scholarly journals About the Bosporos Oil of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus and the Byzantine “Greek Fire”: Archaeological Evidence

2020 ◽  
pp. 81-89
Author(s):  
Valeriy Naumenko
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
Oil Fields ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Oil Transportation ◽  
Offensive Weapon ◽  
Central Regions ◽  
Unique Nature ◽  
The Military ◽  
Material Evidence

Introduction. The article discusses information sources of the 10th – 11th centuries about the oil fields in the area of the Bosporus needed to produce the secret offensive weapon of the Byzantine Empire, i.e. the famous “Greek fire”. Methods. The study is comprehensive. Along with a review of written sources allowing to establish the chronology of the most active period of using the Byzantine “Greek fire”, their material evidence of the oil fields development on the banks of the Kerch strait and the subsequent transportation of Bosporus oil in the central regions of Byzantium were analyzed. Analysis. The treatise of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus De Administrando Imperio contains a message about the oil fields in various areas of the Northeastern Black Sea including the Asian Bosporus which are traditionally considered as sources of raw materials for the famous secret weapons of the Empire – the so-called “Greek fire”. The unique nature of this information, in fact, has reliable archaeological evidence. During excavations of many settlements and fortresses of the Bosporus a sufficient number of examples of the local oil production and transportation to the central areas of Byzantium were found. In the late 9th – 11th centuries containers for the oil transportation were the so-called jugs with a high neck, the general chronology of which generally coincides with the period of the most active use of the “Greek fire” by the Byzantine fleet in fighting against numerous opponents of the Empire. Results. As the study shows, in addition to the military-strategic and political component, the interest of Byzantium in ensuring control over the territories of the Bosporus was probably due to the abundance of numerous sources of oil needed to manufacture the secret offensive weapon of the Empire – the famous “Greek fire”.

scholarly journals Tufa und Armilausini

2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-213
Author(s):  
Ludwig Rübekeil
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Migration Period ◽  
Linguistic Interference ◽  
History Of ◽  
Loan Word ◽  
Roman Military ◽  
The Military

AbstractThis article investigates the origin and history of two names dating from late Antiquity or the migration period. The first is the personal name Tufa, the second is the tribal name Armilausini. The two names can be traced back to a corresponding Germanic loan word in the Latin military language, tufa and armilausia, respectively, both of which are continued in the military language of the Eastern Roman and Byzantine Empire. The names are based on the appellative nouns. Both the appellatives and, even more so, the names turn out to be characteristic products of the multilingual background of the Roman military, as they show several signs of linguistic interference such as lexical reanalysis / folk etymology, morphological remodelling and semantic specialization.

Doctors Playing Gods? The Legal Challenges in Regulating the Experimental Stage of Cybernetic Human Enhancement

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Thibaut Moulin
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Human Enhancement ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Medical Progress ◽  
Unique Nature ◽  
The Military

The emergence of new technologies might challenge our assumptions about biomedical research: medical progress may not only cure but enhance human capacities. In particular, the emergence of brain-machine interfaces will admittedly allow disabled people to move or communicate again, but also has various military applications, such as remote control of drones and avatars. Although there is no express legal framework pertaining to the experimental phase of human enhancement techniques, they are actually constrained by international law. According to international humanitarian law, civilians and prisoners of war may be subjected to experiments only when required by their state of health or for medical treatment. According to international human rights law, experimentations are permissible when they meet two conditions: (i) free consent, and (ii) proportionality (that is, the adequacy of risk and benefit). In light of these conditions, this article assesses the situations in which experimentation involving brain-computer interfaces would be lawful. It also gives specific attention to those experimentations carried out on members of the armed forces. In fact, owing to the military hierarchy and the unique nature of its mission (to protect national security at the risk of their own lives), it is necessary to determine how the military may comply with this legal framework.

scholarly journals Microarchaeology, Materiality and Social Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-38
Author(s):  
Per Cornell ◽  
Fredrik Fahlander
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Social System ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Social Totality ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Social Entities ◽  
Material Evidence

In this paper we propose an operative social theory that eliminates the need for a pre-defined regional context or spatio-temporal social entities like social system, culture, society or ethnic group. The archaeological object in a microarchaeological approach is not a closed and homogeneous social totality, but rather the structurating practices, the regulative actions operating in a field ofhumans and things. In order to address these issues more systematically, we discuss social action, materialities and the constitution of archaeological evidence. Sartre's concept of serial action implies that materialities and social agency are integrated elements in the structuration process. We suggest that such patterns of action can be partially retrieved from the fragmented material evidence studied by the archaeologist.

scholarly journals US security provision under Joe Biden: A preliminary reconstruction of national strategy

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 348-373
Author(s):  
Vitalii E. Boldyrev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
The State ◽  
National Strategy ◽  
Holistic Model ◽  
Global System ◽  
Promising Strategy ◽  
Future Strategy ◽  
The Military

The article proposes a new understanding of the phenomenon of security as the desire of the state to achieve the most favourable trajectory of development under existing constraints. The concept of a favourable trajectory depends on objective factors and its subjective interpretations that are fixed in strategies and programs. In order to make these interpretations systematic and form a holistic model consisting of them, a new algorithm for strategical and program documents has been developed. According to the algorithm, every priority should be marked by code (or its combination) which corresponds to one of the subsystems of the global system and its component to create a database. The analysis of the database makes it possible to isolate problems whose relevance was artificially overestimated prior to elections, to forecast the directions of sequestration of their priorities, to determine the degree of continuity, to rank areas of the policy, to identify probable interconnections among them and to predict the foundations of a promising strategy. In regard to Biden’s program, the algorithm made it possible to achieve the following results. It was revealed that the program is more a succession to Trump’s strategy than innovative. The priority of the economic, social and financial spheres was artificially overestimated and the degree of their importance will be reduced after Biden’s inauguration. Economic, energy and legal spheres will be the cornerstones of Biden’s future strategy. Cyber, raw materials and technological subsystems will be assigned the role of drivers of development. Their successful functioning will be dependent on the dynamics of the military and agricultural sectors. In turn, demographic, trade, financial and credit, civil, humanitarian and cultural subsystems will acquire a more subordinate position and their role will be determined by the solution of specific issues. At the same time, it is difficult to determine the concrete positions and roles of future social and ecological policies because they had been overdeveloped or unclearly prioritized in the electoral program.

Material Evidence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah P. Morris
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Greek Art ◽  
Material Evidence ◽  
Material Record

Unlike in the study of Roman slavery (Joshel and Peterson 2014), the analysis of archaeological evidence for Greek slavery is far more challenging (I. Morris 2011), if we hope to be able to identify slaves, their labour, and their living spaces, in the ancient material record. Rather than trying to identify figures in Greek art as unfree in status, locating their place of work and living quarters in excavated structures, or distinguishing slave burials in ancient Greek necropoleis, this essay proposes that we should look rather for the wider effects of their labour on changes in health, wealth, settlement and landscapes.

War without Frontiers: The Archaeology of the Arab Revolt, 1916–18

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
NEIL FAULKNER ◽  
NICHOLAS J. SAUNDERS
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First World War ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
World War ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Archaeological Investigation ◽  
Conflict Archaeology ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Military ◽  
First World

The Arab Revolt of 1916–18 played a significant part in the military collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. This chapter argues that archaeological evidence indicates that the revolt's importance was probably substantially greater than has sometimes been acknowledged. The evidence demonstrates the need for a critical re-evaluation of the issue in southern Jordan. The archaeological investigation of sites associated with the Arab Revolt in southern Jordan offers dramatic insights into the material consequences for the Ottoman army of combating the guerrilla tactics of British-backed Arab guerrillas. The aim of the discussion is twofold: to give more precision to the military assessment of the Arab Revolt in the area between Ma'an and Wadi Rutm, and to demonstrate the potential of the new and multidisciplinary sub-discipline of twentieth-century ‘conflict archaeology’.

What and Where? Revised Overview of Base Extent

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon James
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City

Archaeological evidence indicates that, during the final halfcentury of the life of the city, the area directly annexed by the military was significantly larger than the original excavators realized. In addition to concentrations of soldiers around the gates and defences, and at various places within the ‘civil’ town, the military came to control a single continuous swathe of the urban interior, comprising the entire N part of the walled area from the W defences to the river cliffs, and extending as far as the S end of the Citadel, plus the floor of the inner wadi right down to Lower Main St opposite the (by Durene standards) showy C3 bath, which it also apparently built. This area totals c.13.5 ha (c.33 acres)—a literal quarter of the intramural area which today covers c.52 ha (c.118 acres, measured from the CAD plan of the city by Dan Stewart; both city and base were slightly bigger in antiquity, before loss of the River Gate and parts of the Citadel). In its final form, the base included several distinct zones (Pl. XXIII). The NW part of the city had become a military enclosure, bounded on the E side by a continuous wall down the W side of G St, incorporating the street facades of the E3 bath and E4 house. On the S it was defined by the ‘camp wall’ from the city defences to D St; with no sign of a wall across blocks F5 or F7, the perimeter between D and F Sts is inferred. It must be presumed that, as to the W, the 8th-St-fronting properties of the two blocks were taken over, but that the party walls comprising the boundary with civil housing to the S was not further elaborated. These lines converged on the amphitheatre, which formed the corner of the enclosure. This perimeter of the NW enclosure involved physically blocking Wall, A, C, D, and 10th Sts. A major entrance was on 8th St, at G St between the amphitheatre and the E4 house.

Aboriginal rights and title for archaeologists: A history of archaeological evidence in Canadian litigation

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-241
Author(s):  
Erin A Hogg ◽  
John R Welch
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Aboriginal Rights ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Different Types ◽  
History Of ◽  
Aboriginal Title ◽  
Temporal Dimensions ◽  
Material Evidence

Archaeological evidence has been used to assess pre-contact occupation and use of land since the first modern Aboriginal title claim in Canada. Archaeology’s ability to alternately challenge, support, and add substantive spatial and temporal dimensions to oral histories and documentary histories makes it a crucial tool in the resolution of Aboriginal rights and title. This article assesses how archaeological evidence has been considered in Aboriginal rights and title litigation in Canada, both over time and in different types of cases. The examination indicates that archaeological data have been judged to be sufficient evidence of pre-contact occupation and use. However, some limitations inherent in archaeological data, especially challenges in archaeology’s capacities to demonstrate continuous occupation and exclude possibilities for co-occupation, mean that it is best used in conjunction with ethnographies, oral histories, and historical documents. So long as courts affirm that it is the sole material evidence of pre-contact occupation, archaeological data will continue to be considered in future litigation.

scholarly journals The Moving Image as a Panacea for Concise Analysis and Means of Ensuring Good Governance and Ameliorating Youth Restiveness in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-142
Author(s):  
Jariel Somieari Ikiroma-Owiye
Keyword(s):  
Niger Delta ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Delta Region ◽  
Developmental Needs ◽  
Niger Delta Region ◽  
The People ◽  
The Military

The world is plagued with plethora of social issues generated from the complexity of modern existence. The control of sources of raw materials, exploitation, production, and trade has polarised our world. This paper looked at the Niger Delta situation from an audio-visual angle as reflected in the film ‘Krakraye’ by Gentle Jack. The Niger Delta region and her people have been neglected in terms of developmental needs in the Nigerian state, hence, the youths resort to self-identification and resource control which is the problem being stated. The aim of this paper is to present this issue bare in an audio-visual manner. The objectives are to concisely chronicle the real situation from the emergence of the military in the Nigerian scene to the present. Theoretical framework was the analytical approach to cultural studies, while the research methodology would entail the qualitative approach enmeshed with visual impressions, still photographs from the film ‘Krakraye’, and from other graphic and audio-visual sources. Findings of this study show that it is deliberate to underdevelop the Niger Delta region, keep the people poor so they will be loyal and could easily be overcome by the majority tribes, Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo who have never spoken against injustice meted to the Niger Delta communities. Contributions to knowledge is that visual presentation has shown the true plight of the Niger Delta people in visual images. Recommendations are that a naturally endowed, rich industrial environment should not be neglected for peace and development to thrive; stealing of the people’s commonwealth brings about capital flight as those in government are afraid to show their wealth in Nigeria rather, they launder and invest these monies abroad. This paper critically assessed the reach of film in exposing social anomaly as the case of the Niger Delta people, allegorically. Key Words: Film, Niger Delta, youth, democracy, development

The Implementation of the Mechanism of Management of the Strategic and Tactical Planning System of the Enterprise of the Military-Industrial Complex in the Conditions of Diversification

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 65-70
Author(s):  
A. Krasnikova
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
Machine Building ◽  
Market Potential ◽  
Planning System ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Tactical Planning ◽  
Economic Management ◽  
Diversification Strategy ◽  
Marketing Costs ◽  
The Military

The types of strategies by type of strategic planning are considered. Efficiency criteria and initial parameters of a diversification strategy are defined: market potential, number of competitors, volumes of civilian products, marketing costs, investments, number of types of raw materials and production resources. Methodological recommendations on the implementation of the mechanism are proposed organizational and economic management of the strategic and tactical planning of the defense industry enterprise in the context of diversification. The practical use of the mechanism of organizational and economic management of the strategic and tactical planning system of the enterprise in the conditions of diversification is considered at the enterprises of JSC "Electric Machine Building Plant" LEPSE "and PJSC" Kirov Plant "Mayak".

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