Ancient Egyptian mummified shrews (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla: Soricidae) and mice (Rodentia: Muridae) from the Spanish Mission to Dra Abu el-Naga, and their implications for environmental change in the Nile valley during the past two millennia

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Neal Woodman ◽  
Salima Ikram
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Nile Delta ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Community Turnover ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Floodplain Habitats ◽  
As Effects

Abstract Excavation of Ptolemaic Period (ca. 309–30 BC) strata within Theban Tombs 11, 12, -399-, and UE194A by the Spanish Mission to Dra Abu el-Naga (also known as the Djehuty Project), on the west bank of the Nile River opposite Luxor, Egypt, yielded remains of at least 175 individual small mammals that include four species of shrews (Eulipotypha: Soricidae) and two species of rodents (Rodentia: Muridae). Two of the shrews (Crocidura fulvastra and Crocidura pasha) no longer occur in Egypt, and one species (Crocidura olivieri) is known in the country only from a disjunct population inhabiting the Nile delta and the Fayum. Although deposited in the tombs by humans as part of religious ceremonies, these animals probably derived originally from local wild populations. The coexistence of this diverse array of shrew species as part of the mammal community near Luxor indicates greater availability of moist floodplain habitats than occur there at present. These were probably made possible by a greater flow of the Nile, as indicated by geomorphological and palynological evidence. The mammal fauna recovered by the Spanish Mission provides a unique snapshot of the native Ptolemaic community during this time period, and it permits us to gauge community turnover in the Nile valley of Upper Egypt during the last 2000 years. It also serves as a relevant example for understanding the extinction and extirpation of mammal species as effects of future environmental changes predicted by current climatic models.

Egyptian

2020 ◽  
pp. 274-280
Author(s):  
Balázs J. Irsay-Nagy
Keyword(s):  
Nile Delta ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Distinct Group ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Hieroglyphic Writing ◽  
Coptic Church ◽  
Modern Egypt

Ancient Egyptian constitutes one of the main branches of the Afro-Asiatic phylum. It was used as a written and spoken language in the Lower Nile Valley and the Nile Delta by the ancient Egyptians. Though its latest form, Coptic, was gradually replaced by Arabic as a spoken language from the tenth century ad onward, it remains the liturgical language of the Coptic Church in modern Egypt. With hieroglyphic and hieratic writing appearing in the late fourth millennium bc, it is the language with the longest documented history, more than four millennia, during which profound diachronic changes occurred. The decipherment of the hieroglyphic writing in 1822 led to the establishment of a new academic discipline—Egyptology—but also to the realization that Ancient Egyptian forms a distinct group together with other African languages, such as Berber and Cushitic, as well as Semitic.

scholarly journals Implications of geoarchaeological investigations for the contextualization of sacred landscapes in the Nile Delta

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-82
Author(s):  
Eva Lange-Athinodorou
Keyword(s):  
Water Resource ◽  
Nile Delta ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Sacred Landscapes ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Religious Festivals ◽  
Egyptian Religion ◽  
Female Deities

Abstract. Key elements of sacred landscapes of the Nile Delta were lakes, canals and artificial basins connected to temples, which were built on elevated terrain. In the case of temples of goddesses of an ambivalent, even dangerous, nature, i.e. lioness goddesses and all female deities who could appear as such, the purpose of sacred lakes and canals exceeded their function as a water resource for basic practical and religious needs. Their pleasing coolness was believed to calm the goddess' fiery nature, and during important religious festivals, the barques of the goddesses were rowed on those waters. As archaeological evidence was very rare in the past, the study of those sacred waters was mainly confined to textual sources. Recently applied geoarchaeological methods, however, have changed this situation dramatically: they allow in-depth investigations and reconstructions of these deltaic sacred landscapes. Exploring these newly available data, the paper presented here focuses on the sites of Buto, Sais and Bubastis, by investigating the characteristics of their sacred lakes, canals and marshes with respect to their hydrogeographical and geomorphological context and to their role in ancient Egyptian religion and mythology as well.

scholarly journals Relative effect of slope and equilibrium line altitude on the retreat of Himalayan glaciers

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. N. Venkatesh ◽  
A. V. Kulkarni ◽  
J. Srinivasan
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Relative Effect ◽  
Equilibrium Line ◽  
Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽  
Ice Flow ◽  
The Past ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Himalayan Glaciers ◽  
Gangotri Glacier ◽  
Major Factors

Abstract. It has been observed that a majority of glaciers in the Himalayas have been retreating. In this paper, we show that there are two major factors which control the advance/retreat of the Himalayan glaciers. They are the slope of the glacier and changes in the equilibrium line altitude. While it is well known, that these factors are important, we propose a new way of combining them and use it to predict retreat. The functional form of this model has been derived from numerical simulations using an ice-flow code. The model has been successfully applied to the movement of eight Himalayan glaciers during the past 25 years. It explains why the Gangotri glacier is retreating while Zemu of nearly the same length is stationary, even if they are subject to similar environmental changes. The model has also been applied to a larger set of glaciers in the Parbati basin, for which retreat based on satellite data is available, though over a shorter time period.

scholarly journals Relative effect of slope and equilibrium line altitude on the retreat of Himalayan glaciers

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 2571-2604 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. N. Venkatesh ◽  
A. V. Kulkarni ◽  
J. Srinivasan
Keyword(s):  
Satellite Data ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Relative Effect ◽  
Equilibrium Line ◽  
Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽  
The Past ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Himalayan Glaciers ◽  
Gangotri Glacier ◽  
Major Factors

Abstract. A majority of glaciers in the Himalayas have been retreating. In this paper, we show that there are two major factors which control the advance/retreat of the Himalayan glaciers. They are the slope of the glacier and changes in the equilibrium line altitude. While it is well known, that these factors are important, we propose a new way of combining them and use it to predict retreat. Our model has been applied to the movement of eight Himalayan glaciers during the past 25 years. The model explains why the Gangotri glacier is retreating while Zemu of nearly the same length is stationary, even though they are subject to similar environmental changes. The model has also been applied to a larger set of glaciers in the Parbati basin, for which retreat based on satellite data is available, though over a shorter time period.

World Economy: Prospects and Barriers for Recovery

2012 ◽  
pp. 61-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ershov
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Western World ◽  
Short Time Period ◽  
Market Segments ◽  
Junk Bonds ◽  
The Past ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Us ◽  
Global Liquidity ◽  
Short Time

According to the latest forecasts, it will take 10 years for the world economy to get back to “decent shape”. Some more critical estimates suggest that the whole western world will have a “colossal mess” within the next 5–10 years. Regulators of some major countries significantly and over a short time‑period changed their forecasts for the worse which means that uncertainty in the outlook for the future persists. Indeed, the intensive anti‑crisis measures have reduced the severity of the past problems, however the problems themselves have not disappeared. Moreover, some of them have become more intense — the eurocrisis, excessive debts, global liquidity glut against the backdrop of its deficit in some of market segments. As was the case prior to the crisis, derivatives and high‑risk operations with “junk” bonds grow; budget problems — “fiscal cliff” in the US — and other problems worsen. All of the above forces the regulators to take unprecedented (in their scope and nature) steps. Will they be able to tackle the problems which emerge?

scholarly journals Climate and environmental changes during the past millennium in central western Guizhou, China as recorded by Stalagmite ZJD-21

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 1111-1120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tz-Shing Kuo ◽  
Zi-Qi Liu ◽  
Hong-Chun Li ◽  
Nai-Jung Wan ◽  
Chuan-Chou Shen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Changes ◽  
The Past ◽  
Western Guizhou ◽  
Past Millennium

scholarly journals One Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Galicia: A Global View of Age-Group Statistics during Three Waves

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 5104
Author(s):  
Iván Area ◽  
Henrique Lorenzo ◽  
Pedro J. Marcos ◽  
Juan J. Nieto
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Hospital Admissions ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Nw Spain ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global View ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Key Variables ◽  
One Year

In this work we look at the past in order to analyze four key variables after one year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Galicia (NW Spain): new infected, hospital admissions, intensive care unit admissions and deceased. The analysis is presented by age group, comparing at each stage the percentage of the corresponding group with its representation in the society. The time period analyzed covers 1 March 2020 to 1 April 2021, and includes the influence of the B.1.1.7 lineage of COVID-19 which in April 2021 was behind 90% of new cases in Galicia. It is numerically shown how the pandemic affects the age groups 80+, 70+ and 60+, and therefore we give information about how the vaccination process could be scheduled and hints at why the pandemic had different effects in different territories.

scholarly journals Metaphors of migration over time

2021 ◽  
pp. 095792652199215
Author(s):  
Charlotte Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Emigration And Immigration ◽  
Emigrants And Immigrants ◽  
Economic Resource ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
The Past ◽  
Perception Of Control ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Metaphor Use ◽  
The Uk

This paper aims to cast light on contemporary migration rhetoric by integrating historical discourse analysis. I focus on continuity and change in conventionalised metaphorical framings of emigration and immigration in the UK-based Times newspaper from 1800 to 2018. The findings show that some metaphors persist throughout the 200-year time period (liquid, object), some are more recent in conventionalised form (animals, invader, weight) while others dropped out of conventionalised use before returning (commodity, guest). Furthermore, we see that the spread of metaphor use goes beyond correlation with migrant naming choices with both emigrants and immigrants occupying similar metaphorical frames historically. However, the analysis also shows that continuity in metaphor use cannot be assumed to correspond to stasis in framing and evaluation as the liquid metaphor is shown to have been more favourable in the past. A dominant frame throughout the period is migrants as an economic resource and the evaluation is determined by the speaker’s perception of control of this resource.

scholarly journals Validation of SCIAMACHY limb NO<sub>2</sub> profiles using solar occultation measurements

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 4753-4800
Author(s):  
R. Bauer ◽  
A. Rozanov ◽  
C. A. McLinden ◽  
L. L. Gordley ◽  
W. Lotz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
The Past ◽  
Middle Latitudes ◽  
Solar Occultation ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Vertical Distributions ◽  
Global Coverage ◽  
Scanning Imaging ◽  
Diurnal Effect ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Balloon Measurements

Abstract. The increasing amounts of reactive nitrogen in the stratosphere necessitates accurate global measurements of stratospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Over the past decade, the SCIAMACHY (SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY) instrument on ENVISAT (European Environmental Satellite) has been providing global coverage of stratospheric NO2 every 6 days, which is otherwise difficult to achieve with other systems (e.g. balloon measurements, solar occultation). In this study, the vertical distributions of NO2 retrieved from limb measurements of the scattered solar light from the SCIAMACHY instrument are validated using NO2 products from three different satellite instruments (SAGE II, HALOE and ACE-FTS). The retrieval approach, as well as the sensitivity of the SCIAMACHY NO2 limb data product are discussed, and the photochemical corrections needed to make this validation feasible, as well as the chosen collocation criteria are described. For each instrument, a time period of two years is analyzed with several hundreds of collocation pairs for each year and instrument. The agreement between SCIAMACHY and each instrument is found to be better than 10 % between 22–24 km and 40 km. Additionally, NO2 amounts in three different latitude regions are validated individually, with considerably better agreements in high and middle latitudes compared to tropics. Differences with SAGE II and ACE-FTS below 20 km are consistent with those expected from the diurnal effect.

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