Domestic Utensils Research Articles

Lead poisoning in ancient Rome

Lead was known to the ancients from at least the 4th millennium BC, but its use increased markedly during Roman times, to the extent that it became a health hazard. Mines and foundry furnaces caused air pollution; lead was extensively used in plumbing; domestic utensils were made of lead and pewter, and lead salts were used in cosmetics, medicines and paints. As a microbicide, lead was also used to preserve food. A grape juice concentrate (sapa) commonly used as a sweetener was prepared by preference in lead containers. Although Roman writers commented on the toxicity of lead, classic chronic lead poisoning was first described only in the 7th century AD. Skeletallead content increased significantly in the Roman era, but peaked at a level only 41-47% of that of modern Europeans. The authors thus suggest that chronic lead poisoning did not contribute significantly to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West.

Neighborhood Associations, Social Movements, and Populism in Brazil, 1945–1953

Neighborhood Associations, Social Movements, and Populism in Brazil, 1945–1953

The Runic Inscriptions from Vatnahverfi and the Evidence of Communication

Abstract This article forms the beginning of a planned edition of Greenlandic runic inscriptions. It deals with the runic inscriptions from the Vatnahverfi area, found on various forms of domestic utensils—first and foremost on fragments of soapstone, so-called loom weights. The inscriptions indicate that the tradition of writing in Norse Greenland played an important part in the expression of Christianity, and that it had the purpose of maintaining connections with the Scandinavian Christian world.

Epidemiological findings of ocular trauma in childhood

To describe epidemiological findings of ocular trauma in childhood in an emergency unit. A retrospective study was carried out including patients under 16 years old who were treated for ocular trauma at the emergency unit of the Federal University of São Paulo from September 2001 to September 2004. Age, sex, involved eye, place, circumstance and mechanism of injury, initial visual acuity and immediate management were recorded. A total of 273 patients were included in the study. The age group comprising most cases was 7 to 10 years (39.9%). The most frequent cause of ocular injury was traumatism by external agents like stone, iron and wood objects (27.9%). The commonest place was the home (53.1%). Initial visual acuity was over 20/40 in 63.4% of cases. Closed globe injury occurred in 201 (73.6%) accidents. Seventy-six children (27. 8%) were treated with medicines and in forty-eight (17.6%) cases surgery was necessary. Ocular trauma in childhood was more frequent in the male schoolchild and was due mostly to traumatism with agents like stone, wood and iron pieces, domestic utensils and leisure objects. The injuries occurred most frequently at home. Closed globe injuries predominated. Programs of education and prevention for ocular trauma in childhood are necessary.

Report on Finds from the Saint-Quay-Portrieux Wreck, France

In 1987, some divers discovered the cargo of a merchant ship which was wrecked off the rocks of the Saint-Quay Islands in Brittany. Several expeditions were conducted by the discoverer, DRASSM and the Art and History Museum of Saint-Brieuc on the site between 1987 and 2003 but the wreck remains unidentified. The ship is believed to have traded with Africa in the first part of the 18th century. Though no remains of the ship's structure were found, the artefacts recovered, including trading goods, ship's equipment, and domestic utensils, allow comparisons to be made with other contemporary materials. © 2004 The Nautical Archaeology Society

Behavioral modulation by mutilation pictures in women.

Previous studies have shown that women are more emotionally expressive than men. It is unclear, however, if women are also more susceptible to the emotional modulation of behavior imposed by an affective stimulus. To investigate this issue, we devised a task in which female subjects performed six sequential trials of visual target detection following the presentation of emotional (mutilation and erotic) or neutral pictures (domestic utensils and objects) and compared the data obtained in the present study with those described in a previous study with male subjects. The experiment consisted of three blocks of 24 pictures and each block had an approximate duration of 4 min. Our sample consisted of 36 subjects (age range: 18 to 26 years) and each subject performed all blocks. Trials following the presentation of mutilation pictures (283 ms) had significantly slower reaction times than those following neutral (270 ms) pictures. None of the trials in the "pleasant block" (271 ms) was significantly different from those in the "neutral block". The increase in reaction time observed in the unpleasant block may be related in part to the activation of motivational systems leading to an avoidance behavior. The interference effect observed in this study was similar to the pattern previously described for men. Thus, although women may be more emotionally expressive, they were not more reactive to aversive stimuli than men, as measured by emotional interference in a simple reaction time task.

Multiplicity in palm uses by the Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador

An ethnobotanical study of the palms used by the Huaorani in the Yasuni National Park and Huaorani Ethnic Reserve in Amazonian Ecuador was carried out. In this inventory, 37 palm species were found; all were used by the Huaoranis. One hundred and ninety-one different uses were recorded in eight ethnobotanical categories. Most species (64.9%) were used for house construction and human food. More than half of the species were used for domestic utensils (59.4%) and hunting and fishing implements (54%). A comparison is made between these data and past studies for the other six indigenous communities from Amazonian Ecuador. This paper shows the highest diversity of useful palm species and the highest number of different uses ever recorded for an indigenous group in Amazonian Ecuador. The data combine quantitative and qualitative approaches. © 2004 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2004, 144, 149–159.

Efeito da aplicação de enzimas pectinolíticas no rendimento da extração de polpa de cupuaçu

O Brasil apresenta uma diversidade de frutas regionais, principalmente nas regiões Norte e Nordeste. Dentre estas, destaca-se o cupuaçu, que é uma fruta considerada exótica e de grande potencial comercial nos mercados dos estados do Sudeste do Brasil e dos países europeus. A polpa e a semente são importantes para o desenvolvimento de produtos industriais. A polpa tem sido estudada como matéria-prima para néctar; entretanto, é usada em sorvetes, geléias, purês e polpa enlatada. Atualmente, o processo de extração da polpa ainda é feito de maneira empírica, utilizando-se de acessórios como facas, colheres ou tesouras de uso doméstico, devido à forte aderência da mesma ao caroço, causando baixo rendimento no produto final. Com o objetivo de aumentar o rendimento durante o processo de extração da polpa de cupuaçu, adicionaram-se à polpa bruta dois tipos de preparações enzimáticas de ação pectolítica (Citrozym-L e Rohament PL). As concentrações estabelecidas foram de 100; 300; 500 e 750 ppm. Após todo o processo, obteve-se a polpa, e o rendimento foi comparado com a polpa-controle. O experimento foi realizado nos laboratórios de Tecnologia de Alimentos da Embrapa Agroindústria Tropical. Pelos resultados obtidos, observou-se que o rendimento da polpa com adição de Citrozym-L foi superior a 60% nas concentrações de 300; 500 e 750 ppm, enquanto, com a utilização de Rohament-PL, o rendimento variou de 43 a 57% nas mesmas concentrações. O rendimento da polpa-controle foi de 44 e 41 %, para os experimentos realizados com a primeira e segunda preparação enzimática, respectivamente. Conclui-se que a utilização de enzimas é uma alternativa para melhorar o processo de extração da polpa; adicionando-se acima de 300ppm, obtém-se um rendimento próximo a 60%.

Vacuum environments created for engineering applications

Vacuum today plays an increasing part in the engineering and scientific fields. It is used for many purposes in industry and scientific research, from single vacuum forming of domestic utensils and assisting in applying brakes in cars and trains, to the complex requirements of the semiconductor industry and the reduced molecular density required for nuclear particle accelerators. The pressure range encompasses 15 orders of magnitude at the present time. This paper endeavours to describe the basic behaviour of gases in this field, the production and measurement of vacuum, and some of the applications and systems used.

L'utillatge de la llar ais darrers segles medievals

The aim of this paper is to study domestic labour and utensils used in this job during XIVth and XVth centuries. The investigation has been done about inventories and iconography. It has been worked about basic needs: shelter, cleanness, clothes, food. It has been shown that houses were a workshop where the people elaborated different products and it was also the school where the girls were instructed about the utensils use.

Blacksmiths, Farriers and Horses in Wales: An Historical Note

AbstractSince the legendary St Eloi and his English counterpart St Dunstan achieved such notable feats with their anvils and tongues, the blacksmith has occupied a prominent role in European folk culture. From Alberich in the Nibelungenlied to Ilmaainen in the Finnish epic The Kalevala, the smith is represented as the most skilled of artisans who made both weapons of war and domestic utensils. We see him at work in medieval illuminated manuscripts, sixteenth-century Flemish and German woodcuts, and all manner of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century paintings including, among the more distinguished, Turner's A Country Blacksmith Disputing upon the Price of Iron (1800) and Joseph Wright of Derby's masterpiece, The Forge (1771). Chaucer, Spenser and Shakespeare wrote of smiths, Handel's E Major Suite of 1720 was based on the air The Harmonious Blacksmith, while Longfellow's The Village Blacksmith (1810) did much to enhance the reputation of the craft in the nineteenth century.

Memphis 1984

The first season of excavation at Memphis identified an artisans’ quarter of the Eighteenth to Nineteenth Dynasties at Kôm Rabî'. Finds included stone and metal tools and domestic utensils, pottery votive objects in the form of ‘concubine’ figures and cobras, bones (mainly cattle and pig), and a few inscribed objects. Further resistivity survey was carried out. The Epigraphic Survey recorded monuments from the Palace of Merneptah, now in the so-called ‘Petrie’ Magazine at Mît Rahîna.

Mayoruna (Panoan) Kinship

The Mayoruna number approximately 900 persons and have for many years occupied both sides of the upper reaches of the Yavari river, the present-day border between Brazil and Peru. Linguistically, Mayoruna is a member of the Panoan family of languages. Chirif and Mora (I977:I60) calculate that only 3 per cent of the population is bilingual in Spanish. The Mayoruna are seminomadic, with subsistence agriculture as their most important economic activity, although the male population devotes much time to hunting and fishing. The bow and arrow, spear, and shotgun are utilized in the hunt; the blowgun was also used in the recent past. Maize, cassava, and bananas are traded locally in small quantities for salt, medicines, cloth, domestic utensils, tools, shotguns, and ammunition. This description of Mayoruna kinship is the first known to us. It is of particular importance in that heavy reliance upon the forceful capture of women as spouses will be drastically (if not completely) curtailed from now on. The new situation may well begin to place unusual stress on the society if it limits the number of females available for marriage to those native to it and, more specifically, to those of a particular kinship category (aiz. cross-cousins). The reduction of conflict between opposing jungle groups may further aggravate the problem by the reduction of male casualties to conflict, resulting in a larger number of males seeking spouses from among a more restricted supply. As a report of the situation, this description should alert US tO help the Mayoruna find solutions which are more acceptable in the world into which they are irresistably being drawn. Mayoruna is a kinship based society in which all members are considered kinsmen and in which kinship relationships between individuals are of primary importance for social interaction. When a Mayoruna enters a situation in which his kinship relationships tO other individuals with whom he must interact are unclear, the first order of business is tO clarify those relationships. Either an individual present

Computer Controlled Mechnical Assembly

This paper is an overview of work done in a project in the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center which deals with the use of a computer‐controlled machine which can be programmed to do a wide variety of mechanical assemblies. Examples drawn from the application domain might be domestic utensils such as blenders and toasters, industrial examples are carburettors or power tools, while office examples are staplers, typewriter subassemblies, printer head assemblies and keyboards, etc. It is believed that a system capable of doing all of these assemblies would be industrially valuable.

Research Items

Class Distinction in the Society Islands.—A study of traditional history and political grouping in the Society Islands, by Dr. E. S. Craighill Handy (Bull. No. 79, Bernice P. Bishop Museum), is devoted to the elucidation of the ethnic and cultural relations of the manahune (landless commoners) who dwelt mostly in the interior of Tahiti in the days prior to the breaking down of class distinctions by the missionary system. A preliminary investigation had indicated that they represented a survival of an earlier population that had been conquered and pushed back by the ruling dynasty, the Hui Arii, who were supreme in all the islands when they were discovered by Europeans. The customs and traditions of this invading dynasty were of an entirely different order from those of the earlier tribal culture. The manahune, who were the most numerous element in the population, were the serfs of the arii (feudal lords) and their supporters the raatira (landed proprietors). They were the wood-cutters for the royal family, the high-priest, and the warriors, the pickers of taro leaves, the fishers of eels and freshwater fish. Of the two types of house, the rectangular and the apsidal, the former belongs to the earlier culture. The manahune were valley-dwellers, cultivating the taro and sweet potato on irrigation terraces. The warriors' house was probably their central social and political institution, and the chief cause of war was blood-revenge. Human skulls and jawbones were preserved and reverenced. Tane, Roo (Rongo), and Tu were worshipped as patrons of woodcraft, agriculture, and war respectively. On the other hand, among the Arii the furniture and domestic utensils of their apsidal houses were supported on legs, their boats were composite built-up vessels, and they were distinctly maritime and not agriculturists, excelling in sea fishing which was a royal sport. They wore the pareu, the short skirt, as opposed to the loin-cloth, and made fine mats, used for articles of clothing and other purposes. Their outstanding contribution to Tahitian religion was the god Taaroa, their ancestor, who assumed the position of creator and supreme god of the local cult.

Arts and Crafts in the Torres Straits 1

THE fourth volume of the Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits deals with the arts and crafts of the islanders, and the labour involved in its production is probably greater than that which went to the making of any other volume of this almost classical series. The writing up of technological data is laborious in the extreme, and, moreover, requires a special knowledge in many departments of human activity. Yet in spite of this the greater portion of the volume is the work of Dr. Haddon, the catholicity of whose anthropological knowledge appears to full advantage. He is responsible for the sections on daily life, decoration of the person, personal ornaments and clothing, domestic utensils and tools, food and its preparation, horticulture, hunting and fishing, weapons, transport and canoes, sound-producing instruments, songs, dances and dance-paraphernalia, games and toys, and the important chapter on art. He has also edited and completed the section on houses, which the untimely death of its author, the late Anthony Wilkin, had left unfinished. A very valuable chapter on textiles (baskets and mats) is contributed by Mrs Hingston Quiggin; Dr. Rivers deals with astronomy, Dr. Myers with music, and Mr. Ray with greetings and salutations and the calendar. Mr. J. Bruce contributes to the section on various social customs.

Primitive African Instruments

The difficulties of getting about in Africa, and the distances to be covered, make it regrettable that pioneers, when they visit isolated districts and bring back mementos of the natives, confine the selection of articles they have to show on their return to trophies of the chase, weapons of war, and domestic utensils, overlooking the ingenious though primitive instruments of music which to members of this Association are of unique interest.

Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilisation

MR. TYLOR has devoted himself to a branch of Anthropology of which there are very few students in this country, that namely which treats of the mental development of man as elucidated by his arts and customs, and especially by his myths, his superstitions, and his language. More than a third of this volume is devoted to an elaborate account of the gesture-language used by deaf mutes and savages, and to picture-writing, word-writing, and the influence of names and images, as illustrative of various phases in the development of the human mind. After this we have chapters on the growth and decline of culture, as illustrated by the use of stone implements of various degrees of perfection, by weapons, by modes of procuring fire, and by modifications in various domestic utensils. Then follow accounts of remarkable savage customs, such as the curing of disease by the extraction of foreign substances from the body of the patient, the prohibition of marriage with certain relations or namesakes, tabooing the names, and even avoiding the sight, of certain relations, and the extraordinary custom of the couvade. Myths, their origin and geographical distribution, are then discussed; and these varied subjects are all treated from a twofold point of view, either as giving us an insight into the laws of the development of the human mind and the growth of civilisation, or as furnishing, by their similarity over extensive areas and in widely separated countries, an argument for the common origin of the different races of man. Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilisation. By Edward B. Tylor. Second Edition. (London: Murray, 1870.)