scholarly journals In search of traces of the mandrake myth: the historical, and ethnobotanical roots of its vernacular names

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amots Dafni ◽  
Cesar Blanché ◽  
Salekh Aqil Khatib ◽  
Theodora Petanidou ◽  
Bedrettin Aytaç ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatiotemporal Analysis ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Vernacular Names ◽  
Medicinal Use ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medicinal Properties ◽  
Black Magic ◽  
Derivatives Of ◽  
Doctrine Of Signatures

Abstract Background Mandrake (Mandragora spp.) is one of the most famous medicinal plant in western cultures since Biblical times and throughout written history. In many cultures, mandrake is related to magic and witchcraft, which is said to have a psychosomatic effect (especially when mandrake contains narcotic compounds) in addition to the pharmacological influence, as occurs with other narcotic magical plants. Due to its unique properties and related myths, it is not surprising that this plant has many names in many languages. Methods This paper presents an attempt to reconstruct the historical, ethnobotanical, and folkloristic roots of 292 vernacular names of Mandragora spp. in forty-one languages. We used the plant’s morphological data, philology, myths and legends, medicinal properties and uses, as well as historical evidence and folkloric data, to explain meaning, origin, migration, and history of the plant’s names. Results The names were classified into the following main categories: Derivatives of mandragora (19 languages), alraun (7) and of yabroukh (5). The salient groups of the plant’s vernacular names are related to: Anthropomorphism (33 names in 13 languages); Similarity to other plants (28/9); Supernatural agents (28/9); Narcotic effects (21/8); Leaves, fruits, and seeds (21/8); Aphrodisiac properties (17/10); Use of a dog (15/9); Gallows (14/5); Black magic, sorcery, witchcraft (13/8), and Medicinal use (11/7). Conclusions This frequency distribution of the mandrake’s vernacular names reflects its widespread reputation as related to the doctrine of signatures, beliefs in its supernatural, natural, and mythic powers, and to a lesser extent, its uses in magic and medicine. A spatiotemporal analysis of the mandrake’s names supports the old idea that the pulling ceremonies for this plant originated in the Near East and that various other myths related to this plant may have originated in different places and periods.

scholarly journals In Search of Traces of the Mandrake Myth – The Etymological, Historical, and Ethnobotanical Roots of Its Vernacular Names

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amots Dafni ◽  
Cesar Blanché ◽  
Salekh Aqil Khatib ◽  
Theodora Petanidou ◽  
Bedrettin Aytaç ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatiotemporal Analysis ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Vernacular Names ◽  
Medicinal Use ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medicinal Properties ◽  
Black Magic ◽  
Derivatives Of ◽  
Doctrine Of Signatures

Abstract Background: Mandrake (Mandragora spp.) is perhaps the most famous medicinal plant in western cultures since Biblical times and throughout written history. In many cultures, mandrake is related to magic and witchcraft, which and is said to have a psychosomatic effect (especially when mandrake contains narcotic compounds) in addition to the pharmacological influence, as occurs with other narcotic magical plants. Due to its unique properties and related myths, it is not surprising that this plant has many names in many languages.Methods: This paper presents an attempt to reconstruct the etymological, ethnobotanical, and historical and folkloristic roots of 296 vernacular names of Mandragora sp. in forty-two languages. We used the plant’s morphological data, philology, myths and legends, medicinal properties and uses, as well as historical evidence and folkloric data, to explain meaning, origin, migration, and history of the plant’s names.Results: The names were classified into the following main categories: Derivatives of mandragora (20 languages), alraun (7) and of yabroukh (5). The salient groups of the plant’s vernacular names are related to: Anthropomorphism (33 names in 13 languages); Similarity to other plants (29/9); Supernatural agents (28/9); Narcotic effects (21/8); Leaves, fruits, and seeds (21/8); Aphrodisiac properties (17/10); Use of a dog (15/9); Gallows (14/5); Black magic, sorcery, witchcraft (13/8), and Medicinal use (11/7). Conclusions: This frequency distribution of the mandrake’s vernacular names reflects its widespread reputation as related to the Doctrine of Signatures, beliefs in its supernatural, natural, and mythic powers, and to a lesser extent, its uses in magic and medicine. A spatiotemporal analysis of the mandrake’s names supports the old idea that the pulling ceremonies for this plant originated in the Near East and that various other myths related to this plant may have originated in different places and periods.

ACTION ON MATTER: THE HISTORY OF THE UNIQUELY AFRICAN TAMPER AND CONCAVE ANVIL POT-FORMING TECHNIQUE

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Sterner ◽  
Nicholas David
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Weight Ratio ◽  
High Volume ◽  
Efficient Production ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Culture History ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Diffusion

The publication, largely by ethnoarchaeologists, of new data on the tamper and concave anvil technique of pot-forming (TCA) permits a reassessment of this uniquely African technique, its toolkit, and its culture history. A survey, inspired by the technologie culturelle school, of its varied expressions in the southern Saharan, Sahelian and northern Sudan zones from Mali to Sudan and extending north into Egypt emphasises the potential of the technique for the efficient production of spherical water jars of high volume to weight ratio, much appreciated in arid environments. The technique is demanding and therefore practised for the most part by specialists. The origins and diffusion of the technique are assessed in the light of the ethnological, archaeological, linguistic, and historical evidence, and a four stage historical development is sketched.

The Oxford Handbook of American Women's and Gender History

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Women Of Color ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Gender History ◽  
Artistic Production ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Power ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Free Women

The Oxford Handbook of American Women’s and Gender History boldly interprets the history of diverse women and how ideas about gender shaped their access to political and cultural power in North America over six centuries. In twenty-nine chapters, the Handbook showcases women’s and gender history as an integrated field with its own interpretation of the past, focused on how gender influenced people’s lives as they participated in migration, colonialism, trade, warfare, artistic production, and community building. Organized chronologically and thematically, the Handbook’s six sections allow readers to consider historical continuities of gendered power as well as individual innovations and ruptures in gender systems. Theoretically cutting edge, each chapter bursts with fascinating historical characters, from young Chicanas transforming urban culture, to free women of color forging abolitionist doctrines, to Asian migrant women defending the legitimacy of their marriages, to working-class activists mobilizing international movements, to transwomen fleeing incarceration. Together, their lives constitute the history of a continent. Leading scholars from multiple generations demonstrate the power of innovative research to excavate a history hidden in plain sight. Scrutinizing silences in the historical record, from the inattention to enslaved women’s opinions to the suppression of Indian women’s involvement in border diplomacy, the authors challenge the nature of historical evidence and remap what counts in our interpretation of the past. They demonstrate a way to extend this more capacious vision of history forward, setting an intellectual agenda informed by intersectionality and transnationalism, and new understandings of sexuality.

scholarly journals The evolutionary history of holometabolous insects inferred from transcriptome-based phylogeny and comprehensive morphological data

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph S Peters ◽  
Karen Meusemann ◽  
Malte Petersen ◽  
Christoph Mayer ◽  
Jeanne Wilbrandt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals The taxonomic history of Indo-Papuan groundsnakes, genus Stegonotus Duméril et al., 1854 (Colubridae), with some taxonomic revisions and the designation of a neotype for S. parvus (Meyer, 1874)

Zootaxa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4512 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
CHRISTINE M. KAISER ◽  
HINRICH KAISER ◽  
MARK O’SHEA
Keyword(s):  
New Guinea ◽  
Molecular Data ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
Valid Species ◽  
Museum Specimens ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
History Of ◽  
Original Species ◽  
Species Specific

Since its conceptualization in 1854, 29 species of the colubrid genus Stegonotus have been recognized or described, of which 15 (admiraltiensis, batjanensis, borneensis, cucullatus, derooijae, diehli, florensis, guentheri, iridis, heterurus, melanolabiatus, modestus, muelleri, parvus, poechi) are still considered valid today. Original species descriptions for the members of this genus were published in Dutch, English, French, German, and Italian and, perhaps as a consequence of these polyglot origins, there has been a considerable amount of confusion over which species names should be applied to which populations of Stegonotus throughout its range across Borneo, the Philippines, Wallacea, New Guinea, Australia, and associated archipelagos. In addition, the terminology used to notate characteristics in the descriptions of these forms was not uniform and may have added to the taxonomic confusion. In this paper, we trace in detail the history of the type specimens, the species, and the synonyms currently associated with the genus Stegonotus and provide a basic, species-specific listing of their characteristics, derived from our examination of over 1500 museum specimens. Based on our data, we are able to limit the distribution of S. modestus to the islands of Ambon, Buru, and Seram in the central Moluccas of Indonesian Wallacea. We correct the type locality of S. cucullatus to the Manokwari area on the Bird’s Head Peninsula of West Papua, Indonesian New Guinea and designate a neotype for S. parvus, a species likely to be a regional endemic in the Schouten Archipelago of Cenderawasih Bay (formerly Geelvink Bay), Indonesian New Guinea. We unequivocally identify and explain the problematic localities of the type specimens of S. muelleri and Lycodon muelleri, which currently reside in the same specimen jar. We remove L. aruensis and L. lividum from the synonymy of S. modestus and recognize them as S. aruensis n. comb. and S. lividus n. comb., respectively. We remove S. keyensis and Zamenophis australis from the synonymy of S. cucullatus and recognize them as S. keyensis n. comb. and S. australis n. comb., respectively. We further remove S. reticulatus from the synonymy of S. cucullatus, S. dorsalis from the synonymy of S. diehli, and S. sutteri from the synonymy of S. florensis. We designate lectotypes for S. guentheri, S. heterurus, S. lividus, and S. reticulatus. Lastly, we introduce S. poechi, a valid species not mentioned in the scientific literature since its description in 1924. This brings the diversity in the genus Stegonotus to 22 species. We also caution that in a complex group of organisms like Stegonotus any rush to taxonomic judgment on the basis of molecular and incomplete morphological data sets may perpetuate errors and introduce incongruities. Only through the careful work of connecting type material with museum specimens and molecular data can the taxonomy and nomenclature of complex taxa be stabilized. 

Notes on the generic position of Brassica deserti (Brassicaceae)

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 89-93
Author(s):  
Jotham Ziffer-Berger ◽  
Alexandra Keren-Keiserman ◽  
Adi Doron-Faigenboim ◽  
Klaus Mummenhoff ◽  
Oz Barazani
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
Phylogenetic Position ◽  
Molecular Tools ◽  
East Mediterranean ◽  
Phylogenetic Groups ◽  
5.8S Rdna ◽  
The Core ◽  
Generic Position ◽  
History Of

Molecular tools provide new insights into phylogenetic relationships of plant species, and by relating phylogenetic groups to their geographical distribution, we can cast light upon the evolution history of plant clades. In the current study, we evaluated the phylogenetic position of the Sinai endemic Brassica deserti (Brassicaceae), later renamed as Erucastrum deserti, based on morphological data and 5.8S rDNA and ITS (Internal Transcribed Spacer) regions. Our results indicate that B. deserti belongs to an East-Mediterranean – Saharo Arabian clade and was not assigned to the core Brassica and Erucastrum clades, respectively, which evolved in the West Mediterranean area. We tentatively conclude that Brassica deserti evolved independently of core Brassica and Erucastrum.

.VII. Contributions towards the history of the colouring matters derived from aniline

1863 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 645-647 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Short Paper ◽  
Aromatic Diamines ◽  
History Of ◽  
Derivatives Of ◽  
Careful Comparison ◽  
Phenylene Diamine

In a short paper recently submitted to the Royal Society, I pointed out the existence of two aromatic diamines, both represented by the formula C 6 H 8 N 2 = (C 6 H 4 )'' H 2 H 2 } N 2 , and closely resembling each other, but differing in some of their fundamental characters to such an extent that I did not hesitate to assert their individuality, and to distinguish them as alpha-pheny-lene-diamine and beta-phenylene-diamine. The existence of two closely allied bodies among the diatomic derivatives of the phenyl-series very naturally suggested the idea of searching for two similarly related monatomic bases of the same group, and accordingly I undertook during the last week a careful comparison of specimens of aniline prepared by different piocesses. This com parative study is still incomplete, but I beg leave to record even now an observation which appears to merit the attention of chemists.

Black Magic in Modern Times

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Thomas Waters
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The North ◽  
Large Island ◽  
History Of ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
Black Magic ◽  
Eastern Edge ◽  
Magical Beliefs

This chapter shows that the history of black magic in modern times is a cosmopolitan drama. Human movement rapidly accelerated from the nineteenth century. People, goods, technologies, and ideas began crossing the earth at a dizzying rate. Travellers took their magical beliefs abroad and encountered new mysticisms when they got there. Empires regulated their colonial subjects in all sorts of ways, including how they dealt with witches. Witchcraft became more international, though at the same time it remained fundamentally rooted in local circumstances. This means that, to understand modern witchcraft, one must combine a global orientation with a local focus. And an excellent place for that local focus is a large island, lying on the eastern edge of the North Atlantic Ocean: Britain.

scholarly journals Three new Cenomanian conifers from El Chango (Chiapas, Mexico) offer a snapshot of the geographic mosaic of the Mesozoic conifer decline

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ixchel Gonzalez-Ramirez ◽  
Sergio RS Cevallos-Ferriz ◽  
Carl Rothfels
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Mixed Forest ◽  
Freshwater Ecosystems ◽  
Total Evidence ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
Phylogenetic Position ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
Geographic Mosaic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Rare Opportunity

Premise of study: El Chango is a recently discovered quarry that contains extremely well preserved fossils. The Cenomanian age of the locality corresponds to a time when the global flora was transitioning from gymnosperm- to angiosperm-dominated, yet conifers predominate in this locality. These fossils thus provide a rare opportunity to understand the replacement of conifers by angiosperms as the dominant group of plants. Methods: We collected material from El Chango in annual expeditions (2010 to 2014). We selected the three most abundant and best preserved conifer morphotypes and conducted a total-evidence (i.e., including molecular and morphological data) phylogenetic analysis of a sample of 72 extant conifer species plus the three fossils. We use these results to inform our taxonomic decisions. Results: We obtained four equally most-parsimonious trees (consistency index = 44.1%, retention index = 78.8%). Despite ambiguous relationships among some extant taxa, the three fossil conifers had the same phylogenetic position in all four most parsimonious trees; we describe these species as new: Sequoiadendron helicalancifolium sp. nov. (Cupressaceae), and Microcachrys rhomboidea sp. nov. and Dacrydium bifoliosus sp. nov (Podocarpaceae). The ecosystem is interpreted as a coastal humid mixed forest. Conclusions: Our findings contribute to the understanding of Cenomanian equatorialregions, and support the hypothesis of a geographically and ecologically structured rise of angiosperms, with conifers remaining dominant in brackish-water and angiosperms becoming dominant in freshwater-ecosystems. These fossils fill in gaps in the evolutionary history of lineages like Microcachrys, which we demonstrate occurred in the Northern hemisphere before becoming restricted to its current range (Tasmania).

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