A reexamination of the reasons for the closure of the Dunhuang Library Cave

Abstract

Cave 17 or the cave library is located on the northern wall in the hallway of Cave 16 in Mogao Caves, Dunhuang. The murals on the cover layer of Cave 16 are closely connected with the reason why the cave library was sealed. The transformation tableaux of the thousand Buddhas on the cover layer of Cave 16 seems to reflect the thought of the Final Dharma, which could be dated in the late Guiyijun period when Dunhuang was ruled by the Cao family. In 1052, the trend of the Final-Dharma thought flourished in the Liao Dynasty. With the frequent communications between the Guiyijun regime and the Liao, this trend came to Dunhuang and merged with the original thought of the Final Dharma in this region, which tremendously impacted the Buddhist community in Dunhuang. So the local Buddhist community made the transformation tableaux on the mural of Cave 16 and also transformed Cave 17 for storing Buddhist texts as a response to the coming Final Dharma. These activities seem to have led to the eventual sealing of Cave 17.     

3. EVOCATION, ANALYSIS, AND THE "CRISIS OF LIBERALISM"

In The Years of Extermination , the second volume of Nazi Germany and the Jews , Saul Friedländer attempts to write an "integrated" history of the Holocaust that captures the "convergence" of German decisions and policies, the reaction of the surrounding world, and the perceptions and experiences of the Jews. Although several historiographical issues are studied in detail (the role of Hitler, the evolution of Nazi anti-Jewish policy, and the role of the Christian churches), the most innovative aspect of the book is its extensive use of excerpts from over forty diaries of Jewish victims, which are interspersed among the statements of Nazi leaders and officials, Wehrmacht soldiers, churchmen, and various collaborators and bystanders in order to juxtapose "entirely different levels of reality." What ultimately holds the book together, despite its intentionally disrupted narrative and Friedländer's disclaimer that the history of the Holocaust can be encompassed within any "single conceptual framework," is the overarching theme of the "crisis of liberalism."     

我国古代女主临朝的特征及原因探析

“在中国封建社会,曾多次出现过女主临朝,女主临朝具有重用外戚、手段残酷、宠幸宦臣的特征;而女主临朝的原因大概有皇帝体弱多病、昏庸荒淫,嗣君年幼、不能亲政,后妃本人具有政治才能等。     

Human corpse manipulation and the body as symbol: A case study from the Eastern Pampa–Patagonia transition (Argentina) during the Final Late Holocene

Human body manipulation and secondary burials are widespread funerary practices in many areas of the world. The archaeology of the Pampas and North-Eastern Patagonia, Argentina, is no exception. In this paper, archaeological case studies from the lower basin of the Colorado River during the Final Late Holocene (ca. 1000–250 years BP) are presented and discussed. Secondary burials were recovered that indicated an intentional manipulation of bodies. Evidences of cut marks and the coloring of bone surfaces were recorded. The bundles were composed of individuals of both sexes and diverse age categories. The Pampean region and North-Eastern Patagonia witnessed significant hunter–gatherer population dynamics during the last 1000 years BP. Climatic, ecologic, demographic, and economic explanations have been proposed as the background to these changes. In this paper, it is argued that accompanying these factors, as part of a broader socio-cultural scenario, were significant social interaction networks and processes of social complementarity between groups. In this context, it is proposed that the complexity observed in relation to the handling of bodies is part of a worldview in which the body was seen as material culture – as a symbol – that played an important role for the community in group identity maintenance in a cultural context undergoing significant organizational changes.     

Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic Research in Reunified Germany

During the past decade research into the German Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic has experienced an important revival. One clear sign of this renewed interest in the periods are the annual meetings of the Arbeitsgruppe Mesolithikum (Mesolithic Working Group) which have taken place every spring since 1992. At these meetings, which take place at changing venues, topical themes of Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic interest are presented by informal lectures and it is also possible to study regional collections (artifacts, raw materials) at first hand. Numerous contributions were subsequently published together in one volume (Conard and Kind (1998) Aktuelle Forschungen zum Mesolithikum/Current Mesolithic Research, Mo Vince, Tübingen). The present paper intends to complement that collection of papers with a synthesis of developments and perspectives and to present recent research highlights in the German Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic, together with a comprehensive bibliography, to a wider international audience.     

A new ornamented artefact from Poland: final palaeolithic symbolism from an environmental perspective

An ornamented artefact made of antler, found in the environs of ?widwin (Pomerania, NW Poland), was subject to structural and environmental analysis. Radiocarbon dating (10?700 ± 60 BP or 10?910–10?680 cal. BC) places it in the Final Palaeolithic, at the end of Weichselian (boundary of the Allerød and Younger Dryas). The surface of the artefact bears a complex ornament of zigzag lines and an anthropomorphic drawing, representing most probably a woman with spread legs. Palynological analysis of the deposit in which the object was found indicates forest communities (pine-birch forests) with some open areas, in a cool climate. Ultrastructural examination points to the elk Alces alces (Linnaeus, 1758) as the source species; the antler was at the stage of intense growth which indicates that the elk was killed or died in the spring-summer period. The antler was large, and the object made of it was used for a long time, playing a role in rituals and symbolic culture of a hunting group. The ornamentation shows an affinity to the early Mesolithic art and makes it possible to better trace the relations between the hunters of the late Pleistocene and those of the early Holocene.     

The philosopher,the ordinary believer,and their piety: Spinoza’s philosophical religion

This paper explores the nature and working of Spinoza’s philosophical religion. In doing so, it critically engages with Carlos Fraenkel’s study of the tradition of philosophical religions and Spinoza’s place in it. Spinoza can be said to be part of this tradition because the relation of his philosophical conception of God to the conceptions of God of some popular religions (especially Christianity) can be construed as that of the universal versus the particular, in which the particular expresses something of the universal, in an inadequate yet more readily accessible way. The account of Spinoza’s philosophical religion provided is kindred to Fraenkel’s, but it also explicitly discusses a crucial issue which Fraenkel only sparingly addresses, viz. the question how we must envisage the transition from a confused, imaginary to a more rational conception of God. A related issue the paper addresses concerns the question whether – and, if so, how – the dogmas of the universal faith can be reinterpreted philosophically. These discussions underpin a critical assessment of Fraenkel’s claim that Spinoza’s philosophical religion project is, ultimately, flawed.     

THE CONTEST OVER CONTEXT IN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

Recent articles critical of the use of context in contextual intellectual history have identified contextual method with the post‐1960s work of the “Cambridge School,” which is regarded as being grounded in a flawed theory of textual interpretation. Focusing on German cultural and political history, this article shows that a contextual historiography was already fully developed in seventeenth‐century ecclesiastical history, and a parallel version of this approach had developed in the field of constitutional history. The modern critique of context emerged only with the appearance of dialectical philosophical history in the first decades of the nineteenth century. The article argues that rather than representing a scholarly engagement with contextual historiography, the central plank of the dialectical critique of contextualism—the notion that contextual explication of thought is insufficient because context itself has transcendental conditions—is actually a cultural‐political attack on it launched on behalf of a hostile and incommensurable academic culture.