The ancient Maya city of Quirigua occupied a crossroads between Copan in the southeastern Maya highlands and the major centers of the Peten heartland. Though always a relatively small city, Quirigua ...stands out because of its public monuments, which were some of the greatest achievements of Classic Maya civilization. Impressive not only for their colossal size, high sculptural quality, and eloquent hieroglyphic texts, the sculptures of Quirigua are also one of the few complete, in situ series of Maya monuments anywhere, which makes them a crucial source of information about ancient Maya spirituality and political practice within a specific historical context. Using epigraphic, iconographic, and stylistic analyses, this study explores the integrated political-religious meanings of Quirigua’s monumental sculptures during the eighth-century A.D. reign of the city’s most famous ruler, K’ak’ Tiliw. In particular, Matthew Looper focuses on the role of stelae and other sculpture in representing the persona of the ruler not only as a political authority but also as a manifestation of various supernatural entities with whom he was associated through ritual performance. By tracing this sculptural program from its Early Classic beginnings through the reigns of K’ak’ Tiliw and his successors, and also by linking it to practices at Copan, Looper offers important new insights into the politico-religious history of Quirigua and its ties to other Classic Maya centers, the role of kingship in Maya society, and the development of Maya art.
Phosphatidylserine (PS) is an important lipid signaling required for plant growth regulation and salt stress adaptation. However, how PS positively regulate plant salt tolerance is still largely ...unknown. In this study, IbPSS1-overexpressed sweetpotato plants that exhibited overproduction of PS was employed to explore the mechanisms underlying the PS stimulation of plant salt tolerance. The results revealed that the IbPSS1-overexpressed sweetpotato accumulated less Na+ in the stem and leaf tissues compared with the wild type plants. Proteomic profile of roots showed that lignin synthesis-related proteins over-accumulated in IbPSS1-overexpressed sweetpotato. Correspondingly, the lignin content was enhanced but the influx of Na + into the stele was significantly blocked in IbPSS1-overexpressed sweetpotato. The results further revealed that ethylene synthesis and signaling related genes were upregulated in IbPSS1-overexpressed sweetpotato. Ethylene imaging experiment revealed the enhancement of ethylene mainly localized in the root stele. Inhibition of ethylene synthesis completely reversed the PS-overproduction induced lignin synthesis and Na+ influx pattern in stele tissues. Taken together, our findings demonstrate a mechanism by which PS regulates ethylene signaling and lignin synthesis in the root stele, thus helping sweetpotato plants to block the loading of Na+ into the xylem and to minimize the accumulation of Na+ in the shoots.
•IbPSS1-overexpressed sweetpotato exhibited enhanced K+/Na+ homeostasis.•PS enhances lignin synthesis and blocks the Na+ loading into the xylem.•Ethylene signaling is involved in the lignin synthesis and Na+ loading into the xylem.
Stelae dating to the Epiclassic (650-900 CE) and Early Postclassic (950-1150 CE) from Tula, Xochicalco, and other sites in Central Mexico have been presented in the archaeological and art historical ...literature of the last four decades—when they have been addressed at all—as evidence of Classic Maya ‘influence’ on Central Mexican art during these periods. This book re-evaluates these claims via detailed comparative analysis of the Central Mexican stelae and their claimed Maya counterparts. For the first time the Central Mexican stelae are placed in the context of often earlier local artistic traditions as well as other possible long-distance connections. Comparison of Tula and Xochicalco stelae with earlier and contemporary stelae from Oaxaca and Guerrero demonstrates connections equally as plausible as those posited with the Maya region, and supported by archaeological evidence. While it is clear that some Central Mexican stelae, especially Stela 4 from Tula, reflect Maya contacts, this has to be balanced by consideration of local and other long distance developments and connections.
This article analyses one act of informal creative place-making/taking. In 2017, the Berlin art collective Centre for Political Beauty installed a partial replica of Peter Eisenman's 2005 Memorial to ...the Murdered Jews of Europe in a back garden in the Thuringian village of Bornhagen. The site was chosen because of who lived next door: a leading figure in the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany), Björn Höcke. This DIY, guerrilla-like intervention by activist artists raises broader questions about both "informality" and "place-making." As we suggest, the work Deine Stele (2017-ongoing) represents a profound paradox: an otherwise highly critical art collective, not least towards the government, replicates an official state-sanctioned memorial in order to defend and enforce the so painfully won hegemonic memory culture. Both the work and its realisation combine complex elements of formality and informality. Moreover, while located very intentionally in Bornhagen, Deine Stele sits somewhere between, and connects, Berlin, Bornhagen and digital space. Rather than engaging deeply with local stories, it makes a more abstract theme - German commitment to Holocaust memory - concrete. We read this antagonistic intervention as a playfully provocative act of creative place-taking rather than place-making.
Oxygen deficiency associated with soil waterlogging adversely impacts root respiration and nutrient acquisition. We investigated the effects of O₂ deficiency and salinity (100 mM NaCl) on radial O₂ ...concentrations and cell‐specific ion distributions in adventitious roots of barley (Hordeum vulgare). Microelectrode profiling measured O₂ concentrations across roots in aerated, aerated saline, stagnant or stagnant saline media. X‐ray microanalysis at two positions behind the apex determined the cell‐specific elemental concentrations of potassium (K), sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl) across roots. Severe O₂ deficiency occurred in the stele and apical regions of roots in stagnant solutions. O₂ deficiency in the stele reduced the concentrations of K, Na and Cl in the pericycle and xylem parenchyma cells at the subapical region. Near the root apex, Na declined across the cortex in roots from the aerated saline solution but was relatively high in all cell types in roots from the stagnant saline solution. Oxygen deficiency has a substantial impact on cellular ion concentrations in roots. Both pericycle and xylem parenchyma cells are involved in energy‐dependent K loading into the xylem and in controlling radial Na and Cl transport. At root tips, accumulation of Na in the outer cell layers likely contributed to reduction of Na in inner cells of the tips.
Chinese Steles Wong, Dorothy C
2004, 2004., 20040930, 20040101
eBook
Buddhist steles represent an important subset of early Chinese Buddhist art that flourished during the Northern and Southern Dynasties period (386–581). More than two hundred Chinese Buddhist steles ...are known to have survived. Their brilliant imagery has long captivated scholars, yet until now the Buddhist stele as a unique art form has received little scholarly attention. Dorothy Wong rectifies that insufficiency by providing in this well-illustrated volume the first comprehensive investigation of this group of Buddhist monuments. She traces the ancient roots of the Chinese stele tradition and investigates the process by which Chinese steles were adapted for Buddhist use. She arranges the known corpus of Buddhist steles into broad chronological and regional groupings and analyzes not only their form and content but also the nexus of complex issues surrounding this art form—from cultural symbolism to the interrelations between religious doctrine and artistic expression, economic production, patronage, and the synthesis of native and foreign art styles. In her analysis of Buddhism’s dialogue with native traditions, Wong demonstrates how the Chinese artistic idiom planted the seeds for major achievements in figural and landscape arts in the ensuing Sui and Tang periods.
Summary
Drought and flooding are contrasting abiotic stressors for plants. Evidence is accumulating for root anatomical traits being essential for the adaptation to drought or flooding. However, an ...integrated approach to comprehensively understand root anatomical traits has not yet been established.
Here we analysed the root anatomical traits of 18 wild Poaceae species differing in adaptation to a range of soil water content. Regression model analyses revealed the optimal anatomical traits that were required by the plants to adapt to low or high soil water content.
While the area and number of each root tissue (e.g. stele, cortex, xylem or aerenchyma) were not strongly correlated to the soil water content, the ratio of the root tissue areas (cortex to stele ratio (CSR), xylem to stele ratio (XSR) and aerenchyma to cortex ratio (ACR)) could fully explain the adaptations of the wild Poaceae species to the soil water gradients.
Our results demonstrate that the optimal anatomical traits for the adaptations to soil water content can be determined by three indices (i.e. CSR, XSR and ACR), and thus we propose that these root anatomical indices can be used to improve the tolerance of crops to drought and flooding stresses.
La stele con bassorilievo, rinvenuta a Cihanköy, a nord-ovest del lago di İznik, e conservata presso il Museo Archeologico di Istanbul dal 1901, riporta un’iscrizione doppia composta da due epitafi ...in distici elegiaci dedicati all’ufficiale (hegemon) Menas di Bitinia, caduto in una battaglia svoltasi verosimilmente nella piana di Curupedio, nei pressi del fiume Frigio in Lidia. Sull’identificazione della battaglia, si è ipotizzato la battaglia di Curupedio tra Lisimaco e Seleuco I (281 a.C.), la battaglia di Magnesia tra Roma e Antioco III (190/189 a.C.), i conflitti tra il regno di Bitinia e quello di Pergamo (208‑183 a.C.; 156‑154 a.C.).
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