scholarly journals The Interdisciplinary Nature-Induced Disaster Index: Eldgjá, Laki, and How to Evaluate Historical Sources in an Interdisciplinary Framework

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan F. Ebert ◽  
Katrin Kleemann
Keyword(s):  
Extreme Events ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Volcanic Event ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
Interdisciplinary Nature ◽  
Interdisciplinary Framework ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Disciplinary Cultures

Abstract The integration of archives of society with archives of nature has helped scholars to date extreme events precisely. This approach has led to collaboration between the natural sciences and the humanities. While it has helped to highlight the dimensions of nature-induced disasters and their societal consequences, it has often led to rather monocausal explanations, promoting nature as the prime agent in history. The field is currently experiencing a shift away from monocausal explanations. Cultural factors need to be examined as well in order to analyze their contribution to disasters properly. To aid in this endeavor, we introduce the “Interdisciplinary Nature-Induced Disaster index” (INID-index), a tool to successfully integrate historical material into research on natural extreme events and their impacts on past societies. Eldgjá (ca. 934–940 CE) and Laki (1783–1784 CE)—the two major Icelandic eruptions of the Common Era—will be used as case studies to demonstrate the benefits of the index. A third contrasting study on a volcanic event in around 913 CE highlights the desiderata that the index can indicate, and its limitations. We consider this paper an offer to make transparent the questions that historians ask themselves and an example of a way to increase understanding across disciplinary cultures.

The Word of God in One’s Hand: Touching and Holding Pendant Koran Manuscripts

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 338-357
Author(s):  
Cornelius Berthold
Keyword(s):  
Haptic Feedback ◽  
The Body ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Rare Occurrence ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Solid Objects ◽  
Cylindrical Form ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era

AbstractKoran manuscripts that fit comfortably within the palm of one’s hand are known as early as the 10th century CE.For the sake of convenience, all dates will be given in the common era (CE) without further mention, and not in the Islamic or Hijra calendar. Their minute and sometimes barely legible script is clearly not intended for comfortable reading. Instead, recent scholarship suggests that the manuscripts were designed to be worn on the body like pendants or fastened to military flag poles. This is corroborated by some preserved cases for these books which feature lugs to attach a cord or chain, but also their rare occurrence in contemporary textual sources. While pendant Korans in rectangular codex form exist, the majority were produced as codices in the shape of an octagonal prism, and others as scrolls that could be rolled up into a cylindrical form. Both resemble the shapes of similarly dated and pre-Islamic amulets or amulet cases. Building on recent scholarship, I will argue in this article that miniature or pendant Koran manuscripts were produced in similar forms and sizes because of comparable modes of usage, but not necessarily by a deliberate imitation of their amuletic ‘predecessors’. The manuscripts’ main functions did not require them to be read or even opened; some of their cases were in fact riveted shut. Accordingly, the haptic feedback they gave to their owners when they carried or touched them was not one of regular books but one of solid objects (like amulets) or even jewellery, which then reinforced this practice.

Marking Religious and Ethnic Boundaries: Cases from the Ancient Golan Heights

2000 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Gregg
Keyword(s):  
Rhode Island ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Small Communities ◽  
Rural Settings ◽  
The Common ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Common Era

In the aftermath of the 1967 “Six Days' War,” 254 ancient inscribed stones were found in forty-four towns and villages of the Golan Heights—241 in Greek, 12 in Hebrew or Aramaic, and 1 in Latin. These stones, along with numerous architectural fragments, served as the basis of the 1996 book by myself and Dan Urman, Jews, Pagans, and Christians in the Golan Heights—a study of settlement patterns of people of the three religions in this region in the early centuries of the common era.1 The area of the Golan heights, roughly the size of Rhode Island, was in antiquity a place of agriculture and, for the most part, small communities. Though historians of religions in the late Roman period have long been aware of the “quartering” of cities, and of the locations of particular religious groups in this or that section of urban areas, we have had little information concerning the ways in which Hellenes, Jews, and Christians took up residence in relation to each other in those rural settings featuring numerous towns and hamlets— most presumably too small to have “zones” for ethnic and religious groups. The surviving artifacts of a number of the Golan sites gave the opportunity for a case study. Part 1 of this article centers on evidence for the locations and possible interactions of members of these religious groups in the Golan from the third to the seventh centuries and entails a summary of findings in the earlier work, while part 2 takes up several lingering questions about religious identity and ways of “marking” it within Golan countryside communities. Both sections can be placed under a rubric of “boundary drawing and religion.”

Ainsworth's Historical Accuracy Reconsidered

1972 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-28
Author(s):  
Llewellyn Ligocki
Keyword(s):  
Historical Novel ◽  
Sir Walter Scott ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
The Past ◽  
Waverley Novels ◽  
Literary Figure ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
The Common ◽  
Failure To Progress

After Sir Walter Scott made the historical novel popular with his Waverley novels, many other writers, including the major novelists Dickens and Thackeray and the minor novelists Ainsworth, G. P. R. James, Bulwer-Lytton, and Reade, took up the form. But while the major novelists are credited with artistry in their use of history, the minor ones are generally regarded as hacks who used history indiscriminately in any way they wished in order to “make saleable novels.” The disparaging criticism of William Harrison Ainsworth's use of history exemplifies this unreflective critical tendency.For several probable reasons, critics have not been inclined to credit Ainsworth with using history responsibly; however, none of the reasons is based on an examination of his sources: his rapid ascension and decline as an important literary figure, his popularity with the common reading public, and his failure to progress artistically after his first few good novels. His artistic growth seems to have ended in 1840, forty-one years before the publication of his last novel. These critics have seen him as a “manufacturer of fiction,” and therefore not responsible in his treatment of historical fact and his use of historical documents, even though time and place are of crucial importance to Ainsworth. One could hardly regard Ainsworth more incorrectly. A close reading of Ainsworth's historical sources demonstrates that Ainsworth's history is extremely reliable in both generalities and particulars; his alterations, usually minor, serve only to adumbrate his concept of history as cycle. Thus, even though he is a novelist and not a historian, the faithful revelation of the past is central to his work. He examines history carefully in order to present truths about life and in order to demonstrate how history reveals these truths.

scholarly journals No evidence for tephra in Greenland from the historic eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE: Implications for geochronology and paleoclimatology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gill Plunkett ◽  
Michael Sigl ◽  
Hans Schwaiger ◽  
Emma Tomlinson ◽  
Matthew Toohey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ice Core ◽  
Trace Element Composition ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Volcanic Event ◽  
Proxy Records ◽  
Aleutian Arc ◽  
Polar Ice Sheets ◽  
Paleoclimate Proxy ◽  
Common Era

Abstract. Volcanic signatures archived in polar ice sheets provide important opportunities to date and correlate ice-core records as well as to investigate the environmental impacts of eruptions. Only the geochemical characterization of volcanic ash (tephra) embedded in the ice strata can confirm the source of the eruption, however, and is a requisite if historical eruption ages are to be used as valid chronological checks on annual ice layer counting. Here we report the investigation of ash particles in a Greenland ice core that are associated with a volcanic sulfuric acid layer previously attributed to the 79 CE eruption of Vesuvius. Major and trace element composition of the particles indicates that the tephra does not derive from Vesuvius but most likely originates from an unidentified eruption in the Aleutian arc. Using ash dispersal modelling, we find that only an eruption large enough to include stratospheric injection is likely to account for the sizeable (24–85 μm) ash particles observed in the Greenland ice at this time. Despite its likely explosivity, this event does not appear to have triggered significant climate perturbations, unlike some other large extra-tropical eruptions. In light of a recent re-evaluation of the Greenland ice-core chronologies, our findings further challenge the previous dating of this volcanic event to 79 CE. We highlight the need for the revised Common Era ice-core chronology to be formally accepted by the wider ice-core and climate modelling communities in order to ensure robust age linkages to precisely dated historical and paleoclimate proxy records.

Advancing community-led research into the climate of the Common Era

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah S. Eggleston ◽  
Steven Phipps ◽  
Oliver Bothe ◽  
Helen V. McGregor ◽  
Belen Martrat ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Science ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Present Climate ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Third Phase ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Scientific Questions ◽  
New Phase

<p>The past two thousand years is a key interval for climate science. This period encompasses both the era of human-induced global warming and a much longer interval when changes in Earth’s climate were governed principally by natural drivers and unforced variability. Since 2009, the Past Global Changes (PAGES) 2k Network has brought together hundreds of scientists from around the world to reconstruct and understand the climate of the Common Era using open and collaborative approaches to palaeoclimate science, including virtual meetings. The third phase of the network will end in December 2021. Here we highlight some key outputs of PAGES 2k and present the major themes and scientific questions emerging from recent surveys of the community. We explore how these might boost a new phase of PAGES 2k or a successor project(s). This year we will further reach out to the community through Town Hall consultations, vEGU and other meetings, and a PAGES 2k global webinar series. The aim of these activities is to foster development of post-2021 community-led PAGES initiatives that connect past and present climate.</p>

Anthropomorphic ‘tombstones’ of the Gorgippia necropolis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Е.М. Алексеева
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Sacred Places ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Funeral Ritual ◽  
Conventional Meaning ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Burial Grounds

Traditionally, anthropomorphic sculptures from the necropolis of the ancient city of Gorgippia are flattened half-shapes without detailed face and body contours, merely trunks and heads. In the Northern Black Sea region such monuments are characteristic of the IV–II centuries BC, but some date back to the first centuries of the Common Era. There is a reason to believe that they were used for ceremonial purposes rather than as markers of particular burial grounds or gravestones in the conventional meaning. Faceless half-shapes in Greek necropolises are associated with rites of the worship of Persephone, who dies (as represented by faceless sculptures) and then resurrects (by sculptures with painted faces) as seasons change. They could be used like special posts – ‘cippi’ – for marking sacred places within necropolises with libations and sacrifices in honor of gods with chthonic properties. Such incarnations are observed in Persephone (Kore), Demeter, Aphrodite, Artemis and their male counterparts – Dionysus, Hercules, Hermes, Eros. Epitaphs and carved scenes related to traditions of the funeral ritual on the anthropomorphic objects turned them into tombstones dedicated to specific deceased individuals. 

scholarly journals Roman to Middle Age Earthquakes Sourced by the 1980 Irpinia Fault: Historical, Archaeoseismological, and Paleoseismological Hints

Geosciences ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 286
Author(s):  
Paolo Galli
Keyword(s):  
Middle Age ◽  
Fault System ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Seismogenic Structure ◽  
Working Hypothesis ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Written Sources

The Italian seismic compilations are among the most complete and back-in time extended worldwide, with earthquakes on record even before the Common Era. However, we have surely lost the memory of dozen strong events of the historical period, mostly in the first millennium CE. Given the lack of certain or conclusive written sources, besides paleoseismological investigations, a complementary way to infer the occurrence of lost earthquakes is to cross-check archaeoseismic evidence from ancient settlements. This usually happens by investigating collapses/restorations/reconstructions of buildings, the general re-organization of the urban texture, or even the abrupt abandonment of the settlement. Exceptionally, epigraphs mentioning more or less explicitly the effects of the earthquake strengthened the field working hypothesis. Here, I deal with both paleoseismological clues from the Monte Marzano Fault System (the structure responsible for the catastrophic, Mw 6.9 1980 earthquake) and archaeoseismological evidence of settlements founded in its surroundings to cast light on two poorly known earthquakes that occurred at the onset and at the end of the first millennium CE, likely in 62 and in 989 CE. Both should share the same seismogenic structure and the size of the 1980 event (Mw 6.9).

Temperature fluctuations during the Common Era in subtropical southwestern China inferred from brGDGTs in a remote alpine lake

2019 ◽  
Vol 510 ◽  
pp. 26-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoping Feng ◽  
Cheng Zhao ◽  
William J. D'Andrea ◽  
Jie Liang ◽  
Aifeng Zhou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temperature Fluctuations ◽  
Alpine Lake ◽  
Southwestern China ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era

Buddhism Challenged, Adopted, and in Disguise

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gil Raz
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Medieval China ◽  
Royal Courts ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Religious Landscape

The arrival of Buddhism China during the first centuries of the common-era led to major changes in the Chinese religious landscape. Despite its foreign origins, Buddhism soon found Chinese adherents and by the fifth century was widespread and popular throughput China and among all social classes, from the royal courts to the aristocracy and the commoners. Some Chinese, however, viewed this popularity of Buddhism as challenging the fabric of Chinese society and culture. Indeed, many scholars explain the emergence of Daoism as a communal religion in medieval China as a response to Buddhism. The Chinese who rejected Buddhism emphasized that Buddhism was a religion of the foreign, and it was created by Laozi, the ancient Daoist sage, to “convert the barbarians.” This paper aims to examine a variety of interactions between Buddhists and Daoists in medieval China as they argued and debated their place in Chinese society.

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