The Vounous Bowl occupies a privileged position in discussions of prehistoric representations on Cyprus. It has most commonly been viewed as a sacred scene, or a religious ceremony conducted within a ...rural sanctuary, and several commentators have emphasized the funerary connotations of the scene, perhaps depicting idealized funerary ritual or an ancestor cult. Somewhat mundane interpretations of the bowl place it within a range of genre scenes, portraying daily life in a Bronze Age village. More recently it has been interpreted as the physical expression of emergent elite authority on Cyprus during the Bronze Age. This study explores the object as a form of social communication: through a detailed structural analysis of the Vounous Bowl it aims to develop a clearer understanding of the social world of Early-Middle Bronze Age Cyprus.
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DOBA, FFLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Increases in blood eosinophil counts (EOS) beyond 0.06 x 10(9)/liter precede treated heart allograft rejection. An oral prednisolone dose of 0.35 mg/kg/day usually suppresses EOS below this ...threshold.
We designed a randomized trial to compare our empirical protocol for steroid dose adjustment with a novel protocol guided by EOS monitoring during the first 3 months after heart transplantation. Eighty patients were randomized to either have their EOS reported and used for steroid dose adjustment (RG; n=40), or not reported (NG; n=40). RG patients had their steroid dosage increased if EOS exceeded 0.06 x 10(9)/liter.
RG patients had an 83% lower risk of treated rejection (P=0.035) and lower median intravenous dose of methyl-prednisolone (P=0.017) than NG during the first 6 postoperative weeks. The proportion of diagnostic increases in EOS that were followed within 2 weeks by treated rejection was 42% greater in NG than RG (P=0.0001), compatible with a direct impact of EOS-guided prednisolone dose adjustment on the risk of subsequent rejection. Overall, RG had less than half the risk of rejection of any grade (P<0.001) and significantly more rejection-free biopsies than NG (P=0.001). The mean oral prednisolone dosage was significantly greater in RG than NG during the first (P=0.014) and second (P=0.001) 6 weeks of follow-up. This did not increase the incidence of serious steroid-related side effects.
EOS monitoring is a simple, cheap, and effective means of optimizing steroid immunosuppression. Restriction of the EOS-guided steroid dosing protocol to periods of prolonged hospitalisation during the first 3 postoperative months should limit the requirement for higher prednisolone dosage without affecting immunosuppressive efficacy.
Recent studies have focused on the consumption of food and drink in antiquity, specifically employing anthropological perspectives to examine the social aspects of these activities. In light of these ...studies, I review in this article the evidence for feasting as a group activity in Cyprus during the third and second millennia B.C. and argue that the practice of feasting was used to reinforce group ties. The main focus is the impact of Mycenaean customs on indigenous Cypriot feasting practices between the 14th and 12th centuries B.C.
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BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
This book explores the dynamics of small-scale societies in the ancient Near East by examining the ways in which particular communities functioned and interacted and by moving beyond the broad ...neo-evolutionary models of social change which have characterised many earlier approaches. By focusing on issues of diversity, scale, and context, it considers the ways in which economy, crafts, technology, and ritual were organised; the roles played by mortuary practices and households in the structure and development of ancient societies; and the importance of agency, identity, ethnicity, gender, community and cultural interaction for the rise of socio-economic complexity. The contributors to this volume are well-known archaeologists in the field of Near Eastern studies; all are currently engaged in fieldwork or research in Cyprus, the Levant, or Turkey. The variety and depth of the research they present here reflect the richness of the archaeological record in the 'cradle of civilisation' and convey the vibrancy of current interpretive approaches within the field of Near Eastern prehistory today.
This paper examines the transformative power of communal ritual during periods of social change. Specifically, it explores the creation of a modified ceremonial landscape in north-east Cyprus at the ...transition from the Middle to Late Bronze Age. With reference to landscape theory and anthropological approaches to ritual performance, it interrogates how this created landscape was incorporated within ceremonial practice, how it was experienced and how it was used to mediate relations within and between settlements of the region during a period of social upheaval.
The transitional Middle–Late Bronze Age on Cyprus (henceforth Middle and Late Cypriot periods, MC–LC,
