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Nubia constituted the area in the Nile Valley in the present day Sudan, the area which spread from the first cataract up to the place where the White Nile meets the Blue Nile. The area was inhabited by the population using a common language – Old Nubian. In the second half of the sixth century thanks to the missions send by the Byzantine Court, Nubia accepted Christianity as a state religion. Nubia immediately found itself in the area of influence of Byzantine culture. Byzantine administration, liturgy of the Eastern Church and the Greek language were introduced. In 641 the Arab conquest of Egypt took place. Soon after that in 642, the Arab army entered the Nubian territory and from this date centuries of clashes and peace treaties characterized relations between Nubians and Arab peoples. The 13th century marks slow decline of the kingdom of Nubia. Hostile Negro tribes from the South and South-West appear in the Mid Valley of Nile. Fights weaken the kingdom; slow islamization of the country follows, royal rule and Christian faith falls and together with those culture and arts deteriorates. The history of military as well as political or commercial Nubian–Arabic contacts over entire period of existence of Christian kingdom of Nubia undoubtedly had to bring about certain artistic trends in Nubia originating from rich heritage of Muslim culture. The culture of Christian Nubia originally based to considerable extent on Byzantine art, in course of time, subjected to more and more intense Arabic influence, significantly changed. Arabic components seen in Nubian church architecture, wall painting and art crafts became predominant, which over following centuries led to creation of Arabic culture of the contemporary Sudan.
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The paper deals with the occurrence cartography of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) of the 16th century, represented by the map of Moscow State (Russia) compiled by Anthony Wied in 1542, in Vilnius and its publications in 1555 and 1570, which have been hardly studied in Lithuanian art research. Attempt is made to define Mannerism features characteristic of the artistic design of the maps. The main intentions of these creations are discussed. The appearance of the maps was induced by economic and military reasons. The maps are shown to have fulfilled propagandist functions. Russia was introduced to European readers as a wild and crude country.
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The present paper focuses on the features of daily life of Kaunas residents during the Nazi occupation (1941–1944), i.e. housing, nourishment problems and entertainment organization. It discusses how the daily life of Kaunas residents was controlled and how the local community adapted to occupation conditions in respect to both material and organizational aspects. A lack of housing, which was related to the German colonization policy, and the absence of construction were the major problems at that time. The provision of housing was strictly controlled by the highest Nazi officials and the local government. Other problems, first, fuel provision, which was seriously deficient during the war, were also solved in an organized way. When the front was approaching Lithuania in 1943 and the risk of air attacks increased, the regulations related to the rearrangement of housing into the hiding places prevailed.Kaunas residents felt a serious lack of food during the German occupation. Governmental institutions responsible for the provision of food operated in several directions: individual supply of fixed amount of food for local residents, and the establishment of canteens and garden colonies. Although the amount of food for Kaunas residents varied slightly in different periods, it was still insufficient to ensure vital needs of the residents. Despite the organizational activities of the local government, a lack of food remained a problem in Kaunas during the entire Nazi occupation period. Entertainment controlled by the government was also an integral part of the daily life of Kaunas residents. Different forms of control were applied on entertainment: ideological control (censorship or propaganda) and institutional control (activities of entertainment institutions). The organization of leisure activities focused on the combination of propaganda and entertaining aspects. As a result of poor economic opportunities for the development of recreational infrastructure, the connection with previous entertainment places was generally maintained. Some institutions which had served as places for entertainment were liquidated during the Nazi occupation. However, the majority of them continued their activities. Kaunas residents made extensive use of leisure opportunities. Cinema, theater, sports as well as reading were the most popular types of entertainment at that time.
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Travel accounts and notes about Serbia, which were left behind by the foreigners who visited it from XV to XIX centuries, represent today a precious source of data for researchers of the past of this area. These testimonies are equally, although not in the same way, important to anthropologists, despite the fact that they derive their knowledge only out of synchronous research, by the observation with participating or through interviews with representatives of a certain culture. So here we will try, on the example of travel notes about Kruševac, to show their actual contribution to the history of this city, on the one side, and to underline the convergence of anthropology and historiography through travel accounts in general, as a common source of information for those two scientific disciplines, on the other.
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Fine pottery from the Roman villa at San Potito di Ovindoli. The overwhelming majority of the finds published here are Central Italian Samian wares, which could belong to the tableware of the earliest villa. Plates of a Consp. 3 shape, cups of a Consp. 34 shape and plates of Consp. 20.4 were found during the excavations of the recent years. Finds dated from the earliest period from the second quarter of the 1st century to the end of the century are composed of ceramica a vernice nera and Samian wares of a Consp. 37 shape. We have found also so-called late Italian decorated sigillata.. The plain terra sigillata could be the products of yet unlocalised Central Italian workshops. Beside Italian wares, a few Northern African red slip wares (A 1) and an eastern B type Samian ware belonged to the find material of the early villa. The only La Graufesenque bowl of a Drag. 29 shape was not a commercial good: it could be a gift. Significantly fewer fine ceramics were used in the luxurious building complex of the centre of an imperial estate. The products of the declining Italian sigillata workshops were replaced by the wares of Central Tunisian workshops in the Antonine and the Severan period: African A 2, African A/D types or C 1 wares. In the same period, a few types of cooking wares could arrive with crop or other African goods from Central and Northern Tunisia.
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Many years have passed since the late Sándor Bökönyi, Director of the Institute of Archaeology of Hungarian Academy of the Sciences (IAHAS) from 1981 to 1993, proposed, in 1982, to Is.M.E.O. (Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East) (now Is.I.A.O., Italian Institute for Africa and Orient, in Rome) to collaborate on the field, in one of the topics of possible common interest. The ancient nomadism of Eurasian origin was chosen for that purpose, a particular socio-economic phenomenon that played, inside the evolution of the archaeological cultures of the Carpathian lowlands, a not small role and that could have been connected with the topics of the ancient Asian cultures representing the more proper scientific interest of Is.I.A.O.
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Im Zuge einer 2002 in Budaörs stattfindenden vorbeugenden archäologischen Freilegung kam – neben zahlreichen Steindenkmälern mit Inschrift – auch ein römischer Sarkophag ans Licht, dessen Darstellungen und Inschrift besondere Beachtung verdienen. Aus diesem Grund haben wir uns entschlossen, ihn in der vorliegenden Studie zu publizieren.
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Die Topographie des türkenzeitlichen Buda (Ofen) wurde von Lajos Fekete auf Grund der Quellen so exakt bestimmt, daß die archäologischen Freilegungen deren Richtigkeit in nahezu vollem Umfang bestätigt haben, Eines der am frühesten entstandenen türkischen Stadtviertel bzw, Befestigungsabschnitte Ofens war der Mahalle des Tojgun Pascha, Das Zentrum dieses Stadtteils bildeten die von Tojgun Pascha gestifteten Gebäude, Zu dem Gebäudekomplex Tojgun Paschas gehörten, wie Ewlija Tschelebi schreibt, eine Dschami, ein Doppelbad - Tschifte Hamam genannt -, eine Medresse und auch Läden, Letztere mögen in einem kleineren Bedesten- oder Arasta-Gebäude untergebracht gewesen sein, das mit dem auf dem Stadtplan von de la Vigne in der Nähe der Dschami dargestellten Bau mit Säulenhalle identisch sein dürfte, Von den Stiftungseinrichtungen Tojgun Paschas ging allein die 1553-1555 erbaute Dschami unbeschädigt aus der Belagerung des Jahres 1686 hervor; in der Kapuzinerkirche, der heutigen unterwasserstädtischen Pfarrkirche, blieben bedeutende Details der Dschami erhalten, Die bei der Freilegung der Kibla-Mauer »in situ« zum Vorschein gelangten Fenster bzw, die im Kircheninneren entdeckten Reste der Mihrab, des türkenzeitlichen Fußbodenniveaus und Kanzelfundaments (Mimber) haben es ermöglicht, den Grundriß des Gebäudes sowie seine südöstliche Fassade authentisch zu rekonstruieren,
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The opinion that some trans-Eastern European trade ways connecting Scandinavia and Byzantium along the Russian rivers existed in 5-6th centuries has a rather long history. Their “discovery” is attributed to Scandinavians, and Scandinavian merchants are supposed to have traded in furs from Northern Russia and even from Western Siberia. Some historians maintain that in 6th century Scandinavians used to sell furs to the Byzantines in the mouth of the Don River. This paper will attempt to verify whether the hypothesis of the Eastern European origin of the Scandinavians’ furs is substantial. Scandinavian influence (and, in a number of cases, also their immediate presence) in the Roman Time and in early Great Migration Age did not spread farther to the east than Estonia and Western Finland. At least, it is not substantiated by any archaeological or written evidence. The fifth – early sixth centuries saw promotion of Eastern European and Scandinavian exports of furs to the south, the Mediterranean. In Eastern Europe, as Jordannes maintains, fur trade was controlled by nomads from the Pontic steppes, who played the role of middlemen, while in Central Europe this role was played by Germanic peoples from the Middle Danube area, who happened to live on the way between Scandinavia and the Mediterranean. Furs from Fennoscandia were exported to the south mainly through Central Europe. The early 500-550s were marked by a growing Scandinavian influence on the western outskirts of the Eastern European forest zone – on the islands in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland and in the northern part of the Ladoga River basin. Most likely, it suggests a search for the new sources of “raw” furs. It does not immediately imply presence of the Scandinavians here, for the Baltic Finns could also be bearers of Scandinavian artefacts; their prestigious culture in Western and Southern Finland and in Western Estonia, for instance, was rather Germanized. At the same time,Finland, Estonia, Sweden, Baltic Sea islands, Prussia and probably the mouth of the Neman River saw development of barbaric ‘little kingdoms’. Scandinavians and Western Balts, judging by some artefacts found in Belarus, started groping their way to the south. They seem to have failed to find it in the direction Dvina-Dnieper, in the area of Tushemlinskaya culture, and so they moved into the mainland along the Neman-Berezina Rivers. This is not at all accidental: the middle area of the Danube River, which was part of the traditional routes from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, saw a period of continuous wars between different barbaric kingdoms that emerged on the ruins of the Huns’ Empire aſter Attila’s death. This could sometimes jeopardize normal function of Central European communications, and so some by-pass routes had to be found. It seems that furs were the main reason for the Scandinavians, Baltic Finns, Danubian Germans, Slavs and Balts to come into the North-West Russia.
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Roşia Montană (County Alba, Romania) is a gold mining site known and exploited since Roman or even pre-Roman times until the recent past. Traditional, family- or small group-operated mining has been going on for roughly two millennia, with even farther precedents, and lasted until the 1948 Communist nationalization, making of this place one of the most long-lived traditional mining centres known today. This particular endurance translates into a systematic and profound interrelation between natural setting and cultural phenomena – from deep down into the mountains, all the way to the surface, from topography to fauna and flora and to the human communities of the area, which produced one of the richest and most spectacular cultural landscapes of Romania and possibly of Europe.In this paper, an overview of the cultural heritage of the site is presented, based on acknowledged or emerging multidisciplinary research and evaluations. Consequently, two currently confronting visions for the development of the site are presented, a large-scale short-term open-cast mining project with already felt damaging effect on the cultural heritage, and the long-term sustainable development based on the rich cultural and natural resources, with a vision for the inscription of the site in the World Heritage List.
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In the course of the nineteenth century, the predominant politics of heritage conservation strongly promoted the reconstruction of historical monuments. A new historical landscape was constructed, which became part of the popular image of German history, and which helped shape German collective memory. Different periods of German history each interpreted the historical monuments and their message anew. The monuments acted as reservoirs of memory for different social groups and generations. As landmarks, historical sites and tourist destinations, they became part of popular history and worked their way into the histories of individual families, and thus remained core components of German collective memory. The popular image of the past survived even the great historical ruptures that ensued in the twentieth century. The paper explores these notions first by means of a survey of individuals, organisations and ideas involved in historically orientated movements in nineteenth-century Germany. It then discusses core features and representative cases of historical restoration in practice, and finally focuses on one specific example: the Hohkönigsburg in Alsace-Lorraine.
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This work is devoted to reliquary cross with image of the military saint St. Niketas the Goth (o άγιός Νιkήτας) – not a very popular character among this iconographic type of crosses from the Middle Ages. The cross has a shape of Latin cross with elongated lower arm and it is cast by cooper alloy (bronze) in bilateral casting form (Fig. 1).Casting is not very good quality, as evidenced by the pores on the face surface, slightly damaged proportions and insufficient quantity of metal for forming the shape at the bottom. The image fills the entire space of the cross, bearing of additional edge. The saint is depicted right opposite, with uplifted hand in prayer position among the flames. Over a three-row head on inscription “О АГIIOC NHKITA”.Confusion in the beginning was letter “K” – written directed at 90º. Given, however, the remaining inaccuracies and errors in the engraving of the inscription on the cross, it did not seem unusual and demonstrates the provincial nature of the product. Confirmation of the fact that on the cross is depicted namely St. Niketas not only name, but the iconographic peculiarities. According to biography of St. Niketas the Goth, he lived in the second half of the IV century and was died in 15.09.372. He is defended faith among Gothic wars, subjected to torture andthen burned.
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Alexander III of Macedon was the greatest army commander of the world, a skilful diplomat and a statesman in the antiquity, who created a large state with a new social order of equal and united nations, with respect for all customs, religions and cultures. His country stretched from the western coast of the Balkan Peninsula, to India to the east, from the Danube and the Black Sea to the north, to Egypt and Libya to the south. He also planned new campaigns, but suddenly fell ill and died. However, with his short, but tumultuous life and work, he remained in the collective memory of all generations of different nations through centuries, from the folk tradition and folklore, to history and all areas of artistic creation. His image was mythologized since his birth. In this mythologization, a large number of themes and motives from the existing historical sources of various nations and the folk tradition and folklore, including the various legends and magical stories, are used. As in the folk creativity, also in the various versions of the Alexander Romance, as a compiled ancient and medieval biographical novel about his life and work, various stereotypes of the older folk tradition (mainly mythological episodes of the existing traditions and legends) and various historical and literary sources, in the same form, with insignificant or more developed rearrangements, are used. In the Renaissance period in Macedonia, the cult of antique past and culture was outstanding, reviving the interest for the old glory of the Macedonian Kingdom, and especially Alexander the Great, and actual mystifications about his life and work appeared. The most expressive example is the huge collection of folklore opus in Macedonia by Stephan Verković, which constantly attracts and rivals the scientific public to our contempo¬rary times.
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In the summer of 2012, a copper coin was unearthed during archaeological excavations at the Sestovytsyasite, in the Chernihiv region, Ukraine. It is identified in this article as a Panticapaeanobol, issued during the reign of the Bosporianking PerisadII, between 275 and 245 BC (Anokhintype 133). The coin is 20 mm indiameter and weighs 6.1 g. Such coins, which are fairly monotonous in their typology and style, were the first mass issue, pure copper coins from Bosporus during the financial crisis of the third century BC.The Shestovytsya hill fort, were obol was found, is located in north-eastern Ukraine, 18 kilometers downstream on the river Desna from the city of Chernihiv, 1 km to the south of the modern village of Shestovytsya. One of the earliest finds from the hill fort is an early Iron Age ceramic vessel (Milograd culture;9th /early 8th – 3rd / 2nd centuries BC). The Slavic period is represented by Volyntsevo culture finds, dated to the second half of 7thand first half of 8thcenturies. The medieval settlement begins its existence between the late 9th and early 10th centuries. The settlement is thought to continue its existence into the early decades of the 11th century, when it is largely abandoned. In the 12th century it reappears as apossible stopover pointalong the Chernihiv-Kyiv road.Bosporiancoin discovered during excavations of trench 27 (trench supervisor V. Zhigola), as a result ofre-examination of the spoil using a metal detector. Trench 27 was located on the north‐eastern section of a suggested rampart which encircled the hill fort. Finds of ancient Greek coins, including those from the ancient Greek states of the Northern Black Sea region, are not out of the ordinary in the steppes and forest-steppes of Eastern Europe. Only 45 Panticapaean coins, from 17 sites, including the coin from Shestovytsya, are known in Eastern Europe, outside the Bosporuskingdom. Most of them (55.5%) were found in the Lower Dnieper region, issued predominantly in the years314-275 BC (Anokhintypes 111, 112, 125 and 130). It is highly likely that the Panticapaean coin from Shestovytsya arrived there in the 3rd century BC,during the Milograd culture stage of the site. Subsequently, the coin was displaced and found its way into the early medieval layers, whether through the 10th and then the 12th centuries, or directly in the 12th. An alternative hypothesis is that the coin could have been taken as a souvenir during one of the trade and military campaigns of local warrior/traders to the territory of the Northern Black Sea Coast.
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Age glass decoration represents so called “mask“ beads. This topic was developed by M. Karwowski, who divided the beads into the two types – the “mask-beads“ (type 904 after Venclová), and the “bobbin-beads“ (type 904 after Venclová). In Central Europe both types were known already in LT C1 and they continued to occur until the late La Tène Period. They are still rare in Moravia: in addition to few old finds, a few other finds have been reported from other places. However, most of these new artefacts unfortunately did not originate from closed find complexes, but they were found by surface survey. The distribution map shows these artefacts barely occur to the north and west of Moravia.
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The paper primarily deals with the issue of inner-development and significance of the specific type of arc-shaped needle clasp, which represents a characteristic artifact for the Carpathian-Danube area during Koszider period (the so-called „sickle-pins“). Additionally, it gives an overview of the basic elements of female costume – metal garnish of clothing and body at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, where it compares the occurrence of jewelry in hoards of bronze artifacts with their real representation in funeral features (inhumation burials). In conclusion, the question of the possibility of significant interregional cultural interactions in the end of the mentioned period is sketched. These can be reflected by „influencing“ the local metallurgical production of pins and jewelry, in particularly some of its attributes like decoration and functional elements, which otherwise do not originate in the Carpathian bronze metal industry production tradition.
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Assemblages of Late Hallstatt to La Tène pottery also contain vessel fragments used for secondary purposes. These include graphite sherds with abraded edges, finds of which from Bohemia are listed in the attached inventory. Possible interpretations are discussed, and potential methods for their use in the pottery craft are tested in experiments.
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Spolu s objavením sa prvých žiarových hrobov na keltských pohrebiskách v oblasti stredného Podunajska sa výrazne zmenil aj vzťah medzi telom pochovaného a hrobovým inventárom. Objavenie sa fenoménu zámerného ničenia hrobového inventára je dokladom zmien v súbore rituálov spojených s pohrebom. Každá výrazná zmena rituálov vyvoláva množstvo otázok. Je ale veľmi komplikované hľadať vysvetlenia pre tieto zmeny. Detailná analýza žiarových hrobov nám môže napomôcť odhaliť skryté informácie o rituáloch a ostatných procesoch spojených s pohrebom. Identifikácia a interpretácia rituálov spojených s pohrebom a smrťou je jedným z najzaujímavejších výskumných smerov v archeológii. Táto snaha však musí zahŕňať viaceré interdisciplinárne prístupy. V priestore stredného Podunajska bolo zámerné ničenie inventára spojené len so žiarovými hrobmi. Naproti tomu, v západo-keltskom prostredí sa s týmto zvykom stretávame pomerne často aj v kostrových hroboch (deformácia zbraní v hroboch bojovníkov). Rozdiely môžeme identifikovať nielen medzi jednotlivými regiónmi, ale aj na samotných pohrebiskách v stredodunajskom priestore.
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In 1959, the research led by Blažej Benadik discovered the settlement layers and features of the Eneolithic and La Tène period in the location Iža – Danube. Within the research there were excavated 7 trenches located just on the river bank of Danube. In the trench I, IV and VII there was found out numerous material of the pits and cultural layer of the La Tène culture that has not cumulatively been processed and published so far. We present it in the contribution in the form of a catalogue together with its summary and dating.
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