A Hellenistic/Early Roman Shipwreck Assemblage off Ashkelon, Israel

Underwater surveys at Ashkelon during 1998 exposed a Hellenistic/Roman shipwreck. The ship, c .15–25 m long, sank in the 1st or 2nd century BC, and its remains include iron anchors, lead sheathing, copper nails, assorted metal artefacts, and shipwright's unused nails. Bronze vessels found—oil-lamp, shovel and ladles—could have functioned in cult rites. Weights and balance-scale parts demonstrate commercial activity. Fishing-net sinkers indicate involvement in fishing. This paper raises important points regarding the risk to shipwrecks on the Israeli coast from environmental and human interference, and suggests that Ashkelon never had a built-up port.
© 2009 The Authors     

Rock Art and Ritual: An Archaeological Analysis of Rock Art in Arid Central Australia

Rock art researchers throughout the world have explicitly or implicitly invoked ritual as an activity associated with the production of rock art but the articulation between the structure and composition of rock art assemblages and ritual behaviour remains poorly understood. Anthropologist, Roy Rappaport (1999) argued that all ritual, whatever the content or focus, has a universal structure. We review this proposition in the context of ritual studies and propose a method aimed at assessing the potential for identifying ritual structure in rock art assemblages. We discuss an archaeological analysis undertaken on the rock art assemblages in arid Central Australia, which aimed at distinguishing such a ritual structure among engraved assemblages, likely to have a Pleistocene origin, as well as more recent painted, stencilled and drawn assemblages. This analysis, despite its limitations, provides the foundation for developing a model, which will enhance the understanding of the relationship between the production of rock art and ritual.     

THE FOOD VALUE CHAIN AS A LOCUS FOR (DIS)AGREEMENT: CONVENTIONS AND QUALITIES IN THE SPANISH WINE AND NORWEGIAN SALTED COD INDUSTRIES

According to the theory of conventions, food value chains (FVCs) involve a complex array of actors who share an agreement about the qualities embodied in their particular foodstuff. Nevertheless, that agreement is continuously challenged by changes in consumer markets. Therefore, I argue that FVCs able to adapt those qualities to new trends will perform better than FVCs whose commitment to certain qualities leads to a misunderstanding between producers and consumers. The organization of the chain itself, the values of national regulatory frameworks, and the goals of the national innovation system are discussed as factors that shape an FVCs' ability to re‐arrange that core agreement. By using professional reports, statistical records and personal interviews, this article focuses on two FVCs that have experienced contrasting trajectories in recent decades in the Spanish market: the wine industry located in the region of Castile and Leon (Spain) and the Norwegian salted cod industry. The growing wine FVC has achieved a successful agreement about a set of qualities linked to nature, tradition, and place, all of them guaranteed by the reputation of the Designation of Origin (DO) system. In contrast, the salted cod FVC is losing its market share because its main actors are failing to properly communicate the key qualities of environmental sustainability and artisanal cod production to concerned Spanish consumers, as well as in the adoption of the place‐related attributes that still shape consumer preferences in Spain.     

The Marriage Well at Teltown: holy well ritual at royal cult sites and the rite of temporary marriage

This article discusses Lag an Aonaigh, the ‘Marriage Well’ of Teltown, and the unusual temporary marriage ritual that once took place there during the annual Lughnasa festival. The relationship of Lag an Aonaigh to the modern and ancient fairs (aonach and óenach), and to the broader cult of holy wells is considered, which it is suggested largely represents the local adoption of the Mediterranean healing-spring cult. The article investigates the possibility that this marriage rite was informed by lore of a divine wedding at Teltown, and by the inaugurations carried out at many royal centres that entailed the matrimonial symbolism of the king marrying the Goddess of the land. The relationship of this site to the broader landscape of Teltown, especially to the nearby Knockans linear earthwork is explored. This relationship is then used to analyse the landscapes of the other main ‘royal’ sites, where linear earthworks similar to the Knockans that terminate near springs or ponds are also found. It is considered that all of these earthworks may have been used in ritual processions involving the springs, or even as devices to segregate young men and women at these assemblies, and lead them to the spring to start their own ‘Teltown weddings’.     

蒋太后与嘉靖前期政治

武宗死后无子,世宗以＂兄终弟及＂祖训继皇帝位,世宗生母蒋太后也因此在嘉靖政治史上有了重要的地位,不仅在大礼议过程中起了重要作用,而且由于圣母身份和世宗孝心的双重作用,使得蒋太后对嘉靖十八年以前的政局产生了不小的影响。     

朱厚熜帝系独立意识在陵寝建造中的反映

明嘉靖帝朱厚熜以藩王世子身份入继大统的。其特殊的身份、处境及其鲜明个性,造就了他强烈独立的帝系意识。而这强烈的帝系独立意识不仅在其继位之初关于继位仪式和年号的争论以及其后的大礼议、颁布《明伦大典》和改正典祀等方面表现鲜明,而且在营建寿宫——永陵和对天寿山陵区进行修葺上更有所表现。本文试通过分析永陵的建造特点和嘉靖年间天寿山陵区增建的礼制建筑,揭示朱厚炮强烈的帝系独立意识在陵寝建造中的反映。     

新空间 新网络 新角色——博客对海外新移民与中国互动的影响

以新兴的网络传播手段——博客作为切入点,分析了海外华人新移民博客社区的种类和组织形态;阐述了海外华人新移民通过博客与中国社会互动的意义、方式及影响。通过博客这一新的互动工具和平台,海外新移民可更加直接而生动地了解中国变化,了解中国人的最新思维、心态和社会变迁;拓宽自身更大的社会交往空间、话语渠道、传播途径和社会影响;与中国原住地的原有关系保持思想上的无边界的联系,甚至参与中国的改变进程。     

Valleys of Historicity and Ways of Power among the Fuyuge

ABSTRACT Attention to history is widely seen as a necessary corrective to the synchronic perspective of ethnography, especially as this has come to inform research in Melanesia. In fact, anthropologists turn to the study of history not only to understand ‘change’ and ‘the past’ but to delineate the ‘history’ of the people studied. However, history as a concept and discipline has a unique place in western knowledge conventions, an outcome of the distinctive ways of gauging and relating past, present and future. Historical analysis can augment ethnography but not necessarily portray the history of the people concerned, as they may have no history, as such. The article suggests that historicity is a more appropriate notion with which to register the significant ways in which the social past is entangled in what people are and do and in their future potentialities. This argument is made with reference to the Fuyuge people of highland Papua and their involvement in engineered trail and road building during the colonial and post‐colonial period and their simultaneous interest in the performance of their gab ritual. These events exemplify different kinds of power and associated historicity. Through scrutiny of each it is shown that the form of Fuyuge (Melanesian) historicity parallels that of their sociality and its distinct temporality. The events that actors perform produce not so much history, as the recurrent evocation of past actions and the foreshadowing of future ones.