A JACOBEAN ANTIQUARY REASSESSED: THOMAS LYTE, THE LYTE GENEALOGY AND THE LYTE JEWEL

2016 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 169-205
Author(s):  
Arnold Hunt ◽  
Dora Thornton ◽  
George Dalgleish
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
British Museum ◽  
British History ◽  
Geoffrey Of Monmouth ◽  
British Library ◽  
Lines Of Descent ◽  
New Evidence

This paper discusses two objects once owned by the antiquary Thomas Lyte (1568–1638). The Lyte Genealogy, now in the British Library, is an illustrated pedigree of Britain’s monarchs, tracing the royal succession through multiple lines of descent from the Trojan prince Brute. It demonstrates the importance of antiquarianism, and the continuing relevance of the traditional British history derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth, in supporting the legitimacy of the Stuart succession. The Lyte Jewel, now in the British Museum, is a tablet miniature containing a portrait of Jamesiby Nicholas Hilliard, presented to Thomas Lyte by the king as a reward for his work on the Genealogy. New evidence points to the king’s jeweller, George Heriot, as its likely designer. Together, the Lyte Genealogy and the Lyte Jewel offer new insights into the antiquarian pursuits of the early Stuart gentry and the intellectual and material culture of the Jacobean court.

Transferring Sinosphere Knowledge to the Public: James Summers (1828-91) as Printer, Editor and Cataloguer

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-84
Author(s):  
Uganda Sze Pui Kwan
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Book History ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Japanese Culture ◽  
British History ◽  
The Public ◽  
Victorian Britain ◽  
King's College ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Ardent Supporter

Abstract James Summers occupied the professorship of Chinese for two decades at King’s College London. He was also a trailblazer in promoting the study of Japanese culture in Victorian Britain, but he has been an underrated and understudied figure in British history. Summers was an ardent supporter of modern printing. He believed printed media was the most effective medium to transform British perceptions of Asia, which in turn would help support Britain’s foreign political, commercial and missionary enterprise. He also orchestrated the printing of catalogues and journals in his capacity as library assistant to the British Museum and the India Office Library. He even set up his own press to print a newspaper in order to disseminate knowledge of East Asia to a broader readership. Based on primary materials that have rarely been used before, this paper positions Summers in the study of book history, material culture and print mediums in order to reassess his pioneering efforts in Sinological studies.

Dunhuang Art

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle C. Wang
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Gansu Province ◽  
British Library ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Chinese Han ◽  
The North ◽  
Mural Paintings ◽  
The Status ◽  
Religious Praxis

The oasis city of Dunhuang lies at the eastern end of the southern Silk Routes, in Gansu Province in northwestern China. In the 2nd century BCE, Dunhuang was established by the Chinese Han dynasty as a center for military operations and trade. Over time, Dunhuang became an important hub for multicultural trade as well as for the transmission of commodities, ideas, and religions. The status of Dunhuang as an important regional center for Buddhism is demonstrated by a wealth of paintings and manuscripts that provide crucial insights into the unfolding of religious praxis and developments in visual culture over many centuries. A few centuries after the establishment of Dunhuang as a military garrison, the construction of cave shrines in the area began. Four major groups of cave shrines were constructed in the Dunhuang region: the Mogao, Yulin, and Western Thousand Buddhas caves, and the Five Temples site. The most well-studied of these are the Mogao 莫高, or “peerless,” cave shrines, which are located 25 kilometers southeast of Dunhuang at the eastern edge of Mount Mingsha 鳴沙山 (Mountain of the Singing Sands). From the 4th to the 14th centuries, 492 man-made caves were carved from the sandstone cliffs, stretching 1,680 meters from south to north. They were painted with over 45,000 square meters of mural paintings and installed with more than 2,000 painted clay sculptures. To the north, 248 additional caves were carved. Mostly unadorned, the northern caves served as habitation chambers for monks. In addition to the mural paintings and inscriptions in the Mogao caves, more than 50,000 manuscripts and portable paintings were discovered in 1900 by the caretaker and Daoist priest Wang Yuanlu 王圓籙 from one cave, numbered Mogao cave 17, popularly though perhaps problematically known as the “library cave.” These objects were dispersed in the early 20th century to library and museum collections, the most prominent of which are the Stein collection in the British Museum, British Library, the National Museum of India, and the Pelliot collection in the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet and Bibliothèque Nationale de France. For this reason, the study of Dunhuang art and material culture encompasses both objects held in museum and library collections worldwide as well as mural paintings and sculptures located in situ in the cave shrines. Bringing these two bodies of material into conversation with one another enables a nuanced understanding of Dunhuang as a religious and artistic center, focusing in particular on the Mogao caves.

The Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte- Maure: A Translation. Translated by Glyn S. Burgess, Douglas Kelly. Woodbridge, UK, and Rochester, NY: D. S. Brewer, 2017. Gallica, 41. 486 pp.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 394-396
Author(s):  
Raymond J. Cormier
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
British History ◽  
Geoffrey Of Monmouth ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Trojan War ◽  
Roman De Troie ◽  
History Of ◽  
Extensive Introduction ◽  
Roman De Brut ◽  
Roman De Thebes

In his Roman de Brut (1155), the Norman Robert Wace of Caen recounts the founding of Britain by Brutus of Troy to the end of legendary British history, while adapting freely the History of the Kings of Britain (1136) by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Wace’s Brut inaugurated a new genre, at least in part, commonly known as the “romances of antiquity” (romans d'antiquité). The Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, dating to around 1165, is, along with the Roman de Thèbes and the Roman d’Énéas, one of the three such romances dealing with themes from antiquity. These creations initiated the subjects, plots and structures of the genre, which subsequently flowered under authors such as Chrétien de Troyes. As an account of the Trojan War, Benoît’s version of necessity deals with war and its causes, how it was fought and what its ultimate consequences were for the combatants. How to explain its success? The author chose the standard and successful poetic form of the era—octosyllabic rhyming couplets; he was fond of extended descriptions; he could easily recount the intensity of personal struggles; and, above all he was fascinated by the trials and tribulations of love, a passion that affects several prominent warriors (among them Paris and his love for Helen, and Troilus and his affection for Briseida). All these elements combined to contour this romance in which events from the High Middle Ages were presented as a likeness of the poet’s own feudal and courtly spheres. This long-awaited new translation, the first into English, is accompanied by an extensive introduction and six-page outline of the work; two appendices (on common words, and a list of known Troie manuscripts); nearly twenty pages of bibliography; plus exhaustive indices of personal and geographical names and notes. As the two senior scholars assert (p. 3), By translating Benoît’s entire poem we seek to contribute to a greater appreciation of its composition and subject-matter, and thus to make available to a modern audience what medieval readers and audiences knew and appreciated.

scholarly journals The manuscript journals of the trial of Charles I: new evidence on their provenance and purpose*

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Vallance
Keyword(s):  
British Library ◽  
Public Account ◽  
Charles I ◽  
National Archives ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Evidence

Abstract Historians of the trial of Charles I will be familiar with the two copies of the manuscript journals kept in The National Archives of the U.K. and the U.K. Parliamentary Archives. Besides these manuscripts, two further copies of the trial proceedings are held in the Beinecke Library, Yale, and in the British Library. This article compares these versions to propose a tentative document history of the journals, suggesting that these manuscripts were produced for different purposes: what began as the basis for an authoritative public account of the trial later became a text intended for a more select legal audience.

scholarly journals New evidence for prehistoric copper metallurgy in the vicinity of Bor

Starinar ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 173-191
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Kapuran ◽  
Dragana Zivkovic ◽  
Nada Strbac
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Copper Ore ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Metallurgical Furnaces ◽  
Copper Metallurgy ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Bronze Age

The last three years of archaeological investigations at the site Ru`ana in Banjsko Polje, in the immediate vicinity of Bor, have provided new evidence regarding the role of non-ferrous metallurgy in the economy of the prehistoric communities of north-eastern Serbia. The remains of metallurgical furnaces and a large amount of metallic slags at two neighbouring sites in the mentioned settlement reveal that locations with many installations for the thermal processing of copper ore existed in the Bronze Age. We believe, judging by the finds of material culture, that metallurgical activities in this area also continued into the Iron Age and, possibly, into the 4th century AD.

Museum Anthropology

Anthropology ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alaka Wali ◽  
Rosa Cabrera ◽  
Jennifer Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Human Ecology ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Field Research ◽  
British Museum ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Cultural Patrimony ◽  
Museum Displays

The field of museum anthropology predates the institutionalization of anthropology as an academic discipline in universities. The formation of collections from as early as the 17th century spurred the study of the cultures that produced the objects destined for display. Early on, anthropology collections were integrated either into national museums (e.g., the British Museum), museums of “folk culture,” or, especially in the United States, natural history museums. The first major anthropology and archaeology museum was the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, founded in 1866. Eventually, the collections became the foundation for research and documentation of the lifeways, material circumstances, and human ecology of diverse cultures. For more than a century, anthropologists situated in museums curated the collections by documenting them through catalogues and publications and by creating public displays. However, after the 1970s, museum anthropology became more research oriented, moving beyond collections-based documentation to an emphasis on field research. Simultaneously, it became more difficult to acquire objects because of diminishing resources and international and national policies on cultural patrimony. In the 1980s, a growing critique of the representation of cultures began to emerge from outside the museum walls. The critiques concerned the ahistorical, evolutionary-oriented display of non-European cultures, and the lack of inclusion of “first voice” (the perspective of the peoples themselves). The authority of the curator was questioned, as were the colonialist perspectives that museum displays embodied. Critiques came from academically situated scholars as well as from the communities whose cultures were represented in museum displays. The response from within the museum has been transformative. Curators developed new forms of representation, more attuned to contemporary theory, and they began to collaborate with communities to include their perspectives. Studies of material culture and human ecology continue to dominate museum anthropology, but they are very diverse and cover a huge geographical terrain. Interest has also revived in material-culture studies outside of museums, and we have included some sampling of this work here. Museum-based education programs and publications oriented toward the general public cover the classic four fields of anthropology. Museums of specific cultural groups or heritage-based museums may not always include anthropologists on staff; however, their work represents an important contribution to the understanding of the role of culture and ethnicity in social life. “Eco-museums,” museums dedicated to a single place or a single cultural heritage, represent an important trend of this kind.

TEXTUAL NOTES ON HERODAS MIM. 8, ENHYPNION OR THE DREAM

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-97
Author(s):  
WILLIAM FURLEY
Keyword(s):  
British Library ◽  
Future Success ◽  
The Future ◽  
New Evidence

Abstract Herodas' Eighth Mime, The Dream (Enhypnion) is a fascinating but unfortunately very poorly preserved account of a dream in which the ‘I’ of the piece encounters Dionysos himself in a revel involving askoliasmos, jumping on an inflated wine-skin. The narrator's success in the competition is equated at the close with a prediction about the future success of Herodas' limping iambics in the literary mêlée. The present piece results from a re-examination of the major papyrus source for this piece in the British Library, proposing new, or possible alternative readings, for lines 15, 44, 45, 70, 72, 76–79. Perhaps the most significant is new evidence for an epithet of Dionysos Lyaios, as the word λύη, commotion, seems preferable to previous editors' λείη, plunder, in line 45.

OLD-ROMAN CHANT AND THE RESPONSORIES OF NOAH: NEW EVIDENCE FROM SUTRI

2007 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 91-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Forrest Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
New Information ◽  
Vatican City ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Old Roman

Among the manuscript fragments in the Archivio comunale of Sutri (Province of Viterbo), Italy, are four consecutive folios of an Old-Roman antiphoner of the later eleventh century. The two bifolios are now identified as fragments 141 (Frammenti teologici 40) and 141bis (Frammenti teologici 41). These fragments, which preserve music for the feasts of Sexagesima, Quinquagesima and Ash Wednesday, are remnants of what appears to be the oldest witness of Old-Roman music for the office. When added to the two surviving antiphoners (London, British Library, Add. MS 29988, of the twelfth century, and Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS San Pietro B 79, of the end of the twelfth century) and two recently discovered fragments (in Frosinone and Bologna), the Sutri fragments bring to five the number of Old-Roman antiphoners of which at least some evidence survives. It begins to appear that manuscripts of this music were once not so rare. The Sutri fragments show some unusual liturgical characteristics that provide new information on the Roman liturgy; I will discuss these aspects shortly.

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