Protocol for lapis lazuli provenance determination: evidence for an Afghan origin of the stones used for ancient carved artefacts kept at the Egyptian Museum of Florence (Italy)

Despite that the Badakhshan Province (Afghanistan) remains the most plausible hypothesis for the lapis lazuli used in antiquity, alternatives proposed in literature are worth to study to confirm or disprove their historical reliability. In this work, a protocol for determining the provenance of lapis lazuli rocks used for carved artefacts is described. Markers for the univocal attribution of the raw material to a source were identified analysing 45 rocks of known provenance (among which 15 georeferenced) from 4 quarry districts. To the best of our knowledge, this reference database is the widest in provenance studies on lapis lazuli. All the markers are recognisable by means of Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) techniques, in particular micro-proton-induced x-ray emission (PIXE) and micro-ionoluminescence (IL). These techniques are non-invasive and applicable in air, allowing to analyse artworks and rocks of practically any shape and dimension without sample preparation.The protocol was applied to determine the provenance of raw material used for carved lapis lazuli artefacts kept at the Egyptian Museum of Florence, the second most important Egyptian museum in Italy, second only to the museum of Turin. The collection in Florence has a great historical value and includes several lapis lazuli pendants, scarabs, small statuettes and amulets ascribable mainly to the first millennium BC. Following the protocol, 11 of these artefacts were analysed by means of IBA techniques. Results ascribe the raw material to the Afghan quarry district.     

Corporations,Government and Development: The Case of Institutional Corruption in Tasmania

The proliferation of studies into corruption over the past decade has highlighted its widely differing manifestations and causes. This article applies the notion of institutional corruption to the case study of the Lennon government's approval of the Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania. A multidisciplinary framework is developed to explain why the approval process became embroiled in widespread allegations of commercial favouritism. It is argued that the institutional corruption involved in this process was an outcome of the interaction of the political economy of Tasmania, its political culture and the political psychology of Paul Lennon as leader. The implications of such a multidisciplinary approach for a study of corruption are discussed.     

Shopping with Karl: Commodity Fetishism and the Materiality of Marx’s London

Scholars have postulated that commodity fetishism represents Marx’s theory of capitalist materiality, but the content of that theory is contested. I offer an archaeology of Marx’s material world in order to understand the development of the concept. During his time in London, Marx wrote and published Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (1867), in which he outlined the concept of commodity fetishism. I demonstrate that he formed his analysis of commodity fetishism from daily practices including shopping, and consuming tobacco, in combination with his research at the British Museum. I take an experiential approach to archaeology that foregrounds Marx living in a world of objects, and posit a relationship between his experiences and his understanding of commodities. In so doing, I show how Marx’s “everyday life” shaped his concept of commodity fetishism, and how this concept could be useful to historical archaeologists.     

Pillars and electoral behavior in Belgium: The neighborhood effect revisited

This paper explores the processes behind the neighborhood effect in electoral geography. Studies on neighborhood effect have largely ignored the local institutions and cultural milieu within which people are socialized. By taking into account the spatially differentiated social embedding of individuals, we are able to highlight the impact of local institutions on electoral behavior and restore the temporal dimension that has shaped the political specificities of places. In the case of Belgium, we show that social embedding (which took the very accomplished form of pillars) affects voting behavior through two different channels: a direct effect, coming from the family transmission of pillar values, and a contextual effect captured by a measure of the local embeddedness of the pillar.     

“The true principles of government”: William Henry Harrison and the Whig counter-revolution

Beyond his military exploits on the frontier, William Henry Harrison is best remembered as the president who died a month after taking office. Discussions of his presidency frequently focus on the ephemeral, such as the fatal illness he contracted while delivering his inaugural address – the longest ever – in the bitter cold. The address itself, one of the most unusual state papers in U.S. history, has largely escaped the serious notice of historians, political scientists, and legal scholars. Harrison proposed nothing short of a constitutional revolution that would have reduced the chief executive to a mere figurehead. This paper explores the many peculiarities of Harrison's address, including the Whig theory of the presidency, a radical and overlooked innovation that aimed to fundamentally alter the role of the chief executive in the constitutional order. A close reading of Harrison's inaugural and brief tenure as president also reveals a number of factual errors and interpretative missteps made by leading scholars of the period.