Anti-intellectualism Research Articles

An Early Ofan for Hanukkah, the Temple Menorah, and the Visual Culture of Late Antique Synagogues

Abstract This contribution focuses on an anonymous poem for Hanukkah and its wealth of visual imagery as a window on the interrelationship between liturgical texts and the art of the ancient synagogue. It sets this poem in conversation with the image of the menorah in synagogues excavated in the Land of Israel, as both reflect Jewish liturgical creativity during late antiquity, between the fourth and seventh or eighth centuries. It explores how the visual culture of Jewish late antiquity provided an early medieval payyetan (synagogue poet) with a rich library of objects, symbols, and metaphors for a composition celebrating the Festival of Lights; the poetic synthesis, in turn, yields a richly resonant symbolic matrix of meaning. Attention to light sources (lamps) and the symbolism of light more generally reveals how the material and visual culture of antiquity – particularly the menorah – suffused the piyyut, and how the piyyut could have colored perceptions of familiar experiences and objects. After examining lamps (and particularly menorahs) from a variety of perspectives, we will return to the poem to consider more closely the role that illumination plays in the short, festive lyric.

Understanding geomorphodynamics in the Pergamon micro-region from a socio-ecological perspective

A systematic interdisciplinary approach based on the socio-ecological model of the Vienna school has been adopted to achieve a more nuanced and multifaceted understanding of the ancient metropolis of Pergamon (western Anatolia) and its micro-region. The city of Pergamon ranks among the ‘guiding fossils’ of urban culture in antiquity. We describe how the socio-ecological model is subject to adaptation and discussion to fit the needs and circumstances of archaeology. In focussing on geomorphodynamics, we use several approaches to conceptualise and model selected aspects of human-environment interactions, integrating data from physical geography, archaeology, building archaeology (Bauforschung) and ancient history. The model includes several dimensions of the social metabolism of Pergamon, first and foremost the carrying capacity of the environment and demographics, comprising population increase and labour as an active investment in nature. Geomorphodynamics are regarded as major ‘events’ in the model, related to the social metabolism (e.g. increased erosion/deposition in the micro-region in relation to urban sprawl). With the social-ecological model, it is possible – and becomes imperative – to include the perception and representation of human-environment interactions manifested in, for example, administrative patterns and religious practices or architecture and built infrastructure (such as terraces, riverbank stabilisation, substraction terraces and substraction bridges). Geomorphodynamics also involve various aspects of the perception of the environment, though these are not recorded in ancient texts on Pergamon known to date. Concurrently, the importance of the model in organising, structuring, and communicating interdisciplinary collaboration and discourse is highlighted.

Cursing Beyond the Grave: Imprecations and Jewish Funerary Culture in Antiquity

Cursing Beyond the Grave: Imprecations and Jewish Funerary Culture in Antiquity

Karshi-Bair burial ground in Southwestern Crimea (results of the study and general characteristics)

In 1998–2002, field studies of the Karshi-Bair necropolis, located near the village of Verkhne-Sadovoye, were conducted. The burial structures are represented by vaults, undercut and underground graves, dug in dense soil. Many materials have been published (so far only in a preliminary plan) and entered the arsenal of historiography. A variety of inventory – red lacquer and hand-made pottery, glassware, beads, metal fibulas, buckles, mirrors, pendants, toilet set, etc. It was possible to determine these artefacts, belonging to the Alans, and to establish the chronological framework of burials within the V – beginning of the VII centuries. Its consideration makes it possible to correct the ethnopolitical situation in the Southwestern Crimea. The population that left it, during the era of the Hunnic campaigns, did not moved deep into the peninsula, but remained in the foothill part, experiencing a strong influence Chersonese – Kherson as the most important center of late Antique culture. Part of the inventory is related to the era of the First Turkic Khaganate. It is planned to publish all the materials of the excavations and discuss them in a broad context antiquities of the western part of Eurasia. As a result, the Karshi-Bair necropolis should take its original place among the sites of the Migration period.

The Aesthetics of Rhetoric in On the Sublime of Longinus

This article localizes the treatise On the Sublime in the Hellenistic culture of the 3rd century. It is by some scholars attributed to Cassius Longinus, while others reject this attribution and cultural context completely. We argue that On the Sublime is by Longinus written and a document that is both a piece of evidence for the cultural change of a decline in the practice of rhetoric and also exemplifies the transformation and subordination of rhetoric to newly emerging concepts in the Hellenistic culture of Late Antiquity. We interpret the changing rhetorical culture its author observes as a state of rhetoric at the end of the movement of the Second Sophistic. The historical frame and the name of the author of the treatise, Longinus, is documented by the Suda and other sources. On the Sublime itself puts rhetorical devices into a new framework exceeding the limits of traditional treatises called rhetorike techne. ‘The sublime’ is present in nature, in god, in humans, and in artifices like writings of rhetoricians, philosophers, poets, and historians. With this contextualization as a universal principle, the sublime, previously used as a criterion of style and thinking, is by Longinus established as a universal concept.

Evolution of the Concept of <i>Barbarism</i> within the Context of the Franco-German Confrontation in the 1870s–1910s

Intolerance, demonization and hate speech used to be an integral part of Franco-German relations in the 19th century. The paper is devoted to the analysis of the image of barbarians within the context of the confrontation between France and Germany in 1870s–1910s. Creation and transformation of political myths is viewed through the lens of cultural artefacts. The study is topical because it allows for the analysis of the universal development of cultural confrontation on a specific example. The prime goal of the article is to identify the patterns of mutual stigmatization and account for their seeming anomalies or exceptions to these patterns: the German simultaneously viewed as well-educated and barbarian; common origins of barbarian and classical antique cultures resulting in opposing identities, etc. The aims of the study include: 1) to systematize empirical sources; 2) to assess the impact of historical and cultural context on the formation of the conceptual images of barbaric and civilized; 3) to single out basic dichotomies of the barbaric vs civilized opposition. The study was based on various cultural texts of the period, ranging from speeches, essays, and memoirs to posters and monuments. Methods used included comparative, semiotic, and imagological approaches, corpus, discourse, and content analyses. French newspaper clichés are compared to the Europe-wide opinions about Prussian militarism. As it turns out, the German way of thinking about the heroes of the past contributed to political stigmatization of Germany. Another finding, based on French literature, is the unobvious correlation between decadent world perception and political turmoil in France. Modernist poetry, literature and journalism compared the fall of the French Empire to the collapse of the Roman Empire and thus contributed to the conceptualizing of the German as barbarians. At the same time German propaganda attempted to defend itself by finding barbarians on the east and ironically quoting French sources to speak about actual war crimes. The results of the study show that seemingly chaotic hate speech and confrontation are determined on the basis of the specific rules related to age-old non-political traditions and current political circumstances marking the dichotomy between oneself and the other, friend or foe.

An Exceptional Late Antique Belt Buckle Plate from Jaffa: From Metalworking Technology to Cultural Biography

Abstract: This paper introduces a technological and cultural biography of an exceptional copper-based belt buckle plate from ancient Jaffa. The exploration of intricate metalworking techniques and the cultural significance of this find provide new insights into late antique material culture in the Levant. Although similar buckles appear in museum collections around the world, few have archaeological provenience and, to date, none have been analyzed and published in terms of their material characteristics. This study establishes a metallurgical database for future comparative analyses, employing X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy to characterize the buckle's composition and manufacture. The results reveal the use of recycled metals, casting, cold fastening, and decorative finishing techniques, including contouring of the openwork shapes. The analysis finds no evidence of enameling, challenging existing theories about these buckles. A comparison of the crafting techniques and design elements of this belt buckle plate with those of similar buckles shows evidence of distinctive artisanal traditions. The socio-cultural inferences of its art and iconography are also explored in light of the geopolitical landscape after the Arab conquests. This study sheds light on the production and distribution of Levantine buckles and enriches understanding of their use in late antique culture and society.

Revisiting to Gorkha Invasion in Uttarakhand : Causes and Consequences ( 1790 A.D. – 1816 A.D.)

Bharat – Nepal immemorial and dateless association nurtures in the lap of antique culture, tradition and religion cultivating a past of ancient treasures. It was the age of 18th century which witnessed the anarchical regime of the Gorkha rule on the soil of Uttarakhand. The paradise of Central Himalayas bellowed in the tyranny of the Gorkha dynasty which was put to an end by the historical Treaty of Sigauli in 1816 A.D. The present age of the 21st history reflects the significant diplomatic relation between Bharat and Nepal based on the engine of trade and commerce running on the wheels of shared culture and tradition forming a portion of history for the future readers.

CONTINUITÀ LESSICALI, CONTINUITÀ E DI¬SCON¬TI¬NUITÀ SEMANTICHE E SIM¬BO¬LI¬CHE NELLE HISTORIAE ABBREVIATAE DI AURELIO VITTORE

Lexical continuities, semantic and symbolic continui ties and discontinuities in the Historiae abbreuiatae of Aurelius Victor. The vocabulary of the writings of late Antiquity is a significant indicator of the semantic and symbolic adaptations and changes absorbed by certain lexemes in har mony with the changes that occurred in the sphere of the historical reality of referen ce. At the same time, it allows us to evaluate the way in which the authors perceived them and adapted them to their own political visions and moral conceptions or religious options. There are important contributions in this sense. Following this di rection of philological and historical analysis, we propose an original approach be low, that is, to examine a series of terms taken from the work Historiae abbreuiatae, or Caesares, by Aurelius Victor which, on the one hand, reveals both the persistence of some elements of classical political thought, and the emergence of a specific political culture of late Antiquity, expressed through a renewed semantics of traditional words, while, on the other hand, it reveals some elements of the historical conception and ideological orientation of the author. In this text we will analyze concepts from the sphere of Roman citizenship (civis, urbs, Vrbs Roma), the denomination of the state (res publica, res Romana, status Romanus, imperium, imperium Romanum), social orders (populus, Quirites, plebs, uulgus) and the ideological and spiritual foun dations of power (auctoritas, libertas).

Восхождение к антропологической идее свободы: эпоха Античности

The article reveals the process of formation of the anthropological paradigm of the idea of freedom on the materials of ancient culture. The method is dialectics of ascent from the abstract to the concrete. Antique culture produces the first stage of the ascension process, when freedom had a holistic but abstract character. Freedom was defined meaningfully as a qualitative state of man opposite to slavery. The author shows the dialectic nature of this process already at the first stage, when freedom and slavery were considered as opposites, passing into each other. The author analyses the experience of going beyond the ancient paradigm of freedom, which formed the ideological elements and prerequisites of freedom in subsequent epochs.

Что общего между Вавилоном и Иерусалимом, или К вопросу о границе мирского и священного на латинском Западе в конце VI — начале VII в.

The article deals with the problem of boundaries and nature of the secular in the end of late Antiquity in the Latin West (focusing on the works of Isidore of Seville). The article focuses on the relation between the concept of the secular and the key oppositions of the late antique culture as it reveals itself within the process of defining identity of sacral groups (clergy and monks), instead of looking into the history of the conception of saeculum or searching for religiously neutral phenomena of social reality. This allows the article to overcome the simple perspective of sacralization or draining of the secular in this period. The article argues that, on the one hand, a firm boundary was erected between the secular and the divine, and, on the other hand, in some cases this boundary turned out to be rather permeable. The firm boundary was formed in the process of categorizing and constructing a positive identity of a small group of the saved, which is defined by its mode of behavior, related to its metaphorical political unity (conuersatio). The groups claiming a proximity to God relate the practices, which correspond to it, with their identity. Thus, secular people, secular cares, and secular knowledge come to be characterized by lacking contemplation and proximity to God. The boundary turns out to be permeable, firstly, with respect to knowledge, because the secular knowledge was necessary to read the Scriptures. The secular thereby was not antagonistic to the divine, but could lead up to it. The divine, in its turn, could “correct” the errors of secular knowledge, just as the action of the bishop, which was opposed to the action of secular power, corrected the morals of the secular people in the Neo-platonic spirit.

Volunteering as an Instrument for Preparing Young People for Christian Marriage and Family Life

Volunteering is an organized service for people and social groups in need, characterized by selflessness, voluntariness, and regularity. The roots of modern volunteering should be sought in various forms of social commitment and charity activities already existing in the circle of Christian culture in antiquity. Contemporary volunteering is one of the important segments of civil society, which is why it develops well in democratic countries. In totalitarian states, it has no raison d’être, because the necessary condition for its development is the social space of freedom. The aim of this work is to seek an answer to the question: how can the involvement of young people in volunteering contribute to their good preparation for life in a Christian marriage and family? The article is theoretical and falls within the field of practical theology. The author will use the method of secondary analysis of available materials in the fields of philosophy, social sciences, and Catholic theology in order to show the relationship between the involvement of young people in volunteering and good preparation for future tasks of Christian spouses and parents. The starting point of the search will be a presentation of the current condition of marriages and families in Europe. The next step in the research process will be the presentation of the review-focused research methodology, and in the final part of the article, the advantages of volunteering as an instrument of preparing young people to take up the future tasks of spouses and parents will be emphasized.

Miniatures of "Ambrosian Iliad" as an Element of Visualisation of Ritual "Entertainment"

The purpose of the article is to consider the miniatures of the "Ambrosian Iliad" as an element of visualisation of ceremonial and ritual "entertainment" in the context of the development of ancient culture. The methodology of the research. The study uses the analytical method as a methodology to study the miniatures of the Ambrosian Iliad, as well as to study the theoretical material on the ceremonial and ritual type of "entertainment"; the historical and cultural method is used to analyse the miniature as one of the visual components of the ceremonial and ritual "entertainment" in the socio-cultural life of Antiquity; the art history method is used for a detailed examination of the miniatures of the Ambrosian Iliad, which is a unique illuminated manuscript of the fifth century, depicting almost the entire Iliad of Homer, with special attention to the scenes of ritualistic spectacles. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the study of the miniatures of the Ambrosian Iliad as an element of visualisation of ritual and ritual "entertainment", as well as the miniature as one of the visual components of ritual and ritual "entertainment" in the socio-cultural life of Antiquity. Conclusions. The article examines the miniatures of the Ambrosian Iliad as an element of visualisation of ceremonial and ritual "entertainment" in the culture of antiquity. It is determined that in the Ambrosian Iliad, over time, there was a tendency to shift the emphasis from literary issues to an increased interest in mythological and Homeric "images" in the visual context (Anthony Snodgrass, Karl Schefold and Luca Giuliani, H. Shapiro), and the miniatures of the Ambrosian Iliad are also considered as a social phenomenon in the culture of late antiquity (Ceil Parks Bare). The history of the manuscript and the characteristic feature of the Ambrosian Iliad miniatures (the use of gold and red shades in clothing, orange and green palette in drawing the background) are considered. The miniatures, the plot of which is devoted to ritualistic spectacles, are especially considered: Calchas made a prediction that, according to a sign he saw of a dragon killing nine birds in Avlida, Troy should fall only in the tenth year of the siege. Agamemnon suggests that the Greek soldiers return home and lift the siege, but they know about this sign and the sacrifice and stay because they believe in the signs of Calchas. Another miniature shows the Greek kings under the leadership of Agamemnon sacrificing a bull to Zeus. And the most interesting is the miniature where Achilles asks Zeus to pardon and save the life of Patroclus, his foster brother, by sacrificing to Zeus. The classification of five groups of miniatures of the Ambrosian Iliad proposed by Bandinelli is considered. It is proved that the miniatures of the Ambrosian Iliad, as a pictorial component of the ceremonial and ritual phenomenon of "entertainment", reflected not only the artistic aspects of the socio-cultural life of Antiquity, but also served as the personification of the visualisation of the hero cult.
 Key words: "entertainment", "Ambrosian Iliad", culture of Antiquity, rite, ritual, Greek pantheon, Achilles, visualisation, hero cult.

Сравнительное изучение антропологических аспектов греческой вазописи и этрусской живописи

Introduction. The fine arts of archaic Greece and Etruria experienced a noticeable influence of the East. The transition from archaic to classical time influenced the forms of depicting the morphological features of a person in antique art. Comparative study of the anthropological features of the antique population of the Mediterranean on the greek painted pottery and etruscan murals of the archaic and classical times was the purpose of our study. Materials and methods. The material was collected in the online-collections of ancient collections of museums. We used the method of a composite portrait in a digital version, the calculation of the frequency of features in our study. Studied features was – beard growth, hair color and nature of the hair. Results and discussion. On the etruscan murals of the archaic period, the frequency of depicting straight nature of the hair in women is the highest (7,7 %) in all samples; for different groups of painted pottery, it does not exceed 7 %. The degree of beard growth according to vase painting and etruscan murals is characterized by a strong and very strong growth. A greater manifestation of hair pigmentation polymorphism according to painted pottery is noted in the images of the classical period. Dark hair predominates in all groups, grey-haired was depicted only in male characters. Hair depigmentation on painted pottery is observed in images of the classical and late classical periods and did not exceed 6 % in the total sample. Pigmentation on etruscan murals indicates a lightening of the hair in the group towards reddish-red shades, depigmentation does not exceed 8%. Features of the depiction of pigmentation in to vase painting and murals, despite the different technique and coloring, reveal common tendencies of variability characteristic of the Mediterranean groups. Composite portraits based on painted pottery reflect the historical transformation of the anthropo-aesthetic ideas of the greeks through the fine arts of the archaic and classical times. Conclusion. Color in greek painted pottery performs not only a decorative function, but is also an artistic means of conveying morphological variability. Involvement of antique written sources of the description of population and the philosophy of color in antique culture can help in the anthropological reading of vase painting and further study of pigmentation polymorphism. @ 2023. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license

The effect of classic antique culture on health, culture, and belief of medieval Anatolian Turkish civilization: the case of defne and mersin

Türklerin XI. yüzyıldan itibaren Anadolu’ya yerleşmeye başlamalarından hemen önce Bizans, Hristiyanlığın güç kazanmasına bağlı olarak çok tanrılı klasik antikite kültürü ile arasındaki bağı koparmıştı. Ancak adı geçen kültüre ait yazılı eserler önce Enûşirvân (ö. 579), ardından da Abbâsî halifelerinin teşvik ve destekleri ile sırasıyla Cündişâpûr ve Bağdat’ta Süryanice, Pehlevice ve Arapçaya tercüme edilmiş ve bu kültüre ait tıp, felsefe, astronomi, botanik, zooloji gibi disiplinlerdeki bilgi birikimi Anadolu’nun güney ve doğusundaki uygarlıklarca da bilinir olmuştu. XIII. yüzyıldan itibaren Anadolu’da yükselen Türk uygarlığında Türkçe eserler ortaya çıkmaya başlamış ve çeşitli disiplinlerde eserler kaleme alan Türk bilim insanları da söz konusu tercüme eserlerden yoğun biçimde faydalanmışlardır. Bu çalışmada Antik Çağ ve Orta Çağ Döneminde Anadolu’da etkili olmuş Yunan, Roma ve Türk uygarlığı yazınlarında bahsi geçen bitkilerden, kullanım çeşitliği bağlamında en zengin olanlar arasından iki takson örnek olarak belirlenmiş ve taksonların özelinde söz konusu uygarlıklar arasındaki etkileşimin ortaya çıkarılması amaçlanmıştır. Örnek olarak seçilen taksonlar, Anadolu’da doğal olarak yayılış gösteren defne (Laurus nobilis) ve mersin (Myrtus communis) olup, bu bitkilerin ilgili uygarlıkların yazınlarında yer aldığı şekliyle sağlık, kültür ve inanç bağlamında kullanımları araştırılmıştır. Bulgularımıza göre, iki bitkinin adı geçen uygarlıklarda sağlık alanında kullanımları büyük oranda benzeşmekte iken, inanç ve kültür sahalarındaki etkileşimin sınırlı olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca bitkilerin kullanım yoğunluklarının uygarlıkların genel karakteristikleri ile örtüştüğü de görülmüştür. Buna göre, defne ve mersin, Antik Yunan’da ibadet ve spor müsabakalarında kullanımı ile öne çıkarken, militarist bir yapıda olan Antik Roma’da savaşla özdeşlemiş, pragmatist yönü ağır basan klasik bir Orta Çağ medeniyeti olan Anadolu Türk uygarlığında ise neredeyse tamamı ile sağlık alanında kullanımı ile özelleşmiştir.

Astragalus Membranaceus and Salvia Miltiorrhizae: An Overview of Ethnopharmacology and Phytochemistry

Mostly a common argument is made against use of plant - based alternative and complementary medicine such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) that their use is based on empiricism, which is considered by adherents of conventional medicine to be unscientific and anti intellectual. It is in this light that the onus now is on natural product scientists to prove the superiority of plant-based medicines as epitomized by TCM through expanding knowledge on the superiority of medicinal plants as the mainstay of human pharmacopoeia. Major scientific databases including but not limited to Scopus, PubMed, PubMed Central, Web of Science, Web of Science Core Collections, Google Scholar, Science Direct etc were critically searched by using a combination of terms. Precisely, Salvia miltiorrhiza and Astragalus membranaceus were searched from the various databases in combination with chemical composition, isolated compounds, medicinal uses, bioactivity, ethnopharmacology, chemical elucidation using the Boolean operators. It was observed that the two medicinal plants are phytochemically rich with diverse phytocompounds. Most of the phytocompounds isolated from the two medicinal plants were structurally elucidated together with their key biological properties. Most of the compounds from the two medicinal had their anti-cancer properties demonstrated in vitro and in vivo. Herewith, this review highlighted the centrality of Astragalus membranaceus and Salvia miltiorrhizha as key sources of bioactive compounds with demonstrable anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties.

Teologi Islam: Argumen Alexander Treiger tentang 'Ilmu Kalam

This article examines the ideas of Alexander Treiger in conceptualizing the origins of Kalam in the debate culture of Late Antiquity. Treieger's ideas refer to Michael Cook and Jack Tannous who argue that the Kalām style of argument originates from Christological debates which are then absorbed into Muslim practice through the mediation of Arab Christian circles in Syria and Iraq. Treiger reviews the Science of Kalam on ontological historical aspects and terminological debates, which are rarely highlighted by Muslim scholars. From the results of the analysis of what was studied by Treiger, it was concluded that Treiger argued that the originality of Kalam was divided into three parts namely; the origins of the kalam argument, the debate about Qadar (human free will versus God's destiny) and in the final section discusses three Muslim texts on Qadar which are associated with Hasan bin Muhammad al-Hanafiyah, Umar bin Abdul Aziz and Hasan Al-Bashri. Alexander Treiger is of the view that the science of kalam in general is the influence of Muslim-Christian interactions in Syria. However, unfortunately Treiger does not have enough argumentative data to support his assumption that theology has been influenced by Christianity.

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY OF PERSONHOOD

The notion of personhood has become increasingly dominating modern theological discourse from the nineteenth century onwards. However, it has also become an object of critique by the historians of theology as we cannot find any kind of developed concept of personhood in the early Christian sources. So it was dismissed as a projection of our modern cultural concerns on the historical texts of the Church fathers. Although this critique does justice to the historical distance between our culture and the culture of late antiquity, this article attempts to demonstrate the presence of the theological vision of the human being as embodying individual free will as a gift of God. Certainly, the notion of free will was not a Christian invention as it had a long philosophical tradition in the ancient world beginning from Plato and Aristotle to the Stoics and Plotinus. However, the early Christian theologians were the ones who gave to the notion of markedly universal character, insofar as free will was not considered by them to be a matter of ascetic cultivation solely available to those trained in philosophy. Yet its theological provenance also shaped its structure in a paradoxical way: being the gift of God human freedom appears to depend on God, but this condition does not impose limitations on it but, on the contrary, enables it. The awareness of one’s freedom as a gift of the Other leads toward the formation of what might be designated as a “eucharistic self“. The exploration of the broad implications of this concept can open new avenues for envisioning society without conflict arising from competition between individuals and also help us find solutions to the ecological crisis

Entrepreneurship in Sport: Sport in Business, Using Professional Football as an Example

The issue of entrepreneurship in sports joins the more general trend of catching up with the long Renaissance period of “reflecting” on the character of the professional sportsman (athlete), so peculiarly overlooked, and one of the main protagonists of the culture of antiquity, alongside the artist or philosopher. The author of the article adopts the convention of the ‘corporate athlete’, for which he sees a contemporary exemplification in football, the most popular sport. The examples cited from the economic history of football, preceded by an outline of the basic categories of entrepreneurship, are an attempt to show the essence of an economic, two-way view of these issues. The description of the institutionalisation of analytics and football’s ‘information bank’, highlights the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary approach to entrepreneurship in sport. In contrast, the characterisation of the re-engineering carried out at FC Barcelona is a case of an approach that treats sport as a natural economic environment. Providing a wholesome, inspirational building block, grounding some elements of management and entrepreneurial.

Décor Motifs of the Bronze Chandeliers in Lithuania and Latvia in the 16th to the 18th Century: Typology, Prevalence, Symbolism

Summary The article analyses for the first time the décor motifs of the bronze chandeliers from Lithuania and Latvia in the 16th–18th century. More abundant objects in Latvia are used to reconstruct the lost heritage of chandeliers in Lithuania, and the variety, origin, and symbolism of décor motifs are analysed. The study revealed two groups of décor elements: some of them came from the Gothic and were still used during the Renaissance, while other motifs were started to use altogether with the beginning of the promotion of antiquity culture in the 16th century. The tops of the chandeliers were not decorated with random but rather relevant and important elements of the symbolic meaning of that period. These could be allegorical motifs of décor symbolising fire/Heavenly light, motifs symbolising Divine order on earth or Divine patronage, as well as heraldic décor elements denoting political relationships or friendliness.