Non-destructive provenance study of cuneiform tablets using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF)

Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) apparatus of the last generation was tested to determine its potential for routine provenance determination of clay cuneiform tablets, which cannot be analyzed by “classical” intrusive methods. A group of tablets from Hattuša (Bo?azköy) and from el Amarna, which were previously provenanced using optical mineralogy (OM) and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), was analyzed by pXRF and the results were used to establish the grouping according to their elemental concentrations. These groups were compared with the previous results retrieved by OM and INAA in order to confirm their validity. The results corroborate the high potential of the pXRF for non-destructive study of well-defined, ‘closed’ assemblages of clay-derived, delicate artifacts, such as cuneiform tablets, bullae, and fine-ware pottery. Consequently, a group of previously unexamined tablets from Hattuša was analyzed by pXRF and the results are discussed with implications on future research.     

A Sympathetic Appraisal of Cold War Modernization Theory

The apparent failure of recent US nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has re-awakened interest in earlier American efforts at nation-building and the scholarly literature that provided the intellectual framework and justification for those efforts. In the aftermath of the Second World War, a generation of scholars, shaped by their wartime experience, contributed to that literature under the general label of modernization theory. Modernization theory was promulgated under the auspices of three major institutions: Harvard's Department of Social Relations, the Social Science Research Council's Committee on Comparative Politics and MIT's Center for International Studies. All three institutions provided homes for scholars conducting multidisciplinary research on conditions in the ‘new states’ – that is the former colonial countries. Drawing on the work of key scholars that contributed to modernization theory, this article offers a more sympathetic analysis than is typical of many contemporary assessments of the theory. In order to provide that sympathetic appraisal, the widest perspective on the various approaches to modernization theory is required so that the scholars whose work are highlighted include: Gabriel Almond, Lucian Pye, Karl W. Deutsch, Daniel Lerner, Alex Inkeles and Walt Rostow.