Adaptive strategies or ideological innovations? Interpreting sociopolitical developments in the Jequetepeque Valley of Peru during the Late Moche Period

Environmental perturbations and social unrest are thought to have led to the reconstitution of traditional belief systems and hierarchical political relations on Peru’s North Coast during the Late Moche Period (550–800 AD). Ideological transformations are thus commonly interpreted as adaptive or reactive responses to social, political, and ecological disruptions. Nevertheless, religious practices directly shaped the formation of alternative power structures and ecological systems on the North Coast during the Late Moche Period. This is especially evident in Late Moche Jequetepeque, which witnessed the proliferation of non-elite ceremonial sites and small-scale agricultural facilities throughout the rural hinterland of the valley. Moche-inspired ritual performances orchestrated in the countryside created distinctive new forms of political order which structured economic activities and ecological behavior. In this article, the Jequetepeque case study is mobilized to reassess normative interpretations of the role of religious ideology in cultural adaptation and sociopolitical realignment.     

仪式与艺术的关系

仪式是人类学的一个重要范畴,也是人类精神生活中一种重要的活动,它具有象征特性、符号特性和场域特性,作为人类一套独特的话语,仪式是人类解决现实矛盾的一种超现实手段,仪式的这些特性与艺术有着惊人的相似之处。     

盛世才治新时期新疆农村基层政权建设体系中的中共特色

盛世才治新时期,新疆局势渐趋稳定后,他效仿中共基层民主建政做法,使新疆基层政权革新初步凸显中共政治民主化色彩。在县级政权,盛世才效仿中共民主集中制原则,设置县政务委员会,民主议决与执行;在县级以下政权建设中推行区村制、民主选举区村长、实施村代表会制。通过借鉴中共基层民主建政经验,盛世才不仅首次健全了新疆基层政权体系,而且率先引入了中共政治民主化的措施,这也在一定程度上推动了当时新疆各项事业的发展。     

二里头文化陶礼器造型艺术研究

二里头文化陶礼器的造型艺术表现为简洁质朴的艺术风格,这与夏代礼制文化中"尚质"的审美倾向十分吻合。陶礼器的造型艺术由黄金比例、纹饰和仿生三种设计方法以体现陶器造型和装饰的简洁与抽象性,而三至四期动物造型装饰的增多则为商代青铜礼器的艺术形式奠定了基础。酒器和食器的器物造型构成了礼仪中行为与时间的观念,以及动与静的礼仪活动的日常行为规范。而高等级墓葬中的稀有陶器斗笠形器,其造型与古人对天的描述相同,它不仅代表了所葬之人的身份与职能,还是上层社会对天祭祀权力的象征。     

《桯史》“稼轩论词”条评议

宋岳珂《桯史》卷三有“稼轩论词”一条,为研究稼轩词的学者所经常征引,然亦有学者认为此条记事全不可信。本文先从动机与效果入手论证岳珂不会凭空杜撰,继而从文献与词作章法出发,论证岳珂所言真实可信,其对稼轩词的批评亦十分准确到位。这条笔记是很有价值的。     

Animate Objects: Shell Trumpets and Ritual Networks in the Greater Southwest

For over a millennium, shell trumpets have been an important part of Southwestern US ritual practice. We investigate the distribution of Southwestern shell trumpets, arguing that they are objects that are accorded animacy and can be used to track the history of different social networks. Using ethnohistoric and ethnographic documentation, at least two traditions of historically linked ritual practices are identified: one associated with serpent iconography and the other with curing, warfare, and sorcery. These two traditions represent enduring dispositions that link various regions of the Southwest through the introduction and adoption of ritual practices associated with migration and the transformation of late prehistoric societies.     

The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars,Pechenegs and Byzantium

The article seeks to explain the connection between the migration of the Magyars and Pechenegs in central and south-east Europe, in the late ninth and early tenth century, and the conflict between Byzantium and Bulgaria during the same period. Through reference to anthropologists discussing the relations between nomadic and sedentary societies (Khazanov, Barfield), and historians studying medieval rituals (Buc, Althoff, Koziol), the article interprets the aggressive policy of the Bulgarian tsar Symeon as a consistent effort to displace Byzantium as major partner of the nomadic polities in the area. By subverting the principles of Byzantine diplomacy and political culture, Symeon turned his own kingdom into a society-structuring factor in the nomadic world. The article evaluates the very meaning of imperial claims not so much in legal terms, as an effort to guarantee Bulgaria’s sovereignty in a Byzantium-centred world, but in the real-time capacity of a ruler to make use of imperial symbols and act upon the dynamically changing conjuncture.     

Hosting the king: hospitality and the royal iter in tenth-century England

Traditional studies of royal itinerancy have depended on locating the king’s progress through his kingdom(s) as precisely as possible and it should therefore not surprise that the iter regis in pre-conquest England has received relatively little attention, since Anglo-Saxon diplomas only rarely record their date and place of issue, making the establishment of the royal itinerary all but impossible. However, more recent studies, particularly by German scholars, have moved away from the earlier attention to the concrete details of the royal iter and focus more on the effects of itinerancy as a method of rulership, viewing itinerancy as a central part of royal ritual. This study argues that if we investigate itinerancy in tenth-century England from this standpoint, we can throw new light onto the subject. Contemporary sources reveal that in England as in France and Germany the iter regis was of great importance, with symbolic acts of feasting and gift-giving accompanying royal visits. The attention given to these ritualised acts in contemporary sources suggests, moreover, that Anglo-Saxon kingship possessed an important ‘charismatic’ quality, which deserves further investigation.     

唐顺宗被杀说考辨

唐顺宗被杀之说由来已久,它所依据的史料主要有三条：1．《辛公平上仙》;2．《武陵书怀五十韵》;3．当时宫廷斗争残酷及李氏父子关系不融洽。经考辨,《辛公平上仙》非王叔文集团的李谅所撰,其主旨也不是影射,而是箴戒;《武陵书怀五十韵》所引项籍杀义帝之史实,不是影射顺宗被杀,而是隐喻宪宗杀害王叔文;当时宫廷斗争主要在太子集团与王叔文集团之间进行,且顺宗始终是站在太子一边,应天顺人,宪宗对顺宗也是爱敬双奉、忠孝两全的。由此可见,唐顺宗被杀说的三条证据是站不住脚的,此说难以成立。     

The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars,Pechenegs and Byzantium

The article seeks to explain the connection between the migration of the Magyars and Pechenegs in central and south-east Europe, in the late ninth and early tenth century, and the conflict between Byzantium and Bulgaria during the same period. Through reference to anthropologists discussing the relations between nomadic and sedentary societies (Khazanov, Barfield), and historians studying medieval rituals (Buc, Althoff, Koziol), the article interprets the aggressive policy of the Bulgarian tsar Symeon as a consistent effort to displace Byzantium as major partner of the nomadic polities in the area. By subverting the principles of Byzantine diplomacy and political culture, Symeon turned his own kingdom into a society-structuring factor in the nomadic world. The article evaluates the very meaning of imperial claims not so much in legal terms, as an effort to guarantee Bulgaria’s sovereignty in a Byzantium-centred world, but in the real-time capacity of a ruler to make use of imperial symbols and act upon the dynamically changing conjuncture.