Orientation of buried people in the necropolises of Bystryanka culture (northern foothills of Altai, Scythian-Saka time)

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-94
Author(s):  
S.S. Radovskiy ◽  
◽  
N.N. Seregin ◽  

The article presents the results of studying the orientation of buried in a certain sector of the horizon on the basis of materials from the excavations of the necropolises of the Bystryanka archaeological culture. Information about 168 burials investigated at 26 necropolises of the northern foothills of Altai of the Scythian-Saka period was used. It has been established that the dominant tradition was to direct the buried people with their heads to the western sector of the horizon. At the same time, deviations are recorded due to various factors. A number of approaches traditionally used in this kind of research were used to interpret the identified orientations. The authors concluded that the observed deviations from the westerly direction are associated with the seasonal movement of the sun. At the same time, a possible basis on which the population of Bystryanka culture relied when orienting the dead is the sunset point. The most probable explanation for the spread of directions other than those in the West is the contacts with carriers of other cultural traditions. Opportunities for further study and interpretation of the revealed patterns in the orientation of the buried people based on the materials of the Bystryanka culture are associated with a more detailed analysis of individual necropolises, including the specification of the landscape features of specific monuments. Of particular importance is the expansion of the data used by attracting information about unpublished complexes. In addition, the correlation of the considered element of the ritual with other indicators of funeral practice, including the peculiarities of the position of the buried people and the traditions of placing goods in the grave, seems promising.

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24
Author(s):  
Anne Katrine De Hemmer Gudme

This article investigates the importance of smell in the sacrificial cults of the ancient Mediterranean, using the Yahweh temple on Mount Gerizim and the Hebrew Bible as a case-study. The material shows that smell was an important factor in delineating sacred space in the ancient world and that the sense of smell was a crucial part of the conceptualization of the meeting between the human and the divine.  In the Hebrew Bible, the temple cult is pervaded by smell. There is the sacred oil laced with spices and aromatics with which the sanctuary and the priests are anointed. There is the fragrant and luxurious incense, which is burnt every day in front of Yahweh and finally there are the sacrifices and offerings that are burnt on the altar as ‘gifts of fire’ and as ‘pleasing odors’ to Yahweh. The gifts that are given to Yahweh are explicitly described as pleasing to the deity’s sense of smell. On Mount Gerizim, which is close to present-day Nablus on the west bank, there once stood a temple dedicated to the god Yahweh, whom we also know from the Hebrew Bible. The temple was in use from the Persian to the Hellenistic period (ca. 450 – 110 BCE) and during this time thousands of animals (mostly goats, sheep, pigeons and cows) were slaughtered and burnt on the altar as gifts to Yahweh. The worshippers who came to the sanctuary – and we know some of them by name because they left inscriptions commemorating their visit to the temple – would have experienced an overwhelming combination of smells: the smell of spicy herbs baked by the sun that is carried by the wind, the smell of humans standing close together and the smell of animals, of dung and blood, and behind it all as a backdrop of scent the constant smell of the sacrificial smoke that rises to the sky.


2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyung-Eun Shim ◽  
Blandine Bril

Due to cultural exchange between the West and Asia since the beginning of the 20th century, the Korean dance has integrated quite a few aspects of classical dance while transforming its figures. The transformation itself is what we are interested in. We focus on a central figure in classical ballet, la pirouette en dehors, which in the Korean dance is known as the Hanbaldeuleodolgi. Our research aims at understanding how is expressed in both cultures (France and Korea), a dance movement which comes under similar mechanical constraints (producing rotational forces) while displaying a unique aesthetic to each context. The detailed analysis of this figure is carried out based on the theory of Rudolf Laban.


1975 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 284-286
Author(s):  
Lynda King‐Taylor
Keyword(s):  
The Sun ◽  

The fact that a substance through which Röntgen rays from a focus tube are passing becomes itself a source of secondary Röntgen rays has long- been known. The most probable explanation was given by Prof. Sir J. J. Thomson. If a Röntgen pulse is due to the acceleration of a charged electron, then if the electrons in the atom are free to move under the action of the electromagnetic forces in the wave front of the primary Röntgen pulse, their motion will be accelerated during the passage of the latter through the atom, and they will themselves become sources of secondary Röntgen radiation. Considering only a single electron, the intensity of the secondary radiation at any angle α with the direction of motion will be proportional to sin 2 α . If the primary beam is unpolarised, the motion of the electron may have any direction in the plane at right angles to the primary beam. The intensity of the scattered radiation in the direction θ with the primary beam is thus the mean of all the values of sin 2 α for that direction. It can easily be shown that this is proportional to 1 + cos 2 θ . If I' θ is the intensity of the scattered radiation in the direction θ , we thus have I' θ = I' π /2 (1 + cos 2 θ ).


Paleobiology ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
William I. Ausich ◽  
David L. Meyer

Potential hybrid fossil crinoids, Eretmocrinus magnificus x Eretmocrinus praegravis, are identified from the Lower Mississippian Fort Payne Formation of south-central Kentucky. These are the first fossil hybrid crinoids identified, and one of very few examples of hybrids recognized in the fossil record. Eretmocrinus magnificus x E. praegravis specimens have shapes and calyx plate sculpturing that are morphologically intermediate between well-defined, distinct parent species. Suspected hybrids occur at localities where parent species co-occur and where the parent species are the most abundant; the hybrids occur at what may have been the distributional margins of the parent species; and the mixture of characters on suspected hybrids seems to be morphogenetically partitioned. Parent species are derived from separate lineages within Eretmocrinus, and hybridization is the most probable explanation for these morphologically intermediate specimens. This example highlights the need to consider hybridization as a potential interpretation of intermediate morphologies among fossils and raises questions concerning the impact of hybridization for our interpretation of the fossil record and the role of hybridization in the evolutionary process.


Author(s):  
Karen Fog Olwig

Karen Fog Olwig: When culture is to be „preserved“: perspectives from a West Indian research project At the same time as anthropology has begun to apply a more processual perspective to the study of culture as fluid and changing, many of the „fourth world“ peoples studied by anthropologists have become preoccupied with codifying their culture in the form of aboriginal, authentic traditions which can be preserved from change. This concem with cultural traditions is tied to the struggle for human rights by indigenous people. The concept of culture as unchanged traditions is not only in conflict with current anthropological thinking, it is also ill suited to the struggles of peoples who cannot claim this form of ancient indigenous status, but who nevertheless share with „fourth world“ peoples the same need to defend their cultural autonomy. Among this latter group is the people of the Caribbean, who are indigenous to Africa, but came to the islands as part of a process of colonization. This article is based upon a study of the difficulties faced by such a non-indigenous, but nevertheless „native“ community of several centuries standing, in their efforts to defend their cultural and economic autonomy. In the West Indian case modem anthropological theory and the population studied by anthropologists need not be in conflict.


2006 ◽  
Vol 453 (3) ◽  
pp. L35-L37 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. A. Dorfi ◽  
A. Gautschy ◽  
H. Saio

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-105
Author(s):  
Elena A Rusinova ◽  
Elizaveta M Habchuk

For a long time, Japanese cinema has been developing separately, mastering the specifics of the new art, which came from the West, and at the same time trying to solve within its framework the problem of "national identity". However, since the 1950s, Japanese cinema has become widely known abroad and is gaining recognition in the West. The present day no one doubts the huge contribution of Japanese filmmakers to the history of world cinema. Nevertheless, the study of Japanese cinema in Russian cinema theory still remains the prerogative of a few professionals who know the Japanese language and are closely acquainted with the Japanese mentality, culture and art, which exert a great influence on the artistic features of Japanese screen art. But in order to even more imbued with the originality of the approach to creating an artistic image in Japanese cinema, it is necessary to draw attention to one of the most important components of its structure, namely, the sound aspect, insufficiently studied in film theory. The novelty of the article is that it analyzes and classifies the sound features of some Japanese movies created in the second half of the 20th - beginning of the 21st centuries, in which the influence of traditional culture manifests itself quite clearly, but at the same time the presence of elements of the Western musical tradition is also noticeable, which reflects to a certain extent the process of transculturalism in cinema that is actual nowadays.


1936 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-63
Author(s):  
Robert J. Getty

The mistranslation by Mr. J. D. Duff of nox ubi sidera condit as ‘where night hides the stars’ is also the interpretation of many commentators from Sulpitius in the last decade of the fifteenth century to Lejay in the last decade of the nineteenth. Lucan is clearly speaking of East and West in 15, of South in 16, and of North in 17–18. How can night be said to hide the stars in the West? Burman saw the difficulty and expressed himself thus: ‘…dubito, an recte dicatur, nox condere sidera, id est, Stellas, quae sole cadente prodeunt, et se spectanda praebent, obscurare et occulere: neque nunc occurrit alius ex veteribus locus, unde ita locutos fuisse Poetas appareat. Nox enim adveniens prodit sidera, praecipitans uero, aurora adveniente, potest recte dici condere, et quasi auferre ex oculis hominum sidera.’ Burman then was tempted to understand sidera as the sun, but could not parallel this use of the plural, although he admitted the use of sidera solis. He cited Ouid. Met. 14, 172–3 caelumque et sidera solis / respicio, as did Haskins, who took the same view with hesitation. Ezra de Clerq van Jever in his Specimen Selectarum Observationum, which he published at Leiden in 1772, definitely understood sidera as the sun, though he could parallel only sidus in the singular from Ouid. A.A. 1, 723–4 aequoris unda / debet et a radiis sideris esse niger. But, it may be said, these Ovidian passages are such that no ambiguity is possible, and are not quite relevant to Lucan's phrase.


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