Ancient Terminology Research Articles

Leftover peaches: Female homoeroticism during the Western Han dynasty1

Female homoeroticism in early imperial China has received minimal scholarly attention. This article purposes to investigate lesbianism in the Western Han dynasty, taking into consideration both the literary and archaeological material. I first offer a succinct rundown of the ancient terminology of male homosexuality, principally in an effort to underline the classical Chinese language’s absence of a precise vocabulary to describe lesbian attachments. Next, I turn to the transmitted textual sources, analysing the two extant records of love between women in order to gauge something of the nature and permissibility of female homoerotic relationships. The final section of this essay is dedicated to mortuary objects, namely the moulded bronze phalli and other sexual training tools disentombed from Western Han gravesites. When properly contextualised, the excavated dildos can be interpreted as having been used by concubines, both within same-sex partnerships and in the course of pornographic displays staged for their master’s enjoyment.

Initial investigations of rubricated inscriptions from Roman Sicily: Comparing the material evidence with ancient writers’ ideals

Although the polychromy of ancient statuary has become a regular topic in archaeological discussions, in part thanks to archaeometrical analyses, little attention has been given to such aspects in the field of epigraphy. The aim of this paper is to identify analytically the red pigments employed in inscriptions from southeastern Sicily in the Roman period (1st-6th c. CE), and to investigate the relationship between actual material practice and ancient terminology. Minimally invasive identification of cinnabar (mercuric sulphide) on some funerary and honorific inscriptions aligns with Pliny’s statement on the use of “minium”. However, other less expensive lead-containing pigments were detected, suggesting that different materials were used in different contexts and according to various practices. It appears from this preliminary study that choices of ancient red pigments can provide additional information for understanding epigraphic cultures.

Characteristics of the development of ancient terminology, purification as a model, a comparative study

The study aims to answer the question of the following problems: What is thesaurus? What is cleansing? What are the characteristics of the development of the term? How the Aristotelian meaning of purification was embodied in the recipient compared to the time periods? After determining the importance of the study and its necessity the study aims at coprehending the fixed conceptions and its varieties. Also, it finds out the depth of the modern lexical conceptions. Also, it suggests a new conception for the critical lexicon as it follows (the descriptive analytical(, the researcher defined some terms such as (language and rhetoric), at the level of the first chapter of the study. In the second chapter, the researcher dealt with the development of the lexical meaning of the lexicology. As for the third chapter, the two researchers studied the term purification historically and determined its meaning in the classical era, and heis studied its meaning in the modern era and the post-modern era. The researcher came to several results, including: 1- Purification is basically a list of mental meanings that includes all the ways the text has to clarify the reception in the expository text. 2- Reason and justice occupy the position that works to arouse the emotions of purification. Other results were left in the body of the study, then the researcher ended up the research with a list of references.

Surgical suture needles.

Have a needle thre cornered…and the lippis of the wound schal be sowid togideris Lanfranc of Milan (1250−1315) The original date of the first needle-and-thread insertion for wound closure is uncertain. Ancient terminology referred to the sutura cruenta, or the ‘bloody’ or ‘true’ suture. Organic needles preceded those made of metal. Bronze needles for stitching bandages into position were employed by the Romans and the Sushruta Indian texts of 800 Bc are said to have described iron triangular and pointed needles. Creating an eye in needles made of any early organic or inorganic material always proved challenging and some proximal needle ends had notches, spring, or slot eyes rather than the usual complete standard excavated eyes (Fig. 1) Onwards of the sixteenth century, the eye for threading sutures was sometimes placed near to the point of a (broader) needle, mounted on a handle. As the point pierced the pedicle, the thread was carried through and was then slid out of the eye, to be tied.

Written on the Lungs: The Neo-Assyrian Lung Model Rm 620 and Ancient Mesopotamian Lung Divination

Several sources prove that sheep lungs played an important role in Ancient Mesopotamian extispicy practice. Nevertheless, they have received comparatively little attention in Assyriology. The terminology used by ancient diviners to describe the various parts of the divinatory lung represents an especially neglected area of research. This article represents a new attempt at resolving some of the problems created by the ancient terminology. It demonstrates how different types of sources associated with the divinatory inspection of the lungs give us clues to identify many previously unidentified parts of the divinatory lung. In particular, the article offers a new edition of the Neo-Assyrian lung model Rm 620 and discusses the identification of two, so far elusive, parts of the divinatory lung, imēr ḫašî “the Saw-horse of the lung,” and muštašnintu “the Leveller.”

An investigation of the pharmacological applications used for the Ancient Egyptian systemic model ‘ra-ib’ compared with modern Traditional Chinese Medicine

Ethnopharmacological relevanceAncient Egyptian texts only offer glimpses into their conceptual understandings of the inner-body and illness manifestation. Explanations of how prescribed materia medica were believed to work are rare and obscure, often resulting in modern approximations for ancient terminology such as ‘ra-ib’—an ancient Egyptian classification predominantly translated as ‘stomach’—leading to misunderstandings of historical texts, and therefore their use of pharmacology. Aim of the studyTo investigate the ra-ib and the explanatory models of illness from the Egyptian perspective, and to explore the link between these and the prescribed selection of materia medica. To then compare the conceptual mechanics of these treatment strategies with those of another non-Western tradition—namely Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)—to provide further insight into potential conceptual frameworks. Materials and methodsWe conducted a case study of a unit of Ancient Egyptian texts focusing on the ra-ib. Totalling 34 prescriptions, the first stage lexicographically analysed the texts using cognitive linguistic and translation theories to produce our new understanding. This enabled our comparison of the mechanics of materia medica usage within these texts with those found in TCM outlined by the Pharmacopoeia of the Peoples Republic of Pharmacopeia of the People's Republic of China 2015 for the relevant ingredients. Resultsthe study demonstrated that—rather than denoting the organ ‘stomach’–ra-ib instead constitutes a system running from the mouth, downward to the anus. This is best translated as ‘inner thoroughfare’, and changes the way in which we attempt to understand potential motivations in the selection of ingredients. By exploring common themes in the use of eleven securely translated ingredients from the Egyptian corpus and the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China—representing a modern traditional system which understands the body via a series of interconnected systems—we were able to highlight certain themes which might be ‘universal’ to system-based traditions; this provided new insights into the Egyptian motivations for treatment selection. ConclusionsHaving gained the ancient view of the body and illness, cultural comparisons are important for providing further potential insights and clarifications of a discontinued historical healing tradition. The new understanding of the ra-ib from our study greatly changes the way in which we understand the dynamics of Egyptian ethnopharmacological source material from this period.

Turns of the centuries. The Transkribus automated tool for recognition, transcription and translation of handwritten historical documents

Abstract The translation of handwritten historical documents faces many challenges due to variation in the writing style, local language, and an inevitable language change. Even the transliteration from Cyrillic to Latin characters is standardized by the bijective transliteration standard ISO 9. This presentation introduces a number of tools offered by Transkribus for the automated processing of documents, such as Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) and Document Understanding, which are needed for the translation of historical documents. Next to the problem of decoding handwritten documents, written for example in Kurrentschrift using ancient terminology, changed meanings and different spelling have additionally to be considered during the translation of texts from earlier centuries. Resolution strategies on a case study show different methods for ensuring quality translations.

Shoes, Slippers and Sandals: Feet and Footwear in Classical Antiquity ed. by Sadie Pickup and Sally Waite

Reviewed by: Shoes, Slippers and Sandals: Feet and Footwear in Classical Antiquity ed. by Sadie Pickup and Sally Waite Tyler Jo Smith Shoes, Slippers and Sandals: Feet and Footwear in Classical Antiquity. Edited by Sadie pickup and Sally Waite. London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. Pp. xvii + 337. Hardback, $155.00. ISBN: 978-147288763. Like other items of clothing and adornment, shoes are bearers of meaning. Cultural anthropologists, social historians and fashion designers have studied footwear across the globe, from high heels to trainers, binding to fetishism. Classical scholars have shied away from calceology, tending to view shoes as extensions of dress history or as stylistic components for dating or identifying sculptures (i.e. Hermes of Praxiteles from Olympia). Such limitations have left no shortage of unanswered questions about ancient foot coverings. This illustrated volume derives from a conference held at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Great Northern Museum in summer 2015. Though neither a survey nor a complete history, it will nevertheless be consulted as a point of reference for many years to come. The contributors from the UK, Europe and elsewhere approach feet and footwear from archaeological, historical and literary perspectives. Following a general introduction that reviews past scholarship, fifteen core chapters are divided into four parts and cover a broad swathe of Greek and Roman evidence for shoes, sandals, slippers and boots. Readers learn where and how shoes were represented in antiquity through a series of object-based and thematic case studies. Ancient terminology is covered in the editor’s introduction and again by Caspers (“Pantāi Krēpides: Shoe-talk from Homer to Herodas”) whose focus is Greek poetry. Ancient footwear, being made of perishable materials (like textiles), rarely survives in the archaeological record. Thus, Greene’s chapter, “Metal Fittings on the Vindolanda Shoes: Footwear and Evidence for Podiatric Knowledge in the Roman World,” which looks at evidence from the site in northern England (famous for its handwritten tablets) where over 4000 shoes were discovered, is especially welcome. Here we encounter the look and material of a unique assemblage and the practice of Roman podiatry: metal bars were fitted onto shoes to correct gait or lend additional support. Throughout the volume it becomes evident that shoes are missing from our notice in other ways. In sculpture, shoes or sandals may have once been painted on, are concealed beneath long and heavy drapery or have broken off. Despite these limitations, the visual arts remain our most informative ancient source. As one author puts it: “Like dress, posture and [End Page 506] attributes, footwear is part of the visual and metaphorical language of ancient art” (Christof, “The Footwear of the Antonine Monument from Ephesus,” 296). Predictably, several chapters rely on Greek vases-painting as documentary evidence of ancient footwear. Waite and Gooch’s chapter, “Sandals on the Wall: The Symbolism of Footwear on Athenian Painted Pottery,” collects examples of hanging sandals on Athenian vases, breaking down the evidence by object, iconography, artist, provenance and shape. Despite the Etruscan context for just over 50% of their data-set, the authors believe that “the images reflect an Athenian mind-set” (41). Two other chapters, Toillon’s, “At the Symposium: Why Take off our Boots? The Significance of Boots placed underneath the Kline on Attic Red- figure Vase Painting (c.500–440 BC),” and Young’s “Donning Footwear: The Invention and Diffusion of an Iconographic Motif in Archaic Athens,” reveal further instances where object agency and human action reflect social and political contexts on vases. Smith’s essay (“The Left Foot Aryballos wearing a Network Sandal”) bridges archaeology and visual art by exploring an archaic vase shape of uncertain fabric found at many Greek sites and perhaps related to funerary cult. By comparison, Phillippo’s chapter, “Stepping onto the Stage: Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Tragic Footwear,” employs vases alongside terracotta reliefs to analyze the import of barefoot Orestes approaching his father’s tomb in the context of ancient performance. “Monosandalism” is a theme treated by several authors. The most famous attestation in Greek myth is the hero Jason who enters a marketplace unrecognized and wearing one sandal (monokrepis), a story alluded to in art...

Philosophy of the Living Dead: At the Origin of the Zombie-Image

Philosophy of the Living DeadAt the Origin of the Zombie-Image James McFarland (bio) At first sight, the image does not resemble a cadaver, but it could be that the strangeness of a cadaver is also the strangeness of the image. —Maurice Blanchot, “Two Versions of the Imaginary” ORIGIN AND IDEA The zombie-image, familiar from cinema, television, video games, and comic books, has many sources. The American military occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934 stimulated popular interest domestically in the subaltern Christianity of the island’s inhabitants, one element of which was the legend of the corpse reanimated to endless labor by a voodoo sorcerer, and this interest was soon reflected in magazine stories, stage plays, and films that featured “zombies” as servile and uncanny revenants.1 At the same time and independently, vampires and homicidal somnambulists populated the French and German silent cinema of the 1920s and lent the zombie-image elements of its visual iconography. In the 1950s and ‘60s, Cold War anxieties motivated such movies as Invisible Invaders (1959) and The Last Man on Earth (1964), in which aspects of the zombie scenario can easily be recognized.2 Yet though all of these deserve to be understood as generative sources, this does not change the fact that the zombie-image has a single, unique origin: George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. It is in this film, a film in which the word “zombie” does not occur,3 that the elements of the image assemble in their significant potency and begin their remarkable historical career. To say that the zombie-image has an origin beyond its many sources is not simply to credit Romero with particular originality or to ascribe [End Page 22] unusual insight to the film he directed. It is to make a philosophical-historical claim about the nature of this image. As the millions of people who have seen it can testify, Night of the Living Dead is an effectively disturbing film, and Romero’s unexpected aesthetic skill and the movie’s considerable commercial success no doubt contributed to the rapid dissemination of the zombie-image. But the image is not the same as the film that discovered it. Lurid as it may be, the zombie-image has no necessary affinity to horror as a genre,4 and its truth is only indirectly related to any particular film in which it appears. The zombie-image is historically original; the films in which it appears are intended works. The theoretical truth of a historical origin is utterly different from the abstract knowledge generated by intentional works. “Origin,” Walter Benjamin famously wrote, “although an entirely historical category, has, nevertheless, nothing to do with genesis. … Origin is an eddy in the stream of becoming, and in its rhythm it swallows the material involved in the process of genesis.”5 The metaphor of an eddy in a stream suggests the different relation between time and truth that this philosophical-historical notion of origin invokes. In the stream of time, an origin is not composed of a substance different from the flowing temporal material, and yet its relatively stationary durability distinguishes it from the ceaseless flow of events in time. That relative permanence is its truthfulness; the eddy is stable with reference to what lies beyond the bank of the stream, hence to a horizon outside time. In characterizing that stable relationship between the eddy in historical becoming that the origin represents and a horizon beyond becoming where truth has its absolute being, Benjamin resorts to an ancient terminology from the dawn of Western thinking, the Platonic notion of an ιδέα. Temporal phenomena, and the intentional concepts that give knowledge of them, are all continuous with the stream of becoming; an origin, and the truth toward which it points, by contrast, manifest an idea. “Philosophical history, the science of the origin, is the form which, in the remotest extremes and the apparent excesses of the process of development, reveals the configuration of the idea” (Benjamin, 47; 227). The zombie-image has a unique historical origin to the extent that it registers an objective historical rupture in the cultural traditions of human self-representation...

Designing for Luxury on the Bay of Naples: Villas and Landscapes (c.100 bce –79 ce ) by Mantha Zarmakoupi (review)

Reviewed by: Designing for Luxury on the Bay of Naples: Villas and Landscapes (c.100 bce–79 ce) by Mantha Zarmakoupi Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis Mantha Zarmakoupi. Designing for Luxury on the Bay of Naples: Villas and Landscapes (c.100 bce–79 ce). Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture and Representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xxi, 315. $160.00. ISBN 978–0-19–967838–9. The Roman villa has been the focus of much scholarship since the rediscovery of Hadrian’s Villa in the Renaissance and the excavation of the Villa of the Papyri in the mid-eighteenth century. This new study, a revised version of the author’s 2007 doctoral thesis, is an important contribution to the study of Roman villas, architecture, design, and cultural change. It will be particularly useful for scholars working on Roman architecture and gardens. In this book, Zarmakoupi examines how the intersection of Hellenistic and Roman cultural and architectural traditions resulted in the development of the luxury villa (villa expolita) on the Bay of Naples. In the first chapter, Zarmakoupi focuses on a design analysis of the villas, looking at specific aspects of their architecture and landscape architecture, while also considering the cultural significance of these aspects of the built environment. She looks at architecture as a culturally informed, dynamic process. Her focus on design and related cultural processes marks a new approach to the study of Roman villas. Previous studies of Roman villas have typically focused on economic aspects or on regional examples. Zarmakoupi briefly describes and discusses the architecture and landscape architecture of five specific villas—the Villa of the Papyri, Villa A Oplontis, Villa Arianna A, Villa Arianna B, and Villa San Marco—in chapter 2. This chapter should prove useful in an undergraduate or graduate course on Roman architecture or on Pompeii, where a concise English-language introduction to luxury villas is needed. Much of the recent literature in European languages is well digested here for Anglophone audiences. Chapters 3 through 7 focus on specific architectural and garden elements of the luxury villas and how these various different architectural elements (the cryptoporticus, the porticoed garden, water, triclinia, and other settings for dining) were original Roman creations that resulted from the cultural negotiation between Rome and the Hellenistic East. In each chapter there is a useful discussion of the architectural vocabulary of the key terms that the ancient authors and scholars have used to describe these spaces. These discussions highlight the complex and nuanced meanings of the ancient terminology, and also the problems that can arise when scholars use Greek and Latin words as technical terms. Chapter 4 and the appendix discuss the role of porticoed gardens in luxury villas. This chapter is a significant contribution because it places gardens and landscape architecture at the heart of discussions about luxury villas. [End Page 439] Zarmakoupi argues that landscape architecture in the form of porticoed gardens was integral to these villas, to their design, and also to their cultural and intellectual conceptualization by their Roman owners. The inclusion of porticoed gardens in the luxury villa was another Roman adaptation of Hellenistic culture and built environment. Her inclusion of the gardens continues the relatively new trend in scholarship that acknowledges the significance of landscape architecture in the Roman built environment. Chapter 5 focuses on the role and significance of water features in the villa. The discussion of water and gardens reminds us how ephemeral the luxury villa was; gardens and water features had to be maintained constantly even when a villa was not in use. Chapter 6 focuses on triclinia and dining facilities. Because convivial dining was important for building social and political ties, the staging of such dinners, especially their physical environment, was very important. Zarmakoupi argues that dining was set in multiple locations within a villa, allowing for the manufacturing and managing of a proper setting. In this regard, landscape was again fundamental to creating an interesting vista for diners to gaze upon or as a background for stage entertainment. Finally, chapter 7 considers the patterns that emerge within the “conceptualization of the architectural design of these villas” (213) and reviews the trends in the study of the luxury villa by...

STUDY OF QUALITY CONTROL OF VANGA DHATU WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GRAHYAGRAHYATVA CRITERIA

In Rasashatra the word Grahyagrahyatva is used in context with raw d rug selection. Grahya means accept able and A grahya is not acceptable . Thus, they signify the quality control techniques. Selection of appropriate raw material is the firs t and foremost step in Drug S tandardisation. These classical textual norms, being in Sansk r it and in ancient terminology, cannot be interpreted by the suppliers or geologists. This creates problems while procuring raw material and leads to confusion regard ing the appropriate mineral intended by ancient texts. Many a times there are minor variations in the composition of minerals that cause variation in their colour. May be, this minor variation in composition brings about ma jor change in its pharmacological properties. If co - relations could be established between ancient criteria and mineralogical properties, standardisation of raw materials in terms of objective norms can be accomplished. An attempt is being made for quality assessment of Vanga (Tin) . Regar ding Grahyagrahyatva of Va n ga, all parameters highlight physical or chemical properties. The Grahyagrahyatva norms were tested with parall el modern analytical techniques e.g. Grutva and Laghutva criteria with specific gravity. Also well designed pro forma a nd visual scales were developed to assess the data which appears to be subjective. But assessed methodically and thus converted into numerical data for applying statistics. In this short term project research attempts were made to assess Grahyatva of colle cted 16 Vanga samples. Grahya and Agrahyatva assessment match with the assessment done by analytical methods to satisfactory and expected extent.

Constructing ancient slavery as socio-historic context of the New Testament

Considering the vast scope of material on slavery in antiquity, this article aimed to design a search filter that delimits the scope of socio-historical aspects specifically relevant to the New Testament passages dealing with slavery. The term ‘search filter’ was borrowed from Information Technology, denoting defined search terms aimed at more efficient and effective searches of vast amounts of data. The search filter designed in this article made use of the following search terms: the period under investigation; the geographical region under investigation; various definitions of slavery; ancient terminology for slavery; and aspects arising from the New Testament passages themselves. Each of these criteria were considered in turn, and the results were used to define the search filter. Finally, the search filter was represented schematically.

Ancient Greek Agricultural Terraces: Evidence from Texts and Archaeological Survey

Although agricultural terraces and terrace walls are a conspicuous feature of the modern dissected terrain of the Mediterranean, it is unclear how extensively the Graeco-Roman rural landscape was terraced. Some scholars have assumed that the past landscape was very like the present one, while others have denied that agricultural terracing was much used in classical antiquity. This article explores two ways of detecting ancient terraces and terrace walls. First, it looks carefully at ancient terminology, using texts drawn from the full array of ancient Greek linguistic registers (both literary texts and inscriptions). The claim that there are no, or almost no, ancient written references to terraces is false, because it looks only at a range of texts that is limited in both date and linguistic register. Second, the article investigates the evidence of archaeological fieldwork, drawing mainly on our own fieldwork in Sphakia. In some cases, scholars have denied that the physical remains of terraces are ancient. This sceptical claim is exaggerated; there are cases where the remains of terraces are CGaeco-Roman in ate.

Et Veientani bibitur faex crassa rubelli ("and they drink thick dregs of red wine of veii"): the greek and latin terminology of ‘bad wine’ between scientific and metaphorical language

What did the ancients mean when they said that a wine was ‘bad'? And which words did they use to indicate the bad quality of a certain wine? An answer to these questions will emerge at the end of this paper: ‘bad wine’ was either the disgusting drink that was covered by white mildew, or the sour beverage that tasted like vinegar, or even the weak drink that was made of grape‐skins; but, more often, the ancients thought that ‘bad wine’ was something dead, a drink which was not living anymore; on the contrary, good wine was considered to be alive and kicking. The works written by some of the most famous Greek and Latin technical writers do not give much help in the difficult task of discovering and analysing a real scientific language, as far as bad wine is concerned. In fact, the ancient terminology is mostly metaphorical.