Understanding Rituals: A Critique of Representationalism

The explanations of ritual practices observed in archaeological contexts often proceed on the representationalist basis that the human mind contains the social constituted ideas or representations that underpin the practice of rituals. Such a view remains widespread and, despite the often proclaimed rejection in contemporary theory of the Cartesian mind-body and other dualisms, it perpetuates the Enlightenment representationalist heritage according to which mental contents represent social reality and, as such, drive ritual practices and human action more generally. This article illustrates the meaning and value of rejecting such a representationalist view of human (ritual) action in favour of what we call an institutional view. In such a view, a ritual can be conceived as a form of recurring activity involving temporally and geographically dispersed actors active in differing roles and hence also with differing interests and levels of knowledge of the ritual and the associated belief system.     

Nicolaas Geelkerken

Abstract

Intelligence work is based on the gathering of information, including cartographic material for preparing new maps. This paper examines copies and re‐editions, produced by British, Egyptian, and PLO military authorities, of topographical maps of Israel on a scale 1:100,000, which were published from the later part of the Mandate (1930s and 1940s), up to the 1980s. Certain features in the copies reflect distinctive political attitudes to the local situation or illustrate a lack of cartographic awareness of their significance. No serious attempts were made to hide the sources of the maps.     

The History of Cartography in Brazil in the 1940s: Jaime Cortesão's Lecture Courses

Abstract

During the Napoleonic Wars the military croquis, or sketch map, played an important role in the spatial management of the various campaigns. Presumably, many of these sketch maps were destroyed or discarded after their immediate use. Those that survive have received little scholarly notice. Attention is drawn in this article to a large and well-documented collection produced during the campaign in Russia in 1812 and subsequently amassed by the Saxon cartographer Ferdinand Heinrich August von Larisch. The operational value of the military croquis is examined and the relationship between cartographic poetics and historical representation considered.     

OBITUARIES

The crime of Claudius Ptolemy. By Robert R. Newton. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London. Pp. 411. Illustrated. Price £15.75.

London map‐sellers 1660–1720. A collection of advertisements for maps placed in the London Gazette 1668–1719 with biographical notes on the map‐sellers. By Sarah Tyacke. Tring, Hertfordshire, Map Collector Publications Limited, 1978. Pp. 160, illustrated. Price £12.

Heinrich Berghaus: der Kartograph von Potsdam. By Gerhard Enmglemann. Halle: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, 1977. 411p.: ill.; 24cm. Acta Historica Leopoldina; Nr 10.

Vývoj mapového zobrazení Slovenska [The development of mapping of Slovakia]. By Lubomír Viliam Prikryl. SAV Bratislava, 1977. Pp. 481, illustrated.

John Cary, Engraver, Map, Chart and Print‐Seller and Globe‐Maker 1714 to 1831. By Sir Herbert George Fordham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925. Reprinted by Wm. Dawsons &; Sons Ltd. 1976.     

Medieval Maps at Merton College,Oxford

Abstract

À la fin du XVIIIe siècle, dans le processus de fixation de la frontière linéaire entre le Royaume de France et les Pays‐Bas autrichiens, les cartes manuscrites thématiques des traités des limites jouent un rôle fondamental en tant qu'instruments de négociation. Ces cartes permettent de saisir visuellement la complexité des possessions territoriales et de comprendre les enjeux économiques et politiques des transactions pacifiques. Les cartes analysées, de concert avec les actes des traités, mettent clairement en évidence un aspect moins connu, mais fondamental des cartes des limites, à savoir leur rôle en tant qu'indicateurs des enjeux économiques, en présentant avec beaucoup de soin les grands axes de communication par route.     

Maps and Memory: Readings of Cartography in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Song China

ABSTRACT

This essay traces the early history of the genre of the empire map in China, examines twelfth-century steles and printed maps of the Chinese territories, and analyses contemporary viewings and readings of maps in this genre. It argues that such maps reached a much broader readership of literate elites over the course of the Song Dynasty (960–1279) and acquired new political significance as maps became powerful symbols in debates concerning the pros and cons of negotiated peace.     

An unknown “Pilot” by Hessel Gerritsz,dating from 1612

Abstract

Maps of Africa produced in the sixteenth century relied on Ptolemy for their representation of the unknown heart of the continent. However, another cartographic model, which challenged the classical authority in several respects, became available for the depiction of the African interior. This was the map attributed to Duarte Lopes (Odoardo Lopez) and published by Filippo Pigafetta in 1591. Since contemporary cartographers had no way of verifying which model presented the African interior most realistically, other facts must explain the pre‐eminence of one model over the other.     

Dr. Gottlieb Burckhardt the Pioneer of Psychosurgery

The first attempt at psychosurgeryintentional damage to the intact brain for the relief of mental illness–was undertaken in 1888 by the Swiss psychiatrist Gottlieb Burckhardt. Six chronic schizophrenic patients underwent localized cerebral cortical excisions. Most patients showed improvement and became easier to manage, although one died from the procedure and several had aphasia or seizures. Burckhardt, a learned neuropsychiatrist, presented his results in 1890 and in 1891 published his scientific rationale and detailed clinical outcome in a scholarly paper. Nevertheless his approach had shocked the medical community as reckless and irresponsible. Burckhardt was ridiculed, his academic endeavors ceased and his surgical endeavor largely ignored. Nevertheless he continued practice as a fine psychiatrist and mental hospital director. Burckhardts career and interesting ideas on higher cerebral functions are reviewed and placed in perspective regarding the development of “modern” psychosurgery almost one-half century later.