Ninth Century Research Articles

Slavery as a Social Institution Gleaned from Tarisappalli Copper Plates

Slavery as a universal social evil had its origins in time immemorial. Slavery was a part of the social life of Kerala society until the second half of the nineteenth century. According to the mythical story embodied in Keralolpathi, Parasurama reclaimed Kerala from the Ocean by throwing his axe. On this divine gift of the Arabian Sea, Parasurama settled the Brahmins as the lords and brought the indigenous people as cultivators and enslaved people. The story is indicative of the origin of agrestic slavery in the land. Several documents discovered from various parts of Kerala throw light on the existence of slavery in Kerala. The first inscriptional evidence of slavery as a social institution in Kerala belongs to the ninth century (AD 849). It is named the Tarisappalli Copper Plate, Syrian Christian Copper Plate, and Kollam Copper Plate. This inscription is the only document from ancient Kerala that gives proper knowledge about the existence of ‘Adimakasu’ or slave levy. The Venad Raja Ayyan Adikal Tiruvadikal granted certain privileges to the Nasranis or the Syrian Christians of Quilon. The institution of slavery existed among the Syrian Christians, and the origin of the slave levy can be traced from these copper plates. The Tarisappalli plates are, of course, not only crucial for the Syrian Christians of Kerala but hold an essential position in the history of Kerala because it is one of the oldest records with detailed evidence of the existence of slavery and also about the extensive trade with Arabs, Portuguese, Persians, and Jews. This article attempts to trace the institution of slavery from the early records of the Tarisappalli copper plate.

EXCAVATIONS IN THE ANCIENT THEATRE OF SPARTA, 2008

This article presents the results of the 2008 excavation in the ancient theatre of Sparta conducted by the British School at Athens and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Laconia. Focused on the west side of the cavea, work aimed to locate the southern edge of the Late Antique settlement between the theatre and the sanctuary of Athena Chalkioikos; to establish the northern limits of the Late Antique settlement over the former orchestra; and to establish a more precise ceramic characterisation and chronology for the Early–Middle Byzantine period in Sparta. The area between settlement clusters on the acropolis and over the former orchestra was essentially open, with just a Byzantine terrace wall and path recorded. In the north-west part of the former cavea, a tomb built in the late eighth or early ninth century AD was used at least until the late thirteenth century for the burial of c. 29 individuals. This article presents the first results of a bioarchaeological study of the human remains, and studies of Byzantine pottery from the tomb interior and from the backfill of the pit in which the tomb was built (the latter including a notable quantity of Early Byzantine domestic ware). The 2008 findings are set in the larger context of research on post-antique phases in the theatre (drawing on the British School at Athens Archive) and on the material culture and urban topography of Byzantine Sparta. Almost all excavated contexts contained residual material of all periods. The article concludes with short catalogues of material which pre-dates the construction of the theatre and of inscriptions of all periods.

By order of the king? Castles in Gallecia in the Early Middle Ages (ninth-tenth centuries)

ABSTRACT With the end of the Visigothic Kingdom in the early eighth century, the territory of Gallecia, located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, entered a period initially characterized by the absence of major supra-local powers. Although nineteenth-century ideas of demographic abandonment have been surpassed, the different powers controlling this territory struggled to impose their agency. Only during the ninth century was this territory gradually integrated into the kingdom articulated from its political hub in Asturias. In this process, a fortified landscape in which castles were a fundamental part of the sociopolitical organization of the territory emerged. These types of sites have been significantly underestimated by archaeologists, with an increased interest in their study developing only in recent years. In this text, we examine several fortified elements located in Gallecia and analyze the relationship of these archaeological sites to the power dynamics and territorial control of the kingdom (ninth-tenth centuries).

The Development of the “New Jews” Theme in Syriac Texts on Islam from the Seventh to the Ninth Centuries

The Development of the “New Jews” Theme in Syriac Texts on Islam from the Seventh to the Ninth Centuries

IRON AGE LEVANTINE POLITIES AND THEIR MATERIAL CULTURE, WITH A CASE STUDY FROM TEL REḤOV, NORTHERN ISRAEL

SummaryThe following article deals with the possible association of political entities with specific material culture. By referring to a test case from the southern Levant – that of Late Iron IIA (late tenth–ninth centuries BC) Tel Reḥov and its political affiliation within the context of the regional settlement system, this article discusses the methodological caveats and prospects pertinent in any attempt to archaeologically identify political entities. It further demonstrates how settlement patterns and material culture may reveal the underlying social complexity of the Iron Age Levantine territorial polities, and the ways in which political hegemony was practised among diverse communities.

Between Transcendental and National: Wooden Churches of Slovakia

ABSTRACT The Eastern Carpathian Mountain region is home to Slavic peoples, who celebrate the bringing of Christianity by Saints Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century. The mountainous region retains small village churches, some dating from the eighteenth century, each established within agrarian communities by Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox denominations. Despite village subjugation under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Nazi occupation, Russian “liberation” and Socialist-era suppression of non-Orthodox denominations, these exquisite vernacular structures have remained and illustrate the continuing transcendental experience for worshipers but also now shared with those who celebrate them as symbols of national resistance, as well as tourists who come to experience them as UNESCO World Heritage sites. Sharing a common church object, traditional typological and formal aesthetic approaches that have been established by researchers for these structures are contrasted against a phenomenologically rooted set of embodied modes for meaning across examples from extant structures within Slovakia. Embodied approaches provide, via modes of lived experience, a deep offering into what each church shares with their ecological landscape, village, and history; a holistic visceral tapestry key to their appreciation complimenting the typological and differently affirming their continuing value.

The Byzantine Insular Countryside in the Early Middle Ages (ca. 600-ca.900): The Cases of Sicily, Cyprus, and Crete in (partial) Light of Environmental Archaeology

ABSTRACT This paper provides an overview of rural surveys and environmental archaeology studies on Sicily, Cyprus and Crete during the Byzantine Empire. It re-evaluates traditional interpretations of agricultural settlement patterns, ecosystems and populations from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages (late sixth to late ninth century). The prevailing narrative that these islands were devastated by Arab incursions, leading to widespread depopulation, economic collapse and abandonment of rural sites in favour of fortified hilltop settlements, is questioned. Instead, the study employs a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, combining environmental and climatic data with historical and archaeological evidence. This method offers a more nuanced understanding of how insular rural societies adapted to changing environmental and human conditions during the Byzantine Empire's transition from an economically unified region to a fragmented Medieval Mediterranean. The findings highlight the resilient nature of land use and rural settlement patterns amidst the transformation of the empire's political, military and administrative structures.

Is an AI-Generated Icon an Icon? A Case Study in Artificial Intelligence and Christian Spirituality

Abstract: This article examines the potential for AI-generated icons from the viewpoints of the iconographer, the worshiper, and the liturgical community. The ability of AI programs to produce convincing images reopens questions previously thought put to rest in the eighth and ninth centuries during the iconoclastic controversy. These questions go beyond icons themselves, questioning our materiality, the nature of spiritual experience, and the centrality of the incarnation for a Christian faith. While AI-generation may produce images virtually indistinguishable from those made by human hands, the processes involved in their generation and dissemination risk spiritually deskilling iconographers and distancing those who acquire them from the community of faith.

Kebudayaan dan Kearifan Daulah Abbasiyah: Warisan Peradaban Islam

This journal is intended to provide a general overview of the legacy of Islamic civilization during the time of Daulah the Abbasid, who ruled from 750 to 1258 after being elected by the second Abbasid caliph in 762 with headquarters in Baghdad and then moved to Samara in the ninth century. The Abbasid dynasty lasted for about five centuries, from 132 AD or 750 AD to 1258 AD. The method used by library research, using widely available literary sources, such as books, journal articles, research reports, and other electronic documents from online libraries or databases. Data obtained from journal sources relevant to the heritage of Islamic civilization in the Abbasian era include the advancement of educational sciences, the creation of literary and artistic works, and the widespread economic development in the spread of Islam during the Abbassian era. The heritage of Islamic civilization from the Abbasid era has had a major impact on Muslim society as a whole and such heritage is evidence of wealth and intellectual and artistic wealth.

Occultation records in the Royal Frankish Annals for A.D. 807: Knowledge transfer from Arabia to Frankia?

The Royal Frankish Annals (RFA) report under A.D. 807 three lunar and one solar eclipse (complete and dated correctly), a lunar occultation of Jupiter, and “a small spot” on the Sun interpreted as Mercury transit. This transmission is embedded between texts on the landing of diplomatic delegates from Baghdad and Jerusalem in Venice and on their meeting with Charlemagne. Technology transfer is explicitly mentioned (a mechanical water clock). The interpretation of a spot on the Sun as planetary transit is attested in Arabic reports since A.D. 840. The Jupiter occultation by the Moon is dated “Luna 17,” correctly counted in Muslim calendar practice since the first crescent detection. Eclipse predictions and records by astronomers from the cAbbasid caliphate using Ptolemy’s Almagest are extant from the early ninth century. There are time-spans of 6 months each between the three reported lunar eclipses (806 Sep 1/2, 807 Feb 25/26, Aug 21/22), a period of possible repetition given in the Almagest, but not known to the Carolingians. The 6-month rule for lunar eclipses might be preserved in the Carolingian Seven Book Computus. We present multiple evidence that visitors from Baghdad brought new insight and fostered the Carolingian progress in astronomy.

Copper Plates: An Inevitable Source Material to Reconstruct the Hineage and Historicism of the Pallavas

The Pallavas rose to power in the Krishna-Guntur region after the fall of the Ikshvakus of Vijayapuri. They moved further south and established their capital at Kanchipuram in Thondaimandalam, which forms the northern part of Tamil Nadu and ruled from there for nearly six centuries from the middle of 3rd century A.D. to the first decade of the 10th century A.D. There were many debates among scholars regarding the origin of the Pallavas. Prof. S. Krishnaswamy Aiyangar also refuted the theories of the foreign origin of Pallavas and says that the two terms Pallava and Pahlava refer to historically different people and draws his support from a ninth century work Kavyamimamsa. The Hirahadagalli plates issued during the eigth regnal years of Sivaskandavarman < I (330 A.D.-350 A.D.) seem to hint at the imperial status attained by him after the overthrow of the Ikshvakus, as known from his title dharmamaharajadhiraja and the performance of vajapeya and asvamedha sacrifices. Regarding the rise of Pallavas as an independent power, Dr. T. V. Mahalingam relies on the account mentioned in the Velurpalaiyam plates of Nandivarman III (846 to 869 A.D.), and says that ‘considering the political situation during the aftermath of the fall of the S~atavahana power, it is not unlikely that Virakurca by a matrimonial alliance with the Cut/u-Nagas of Vanavasi was able to become an independent ruler’. The Velurpalayam plates of Nandivarman < III credit Kumaravishnu II and his son Buddhavarman < to have regained Kanchi from the Telugu-Cholas, who seem to have defeated the Pallavas and occupied Kanchi for some time during the early days of the reign of Kumaravishnu II. According to the Honnur plates of Chalukya Vikramaditya I, dated in his 16 regnal years (670 A.D.-671 A.D.), he camped in Malliyur on his way to Kanchipuram and with the help of the Gangas of Talakkad defeated the Pallavas.

AN ENIGMATIC CASE OF A MEDIEVAL TEMPLE AT TALAVRIKSHA, RAJASTHAN

This paper tries to solve the riddle of an early ninth century temple located at Talavriksha, District Alwar. The temple housing a Sivalingam inside the garbhagriha has figures of Varaha, Nrisimha and Trivikrama in the central rathikas and the placement of the guardian deities does not follow scriptures. The locale of the temple is also important due to its association with the Mahabharata and the presence of other important shrines.

The “Cura pastoralis” Fragment from the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia: A Completely Different Story

The fragment “Cura pastoralis” is the oldest manuscript fragment in Slovenia and is kept in the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia under the file number AS 1073, II–1r. It consists of one bifolium. One side of it is very badly damaged, as the fragment was once used for the binding of a book that served as the marriage register of the town of Trbovlje between 1669 and 1704. The register is still kept in the Diocesan Archives of Maribor. The bifolium is cataloged as a fragment of a ninth-century manuscript containing the “Cura pastoralis” of Gregory the Great. After a thorough examination, however, it turned out to be part of a work by Paterius of Brescia, Gregory the Great’s first secretary, which may have seen the light of day in the Freising scriptorium. There are some physical and content-related similarities between the fragment and the oldest complete manuscript in Slovenia, the Ecloga of Lathcen, which was written in the same period, namely at the end of the first half of the ninth century.

Ibn Ḥabīb’s Book of Scrupulosity

ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb (d. Cordova, 238/853?), Kitāb al-Waraʿ, is a series of about 350 quotations, topically organized. Most section headings name things to avoid, waraʿ referring to scrupulosity, meaning to keep away from the forbidden by avoiding even the doubtful. Quotations go back to persons of all generations, from earlier prophets to Ibn Ḥabīb himself. Particularly notable is a section on trade, in which the Prophet calls traders and cultivators the worst of his community. It presumably reflects local, Andalusian concern with assimilation to the subject population. Ibn Ḥabīb, al-Waraʿ, cites the Prophet much more often than other collections on waraʿ. Altogether, scarcely one item in six in Ibn Ḥabīb’s collection lacks a parallel in other extant collections of pious sayings. Relatively numerous quotations of Asad b. Mūsā (d. 212/827) not found in his Kitāb al-Zuhd tend to confirm that the extant text is only a fragment of the original. However, the chief significance of Ibn Ḥabīb, al-Waraʿ, may be to confirm that other works at our disposal reliably represent the larger literature of piety in the ninth century CE.

Topography and buildings of an early Islamic Andalusi city: evidence for Madīnat Ilbīra from excavations and ground penetrating radar

ABSTRACT Madīnat Ilbīra was the capital of one of the territorial organization units of the Umayyad state. The city was founded in the second half of the ninth century, and then abandoned in the eleventh century as a result of the collapse of the Caliphate of Córdoba and the transfer of the centre of the region to Granada. Its remains were located only in the nineteenth century. Modern excavations and non-invasive geophysical prospections carried out in this century allow the reconstruction of the spatial system of the city in the era of its greatest prosperity, the location of the citadel and the main mosque, and the reconstruction of the city’s buildings.

The Niu–Li Factional Strife: The Origins of a Historiographical Fiction

Abstract The “Niu–Li Factional Strife,” named after Niu Sengru (779–847) and Li Deyu (787–850), is an enduring theme in Tang history. Based on accounts of personal animosity, a narrative evolved in which Niu and Li have become the ringleaders of two factions that drew in almost all high-profile literati of the ninth century. This article revises traditional and modern narratives of the Strife by first showing that the scattered and contradictory evidence in the earliest sources does not bear out the model of a decades-long struggle between two factions. Second, it demonstrates how “Niu and Li” first arose as an emblem of Tang weakness and a rallying cry for unity within the bureaucracy under the Northern Song two centuries later. Finally, it shows how modern historians picked up the loose ends and remoulded them into a struggle between different classes against the backdrop of factious politics in Republican China.

History of Czech anatomical terminology.

Latin anatomical terminology has been codified since 1895. However, the situation is different for national anatomical terminologies. There are countries that have standardized anatomical terminology in their language, e.g., Poland, Slovenia, Japan, Spain, Hungary, others, such as the Czech Republic or Slovakia, are still lacking their own standardized and official terminology. In the Bohemian Lands, the first terms describing parts of the human body appeared as early as the ninth century in works written in Cyrillic script. The first comprehensive references to Czech anatomical terminology appeared in the fourteenth century. From the Baroque period, anatomical terms were preserved in the educational works of the Teacher of Nations Jan Amos Comenius' Janua linguarum reserata and Orbis sensualium pictus. Many of these terms have remained almost unchanged to this day, but some of them have acquired a pejorative meaning over time. We present here an overview of the history and examples of these terms describing parts of the human body.

The Date of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya and Emergence of Śaivism as a Popular Religion in South India

The date of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya has been one of the unsolved problems of Indian Philosophy. He is generally accepted to have lived from 788 to 820 CE and is thus assigned from the end of the eighth century to the beginning of the ninth century. So far scholars who have worked on this problem have consulted his hagiographies and his works to determine his date. However, they have not studied the date of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya by placing him in the context of the development of religion in South India. Nor have they consulted South Indian sources, especially Tamiḻ texts, to see if there are any references to his philosophy. In this paper, I study the problem of the date of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya by consulting Tamiḻ sources and the hitherto less consulted epic Śivarahasya. I also connect his date with the emergence of Śaivism as a popular religion in South India. Based on my study, I place Ādi Śaṅkarācārya in the fifth century BCE and as a result, I emphasize the importance of redating Hindu scriptures, especially the Vedas, as Ādi Śaṅkarācārya is the earliest commentator.

The emperor's new glass: The introduction of Carolingian wood ash glass in North Sea trade

AbstractMicro‐X‐ray fluorescence (XRF) screening of 244 glass sherds from Ribe, Denmark, identified 23 wood ash glasses. The closely dated finds pinpoint the arrival of the earliest wood ash glass produced in Western Europe in this important North Sea trading hub. This glass type was absent among glass from 700 to 790 CE but feature strongly from 790 to 810 CE. Electron microprobe analysis (EMPA) and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) analysis of 24 glasses show the presence of four types. We show the strengths of classifying wood ash glass based on the glass‐producing sands and conclude that the earliest production took place on a considerable scale and had a major impact on glass circulation in Northern Europe in the ninth century.

Political and military relations between the countries of Andalusia and the country of Hijaz between the seventh and ninth centuries AH / the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries AD

يمثل الحج للديار المقدسة في بلاد الحجاز من أكثر الأُمور المحببة للإنسان المسلم لما لها من تأثير روحي ونفسي وديني يقربه من الله سبحانه وتعالى على الرغم من الصعوبات والتحديات المتمثلة ببعد المسافة والإضطرابات السياسية على مستوى العالم الإسلامي وتحدياته مع المعتدين والحروب الجارية، في الأَندلس عُدَّ هذا الأَمر وإنطلاقا من القرن الخامس الهجري / الحادي عشر الميلادي أَمراً صعباً جداً بسبب الأوضاع السياسية المتأزمة في العالم الإسلامي آنذاك، فما هي تلك الإجراءات التي أُتبعت من أَجل تذليل تلك الصعوبات والوصول إلى غاياتهم لتتحقق تلك العلاقات والهدف الأَسمى ألا وهو الحج للديار المقدسة في بلاد الحجاز.