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The Indian performative art of Avadhāna (attention, attentiveness) is based on the showcasing of the mastery of memory, creativity, retention, multitasking and task-switching as well as other cognitive abilities. It examines not only a person’s capacity to focus and respond simultaneously to multiple task demands given by questioners (pṛcchakas) and demonstrate outstanding memory skills, but also specialized knowledge. The Avadhāna event, which involves partial improvisation, takes the form of an entertaining spectacle based on the set of rules assigned to its particular type. It becomes the ‘ritual of memory’, the celebration of innate and developed mental techniques performed by the avadhāni in front of an audience. The present paper aims at presenting the centuries-old tradition of Avadhāna from the point of view of its relation to ritual and other performative arts, as well as its performers and its contemporary components, such as the inclusion of painting, stage drama or elements of visual poetry. It stems from a field study conducted in 2015–2016 in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and from interviews with practitioners of the art of attention, Dr. R. Ganesh, Dr. Shankar Rajaraman and Dr. Medasani Mohan.
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While the debate on the relationship between ritual and theatre goes back decades, the most recent speculation can be fully understood in the framework of the mutual influences between the social sciences and performance studies. In retrospect, the spreading of structuralism to anthropology, sociology, and history (among other fields) and the absorption of theory-oriented terms in theatre studies’ terminology have facilitated a linguistic and conceptual ambiguity (or simply a confusion). Such ambiguity arises especially from the attempt to outline the borders between the religious and the aesthetic. In this paper, I will focus on the crucial role of conventional terms such as ‘performance’ and ‘performative’, the increased use of which in different fields has given rise to new dichotomies, such as performativity vs theatricality, self vs role. I will discuss some theoretical issues that allow us to define a ritual text as ‘religious’ instead of ‘theatrical’, focusing on the performative effect of recitation, more specifically on the Vedic texts on ritual prescriptions and their aim to display the officiants’ skills and authoritativeness.
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Until the 1960s, Kūṭiyāṭṭam**—India’s Sanskrit theatre—was exclusively performed in Hindu temples of Kerala by an ensemble of three ritual performers of high status: the Cākyār actor-master, the Nampyār percussionist, and the Naṅṅyār reciter, cymbalist and actress. Within this devotional context, Kūṭiyāṭṭam, whose essence is theatre (nāṭya), is considered an offering of ‘dance’ (nṛtta) to the main divinity. Furthermore, the performative cycles, lasting from three to forty-one days, incorporate dances known as ‘kriya’, literally ‘what has to be done’ or ‘action’, designating the ritual action here. This paper attempts to complement previous studies based on the Indian theory of theatre, by questioning the uses and roles of dance in the Kūṭiyāṭṭam theatrical sphere and tackling the issue of boundaries between dance and dramatic action. The study draws on long-range anthropological research as wellas on the Kūṭiyāṭṭam literature, especially the Cākyar’s acting and production manuals (āṭṭaprakāram and kramadīpikā) written in Malayalam, three of which are composed for the performance of the following Sanskrit plays: Bālacaritam and Abhiṣekanāṭakam of Bhāsa, and Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi of Śaktibhadra.
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The present paper stands first in a series of planned articles that present systematically arranged data on ritual performances culled from Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra (usually dated around the beginning of the CE). This data is surprisingly extensive and multifaceted and mainly appears in the following three contexts: (1) the detailed description of five rituals of varying complexity that are preliminary to the staging of a play; (2) theatrical rules that codify the representation of rituals appearing in a play’s narrative; and (3) a wide variety of textual passages that, often parenthetically, offer insight into individual aspects of ritual acts. Before this information will be evaluated in the final essay of this series in order to assess the nature of the boundary between ritual and theatrical performances, it is presented systematically to be of use to ritual and theatrical studies in general. The present and the following article begin the series by offering information on ritual offerings and other items used in rituals contexts.
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The main problem discussed in this paper is illegitimacy in Roman Egypt. In the first part of the text I discuss ways of presenting persons born out of wedlock in papyri, especially documents relating to Roman census in Egypt. The question posed in the second part of the article is whether ways of describing extramarital children could provide us with information concerning their position within the family structure of Roman Egypt.
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In Egypt, the groups sharing the interpretation of the Christianity which could be labeled as Valentinian are to be traced back to the middle of the 2nd century. Later, deep into the 3rd and 4th century, the evidence relating to them appears, however, scant and indirect. Although Epiphanius of Salamis gave in his Panarion rather extensive presentation of ‘Valentinian’ topography, his relation – as in many other cases – meets with serious scholarly scepticism. Nevertheless, Epiphanius’ direct knowledge of the Delta finds corroboration in his widely ignored Vita, replete with literary topoi, but clearly independent from Panarion. Epiphanius’ account could be supported also by a careful analysis of the Valentinian corpus from the Nag Hammadi library. Examination of its content and arrangement as well as its language diversity, paleography and codicology shows that at the initial stage it was formed from at least five independent sources. Taking into account that the translations into Coptic were made no earlier than at the turn of the 3rd and 4th century, we can safely assume that only one or two generations spanned between translators and Epiphanius. Translators themselves had to be regarded as Christians of Valentinian orientation, because it would be hardly likely that non-believers working independently in many places undertook considerable effort of translating the texts, contents of which they had not accepted. It does not mean however, that there were Valentinian communities separated from the church (or even that that they know the name of Valentinus himself), but only that there were groups (probably isolated one from another) of Christians inclined to the interpretation of the Scriptures and the tradition labelled both by their ancient adversaries and modern scholars as Valentinian.
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There are eight distinct love stories on the Meleager plate of the Seuso treasure. In four of them hunting plays an important role. The main theme of the depicted stories is all-prevailing love, the emotion that is the motivating force in human life. An ancillary theme of the stories is hunting, which can be interpreted in a concrete as well as a figurative sense. Hunting is an aristocratic pleasure but at the same time it represents the exercise of virtues, too, in which even females can participate, cf. the scenes with Helene and Atalante. Although there is no need to look for a topical event to feature the motif of love, it is tempting to determine the contemporary function of the treasure as a wedding gift. We are inclined to believe that Seuso, the well-off owner of the treasure, must have been given this unique silver tableware as a wedding gift some time around the beginning of the 5th century.
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The specimen was so bizarre that scientists at first thought the fossil was a fake.
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Sempronius Marcellinus XX. sz. elején napvilágra került sírkövéről1 a szakirodalom csupa szuperlatívuszokban nyilatkozik (1. kép). Paulovics István szerint: „Legszebb dokumentuma annak az itáliai befolyásnak, amely mythologikus jeleneteivel és kiforrott dekoratív motívumaival – Aquileián át – legelőször éppen Savaria közvetítésével árasztotta el a középdunai tartományokat.” Kádár Zoltán szerint: „…a szombathelyi múzeum…egyik legszebb és – nemzetközi viszonylatban is – legjelentősebb darabja.” Buócz Terézia szerint: „A savariai polgárság italikus színezetű kultúrája a II. század első felében virágzott ki teljesen. Ennek ékes bizonyítéka a kőtár legszebb kőemléke, amely a város korai, északi temetőjében került elő.” A nemzetközi szakirodalomban Michaela Fuchs „Grabstein … hoher Qualität”-nek nevezi.
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Az ókori Britannia provincia középső részén fekvő Letocetum településéről (ma Wall, Staffordshire) 1912-ben egy ásatás során előkerült egy homokkőből készült mérföldkő töredéke, ami a Roman Inscriptions of Britain (RIB) epigráfiai kiadvány első kötetében a 2246-os sorszámot kapta. A mérföldkövön a következő latin felirat olvasható....
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Presented here is the Late Roman stone building uncovered between 1977 and 1979 in the valley of the Topolka Stream: the description of the six rooms and the courtyard as well as of the site’s stratigraphy and its finds, together with the typological and chronological assessment of the finds. The architectural history of the building can be reconstructed as follows: originally constructed from wood, the building was rebuilt in stone under Constantine’s reign and again under Valentinian’s reign. On the testimony of the stamped bricks, the building standing near the Roman road was constructed by the army and it served as an inn.
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The study discusses the research history of the Copper Age gold hoard found at Csepin (Čepin), the Hallstatt period anthropomorphic bronze pendants brought to light at Kőszeg and the Celtic iron sword discovered at Hatvan-Boldog. The earlier erroneous opinions published in the archaeological literature are reviewed and corrected in the light of the data contained in the inventory books of the Hungarian National Museum.
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The western part of a Late Roman palace, including a large, undivided hall, was excavated in Szombathely between 1938 and 1943. The floor of the apsidal hall was lavishly decorated with mosaics, while the wall footings were covered with colourful marble slabs. The construction of the palace was no doubt begun in consequence of the administrative changes during the Tetrarchy, when Savaria became the seat of the praeses. The architectural history of the palace suggests that the mosaic floor could not have been made before the 350s. It seems likely that the hall had been constructed as part of the preparations for Valentinian I’s visit to Savaria (374–375). However, only the excavation of the successive levels of the mosaic floor and the assessment of the finds can provide a more accurate date.
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An anthropomorphic bronze vessel was recovered from a cremation burial of the Budaújlak cemetery section of the canabae’s western cemetery by Bécsi Road in Budapest. The other grave goods from the burial were three light coloured handled jugs, a silver T brooch lacking the pin, a strongly corroded iron belt buckle (?) and bronze fragments that probably came from a small casket. According to the anthropological examination, the few calcinated bone fragments from the burial suggest that the deceased had been a “probably adult man”.
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Most of the 68 wells uncovered on the single-layer horizontal settlement lying adjacent to the tell at Polgár-Csőszhalom did not contain any unusual finds. A few wells, however, yielded remarkable assemblages that can be interpreted as intentional, structured depositions. One of these was Feature 272, a well lying some 80–90 m from the one-time water shore, which contained a remarkably high number of vessels, most of which were lavishly ornamented. The form and the contents of this well suggest that it represents the archaeological imprint of a series of ritual acts performed according to a set of strict rules and the structured deposition of the ritual paraphernalia.
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Numerous notable potters’ waste layers came to light during the recent excavation of a detail of the military pottery workshop (so-called ’Kiscelli Street workshop’) in the Aquincum canabae. A distinctive quality ceramic group was separatable in these layers. These ceramics have well, fine levigated clay and were fired to red and hard. The surfaces are glossy by burnishing or a very thin slip. These sherds measure in many cases up to the Samian ware quality. As geochemical researches revealed these ceramics were made from local clay into which some „red earth” (rich in Al2O3–, Fe2O3– and MnO) admixture was mixed. Moreover it was also observed that the above-mentioned good quality product forms were sometimes made in a „traditional” (without red admixture) colour, too. We can find the best analogies of these ceramics in connection with the finds of the legionary pottery’s find-places (Noviomagus–Holdeurn ware, Vetera, Vindonissa, Argentorate, Wetterau ware, Butovo etc.). These are in the closest connection with the Holdeurn ware in both form and quality (four of the five forms are almost identical). Based on the similarity we think that potterers from Noviomagus might have been commanded here, which is naturally not surprising knowing that the legio X Gemina was placed from Noviomagus to Aquincum in 105 AD and was stationed here till 118 AD. At the same time, researching the origin of the existing forms we find many similarities with the eastern Samian ware (terra sigillata) forms, too. This raises the question who were those potterers that developed these forms first? Though J. K. Haalebos suggested the presence of Italian potterers in connection with the Holdeun pottery, the possibility of eastern potterers’ contribution can also be taken into account.
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