Flax and Linen Terminology in Talmudic Literature

2015

The aim of the present paper is to discuss the etymology of the Iranian word for ‘brocade’ in the light of new evidence attested in ancient Aramaic texts, which elucidate the ancient practice and use of silk in the Achaemenid world.

2014

Lo studio della Storia Antica è sempre stato, per Gianni, piacere intellettuale, dovere sociale e morale e prosecuzione di quell'idea di "uomo di studio", imparata dal padre Luigi e così ben impressa nel suo cuore e nella sua mente. A lui, Gianni fa riferimento, quando studia, quando insegna, quando scrive. Fonti, documenti, testi, sono imprescindibili punti di partenza delle sue analisi, con il pensiero che guarda sempre al mondo dell'Oriente Antico. Uomo integerrimo e puro, non conosce la competizione e forse per questo, arriva sempre tra i primi. Ha molto a cuore i suoi allievi: di loro, non esita a metter in luce le qualità positive, soffocando in un "sono giovani" le intemperanze e gli umani difetti. Lo ammiro perché non conosce invidia, ira, malizia, sospetto: lo amo perché mi ha insegnato a guardarmi da questi subdoli amici. Ines

2024

This book is the main result of the COFECUB Project between the Université Bordeaux-Montaigne and the Universidade de São Paulo, on the theme of material culture in ancient and medieval societies. The nine chapters, written by Brazilian and French researchers, focus on the methodological and interdisciplinary aspects of the approach to material cultures, while referring to the fundamental actions of these societies: ‘producing’, ‘feeding’, ‘exchanging’, ‘writing’, ‘living’, ‘drinking’, ‘fighting’, ‘praying’ and ‘dying’. The aim is not to present a chronological history, but a thematic one, based on a selection of themes that provides a view of societies through their material heritage, with an emphasis on cross-referencing sources and methods.

These Proceedings are the results of the workshop Cultural & Material Contacts in the Ancient Near East, held at Torino the 1 st and 2 nd December 2014. The workshop, organised by Phd and Master Students of the University of Torino, was devoted to young scholars involved in the trending topic of the material and cultural contacts in the Ancient Near East between the 2 nd millennium BC and the Parthian and Sasanian Periods. Scholars from many countries (Italy, France, England, Poland, Canada, Hungary, etc.) chose to participate to the call for papers, proposed by the Organizing Committee. The high number of participants has obliged us to select the papers and to open a larger poster session. During the two workshop days the high level of the talks was judged very promising by the participating professors, auditors and contributors and pushed us to publish it rapidly. Now this purpose has been achieved in only one year and a half after the workshop. We are proud of it also because we know that young scholars need publications to grow and to improve their carrier. We know also that usually the first papers trace a deep line in the research and in the history of each scholar. For this reason, we are glad for have given to them the chance of reaching this purpose and we are pleased that their name will be associated to this workshop. The papers, divided here in their respective sessions, show innovative approaches about archaeo logy, history and philology of the Ancient Near East in an integrated methodology, showing the complexity of the cultural and material contacts of this period and area.

The Medieval Globe, 2017

This article focuses on a set of legal questions about ṣīnī vessels (literally, “Chinese” vessels) sent from the Jewish community in Aden to Fustat (Old Cairo) in the mid-1130s CE and now preserved among the Cairo Geniza holdings in Cambridge University Library. This is the earliest dated and localized query about the status of ṣīnī vessels with respect to the Jewish law of vessels used for food consumption. Our analysis of these queries suggests that their phrasing and timing can be linked to the contemporaneous appearance in the Yemen of a new type of Chinese ceramic ware, qingbai, which confounded and destabilized the material taxonomies underpinning rabbinic Judaism. Marshalling evidence from contemporary Jewish legal compendia and other writings produced in this milieu, our discussion substantially advances interpretive angles first suggested by S. D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman to examine the efforts of Adeni Jews to place this Chinese ceramic fabric among already legislated substances, notably the “neighboring” substances of glass and earthenware, in order to derive clear rules for the proper use and purification of vessels manufactured from it.