MY VIEWS ON THE FIRST CHINA TIBETAN CULTURE FORUM

From October 10th to 19th in 2006,the First China Tibetan Culture Forum was held at Beijing and then at Lhasa. Over one hundred of scholars,experts,intellectuals,and board members of the China Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture attended to forum. Participants were from Mainland China,Hong Kong,Taiwan,and twelve other countries.     

ACCESSING PAST BELIEFS AND PRACTICES: THE CASE OF LEMNIAN EARTH*

Lemnian Earth, a medicine in the shape of a stamped clay tablet (sphragis) from Lemnos, northeastern Greece, was much valued in antiquity and in the post‐medieval period as an antidote to poison and a treatment for other ailments. Although it was among the first archaeological materials to be subjected to chemical analysis (in 1807), there is still no clear understanding as to what made Lemnian Earth an effective medicine. We argue that Lemnian Earth, the artefact, was not the same as Lemnian Earth, the raw material. We suggest a composition for the artefact by scrutinizing the documentary evidence for its properties and by considering the geochemical processes that led to the formation of the raw material and the ritual relating to its extraction. The study of the latter highlights the need for archaeological materials scientists to recognize ritual as a possible manifestation of physical and chemical processes carried out within the framework of past beliefs and practices.     

CARE FOR QINGHAI-TIBET RAILWAY BUILDERS

The Golmud-Lhasa section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, extending 1,118 km and lying at an average elevation of some 3,000 meters above sea level, includes a 965 km section at 4,000 meters and a 140 km part at 5,000 meters. The highest railway bed, found in the Tanggula Mountain Pass, is 5,072 meters above sea level. The oxygen content in the air is 38-46 percent less than in the plains. Scarcity of oxygen and low atmospheric pressure affects human health and working ability, causing low wor…     

THE BLACK INLAY DECORATION ON A MYCENAEAN BRONZE DAGGER*

The black inlay decoration with superb marine, hunting and other scenes on Mycenaean bronze daggers and silver cups has often been referred to in the literature as niello—a mixture of sulphides of copper, silver or lead—despite the absence of any systematic analysis of these precious metal artefacts. This paper presents semi-quantitative surface analyses of an example of black inlay on a Mycenaean dagger, now in the Archaeological Museum at Patras in Greece. Using non-destructive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, it has been established that, contrary to the traditionally-held view, the black inlay is a copper-gold alloy with some silver and possibly small amounts of tin.     

Stones Which Are Mysterious in Tibetan Areas

In the eyes of people o Tibetan ethnic group, rocks th found everywhere in the platea holy and should be worshipe a result, on the mountain top mountain passes where Tib often come and go. accumu stones on which multicolor streamers are hung are everywhere. The Tibetans say are the mansions of mountain Passing monks or lay peop make a clockwise rotation o stone heap, adding stones to i muttering the Six-Syllable P for eliminating personal misfo and getting rid of disease, subduing the monste…