Scanning electron microscope study of normal vertebrae and ribs from early medieval human skeletons

A method is described for the preparation of vertebral body and rib sections of archaeological context, for scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The specimens included in the present paper are macroscopically normal and are male and female in juvenile and adult age brackets. The changing directionality of trabeculae and the changing ratio of trabecular bone to cancellous space are noted in relation to the age at death.     

The Lives and Afterlives of Vis and Rāmin

This article is a review of the afterlife, or Nachleben, of the romance Vis and Rāmin, one of the first representatives of its genre in New Persian literature. In addition to providing readers with an extensive bibliography of sources and research concerning the poem, it also analyzes these materials to put forward two basic arguments: one, that moral or religious antipathy to the poem’s contents may not have played as great a role in its fortunes as did aesthetic taste; and two, that V&R proved to be a more widely circulated and durable work than is commonly supposed, but on the level of fragments, not the entire text. In light of these arguments, it is proposed that studies structured around the comparison of fragments—themes, ideas, ethics, and motifs, rather than whole texts—may offer more purchase in constructing models of analysis that situate V&R, and Persian literature more broadly, within a literary oikumene in which it connects and interacts with neighboring traditions.     

Crimes against cultural heritage in Timbuktu

On 3 March 2016, Ahmad al‐Faqi al‐Mahdi sat in a courtroom at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and became the first person to be prosecuted for the destruction of cultural sites as a war crime. In this article, the author argues that it is no coincidence that the first case the ICC has brought to justice involves a UNESCO World Heritage site. She charts the history of the relationship between Mali and UNESCO and the history of Islam in Mali. Through taking a historical perspective, current events can be seen as part of an ongoing ‘conversation’ about the future of the country. The ICC trial also has wider ramifications for the anthropological study of material culture and cultural heritage as it resists a plural understanding of people’s entanglement with sites and objects and demands instead a return to certainty.     

An Archive of Difference: Syrian Women,the Peddling Economy and US Social Welfare, 1880–1935

Historians have scrutinised the racial classifications of Arab immigrants in the census, in immigration documents and in early‐twentieth‐century naturalisation cases. However, recent scholarship has shown that other archives – ones that do not focus on interactions with the law – reveal a different process of Arab‐American racialisation. This article contends that looking in other archival spaces, specifically the US social welfare archive, shows how ideas about gender, sexual and class difference constituted early Arab‐American racialisation. Social welfare reformers in institutional settings, including the International Institute of Boston, the National Conference of Social Work and the pages of the social work periodical The Survey, systematically linked Syrian labouring practices with notions of dependency, sexual and gender deviance, and Orientalist difference. Syrian women were racialised through their participation in the peddling economy – a network of peddlers, suppliers and domestic labourers that sustained a widespread profession of the early Syrian American community. Syrian women's labouring practices conflicted with white middle‐class femininity and posed a threat to Syrian claims of whiteness. This analysis demonstrates the centrality of gender, sexuality and class to studies of early Arab America and demonstrates how Arab migrant women's labouring practices affected their communities’ standing in the American context.     

Models as Evidence for Sewn‐boat Traditions

Models of traditional boats stitched together with thread or cane from different parts of the world are commonly found in museum collections. They are often highly detailed and assembled in a way that is characteristic of a particular region. Through the presentation of a range of sewn‐boat models, particularly focusing on those from Sri Lanka, this paper considers how representative models are of full‐size boats, and if they can tell us about boat types and construction techniques. It provides guidance on using and interpreting models and aims to promote the use of these objects to further understand sewn boats.