Oral and Written Communication and Transmission of Knowledge in Ancient Judaism and Christianity

This paper examines the contexts of oral communication and the use of written messages in Josephus’ writings, the New Testament, and rabbinic literature, and discusses the possible reasons for using orality or writing in the respective Jewish and Christian contexts in antiquity. It is argued that an individual’s social power depended on his position within the communication network and his ability to control and manipulate the dissemination of knowledge among his co-religionists. Mobility was an important means of creating these networks and the most mobile rabbis would have been the most well-connected

Mapping an ancient historian in a digital age: the Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Image Archive (HESTIA)

HESTIA (the Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Imaging Archive) employs the latest digital technology to develop an innovative methodology to the study of spatial data in Herodotus' Histories. Using a digital text of Herodotus, freely available from the Perseus on-line library, to capture all the place-names mentioned in the narrative, we construct a database to house that information and represent it in a series of mapping applications, such as GIS, GoogleEarth and GoogleMap Timeline. As a collaboration of academics from the disciplines of Classics, Geography, and Archaeological Computing, HESTIA has the twin aim of investigating the ways geography is represented in the Histories and of bringing Herodotus' world into people's homes

From respect to reburial: negotiating pagan interest in prehistoric human remains in Britain, through the Avebury consultation

The recent Avebury Consultation on reburial has drawn considerable public and professional attention to the issue of pagan calls for respect towards the care of human remains. Our work has pointed to the importance of archaeologists and others engaging seriously and respectfully with pagans as significant stakeholders in our heritage. The Avebury Reburial Consultation suggests this dialogue is increasing in strength, but we identify problems in the process. We focus here on approaches to the prehistoric dead and worldviews enabling communication from which calls or ‘claims’ for the reburial of prehistoric pagan human remains, versus their retention for scientific study, are articulated; frameworks for assessing and adjudicating such ‘claims’; and implications for the interest groups concerned. We argue that room must be made for philosophical debate and the emotional and spiritual views of pagans, in order to improve dialogue, develop common ground, and enable participatory decision-making and situational pragmatism

3D and 4D Simulations for Landscape Reconstruction and Damage Scenarios. GIS Pilot Applications

The project 3D and 4D Simulations for Landscape Reconstruction and Damage Scenarios: GIS Pilot Applications has been devised with the intention to deal with the demand for research, innovation and applicative methodology on the part of the international programme, requiring concrete results to increase the capacity to know, anticipate and respond to a natural disaster. This project therefore sets out to develop an experimental methodology, a wide geodatabase, a connected performant GIS platform and multifunctional scenarios able to profitably relate the added values deriving from different geotechnologies, aimed at a series of crucial steps regarding landscape reconstruction, event simulation, damage evaluation, emergency management, multi-temporal analysis. The Vesuvius area has been chosen for the pilot application owing to such an impressive number of people and buildings subject to volcanic risk that one could speak in terms of a possible national disaster. The steps of the project move around the following core elements: creation of models that reproduce the territorial and anthropic structure of the past periods, and reconstruction of the urbanized area, with temporal distinctions; three-dimensional representation of the Vesuvius area in terms of infrastructuralresidential aspects; GIS simulation of the expected event; first examination of the healthcareepidemiological consequences; educational proposals. This paper represents a proactive contribution which describes the aims of the project, the steps which constitute a set of specific procedures for the methodology which we are experimenting, and some thoughts regarding the geodatabase useful to “package” illustrative elaborations. Since the involvement of the population and adequate hazard preparedness are very important aspects, some educational and communicational considerations are presented in connection with the use of geotechnologies to promote the knowledge of risk

The EU and Bosnia and Herzegovina: Democracy promotion within the limits of the "ethnic conflict" paradigm

Seeking to contribute to the emerging debate about the substance of EU democracy promotion policies, this paper takes as its focus Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the EU‟s current democracy promotion efforts are primarily focused on reform of the country‟s constitution. Bosnia‟s current constitution, established by the 1995 Dayton Agreement, provides for consociational power-sharing and extensive territorial decentralisation. While EU officials have stressed the inadequacies of the present constitutional arrangements, over time the reforms demanded have become more limited in scope. As such, I suggest that the outcome of any successful constitutional reform negotiations will be technical fixes to the present constitution, allowing the country to meet the obligations of future EU membership, rather than its wholesale redesign. Rather than promoting liberal democracy as it has elsewhere, then, in Bosnia the EU supports the perpetuation of consociational structures, which EU officials regard as the most realistic option given the country‟s post-conflict political context. Faced with the lack of a constitutional norm within the Union, let alone a consociational one, EU policy-makers have instead chosen to refer to a particular reading of the history of the European integration project itself in order to lend support to their approach in Bosnia, which continues to privilege group over individual rights. I highlight how notions of a „union of diversity‟ or a „union of minorities‟ are used to legitimise an approach to democracy promotion that is predicated on a view of Bosnia as composed of a patchwork of ethnic groups with discrete and discernable interests and identities

Functional Skills Support Programme: Developing functional skills in history

This booklet is part of "... a series of 11 booklets which helps schools to implement functional skills across the curriculum. The booklets illustrate how functional skills can be applied and developed in different subjects and contexts, supporting achievement at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. Each booklet contains an introduction to functional skills for subject teachers, three practical planning examples with links to related websites and resources, a process for planning and a list of additional resources to support the teaching and learning of functional skills." - The National Strategies website

On Sevillian guilds towards the end of the 11th century

In the third decade of the 20th century, Lévi-Provençal discovered an Arab manuscript by the ishbīlī Ibn cAbdūn, that dealt with the commercial and artisan practices in Seville at the end of the 11th century. In the document there were references to the offices and personages who had to perform certain functions in various professions. From this manuscript, Lévi-Provençal deduced the existence of 11th-century Islamic guilds in Seville. This idea was assumed by Spanish historians, even up until the final decade of the 20th century. In the present article, the basis which sustained such an idea is analyzed with particular emphasis on the treatise by Ibn cAbdūn, since this is the only work that describes the economy of Seville at the time of Classic Islam (before the 12th century), and since this is the principal historical source cited by recent historians as a guarantee of the existence of Sevillian guilds during the Classic Islam; however, other manuscripts of Islamic authors of al-Andalus, and articles of contemporary authors are also taken into account. The result of our investigation disproves the existence of 11th century Islamic guilds in SevilleEn la tercera década del siglo XX Lévi-Proveçal descubrió un manuscrito árabe del išbīlī Ibn cAbdūn, donde se tratan las prácticas comerciales y artesanales en Sevilla a finales del siglo XI. En él hay referencias a los oficios y a personajes que debían cumplir determinadas funciones sobre la profesión. De ahí Lévi-Provençal dedujo la existencia de gremios islámicos en Sevilla. Esta idea resultó ser sugestiva y fue asumida por historiadores españoles del siglo XX, incluso en la década final de ese siglo. En el presente artículo se analizan las bases que sustentaron tal idea, haciéndose especial hincapié en el Tratado de Ibn cAbdūn por ser la única obra que se refiere a la economía de Sevilla en la época del islam clásico (antes del siglo XII) y la principal fuente histórica mencionada por dichos historiadores recientes como garantía de la existencia de gremios sevillanos durante el islam; sin embargo, también se tendrán en cuenta otros manuscritos de autores islámicos de al-Andalus y artículos de autores contemporáneos. El resultado de nuestra investigación refuta la existencia de gremios islámicos en la Sevilla del siglo X

Information in the Context of Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences

This textbook briefly maps as many as possible areas and contexts in which information plays an important role. It attempts an approach that also seeks to explore areas of research that are not commonly associated, such as informatics, information and library science, information physics, or information ethics. Given that the text is intended especially for students of the Master's Degree in Cognitive Studies, emphasis is placed on a humane, philosophical and interdisciplinary approach. It offers rather directions of thought, questions, and contexts than a complete theory developed into mathematical and technical details