Mela's Phoenician Geography

2000 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 70-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Batty
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Poor Reading ◽  
History Of Cartography ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Many Sources ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Ancient Geography

The appearance in 1998 of F. E. Romer's English translation of Pomponius Mela's De Chorographia has helped to raise further the profile of this previously rather obscure author. Indeed, since the publication a decade previously of the Budé edition by Alain Silberman, interest in Mela seems to have grown quite steadily. Important contributions in German by Kai Brodersen have widened our appreciation of Mela's place within ancient geography as a whole, and his role within the history of cartography has been the subject of a number of shorter pieces.One element common to all these works, however, is a continuing tendency to disparage both Mela himself and the work he created. This is typified by Romer, for whom Mela was ‘a minor writer, a popularizer, not a first-class geographer’; one ‘shocking reason’ for his choice of genre was simply poor preparation, ‘insufficient for technical writing in geography’. Similar judgements appear in the works of Brodersen and Silberman. Mela's inaccuracies are, for these critics, typical of the wider decline of geography in the Roman period. Perhaps such negative views sprang initially from a sense of frustration: it was counted as one of our author's chief defects that he failed to list many sources for his work. For scholars interested in Quellenforschung it makes poor reading. Yet, quite clearly, the De Chorographia has also been damned by comparison. Mela's work has been held against the best Graeco-Roman learning on geography during antiquity—against Strabo, Ptolemy, or Pliny—and it has usually been found wanting. Set against the achievements of his peers, his work does not stand close scrutiny. Thus, for most scholars, the text has been read as a failed exercise in technical geography, or a markedly inferior document in the wider Graeco-Roman geographical tradition.

Notes on Ṭabarī's History

1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence I. Conrad
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Valuable Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Early Islamic

The caliphate of Hisham ibn ‘Abd al-Malik (105–25/724–43) was undoubtedly one of the most important periods in early Islamic history, and as witness to the history of this era a source of paramount importance is certainly the Ta'rīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk of al-Ṭabarī. This in itself makes the publication of Volume xxv of the English translation of this work by Dr Khalid Yahya Blankinship, covering all but the last five years of Hishām's long reign, a matter of special interest to historians of the eastern lands of Islam. The reader will immediately notice that al-Ṭabarī devotes the bulk of his narrative for this period to events in Khurāsān and Transoxania, specifically, to the Umayyad campaigns there and hostilities with the Türgish khāqān Sü-lü Čur. In the course of this narrative one finds not only a wealth of information on military matters, but also much valuable data on the customs of the western Turks and life in Central Asia in general. The author's reasons for giving his work such a markedly eastern emphasis at this point are not unrelated to a desire, as Blankinship observes, to set forth the background for the 'Abbāsid revolution. But most of what al-Ṭabarī reports for this period is in fact not of immediate relevance to the advent of the 'Abbāsids, and indeed, the subject of 'Abbāsid propaganda activities hardly seems to be a prominent one in this volume.

III.—The Study and Classification of Medieval Mappae Mundi

Archaeologia ◽  
1926 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Medieval Period ◽  
History Of Cartography ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

We all know what maps are. Most of us have occasion to use them frequently. Many of us, no doubt, have spent pleasant hours in our studies, performing, with their help, what have been called ‘armchair travels ‘. But only a few have been led to inquire into the history of maps and mapmaking, and fewer still have interested themselves in that period of the history of cartography which is the subject of this paper—the medieval period.

The Limits of Possibility: Rand McNally in American Culture, 1898-1929

2000 ◽  
pp. 7-26
Author(s):  
Susan Schulten
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Large Share ◽  
Complex Interplay ◽  
History Of Cartography ◽  
The World ◽  
Commercial Market ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

In the early twentieth century, Rand McNally held a large share of the commercial market for maps and atlases in the United States. How the company built its reputation as an American cartographic authority—by both accepting and resisting change—is the subject of this essay. Critical to the company’s success was its ability to design materials that reinforced American notions of how the world ought to appear, an indication that the history of cartography is governed not just by technological and scientific advances, but also by a complex interplay between mapmakers and consumers.

scholarly journals THE FIRST OPERA OF THE TURKISH WORLD "LEYLI AND MAJNUN’’

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-320
Author(s):  
Ömer TÜRKMENOĞLU ◽  
Zümra AZİZOĞLU
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Western Music ◽  
Tonal Structure ◽  
Music And Literature ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Many Sources ◽  
First Time ◽  
The City

The Turkish world's opera history gave its first example in 1908 with the opera "Leyli and Majnun" by Azerbaijani composer Üzeyir Hacıbeyli. According to many sources, "Leyli and Majnun" is described as the first opera of the Turkish world and the Islamic world, and the east. The most important feature of this opera is the masterful synthesis of classical western music and folk music. The opera, which was composed for the first time in this way, influenced the east with its staging and ensured that the art of opera was adopted by the public. The great composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli was born in the city of Shusha in Azerbaijan, which was developed in the field of literature and music and called the "natural conservatory." He developed his existing talent here and built it on solid foundations. He was interested in music and literature, wrote many books, articles, and was a writer for newspapers. The subject of the opera Leyli and Majnun is taken from Fuzuli's "Leyli and Majnun" poetry of the same name. At the age of 13, the composer decided to write this opera, influenced by the theater show "At the tomb of Majnun Leyli'' which he watched in Shusha, his home city. He started working on opera in 1907 when he was only 22 years old. By bringing a different perspective to opera, he used the tonal structure of western music with 'mugham,' also known as Azerbaijani folk music. This type of opera is also called "Mugam Opera.'' The opera, which was composed and performed despite the conditions of the period, preserved its originality by combining two cultures and was performed many times in other countries. Operas from the Turkish world are rarely staged in our country, and there is a need for such an article because the opera "Leyli and Majnun" has not been staged much in Turkey and there are very few theses, articles, and books about it. In this study; Different titles have been created such as the history of Azerbaijan opera, the life of Uzeyir Hajibeyli, the composer's process of creating the opera, and the content of the opera Leyli and Majnun. Keywords: Leyli and Majnun, Uzeyir Hajibeyli, Turkish World, Opera

Zîn-ə Hördemîr: A Lekî Satirical Verse from Lekistan

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-309
Author(s):  
MUSTAFA DEHQAN
Keyword(s):  
Geographical Area ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Oral Literature ◽  
The West ◽  
New Era ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
A Minor ◽  
North Western ◽  
Made In

With the exception of a minor mention, which Sharaf Khān (b.1543) made in theSharafnāma, the first information about the most southern group of Kurdish tribes in Iranian Kurdistan, the Lek, first became available to modern readers inBustān al-Sīyāḥa, a geographical and historical Persian text by Shīrwānī (1773–1832). These hitherto unknown Lek communities, were probably settled in north-western and northern Luristan, known as Lekistan, by order of Shāh ‘Abbās, who wished in this way to create some support for Ḥusayn Khān, thewālīof Luristan. Many of the centres of Lekî intellectual life in the late Afshārīd and early Zand period, which is also of much importance in that the Zand dynasty arose from it, are located in this geographical area. One has only to call to mind the names of such places as Alishtar (Silsila), Kūhdasht, Khāwa, Nūr Ābād, Uthmānwand and Jalālwand in the most southern districts of Kirmānshāh, and also the Lek tribes of eastern Īlām. The very mention of these cities and villages already sets in motion in one's imagination the parade of Twelver Shiites, Ahl-i Haqq heretics, and non-religious oral literary councils which constitutes the history of Lekî new era. But unfortunately little of this is known in the West and Lekî literature remains one of the neglected subjects of literary and linguistic Kurdish studies. This important oral literature and also some written manuscripts are unpublished and untranslated into western languages. The subject of this article is the translation ofZîn-ə Hördemîr, as an example of a genre of Lekî written literature which also provides linguistic data for the Lekî dialect of southern Kurdish.

The Rozvi in Search of Their Past

1983 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 13-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.N. Beach
Keyword(s):  
Primary Sources ◽  
African History ◽  
Great Zimbabwe ◽  
White Writers ◽  
Revival Movements ◽  
Proper Training ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
A Minor

In this paper I have three main objectives. One is to highlight and examine the work of Zimbabwean African historians under colonial rule up to the 1960s. Another is to examine the effect of the work of these historians on the traditions of the Changamire Rozvi, the rulers of the greatest state in Zimbabwe from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. The third is to show how Rozvi revival movements arose in the 1950s as a minor feature of the period of African nationalism's mobilization.Although the first history of this country was published as early as 1900, it goes without saying that, in the colonial context, African history was played down and denigrated by most of the white writers on the subject for most of the colonial period. Although there was a strong local white tradition of writing on the minority Ndebele people, the majority Shona-speakers were largely ignored. Apart from a small group of local white antiquarians, whose work is only now undergoing re-evaluation, very little was published before 1960 on the history of the Shona. Yet, despite this general neglect, a small but devoted number of Africans were conscious of their lack of a written history and sought to remedy that lack. They found it a lonely and a difficult task. In a period when African education beyond certain limits was discouraged, they had neither access to proper training nor to primary sources other than traditions. If they were sometimes prone to trust unduly the missionary texts with which they grew up (so that one can read of “King Monomotapa” and “Queen Sheba” borrowing Solomon's Phoenician laborers to build Great Zimbabwe),” one can also read the work of two Duma historians who carefully cited Arabic, Portuguese, and archeological sources in secondary works.

scholarly journals The predominantly fresh history of Lake Alexandrina, South Australia, and its implications for the Murray–Darling Basin Plan: a comment on Gell (2020)

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 142 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tibby ◽  
Deborah Haynes ◽  
Kerri Muller
Keyword(s):  
Sediment Cores ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Minor Component ◽  
Environmental Water ◽  
Freshwater Ecosystem ◽  
European Settlement ◽  
Murray Darling Basin ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
A Minor

The pre-European settlement state of Lake Alexandrina, a lake system at the mouth of the River Murray has been the subject of some debate. Fluin et al. (2007) concluded on the basis of diatom evidence from sediment cores that ‘Marine water indicators were never dominant in Lake Alexandrina’. In a report to the South Australian Government, Fluin et al. (2009) stated, consistent with the earlier research, that ‘There is no evidence in the 7000 year record of substantial marine incursions into Lake Alexandrina’. Gell (2020) has argued both that Fluin et al. (2009) is in error and claims that it, and Sim and Muller’s (2004) book that describes early European settler accounts of the lake being fresh, underpin water provisions for Lake Alexandrina under the Murray–Darling Basin Plan. This response demonstrates that all these claims are untrue. Of the three diatom species suggested by Gell (2020) to be indicators of marine waters, Thalassiosira lacustris grows in the freshwater River Murray today, Cyclotella striata was never more than a minor component of the diatom flora and Paralia sulcata has not been detected in the lake in over 3000 years. Water provisions for Lake Alexandrina under The Basin Plan are founded on contemporary environmental water requirements and achievement of agreed socio-ecological-economic objectives, rather than the history of the lake. Nevertheless, the aim to maintain the lake as a freshwater ecosystem under The Murray–Darling Basin Plan is consistent with its history.

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