Reconstructing the lived experience of disability in antiquity: a case study from Roman Egypt

Over the last thirty years, the development of disability studies as an academic discipline has in turn ensured that interest in disability in historical periods has steadily increased. Initially, scholars presented an overwhelmingly negative view of disability in antiquity, proceeding under the assumption that babies born displaying visible signs of deformity or disability were subjected either to infanticide or exposure, and that individuals who were subsequently identified as suffering from a deformity or disability, or developed either one later in life, were ostracized and unable to make any meaningful contribution to society. It is only over the last decade that this reductive approach has been gradually discredited, and the understanding of disability in antiquity has become increasingly nuanced. To date, one monograph has been published on deformity and disability in the Graeco-Roman world, one monograph on disability in the Greek world and one on disability in the Roman world, and one edited volume on disability in antiquity and another on disability in the Roman world. These have been complemented by investigations into disability in Judaism, Christianity and the Bible

Hair today, gone tomorrow: the use of real, false and artificial hair as votive offerings

No abstract available

Literary and documentary evidence for lay medical practice in the Roman Republic and Empire

The majority of surviving ancient medical literature was written by medical practitioners and produced for the purpose of ensuring the effective diagnosis and treatment of their patients, suggesting an audience of medical professionals ranging from instructors to students. This has led historians to concentrate on the professional medical practitioner and their theories, methods and practices, rather than on lay medical practitioners, or even patients themselves. This chapter seeks to redress this imbalance, and examine the ancient literary and documentary evidence for lay medical theories, methods and practices in the Roman Republic and Empire in an attempt to reconstruct the experiences of lay medical practitioners and their patients. The Roman agricultural treatises of Cato, Varro and Columella, papyri and ostraca from Egypt, and tablets from Britain are investigated, and it is established that the individual’s personal acquisition of knowledge and expertise, not only from medical professionals and works of medical literature, but also from family members and friends, and through trial and error, was considered fundamental to domestic medical practice

When lived ancient religion and lived ancient medicine meet: the household Gods, the household shrine and regimen

This paper argues that there was a strong connection between Roman domestic religious belief and practice and Roman domestic medical practice through the association of the household gods with the household’s health and well-being. It examines six examples of household shrines from Pompeii and the surrounding area to explore how specific non-elite households utilised their personal private religious beliefs and practices in the service of maintaining the health and well-being of their members. These six household shrines take the form of paintings that depict the household gods in conjunction with specific types of foodstuffs, and these foodstuffs are ones which played an important role in Roman regimen

Cortical Cannabinoid Modulation of Subcortical Dopamine Activity: Implications for Emotional Processing

Humans receive countless sensory inputs from the outside world to which they assign a certain level of emotional significance. However, there are times when an individual may assign an abnormally high level of emotional salience to an otherwise non-significant event, resulting in an inappropriate allocation of attention as seen in the hallucinations and psychosis associated with schizophrenia. Several brain regions are involved in this emotional processing, including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the ventral tegmental area (VTA). We have previously shown that activation of mPFC cannabinoid (CB1) receptors in rats causes a potentiated fear response to a normally non-salient sensory event (Laviolette & Grace, 2006a). To further investigate the cause of this increased fear response we performed in vivo extracellular electrophysiology recordings along with olfactory fear conditioning in awake, behaving animals. We observed a biphasic effect across both methodologies where an intra-mPFC low dose CB1 agonist caused an increase in spontaneous neural activity in VTA DA cells and a potentiated fear response, while an intra-mPFC high dose CB1 agonist caused a decrease in spontaneous neural activity in VTA DA cells and a block of normal fear memory acquisition, an effect that was rescued using an intra-VTA GABA-B receptor antagonist. Given the implications of the dopamine and cannabinoid systems in schizophrenia, these studies could provide important insights into the underlying neural activity of the emotional processing deficits associated with the disorde

The American Way to Choose Ice Cream

response is offered to Eric Twisselmann’s analysis and critique of social justice pedagogy, highlighting areas of theological agreement. An understanding of justice as social is explored through the concept of communication. Education as social communication of intergenerational learning is shaped by concerns for justice. The connection of justice and truth expounded by Twisselmann is critically endorsed, surfacing questions about the importance of choice in his account. How Christians may peaceably suffer as witness in current pedagogical debates is explored in final reflections

Dining after Death?

In the ancient world banquets were often seen on funerary monuments – but did they represent scenes that had once been enjoyed, or feasts yet to come

Bird-women on the Harpy Monument from Xanthos, Lycia: sirens or harpies?

The initial identification of the bird-women on the Harpy Monument as the eponymous 'harpies' has long been superseded by the identification of the creatures as sirens. The small figures they are shown carrying have often been seen as eidola or souls of the deceased. This in turn has led to the idea that one of the functions of sirens was to transport the souls of the deceased to the afterlife. However, there is every reason to believe that the images show an abduction image, related to contemporary images of sphinxes carrying off young males. It is unusual in that the figures they abduct are female, and in this the images actually do recall the legend of the harpies abducting the daughters of Pandareos, which led to the initial naming of the tomb. Although they may not be adequately labelled as 'harpies' or 'sirens', their role as shown here is closer to the former than the latter

Restoration of a sustainable wild grey partridge shoot in eastern England

Recuperación de un coto de caza sostenible de perdiz pardilla en el este de Inglaterra El este de Inglaterra ha sido un baluarte de la perdiz pardilla, Perdix perdix, pero al igual que en el resto de Gran Bretaña, sus efectivos están disminuyendo desde los años cincuenta. Desde dicha década se han monitorizado las perdices de un área de estudio de 40 km2 en el condado de Norfolk en colaboración con la GWCT (Fundación para la Conservación de la Caza y la Fauna). A partir del año 2001, terratenientes, granjeros y guardabosques emprendieron un programa de creación de hábitat, suplementación alimentaria y control de los predadores, con el fin de recuperar las perdices. Las densidades aumentaron desde 4,7 parejas/km2 en marzo del 2001 a 54 parejas/km2 en marzo del 2011. Dichas densidades son comparables a las que había antes de la disminución nacional de los efectivos de perdiz pardilla. Durante los últimos tres inviernos se abatieron entre 13 y 74 aves/km2, y los efectivos primaverales continúan creciendo.Recuperación de un coto de caza sostenible de perdiz pardilla en el este de Inglaterra El este de Inglaterra ha sido un baluarte de la perdiz pardilla, Perdix perdix, pero al igual que en el resto de Gran Bretaña, sus efectivos están disminuyendo desde los años cincuenta. Desde dicha década se han monitorizado las perdices de un área de estudio de 40 km2 en el condado de Norfolk en colaboración con la GWCT (Fundación para la Conservación de la Caza y la Fauna). A partir del año 2001, terratenientes, granjeros y guardabosques emprendieron un programa de creación de hábitat, suplementación alimentaria y control de los predadores, con el fin de recuperar las perdices. Las densidades aumentaron desde 4,7 parejas/km2 en marzo del 2001 a 54 parejas/km2 en marzo del 2011. Dichas densidades son comparables a las que había antes de la disminución nacional de los efectivos de perdiz pardilla. Durante los últimos tres inviernos se abatieron entre 13 y 74 aves/km2, y los efectivos primaverales continúan creciendo.Eastern England has been a stronghold for grey partridges Perdix perdix, but in common with the rest of Britain, numbers declined from the 1950s onwards. Partridges within a 40 km2 study area in the county of Norfolk have been monitored in conjunction with the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) since the 1950s. Since 2001 a programme of habitat creation, supplementary feeding and predation control was undertaken by the landowner, farmers and gamekeepers to restore partridges. Numbers increased from 4.7 pairs/km2 in March 2001 to 54 pairs/km2 in March 2011. These densities are comparable with those before the national decline in grey partridge stock. In the last three winters, between 13 and 74 birds/km2 were harvested and spring stocks continue to increase