scholarly journals From the History of the Studies of the “Cave Town” of Kachi-Kal’on in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Author(s):  
Natalia A. Abramova

The “cave towns” are located atop of table mountains built of limestone, or in rocky limestone precipices, within a small section of the Inner Range of the Crimean Mountains in the south-western Crimea. Among a very few written sources on the history of mediaeval Crimea there are mostly narratives, so thorough archaeological study of the sites is essential. Only the analysis of the data obtained by archaeology will shed light on the history of the creation, development, and decline of these enigmatic cave structures. This paper addresses the history of the study of the “cave town” of Kachi-Kal’on. This site is located in the Bakhchisarai District (Republic of the Crimea). Although the travelogues from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century regularly mentioned Kachi-Kal’on, the first archaeological studies of the site were carried out only in 1930. The excavations were conducted at a small square on the promontory in front of the fourth grotto of Kachi-Kal’on, where fortifications of the fortress were allegedly located. The excavations were carried out by the Eski-Kermen Expedition of the State Academy of the History of the Material Culture under the supervision of N. I. Repnikov. In the early autumn 1933, the archaeological researches at Kachi-Kal’on continued by the same expedition. Apart from the investigations in the territory of the ancient town where the cultural layer was disturbed, a great work was done to study and describe the whole site. This paper analyses the circumstances of the said researches of the site and examines the results of these works. The origin and functional purpose of the “cave town” is still disputable. The paper is the first to publish the photographs from the collections of the Institute of the History of the Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Author(s):  
Elena Lombardi

The literature of the Italian Due- and Trecento frequently calls into play the figure of a woman reader. From Guittone d’Arezzo’s piercing critic, the ‘villainous woman’, to the mysterious Lady who bids Guido Cavalcanti to write his grand philosophical song, to Dante’s female co-editors in the Vita Nova and his great characters of female readers, such as Francesca and Beatrice in the Comedy, all the way to Boccaccio’s overtly female audience, this particular sort of interlocutor appears to be central to the construct of textuality and the construction of literary authority in these times. The aim of this book is to shed light on this figure by contextualizing her within the history of female literacy, the material culture of the book, and the ways in which writers and poets of earlier traditions (in particular Occitan and French) imagined her. Its argument is that these figures of women readers are not mere veneers between a male author and a ‘real’ male readership, but that, although fictional, they bring several advantages to their vernacular authors, such as orality, the mother tongue, the recollection of the delights of early education, literality, freedom in interpretation, absence of teleology, the beauties of ornamentation and amplification, a reduced preoccupation with the fixity of the text, the pleasure of making mistakes, dialogue with the other, the extension of desire, original simplicity, and new and more flexible forms of authority.


Author(s):  
А.А. Кудрявцев ◽  
С.А. Володин

В 1943–1944 гг. сотрудники Института истории материальной культуры принимали участие в работе Чрезвычайной государственной комиссии (ЧГК). Это выражалось в составлении инструкций по установлению стоимости различных археологических памятников для определения нанесенного им ущерба в период оккупации, составлении их списков и анкетировании. В 1944 г. ИИМК по заданию ЧГК организовал восемь экспедиций в освобожденные районы РСФСР и УССР с целью обследования ряда поселений и курганных могильников, а также музеев с археологическими коллекциями, пострадавших в военные годы. Участие в деятельности ЧГК позволило Московскому отделению ИИМК сохранить основные функции научного учреждения в тяжелый период войны. In 1943–1944 the staff of the Institute for the History of Material Culture was involved in the work performed by the Extraordinary State Commission. The Institute staff prepared guidelines to be used in assessing the value of various archaeological sites to determine the damage caused to the sites during the occupation period, prepared relevant lists and conducted questionnaire-based interviews. In 1944 by order of the Extraordinary State Commission, the Institute organized eight expeditions to the liberated regions of the Russian SFR and the Ukrainian SSR in order to survey a number of settlements and kurgan burial grounds as well as museums with archaeological collections damaged during the war. Involvement in the activities of the Extraordinary State Commission enabled the Moscow Branch of the Institute to continue performing its main functions as a research institution during the hard time of the war.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
pp. 97-103
Author(s):  
Khayitmurod Khurramov ◽  

It is known that the Oxus civilization in the Bronze Age, with its unique material culture, interacted with a number of cultural countries: the Indian Valley, Iran, Mesopotamia, Elam and other regions. As a result of these relationships, interactions and interactions are formed. Archaeologists turn to archaeological and written sources to shed light on the historiography of this period. This research is devoted to the history of cultural relations between the Oxus civilization and the countries of the Arabian Gulf in the Bronze Age. The article highlights cultural ties based on an analysis of stamp seals and unique artifacts.Key words: Dilmun, Magan, marine shell, Arabian Gulf, Bahrain, Mesopotamia, Harappa, Gonur, Afghanistan


2021 ◽  
pp. 60-67
Author(s):  
MIHAIL KISELEV

The article provides information on the report of F. V. Kiparisov, kept in the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, "The Subject and Method of Archeology" and discussions on the report at the meeting of the Institute of History of the Communist Academy, dated November 29, 1931. The aim of the work was to introduce an unpublished archival source into scientific circulation on the history of archeology. As a result of studying the document, some conclusions can be drawn: the main advantage of the scientific work of F. V. Kiparisov, in our opinion, is an attempt to determine the place of archeology in historical science as an auxiliary scientific discipline. The scientist assigned a special place to material sources in the study of thehistorical development of society. At the same time, the report did not touch upon the questions of the methods of archeology, stated in the title of the speech. As for the relationship of archeology with the history of material culture, the differences between them were not convincing enough by the speaker. During the discussion on the report, scientists of the Institute of History criticized the position of the speaker both on issues of archeology and on the history of material cultures. The information provided will expand the source base on the history of archeology and can be used for research and educational purposes.


Author(s):  
Stephen Rippon

In his review of South East Britain in the later Iron Age, Hill (2007, 16) observed that ‘Since the 1980s, little attention has been given to large-scale social explanations and narratives in British Iron Age archaeology. Debates over core–periphery models, the interpretation of hillforts, and the nature of social organization, were—for good reason—eclipsed by a focus on the symbolic meanings of space, structured deposition, and ritual.’ He goes on to argue that British archaeology is in need of more ‘straightforward storyboards’ around which data can be arranged (Hill 2007, 16), and Brudenell (2012, 52) has similarly noted how ‘close-grained understandings have often been won at the expense of broader pictures . . . [and that] with a few exceptions, recent approaches have atomized the study of later prehistoric society, focussing on the specifics of the local social milieu at the expense of broader scales of social analysis’. There have been some ‘big picture’ studies—most notably Cunliffe’s (1974; 1978; 1991; 2005) Iron Age Communities in Britain—but all too often studies of this period have focused on specific counties, types of site, or artefact, and it is noticeable how little systematic mapping of data there was in three recent collections of papers (Gwilt and Haselgrove 1997; Haselgrove and Moore 2007; Haselgrove and Pope 2007). This study, in contrast, aims to shed light on one important ‘storyboard’: the territorial structures within which communities built their landscapes. The written history of Britain begins in the first century BC when we first get insights into its political and territorial arrangements, although as this was a period when the island was becoming embroiled in the political instability caused by the expansion of the Roman world, the trends seen then may not reflect the longer-term patterns of territorial stability or instability that preceded it. In 54 BC, for example, Caesar describes how his major opponents were a civitas (usually translated as ‘tribe’) who had recently surpassed the neighbouring Trinovantes as the paramount group in South East Britain (Gallic War, 20–1; Dunnett 1975, 8; Moore 2011).


1943 ◽  
Vol 75 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
H. W. Bailey

Knowledge of scholarly literature produced in recent years in Georgia is all too little disseminated in England. I was delighted to receive a copy of vol. xiii of the Bulletin of the Marr Institute of Languages, History, and Material Culture, published by the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR (Sahartvelos SSR Mecnierebata Ak'ademia), Tiflis, 1942. This volume contains “A Bilingual Inscription from Armazi near Mcheta in Georgia,” by Professor George Tseretheli, written in Georgian with an almost complete English translation, and with three excellent photographs. The bilingual inscription is in Greek (10 lines) and Aramaic (11 lines), and is one of two inscriptions found at Armazi, 22 km. from Tiflis, in 1940 in excavations under the direction of the late I. Javakhishvili. A report of this discovery was made at the Session of the Scientific Council of the Institute in 1940, and at the first Conference of the Georgian Academy of Sciences on the 1st March, 1941. The Greek inscription was published by S. Qaukhchishvili (Qauχčlišvili) and A. Shanidze in 1941. Professor Tseretheli has analysed the Aramaic inscription, its script, language, and historical significance, and offered a translation. The script which he proposes to call Armazian Aramaic, a new variety of this alphabet; is of great importance for the history of writing in Georgia.


2021 ◽  
pp. 261-268
Author(s):  
Vadim V. Maiko ◽  

The review considered the next IV Volume of a multi-volume publication: A Code of monuments of history, architecture and culture of the Crimean Tatars, prepared jointly by the Crimean Scientific Center of Sh. Marjani Institute of history of Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Department of History of Fevzi Yakubov “Crimean Engineering and Pedagogical University” and the State Hermitage with the involvement of specialists studying the history and archeology of Solkhat. This volume is entirely devoted to the monuments of history, archeology and architecture of Solkhat – Stary Krym and its district of the second half of the XIII-XIX centuries. For the first time in Russian historiography, the most complete list of cultural heritage objects has been collected. All archaeological works were carried out in Solkhat and its district from the second half of the 1920s and up to today. Previously unpublished photographs and drawings are given in the volume. This publication is rightly considered a new stage in the study of this unique historical place of the Crimea.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document