A Promissory Note on a Wooden Tablet from Mangazeya

The reason that prompted the authors to write this article was an archaeological artifact (found in 2009 during excavations of the Mangazeya settlement) in the form of a pine tablet with Cyrillic letters carved on it. The analysis of the inscription demonstrates that it was neither an educational text nor a meaningless set of letters. This was a completely coherent document, called “a debt bondage” (Rus. кабала) in the seventeenth century and earlier and “a promissory note” later. The document refers to private legal acts, but due to the absence of surnames and the names of witnesses confirming its contents, it is difficult to consider this promissory note a completed legal act. The appearance and content of the tablet refer to similar private legal acts from the northwest of Russia (Veliky Novgorod and Pskov) and demonstrate certain archaic features. This proves the survivability of northern Russian culture in colonised northern Siberia (where for obvious reasons there was a deficit of paper, an already common material in the seventeenth century). The promissory note from Mangazeya is a sample of everyday writing, a rather archaic form of private legal act that existed in the Novgorodian north long before the start of the Russian colonisation of Siberia.

DIGITAL CULTURE, UMWELT AND ALETHEIA AN ONTOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION

The paper presented here focuses on the idea of interpreting the digital culture as an image of the material culture rather than a mere copy of it. First of all, we should ask ourselves what an image really is; it is in investigating its deep meaning, which is often devalued due to the enormous dissemination of void images, that we can overcome the superficial concept of the digital as a digitalised copy. The description of an archaeological artifact cannot prescind from its physical and material appearance, but has to go further towards its profound nature and meaning. Considering the so-called aura of archaeological and artistic objects as an engagement between the hic et nunc of the object and the hic et nunc of the observer it will be possible to go beyond in the comprehension of the agency of the objects. Moreover, it is necessary to consider technology as a way through which objects could reveal themselves in a process of ἀλήθεια and not just a tool with the only scope of showing itself and its capacities. Considering digital copies as images could yield compelling challenges: every archaeological object, at any scale from the very little to the very big, has its own lost Umwelt: a way of being entangled in the world in which it was created. Probably, no answer will be provided within this paper, but suggestions to move towards an ontology of digital objects and their relationship with virtual realm.

Characterization of Tertiary Flints by geochemistry; application to the French territory

In present-day France, tertiary flints have played an important part in the supply of prehistoric populations, due to their abundance, quality and presence in areas without marine flint. From the Upper Paleolithic until the end of the use of flint, they were transported over far distances, especially in the center of the Central Massif. In this article the geochemical method is preferred for attributing of precise geographical origin to an archaeological artifact. To form the geological repository, a very large geographical field was taken, encompassing a large part of France, from the Marne county to the Gard county, and most of the major French sedimentary basins (Bassin Parisien, Cantal, Gard). The archaeological corpus includes pieces from sites of the Upper Paleolithic and the Epipaleolithic of Auvergne. The geochemical study does not provide a comprehensive answer to the question of the geographical origin of tertiary flints, but nevertheless allows for certain and significant advances in knowledge. Keywords: Flint raw materials, Palaeolithic age, Magdalenian, Raw materials, Geochemistry.

THREE DIMENSIONAL MODELING OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL ARTIFACT USING PHOTOMODELER SCANNER

This article describes the work of archaeological artifact data recording using close range photogrammetry method. A calibrated stereo camera was used to take the stereo images of the artifacts. Photomodeler Scanner software was used to process the stereo images to produce a three-dimensional model of the artifact. For verification purposes, VIVID 910 laser scanner was used to generate three-dimensional model of the same artifact. The study found that close range photogrammetry method is easy to use, with fast data recording, fast data processing and it is a method which is cheaper than the laser scanning method.