Illustrations of Human Effigies in Tibetan Ritual Texts: With Remarks on Specific Anatomical Figures and Their Possible Iconographic Source

Author(s):  
BRYAN J. CUEVAS

AbstractThe ritual use of objects and images designed to serve as effigies or surrogates of specific persons, animals or spirits is more or less universal across cultures and time. In Tibet, recent archaeological evidence attests to the use of illustrated effigies possibly dating from the eleventh century. Other early Tibetan images include anthropomorphic figures inscribed on animal skulls. The practical use of effigies in Tibetan ritual, both Buddhist and Bon-po, was almost certainly derived from much older Indian practices transmitted to Tibet. In this article illustrated effigies, their iconography and ritual use are discussed and the article concludes with the translation and transliteration of a short work by the fifteenth-century treasure revealer (gter-ston) and patron saint of Bhutan Padma-gling-pa (1450–1521), which gives instructions on how to draw a liṅga for a ritual of defence against human adversaries.

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Lodge

Pittenweem Priory began life as the caput manor of a daughter-house established on May Island by Cluniac monks from Reading (c. 1140). After its sale to St Andrews (c. 1280), the priory transferred ashore. While retaining its traditional name, the ‘Priory of May (alias Pittenweem)’ was subsumed within the Augustinian priory of St Andrews. Its prior was elected from among the canons of the new mother house, but it was many decades before a resident community of canons was set up in Pittenweem. The traditional view, based principally on the ‘non-conventual’ status of the priory reiterated in fifteenth-century documents, is that there was ‘no resident community’ before the priorship of Andrew Forman (1495–1515). Archaeological evidence in Pittenweem, however, indicates that James Kennedy had embarked on significant development of the priory fifty years earlier. This suggests that, when the term ‘non-conventual’ is used in documents emanating from Kennedy's successors (Graham and Scheves), we should interpret it more as an assertion of superiority and control than as a description of realities in the priory.


The Library ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-476
Author(s):  
Zachary E Stone

Abstract Ranging from an eleventh-century Gospel Book to a fifteenth-century copy of John Gower's Confessio Amantis, the medieval manuscripts of Wadham College merit more extensive consideration than they have hitherto received. This article seeks to enable and encourage the continued investigation of Wadham College's manuscript collection by providing preliminary descriptions for eight manuscripts lacking modern descriptions (MSS 1, 2, 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 10.19).


X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Gurriarán Daza

Building techniques in the medieval walls of AlmeríaAlmería was one of the most important cities in al-Andalus, a circumstance that was possible thanks to the strength of its port. Its foundation as an urban entity during the Caliphate of Córdoba originated a typical scheme of an Islamic city organized by a medina and a citadel, both walled. Subsequent city’s growths, due to the creation of two large suburbs commencing in the eleventh century, also received defensive works, creating a system of fortifications that was destined to defend the place during the rest of the Middle Ages. In this work we will analyse the construction techniques used in these military works, which cover a wide period from the beginning of the tenth century until the end of the fifteenth century. Although ashlar stone was used in the Caliphate fortification, in most of these constructions bricklayer techniques were used, more modest but very useful. In this way, the masonry and rammed earth technique were predominant, giving rise to innumerable constructive phases that in recent times are being studied with archaeological methodology, thus to know better their evolution and main characteristics. 


Author(s):  
János Gyarmati ◽  
Carola Condarco

The local ethnohistoric sources and the archaeological evidence, as well as the radiocarbon dates, indicate that the Inca Empire conquered the mighty polities of Central Bolivia around the mid-fifteenth century, and then created a well-structured imperial infrastructure. The rationale behind the creation of this infrastructure can be sought in the region’s agricultural potential and raw material deposits. In order to fully exploit these resources, the Inca performed a large-scale population resettlement, principally of groups from the altiplano and the mountain regions to the eastern valleys. The goods produced in these agricultural and craft centers ensured the defense of the empire’s eastern frontiers, and contributed to the provisioning of its heartland.


2018 ◽  
pp. 127-148
Author(s):  
Neguin Yavari

The focus in the fifth and final chapter is on the afterlife of Nizam al-Mulk, of his legacy as well as of his representations. By the late fifteenth century, in Timurid Iran, Nizam al-Mulk is already the stuff of legend. In one historian’s estimation, the vizier is a veritable eleventh-century avatar of the martyr par excellence of Shi’i lore Husayn b. ‘Ali (d. 680), and the progenitor of modern Iran. But the story of Nizam al-Mulk does not end with his metamorphosis into a crypto-Shi‘i and a proto-Iranian patriot. In the 2010s, it is Nizam al-Mulk who is the most regularly invoked exemplar of legitimate Islamic governance, exhorting prudence and expedience to guide the Iranian polity through the treacherous waters of nuclear negotiations with the West, and to domesticate outlier and extremist fervor. The Iranian invocation of Nizam al-Mulk differs radically from his depiction in modern Sunni—Arab or Turkish—historiography. That living legacy is the true history of the laureled vizier.


1972 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 31-40
Author(s):  
Marjorie Chibnall

Historians of early monasticism in Frankish Gaul either have little to say about the monastery founded by St Evroul or, like Dom Laporte, devote their attention to a discussion of the probable date of his life. The disappearance of almost all early documentary sources is one reason for this: there was certainly a break in the occupation of the site for perhaps half the century between the destruction of the monastery in the tenth century and its refoundation in 1050, and only one charter, dated 900, was rescued and copied in the eleventh century. The fact that there has been no systematic excavation of the site, so that archaeological evidence of buildings before the thirteenth-century church is lacking, is another. Early annals and reliable lives of other saints have nothing at all to say on the subject. The first historian to tackle it, Orderic Vitalis, writing in the early twelfth century, had to admit that he could discover nothing about the abbots for the four hundred years after St Evroul; and he had to draw on the memories and tales of the old men he knew, both in the monastery and in the villages round about. Needless to say he harvested a luxuriant crop of legends and traditions of all kinds. The problem of the modern historian is to winnow a few grains of historical truth out of the stories that he garnered, and the hagiographical traditions, some of which he did not know.


Panggung ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunarto

Panakawan is a group of purwa shadow puppet having a specific embodiment. The embodiment of panakawan figures is shown in unproportional body and caricaturistics. The question is since when panakawan figures appear and how the concept of embodiment is. To answer that question, the research is done through historical approach to track the existence of panakawan figures, while the iconography is used to identify panakawan figures in terms of embodiment, and in tracing the concept of panakawan embodiment is done through structural approach.This study found that panakawan history can be traced through two sources, namely verbal and pictorial sources. Verbal is any source that is obtained from written works, whereas pictorial is any source of artifacts. The term of Panakawan was first found on serat Gattkacasraya by Empu Panuluh in the eleventh century and on Kitab Nawaruci  by Empu Siwamurti in the fifteenth century. Panakawan was also found on several sources of puppet plays, among others: Kidung Sudamala, Serat Purwakanda, Serat Pustakarajapurwa, and Serat Purwacarita. On artifact sources, it was found on temple reliefs and on some kinds of puppet. The concept of panakawan embodiment was inspired by the disabled people who have magic power. The people of this type in Yogyakarta palace are called Abdi Dalem Palawija, whereas in the ancient Java they were included in the character of i’jro. Keywords: Panakawan, history, concept


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Joukovskaia

A wide circle of historians, lawyers, and secondary school teachers are interested in the Pravda Russkaia. This review analyses the historiographical situation around the study of this important artefact after the publication of The Short Pravda: The Origin of the Text (2009) by Oleksiy Tolochko, in which the author develops the opinion that the Short Pravda appeared later than the Expanded Pravda, which was expressed by prominent linguists and historians (E. F. Karskii, S. P. Obnorskii, A. I. Sobolevskii, etc.) in the first half of the twentieth century but later discarded by Soviet scholarship. By combining various methods from source studies, the author proves that the Short Pravda did not originate as a legal document in the eleventh century, but as a fragment of The Chronicle of Novgorod in the early fifteenth century. The review shows that specialists’ responses to Tolochko’s book are limited to a few journal publications, each of which criticises one or two of separate arguments but does not systematically consider the proposed holistic theory of the artefact’s origin (articles by K. Zukerman, P. V. Lukin, A. A. Gorskii, A. Y. Degtyarev, etc.). Any attempt at summarising the results of the controversy leads to the belief that the discussion is methodologically unsound. The analysis of an article from the Pravda that is taken out of context can lead to opposing interpretations depending on the choice of the parameters preferred by a given author at a given time. Considering the fundamental nature of the Pravda Russkaia for the history of medieval Russia, the reviewer concludes that it is necessary to make an effort (probably a collective effort) towards a systematic analysis of Tolochko’s hypothesis: the traditional isolated study of this most important legal document should be placed within the broader framework of a comprehensive study of the collections in which the short and expanded versions of the Pravda have been preserved.


Balcanica ◽  
2006 ◽  
pp. 69-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smilja Marjanovic-Dusanic

Especially important for the development of the holy king concept with the Serbs appears to be the early period of Serbian sovereignty, initially in Zeta, and subsequently in Raska under Stefan Nemanja and his descendants. During the eleventh century, cults of royal martyrs arise across the Slavic world, receiving a most enthusiastic response connected with the spread of the martyrial and monastic ideals in Byzantium. The cult of St Vladimir is the earliest royal saint's cult with the Serbs, and it is rightfully set apart from the ideologically consistent whole encompassing the subsequent cults of the Nemanjic rulers. The cult of this royal saint undergoes a change in the twelfth century as regards the image of the exemplary ruler. The martyrial cults of holy kings emerge in medieval Serbia only in the fifteenth century, under the influence of completely different motives. The cults of national royal saints associate domestic dynasties with the Old Testament-based traditions of God-chosenness, which play a central role in the processes of securing political legitimation for ruling houses. At the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we can see both the national and universal relics being used for raising an awareness of chosen ness observable in expanding the sacred realm as the fatherland's prayerful shield. In that sense, all-Christian relics, especially those of Constantinopolitan provenance, become integrated into domestic traditions.


1960 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 43-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. H. McDonald

The present text of Livy's Fourth Decade rests upon two main lines of tradition: first, the eleventh-centuryBambergensiswith fourteenth–fifteenth centuryrecentioresand Gelenius' notes (1535) of the lostSpirensis; secondly, Carbachius' recording (1519) of the lostMoguntinus. This paper is concerned with the effect which more recent knowledge of the archetype of the first tradition may have upon emendation of the text. In the light of uncial fragments discovered at Bamberg in 1904 Traube showed thatBambergensisis a direct copy of the fifth-century MS. which they represent. At one step we are back in the world of late Roman scholarship, and one may correctBambergensisin terms of the copying of continuous uncial script.


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