Defining residential Graves

Since prehistoric times, the use of graves built within private houses has been a common burial custom of both Old and New World societies. Although efforts have been made by scholars to interpret the role these graves had in constructing the social, cultural and economic organization of ancient societies, there has been no attempt to clearly define the use of basic terminology, such as ‘intramural’, for this category of funerary depositions.The paper here presented will thus aim at defining a more coherent typology of ‘residential graves’ (i.e., a built tomb embedded within a dwelling and contemporary with it) and distinguish it from other types of funerary depositions that were part of the settlement (i.e. cists, pits, pithoi), but that are difficult to connect with the collective memory of the community. Such an epistemological exercise will facilitate interpretations carried out by scholars interested in mortuary archaeology and will also define the socio-economic value of residential graves as part of the construction of the familial memory. Moreover, to further elucidate the definition of residential graves I will also present a specific case study (i.e., Titriş Höyük during the late IIIrd millennium BC) in which the use of such funerary depositions was pivotal for framing the emergence of a new social class

The Hirbemerdon Tepe Archaeological Project 2008: A Preliminary Report

Anthropolog

Biliary pancreatic diversion and laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding in morbid obesity: their long-term effects on metabolic syndrome and on cardiovascular parameters

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bariatric surgery is able to improve glucose and lipid metabolism, and cardiovascular function in morbid obesity. Aim of this study was to compare the long-term effects of malabsorptive (biliary pancreatic diversion, BPD), and restrictive (laparoscopic gastric banding, LAGB) procedures on metabolic and cardiovascular parameters, as well as on metabolic syndrome in morbidly obese patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>170 patients studied between 1989 and 2001 were called back after a mean period of 65 months. 138 patients undergoing BPD (n = 23) or LAGB (n = 78), and control patients (refusing surgery and treated with diet, n = 37) were analysed for body mass index (BMI), blood glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides, blood pressure, heart rate, and ECG indexes (QTc, Cornell voltage-duration product, and rate-pressure-product).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After a mean 65 months period, surgery was more effective than diet on all items under evaluation; diabetes, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome disappeared more in surgery than in control patients, and new cases appeared only in controls. BPD was more effective than LAGB on BMI, on almost all cardiovascular parameters, and on cholesterol, not on triglyceride and blood glucose. Disappearance of diabetes, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome was similar with BPD and with LAGB, and no new cases were observed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These data indicate that BPD, likely due to a greater BMI decrease, is more effective than LAGB in improving cardiovascular parameters, and similar to LAGB on metabolic parameters, in obese patients. The greater effect on cholesterol levels is probably due to the different mechanism of action.</p

Pharmacological and molecular docking assessment of cryptotanshinone as natural-derived analgesic compound

n/

Le Mort dans la ville

Le développement de rites mortuaires complexes dans l’histoire de l’Homme a résulté dans un rôle croissant joué par les pratiques funéraires utilisées comme moyen de resserrer les liens à l’intérieur d’une même communauté. À cet égard, le singulier usage d'inhumer un individu au cœur de la communauté révèle avec acuité la force de cette relation que pouvaient entretenir les vivants et les morts. Les découvertes archéologiques récentes ont souligné l’importance de telles pratiques liées aux inhumations intra-muros en Anatolie. Bien qu’il semble possible de tisser un lien continu entre ces coutumes, les contextes dans lesquels s’inscrivent la pratique d’inhumer une personne au cœur même de la communauté, depuis l’enfant du Néolithique à Çatalhöyük à la libraire de Celsius à Ephèse, en passant par le Mausolée d'Halicarnasse, ont néanmoins radicalement changés en fonction des époques et des lieux. L’objectif de ce volume, en rassemblant des spécialistes de périodes et d’horizons différents, est d’offrir non seulement un point général de nos connaissances sur ces questions, mais aussi un éclairage concernant le mécanisme de ces pratiques, leur contexte et leur impact en Anatolie, du début de l’Âge du Bronze à l’époque romaine

I costumi funerari della media vallata dell'Eufrate durante il III millennio a.C.

[Italiano]: Il rito funebre, come molte altre espressioni della cultura umana, va considerato come una rappresentazione formale della performance ideologica che viene definita dalla comunità dei vivi sulla base della loro preoccupazione per l'inspiegabile fine della vita. La costruzione del rituale stesso si basa sulla creazione di un "testo" da parte del gruppo di appartenenza dell'individuo, e in cui gli elementi della cultura materiale (gli oggetti che compongono il corredo funerario, il cadavere, i canti e i lamenti dei vivi) esprimono la necessità di trasformare un evento negativo, come la morte, in uno positivo, perché “il momento della morte è legato non solo al processo dell'aldilà, ma anche al processo del vivere, dell'invecchiamento e della progenie”(Metcalf e Huntington1991: 108). Lo scopo di questo volume è definire, interpretare e ricostruire i riti funebri che hanno caratterizzato le popolazioni che hanno vissuto durante il III millennio a.C. lungo la valle siro-anatolica dell'Eufrate, regione che si estende dal confine settentrionale dei Monti del Tauro fino al confine moderno tra Siria e Iraq. Questo testo è stato sviluppato sulla base della tesi di dottorato completata presso l'Università degli studi di Napoli "L'Orientale" tra il 1995 e il 1999./[English]: The funerary ritual, as with many other expressions of human culture, should be considered as a formal representation of the ideological performance that is portrayed by a community of living beings due to their concern for the unexplainable end of life. The construction of the ritual itself is based on the creation of a “text” by the group to which the individual belongs, and in which the elements of the material culture (the objects composing the funerary set, the dead body, the songs and lamentations of the living) express the need to transform a negative event, such as death, into a positive one, because “the moment of death is related not only to the process of afterlife, but also to the process of living, ageing and producing progeny” (Metcalf and Huntington1991: 108).The aim of this volume is to define, interpret, and reconstruct the funerary rituals that were performed during the Third Millennium BCE along the Syro-Anatolian Euphrates valley, a region which region extends from the northern border of the Taurus Mountains, down to the southern reaches of the modern border between Syria and Iraq. This text was developed as a Doctoral dissertation completed at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” between 1995 and 1999

: The case of Titriş Höyük in southeastern Anatolia during the late IIIrd millennium BC

International audienceSince prehistoric times, the use of graves built within private houses has been a common burial custom of both Old and New World societies. Although efforts have been made by scholars to interpret the role these graves had in constructing the social, cultural and economic organization of ancient societies, there has been no attempt to clearly define the use of basic terminology, such as 'intramural', for this category of funerary depositions.The paper here presented will thus aim at defining a more coherent typology of 'residential graves' (i.e., a built tomb embedded within a dwelling and contemporary with it) and distinguish it from other types of funerary depositions that were part of the settlement (i.e. cists, pits, pithoi), but that are difficult to connect with the collective memory of the community. Such an epistemological exercise will facilitate interpretations carried out by scholars interested in mortuary archaeology and will also define the socio-economic value of residential graves as part of the construction of the familial memory. Moreover, to further elucidate the definition of residential graves I will also present a specific case study (i.e., Titriş Höyük during the late IIIrd millennium BC) in which the use of such funerary depositions was pivotal for framing the emergence of a new social class

Le tombe intramurali: una tadizione funeraria della fase finale del III millenio a.C. lungo la vallata dell’eufrate siro-anatolico

During the III millennium BC almost all the Near and Middle East areas (from the Aegean Sea to the Indus Valley), after the collapse of the Mesopotamian hegemony during the so-called Late Uruk period (second half of the IV millennium BC), experienced an increase in social stratification and complexity and a growing consolidation of the interaction between distant social and economical environments. The regional fragmentation of the economical power, through the emergence of city-states, such as Kish, Ur, Mari, Ebla, Carchemish, Kazane, allowed local culture and societies to a better use of their environments and natural resources, distinguishing this period from the preceding one (Late Uruk), when Mesopotamian cities (Uruk and Susa) settled colonial outposts in the whole Near East for a better control on the peripheral resources, and from the following one as well. Several factors contribute to the significant transformation in the complexity of burial methods, and especially in the extraordinary richness of grave assemblages and in the practice of burial in cist graves, built within private or public buildings. The practice to bury the dead in the houses is typical of this archaeological period; it has been found in almost each site of the Syro-Anatolian Euphrates valley and in some ancient settlements of Lower Mesopotamia

Constructing Kurgans. Burial Mounds and Funerary Customs in the Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia during the Bronze and Iron age: Proceedings of the International Workshop Held in Florence, Italy, on March 29-30, 2018

International audienc