Maitani

"Archaeological evidence and linguistic evidence converge in support of an origin of Indo-European languages on the Pontic-Caspian steppes around 4,000 years BCE. The evidence is so strong that arguments in support of other hypotheses should be reexamined." - Maitani

"For two centuries, the identification of the “homeland” of the Indo-European (IE) languages and the details of the family’s diversification and expansion have remained unsolved problems. One reason is the difficulty of linking linguistic evidence with archaeological evidence in the absence of archaeological finds of writing; another is that the problem’s solution requires an interdisciplinary effort in an age of increasing specialization. We were trained in European archaeology (Anthony) and IE historical linguistics (Ringe), and we have both had to educate ourselves in related disciplines in order to pursue our work. However, collaboration between specialists eventually becomes necessary. It is not just a matter of avoiding elementary errors; in a case such as the IE homeland problem, a broadly satisfying solution must be global, applying methods from all relevant disciplines to act as checks on solutions that satisfy only a selected range of data. We believe that such an integrated solution is finally attainable." - Maitani

via Dienekes http://dienekes.blogspot.de/2015... - Maitani

"Annual Reviews is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide the worldwide scientific community with a useful and intelligent synthesis of the primary research literature for a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines. Annual Reviews publications are among the most highly cited in scientific literature as indexed by the Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports® (JCR)." - Maitani

"The Annual Review of Linguistics, publishing in 2015, will cover significant developments in the field of linguistics, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and their interfaces. Reviews will synthesize advances in linguistic theory, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, language change, biology and evolution of language, typology, as well as applications of linguistics in many domains." - Maitani

"For this month, the bas-de-page scene is an appropriately wintry and barren one. In the foreground, two ruddy-faced labourers prune back vines, while another carries off the trimmings for firewood in a bundle on his back (note how he is wearing medieval mittens against the cold!). A female figure is following in his footsteps in the background, and to the right a team of oxen draw a plough through a frosty field. The Zodiac sign for this month is Pisces, shown at the top of the page. The border contains four roundels for the key religious festivals of the month, which are picked out in red in the calendar.  These are the feast days of the Purification of the Virgin Mary (also known as the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, or Candlemas), Saints Vedastus and Amandus (two bishops from northern France/Belgium, close to where the manuscript originated), the Chair of St Peter, and St Matthias." - Maitani

""How do you get to The Cloisters?" For me and the two full-time gardeners charged with the care of Fort Tryon Park's sixty-seven acres of forest and two historic gardens, this is the question we are asked the most. Our answer changes from season to season: the paths don't move, but the flowers do, and we always guide visitors through the most beautiful experience the season offers." - Maitani

"In that spirit, we gardeners would like to entice you to take a winter walk through Fort Tryon Park to The Cloisters museum and gardens by showing you some of the horticultural gems you'll see along the way." - Maitani

"This companion volume to the exhibit of the same name examines the multicultural city of Fustat, capital of medieval Egypt and predecessor to modern Cairo. It explores the interactions of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities within urban city life. These three communities practiced their own beliefs and enacted communal self-government, but they also intermingled on a daily basis and practiced shared traditions of life. Essays by leading scholars examine the different religions and languages found at Fustat, as well as cultural aspects of daily life such as food, industry, and education. The lavishly illustrated catalog presents a new analysis of the Oriental Institute’s collection of artifacts and textual materials from 7th through 12th-century Egypt. Highlights include documents from the Cairo Genizah (a document repository) of the Ben Ezra Synagogue as well as never-before-published artifacts from archaeological excavations conducted at Fustat by George Scanlon on behalf of the American Research Center in Egypt. The volume encourages discussion on the challenges of understanding religion through objects of daily life." - Maitani

"Terms of Use: The electronic files are only to be distributed from the Oriental Institute's Web site. Individuals, libraries, institutions, and others may download one complimentary copy for their own personal use. ©The University of Chicago. Links to the Institute's Web site are welcomed." - Maitani

via awol http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.de/2015... - Maitani

"Thanks to a new wave of small intellectual magazines, an infectious buzz has returned to public debate in the United States. Roman Schmidt talks to David Marcus who, as a new editor at Dissent, is well placed to provide the lowdown what's driving this genuinely critical movement." - Maitani

"Roman Schmidt: A few years ago, it seemed like the genre of the American intellectual journal was to going to die, slowly and unnoticed, followed by a smaller and smaller flock whose average age gradually approached that of one of their most celebrated shepherds, Bob Silvers, now 84 and the editor of The New York Review of Books. But not so. In the past decade, a whole new set of journals has emerged, and all of them seem interested in establishing a space for critical debate outside of academia. n+1 just celebrated its 10th anniversary, which makes it (and its editors) oldies among the young crowd of the L.A. Review of Books, The New Inquiry, Triple Canopy and Jacobin. It would probably be too bold to say that people roam the book stores, waiting to see who's on the cover of n+1 the way they did for Les Temps Modernes in 1950s Paris or for Kursbuch during the German student movement. But it definitely has become something again to publish "little magazines". Dissent, a flagship of postwar democratic socialism, appears to also be a part of this resurgence – to the point in which they appointed someone from this younger generation co-editor. What has happened?" - Maitani

"A collection of Russian fairytales translated from the Russian of Nikolai Polevoy, a notable editor, writer, translator in the early 19th century. The translations were made by Robert Nisbet Bain, a British historian who worked for the British Museum, and a polyglot who could reportedly speak over twenty languages fluently. He famously taught himself Hungarian in order that he could read the works of Mór Jókai in the original after first reading him in German, going on to become the most prolific translator into English from Hungarian in the nineteenth century." - Maitani

@justcupoftea thanks! - piikummitus

"The cooperative network Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies is dedicated to academic dialogue in the field of Oriental manuscript studies with the focus on the Mediterranean and North African cultural areas. It organizes conferences and workshops; publishes journals and monographs; issues a regular mailing list; and facilitates exchange and cooperation in related fields" - Maitani

"This fall I planted saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) corms in the bed devoted to the medieval plants used by artists and craftsmen. I was pleasantly surprised that within a handful of weeks, the infamous saffron crocus was in bloom. The C. sativus is a type of autumn-blooming crocus (yes, that's right: it blooms in the autumn, not the spring) with origins in southern Europe and southwestern Asia, and probably stems from the wild crocus (Crocus cartwrightianus) native to the Greek island of Crete and mainland Greece (Cardon 302)." - Maitani

"C. sativus is attractive, with its fragrant, lilac-purple flowers and characteristic three red stigmas and yellow anthers. Crocus comes from the Greek krokos, meaning thread, and refers to the plants' slender stigmas. The stigmas are hand-picked, ideally on a sunny morning when the flowers have fully opened, and then dried, giving us the world's most expensive spice: saffron. The quality and aroma of the saffron depends greatly on the drying process, and is graded based on length, color, aroma, and purity. Three-centimeter-long Spanish saffron is supposedly the cream of the crop (Cardon 302)." - Maitani

"Scientists in Italy have managed to decipher text on a badly scorched papyrus roll from Herculaneum, a town destroyed with Pompeii in the Mount Vesuvius eruption of 79AD. The imaging technique they used may allow archaeologists to analyse other texts previously thought to be too badly damaged to read." - Maitani

"Hundreds of carbonised papyrus rolls were excavated from the ‘Villa of the Papyri’ in Herculaneum in 1754, said to contain the only surviving library from antiquity. Many of the texts were later stored in the National Library of Naples and several were given to Napoléon Bonaparte as a gift in 1802." - Maitani

"There are two ways, perhaps, of looking at Franciso Goya,” writes Colm Tóibín in the Review’s December 18, 2014 issue. In the first version, Goya, who was born near Zaragoza in 1746 and died in exile in France in 1828, “was almost innocent, a serious and ambitious artist interested in mortality and beauty, but also playful and mischievous, until politics and history darkened his imagination…. In the second version, it is as though a war was going on within Goya’s psyche from the very start…. His imagination was ripe for horror.” We present below a series of prints and paintings from the show under review—the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s “Goya: Order and Disorder,” now closed—along with commentary on the images drawn from Tóibín’s piece." - Maitani

"Perched on the western bank of the Tigris River just about the confluence with the Lesser Zab River, Assur was settled at least since the late Early Dynastic period (about 2500 B.C.). In the beginning of the second millennium, the Old Assyrian period, Assur became the capital of a first Assyrian state and was an important town with a widespread trading network reaching from Iran and Babylonia to Anatolia, trading in metals and textiles. Assur’s location enabled the town to control the trade routes in all directions. In the second half of the second millennium Assur became the capital of the Middle Assyrian Empire. Though in the 9th century the mighty Neo-Assyrian kings had moved to other towns and built their residences in nearby Nimrud, Khorsabad, and Nineveh, Assur still was the religious center of Assyria: the temple of the national god Ashur remained in this town. Some Assyrian kings even returned to Assur after their death, and were buried in the so-called Old Palace, the palace of the forefathers." - Maitani

"The Center for Hellenic Studies is pleased to announce the online publication of From Listeners to Viewers: Space in the Iliad, by Christos Tsagalis on the CHS website." - Maitani

"What do we mean by “space” in the Iliad? The aim of this book is to offer a systematic and comprehensive presentation of the different types and functions of space in the earliest work of Greek literature. By adopting a twofold division between simple and embedded story space, the former pertaining to the actions of characters and the latter to their thoughts, Christos Tsagalis shows how character drawing and authority are deeply influenced by active spatial representation." - Maitani

"What is it about toy trains that has continued to entertain children, admittedly mostly boys, for nearly two centuries? A major new exhibition is about to find out." - Maitani

"They ran to your own personal timetable. Engineering work at weekends was rare. And there were never leaves on the line, just the occasional bit of fluff from the living room carpet. For decades, toy trains have enthralled generations of youngsters - and this coming March the National Railway Museum, in York, looks into why children love them so much, in its exhibition Playing Trains." - Maitani

I had a huge train set when I was small. - Greg GuitarBuster

When my son was small, we began to buy toy trains and train sets, just because we were so thrilled about playing with them.The boy never got excited about them. - Maitani

via AWOL http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.de/2015... - Maitani

"Iran has long had a difficult relationship with the West. Ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 overthrew the monarchy and established an Islamic Republic, Iran has been associated in the popular consciousness with militant Islam and radical anti-Westernism. ‘Persia’ by contrast has long been a source of fascination in the Western imagination eliciting both awe and contempt that only familiarity can bring. Indeed if ‘Iran’ seems altogether alien to us, ‘Persia’ seems strangely familiar. There are few cultural icons or aspirations that we would associate with Iran; there are by contrast quite a few we would relate to Persia, most obviously carpets, the occasional cat and for the truly affluent, caviar. That these two words would elicit such dramatically different associations is all the more striking because they are describing the same place. Persia is simply the name inherited from the Greeks and the Romans for the great empire to the East that its inhabitants came to know as ‘Iran’. Persia, from the province of Pars, was not unknown to the Iranians but they would not have used it to apply to the entirety of their state." - Maitani

"Yet Persia reminds us that Iran is not as unfamiliar to us as we might imagine. Quite the contrary. The Persians serve an almost unique function in the Western narrative, being present at the birth and some might argue, the creation of a distinctly Western civilisation. If the Greeks under the influence of Herodotus, first defined history as a conflict between ‘East’ and ‘West’, identified as the Persian and the Greeks, it was a model reinforced with some vigour by the Romans whose own political expediency ensured that many nuances in the relationship were smoothed out to provide a reassuring narrative of confrontation between an increasingly civilised West and barbaric East. Yet if the Romans held up the Persians as a mirror upon which to reflect their own glories, the mirror was never quite as untarnished as its proponents would have liked to believe: the Persians were never quite the antithesis of the West that some sought to portray. The relationship, as the Greeks might have protested, was a good deal more subtle and a great deal more intimate." - Maitani

В быту у нас тут очень часто, когда спрашиваешь иранца, откуда он, ответ: I am Persian/from Persia. Остальные говорят I am from Iran, но почти никогда I am an Iranian. Персов тут много, так что выборка приличная, и аффтар прав. - слово с корнем моск

"As the volumes of this series go out of print they will be made available online at the Mainz Hethitologieportal. Do your part for open access and buy copies of the volumes still in print!" - Maitani

"Currently available online are: StBoT 1: Heinrich Otten, Vladimir Souček Das Gelübde der Königin Puduḫepa an die Göttin Lelwani 1965. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 2: Onofrio Carruba Das Beschwörungsritual für die Göttin Wišurijanza 1966. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 3: Hans Martin Kümmel Ersatzrituale für den hethitischen König 1967. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 4: Rudolf Werner Hethitische Gerichtsprotokolle 1967. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 5: Erich Neu Interpretation der hethitischen mediopassiven Verbalformen 1968. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 6: Erich Neu Das hethitische Mediopassiv und seine indogermanischen Grundlagen 1968. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 7: Heinrich Otten, Wolfram von Soden Das akkadisch-hethitische Vokabular Kbo I 44 + Kbo XIII1 1968. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 8: Heinrich Otten, Vladimir Souček Ein althethitisches Ritual für das Königspaar 1969. VI, [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 9: Kaspar Klaus Riemschneider Babylonische Geburtsomina in hethitischer Übersetzung 1970. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 10: Onofrio Carruba Das Palaische Texte, Grammatik, Lexikon 1970. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 11: Heinrich Otten Sprachliche Stellung und Datierung des Madduwatta-Textes 1969. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 12: Erich Neu Ein althethitisches Gewitterritual 1970. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 13: Heinrich Otten Ein hethitisches Festritual (KBo XIX 128) 1971. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 14: Jana Siegelová Appu-Märchen und Ḫ edammu-Mythus 1971. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 15: Heinrich Otten Materialien zum hethitischen Lexikon (Wörter beginnend mit zu...) 1971. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 16: Cord Kühne, Heinrich Otten Der Šaušgamuwa-Vertrag Eine Untersuchung zu Sprache und Graphik 1971. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 17: Heinrich Otten Eine althethitische Erzählung um die Stadt Zalpa 1973. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 18: Erich Neu Der Anitta-Text 1974. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 19: Cornelia Burde Hethitische medizinische Texte 1974. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 20: Christel Rüster Hethitische Keilschrift-Paläographie Mit einer Einleitung von Heinrich Otten 1972. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 21: Erich Neu, Christel Rüster Hethitische Keilschrift- Paläographie II (14./13. Jh.v.Chr.) 1975. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 22: Norbert Oettinger Die Militärischen Eide der Hethiter 1976. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 23: Frank Starke Die Funktionen der dimensionalen Kasus und Adverbien im Althethitischen 1977. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 24: Heinrich Otten Die Apologie Ḫattušilis III. Das Bild der Überlieferung 1981. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 25: Erich Neu Althethitische Ritualtexte in Umschrift 1980. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 26: Erich Neu Glossar zu den althethitischen Ritualtexten 1983. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 27: Itamar Singer The Hittite KI.LAM Festival, Part 1 1983. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 28: Itamar Singer The Hittite Kl.LAM Festival, Part 2 1984. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 29: Gary M. Beckman Hittite Birth Rituals 2nd rev. edition 1983.[vergriffen] PDF StBoT 30: Frank Starke Die keilschrift-luwischen Texte in Umschrift 1985. [vergriffen] PDF StBoT 31: Frank Starke Untersuchungen zur Stammbildung des keilschrift-luwischen Nomens 1990. XXVI, 705 Seiten, br ISBN 978-3-447-02879-0 alter Preis € 134,– jetzt € 20,– www.harrassowitz-verlag.de PDF StBoT 32: Erich Neu Das hurritische Epos der Freilassung 1 Untersuchungen zu einem hurritisch-hethitischen Textensemble aus Ḫattuša 1996. XIX, 596 Seiten, 6 Tafeln, br ISBN 978-3-447-03487-6 alter Preis € 124,– jetzt € 20,– www.harrassowitz-verlag.de PDF" - Maitani

"In ancient Greece the rules of beauty were all important. Things were good for men who were buff and glossy. And for women, fuller-figured redheads were in favour - but they had to contend with an ominous undercurrent, historian Bettany Hughes explains." - Maitani

"A full-lipped, cheek-chiselled man in Ancient Greece knew two things - that his beauty was a blessing (a gift of the gods no less) and that his perfect exterior hid an inner perfection. For the Greeks a beautiful body was considered direct evidence of a beautiful mind. They even had a word for it - kaloskagathos - which meant being gorgeous to look at, and hence being a good person." - Maitani

I'd be ancient in the ancient world :) - Eivind

"In 1880 a Bavarian priest created a language that he hoped the whole world could use. He mixed words from French, German and English and gave his creation the name Volapük, which didn’t do it any favors. Worse, Volapük was hard to use, sprinkled with odd sounds and case endings like Latin." - Maitani

If the masses use emoji I will switch to kamoji - Amit Patel

"There was a time when intellectual engagement necessarily included long hours reading old-fashioned paper tomes. But in an age when a digital attention economy is ascendant, it’s now possible to satisfy this curiosity without ever consuming more than a couple hundred highly digested and simplified words at a time." - Maitani

Agreed, there is not much to learn here. I posted it mostly as a reminder for myself. :-) - Maitani

"Happy New Year and happy sixth birthday to AWOL, which launched 6 January 2009.  During those six years I have written and edited 3913 entries." - Maitani

Agreed, absolutely. Mr Jones has done an excellent job, and I hope he'll carry on. :-) - Maitani

"Have you ever wondered how the content of your dreams differs from that of your friends? How about the dreams of people raised in different countries and cultures? It is not always easy to compare dreams of distinct individuals because the content of dreams depends on our personal experiences. This is why dream researchers have developed standardized dream questionnaires in which common thematic elements are grouped together. These questionnaires can be translated into various languages and used to survey and scientifically analyze the content of dreams. Open-ended questions about dreams might elicit free-form, subjective answers which are difficult to categorize and analyze. Therefore, standardized dream questionnaires ask study subjects "Have you ever dreamed of . . ." and provide research subjects with a list of defined dream themes such as being chased, flying or falling." - Maitani

I have the strangest dreams every night. I don't understand why, but my brain loves to play while I sleep. I wish I could turn it off every once in awhile. - Jenny H.

"Before I get distracted by too much nit-picking, let me get to the summary paragraph: Thomas Scott-Phillips' book, Speaking Our Minds, contributes seriously to the study of language origins. First and foremost, it demands that pragmatics—the study of language in its social context—be included in the effort to understand language origins. What's more, it makes good on its case. Pragmatics has been underplayed and anybody who thinks about language origins should read and study the book. If the book were not so danged expensive, I would even urge you to buy a copy. (By the way, I've mentioned Scott-Phillips before—see Reality Blogging—and I remember him as a promising fellow at the Barcelona Evolang conference of 2008.)" - Maitani

"The case for pragmatics rests on its special view of language as an ostensive-inferential communications system. Sorry, I'd like to use some other term, but that is the one used by the author and others, so we might as well hold our noses and roll with the bandwagon. You can understand it by imagining the archetypal scene in which Homo erectus A points toward a charging sabertooth tiger and a second erectus (B) looks on. What is going on here? First, A has something it wishes to communicate to B. Second, A shows its communicative desire by pointing. Then B has to realize that A is trying to signal something and not just holding out a finger for B's admiration. B then follows A's finger and sees the charging sabertooth. B now infers that A is signaling danger. Both A and B then shout out the erectus version of, "Feets, don't fail me now," and start running." - Maitani

"Welcome to the SARIT website. Here you will find electronic editions of Sanskrit and other Indian-language texts. These are documented, dated and have embedded notes about their change history, so that they can be publicly cited and used with confidence as scholarly sources. The editions in the SARIT library currently include these works. This website also currently offers tools for text search, retrieval and analysis of the works in the SARIT library. You can search for a single word, phrase, words that occur in the same paragraph, and so forth. You can generate an index of terms, a KWIC index, and word-frequency lists. You can download all the texts at SARIT. They are licensed under a Creative Commons license. Once downloaded, you can use services such as OxGarage to convert the files to a format that is useful to you, for example PDF, HTML, or for reading on an ebook like the Kindle." - Maitani

"When the Loeb Classical Library was founded in 1911, it was hailed as a much-needed effort to make the glories of the Greek and Roman classics available to general readers." - Maitani

up - Maitani

"Kumbh Mela is a Hindu pilgrimage which attracts, each year, the greatest peaceful get together of people in the world.  The  Maha Kumbh Mela of 2013 saw over 100 million people gather to bathe at dawn in the sacred Ganges River." - Maitani

"Time-lapse Photography and Adventure Filmmaker Rufus Blackwell was there and captured these astounding time-lapse images." - Maitani

"Regular readers will know that one of our blog traditions is to highlight a calendar from a particular medieval manuscript throughout the course of the year.  Past manuscripts have included the Isabella Breviary, the Hours of Joanna the Mad, the Golf Book, and the Huth Hours.  In 2015 we are pleased to present a manuscript that has featured on our blog before, the London Rothschild Hours.  Confusingly, this manuscript is often also called the Hours of Joanna the Mad (or the Hours of Joanna I of Castile), as it has been suggested that the manuscript belonged to that famous lady." - Maitani

"Evidence that the book was Joanna’s is tantalising, but inconclusive. The repeated presence of Joanna’s name saint, John the Evangelist, is a potential clue, and the presence of a number of Spanish saints in the calendar suggests that it was probably produced for a member of the Spanish aristocracy." - Maitani

"It occurs to me that music bloggers typically make year-end ‘best of’ lists for the best new music they’ve heard this year.  Why shouldn’t I make a post to highlight the most interesting things I’ve read this year that were published this year?  Thanks to my obsessive cataloging of my reading with EndNote, compiling a list is actually not so hard, so without further adieu, and in no particular order (aside from alphabetically, as every good bibliography should be) is my selective list of my philological favourites of 2014:" - Maitani

"The trees in question are mountain ash, the tallest flowering trees in the world. They are not quite the tallest trees of any kind: that record belongs to the coast redwoods of the western US. But that might be because things have been skewed against the mountain ash..." - Maitani

"...the tallest trees can suffer from "xylem cavitation", in which gas bubbles form in the cells carrying water up the trunk. These tiny gas embolisms [sic] can prevent water from moving up the tiny conduit cells, much like a pulmonary embolism can stop blood flow to the lungs in humans. To avoid this, the tree regulates how much water is lost through its leaves by closing down the tiny pores all over their surfaces. But these pores are also the pathways for carbon dioxide to come in, so by closing them the trees limit how much sugar they can make." - Maitani

:))) - Jenny H.

\(^_^)/ - Eivind

"In this post, we’ve created a list for you of awesome websites that have free stock photos. This is not the end all – be all of sites and if you find others, please feel free to list them in the comment section. Note: Most of these images fall under a creative commons license (just make sure you attribute properly) or are old enough that the photos have returned to the public domain. (This happens once the copyright on an image expires.)" - Maitani

Found via Another Word For It http://tm.durusau.net/?p=59044 - Maitani