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Hellenistic Period (hellenistic + period)
Selected Abstracts,ALL CHILDREN ARE DWARFS'.OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 1 2008MEDICAL DISCOURSE AND ICONOGRAPHY OF CHILDREN'S BODIES Summary. Ancient medical discourse conveys a mainly negative view of children's bodies. From Hippocrates to Galen, newborn children are defined as imperfect and ugly beings, associating an excessive softness and weakness with various anomalies. Aristotle links their physical disproportions with those of dwarfs and animals. These disproportions induce physiological troubles and mental incapacities. Hot-tempered and moist, children are dominated by their emotions and sensations. Often authors group them with other beings regarded as inferior, such as women, the old, the sick, the insane, the drunk. How are mythical and human children rendered in iconography? Do their characteristics correspond to the medical discourse? The image of children's bodies changes with the passing of time; the miniature adult of archaic Greece gradually turns into the plump toddler of the Hellenistic period. How can we interpret these transformations? Does the evolution of iconography reflect the transformation of society or does it mirror the progress of medical knowledge? [source] SOCIAL NETWORKS AND CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTION: A NEW INTERPRETATION OF THE FEMALE TERRACOTTA FIGURINES OF HELLENISTIC BABYLONOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 2 2007STEPHANIE M. LANGIN-HOOPER Summary. In the study of the Hellenistic period in Babylon, cross-cultural interactions between Greeks and native Babylonians have been primarily interpreted using colonialist theories of Hellenisation, domination, and cultural isolation. This paper finds, however, that such theories cannot adequately explain the types of cross-cultural combinations seen in the archaeological record of female Hellenistic Babylonian terracotta figurines. The forms and functions of these terracotta figurines were substantially altered and combined throughout the Hellenistic period, resulting in Greek-Babylonian multicultural figurines as well as figurines that exhibited new features used exclusively in Hellenistic Babylonia. In order to facilitate a greater understanding of the full complexity of these Greek,Babylonian interactions, a new interpretation of cross,cultural interaction in Hellenistic Babylon is developed in this paper. This Social Networks model provides an alternative framework for approaching both how a hybrid material culture of terracotta figurines was developed and how Hellenistic Babylon became a multicultural society. [source] Human and climatic impact on late Quaternary deposition in the Sparta Basin Piedmont: Evidence from alluvial fan systemsGEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 7 2003Richard J. J. Pope The evolution of four alluvial fans in the Evrotas Valley, southern Greece, was examined using a combination of geomorphological and sedimentological techniques. Source material for the fans is derived largely from the Taygetos Mountains, and thus the fan deposits provide proxy evidence for erosion of upland landscapes. Stratigraphic sequences exposed in the fanhead trenches suggest a progressive change in depositional style down-fan. Within the St. Johns, North Anogia, and North Xilocambi fans, debris flow deposits are gradually replaced by gravel-dominated hyperconcentrated flow deposits and then fine-grained hyperconcentrated flow deposits. Within the Kalivia Sokas fan, gravel-dominated hyperconcentrated flow deposits give way to fine-grained hyperconcentrated flow deposits, and finally to fluvial gravels. Mineral magnetic studies combined with thermoluminescence dating suggest that sedimentation also occurred over a similar time scale. Deposition cycles during the late Pleistocene appear to be climatically driven, with proximal and medial fan segments developing during stadial phases of the Riss/Würm and Würm, respectively. Distal segments aggraded during the Holocene. During interstadial episodes of the late Pleistocene, fan entrenchment occurred. Holocene accretion is likely to be related to human activity and appears to be concentrated in the early/middle Helladic and the Hellenistic periods, when population levels, indicated by increased numbers of archaeological sites, were rising. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] A geochemical study of bituminous mixtures from Failaka and Umm an-Namel (Kuwait), from the Early Dilmun to the Early Islamic periodARABIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND EPIGRAPHY, Issue 2 2007Jacques Connan This paper is the last in a series presenting geochemical analyses of fragments of bituminous mixtures excavated from archaeological sites in Kuwait. The first was devoted to bituminous boat remains from the Ubaid-related Neolithic site of H3, As-Sabiyah, while the second dealt with bituminous amalgams from the Partho-Sasanian site of cAkkaz, a former island now joined to the south side of Kuwait Bay. This, the third, refers to bitumen-bearing samples from two other islands, Failaka and Umm an-Namel, and covers a time span including the Early Dilmun period, the Kassite period and the Hellenistic to Early Islamic periods. The composition of the bituminous amalgams was studied in detail. The proportions of soluble and insoluble organic matter as well as vegetal organic matter were evaluated. Mineralogical composition by X-Ray diffraction and thin-section analysis was used to estimate the mineral input in the bituminous mixtures. It can be confirmed that the recipes used in the preparation of these bituminous amalgams comply with those traditionally used in antiquity, as seen at many sites in Mesopotamia and the Gulf. Analysis of the soluble organic matter, and especially its ,,saturates'' fraction, provided sterane and terpane distributions and the measurement of diagnostic molecular ratios. These data, complemented by the isotopic composition of asphaltenes, allowed the identification of the sources of the bitumen, by calibration with numerous references from Iran and northern Iraq (oil seeps, bitumen from archaeological sites). It was established that the bitumen from Failaka and Umm an-Namel was mainly imported from central Iraq (Hit-Abu Jir) and northern Iraq (around Mosul). One sample of oil-stained sand, dating to the Early Dilmun period, originated from Burgan and thus documents small-scale imports from inland Kuwait. These results, and those of previous analyses, agree with the geopolitical context of the Early Dilmun, Kassite and Hellenistic periods, and the maritime trade routes that linked Mesopotamia to the settlements of the Gulf and beyond. The paper concludes with an overview of recent bitumen provenance analyses, and discerns chronological patterns in the distribution of Iraqi and Iranian bitumen in the Gulf and Indian Ocean, from the Neolithic to the Islamic periods. [source] The decline of eastern Arabia in the Sasanian periodARABIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND EPIGRAPHY, Issue 1 2007Derek Kennet This paper lists and reviews the archaeological evidence for the Sasanian period in eastern Arabia (third,seventh centuries AD). Much of the published evidence is shown to be either erroneous or highly doubtful, leaving very little evidence that is reliable. It is argued that the paucity of evidence in comparison to the Hellenistic/Parthian period indicates that this was a time of marked and continuing decline in the number and size of settlements, the number of tombs and the amount of coinage in circulation, all of which probably result from a population that was both declining in size and participating less in the types of production and consumption that leave discoverable traces in the archaeological record. This is in contrast to the historical evidence, which, although patchy, is stronger for the Sasanian period than it is for the Hellenistic/Parthian period. The argument for decline challenges some generally accepted historical views of eastern Arabia at this time, which see the region as undergoing a notable period of growth. In conclusion, some brief consideration is given to the possible causes of the decline. [source] | ||||||||||