scholarly journals Circles, Cycles and Ancestral Connotations. The Long-term History and Perception of Late Prehistoric Barrows and Urnfields in Flanders (Belgium)

2014 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 299-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Van Beek ◽  
Guy De Mulder

The perception of and interaction with ancient relics in past societies has been intensively debated in the archaeology of north-western Europe. This paper aims to make a contribution to this debate by reconstructing the long-term history of late prehistoric barrows and urnfields in Flanders (Belgium). The period between the Late Bronze Age and High Middle Ages (c. 1100 calbc–ad1300) is centred on. Contrary to Germany, Scandinavia and especially Britain, data from the Low Countries (Belgium and the Netherlands) have so far barely played a role in wider international and theoretical discussions on the role of the past in the past. Previous studies on reuse practices in the Low Countries mainly focused on the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt region of the southern Netherlands and north-eastern Belgium, which partly overlaps Flanders. These studies are combined and summarised. Their main outcomes are tested by means of a detailed inventory of reused late prehistoric cemeteries in Flanders. This study differs methodologically from most others in that it both offers an evidence-based overview of regional diachronic trends (documented at 62 barrow cemeteries and 13 urnfields) and discusses the developments at six sites yielding high resolution data. The observed reuse practices and site biographies appear to be remarkably dynamic and more diverse than previously suggested.


Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov

The concluding chapter highlights how the cultural history of graphic signs of authority in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages encapsulated the profound transformation of political culture in the Mediterranean and Europe from approximately the fourth to ninth centuries. It also reflects on the transcendent sources of authority in these historical periods, and the role of graphic signs in highlighting this connection. Finally, it warns that, despite the apparent dominant role of the sign of the cross and cruciform graphic devices in providing access to transcendent protection and support in ninth-century Western Europe, some people could still employ alternative graphic signs deriving from older occult traditions in their recourse to transcendent powers.



2018 ◽  

During the Late Middle Ages a unique type of ‘mixed media’ recycled and remnant art arose in houses of religious women in the Low Countries: enclosed gardens. They date from the time of Emperor Charles V and are unique examples of ‘anonymous’ female art, devotion and spirituality. A hortus conclusus (or enclosed garden) represents an ideal, paradisiacal world. Enclosed Gardens are retables, sometimes with painted side panels, the central section filled not only with narrative sculpture, but also with all sorts of trinkets and hand-worked textiles.Adornments include relics, wax medallions, gemstones set in silver, pilgrimage souvenirs, parchment banderoles, flowers made from textiles with silk thread, semi-precious stones, pearls and quilling (a decorative technique using rolled paper). The ensemble is an impressive and one-of-a-kind display and presents as an intoxicating garden. The sixteenth-century horti conclusi of the Mechelen Hospital sisters are recognized Masterpieces and are extremely rare, not alone at a Belgian but even at a global level. They are of international significance as they provide evidence of devotion and spirituality in convent communities in the Southern Netherlands in the sixteenth century. They are an extraordinary tangible expression of a devotional tradition. The highly individual visual language of the enclosed gardens contributes to our understanding of what life was like in cloistered communities. They testify to a cultural identity closely linked with mystical traditions allowing us to enter a lost world very much part of the culture of the Southern Netherlands. This book is the first full survey of the enclosed gardens and is the result of year-long academic research.



2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Smith

This paper examines how the past of desert landscapes has been interpreted since European explorers and scientists first encountered them. It charts the research that created the conceptual space within which archaeologists and Quaternarists now work. Studies from the 1840s–1960s created the notion of a ‘Great Australian Arid Period'. The 1960s studies of Lake Mungo and the Willandra Lakes by Jim Bowler revealed the cyclical nature of palaeolakes, that changed with climate changes in the Pleistocene, and the complexity of desert pasts. SLEADS and other researchers in the 1980s used thermoluminescence techniques that showed further complexities in desert lands beyond the Willandra particularly through new studies in the Strzelecki and Simpson Dunefields, Lake Eyre, Lake Woods and Lake Gregory. Australian deserts are varied and have very different histories. Far from ‘timeless lands', they have carried detailed information about long-term climate changes on continental scales.



1875 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 31-31
Author(s):  
Blackie

The Author showed by a historical review of the fortunes of Greece, through the Middle Ages, and under the successive influences of Turkish conquest and Turkish oppression, how the Greek language had escaped corruption to the degree that would have caused the birth of a new language in the way that Italian and the other Roman languages grew out of Latin. He then analysed the modern language, as it existed in current popular literature before the time of Coraes, that is, from the time of Theodore Ptochoprodromus to nearly the end of the last century, and showed that the losses and curtailments which it had unquestionably suffered in the course of so many centuries, were not such as materially to impair the strength and beauty of the language, which in its present state was partly to be regarded as a living bridge betwixt the present and the past, and as an altogether unique phenomenon in the history of human speech.



Author(s):  
Michael A. Kornienko ◽  

The author analyzes the prerequisites for the formation of a theological and philosophical school, founded in 990 by Bishop Fulbert in Chartres, which flourished during the years of the Episcopal ministry of Yves of Chartres (1090–1115), a recognized intellectual center of Western Europe. The role of the Chartres Cathedral School as a citadel of metaphysical, cosmological and natural-scientific Platonism in the era of early scholasticism is revealed. The philosophical orientation of the Chartres school (orientation to the ideas of Neoplatonism), as shown in the work, is the result of a combination of the ideas of Plato, aristotelism, stoicism, pythagoreanism, Eastern and Christian mysticism and religion. The body of ideas characteristic of the Neoplatonism tradition is analyzed, the account of which is essential in understanding the specifics of the Chartres school ideological platform: the ideas of a mystically intuitive knowledge of the higher, the stages of transition from “one and the universal” to matter, the idea of comprehension of pure spirituality. The thesis is substantiated that the time of the highest prosperity of the Chartres school, its highest fame is the XII century, which went down in the history of civilization as the era of the cultural renaissance taking place in France. The specificity of the 12th century renaissance, as shown in the study, lies in the growing interest in Greek philosophy and Roman classics (this also determines the other name of the era – the Roman Renaissance), in expanding the field of knowledge through the assimilation of Western European science and the philosophy of the ancient Greeks. The thesis in which the specifics of the entry of Greek science into the culture of Western Europe is also identified. This entry was carried out through the culture of the Muslim world, which also determined the specifics of the cultural renaissance of France of the XII century. Radical changes are revealed that affect the sphere of education and, above all, religious education; the idea of reaching the priority positions of philosophy and logic is substantiated – a situation that has survived until the end of the Middle Ages. This situation, as shown in the work, was facilitated by the rare growth rate of the translation centers of Constantinople, Palermo, Toledo. It is shown that scholasticism in its early version is oriented towards religious orthodoxy. In the teaching of philosophy, the vector turned out to be biased towards natural philosophy, which was due, as shown in the work, to the spread of the ideas of Aristotle and Plato. In its educational program, the school synthesized the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Elements of natural philosophy are inherent in the works of Bernard of Chartres, Gilbert of Poitiers, Thierry of Chartres representing the Chartres school. Deep studies on the problem of universals ensured the invasion of logic in the field of metaphysical constructions of the Chartres school.



Author(s):  
Teofilo F. Ruiz

This chapter examines tournaments. The origins of tournaments in Western Europe can be traced back to classical sources and to a sparse number of references to events that looked like tournaments in the Central Middle Ages. While these early mentions provide interesting glimpses of the genealogy of fictitious combat, it was the twelfth century that truly saw the formal beginnings of these traditions of artificial warfare that would hold such a powerful grip on the European imagination for many centuries to come. Closely tied to courtly culture and in a symbiotic relationship with the great outburst of courtly literature that took place in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the tournament sank deep roots in England, France, the Low Countries, and parts of Germany during the twelfth century, and then developed elaborate rules of engagement and pageantry in succeeding centuries.



Author(s):  
Maristella Botticini ◽  
Zvi Eckstein

This chapter assesses the argument that both their exclusion from craft and merchant guilds and usury bans on Christians segregated European Jews into moneylending during the Middle Ages. Already during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, moneylending was the occupation par excellence of the Jews in England, France, and Germany and one of the main professions of the Jews in the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and other locations in western Europe. Based on the historical information and the economic theory presented in earlier chapters, the chapter advances an alternative explanation that is consistent with the salient features that mark the history of the Jews: the Jews in medieval Europe voluntarily entered and later specialized in moneylending because they had the key assets for being successful players in credit markets—capital, networking, literacy and numeracy, and contract-enforcement institutions.



Author(s):  
MARSADOLOV L. ◽  

Many decades the life and work of Mikhail Petrovich Gryaznov (1902-1984) was connected with the State Hermitage museum. Long-term friendship bound him with Vladimir Ivanovich Matyushchenko (1928-2005). These archaeologists were lucky in the excavations in the field and in the office behind a desk that was reached by stressful daily work. The most valuable materials from the excavations of M.P. Gryaznov were transferred to the Hermitage (Pazyryk-1, Arzhan-1), and in the museum's funds he taught a course in tracology for students of LSU. Archaeologists are well aware of the scientific works of VI. Matyushchenko on the history of Siberian archaeology, materials from excavations of the Bronze Age sites in the Tomsk and Omsk regions (Elovka, Rostovka and others), and the mounds of the Xiongnu era in Sidorovka. This article briefly discusses the main stages of M.P. Gryaznov's work in the Hermitage and his further relations with this museum. The author of the article was familiar with M.P. Gryaznov and VI. Matyushchenko, studied archaeology with them, gained experience and repeatedly helped them, both in the Hermitage and beyond. Keywords: M.P Gryaznov, V.I. Matyushchenko, hermitage, Pazyryk, Arzhan, state award



Author(s):  
Lauren Mizock ◽  
Zlatka Russinova

Chapter 1 reviews the history of psychiatric treatment of people with mental illness in the United States and Western Europe, highlighting past perspectives in care, such as ancient trephination and exorcism during the demonology era, humorism in early Greek and Roman thought, a return to demonological perspectives in the Middle Ages, as well as mesmerism and psychoanalysis in the 19th and 20th centuries. The 20th-century biological perspective is described, including the use of insulin shock therapy, electroconvulsive therapy, and lobotomy. Next, the development of more humane treatment approaches is discussed, such as the moral treatment movement of the 1800s. The ex-patient’s movement of the 1970s is reviewed, leading up to the contemporary recovery-oriented and psychosocial rehabilitation models of care. The impact of stigma on the acceptance of serious mental illness is explored throughout this history. Discussion questions, activities, and diagrams are also included.



2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Kristiansen

In this article I examine how long-term economic strategies in the Bronze Age of northern Europe between 2300 and 500 BCE transformed the environment and thus created and imposed new ecological constraints that finally led to a major social transformation and a "dark age" that became the start of the new long-term cycle of the Iron Age. During the last 30 years hundreds of well-excavated farmsteads and houses from south Scandinavia have made it possible to reconstruct the size and the structure of settlement and individual households through time. During the same period numerous pollen diagrams have established the history of vegetation and environmental changes. I will therefore use the size of individual households or farmsteads as a parameter of economic strength, and to this I add the role of metal as a triggering factor in the economy, especially after 1700 BCE when a full-scale bronze technology was adopted and after 500 BCE when it was replaced by iron as the dominant metal. A major theoretical concern is the relationships between micro- and macroeconomic changes and how they articulated in economic practices. Finally the nature of the "dark age" during the beginning of the Iron Age will be discussed, referring to Sing Chew's use of the concept (Chew 2006).



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