The mosaic of the crypt of St. Nicholas in Bari (Italy): integrated GPR and laboratory diagnostic study

The crypt of St. Nicholas in Bari, Southern Italy, is a building of cultural worldwide importance. Inside the crypt a mosaic develops on the apsidal floor and along a parietal seat placed along the apsidal masonry, in the form of cladding. A surviving portion of the mosaic pavement is also preserved in the right lateral chapel. Integrated non-destructive survey and laboratory analyses were undertaken for the diagnostic study of the mosaic. GPR prospection was successfully applied to the study of its conservation state, that is strictly related to the condition of the subsoil, in particular to the presence and distribution of water. The presence of water, whose rise interests also some portions of the masonry and water content distribution were identified by the results of electromagnetic wave velocity analysis in GPR data.     

Therapeutic landscapes of traditional healing: building spaces of well-being with the traditional healer in St. Louis,Senegal

Literature on therapeutic landscapes has not sufficiently explored the relational dynamics that contribute to shaping therapeutic landscapes. In particular, not enough attention has been paid to the patient–healer relationship and its role in producing well-being, especially in non-western settings. This article is a first attempt to address these deficiencies by exploring the role of the patient–healer relationship in shaping therapeutic landscapes especially as regards traditional healing in the city of St. Louis in Northern Senegal. By exploring the understandings of health and well-being of 160 people (including patients, herbalists and traditional healers), this article will show how therapeutic landscapes of traditional healing are built relationally in the patient–healer encounter; it will also underscore the strong link between the herbal component of traditional healing, the cognitive component of dialogue with the healer and the spiritual and sociocultural elements associated with rituals. The findings have relevant policy implications. This article takes a stand in the debate on integration between ‘traditional’ and ‘western medicine’ in Africa by stating that integration should give more serious consideration to the ability of traditional healing systems to create well-being because, as the case study shows, the latter strongly relies on the relational dimension of healing.     

The Akko 1 Shipwreck, Israel: the First Two Seasons

The Akko 1 shipwreck was found in 4 m of water inside the ancient harbour of Akko (Acre), 250 m from the ancient wall, with its stern touching a submerged rampart. The dense framing-pattern and relatively thin planking, the extensive use of oak and the origin of the timber, suggest that this is the remains of a small armed ship or auxiliary vessel built in the Eastern Mediterranean. The ship has been provisionally dated to the late-18th or early-19th century, the late Ottoman period. The finds testify to its involvement in one of the naval campaigns at Akko.
© 2008 The Authors     

美国华人研究的新视角：文化社区理论

通过分析圣路易华人社区的发展与演变,提出了美国华人社区研究的新观点——“文化社区理论”。圣路易华人“文化社区”不同于传统的唐人街,也不同于当代美国东西海岸许多地区以商业利益而形成的新型郊区唐人街,它是由于中华文化凝聚力而产生的社区;华人聚集一堂,不仅是为了经商贸易,而更多是为了弘扬中华文化。文化社区现象标志着少数族裔在美国社会政治与经济地位的上升。     

A saint,an abbot,his documents and her property: power,reform and landholding in the monastery of Homblières under Abbot Berner (949–82)

The monastery of Homblières, after 949, when it was turned from a community of nuns into a reformed Benedictine monastery under the rule of Abbot Berner, left a surprisingly large amount of tenth-century written material, producing both a Vita and a Translatio of Homblières’ patron saint Hunegund, as well as a large collection of charters. These documents allow us crucial insights into how a small monastery managed its possessions and its connections to patrons. This trail permits a closer view of strategies of landholding than can be had with many West Frankish monasteries. This article argues that the community at Homblières acted over several decades to consolidate its lands in specific locations. By producing such extensive documentation of his activities, Berner both solicited further donations for his monastery and protected its existing patrimony from potential threats.     

P.H. Pearse and Thomas MacDonagh: a literary friendship

ABSTRACT

Tracing the relationship between P.H. [Patrick Henry] Pearse (1879–1916) and Thomas MacDonagh (1878–1916), this essay explores the impact their friendship had on their careers as writers and critics. Their work together in St Enda’s, the school for boys founded by Pearse in 1908, provides a significant context for this exploration. There, while working with MacDonagh, Pearse made drama an important part of school life and started writing plays for public performance. Meanwhile, their collaboration in putting together the St. Enda’s school journal, An Macaomh (1909–1913), helped to hone MacDonagh’s skills as a literary critic and to prepare for his later editorial role at the Irish Review (1911–1914). Attention then turns to how MacDonagh’s views on Irish literature and his translations from Old Irish influenced his friend’s development as both a critic and poet. Paticular consideration is paid to “Mise Éire”, one of Pearse’s best-known poems. Finally, similarities are considered between MacDonagh and the hero of The Wandering Hawk (1915–1916), Pearse’s unfinished, English-language, school story for children. Taken together, these various investigations reveal that, despite differing temperaments and at times divergent approaches to Irish writing, Pearse and MacDonagh enjoyed a mutually stimulating friendship that impacted positively on their literary careers.     

The Elizabethan House of Commons and St Stephen's Chapel Westminster

This essay explores the significance of the Elizabethan house of commons meeting in a converted royal chapel within the Palace of Westminster. In 1548 the dissolved collegiate chapel of St Stephen at Westminster was given over to the exclusive use of the Commons, providing MPs with a dedicated meeting space for the first time. Although a great deal has been written about Elizabethan parliaments, little attention has been paid to the physical spaces within which MPs gathered, debated and legislated. Drawing on parliamentary diaries and exchequer records and informed by digital reconstructions of the Commons chamber modelled by the St Stephen's Chapel project at the University of York, this essay argues for the enduring influence of the architecture and decoration of the medieval chapel on the procedure, culture, ritual, and self‐awareness of the Elizabethan house of commons. Famously likened to a theatre by the MP and writer on parliamentary procedure, John Hooker, the Commons chamber is analysed as a space in which parliamentary speeches were performed and disrupted. The sound of debate is contrasted with other kinds of noise including scoffing and laughter, disruptive coughing, and prayers led by the clerk and the Speaker of the Commons. The iconography of the chamber, including the royal arms above the Speaker's chair and the mace carried by the serjeant‐at‐arms, is interpreted as enabling a culture of counsel and debate as much as an assertion of monarchical power. Evidence is also presented for the Commons chamber as a site of political memory.