter. Antiquarian accounts can be of immense importance in modern archaeological research and, in this case, they highlight the key role of the BAA and one of its founders in the modern establishment of the discipline.     

The disparate histories of binocular vision and binaural hearing

Vision and hearing are dependent on disparities of spatial patterns received by two eyes and on time and intensity differences to two ears. However, the experiences of a single world have masked attention to these disparities. While eyes and ears are paired, there has not been parity in the attention directed to their functioning. Phenomena involving binocular vision were commented upon since antiquity whereas those about binaural hearing are much more recent. This history is compared with respect to the experimental manipulations of dichoptic and dichotic stimuli and the instruments used to stimulate the paired organs. Binocular color mixing led to studies of binaural hearing and direction and distance in visual localization were analyzed before those for auditory localization. Experimental investigations began in the nineteenth century with the invention of instruments like the stereoscope and pseudoscope, soon to be followed by their binaural equivalents, the stethophone and pseudophone.     

A Case of Identity: The Artefacts of the 1770 Kamay (Botany Bay) Encounter*

Collections of Indigenous artefacts made during the voyages of Captain James Cook have been extensively researched, but significant issues around the provenance and identification of artefacts remain complex and unresolved. This article considers the case of a shield in the British Museum, said for fifty years to have been appropriated by Cook at the time of first contacts with Gweagal in April 1770, and other artefacts associated with the same encounters.     

Birmingham Bog outdoor laboratory: potentials and possibilities for embedding field-based teaching within the undergraduate classroom

Providing cost-effective, hands-on field-based experiences to large cohorts of undergraduate students provides a core challenge for effective teaching and learning. This grand challenge is tackled through the construction of an exemplar outdoor learning environment within the Environmental Change Outdoor Laboratory (ECOLAB): Birmingham Bog (BB). Adjacent to the Geography building, the facility aims to produce a seamless, interconnected learning environment (in both space and time) that brings inaccessible fieldwork activities direct to the classroom at the time and frequency appropriate to the learning objectives. With the integration of this facility within a 3rd year undergraduate module, we explore through group interviews the ways in which BB adapted and influenced students’ engagement with lecture material, and the extent to which the approach can complement or replace current field based teaching activities. The group interviews identified how BB was considered an example of “effective learning” within the context of the wider degree programme. However, if confirmed, the value placed on residential field courses cannot be met by such campus experiences. Despite this, BB represents an increasingly fertile space for deeper stimulation and innovative ways of learning; diversifying pedagogical techniques and enabling students to re-engage with lecture content.     

Gladstone’s Land: the changing face of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile

SUMMARY: This paper presents the results of recent archaeological research into the building known as Gladstone’s Land on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. The aim of the research was to examine to what extent historical fabric had survived in light of extensive historical intervention. The building is a surviving example of Edinburgh’s Old Town urban architecture, which is characterized by tall structures with a shop front and densely occupied residential spaces. The paper presents evidence of the development of the building from the 16th century to its conservation in the 20th century. This development involved the replacement of formerly timber elements in stone and the creation of ornate painted interiors. The history of the building and the archaeological evidence embedded within it offer evidence of the life and changing architectural trends of Scotland’s capital. It also adds to our current understanding of heritage practice in the 20th century, raising issues of authenticity and the social construction of visitor-oriented heritage.