Eirini Trypidaki, Silje Marie Bøe Gudmundsen, Georgios Karris
et al.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are contaminants of great concern due to their ubiquitous environmental occurrence in the environment and their potential adverse effects on organisms. There is currently limited information regarding the occurrence of PFASs in Scopoli’s Shearwater (<i>Calonectris diomedea</i>). In this study, two feather samples per bird were obtained from 26 adults on Strofades colony (Ionian Sea/Greece) during the early phase of the chick-rearing period (late July 2019). The samples consisted of barbs and barbules of the primary feathers, P1 and P10, reflecting pollution pressures at the time and the place of feather growth, i.e., at the species’ breeding and wintering grounds for P1 and P10, respectively. There were 25 PFAS detected in the feathers, with detection rates ranging from 2% (perfluorododecanoic acid—PFDoDA; perfluorohexane sulfonate—PFHxS; 9-chlorohexadecafluoro-3-oxanonane-1-sulfonate—9Cl-PF3ONS; 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoro-2-(1,1,2,2,3,3,3-heptafluoropropoxy)propanoate—Gen-X) to 98% (sodium 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorooctane sulfonate; 6:2 FTSA). ∑PFAS ranged from 25.93 ng/g to 426.86 ng/g of feather sample. The highest mean concentration (109.10 ng/g feather) was reported for perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA). No significant differences in PFAS concentrations with high detection rate (>20%) were found according to the sex of the birds. PFAS concentrations with a detection rate > 20% in the P1 vs. P10 feathers of Scopoli’s Shearwater adults were not significantly different, reflecting the fact that breeding grounds in the Mediterranean and wintering grounds in the Atlantic seem to be contaminated with similar PFASs levels, even though some compounds showed regional trends.
Throughout history, the ratio for length to width of rectangles of 1.61803 39887 49894 84820 has been considered the most pleasing to the eye. This ratio was named the golden ratio by the Greeks. In the world of mathematics, the numeric value is called "phi", named for the Greek sculptor Phidias. The space between the collumns form golden rectangles. There are golden rectangles throughout this structure which is found in Athens, Greece.
Aim: This historical medical literature review aims at understanding the evolution of the medical existence of oral cancer over times, particularly better comprehending if the apparent lower prevalence of this type of cancer in antiquity is a real value due to the absence of modern environmental and lifestyle factors or it is linked to a misinterpretation of ancient foreign terms found in ancient medical texts regarding oral neoplasms. Methods: The databases MedLne, PubMed, Web of Science, Elsevier’s EMBASE.com, Cochrane Review, National Library of Greece (Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Athens) and the Library of the School of Health Sciences of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece) were extensively searched for relevant studies published during the past century on the history of oral cancer and its treatment from antiquity to modern times, in addition to the WHO website to analyse the latest epidemiological data. In addition, we included historical books on the topic of interest and original sources. Results: Historical references reveal that the cradle of the oral oncology was in ancient Egypt, the Asian continent and Greece and cancer management was confined to an approximate surgical practice, in order to remove abnormal masses and avoid bleeding with cauterization. In the Medieval Age, little progress occurred in medicine in general, oral cancers management included. It is only from the Renaissance to modern times that knowledge about its pathophysiological mechanisms and histopathology and its surgical and pharmacological treatment approaches became increasingly deep all over the world, evolving to the actual integrated treatment. Despite the abundant literature exploring oncology in past civilizations, the real prevalence of oral cancer in antiquity is much less known; but a literature analysis cannot exclude a consistent prevalence of this cancer in past populations, probably with a likely lower incidence than today, because many descriptions of its aggressiveness were found in ancient medical texts, but it is still difficult to be sure that each single description of oral masses could be associated to cancer, particularly for what concerns the period before the Middle Ages. Conclusions: Modern oncologists and oral surgeons must learn a lot from their historic counterparts in order to avoid past unsuccessful efforts to treatment oral malignancies. Several descriptions of oral cancers in the antiquity that we found let us think that this disease might be linked to mechanisms not strictly dependent on environmental risk factors, and this might guide future research on oral cavity treatments towards strategical cellular and molecular techniques.
I commence this review with a number of important works in Greek social history. As I commented in my last review for this journal, the study of labour is among the biggest holes in current research in Greek history. An important contribution towards filling this gap is the Cultural History of Work in Antiquity, edited by Ephraim Lytle. The volume gives an excellent overview of how work is represented and discussed in both literary and archaeological sources; at the same time, it situates work and workers within four important contexts: the structures of ancient economies and the level of trade and specialization determined demand in urban and rural labour; the changing form of workplaces determined the division of labour among workers; different forms of work developed highly divergent workplace cultures; finally, practices and organizations for the transmission of skills and knowledge were of critical importance. Work and workers are then placed within wider contexts: chapters explore the role of mobility in ancient labour markets, and how political communities and attitudes about different forms of work affected workers. Finally, work is profitably juxtaposed to leisure practices and ideas. Perhaps the strongest point of most chapters is their attention to regional diversity and historical change: the volume sets the groundwork for ultimately producing a dynamic narrative of the history of work in antiquity.
Teaching and learning theoretical subjects, such as History, although important, is considered by many students to be non-appealing. Alternative teaching approaches include the use of educational games and augmented reality (AR) applications, or more recently, AR educational games. Such games are considered to increase students’ interest for the subject and lead to better learning outcomes. However, studies about the use of AR educational games in the classroom are sparse and further research is necessary. In this article, we present an AR-enhanced educational game for teaching History (Greek Mythology) to 3rd grade Primary school students in Greece. The game, called “AR The Gods of Olympus” consists of three mini games: an AR game with the gods/goddesses of Olympus using narration; a memory game with cards depicting the gods and their symbols; and a quiz game. In order to study the effectiveness of the game and students’ experience and perceptions on it, a study was carried out with primary school students that used the game in classroom. The study utilized a pre-/post-test design, a brief questionnaire based on the MEEGA+ model for evaluating educational games, and observation of students during game playing. Students’ performance was improved after playing the game but the difference was not statistically significant, while the game was positively perceived by students. Especially the AR mini game raised students’ interest and as the students themselves stated helped them “learn while playing”.
Cristiano Vignola, Martina Hättestrand, Anton Bonnier
et al.
This study provides a high-resolution reconstruction of the vegetation of the Argive Plain (Peloponnese, Greece) covering 5000 years from the Early Bronze Age onwards. The well dated pollen record from ancient Lake Lerna has been interpreted in the light of archaeological and historical sources, climatic data from the same core and other regional proxies. Our results demonstrate a significant degree of human impact on the environments of the Argive Plain throughout the study period. During the Early Bronze Age evidence of a thermophilous vegetation is seen in the pollen record, representing the mixed deciduous oak woodland of the Peloponnesian uplands. The plain was mainly used for the cultivation of cereals, whereas local fen conditions prevailed at the coring site. Towards the end of this period an increasing water table is recorded and the fen turns into a lake, despite more arid conditions. In the Late Bronze Age, the presence of important palatial centres modified the landscape resulting in decrease of mixed deciduous oak woodland and increase in open land, partly used for grazing. Possibly, the human management produced a permanent hydrological change at Lake Lerna. From the Archaic period onwards the increasing human pressure in association with local drier conditions caused landscape instability, as attested by a dramatic alluvial event recorded in the Pinus curve at the end of the Hellenistic Age. Wet conditions coincided with Roman times and favoured a forest regeneration pattern in the area, at the same time as we see the most intensive olive cultivation in the pollen record. The establishment of an economic landscape primarily based on pastures is recorded in the Byzantine period and continues until modern times. Overgrazing and fires in combination with arid conditions likely caused degradation of the vegetation into garrigue, as seen in the area of the Argive Plain today.
In this piece, I examine the role of authority in Yorùbá society and how au[1]thority is subverted by moral conflicts generated in the political evolution of the Yorùbá state from city state to empire, leading to disastrous consequences in the society at large as presented in the films of Adébáyọ Fálétí, specifically in Àfọnjá (2002), Basọrun Gáà (2004) and Ṣawo Ṣẹgbẹ ̀ rì̀ (2005). I argue that such pains and pangs of transformation are not unique to Yorùbá society but mirror similar political evolutions in other societies such as Rome and Greece. Such political upheavals led to the celebrated assassination of Julius Caesar in Rome and Alexander the Great of Macedonia. In particular Àfọnjá ̀ and Baṣọrun ̀ Gáà dramatize evocatively the poignancy of the attendant confrontations. In addition, I evaluate Adébáyọ Fálétí as a Nigerian and African foundational practitioner in the global field of cultural studies and his use of cultural post materialism in his work. Adébáyọ Fálétí can be regarded as the father of modern Nigerian Cultural Studies and in Africa in general in line with the way that the discipline is understood the world over standing, as it were, on the cusp of traditional Nigerian and African drama and modern drama in African mother tongues. In addition, Fálétí epitomizes what modern cultural studies world-wide represent as a cross between the traditional discipline of drama and the television 172 Olayinka Agbetuyi industries as well as filmic industries, along with advertisements, which together constitute what is today known as the culture industries. As defined in the words of Chris Barker, “Culturalism focuses on meaning production by human actors in a historical context.”1 Fálétí’s historical drama and films fall within such category. Barker added that Culturalism focuses on interpretation as a way of understanding meaning.”2 These are the hallmarks of the historical drama that formed the basis of two of the films by Fálétí being examined here. In addition, he stated that cultural studies deal with subjectivity and identity or how we come to be the kinds of people we are. Fálétí’s Afọnja and Gáà’s thematic preoccupation is how the Yorùbá subjectivity has been constituted over time through its political evolution. The three films also demonstrate what Stuart Hall considers to be the connection that cultural studies seeks to make to matters of power and cultural politics.3 With regards to the role of Fálétí as pioneer in the area of radio-vision cultural industries the broadcasting mogul narrated the manner in which he pioneered the phone-in radio broadcast in Nigeria on the programme “Ѐyí Àrà” at the Broadcasting Corporation of Ọyọ̀ ́ State, Ibadan (BCOS) after pioneering Yorùbá broadcasting on Africa’s first television station Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) twenty years earlier.4 Fálétí’s career spanning close to seven decades dovetails public services with private engagement with drama production. He was one of the earliest organizers of a drama performing company in 1949 to produce his own plays. His career development can be divided into three phases: the formative traditional drama performance phase, the literary drama phase which dovetails into his career as a public servant in a symbiotic relationship and his post public service movie production phase which coincided with the efflorescence of the Nollywood. The three works examined here straddle Fálétí’s second and third phases of engagement in drama production. Both Basọrun Gáà (to be hereafter referred to as Gáà) and Ṣawo Ṣẹgbẹ ̀ rì ̀ were first staged in the second phase of Fálétí’s development as a theatre practitioner. In addition to being staged in the theater, Gáà and Ṣawo Ṣẹgbẹ ̀ rì̀ were produced for tele[1]vision audiences as dramatic thrillers and became household favourites in the ‘70s and ‘80s at the time of his career as a radio/television broadcaster. Fálétí’s retirement from public service provided the opportunity needed to build on the experience gained in the television industry to launch a full-blown film production career for which his earlier experience seems to have been a tutelage. Àfọ̀njá (2002), Gáà (2004) and Ṣawo Ṣẹgbẹ ̀ rì ̀ (2005) are part of the products of this final phase. Although Àfọ̀njá preceded the other two in movie 1 Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Sage, 2012. 2 Barker. 2012, 17 3 Barker, 5. 4 Nigerianfilms.com. February 17, 2008. Accessed Aug 10 2018. Authority and Moral Conflicts in the Films of Adébáyọ Fálétí 173 production, it was the last to be written among the three and is organically a prequel which builds on the success of Gáà and extends a thematic continuum in the Fágúnwà-esque manner of the novels Ògbójú Ọde Ninu Igbó Irunmọlẹ and Igbo Olódùmarè. While Àfọ̀njá and Gáà are historical drama based on actual events in the history of the Yorùbá Empire, Ṣawo Ṣegberi is purely fictional and is based on a postcolonial Nigerian setting. The movies therefore take a reverse order to the chronology of writing and stage performance while Ṣawo Ṣẹ̀gbẹ̀rì, which was the first to be staged among the three, was not written for stage and television performance until it was script-written for film production.5 Àfọ̀njá, Gáà and Ṣawo Ṣẹgbẹ ̀ rì ̀ are each set in a cosmopolis where the Yorùbá citizens have to deal with other nationals in the context of Yorùbá mores within a broader cosmopolitan ethos. In Àfọ̀njá and Gáà that context is provided by the empire phase of Yorùbá civilization in which Yorùbá civilization was the dominant point of reference; in Ṣawo Ṣẹgbẹ ̀ rì ̀ the drama is situated in the context of postcolonial Nigerian city, in a nation that boasts large ethnic nationalities of which the Yorùbá are only one and in which Yorùbá culture is mediated by the postcolonial state with its symbol of the English language as the means of communication and its cultural spin offs. Fálétí demonstrates the mastery of dramaturgy in Àfọ̀njá and Gáà by juxtaposing the dynamics of running a state originally built on a confederation of city state structure very much like the Greek city state structure, at the latter’s comparative stage of political evolution, with a new imperial structure and the conflicts generated by the flux of the two systems; whereas in Ṣawo Ṣẹ̀gbẹ̀rì moral conflict is generated by interpersonal amatorial clashes as well as models of expertise.
Melanie Marx, Gregorio Rocha, Pavel Zehtindjiev
et al.
Abstract European Turtle Doves (Streptopelia turtur) are long‐distance migrants and have experienced a population decline of more than 78% since 1980. Their conservation depends on refined knowledge of breeding origins and population connectivity. Feathers collected at stopover sites, but molted at breeding grounds, provide an opportunity to assign birds to potential regions of origin using tissue stable hydrogen isotope values and relate those to a European feather hydrogen isoscape. Here, 101 feather samples from 13 different breeding countries were analyzed to calibrate the European hydrogen isoscape and 101 feather samples from Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Greek, and Bulgarian stopovers were assigned to potential regions of origin. The assigned range of origin for all 101 individuals grouped together agreed with known distribution patterns. Bulgarian samples were mostly assigned to Russian areas. Possible origins of Greek, Italian, Maltese, and Spanish samples ranged from central to southern Europe. Individual assignments highlighted four broad regions of origin, corresponding to a cool/humid to hot/dry temperature gradient. Proportions of birds assigned to these regions varied among birds sampled at different stopover sites. Therefore, our results provide important information about population connectivity and may be useful to evaluate possible influences of hunting on Turtle Dove populations.
Ecology, General. Including nature conservation, geographical distribution
In the wake of a paper presented during a study day on the theme of the cowherd in Hellenistic poetry and the Greek novel, this article draws the portrait of a particular character, Dorcon, who performs this function in Longus’ Pastorals. It is the ambiguous role of this cowherd in connection with the shepherds Daphnis and Chloe that is questioned here, since this character is in turns both a threat and a protection, once benevolent then malicious, to such extent that the reader cannot tell which is the true face of this typical bucolic being: the bad wolf or the good shepherd.
As I write this, my wife and I are awaiting the imminent arrival of our first child. A natural tendency to find reassurance in research has led me to read a series of modern takes on fatherhood, which have proved of varying value. Imagine my delight, then, whenInfancy and Earliest Childhood in the Roman Worldarrived on my desk. What better source of information? Unsurprisingly,What to Expect When You're Expectingthis is not, though I have noted Soranus’ sage advice not to indulge pregnant women's cravings for charcoal or earth (Gyn.1.15.48; 50). What Maureen Carroll's major new work does offer is the first systematic study of the youngest Romans, those in their first year of life, a topic which – despite the raft of work on the Roman family and life course over the last few decades – still stands in need of a synthesis. As well as evidence-gathering, Carroll's work has a central thesis; that ‘the evidence from archaeology, funerary epigraphy, and material culture marshalled in this study dispels the long-held notion that the very youngest infants were insignificant beings without a social persona whose lives were treated with indifference’ (7). Instead, what Carroll paints is a picture of the first year of life marked by both regular milestones – ‘from the naming day at eight or nine days, the official registration of birth by the thirtieth day, the release from swaddling bands at forty to sixty days, and the beginning of teething at six months, to the achievement of the child's first birthday’ (12) – and ongoing and substantial parental investment.
Mediterranean islands and their adjacent coastlands have long been the subject of a wide range of disciplines and discourses; from prehistory to late antiquity and beyond, the processes of imperial expansion, economic interconnectedness and cultural change have had a deep impact on their history. In recent decades the conceptual apparatus through which we study those processes has started to shift significantly. Earlier approaches influenced by nationalism and colonialism tended to adopt totalizing, top-down, and centre–periphery perspectives. The three volumes examined in this review are evidence that things are changing radically; but they also demonstrate the need for particular disciplines and subdisciplines to pay attention to each other. Though all three volumes focus on, or give major attention to, archaeological evidence, it is quite evident that prehistoric, classical, and late antique scholars follow distinctive scholarly traditions that could all benefit from more cross-fertilization.
Stéphanie Leroy, Mitch Hendrickson, Emmanuelle Delqué-Kolic
et al.
Architecture represents key evidence of dynastic practice and change in the archaeological world. Chronologies for many important buildings and sequences, including the iconic temples of medieval Angkor in Cambodia, are based solely on indirect associations from inscriptions and architectural styles. The Baphuon temple, one of the last major buildings in Angkor without textual or scientifically-derived chronological evidence, is crucial both for the context and date of its construction and the period when its western façade was modified into a unique, gigantic Reclining Buddha. Its construction was part of a major dynastic change and florescence of the Hindu-Mahayana Buddhist state and the modification is the key evidence of Theravada Buddhist power after Angkor's decline in the 15th century. Using a newly-developed approach based on AMS radiocarbon dating to directly date four iron crampons integrated into the structure we present the first direct evidence for the history of the Baphuon. Comprehensive study of ferrous elements shows that both construction and modification were critically earlier than expected. The Baphuon can now be considered as the major temple associated with the imperial reformations and territorial consolidation of Suryavarman I (1010-1050 AD) for whom no previous building to legitimize his reign could be identified. The Theravada Buddhist modification is a hundred years prior to the conventional 16th century estimation and is not associated with renewed use of Angkor. Instead it relates to the enigmatic Ayutthayan occupation of Angkor in the 1430s and 40s during a major period of climatic instability. Accurately dating iron with relatively low carbon content is a decisive step to test long-standing assumptions about architectural histories and political processes for states that incorporated iron into buildings (e.g., Ancient Greece, medieval India). Furthermore, this new approach has the potential to revise chronologies related to iron consumption practices since the origins of ferrous metallurgy three millennia ago.
Bravely stepping into the arena, we first tackle Paul J. Burton'sFriendship and Empire, which strikes a blow for the Romans, though he disclaims participation in the ‘defensive/offensive’ imperialism debate. He uses theory, the comparatively optimistic I(nternational) R(elations) Constructivism rather than IR (Neo-)Realism, though without abandoning the latter completely, to show that Roman foreign relations in his period were conceived in terms ofamicitiarather than of Ernst Badian'sclientela; and, more importantly, that language has an impact on how we construct global realities. History matters, and Roman diplomatic concepts should be considered on their own terms. Once individual friendship and its uncertainties and dissolution have been analysed, three empirical core chapters follow, which apply theory to cases in the categories of ‘Beginnings’, with discussion ofsocii,deditiovoluntary and involuntary, andfides; ‘Duties’ (cf.le don); and ‘Breakdown and Dissolution’ (usually simultaneous). This sensitive contribution is detailed and persuasive, though least strong on breakdown. Look at the outbreak of the Third Punic War: the Romans were disturbed by an ‘internal unilateral adjustment in status-perception’ (323). Action spoke louder than fair words.
The treatment of Greek words in manuscripts of Augustine and of Ausonius suggests that late Latin writers employed transliteration, rather than writing Greek letters, more often than has been thought, both for familiar loan-words in Latin and for words perceived as still Greek.