Simulating the Common Era: The Past2k working group of PMIP

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.

Download Full-text

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

Church History ◽

10.2307/3169396 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 69 (3) ◽

pp. 519-557 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

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.”

Download Full-text

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

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-10979 ◽

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&#8217;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>

Download Full-text

Anthropomorphic ‘tombstones’ of the Gorgippia necropolis

10.25681/iaras.2018.978-5-94375-250-6.9-23 ◽

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.

Download Full-text

3 Messianic Expectations and Beliefs before the Common Era 34

Jesus Christ in World History ◽

10.3726/978-3-653-00238-6/5 ◽

2016 ◽

Keyword(s):

The Common ◽

Common Era

Download Full-text

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

Geosciences ◽

10.3390/geosciences10080286 ◽

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).

Download Full-text

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

Earth and Planetary Science Letters ◽

10.1016/j.epsl.2018.12.028 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 510 ◽

pp. 26-36 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

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

Download Full-text

Buddhism Challenged, Adopted, and in Disguise

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190278359.003.0008 ◽

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.

Download Full-text

The Common Era

Colorado Review ◽

10.1353/col.2012.0041 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 39 (2) ◽

pp. 23-38

Author(s):

William Torrey

Keyword(s):

The Common ◽

Common Era

Download Full-text

So That It Might Become Clear: The Methods and Purposes of Narrative Abridgement in Early Modern Jain Purāṇic Composition

Religions ◽

10.3390/rel10060355 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (6) ◽

pp. 355

Author(s):

Gregory M. Clines

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Fifteenth Century ◽

Early Modern Period ◽

Seventh Century ◽

Multiple Strategies ◽

Modern Period ◽

The Common ◽

Common Era

Scholars have long known that Jain authors from the early centuries of the common era composed their own versions of the story of Rāma, prince of Ayodhyā. Further, the differences between Jain and Brahminical versions of the narrative are well documented. Less studied are later versions of Jain Rāma narratives, particularly those composed during the early modern period. This paper examines one such version of the Rāma story, the fifteenth-century Sanskrit Padmapurāṇa by the Digambara author Brahma Jinadāsa. The paper compares Jinadāsa’s work with an earlier text, the seventh-century Sanskrit Padmapurāṇa, authored by Raviṣeṇa, as Jinadāsa explains that he has at hand a copy of his predecessor’s work and is recomposing it to make it “clear”. The paper thus demonstrates the multiple strategies of abridgement Jinadāsa employs in recomposing Raviṣeṇa’s earlier narrative and that, to Jinadāsa, this project of narrative abridgement was also one of clarification.

Download Full-text