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Margaret Meen (fl. 1775−1824), Sarah Anne Drake (1803−1857), and Marianne North (1830−1890): Three botanical illustrations from women with connections to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
No full textElsie Wakefield (1886−1972): Photograph of a fungi foray in Epping Forest, England (c. 1910).
No full textNeutron tomography of sealed copper alloy animal coffins from ancient Egypt
No full textAnimal mummification was commonplace in ancient Egypt, with the remains of many animals placed inside statues or votive boxes with representations of animals or hybrid human–animal creatures. Votive boxes were made from a variety of materials and often sealed; some boxes are still preserved in this state in museum collections. A prior study of sealed copper alloy votive boxes from the collection of the British Museum used X-ray computed tomography to search for animal remains, where poor image quality resulted due to attenuation from the boxes and apparent dense metals inside. In this study, neutron tomography was applied to six of the votive boxes previously examined. Animal remains, likely from lizards, and fragments of textile wrappings were discovered inside three of the boxes. Evidence of the manufacturing process and subsequent repairs of the boxes were uncovered by neutrons. Significant quantities of lead were also identified in three boxes. The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of neutron tomography for the study of mummified remains inside sealed metal containers, and give evidence linking the animal figures represented on top of votive boxes to the concealed remains
Making Miracles in Medieval England
No full textThe cult of the saints was central to medieval Christianity largely due to the miraculous. Saints were members of the elect of heaven and could intercede with God on the behalf of supplicants. Whilst people visited shrines and prayed to the saints for many reasons it was the hope of intercession and the praise of miracles past which drove the cult of the saints.
This book examines how a person solicited aid from a saint, how they might give thanks and the ways in which post-mortem miracles structured the cult of the saints. A huge number of miracle stories survive from medieval England, in dedicated collections as well as in saints’ lives and other source material. This corpus is full of stories of human relationships, vulnerability and deliverance of people from all parts of society. These stories reveal all manner of details about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. They also show us how people navigated the world with the aid of the saints. Saints could help with wayward livestock, lost property or lawsuits as well as fire, plague and injury. They could also protect members of their communities, correct lapses by their custodians and even kill those who mistreated them. A respectful relationship with a saint could be proof against any problem.
Making Miracles in Medieval England will appeal to all those interested in religious practices in medieval England, medieval English culture, and medieval perceptions of miracles
A technological study of Assyrian clay tablets from Nineveh, Tell Halaf and Nimrud: a pilot case study
No full textAncient Middle Eastern clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform writing have traditionally been studied more as textual documents than as archaeological objects per se. In contrast to previous analytical studies which, with few exceptions, focused on provenance and palaeo-environmental reconstruction, the current study aims to describe the tablet makers’ technological choices, to understand whether a specific series of steps or chaîne opératoire was followed to produce these important documents. Twenty cuneiform tablets found at the sites of Nineveh, Nimrud (Iraq) and Tell Halaf (Syria), and curated in the British Museum collection, were analysed by optical microscopy of minero-petrographic thin sections and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM–EDX). Six of these tablets were also analysed by X-ray computed tomography (CT), to investigate the potential for this non-invasive technique to address the technological questions and to select objects for invasive analyses. The results show that the tablets were made following similar steps to pottery making, either carefully levigating calcareous clays, or adding plant matter to make the clay less plastic. Petrographic and CT analyses are readily comparable and CT results permit a more targeted approach to invasive sampling
Bioclimatic Origin Shapes Phylogenetic Structure of Tirmania (Pezizaceae): New Species and New Record from North Africa.
No full textThe phylogenetic relationships among Tirmania were investigated using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large subunit (LSU) regions of the nuclear-encoded ribosomal DNA (rDNA) and compared with morphological and bioclimatic data. The combined analyses of forty-one Tirmania samples from Algeria and Spain supported four lineages corresponding to four morphological species. Besides the two previously described taxa, Tirmania pinoyi and Tirmania nivea, here we describe and illustrate a new species, Tirmania sahariensis sp. nov., which differs from all other Tirmania by its distinct phylogenetic position and its specific combination of morphological features. We also present a first record of Tirmania honrubiae from North Africa (Algeria). Our findings suggest that restrictions imposed by the bioclimatic niche have played a key role in driving the speciation process of Tirmania along the Mediterranean and Middle East
