Abstract
Contemporary population ethics is dominated by views that aggregate by summing, whether of well-being or of some construct based on well-being. In contrast, average well-being is generally ...considered axiologically irrelevant. To many of us, however, the number of future people does not seem important, as long as it is sufficient to enable rich and varied life experiences, and as long as the population continues throughout time. It therefore seems relatively plausible to aggregate future well-being by averaging. In particular, it seems plausible to value high average well-being at any particular time, and to do so for all future times. I present a time-sensitive version of the Average View that underpins such axiological intuitions. I also address a series of issues and objections that confront such a view.
Current Research in Egyptology 2021 presents papers from
the Twenty-First Annual Meeting of the international postgraduate
conference Current Research in Egyptology, held online by the
Department of ...Mediterranean Studies of the University of the Aegean
(Rhodes, Greece) on 9-16 May 2021. Almost 100 participants from
institutions all over the world presented their insightful research
on a wide range of topics regarding all periods of ancient Egypt.
Fifteen Egyptological and Papyrological papers are published here,
which investigate a great variety of issues, including social and
religious aspects of life in ancient Egypt, ritual and magic,
language and literature, ideology of death, demonology, the
iconographical tradition, and intercultural relations, ranging
chronologically from the Prehistoric to the Coptic period. The wide
chronological and thematic scope of the book reflects the
multifaceted, interdisciplinary and innovative character of modern
Egyptology.
The Egyptian landscape over the millennia has been affected by geomorphological and urban changes that have also involved the hydrological scenery, with the consequent transformation of areas around ...watercourses. This paper aims to highlight the possibilities derived from the consultation of Napoleonic cartography for the study of the Egyptian landscape through GIS platforms, providing an innovative methodology for its georeferencing. The strengths of this resource, joined to the traditional research methods, will be illustrated through the case of the ancient island of iw-rd located in the 16th nomos of Upper Egypt.
This paper investigates the use of postcolonial theory in Egyptology and Sudan archaeology. Theories and concepts developed out of examinations of specific historical colonial encounters were often ...applied by Egyptologists with little or no critical historical contextualization. Consequently, when using postcolonial theories and concepts some Egyptologists unwillingly transferred specific historical backgrounds to both ancient Egyptian experiences and those of their neighbours. This is inspected using the concept of reverse discourse as developed by M. Foucault. We need to construct novel and more data-informed concepts to understand the experiences and realities of living under Egyptian occupation.
Although French fascination with Egyptian material culture is often dated to the nineteenth century, ancient Egyptian gems, architectural fragments, and small statues were already avidly collected in ...the eighteenth century. For some, the display and close study of small Egyptian works of art in private cabinets served to develop discernment, the formal properties illuminating historical moeurs, techniques, and artistic exchanges otherwise unknowable from then‐untranslated hieroglyphs. Others, however, dismissed these objects as fetishes and idols, produced under the control of priests and despots for ritual devotion. Escalating prejudices in Europe toward the peoples and objects of Africa was fundamental to this latter attitude. Yet, the bigoted language also illuminates the fraught boundaries perceived between connoisseurship and idolatry, both predicated on the focused attention toward material objects. This essay addresses the implication of ancient Egyptian sculpture in these period debates, and demonstrates the impact of these biases on art histories of sculpture.
In April 1919, František Lexa, at that time a grammar school teacher of mathematics, physics and philosophy, started to lecture on Egyptology at the Czech Faculty of Arts of Charles University. Only ...three years later, he became Associate Professor of Egyptology at the faculty. As the only Egyptologist at the faculty (it was not until 1930 that his former pupil, Jaroslav Černý, started to read some lectures alongside him as a private senior lecturer), Lexa addressed a broad range of themes during his lectures. For several years in the mid-1930s, he was the only professor of Egyptology in Europe who taught Demotic studies. After the outbreak of World War II, when the Czech universities were closed by the Nazi regime, Lexa retired, to be reactivated immediately after the war’s end. Jaroslav Černý joined him again for a while until he left for England in 1946. Their pupil, Zbyněk Žába (who graduated in Egyptology in 1949), followed Lexa as Professor of Egyptology at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University since 1959. The number of students was strictly limited during the Communist regime – only five of them (Miroslav Verner and Jaromír Málek among them) graduated between 1960 and 1990. Following Zbyněk Žába’s death in 1971, moreover, the study of Egyptology itself was almost cancelled at the faculty due to the tightening political situation. Since 1989, Egyptology is regularly taught at the Faculty of Arts, and the number of students has increased rapidly. At the same time, the lectures are read by a much greater number of specialists, including visiting professors from abroad.
The settlement of Great Britain by Germanic-speaking people from continental northwest Europe in the Early Medieval period (early 5
th
to mid 11
th
centuries CE) has long been recognised as an ...important event, but uncertainty remains about the number of settlers and the nature of their relationship with the preexisting inhabitants of the island. In the study reported here, we sought to shed light on these issues by using 3D shape analysis techniques to compare the cranial bases of Anglo-Saxon skeletons to those of skeletons from Great Britain that pre-date the Early Medieval period and skeletons from Denmark that date to the Iron Age. Analyses that focused on Early Anglo-Saxon skeletons indicated that between two-thirds and three-quarters of Anglo-Saxon individuals were of continental northwest Europe ancestry, while between a quarter and one-third were of local ancestry. In contrast, analyses that focused on Middle Anglo-Saxon skeletons suggested that 50–70% were of local ancestry, while 30–50% were of continental northwest Europe ancestry. Our study suggests, therefore, that ancestry in Early Medieval Britain was similar to what it is today—mixed and mutable.
The ancient Egyptians considered the heart to be the most important organ. The belief that the heart remained in the body is widespread in the archeological and paleopathological literature. The ...purpose of this study was to perform an overview of the preserved intrathoracic structures and thoracic and abdominal cavity filling, and to determine the prevalence and computed tomography (CT) characteristics of the myocardium in the preserved hearts of ancient Egyptian mummies. Whole‐body CT examinations of 45 ancient Egyptian mummies (23 mummies from the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin, Germany, and 22 mummies from the Museo Egizio, Turin, Italy) were systematically assessed for preserved intrathoracic soft tissues including various anatomical components of the heart (pericardium, interventricular septum, four chambers, myocardium, valves). Additionally, evidence of evisceration and cavity filling was documented. In cases with identifiable myocardium, quantitative (measurements of thickness and density) and qualitative (description of the structure) assessment of the myocardial tissue was carried out. Heart structure was identified in 28 mummies (62%). In 33 mummies, CT findings demonstrated evisceration, with subsequent cavity filling in all but one case. Preserved myocardium was identified in nine mummies (five male, four female) as a mostly homogeneous, shrunken structure. The posterior wall of the myocardium had a mean maximum thickness of 3.6 mm (range 1.4–6.6 mm) and a mean minimum thickness of 1.0 mm (range 0.5–1.7 mm). The mean Hounsfield units (HU) of the myocardium at the posterior wall was 61 (range, 185–305). There was a strong correlation between the HU of the posterior wall of the myocardium and the mean HU of the muscles at the dorsal humerus (R = 0.77; p = 0.02). In two cases, there were postmortem changes in the myocardium, most probably due to insect infestation. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the myocardium systematically on CT scans of ancient Egyptian mummies. Strong correlations between the densities of the myocardium and skeletal muscle indicated similar postmortem changes of the respective musculature during the mummification process within individual mummies. The distinct postmortem shrinking of the myocardium and the collapse of the left ventriclular cavity in several cases did not allow for paleopathological diagnoses such as myocardial scarring.
La cadena operativa de los talleres funerarios del Egipto romano en lo que a producción de ajuares osirianos se refiere ha resultado un tema esquivo para los investigadores debido a la parquedad ...general de las fuentes textuales al respecto. No obstante, el estudio minucioso de los propios materiales que fueron manufacturados en dichos lugares (que han sobrevivido) aportan nuevos datos que nos permiten acceder al día a día de los artesanos/artistas dedicados a elaborar ataúdes o sudarios para los difuntos. En el presente trabajo se analizan los sudarios pintados que surgieron de dichos talleres, reconstruyendo el trabajo de estos en cuanto a la preparación de las telas como paso previo a su decoración. Se logra conocer mejor la fase inicial de la cadena operativa y se abren nuevas perspectivas de estudio al respecto de la historia económica y técnica del Egipto romano.
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