In his report on the archaic tablets from Jamdat Nasr (=Jemdet Nasr), S. Langdon has given an account of the tablet seal impressions that ‘a large number of tablets are impressed with roll seals, and as in the case of the Elamitic tablets, these impressions are rarely like those of the actual seals found at Jemdet Nasr and Susa.’
Three decades after, the excavations controlled by Roger J. Matthews took place in 1988 and 1989, and yielded plenty of artefacts including one cylinder seal of baked clay, 17 sealings and a stamp seal. We have not had any cylinder seal with impressions similar to those of the tablets found by Langdon and of the sealings picked up by Matthews.
Why cannot be picked up the cylinder seals with tablet seal impressions from Jamdat Nasr. That is a long-pending problem. This problem awaiting solution is especially important for Matthews who looks through the roles of cylinder seals, and so he examines many impressions of the tablets from Jamdat Nasr. The close examination of the tablet seal impressions that Matthews firstly did, has failed to reveal any traces of wood grain, and subsequently the idea that he has thought out, is that ‘the tablet seal impressions were impressed at some unknown external site whence the tablets … were exported to Jemdet Nasr.’
We cannot accept his idea. We suppose that these tablets are impressed in Jamdat Nasr with the wooden cylinder seals, of which designs have some characteristics of wood carving. We can make a conjecture of it, when we compare each stroke of the tablet seal impressions with those of the wooden cylinder seals from the royal tomb of the first half of the Egyptian First Dynasty at Abydos.
It may be said at least with certainty that the cylinder seals of wood were used to make impressions on the tablets from Jamdat Nasr. And it will be so with the impressions of the Ur sealings from SIS 4-8 of the Early Dynastic I period.

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Although most scholars now believe that the royal tombs of the Egyptian first dynasty were located in Abydos rather than in Saqqara, the discussion of the location has been based mainly on the comparison of tomb size rather than tomb artifacts. In this paper, the location will be reconsidered based on the use of Palestinian pottery found within the tomb artifacts.
This time a corpus has been collated of Palestinian pottery of the Egyptian first dynasty, including the unpublished data of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Petrie Museum in London. From an analysis of this corpus, some interesting features are observed.
The observations of the pottery ware distribution in Egypt indicate that there is a clear difference in the usage of imported ware dependent on type. The LFP (Light Faced Painted) ware seems to have been much more highly prized and it has been suggested, was used to contain the famous scented oil of Palestine which was placed near the body of king. The RP (Red Polished) ware however, was important more as a container of foreign goods such as wine, oil, etc. though still restricted to a small number of people. Accordingly, it is concluded that the Abydos tombs with the many LFP ware artifacts were of royal use, while Saqqara would be for high officials and is consistant with the conclusion from the studies of tomb size.

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This article is an attempt to solve some problems embraced in the inscription š·r·y*v·u·š on the “Bochumer Bronzedolch” published in Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran, Bd. 22. The present writer interpreted š·r·y as Aramaic šare ‘opening, providing’, from which the whole epigraph may be interpreted as ‘(sword [*snaθya] providing good luck’ or ‘(may this sword) provide good luck!’ But another problem remains, it seems, to be solved as to (1) whether šare was read as the spelling shows, like b^e-raz-rnaniya (Xerxes' Inscription Persepolis h), or (2) it was turned to its perhaps Old Persian equivalent *višaya-. Of the two entries, the latter seems preferable, because, on the one hand, šare is polysyllabic unlike b (b^e, bi, …), and on the other, m^eparaš, lit. ‘discriminatively’ (cf. the Elephantine Papyri ed. by Cowley, No. 17, 1. 3), signifies in Ezra 4: 18 ‘by turning Aramaic original to its Old Persian equivalent’.

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Das Gilgameš-Epos, das wichtigste literarische Werk Mesopotamiens, hat eine lange Überlieferungs-und Entwicklungsgeschichte. Im hethitischen Anatolien war zumindest eine der akkadischen Fassungen des Epos spätestens in mittelhethitischer Zeit in hethitischen Abschriften bekannt. Spätestens in der Großreichszeit wurde das akkadische Epos ins Hethitische übertragen. Es handelt sich bei diesen hethitischen Kompositionen kaum um wörtliche Übersetzungen von den akkadischen Vorlagen, vielmehr um wesentlich kürzer gefaßte eigene Kompositionen, die mehr oder weniger einheimischen und fremden (u. a. hurritischen) Beeinflussungen unterliegen. Die Hurriter haben sowohl in ihrer Eigenschaft als Vermittler der mesopotamischen Kultur als auch mit ihrer eigenen Schöpferkraft eine große, vielfältige Rolle gespielt. Die hurritischen (n) Fassung (en) des Gilgameš-Epos und sonstige mit Gilgameš in Beziehung stehende Texte setzen ihrerseits mesopotamische Beeinflussungen verschiedener Art sowie eigene Schöpfungen (etwa die Werke des Kumarbi-Kreises) voraus. Bei der Erforschung der Überlieferungsgeschichte eines literarischen Werkes ist die Erkenntnis maßgeblich, daß ein Werk sich auf mehreren Wegen verbreiten und dabei verschiedenerweise modifiziert werden kann. Auch die Überlieferungen des Werkes Atra (m)-hasis sind in diesem Sinne zu betrachten. Es wurde einerseits von den Hethitern in akkadischer Sprache übernommen und ins Hethitische übertragen. Andererseits ist mindestens ein Fragment bekannt, das hurritischer geprägt ist, jedoch in hethitischer Sprache vorliegt.

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Mithras Temple design possessed its own unique features with an oblong tripartite structure consisting of a central nave and wide benches on both sides. In some temples, two rows of pillars extended alongside the nave separating it spatially from the adjoining bench sections. In such cases, this temple layout could be called a basilica.
The plan to utilize wide benches in a Mithras temple must have originated from the “triclinium, ” a very popular structure among the Nabataeans who lived in Transjordan in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. On the other hand, the adoption of a basilical style of architecture by the Mithraists took place in the latter part of the second century A. D. which predates the appearance of the basilical synagogue layout. Further, this design concept may have influenced the adoption of this building style by the Christians in the age of Constantine the Great.

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A variety of goddesses appear in the Zoroastrian pantheon. Among them, three goddesses are especially significant -Armaiti, Aši, and Anahita.
Armaiti is a member of the Ameša Spentas and is ranked among the highest order of goddesses. Aši is closely connected with the concept of Aša, the core of the thought of Zoroaster himself. In Yašt it is recorded that Aši was the love of Zoroaster. Anahita, apparently influenced by the cult of Mesopotamian Mother Goddess, became the most popular object of Iranian faith.
The three goddesses have separate origins and are theologicaly distinct. Nonetheless, under the influence of Indo-Iranian folk beliefs, all these goddesses have been viewed as the Earth Mother and as the complements to deities of the sky. Ahura Mazda and Armaiti were regarded as the parents of Gaya Maretan, or the primeval man. Mi∂ra and Anahita formed a pair. Aši was closely associated with Sraoša. These models parallel the dual divinities-Dyavaprthivi-of Rg Veda.

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This stele has been regarded as the iconography of the “Miracles of Sravasti” depicted in the Divyavaddna chapter (12). This point has already been made by A. Foucher at the biginning of this century. However since other sculptures with inscriptions connected to Mahayana Buddhism were discovered, other articles have been published.
Indeed, many Bodhisattvas and miraculous deeds of Buddhas are described on this stele and it also has many connections with Mahayana Buddhism. By comparing the figures on this stele with the ones described in the Amitayur-dhyana-sutra I discovered that all the figures on the stere mutch those of the sutra.
From this fact, it can be assumed that the stele is a description of this sutra and it should threfore be named “The Scenes from the Amitayur-dhyana-sutra”. Moreover there is a resemblance between the ornaments of persons' heads found on the coins of Kushano Sasan and Kidara Kushan and those of the stele and it can therefore be said to date back from about the end of the 3rd century to the 5th century A. D.

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Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn 'Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Babawayh al-Qummi (d. 381/991), known as al-Shaykh al-Saduq, is one of the foremost doctors and traditionists among the Twelver Shi'is in the 10th century. He composed a book named the Kamal al-din wa-tamarn al-ni'mah for the vindication of the ghaybah (occultation) of the twelfth Imam. In this book, he claimed that the prophets before Muhammad had set precedents for the ghaybah and they had already undergone the same kind of situation as the twelfth Imam. By showing what had happened to each prophet in terms of the ghaybah through hadiths, he expanded the concept of ghaybah from what was limited to the twelfth Imam to what was applicable to all Hujaj Allah (pl. of Hujjat Allah, God's proof, i. e. prophets and Imams). This is a unique and new vindicative procedure for the ghaybah. In this paper, the author analyses this new ghaybah supporting theory by dividing al-Shaykh al-Saduq's argument into three steps: (1) presentation of some hadiths which imply the possibility of the prophets' entering ghaybah conditions; (2) some illustrations of the prophets' ghaybah; (3) justification of the twelfth Imam's ghaybah by the authoritative precedents of the prophets.

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the inconsistency between the story of Sindbad the Sailor and the illustration of the Old Man of the Sea. This miniature, which is supposed to depict the Old Man of the Sea and Sindbad the Sallor, does not belong to the manuscript on the so-called “The Arabian Nights (Alf Layla wa-Layla)”, but is an astrological work by Abü Mâ'shar al-Balkhî kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford (Ms. Or. 133). This manuscript Kitâb al-Bulhân, which was copied in 1399, consists of 176 folios with 83 miniatures, and the illustrations were painted during the reign of the last ruler of the Jalâyrid dynasty, Ahamad ibn Uways (ruled 1382-1410). These miniatures could be classified into six parts according to their contents, and the illustration in question belongs to the legendary part. However, it has no text but only the inscription “shaykh al-bahr (the old man of the sea) wa…”. Therefore, T. W. Aronld and the author of the monograph Il Kitâb al-Bulhân di Oxford, Stefano Carboni insisted that the story of Sindbad the Sailor lies in the background of this illustration.
It is indeed that several miniatures in the part originated in the legend of Sindbad the Sailor or Sindbad cycle, however, the figure of the old man is definitely inconsistent with the story. The lower half of his body was depicted fish-tailed. To conclude the story, he would need his own strong legs. The same type of the illustration can be recognized in MS. suppl. turc 242 (fol. 79v.) kept in Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
From the aspect of literary history, it is clear that the fabulous monster the Old Man of thd Sea originated as a Persian (or Indian) monster Duwâl-Pâ. Lane, one of the translators of “The Arabian Nights”, argued that this fabulous monster was inspired from an orangoutan, or as the curious island people mentioned in Kitâb 'Ajâ'ib al-Makhlûqât by Qazwînî, thus, the name the Old Man of the Sea itself was not so important.
From the view point of art history, the figures of these monsters were completely different from that of the Old Man of the Sea on Or. 133.
Tracing the term to its origin, as M. Gerhardt mentioned, it seemed to be derived from the Greek, halios gerôn. Consequently, the study of the history of the illustrations of halios gerôn made it clear that the miniature painter who depicted the folio referred to the traditional figure of the Old Man of the Sea which had been spread all over the Mediterranean world since ancient time.

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The Nasi family of Marranos (crypt-Jews) expanded its commercial activities not only in the Ottoman Empire but also in the Mediterranean world and Eastern and Western Europe during and after the Christian persecution. The Nasi family was led by Donna Gracia and her nephew and son-in-law, Don Joseph Nasi: the former claimed to have returned to Judaism during her refuge in Ferrara, but the latter returned to Judaism after his immigration to the Ottoman Empire.
Joseph took advantage of various ways to develop his economic, political and communal activities. For example, the Nasi family set up its close relationship with the Ottoman court through the Jewish court physicians, especially Moshe Hamon, when they immigrated to Istanbul in the first half of the 1550s. Their economic success owed to commercial and intelligence networks, and to many other factors and agents, that they had inherited from the Mendes family.
The Ottoman archives and Rabbinical Responsa show evidence of Joseph's aggressive attitude and of his commercial and intelligence networks at three points.
The first was the Ancona Boycott, when Joseph attempted to take advantage of his Jewish faith and use Sephardic Rabbis as his propagandists. His ends were to spread his leadership over many independent Jewish communities, to improve the heretic status of Marranos, and to monopolize Mediterranean trades.
The second point was the rebuilding of Tiberias. Gracia rebuilt the old Palestinian city mainly for her own pious motives, but Joseph seized on her plan as a good opportunity to extensively develop his economic activities. At the same time, this plan involved Jewish court physicians as Joseph's messengers to the Ottoman court.
The last point was Joseph's friendship with Selim II, the eleventh Ottoman Sultan. The Sultan awarded him the “Dukalik: similar to the authorities of Sancakbeyi” of Naxos and Cyclades which gave him a uinque political status as well as commercial privileges in domestic and foreign trade.
The conclusion must be drawn that Joseph Nasi was not a Jewish hero who had the character of a proto-Zionist, but a realistic businessman who gave precedence to his profits over his Jewish faith.

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