The Scythian tombs: Construction and geographical orientation

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-496
Author(s):  
Maria Ochir-Goryaeva

This paper details a new approach to the study of the Scythian burial mounds—the ‘planigraphy’ (or spatial analysis) of the mound and its burials, which follows two lines of enquiry that have so far been largely overlooked. Firstly, the statistics concerning the depth of all types of graves, such as primary and secondary burials, servants’ and horse graves, have been closely examined and compared because this parameter is an important mark of the social status and hierarchy of the deceased and their burials in Scythian funeral ceremonies. Secondly, grave locations within the mounds have been analysed with regard to their arrangement in relation to the ideal latitudinal and meridian axis of the Scythian mound. This analysis has led to the discovery of new facts concerning the planigraphy of the Scythian burial mound, which contribute to a more detailed understanding of the spatial representation of kinship and family hierarchy in Scythian society. The new evidence also sheds light on their system of geographical orientation in terms of cardinal points.

Antichthon ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.R. Stevenson

In the past couple of decades, scholarship on Graeco–Roman religion has been dominated by an approach which emphasises the social function of religion rather than matters relating to emotion and belief (Part I below). There is much in the new approach which is enlightening, but for various reasons it should not be allowed to supersede the traditional or psychological approach completely (II). In particular I would like to argue in this paper that the phenomenon of cult for mortals in the Graeco-Roman world can only be understood through a combination of the two modern approaches, because the figure of the ideal benefactor, which I take to underlie cult for mortals, presumed both a concern for relationship structuring and an emotional response. Indeed, the ambiguous interface between the social plane and the psychological plane was fundamental to the success and persistence of such cult (III).


PMLA ◽  
1936 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 284-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Schütze

(Read under the title “Main Types of Literaturwissenschaft: A Critical Survey and a New Approach,” at the Fifty-first Annual Meeting, in Philadelphia, 1934. —Ed.) A MODERN humanism would be a mode of life controlled by an active aspiration to adjust present conditions to the highest interests and values of personality. It would be three-fold, involving (1) the physical-biological organism, (2) the powers finding expression in letters and the arts, and (3) the social, ethical, religious, political and economic beliefs, theories, interests, and circumstances by which personality is affected. The principle of integral unity—which is the central theme of this essay and the ultimate measure of the reality, validity, and value pertaining to the ideal of humanity here projected—demands an unremitting endeavor to combine and harmonize those three main parts of personal being. Culture is an ultimate personal unity of values.


2017 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 29-52
Author(s):  
P. A. Davies

Current descriptions of social status in the Greek world are strongly influenced by the works of Moses I. Finley and G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, whose models were grounded in the sociologies of Weber and Marx. This article outlines a new paradigm for social status based on a model from the social sciences, commonly described as status (in)consistency. The article demonstrates the descriptive and interpretive usefulness of this approach using two case studies: social status and social mobility in classical Lakedaimonian society; and the lives and status of Pasion of Acharnai and his son Apollodoros.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-287
Author(s):  
Vladimir Nikolaevich Myshkin

This article deals with equestrian ammunition items found near the burial mound of the 21 Filipovka I burial ground in the Orenburg region in order to establish the time of construction of this burial mound. The burial mound Filippovka I was a necropolis of the social elite of nomads who inhabited the steppes of the Southern Urals in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The richness of the funerary inventory and the complexity of the ritual actions performed during the erection of the burial mounds make it possible to study many aspects of the history and culture of these tribes. This determines the importance of a comprehensive study of the materials of this burial ground. Equipping a horse includes four bronze objects: two bridle plaques, check-piece and headband decoration bridle were found around the barrow 21 Filippovka I burial ground. Some of these items have close analogies among the details of equine ammunition from the Scythian monuments of the Black Sea North Littoral, dated by import items. The analogies that exist among the Scythian antiquities allow us to date the burial mound of the burial ground of Filippovka I during the time of the 4th century BC. The presence of such things as a headband in the form of a griffin head and a bridle plaque in the form of a wolf's head fixes the existence of the cultural interaction of nomads who left the burial ground of Filippovka I with the western Scythian world of the Northern Black Sea Coast


Author(s):  
H. A. Shapiro

In recent years, new evidence has led some scholars to question the traditional view of Athenian potters and painters as banausoi of low social status whose lives seldom if ever intersected with those of the aristocracy (Keuls, 1989: 149-67). The evidence pertains mainly to the generation of the red-figure pioneers, who are excepcional in their strong sense of identity and self-conscious reference to each other and to their patrons. Their meeting ground was the symposium. The presente paper focuses on an earlier period, the mid-sixth century, and on certain vase inscriptions that suggest not only a high degree of literacy on the part of the painter, but also a familiarity with several genres of sympotic and other poetry. These metrical inscriptions, some on otherwise modest vases and not previously collected, attest to the pervasiveness of the “song culture” of Archaic Greece described by J. Herington (1985). These and other examples imply that the social structure of Early Archaic Athens, in the wake of Solon’s reforms, was not a rigidly stratified one, but rather artisans mixed freely with aristocrats, often joined through their shared tastes for poetry and song.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Zhou ◽  
Xiangyi Li

We consider cross-space consumption as a form of transnational practice among international migrants. In this paper, we develop the idea of the social value of consumption and use it to explain this particular form of transnationalism. We consider the act of consumption to have not only functional value that satisfies material needs but also a set of nonfunctional values, social value included, that confer symbolic meanings and social status. We argue that cross-space consumption enables international migrants to take advantage of differences in economic development, currency exchange rates, and social structures between countries of destination and origin to maximize their expression of social status and to perform or regain social status. Drawing on a multisited ethnographic study of consumption patterns in migrant hometowns in Fuzhou, China, and in-depth interviews with undocumented Chinese immigrants in New York and their left-behind family members, we find that, despite the vulnerabilities and precarious circumstances associated with the lack of citizenship rights in the host society, undocumented immigrants manage to realize the social value of consumption across national borders and do so through conspicuous consumption, reciprocal consumption, and vicarious consumption in their hometowns even without being physically present there. We conclude that, while cross-space consumption benefits individual migrants, left-behind families, and their hometowns, it serves to revive tradition in ways that fuel extravagant rituals, drive up costs of living, reinforce existing social inequality, and create pressure for continual emigration.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-32
Author(s):  
Le Hoang Anh Thu

This paper explores the charitable work of Buddhist women who work as petty traders in Hồ Chí Minh City. By focusing on the social interaction between givers and recipients, it examines the traders’ class identity, their perception of social stratification, and their relationship with the state. Charitable work reveals the petty traders’ negotiations with the state and with other social groups to define their moral and social status in Vietnam’s society. These negotiations contribute to their self-identification as a moral social class and to their perception of trade as ethical labor.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-46
Author(s):  
Stanislava Varadinova

The attention sustainability and its impact of social status in the class are current issues concerning the field of education are the reasons for delay in assimilating the learning material and early school dropout. Behind both of those problems stand psychological causes such as low attention sustainability, poor communication skills and lack of positive environment. The presented article aims to prove that sustainability of attention directly influences the social status of students in the class, and hence their overall development and the way they feel in the group. Making efforts to increase students’ attention sustainability could lead to an increase in the social status of the student and hence the creation of a favorable and positive environment for the overall development of the individual.


Author(s):  
Corey Brettschneider

How should a liberal democracy respond to hate groups and others that oppose the ideal of free and equal citizenship? The democratic state faces the hard choice of either protecting the rights of hate groups and allowing their views to spread, or banning their views and violating citizens' rights to freedoms of expression, association, and religion. Avoiding the familiar yet problematic responses to these issues, this book proposes a new approach called value democracy. The theory of value democracy argues that the state should protect the right to express illiberal beliefs, but the state should also engage in democratic persuasion when it speaks through its various expressive capacities: publicly criticizing, and giving reasons to reject, hate-based or other discriminatory viewpoints. Distinguishing between two kinds of state action—expressive and coercive—the book contends that public criticism of viewpoints advocating discrimination based on race, gender, or sexual orientation should be pursued through the state's expressive capacities as speaker, educator, and spender. When the state uses its expressive capacities to promote the values of free and equal citizenship, it engages in democratic persuasion. By using democratic persuasion, the state can both respect rights and counter hateful or discriminatory viewpoints. The book extends this analysis from freedom of expression to the freedoms of religion and association, and shows that value democracy can uphold the protection of these freedoms while promoting equality for all citizens.


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