Provenance of Early Bronze Age metal artefacts in Western Switzerland using elemental and lead isotopic compositions and their possible relation with copper minerals of the nearby Valais

Ten Early Bronze Age (BzA1, 2200–2000 BC) copper artefacts from the central Valais region from Switzerland were studied for their elemental composition and lead isotope ratios. In order to answer the archaeological question of a local copper supply, a database for copper minerals across the Valais (Switzerland) has been established. This database contains 69 data on lead isotope ratios as well as additional information on the minerals and geochemical associations for copper minerals from 38 locations in the Valais. Comparisons of the artefacts were also made with data pertaining to minerals from various deposits from Europe and Anatolia taken from the literature. The provenance of the materials is very diverse. Some of the data are compatible with the data from the copper mineral deposits of the Valais region. Moreover, three copper lunulae were identified as possibly Tuscan, which suggests contacts between Italy and the Valais region. This pattern also establishes a multiplicity of provenances for the metal and cultural influences in the Alpine environment of the Rhone Valley of Switzerland at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age.     

Berlin and Florence in the Age of Enlightenment: Jewish Experience in Comparative Perspective

Into the 1930s, the Jewish population in Germany used the termEnlightenment (Aufklärung) emphatically to formulate itsself-image. At the end of the twentieth century scarcely anythingremained of the once emotional semantics. The most recent literatureon relations between Jews and the Enlightenment elaborates thehostility of the German Enlightenment towards Jews with philologicalacuity. The essay examines the relationship between the Enlightenmentand Jewry and Jewish experiences in the eighteenth century froma comparative perspective. The Berlin Enlightenment is comparedwith its Florentine counterpart. This comparison shows thatintellectuals in the Prussian capital were far more open andunbiased towards Jews than their Tuscan counterparts. Whilein Berlin Jews were admitted to the academies and convivialsocieties, this was largely denied them in Tuscany. Despite the altered climate at the end of the Enlightenmentperiod, the article emphasizes that, if there was ever a periodin German-Jewish history that may be deemed balanced, then itwas the age of Enlightenment. The comparison between Prussiaand Tuscany can thus help us to understand how the Enlightenmentcould become such an emphatic and emotional point of orientationfor German Jews in the nineteenth century.     

Affe und delphin

Ohne Zusammenfassung