The Arrows of the Sun: Armed Forces in Sippar in the First Millennium B.C. By John MacGinnis. Babylonische Archive, vol. 4. Dresden: Islet-Verlag, 2012. Pp. viii + 135, text copies.

The Sumerian Poem Enmerkar and En-suḫkeš-ana: Epic, Play, Or? Stage Craft at the Turn from the Third to the Second Millennium B.C. By Claus Wilcke. American Oriental Series, Essay 12. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 2012. Pp. ix + 117. $58.

ldquo;Archaeology has revolutionized the study of history. It has broadened the horizons almost as much as the telescope did for the vision of astronomy in space; just as the microscope revealed to biology that under the form of large organisms is hidden the life of infinitesimal cells. Finally it has modified historic study in the same manner that radioactivity altered chemistry.”V. Gordon Childe,Progress and Archaeology,London, 1945, p. 2.Fifteen years ago, at the XII International Congress of Historic Sciences (Vienna, 1965), when (...) historians finally decided to address the problem of “acculturation” (a concept and term first formulated and defined by sociologists), their reaction, with few exceptions, proved to be rather hesitant. (shrink)

Old and Middle Assyrian sources dealing with moths Terminology Moth damage Conditions for moth proliferation Prevention Losses and reuse of infested textiles.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 b.c. to a.d. 700Leah JohnsonKenneth W. Harl. Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 b.c. to a.d. 700. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. x 1 533 pp. 31 plates. Cloth, $49.95.In Coinage in the Roman Economy Kenneth Harl proposes to examine “how the Romans minted and used coined money—its role in payrolls, tax collection, trade and daily transactions—over the course of (...) a millennium, 300 b.c. to a.d. 700” (1). Most previous works on Roman coins have tended to treat them as objects worthy of study in and of themselves and not as evidence for understanding the social and economic policies of the Roman world. (R. Duncan-Jones’s Money and Government in the Roman Empire [Oxford 1994], a survey of the use of coins in the first three centuries of the Roman empire, is a notable exception to this rule.) The expansiveness of Harl’s welcome new treatment allows the reader access to virtually all of the significant stages and changes in the development of Roman coinage and their effects on the economy of the ancient Roman world and supplies knowledge crucial to a comprehensive understanding of how the Roman economy functioned, and, ultimately, why the empire was successful.Surprisingly enough, it was necessary for Harl to address many long-standing objections to the significance of coinage in the Roman economy before engaging in his survey. The significance of coins in Roman fiscal policy has been discounted on the basis of their limited numbers and availability by M. I. Finley (The Ancient Economy 166). According to Finley, since the Romans struck coinage only intermittently, coins could not have played a major role in determining Roman fiscal policy. Others who now acknowledge that a great number of Roman coins were put into circulation, object that coinage could not have played an important role in the “underdeveloped” agrarian-based society of Rome. Still others, admitting the significance of coins in commerce in the Roman world, have argued that their use in trade was only incidental. In other words, the Roman government did not mint coins to stimulate trade, but simply to pay for expenses such as military and administrative payrolls or building contracts.In chapter 1, “Coins, the Money of the Roman Economy,” Harl counters Finley’s objections by arguing that since Finley’s work, many statistical studies have estimated the enormous outputs of coins that the Romans could mint on short notice if necessary. So in periods when there was a shortage of coins, the Romans could in fact very quickly pump more money into the economy. Harl argues that the supposed absence of coins in rural areas of the Roman world is simply due to the limitations of archaeology in that not all of the town centers and marketplaces in rural areas of the Roman world have been excavated. Furthermore, although he acknowledges the centrality of land in the Roman economy, he also points out the importance of seaborne trade to it. He next admits that coins were primarily issued by the state for government payrolls or payments [End Page 139] to contractors, but nonetheless he stresses that the degree of importance which Roman coinage had in commerce was equal to that which it possessed in government fiscal policies. Thus, although the use of coinage was fiscal in origin, its contribution to commercial growth was increasingly important as the empire expanded.Harl then provides a summary of the methods by which the Roman government manipulated the coinage in periods of inflation or emergency, or when the currency simply needed to be replenished due to deterioration of the metal content. In such instances, the Romans generally didn’t melt down and restrike worn coins but instead either lowered the tariff of the old coins against new coins which were issued or simply minted debased new coins with a precious metal content equal to that of the old coins in circulation. Harl concludes his first chapter with a survey of the various types of numismatic research currently being employed in the area of Roman coinage—metrological analyses, die and hoard studies... (shrink)

An attempt is made here to examine the analysis three political thinkers - Thomas Paine, William Godwin, and Jeremy Bentham have offered of the idea of equality. The inquiry underrtaken is philosophical and not historical in character, since no attempt is made either at tracing the influence ht the biographical-cum-intellectual level of one of them upon the other or at treating their ideas on equality as born out of their preoccupation with the same problem to which they give various answers (...) and which can therefore be considered within a single overall framework. Instead, each thinker is considered independently. And a study is undertaken of the way he understands equality, the way he justifies it, the sort of equality he considers most important and his reasons for this, the area of life he takes the idea of equality to illuminate, the manner in which he relates it to other ideas, etc.. In each case, a fairly coherent philosophy of equality is sought to be constructed out of their respective writings. These three thinkers are selected for two reasons. The idea of equality looms quite large in their thought; as such, it was felt that looking at their writings from the standpoint of equality may illuminate their certain features that may otherwise remain obscure or relatively underemphasized. Further, as they consider equality from different philosophical positions it was believed that a critical examination of their writings could, perhaps, point to the general merits and limitations of their respective positions in terms of equality. in chapter I, it is argued that there are distinct views of God discernible in Paine's writings, and that corresponding to them are three distinct views of equality, though only two of them are discussed by Paine at any length. in chapter II, it is argued that, though Godwin begins as a thoroughgoing rationalist, three are shifts in his general philosophical position, and that, with each shift, his ideas on truth, rationality and equality undergo important changes. Finally, in chapter III, it is argued that there are two distinct theories of equality in Bentham and that tension between them remains unresolved. (shrink)

Excerpt from Der Gesetzesbegriff Beim Hl; Thomas von Aquin im Lichte des Rechtsstudiums Seiner Zeit Es war der Name des hl. Thomas von Aquin, der da von Juristen öfters wegen seiner Bedeutung für die juridische Wissenschaft zitiert wurde. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst (...) repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Bradford C Bemiss, Chad A WittDepartment of Internal Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA: Chronic rejection is a major cause of death after the first year following lung transplantation. Bronchiolitis obliterans is the most common pathologic finding on biopsy, characterized by fibrous granulation tissue, which obliterates the lumen of the bronchiole. Clinically, in the absence of tissue for pathology, BO syndrome refers to a progressive irreversible drop in the forced (...) expiratory volume in 1 second. Recently, a broader definition of chronic rejection, termed "chronic lung allograft dysfunction", has been used to encompass a more inclusive definition of posttransplant dysfunction. Recently, the lung transplant community has come to realize that chronic rejection may be the final common result after repetitive epithelial insults. Acute rejection, infection, and alloreactivity to mismatched HLA antigens are a few of these insults that damage the surface of the bronchioles. Recent evidence of autoimmunity to the normally hidden structural proteins collagen V and K-α1 tubulin have been correlated with a BO phenotype as well, perhaps correlating the epithelial damage with a mechanism for developing BO lesions. Many immunomodulatory medications and treatments have been studied for effectiveness for the treatment of chronic lung allograft dysfunction. New drugs, which more precisely target the immune system, are being developed and tested. Further study is required, but recent advances have improved our understanding of the pathogenesis and potential intervention for this common and deadly complication of lung transplantation.Keywords: lung transplant, bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome, rejection. (shrink)

What, ultimately, is there good reason to do? This book proposes a unified theory of agent-dependent reasons and agent-independent reasons. It holds that principles which assign reasons to agents are valid if and only if they make maximally good sense in the light of relevant data and background theories. The theory avoids problems encountered by views associated with Nagel, Parfit, Brandt, Hubin, Gert, Baier, and Tiberius, amongst others. By what criteria should a normative theory of ultimate reasons be judged? Plausible (...) meta-level criteria emerge from a process of identifying the criteria that have been used, sometimes unwittingly, by various theorists; categorizing and evaluating the criteria in the light of each other; and proposing revisions on that basis. This method escapes the drawbacks of rival approaches, such as those associated with Parfit, Gert, and Darwall. The resulting criteria cast a favorable light on the proposed normative theory of ultimate reasons. (shrink)

In the Classical Quarterly, xlix , Mrs. A. D. Ure mentions a Corinthian pyxis which had been previously published by her in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, lxix. 19 f. . This vase, at first believed to be of Boeotian origin, appears to come from Corinth, as subsequently shown by Mrs. Ure in J.H.S. lxxii. 121. Its subject is quite well known, consisting of an unbearded figure dressed in a fawn-skin with two horns growing from its head, and sitting on (...) what very probably is a heap of corn. In his right hand he is holding a staff thickened at the head, and in his left a stick terminating in forklike prongs. The figure is flanked on the right by a small animal and on the left by a basket of fruit. (shrink)