This study estimates stone weathering rates using in situ surface hardness testing. Surface hardness changes are precursors to erosion and may be utilized to describe stone weathering behaviour. The ...method proposed here complements previous approaches to determining stone weathering rates by surface loss/change. A time series covering 1–248 years of exposure is investigated using a sample of 12 headstones in two nearby cemeteries. Using an Equotip D surface hardness tester, rates of change in surface hardness for top and bottom sections of the headstones were determined and the data evaluated using robust, nonparametric statistical methods. When considering all headstones as one time series, nonlinear behaviour is observed with rates of decline in surface hardness slowing over time. However, breakpoint analysis shows a breakpoint at c. 100 years, with higher rates of surface hardness decline (as measured by
QC
50
—the regression coefficient for 0.50 quantile regression) up to that point and lower rates thereafter. Up to c. 100 years, surface hardness declines more rapidly in the top versus bottom sections. Possible explanations for the differing rates in surface hardness changes are: (a) inherent natural stone variability and/or different weathering-stress history; (b) the use of two different Portland limestone varieties; (c) synergistic effects of microclimates and lichen cover. In order to gain a deeper insight into stone weathering behaviour, future studies could combine surface hardness measurements with surface change methods such as micro-erosion meter and lead plug index over short- and long-term time series on architectural heritage under real-world conditions.
Cemeteries are places of remembrance and meditation, but also spaces for artistic expression. The shape of funerary monuments can be defined by the deceased themselves before their death or by their ...relatives after their death, and reflect their life and values. In the aftermath of the First World War, this choice was not made available to the fallen soldiers of the British Empire and their families. The authorities prohibited the repatriation of the bodies and imposed the location and form of their burial through the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC), which was specially created in 1917 to develop and maintain the military cemeteries of the Empire. This decision created a great deal of tension within a section of British society, which was hostile to what it considered to be a deprivation of part of its rights. This article will examine the main criticisms addressed by the families to the British authorities. They concern the very organisation of the IWGC, the impossibility of recovering the bodies of the deceased, and the prohibition on giving the graves the desired artistic form, particularly the expression of religious sentiment.
Commonwealth war cemeteries commemorate the fallen of both world wars. Every casualty is remembered with a memorial or on a headstone. However, the headstones need to be maintained extensively, as ...microorganisms easily colonise them, affecting legibility and the stone substrate in the longer term. In the past, pesticides and other chemicals were popular to clean headstones, but due to raised environmental concerns, new treatment strategies are necessary. Within conservation science, enzymes have emerged as a popular tool for restoration. However, studies related to the use of enzymes for stone conservation are limited. Within this preliminary study, we applied commercially available enzyme-based treatments on biofouled natural building stones in the laboratory and in situ. Photography and spectrophotometry were used to monitor the effect of the treatment. The application of enzymes resulted in rapid disintegration of biological pigments, whereas visual improvement occurred more gradually. The successful application of enzymes suggests their potential to replace pesticides as the principal cleaning agent for headstones and natural building stones in a more general fashion.
Thirty years ago, Kojiro Miyahara wrote a seminal article on charismatic authority, critiquing major contributions by Max Weber, Edward Shils, and others while arguing for conceptual clarity. ...Rejecting psychological explanations of charismatic leadership, he argued for a return to Weber's initial sociological insights that charismatic authority is essentially produced by a charismatic community. For Miyahara, "The actual personality of a leader has little to do with charisma." Here, Brockopp argues the dynamic relationship that has an effect on the past as well as on the present; legitimation of present leaders depends on veneration of historical figures, raising them up to even higher planes of existence and increasing their charismatic power.
The contemporary cinematic zombie-image, a horde of ordinary corpses risen from the dead to devour the living, first appeared in George A. Romero's 1968 movie Night of the Living Dead. By reenacting ...the history of its theoretical appropriations, first through the broadly psychological terms of critic Robin Wood, who sees it as a “return of the repressed,” and then through the Deleuzian reaction of Steven Shaviro, who recognizes a contagious social function at work in the image, this essay uncovers a distinct mobilization of allegorical significance in the zombie-image, one that can be triangulated in terms of Walter Benjamin's discussion of allegory in The Origin of German Trauerspiel, and Slavoj Žižek's notion of a cinematic “stain” that interferes with meaningful operations. What this triangulation points to is a strictly apocalyptic disruption of humanist traditions at stake in the image.
