An overview of bitumen trade in the Near East from the Neolithic (c.8000 BC) to the early Islamic period

The aim of the paper is to summarise the present state of knowledge concerning bitumen trade in the Near East from the Palaeolithic (70,000 BP) to the Early Islamic period. During the Palaeolithic and Early Neolithic period, bitumen utilisation was mostly concentrated in settlements close to oil seeps. From the Ubaid 3 period, bitumen from the Mosul area became more important and was traded as far as the southern Persian Gulf. The Uruk period is a turning point for Mesopotamian history as settlements evolved into city‐states. These cities had a great need for raw materials, and this marks the beginning of large‐scale exploitation of Hit bitumen. This bitumen was traded at settlements along the Euphrates, where a large trade network was established. Hit bitumen entered the Persian Gulf at the turn of the second millennium (Dilmun period). Bitumen from Iraq (Mosul and Hit) became predominantly used in most settlements along the southern coast of the Gulf. During this period Iranian bitumen was also exported and this supply tended to increase, especially during the Partho‐Sasanian period. Dead Sea bitumen had its own exchange network, which was concentrated across present‐day Israel and Egypt where it was extensively used for mummification.     

Collaboration as feminist strategy

I discuss my collaboration with Susan Hanson, which spanned a decade, culminating in our book, Gender, Work and Space. I focus on the productivity of our research collaboration. It led us to combine quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and economic geography and feminist cultural theory, in ways that allowed us to find an audience amongst, not only feminist geographers but also non-feminist political economists and planners. Our collaboration involved a large number of research assistants as well, and though this kind of collaboration is typically hidden in most research accounts, these research assistants were active producers of survey data. I consider this, as well as how they helped us to localize and situate our knowledge claims. Finally, I highlight the support that comes from a feminist collaboration.     

‘Now’, ‘now’, ‘even now’: temporal deixis and the crisis of the present in some Northern Irish poems of the Troubles

The problem of how to describe and account for the present can be identified as a particular preoccupation of poets of the so-called Northern Irish renaissance. This article examines how the temporal deictic ‘now’ functions in some well-known poems by Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley and Derek Mahon. All three poets explore how to combine the plausibility of lyric derived from an individual consciousness with the authority of narrative derived from social interactions. This article will do three related things. First, it will argue that discussing ‘now’ as a temporal deictic enables us to appreciate the full ambiguity and complexity of some poems written at the height of the Northern Irish Troubles. Second, the article will argue that these poems reveal that ‘now’ actually functions in poetry more complexly than some theorists of deixis have allowed. Finally, the article will suggest newly fruitful ways of combining literary stylistics with more conventional close reading.     

From golden hills to sycamore trees: pastoral homelands and ethnic identity in Irish immigrant fiction, 1860–75

The prose fiction that remembers the trials of starvation and eviction of the Great Famine (1845–50) often juxtaposes representations of blasted, infertile land with images of a green, idyllic Erin. Through a discussion of Mary Anne Sadlier's Bessy Conway (1861), Elizabeth Hely Walshe's Golden Hills: A Tale of the Irish Famine (1865) and John McElgun's Annie Reilly (1873), this article reveals that immigrant writers of the Famine generation often negotiate depictions of Famine-stricken wasteland with evocations of a pastoral homeland. In the case of the two Catholic novels, Bessy Conway and Annie Reilly, the pastoral becomes a point of ethnic identification through which the immigrants can recollect and reconstruct a sense of Irishness in exile. By contrast, Golden Hills, which focuses on the Anglo-Irish ascendancy, does not lament the mass exodus of afflicted Irish: the novel rather envisions emigration as a way to regenerate Ireland as locus amoenus.     

晋南已发现的西周国族初析

山西南部地区陆续发现了多处西周墓地,著名的有曲沃县天马-曲村晋国墓地及北赵晋侯墓地,黎城西关、浮山桥北、绛县横水墓地等。由于缺少全面系统的分析,研究者普遍将这些遗存均作为西周封国的遗存看待。该文通过考古资料、历史渊源和地理环境等方面的综合研究,认为对这些墓地尚不宜一概而论,他们实际存在着国与族的差别,即诸侯国、封国以及采邑的差异。从族群来源上讲有来自关中地区姬周系统的虞、晋、杨等诸侯或封国,也有出自晋南古族帝尧后裔黎国,还有源自殷商遗民的先国,以及出于戎狄文化系统的倗氏。只有更清楚的区分出众多西周墓地所属是国还是族的差别,才能较好的认识周王朝对晋南统治的格局。     

唐陵大遗址考古的思路与方法——2007～2008年度中国田野考古一等奖获奖项目介绍

<正>陕西唐陵大遗址保护项目的考古工作荣获2007～2008年度全国田野考古一等奖。这是国家文物局和考古学界对我们工作成绩的肯定与鼓励,也是我院田野考古工作者开拓创新、辛勤工作的结果。以下将唐陵考古工作中的思路、方法、措施以及得失作以介绍,以期得到考古界同仁的指教。     

2009年陕西省考古研究院考古调查发掘新收获

本文精选了陕西省考古研究院2009年考古工作的主要收获,其中有周公庙、秦雍城、秦始皇陵和汉唐帝陵等大遗址项目,也有获选全国十大考古发现的杨官寨、梁带村遗址,以及靖边渠树壕汉代、韩城宋代壁画墓,还有引起极大关注的蓝田吕氏家族墓地等。文中在对各项考古工作介绍之余还配以精美的图片,以期迅速的报道田野考古新成果,为进一步研究提供线索。     

新发现的唐武令璋石椁和墓志

武令璋石椁为唐代石椁中最高等级的庑殿式结构,迄今唯在皇亲国戚或高官宠臣墓中出土过。石椁线刻的技艺精湛、题材丰富,有琵琶、吹箫、歌妓、胡腾乐舞、侍女以及卷草花叶等图案。乐舞内容占比例较大,作者推测其表现的是墓主生前的私家乐舞场景。墓志载墓主于天宝十三载葬于"统万城南二十里高原",如此,墓志资料也为统万城历史沿革的考证提供了重要线索。     

程恩泽生卒年及中进士时间辨正

程恩泽是晚清著名学者,但对其生卒年和中进士时间各书记载不一,多有失误。有必要加以考证,辨析清楚,得出正确的结论。