The canopic jars of Rameses II: real use revealed by molecular study of organic residues

Four blue-glazed faience jars, on exhibition in the Louvre Museum, are referred to as the canopic jars of Rameses II. Their recent typological re-examination rendered this original assignment questionable. In order to clearly determine their use, a study of two successive organic residues from the canopic jars, using molecular biomarkers analysed by GC-MS and LC-MS and absolute dating by ¹⁴C, was initiated. The results revealed that these two materials were not contemporary to the reign of Rameses II. The first one, scraped from the interior face of one jar, was identified as an unguent made of coniferous oil and animal fat and dated from the Third Intermediate Period. The second one, originally stored with glued linen inside one jar, is likely an embalming substance, made of pure vegetable resin (Pistacia) and dated from the Ptolemaic Period. These results clarify a controversy which has been lasting over a century. The famous blue-glazed faience jars are not the canopic jars of Rameses II but are confirmed as situlae which were reused at least two times: first to store unguents during the Intermediate Period and later to store embalming packages of an unknown person during the Ptolemaic period.     

Gramsci and the African Città Futura: Urban Subaltern Politics From the Margins of Nouakchott,Mauritania

This article offers reflection on how Gramscian theories can be useful for critically analyzing the political significance of the actions and resistances of urban subaltern Africans. It interrogates the potential of subaltern political forms to profoundly transform society and to thus prepare for the African “future city”. It merges a theoretical analysis of Gramsci's concepts relating to the città futura—and its relation to concepts of city, subalternity, political initiative and cittadinanza—with a comparative critique of urban theory applied to Africa and especially relating to the politicization of the city in Mauritania. Our reflections are based on Mauritania and the case of Nouakchott, its capital, where we have carried out our research for over a decade. We will interrogate the re‐appropriations or resistances, as well as the autonomous construction of modes of living and of city‐making, made by marginal inhabitants, in order to consider their political potentialities.     

The 9th‐Century‐AD Belitung Wreck,Indonesia: analysis of a resin lump

The 9th‐century‐AD Belitung wreck was discovered in 1998 in the Java Sea. Construction techniques rapidly confirmed that it was unlike any known Chinese or Southeast Asian vessel. The uncertainty about its origins was resolved in 2008 by timber identifications: it was constructed in the Middle East (probably Oman or Yemen). This paper, on the characterization of a dammar resin lump collected in the vicinity of the wreck, supplies additional evidence confirming the probable re‐stitching of the vessel somewhere in Asia. © 2010 The Authors     

Le « modèle germanique » Français

The concept from Germany permits us to reveal, in keeping with a “misological” approach, the amplitude of the disagreements which presided over the definition of the concept of State in France. From the latter we approach diverse usages which illustrate models of State. The “germanic model” thus operates in a debate which is the crucible of modern political knowledge, with its paradoxes: those with reference to external soveignty to interstate order, to confederation. The article then exposes the relation between the theories of public law and the “continuity of assemblies”; in a certain manner, the foudation of political order. In fine, public law appears as the transfert of temporal power to the institution, to the collectivity, and its weakening as the reason of being of statism.     

Domestic and wild ungulate dietary traits at Kouphovouno (Sparta,Greece): implications for livestock management and paleoenvironment in the Neolithic

The objective for this study is to explore interspecific variations in domestic and wild ungulate diets and management at the Neolithic site of Kouphovouno (Sparta, southern Greece). We tested four hypotheses related to environmental context and livestock management using, for the first time, a combination of mesowear and microwear analyses on a Neolithic site. We identified interspecific differences between ungulate taxa, especially between wild and domestic ungulates, however there is no significant difference between Ovis and Capra. There is no diachronic change in diet from the Middle Neolithic to the Late Neolithic. Changes in animal utilization are not reflected in their diet. Whatever the purpose of the husbandry, animals had access to the same food resources. The study of dental wear patterns gave some insights regarding the management practices for the domestic livestock as well as paleoenvironment through the study of wild ungulates.     

Taxonomic characterisation of fresh Dipterocarpaceae resins by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS): providing clues for identification of unknown archaeological resins

Plant and particularly non-wood forest products have played an important role in the evolution of human cultures all over the world, as source of food but also of raw substances fulfilling material, spiritual, and medicinal requirements. Plant exudates and particularly dammar resins (Dipterocarpaceae family) were widely used in the past in Asia notably as waterproofing and caulking materials. This study focuses on the GC–MS chemical characterisation of freshly collected dammars and establishes new molecular parameters enabling discrimination between dammars and other types of plant resin, whatever their botanical origin. Such analyses provide clues for a precise identification (taxonomy, occurrence of other material in addition to the resin, alteration state) of unknown resinous material discovered in archaeological contexts. The value of our approach is illustrated by the taxonomic characterisation of two samples collected in jars from the Brunei wreck and a Chinese junk lost more than 40 km off the Sultanate of Brunei during the end of the fifteenth century or the early beginning of the sixteenth century.     

We have tailored Africa: French colonialism and the ‘artificiality’ of Africa’s borders in the interwar period

After the First World War, the discourse and methods used to determine and define boundaries changed radically. In Europe, the territorial agreements of 1919-20 put forward an ideal of territorial homogeneity, a concept based on the ideal correspondence of state, nation and territory. Meanwhile, in Africa, the French colonizers were also reconsidering their spatial arrangements along the same lines. In this context, the expertise of the social sciences became crucial in defining territory and therefore in political decision-making. At the same time, prominent representatives of the new colonial sciences were responsible for developing and disseminating the idea of the 'artificiality' of African boundaries. This new generation of experts on French colonization considered the borders of Africa to be scars left behind by the old and arbitrary colonial order, which they wished to see replaced by a more humanistic rule. Their discourses, however, offered a vision of Africa based on the continent's exceptional character. In essence, Africa was considered as a continent defined principally along ethnic territorial lines, a logic excluding any political definition of territory. This discourse contributed to redefining the continent as something radically other.     

La vertu des images. Analogie, proportion et métaphore dans la genèse des sciences sociales au XVIIIe siècle

Moral newtonianism, in fashion by the middle of the XVIII^th century, is not only a metaphor. Based on the oneness of nature, it assumes a law of society equivalent to the law of distance innewtonian physics, perhaps offering the possibility of measurement. This method of inductive analogy (A/B=C/D) underlies Jean-Jacques Rousseau'sSocial contract: Rousseau uses classical metaphors of clockwork, modeling his notion of government on a watch and including mathematical proportions used by clockmakers to design the parts. Similarly, in hisTheory of moral sentiments, Adam Smith uses the old metaphor of the eye of the mind, modeling his social system on the recent notions of perspective: two persons, when they meet, will regulate their passions — of any type except interest — according to an imaginary distance between them, which varies according to the nature of the passion and its level. It is essential to restore these translations and the subsequent debates in order to understand the implications for sociology throughout the XIX^th century.