History

The original site report detailing the discovery and first excavations at the Minoan settlement on Mochlos, Crete.

Moslem Women is built around six main chapters; half are devoted to the place and experiences of Moslem women, and half consider the Christian mission to these women. The Zwemers acknowledge some of the great women of Islamic history, such as Rabia, the famous early mystic, and Nurah Mahal, wife of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. They speak in glowing terms about advances in the women’s situation in post-Ottoman Turkey. Their work is dedicated to serving Muslims and to seeing them as people rather than as faceless numbers; it is an excellent model for today’s Christians who feel called to engagement with Islam.

Ignaz Goldziher was a pre-eminent scholar of Islam during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This book encapsulates his own lifetime of work and provides something of an historical commentary on his epoch in the Western academic study of Islam. One of its strengths is that Goldziher’s investigation of historical development probes into underlying religious motivations and allied theological issues. The book quickly became a classic of its day. It remains a classic that, in our day, is well worth re-visiting as it can still inform our understanding of contemporary Islam, whose roots lie in all that Goldziher covers.

Temple Gairdner’s The Rebuke of Islam, published in 1920, has long been recognized as one of the classics of Christian response to Islam in the early 20th century. Part of its significance is that Gairdner’s approach sums up the very best of earlier approaches (especially in the 19th century), but breaks significantly new ground and therefore points forward to approaches that have been developing between his time and the present day.

Based on lectures delivered in Chichester Cathedral, this book mirrors typical nineteenth century English attitudes toward the non-European space. This needed Christianity and European political oversight, or its people would remain backward and spiritually lost. The book shows how someone whose inclinations were liberal could look at Islam and dislike what he saw. On the other hand, the book also shows that a non-specialist scholar in the second half of the nineteenth century could write seriously if not impartially about Islam using material available in European languages. This suggests that Islam was a subject of increasing interest in Victorian England.

A convert to Christianity from the Qadiri Order, John A. Subhan is well-known for his seminal work, Sufism: Its Saints and Shrines. Sufism prepared him for faith in Jesus and his Injil. His Sufi background and intimate knowledge of its beliefs and practices enabled him to explain Sufism to others. All ten chapters in Sufism are interesting, including chapter eight, which contains a comparative discussion of Sufism in the broader Hindu context. It is a must read for all, not only because it is a window into the world of a great Sufi convert but also because his insight is still relevant today.

Hatch presents in this volume seventy-one Greek and Syriac miniatures which he describes and reproduces in beautiful images. These belong to the Byzantine period, most of which were painted in the Second Golden Age. Eight belong to the thirteenth century, but the rest are the works of artists who lived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. All are religious in character, some being scenes and others portraits. The present volume presents Hatch’s images from 1931 after applying computer digital enhancements to them. The result is lucid.

In this site report Armstrong presents the surviving evidence for both the Volscian remains and the subsequent Roman settlement including sections on the inscriptions, site topography and history, and plans.

William Dinsmoor, one of the experts who directed the first reconstruction of the Athenian Acropolis, here sets out the process by which he was able to piece the gables of the Propylaia together from surviving fragments.

In this paper Elderkin gives a detailed description of the remains of the Fountain of Glauce in Corinth and the engineering methods used in its construction.

Arthur Frothingham, one of the founding fathers of Art History, here discusses the problem of the Gorgon in ancient Greek art by arguing that Medusa represents a lost prehistoric goddess.

This piece includes the text, translation, and commentary for a long inscription found on the temple of Artemis and shorter honorific inscriptions on cylindrical stelai found in the ancient city, all dating from the 4th century BC.

Arthur Frothingham, one of the founding fathers of Art History, here discusses the problem of the Arch of Constantine, whose form and artwork is at odds with the artwork of the era of Constantine.

Esther van Deman, an important historian of architecture, shows the methodology by which building chronology was set for Roman concrete buildings,

William Dinsmoor, the famous historian of Greek architecture, presents the epigraphical evidence for this building process in this series of papers divided by individual building.

Wagener and Ashby here give a report on the Roman remains at the site of Velitrae including roads, temples, basilica, and the amphitheater.

Earnest DeWald traces the development of the iconography of the Ascension from its earliest type through to the Gothic form, showing the manner in which the Eastern influence modified the types current in western art.

In this ambitious article Eisen creates a chronology of eye beads (glass beads decorated with eye-like spots) from sites in Europe, the Near East, and North Africa.

Arthur Frothingham, one of the founding fathers of Art History, here discusses the origins of Hermes, and suggests that the prototype of Hermes was an Eastern deity of Babylonian extraction.

Ancient Locris stretched from Thermopylae to Larymna and was home to the Locrians. In this ariticle Oldfather presents a survey of the sites and topography of this important region of Greece.

In this paper John Bonnel argues that the representation of the serpent in Eden as having a human head originated in the mystery plays of the 13th century, where the serpent was played by an actor and had a head.

Frothingham presents an ambitious overview of the development of orientation, or the directionality of sacrifice, prayer, and ritual, played a key role in ancient ceremonies, in the practice of ancient religions.

Lester B. Holland, professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, addresses the puzzle of Doric entablature, suggesting that the persistence of the form of the entablature is due to its mimicry of earlier fortifications.

The Ludovisi throne is a famous works of early Classical sculpture, a white marble chair covered with bas relief. This article compares the Ludovisi throne to a similar piece in Boston, arguing that the two works are companion pieces.

This article provides transcription, text, and commentary on the Latin inscriptions known in Corinth in 1918 and provides a useful tool for understanding the civic life of Corinth under Roman control.