Evidence for local,regional and interregional exchange networks on Failaka: Some remarks on late Islamic pottery from Kharaib al-Dasht

The site of Kharaib al-Dasht, located on the northern coast of Failaka, is a late Islamic settlement with an extensive fishing infrastructure. It has been excavated since 2013 by the Kuwaiti-Polish Archaeological Mission. The ceramic assemblage collected so far exceeds 18,000 fragments. The sherds underwent technological and typological analyses, which demonstrated a wide diversity of local common kitchen wares, consistent with the needs of households specialised in fishing. A considerable percentage of imported vessels was brought to Failaka from the Arabian Gulf and Persia, though Far Eastern luxury tableware was also attested. This paper demonstrates the socioeconomic role of Kharaib al-Dasht in the context of trade exchange on the microregional (Kuwait) and macroregional (the Gulf, South and Eastern Asia) scales in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.     

Tracing the origin of Chinese early white porcelain in the late sixth century—evidence from Xing kiln

As the criterion used by archaeologists for determining early white porcelain is quite ambiguous, the origin of Chinese white porcelain remains a point of disagreement. In this study, we systematically investigate 61 typical Xing porcelains of the late Northern dynasties to the early Sui dynasty (550–600 CE) using spectrophotometer, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), and analyze the differences between early white porcelain and celadon of Xing kiln in terms of their whiteness and raw materials characteristic. The results show that early white porcelain is a new type of ware that differs from celadon, which can be distinguished by whiteness, with a whiteness greater than 8% being early white porcelain and a whiteness less than 8% being celadon. It is assumed that the ancient potters created the whiter wares based on celadon by improving the glaze and selecting new raw materials for the body, but the production of this type of ware was short lived and subsequently refined in the Sui dynasty (581–618 CE) owing to the limited improvement in whiteness.     

The Common Good,Pluralism and the Small Church

Abstract

This paper discusses the understanding of “Common Good” that has been used by the Church of England, especially over the last five years. It suggests that its implicit universalism and identification of Christian morality with the ethical norms for the nation is premised on an understanding of the role of the Church which is no longer realistic. After a brief discussion of the latest statistics for church attendance and a comparison with other national churches in Northern Europe, I suggest that the Church of England is a “small church” and even that Christians constitute a religious minority. This means that the pursuit of the “Common Good” as defined by the church may simply be a piece of nostalgic longing for the time of the “big church.” The recent exclusions for the churches on same-sex marriage legislation indicate that the gap between most of the churches and the wider society. Rather than defining the common good, I suggest that in a pluralist society the churches which recognize their limited role will need to build alliances and common causes with other groups, both religious and secular.     

Pursuing Urban Commons: Politics and Alliances in Community Land Trust Activism in East London

Community land trust (CLT) practices contribute to analyses of the commons in both conceptual and on‐the‐ground ways. As collective action organizations, CLTs emphasize common land stewardship and resist traditional land speculation and development practices through the mitigation or halting of land value inflation. This paper traces the activist efforts of the East London CLT organization, one of Britain's first urban CLTs, in securing common land in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets, and examines their navigation of political decisions and creation of alliances. Although this process has been challenging as a result of neoliberal governance and private development interests, the East London CLT's trajectory demonstrates the frustrations of activism within these contexts but also the small successes in the pursuit and establishment of urban commons.     

NMR as a new tool for cultural heritage application: The provenance of ancient white marbles

Identifying the origin of marble used in antiquity brings back to light details of the economic, social and political organization of classical societies, and characterizing in depth the chemistry of marble is key to discovering its provenance. Beyond X‐ray diffraction, which could reveal the presence of discriminant secondary crystalline phases and the quantification of accessory minerals combined with a multivariate analysis approach, solid‐state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) enables one to recognize the local structure arrangement of both crystalline and amorphous materials by looking at one or more selected atoms. In present paper targets the ¹³C nuclide, and thus the major component of marble, calcium carbonate. Whatever their geological origin, marbles ¹³C‐NMR spectra present only one resonance corresponding to the carboxyl function whose intensity and line width vary from one marble to another. If the variation of the NMR signal intensity observed is the result of great T1 variations (from 220 to 5300 s) and is linked to iron content, the line width reflects defects in the calcite crystal in which calcium has been replaced by another element such as magnesium, aluminium or strontium. The specific profile of the NMR signal has been used successfully to help determine the origin of some archaeological items.     

The Finishing Technique of the Stone Monuments of Persepolis: Further Studies and New Findings Through the Use of Non‐Destructive Analytical Techniques

The studies on the finishing technique of the stone monuments in Persepolis (Iran) are part of the archaeological project jointly launched in 2008 by Iran and Italy, named ‘From Palace to Town’. The first experimental results, obtained on a very limited number of samples, revealed that the Achaemenid builders and sculptors used a white pigment, a kind of bone white, calcium fluorapatite, obtained by burning animal bones, to hide the dark grey colour of the stone. In order to verify these unexpected results, a new campaign was implemented to analyse a much larger number of samples. XRF spectrometry, a non‐destructive technique, was used and the experimental results were further elaborated by PCA. The presence of a white superficial layer was confirmed, and the use of fluorapatite was confirmed as well, but only on monuments attributed to the Xerxes period or later, while in the earlier monuments the white layer was obtained using gypsum.     

‘The white woman's burden’ – the racialized,gendered politics of volunteer tourism

Talking about race in volunteer tourism is like breaking a taboo. By critically exploring the racialized and gendered politics of volunteer tourism from the perspective of the ‘white savior complex,’ we seek to open new avenues of discussion to break this silence. We employ a postcolonial feminist theoretical framework to analyze volunteer tourism. The meanings, practices, and policies of volunteer tourism development are informed by the racialized, gendered logics of colonial thought. If older colonial logics were predominantly masculinist, it considers the largely (white) women participants in contemporary volunteer tourism as a window onto current transformations in historic racialized and gendered logics. Colonial logics and discourses have shifted over time, from the erstwhile ‘civilizing mission’ to the subsequent mandate for development to contemporary depoliticized social causes such as ‘saving the environment.’ Volunteer tourism is an exemplar of this third discourse, as global North volunteer tourists, through their depoliticized logic of ‘saving’ and ‘helping’ the less fortunate others in the global South, inherits such distinctions and reproduces them further. Given the predominance of young white women in contemporary volunteer tourism, beyond these continuities, we also point to compelling shifts in this logic from the masculinism of historic colonial processes. We also highlight the religious dimension, how Christian ideologies which were so central to formal colonial processes continue to play an important role in volunteer tourism today. Future studies on volunteer tourism need to examine its emergence, growth, and popularity (with young white women in particular) from the perspective of historic and ongoing power relations having to do with race and racialized gender, which will enable a critical conversation on volunteer tourism that adds significantly to our knowledge of contemporary neo-colonial processes and their gendered dynamics.     

Balancing and Limiting Episcopal Power: Bishop Thomas Barlow’s Use of Common Law in Disputes with Arminian Anglican Clerics

Thomas Barlow was a Reformed theologian simultaneously fighting on three fronts against Catholic, Dissenting Protestant and Arminian Anglican opponents. The first two of these groups threatened the Church of England from the outside, while the last group was transforming Anglican doctrine through its domination of the most important posts in the episcopal hierarchy. Barlow could not argue directly against the power of bishops without assisting the external opponents, yet he had to find a way to prevent other bishops from interfering in his continued support for Reformed theology. In order to reduce their power within the Church of England, Barlow had to look outside the institution for ways to limit his superior’s power. This essay examines two arguments in which Barlow ventured into polemics about the secular law of England in an effort to maintain limits on his Anglican opponents’ exercise of power.     

唐代越窑青瓷刻划花之相关诸问题

本文探讨了有关唐代越窑青瓷刻划花的若干问题。作者以有明确纪年的唐代越窑刻划花青瓷以及相关的同一时期的有代表性的墓葬、窑址、遗址、沉船中发现的越窑刻划花青瓷为依据,总结了唐代此类瓷器工艺的演变规律和技法特征,分析了其与金银器的关系问题,并推测出此类瓷属于对外贸易的外销产品。     

乾隆初年政府职能扩展的几个例证

世界历史在18世纪出现了罕见的“共时现象”,其中最明显的就是政府职能的扩展。但在中国,相比之下这段历史却不太为人注意。本文力图展示乾隆初年清代政府在劝农、兴修水利和开矿几个方面的所作所为。如果说,在18 世纪的西欧,政府职能扩展已属于一种“现代现象”,那么我们又应如何看待中国的这段历史?