A Late Mamluk Document Concerning Frankish Commercial Practice at Tripoli

1999 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. S. Richards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Commercial Practice ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Oriental Institute ◽  
Mamluk Period ◽  
The University

Much has been written about the trading relations of the Italian states with the Levant in the period of the Crusades and the late Middle Ages. The bulk of the material that has made these studies possible has been provided by the voluminous archives of the various Italian cities, which also contain a few treaties and letters that originated from Muslim authorities (largely of the Mamluk period) and have been preserved in the original and/or in translation. The document to be presented here was addressed to various officials in Tripoli, that is, Tarābulus al-Shām, and dates from near the end of the Mamluk sultanate. It is an order for the attention of the Mamluk authorities only, intended to govern commercial dealings in Tripoli as they were unilaterally understood. The document is not to be thought of as comparable with the so-called ‘treaties’, which were draw up after a process of negotiation although they were ultimately expressed as independent decrees of the Sultan. One can only wonder at the chance survival of this undoubtedly genuine piece. It is now held in the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago, under the number OIM 13787. It was purchased in 1929 from Dr Bernhard Moritz, one-time librarian of the Khedivial Library in Cairo, and its provenance beyond that point is unknown. Three other Mamluk documents of the same period, which are relevant to affairs at Tripoli, survive in the archives of St Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, namely nos. LXIX, LXX and LXXI of those published by Ernst. The first of these three refers to the monastery's waqf property at Tripoli, but the other two have absolutely no connection with any interests or affairs of the monastery, and it is difficult to imagine how they found their way there.

Sargonid sculpture and the late Assyrian cubit

Iraq ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 89-103
Author(s):  
Eleanor Guralnick
Keyword(s):  
British Museum ◽  
The Other ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
The South ◽  
Oriental Institute ◽  
South West ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Battle Scenes ◽  
The University

AbstractDuring the Spring of 1991, the Fall of 1993 and the Summer of 1994, a major effort was completed to measure all the surviving untrimmed, monolithic and essentially entirely preserved Late Assyrian sculptured slabs and figures from Khorsabad, dating to the time of Sargon II, that are now held in Western museums. The programme of measurement was undertaken as the Paris slabs were in the process of being installed in their new home in the Richelieu Wing, Musée du Louvre, Paris. The Khorsabad slabs in the British Museum, London, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and the Sargon stele in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin were also measured. In addition, a number of slabs in the British Museum from the South-West and North Palaces at Nineveh were measured. Some were carved during the reign of Sennacherib, while others, from Room 23, were decorated in the reign of Assurbanipal.The first stages in the analysis of the measurements have already led to a number of useful observations concerning the standards of measurement used in decorating Late Assyrian Palaces. Measurement of untrimmed slab widths and frieze heights from Nineveh portraying battle scenes suggest that the standard Late Assyrian cubit equalled 51.5 cm in length. Slabs from Khorsabad Façade L are cut to this same cubit. On the other hand, religio-mythological royal emblemata, or guardians of the gates, at the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad were carved in accordance with a cubit of 56.6 cm, precisely three finger-breadths longer than the standard cubit. A slab featuring King Sargon was carved to a cubit 55 cms in length, precisely two finger-breadths longer than the standard. This confirms the existence of three Late Assyrian cubits: a standard cubit, a “Big Cubit” (KÙŠ GAL-ti in the annals of Sennacherib, AS4.LUM GAL-ti in a text of Esarhaddon), and the rare “Cubit of the King” (KÙŠ LUGAL in Late Assyrian cuneiform documents), which is probably the same as the “Royal Cubit” (basileios pēchys), three finger-breadths longer than the standard cubit, mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus (I, 178).

The Phenomenon of Dynasties of Jewish Doctors in the Mamluk Period (1250–1517)

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Amir Mazor ◽  
Efraim Lev
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
Jewish Origin ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
Mamluk Period ◽  
The One

Abstract This article discusses the phenomenon of dynasties of Jewish physicians in the Late Middle Ages in Egypt and Syria. Based on Muslim Arabic historiographical literature on the one hand, and Jewish sources such as Genizah documents on the other, this paper reconstructs fourteen dynasties of Jewish physicians that were active in the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517). Examination of the families reveals that the most distinguished dynasties of court physicians were of Jewish origin, and had to convert to Islam during the Mamluk period. Moreover, the office of the “Head of the Physicians” was occupied mainly by members of these convert Jewish dynasties. This situation stands in stark contrast to the pre-Mamluk period, in which dynasties of unconverted Jewish court physicians flourished. However, Jewish sources reveal that dynasties of doctors who were also communal leaders continued to be active also during the Mamluk period.

Management of the Dutch Waddensea

1984 ◽  
Vol 16 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 485-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Vreugdenhil
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Nature Reserve ◽  
The Other ◽  
Hydrological Processes ◽  
Dutch Government ◽  
Shallow Sea ◽  
Management Objectives ◽  
Late Middle Ages

It was not until the late Middle Ages that the sea penetrated far into the interior of The Netherlands, thus flooding three quarters of a million hectares of land. Since then half a million hectares have been reclaimed from the sea. The Dutch Government chose to preserve the remaining quarter of a million hectares of shallow sea with mudflats of the Waddensea as a nature reserve. The management objectives are at one hand to preserve all characteristic habitats and species with a minimal interference by human activities in geomorphological and hydrological processes, and at the other hand to guarantee the safety against the sea of the inhabitants of the adjacent mainland and islands and to facilitate certain economic and recreational uses of the Waddensea without jeopardizing the natural qualities. These objectives are being elaborated in managementplans.

A new attribution to Brassart?

1994 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
Peter Wright
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Middle Ages

A badly trimmed ascription can be more a matter for relish than regret: if enough of the composer's name survives to permit informed speculation, the musicologist's sense of pleasure is likely to outweigh his sense of loss. Most musical manuscripts from the late Middle Ages have visibly suffered at the hands of the binder's knife, but perhaps none more so than the famous ‘Aosta Manuscript’ (I-AO15), one of the central sources of early fifteenth-century sacred polyphony. In his inventory of the manuscript Guillaume de Van reported no fewer than twenty names as surviving in varying states of incompleteness. In fifteen instances he was able to decipher the composer's name or supply it from the manuscript's index or a concordant source, while the other five apparently defeated him. Two of the names have since been deciphered, and a third has been identified from another source, but the remaining two have attracted no further comment.

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