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Arts and Humanities journals’ primary focus is on presenting theoretical and empirical research in these respective fields. The main goal is to encourage educational research and connect academia to the scientific community. Researchers and scholars need to share their research findings with others to help better understand and act on the ongoing social changes in the field. The Arts and Humanities journals aim to provide a platform for everyone who shares a common interest in these fields and to group all the latest field findings in one place.
Arts and Humanities
After discussing some thus far unknown examples of inner-Tocharian borrowing processes with direction TA >> TB, the present paper argues that also the substantive B lek* ‘gesture’ represents a loanword from Tocharian A, in particular from the Tocharian A form lek ‘shape; gesture’. Under the assumption of a semantic development ‘equality, identity, correspondence’ ⇒ ‘figure, shape’ ⇒ ‘gesture’ – for which parallels are available –, A lek is etymologically connected with the independently reconstructable root PIE *leig-‘(be[come]) equal’ and thus traced back to a nominal pre-form *lóig-u- or *lóig-o-.
Religious texts are written in understandable language due to their instructive and preaching characteristics. Although different methods are used in these texts, the form of ‘narration/storytelling’ is prominent. In this article, two stories, ‘The House of Hasan’ and ‘The Story of the Nightingale,’ which were published in Eastern Turki by Swedish missionaries in the East Turkistan region with the Swedish Mission Press, are evaluated by considering their stylistic features. While these stories were written in Eastern Turki, Arabic and Persian words, which the public often saw in works related to the Islamic religion, were also frequently used. Such linguistic choices are related to the source person’s message to the receiver and the importance of the receiver’s easy understanding of the text.
Inscriptions in the highly calligraphic and still undeciphered śaṅkhalipi or ‘shell script’ have been found by the hundreds in most parts of India except the far south, typically in conjunction with sites and monuments dating from around the Gupta period and succeeding centuries. To date, four specimens have also been discovered in the Indonesian archipelago, in West Java and West Kalimantan (Borneo). Another specimen of śaṅkhalipi inscription, engraved on a pillar and exceptionally ornate, was recently discovered in Thailand at the site of Si Thep, a moated early settlement in Phetchabun Province. The article reviews the historical and cultural contexts of shell-script inscriptions in India and discusses the significance of this remarkable first specimen found in mainland Southeast Asia.
Abstract
The present paper aims to examine the role of the oil lamp (λύχνος) in the daily life of the residents of Egypt through the documentation of Greek papyri and ostraca from the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine periods. Due to the fragmentary condition of the archival material, the sources of ancient Greek and Latin literature are also taken into consideration with a view to corroborating some uncertain points of detail. Specifically, careful scrutiny is given to aspects such as the oil lamp's price and material, its domestic uses, its role as pledge (ἐνέχυρον) and part of inheritance, as well as its function in various activities performed at night. The matters of its importance in the realm of theatre, its connection to theft, the side-effects of its use, and the exploration of the figurative use of the term λύχνος as a literary device are also examined.
Abstract
The study explores the perceptions of small talk shared by the users of a Japanese online community, seeking information on their expected speech and behaviour in small talk and factors contributing to positive/negative evaluations of small talk. The study investigates a discussion thread consisting of 73 responses to a contributor's request for advice on improving small talk capabilities from the perspectives of interaction ritual (Goffman 1967), balancing obligations (Ohashi 2008, 2013, 2021) and typology of speech acts (Edmondson & House 1981; House & Kádár 2022b).
Abstract
In this paper, the results of a large web-corpus study on gender of Russian inanimate indeclinable common nouns are presented. In most cases, neuter is assigned to indeclinables as a default. However, morphophonological and semantic analogy may lead to feminine and masculine gender assignment. An extensive variation is observed in the whole group of indeclinables and for particular words, which is much larger than anything that can be found in indeclinable nouns. These data support the idea that both masculine and neuter genders have a special status in the Russian gender system (Magomedova & Slioussar 2023). Masculine tends to be chosen in case of conflicting gender cues. When there are no strong cues pointing to any gender, neuter is assigned as the default option. The results of the study are hardly compatible with various structural approaches to gender assignment, but can be accounted for in competition-based models.
Abstract
In this paper, we propose a comprehensive account of the paradigms of Frisian verb-classes. Verb-classes in Frisian are an example of a more general phenomenon of inflectional classes that we encounter in many natural languages across the major word classes. Members of different inflectional classes show different paradigms. Traditionally, inflectional classes have been analyzed using class-features (see e.g., Marzi et al. 2020). However, such features suffer from being ad hoc devices that seem to have no other function in the grammar than to code this difference. In the present analysis we propose that the verb stems from different classes show a difference in size. Using phrasal spell-out, we will show that these stems differ in the amount of morpho-syntactic structure that they may realize, rendering class-features superfluous.
Abstract
One of the basic questions in the theory of morphology concerns the nature of word formation: how morphemes are assembled into larger objects, and—crucially—whether there are distinct systems in which this occurs (lexicon versus syntax), or just one. Stative (a.k.a. “adjectival”) passives like opened in the opened door, or flattened in the metal is flattened, have provided an interesting testing ground for questions of this type. Following a period in which such passives were argued to be formed lexically, much subsequent work has developed the idea that they are derived syntactically, in fully phrasal structures. This paper examines a number of properties of English stative passives which raise problems for a fully phrasal treatment. These include (but are not limited to) (i) modification asymmetries relative to eventive passives; and (ii) interactions with un-prefixation. The generalizations that are revealed suggest that stative passives are built syntactically, but without phrasal internal structure: what I call small(er) syntax. Importantly, small structures are not tantamount to a lexical analysis; I provide a direct comparison that argues that the evidence favors the smaller type of approach. The argument for small structures has implications for the syntax of Roots that are introduced throughout the discussion.
Abstract
Cover and uncover: is the attempt to unveil and reveal the hidden meaning of the mysteries a paradox (Porph. Antr. 4. 16–17)? The present contribution aims at exploring Porphyry's interest in the commentary Περὶ τοῦ ἐν Ὀδυσσείᾳ τῶν νυμφῶν ἄντρου (Cave of the Nymphs) for the allegorical interpretation of images, symbols and terms variously linked with the Mysteries and encapsulating truths on the nature of the divine, the soul and ultimately the cosmos. More specifically, attention will be drawn mostly (but not only) on features connected with Orphism, here defined and understood as a form of ‘mysteriosophy’. The scope of this analysis falls within the study of Porphyry's use of allegorical exegesis but also within the broader discussion of different forms of philosophical religion in Late Antiquity, underscoring the complex but fruitful relationship between theology, philosophy and the Mysteries.
Abstract
In Old Catalan, some verbs like beure ‘to drink’ display a velar consonant in the forms that come from Latin perfectum, such as 3sg.prt *ˈbibwit > bec [ˈbek] ‘s/he drank’. This velar was initially a perfect marker. However, the consonant spread analogically from perfective to imperfective forms through an exaptation process. In the present paper, we compare two different verb classes, and prove that the existence of syncretism between the first and third persons of the present indicative (1sg.prs.ind beu [ˈbew] ‘I drink’ vs. 3sg.prs.ind beu [ˈbew] ‘s/he drinks’) is a factor that accelerates the analogical process of velarization.
Abstract
In the ancient world, visual and verbal σύνθημα appears to be of enormous importance during conflicts. It is one of the elements pertaining to the management and organization of political intelligence. In particular, the signal, declined in the verbal form, for its fundamental function of ‘recognition’ to validate the belonging of a soldier to a particular side, had to be chosen with great care. Its use appears to have intensified and, at the same time, perfected, according to what can be gathered from historiographical evidence and from military treatises, at the time of the transition between the Classical and Hellenistic eras, when the way of waging war also underwent an important transformation.
Abstract
The study presents the development of the art policy of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party between 1957 and 1985, describing the processes and tendencies supporting it. The art policy of the Kádár era was framed by four documents among the various party resolutions, with different weight and effectiveness: the The Cultural Policy of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (1958); The Vocation of Literature and the Arts in Our Society (1966); Topical Issues in Our Arts Policy (1977); and the On the Current Tasks of the HSWP's arts policy (1984). György Aczél, the main director of the art policy of the Kádár era, played a decisive role in their creation, albeit with age. The appearance of the documents always marked a change in the era of art policy, in close connection with the consolidation after 1956, the attempts at economic reform in the 1960s and the reversal of the 1970s.
Komödie und Pornographie
Catulls Carm. 10 über die Gefahren erotischer Literatur
Abstract
Catullusʼ Carm. 10 seems to present the speaker as a miles gloriosus duped by the girlfriend of Varus, presumably a friend of the poet and fellow Neoteric. While it has been claimed that Plautusʼ Miles Gloriosus is the most influential role model for Carm. 10, the present article shows that the speaker employs a variety of scenes both from Plautusʼ and Terenceʼs comedies to adopt and maintain the mask of the parasitus who suffers from his financial failure and personal humiliation during the time spent with the praetor Memmius in Bithynia. But Varus and his girlfriend want to hear other stories from the famous province of the infamous encounter between King Nikomedes and young Julius Caesar – and the speaker seems to perform according to this expectations when he calls Memmius an irrumator and (one of) his hosts a cinaedior. But in the end he is not willing to write pornography on demand even if some of his friends (including Aurelius and Furius of Carm. 16 as well as Varus of Carm. 10) consider the poet not just up to the task but currently the best choice for such delicate matters.
Die schwüle Welt des Harems •
Erotische Phantasmagorien der frühen Neuzeit
Abstract
In the 18th century, as political and economic relations with the East strengthened, and the first travelogues on Turkey and various other works on ethnological, geographical and cultural topics were published, a particularly positive reception of the Orient became widespread, originating from the southern and south-eastern Europe. As a result, the image of the threatening apocalyptic enemy, the “bloodhound”, was replaced by the stereotype of an attractive and exotic foreigner.
The euphoric reception of Ottoman culture was initially manifested in the presentation of operas and Turkish feasts held in noble and royal courts, but was also exhibited in portraits of people in Turkish clothes, posing among oriental backdrops. Depictions of harems and odalisque (harem ladies) were important motifs of these paintings from the very start. At the beginning of the fashion of Orientalism, the theme of the harem, also known as Turquerie, appeared only in the circles of the highest aristocracy, as a spicy bit of its self-representation, but by the 19th century, the identification of harem and erotica and, in many cases, harem and open sexuality, had become widespread in European fine arts.
In my study, I aim to review briefly the appearances of the motif of the harem in literature and the fine arts, as well as the literary and cultural historical development of its erotic connotations, and offer its interpretation in a Central European context.
Abstract
This article deals with the enigmatic biography and the controversial oeuvre of Karl Maria Kertbeny (recte: Karl Maria Benkert; 1824-1882). Kertbeny was a representative of the so-called Hungarus identity, a convinced Hungarian of non-Hungarian mother tongue. He worked primarily as a journalistic mediator and literary translator and was largely responsible for the image of Hungary and of Hungarian culture and literature in German-speaking countries, especially in the period from the middle of the 19th century onwards. In the article, the overly critical attitude that posterity took towards Kertbeny is set to some extent straight.
Abstract
Through personal narratives of powwow involvement and motivation for dancing, this essay examines the ways in which regional and personal identities are being formed, adjusted, negotiated, and expressed through dance regalia at powwows in the Midwestern United States. Dancers use clothes as an explicit marker of their Native identity and powwows as a justifying context for their ideologies of authenticity. Powwow involvement is also used to consolidate, reclaim, craft, revive, and create an identity that authenticates one's place in the powwow community in which internal and external roles and rules reinforce each other. Giving voice to different constituents at Midwestern powwows, from Natives to non-Native enthusiasts, the study explores the factors that influence the bases and strategies of such authentication, as well as the rhetoric by which these ideologies are expressed.
“The Sisters of the Redeemer in the Trauma of Dispersion”. •
The Sisters of the Divine Redeemer in the 1950s and 1960s in the Light of Recollections and State Security Reports
Abstract
While researching the history of the Sisters of the Divine Redeemer, also referred to as the Sisters of the Redeemer, it became clear that the ordeals of the Second World War and the Communist dictatorship had a profound impact on the congregation, which was engaged in nursing and teaching. The sources allow us to reconstruct the horrors of the advancing battlefront and the sisters' flight, along with their determination to provide social assistance and their role in saving Jews. The Communist regime that emerged after the war forced the congregation into an increasingly impossible situation, depriving them of their teaching positions and nursing vocation. Their internment in 1950 and the revocation of the congregation's operating license seemed to have eliminated the community entirely. However, recollections of the events of the 1950s and 1960s, together with state security reports, attest that the congregation survived in the form of a “subterranean stream,” and that tiny communities of sisters continued to pursue their monastic vocation, often in a single apartment that functioned as a mini convent. The traumas they had experienced rarely crushed the sisters' inner sense of peace, and they strove to cope with the harassments inflicted by the party-state by adapting to the new situation.
Abstract
Focusing on the concept of ‘folklore text,’ the study surveys the textological dilemmas that a researcher faces during the collection, transcription, publication, and interpretation of folk poetry. Behind the development and implementation of strategies for text editing procedures lie complex cultural processes, which can be interpreted within the framework of the given discipline or placed within a broader cultural and technological historical context. The paper examines the methodological history of Hungarian folklore collections not only according to the theoretical concepts that define the research subject and research aspects but also based on the objective, technological conditions of the collection. The author proposes a folklore textological approach to the publication of texts that is much more conscious of the historicity and origin of folklore texts and considers their own philological-textological tradition. A new, process-based, and transcriber-centered concept of text would provide an intriguing direction for solving numerous folklore textological problems, which might show the role collectors and transcribers play in the creation of a text in a sharper and more nuanced light. The findings of the study are based on investigations carried out in the field of historical folklore text research, primarily on the examination of the methodological history of the collection and transcription of folktales; with certain restrictions, their applicability might be extended in terms of subject matter (to other genres) and time (even to the latest folklore phenomena arising in the digital medium), and they may also provide useful perspectives for representatives of other disciplines that study orality.
Abstract
The first question addressed in this study is how to resume everyday life in a synagogue community following the cataclysm of the Shoah and how different aspects of this relaunch can be interpreted as an attempt to process the trauma of the Holocaust, either on an individual or group level. The second part of the paper revolves around the symptoms of “prolonged social trauma” in the dynamics of the changed community during the 1970s and 1980s and those of religious life in the field under study. In this case, the area in question represents a narrow locality, the Páva Street Synagogue and its community in Budapest between 1945 and 1989. Changes in the life of the community are brought to the fore via interviews using the oral history method along with press and archive sources. The Páva Street Synagogue in Ferencváros is one of the “periphery synagogues” of Budapest, where religious life with different intensities can be considered almost continuous. The synagogue, built with public funding and inaugurated in 1924, was used as an internment camp in the second half of 1944. Following the liberation of the ghettos and camps, community life began again a few months after the persecution. Between 1945 and 1956, this resumption involved a series of steps, including the physical rehabilitation of the synagogue environment and the organization of its daily routines. The events of 1956 created further difficulties for the community: the building was damaged once again and the community disintegrated. Although everyday life resumed, the symptoms of trauma manifested in the 1970s and 1980s as the community dwindled and its members grew older, leaving generations missing from the synagogue.
Abstract
In 1858 a leading Hungarian literary critic as well as collector and editor of folk poetry started a debate about the possible literary career of women, arguing that literature and other forms of public artistic activity are fields that should not be open to women as it may cause serious moral and social problems. Yet, he noted that in case women still insist on becoming literary authors, they should turn only to certain genres, such as tales. The article investigates how the tale became a gendered genre, and presents women tellers, collectors and writers of tales as well as the diverse ways they were represented in Hungarian culture in the 19th century.
Abstract
My purpose in this article is to propose a new reading of Sappho fr. 1 by suggesting that the poetic “I”, in fact, intends to rupture her ties with the past and to break her previous erotic habits by asking from the goddess of love to assist her in a relationship that will prove to be permanent and stable this time instead of her multiple and rather casual affairs that had thus far predominated in her love life.
Abstract
The Romans were conquerors, and it is unsurprising that they looked favorably upon the greatest conqueror of antiquity, Alexander the Great. In Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, there are several passages in which he uses the image of Alexander to help craft his own concept of Rome's place within the wider Hellenistic world, especially within the eastern Mediterranean. Livy, despite his generally positive opinion of Alexander, ultimately created scenarios where he portrayed the Romans as superior to the Macedonian king, first, because of the primary focus of Livy's history, namely the rise of Rome to Mediterranean dominance, and second, because of the political atmosphere in which Livy was writing, namely the complete submission of the Mediterranean basin under Augustus' empire. Although scattered throughout Livy's extensive writing, when analyzed together these passages illustrate a persistent and connected motif that influences Livy's larger narrative: Alexander was great, but Rome is greater.
This article provides a description, scholarly edition, and translation of an interesting variant of a well-known folk narrative entitled Qiṣṣat al-Ḥağğāğ about the famous Umayyad governor al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf and a young man. The story also appears in various other manuscripts but has rarely been studied. In this case, it is preserved in Ms. TF 136 No. 387 from the Bašagić’s Collection of Islamic Manuscripts, which is housed at the University Library in Bratislava, Slovakia. The variation of the story was also integrated into the Arabian Nights, being a part of the well-known Wortley-Montague manuscript stored in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. To preserve the authentic scribal practices, the presented edition offers the text with all its orthographic and linguistic peculiarities, regardless of how insignificant or incomprehensible they might seem. The edition is accompanied by a translation and explanatory notes. This is probably the first time that a complete text from the Bašagić’s Collection has been thoroughly studied.
Abstract
Béla Bartók's relationship with the Pro Arte Quartet was not as personal as the composer-pianist's relationship with the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet, the New Hungarian Quartet, or even the Kolisch Quartet. Professionally, however, it was equally fruitful. This study describes the relationship between the composer and the quartet, mainly based on the surviving correspondence between Bartók and the impresario Gaston Verhuyck-Coulon, and between Bartók and the Viennese publisher Universal Edition. It discusses in detail the circumstances surrounding the dedication of String Quartet no. 4, the commissioning of String Quartet no. 5, and the background to the surviving recordings of String Quartets nos. 1 and 5. It also takes stock of the plans that went up in smoke: the exclusive performance rights of String Quartet no. 3, a concerto for string quartet and orchestra, the studio recording of String Quartet no. 4, and the fact that the ensemble never met Bartók in person.
Abstract
Parnasso in festa (HWV 73, 1734), George Frideric Handel's festa teatrale, composed for the wedding festivities of his royal pupil Princess Anne, is a neglected piece within his oeuvre, mostly because of its hybrid nature. The fact that a considerable portion of the work was adapted from the Oxford oratorio Athalia ought not to cloud our appreciation of the newly-composed parts, since this appropriation is best understood as an act of Athalia's “repatriation” to its patrons. As a musical “centaur,” Parnasso shows intriguing multi-layered ambiguities. Was the Janus-faced Handel (Apollo/Orpheus) lamenting the departure of his favorite, or was this a bitter-sweet celebration of an unwanted marriage? Dramatically, the focus falls on Apollo's and Orpheus's loss of their loved ones, but how does this fit together with the massive vocal domain of Carestini (Apollo) and Strada (Clio)? On the vocal side, Carestini was given the most virtuosic numbers, resulting in the musical polarization of the main roles. Anna Maria Strada, as a Muse, represented the pastoral side, while Carlo Scalzi (Orfeo) added plaintive pathetic arias to the palette. Nevertheless, harmonizing points both in Carestini's and Strada's musical style and vocal tone formed a “thread” that helped sew the diverse parts of the Parnasso-centaur together.
Der Pester Lloyd als Quelle musikhistorischer Forschungen •
Ein Annäherungsversuch mit Beispielen aus dem 19. Jahrhundert
Abstract
The cultural exchange processes can also be formulated from the point of view of transfer research, because plurality and hybrid cultures are primarily characteristic of the Central European communication space. The actors of these cultural mediation processes, who had the authority to shape and transport knowledge and culture, were authors, translators, publishers, journalists, and critics. As far as the research initiative of the author of this study is concerned, which focuses on the period between 1867 and the turn of the century (around 1900), it must be stated that this period has so far been only sparsely investigated. As a result of our own wide-ranging press-historical research, a cultural-historical database of the most important German-language organs of this epoch was created, whereby the focus was primarily on the culture section, mainly on the feuilleton yield of these newspapers. In addition to literature and theater, there was also intensive reference to neighboring disciplines, since art criticism, art history and, last but not least, the musical stages in Pest and Vienna were given plenty of space in these organs. In the following, an overview of the history of the press is given in a compact form, followed by selected finds on the subject of music from the last third of the nineteenth century.
Abstract
Georges Cziffra (1921–1994) was one of the outstanding figures of Hungarian and international performing arts in the twentieth century. His adventurous life, career, fate, the virtuosity of his technical skills and his international fame have created a cult of his own, especially in recent years. However, his professional career and general biography have not yet been studied, and little to no literature has been written in the two and a half decades since his death. Thus, the reader/researcher can rely almost exclusively on his autobiography (Cannons and Flowers) and on personal reminiscences and anecdotes, which, as my research has shown, resemble a very limited extent of reality. My aim is to reconstruct and present an objective, fact-based biography in the current study, relying on the material of archives and other institutions and libraries I have collected, as well as on the complete contemporary digitized press material.
Abstract
Dénes Bartha (1908–1993), the internationally renowned Hungarian music historian, worked as a music critic for Pester Lloyd, the German-language Budapest daily newspaper between 1939 and 1944. Within the five concert seasons, I found a total of four hundred and sixty-five writings by Bartha in the columns of the newspaper, mostly reviews of concerts and opera performances but also some interviews and theoretical articles. The importance of the articles is enhanced by the fact that they commemorate the performances of such distinguished Hungarian musicians as Béla Bartók, Ernst von Dohnányi, Emil Telmányi, Ede Zathureczky, the Waldbauer–Kerpely String Quartet and the Végh Quartet among others, and they also document guest performances in Budapest by such renowned foreign performers as Herbert von Karajan, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Willem Mengelberg, Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss, Edwin Fischer and Walter Gieseking. In 2022, one hundred and twenty articles were published in my Hungarian translation from this extremely valuable and diverse material. In this study, I present the main features of Dénes Bartha's perspective as a music critic, taking examples from the articles included in the volume.
Abstract
Jenő Hubay (1858–1937) attained his greatest stature as the founder of the Hungarian Violin School. Although Hubay's name is mostly mentioned in violin pedagogy, he was also a popular composer during his lifetime. He composed over 300 violin works, and his role as composer is underestimated unlike those of contemporaries such as Eugène Ysaÿe. The present paper focuses on the performance perspectives in Hubay's violin concertos, by examining the historical background of each concerto, followed by a systematic approach to violin and musical techniques. This includes guidelines for determining tempo, dynamics/dynamic planning, bowing/articulation, tempo rubato, and portamenti/vibrato to create a style of performance appropriate to Hubay's works.
Abstract
I propose an overview of some of the defining aspects of Ștefan Niculescu's composition, some of which link him to his much better known contemporary on the world stage, György Ligeti. The musical affinities between the two have evolved into a steadfast friendship, reflected in a newly published correspondence that is becoming significant for slices of recent music history. I do not intend a comparison or an analytical parallel between the compositions of the two: the focus will fall on Niculescu's musical springs, with some signs of his and Ligeti's compatibility. Niculescu's heterophony versus Ligeti's micropolyphony, the impulses both received from mathematics, linguistics, the natural sciences, as well as the search (since the 1980s) for a new diatonicism that would configure an alternative system to serialism, all can be examined accordingly. It is also not uninteresting that both composers are convinced that they belong neither to the avant-garde nor to postmodernism, but consistently follow modernism.
Abstract
In Pannonia from 122 sites 9867 Central Gaulish samian are recorded so far. The greatest number of this pottery has been published from the towns adjacent legionary fortress. Central Gaulish pottery is usually rare to find in cemeteries. The quantity of this ware everywhere greater than that of South Gaulish samian.
90.66% of the Central Gaulish terra sigillata are from Lezoux and 7.6% of this ware can be related to the workshops of Les Martres de Veyre. There may also have been a small number of Central Gaulish sigillata imported from Vichy, Terre Franche, Toulon sur Allier or Lubie. These samall production centres could be considered as possibilities.
The Lezoux group is represented in Pannonia by 15 plain and 2 decorated forms. The decorated ware can be chronologically divided into three large groups. The earliest ware of Trajanic period is quite rare in Pannonia; they occur only in the western part of the province.
The second chronological group, the Hadrianic–early Antonine one is in Pannonia a total of five times larger, than the Trajanic group. The total number of the third group, the Antonine samian is seven times larger, than the number of Hadrianic–early Antonine sigillata.
Hadrian founded 8 to 9 municipiums in Pannonia. The new cities, mainly the two provinial seats Carnuntum and Aquincum had a large shipment of ware from Central Gaul. After the Marcomannic wars (166–180 AD) Rheinzabern took over a leading role on the provincial markets.
Abstract
Gyula László’s theory, published in 1970, was virtually ignored and received with tacit dismissal by the Hungarian archaeological scholarship and international archaeological community was largely unaware of it. This paper aims to provide clarity for the latter research. Not a single element of the theory was accepted or was acceptable even at the time of its birth: distribution of the late Avar and the Conquest-era sites do not complement each other; István Kniezsa's map is highly discussed and is not suitable for proving that the eighth century Avars were Hungarians; Byzantine sources record the immigration of a military group and not of a people, who later moved on; the “Ugri Bjelii” mentioned in the Russian Primary Chronicle cannot be applicable to this immigration; the so-called of “griffin-tendril” population is about 30 years later as the supposed immigration; there was not a migration from the Káma region in the seventh century) connecting the “Uuangariorum marcha” with the “Onogurs” is highly uncertain; there is no trace of any immigration in the anthropological material of the Avar period.
Errare humanum est.
Abstract
The present paper describes and discusses a group of iron and copper-alloy rotary keys characterised by a moveable joint connecting the shaft and the key-ring, appearing in the seventh-century material record of the Carpathian Basin whose origins can be sought in the Mediterranean. While the few published examples of the class were in previous studies mainly regarded as Roman-period artefacts secondarily re-used as amulets by the Avar-period population of the Carpathian Basin, the present study argues that these pieces in fact have a sixth-to seventh-century production date, being thereby contemporaneous with their deposition in seventh-century mortuary assemblages. Taking this observation as a springboard for further interpretation, an overview of the possible meanings and symbolic associations attached to keys in Roman, late antique, and early medieval times is offered. The main argument presented here is that besides serving amuletic purposes, some of the Avar-period keys could in all probability have conveyed more explicit messages about their owners, such as that of their feminity and of their economic role and authority in their respective households. The Appendix supplementing the present paper seeks to provide a theoretical reconstruction of a wooden casket buried with the woman interred in Grave 119 of the Kölked-Feketekapu B cemetery, one of the burials yielding a Mediterranean hinged rotary key.
The paradigm shift in the later fourth millennium BC. •
Why did life change in the Middle Copper Age in the heartland of the Carpathian Basin?
Abstract
The fourth millennium BC, particularly its second half, saw the advent of major innovations that still affect our life today, sometimes as artefacts still used in a virtually unchanged form. Among these, the most important are wheels and wheeled vehicles, the innovations introduced as part of the Secondary Products Revolution, and the new technologies of metalworking. Initially surrounded by an aura of mystique and reverence, these innovations gradually became part of everyday life and their benefits, such as a more secure livelihood engendering new subsistence strategies, were enjoyed by a growing number of communities. Better life circumstances stimulated population growth, which in turn sparked an increase in the number of settlements as well as an incipient socio-economic hierarchy between them. Improving life circumstances, receptiveness to new ideas and increasingly dynamic contacts with distant regions brought a change in previous norms and social values. This paradigm shift can be best traced in the mortuary realm: various objects signalling the status and/or prestige of a community's prominent members began to be deposited in burials. Daily life became more predictable and was accompanied by a certain measure of wealth accumulation, which, however, also stimulated frugality. Hard-to-obtain exotic commodities were highly prized and usually only their down-scaled versions fashioned from clay accompanied the dead instead of the real-life animal or prestige item. Described and briefly discussed in the present study are certain aspects of this complex process.
Abstract
This paper deals with Muslim places of worship and their evolution during the 164 years of Ottoman rule in Timișoara (1552–1716). The analysis was carried out on the basis of written historical documentation and archaeological results. It is about religious structures such as mosques (câmii) and other places of worship (mescid), but also about monastic centres of dervishes (tekke, zâviye and türbe). The archaeological research that took place in the last decade in Timișoara offered the chance to bring to light the foundations of three mosques: Ali Bey, Cimcime and Sultan Süleyman. The results of these researches are valuable, especially since no building in Timișoara dating from the Ottoman Period has survived. From an archaeological point of view, it was found that only two of the mosques share similar characteristics. Although at all three of them wooden posts were found at the bottom of the foundation ditch, beaten into the ground, the differences were in the techniques of the foundation construction. At two of the foundation walls, was discovered a reinforcement of wooden beams, fixed with iron nails, over which a mixture of mortar with stone and broken brick was placed. At the third foundation wall, a similar mixture was framed by a row of bricks laid on the edge of the foundation ditch. Moreover, two of the mosques were built according to a rectangular plan, and in the third plan the north side was closed with an apse. Archaeological research also indicated a possible minaret, mihrab, but also parts of the floor of one of the mosques.
Abstract
The chemical composition of 42 samples of raw glass from the Komarov settlement on the Middle Dniester was studied by means of SEM-EDS, EPMA and LA-ICP-MS analyses. We singled out groups of colourless glass of Levantine and Egyptian origin, the chronology of which indicates that the workshop could be dated to the 4th – early 5th century. The data on the chemical composition of the raw glass do not confirm that glassmaking industry existed here in an earlier period, as was previously believed. The manufacturing in Komarov combines the use of high-quality perfectly decolourized raw glass with intensive use of cullet, which might point out either different levels of the glassware manufactured here, or selective recycling. The characteristic features of the workshop's raw glass supply are the absence of the HIMT glass and late spread of antimony-decolourized glass.
Abstract
In this paper, the author draws the attention of experts to a new glyphic discovery from Apulum. It is a schematic portrait of the Gorgon Medusa, depicted on a three-layered sardonyx. Based on parallels and the manufacturing technique, the author concludes that the piece originates from the workshops of Viminacium, Upper Moesia. The cameo is dated in the second half of the second century AD, prior the time when the canabae of the XIII Gemina legion rose to the status of municipium (ante AD 197). It is the only glyptic piece that bears the image of Medusa that's Dacian origin is certain. From an artistic point of view, it is a modest quality of execution, below the average provincial level. Furthermore, the author makes some remarks on the gems found in the collections of the National Museum of the Union in Alba Iulia, with a few additions and clarifications regarding the place of discovery and the possibility of the existence of a workshop of cavatores gemmarum at Apulum.
Abstract
In early 2017, an astonishing number of archaeological finds were unearthed during the excavation of two sites in Molnár Street (Budapest), led by the archaeologists of the Budapest History Museum. As the construction works of a new hotel took place on a registered archaeological site, and historical monuments of the city were expected to be found, the presence of archaeological professionals became essential. Even though the location was inhabited for centuries, the early modern and medieval layers were found unaffected.
Because of the nature of the site, the wet and muddy soil layers along the Danube provided a favourable environment for the preservation of organic materials and metals. As the climatic conditions in the Carpathian Basin are less favourable for the survival of organic material, the findings are very special both on a local and a broader regional level. In the Middle Ages, the Danube flowed over a much wider area than it does today. Today's embankment was often under water due to its proximity to the river, especially in the days before its regulation. The population, accustomed to the threat of spring floods, built their houses much further inland and along the river. Only urban landfills and, in safer times, ports and loading docks were established.
The aim of this paper is to specify past ground levels along the river, and changes in the water levels as well as the path of the Danube, with the help of as many environmental archaeological methods as possible. Similar research was already conducted on Margaret Island, in Vác and in Visegrád, so this new case study is hoped to be a useful contribution to reconstructing past landscapes along the river.
Abstract
Archaeological excavations at the site of Montessoro (660 m. a.sl.), carried out between 2009 and 2013 by the Department of Christian and Medieval Archaeology (University of Turin – Department of the Historical Studies) and currently under publication, have led to the large-scale exploration of a rural Apennine site which was inhabited between the first century BC and the fifth century AD. The late antique phase, which is the best-preserved, consists of five farm buildings made using a masonry base bound with clay, with an elevation in lathwork and a roof made of cover and pan tiles. The systematic study of almost 600 clay fragments, some of them large and mainly from the collapse levels caused by the fire in the granary, with negative impressions of plant material, has enabled considerable information to be obtained about the technique of wattle and daub used to construct the elevations: the morphology and arrangement of the wooden parts (horizontal and vertical), related to the woven lattice of the lathwork and the load-bearing structure, and the mixing and application of clay and plaster. This work, associated with a thorough analysis of the plentiful wood charcoal remains (carried out by Prof. Lanfredo Castelletti and Dr. Sila Motella – Museo Civico P. Giovio di Como), has yielded data about the choice and working of the plants and trees used for the construction of elevations and all the structural parts, enabling a fairly precise reconstruction of the buildings and the socio-economic and cultural context of the site.
