This is a study of Prehistoric musical instruments from Scandinavia and the different meanings they could have had in the Prehistoric society. I have described the different types of possible music instruments and the different categories that they belong to. I have also written about their different functions that could have been for example ritual artefacts, shamanic tools or useful instruments in hunting. Two case studies are also presented in the essay, the Falköpingsflute and the Balkåkradrum.

Denna studie undersöker gudinnan Hathors funktion i forna Egypten med utgångspunkt från metallurgiverksamheten som Hathor var beskyddare över. Studien undersöker vad för behov som uppstår i metallurgikontexten och hur denna kan ha påverkat och speglats i förställningar kring gudinnan Hathors funktion i forna Egypten. Studien stödjer sig på William Padens teori om religiösa Världar för att därigenom belysa hur behov i en specifik kontext kan spelgas i den Religiösa Världen. Undersökningen baseras på tolkningar av en rad olika forskningsrapporter. Dels etnografiska dokumentationer om metallurgikontexter ifrån Afrika söder om Sahara, arkeologiska utgrävningar från gruvområdet i Timna i Sinai och forskares interpretationer kring gudinnan Hathors funktion i forna Egypten. Ifrån metallurgiverksamheten studerades dels hur den äldre teknologin fungerade och hur den inverkade på religiösa föreställningar och den auktoritära strukturen i Afrika. Därtill vad för sorts belägg som finns för metallurgiverksamhet i Timna i Sinai och hur gudinnan Hathors kults närvaro i gruvområdet kom till uttryck. Dessutom studeras forskares interpretationer som rör gudinnan Hathors kults funktion, auktoritära struktur och kultens förhållande till konungen i forna Egypten. Dessa uppgifter analyserades därefter och studien visar starka indikationer på att gudinnan Hathor skapades och användes i syfte att gagna en begränsad grupps intresse i forna Egypten. Att gudinnan Hathors funktion och de offentliga festivalerna var till för att upprätthålla en auktoritär struktur och vidmakthålla smidessläktets och prästerskapets makt.

Ghost-money burning is an important ritual custom in Taiwanese folk religion. But with the growth in population and residential density, such burning becomes more and more threatening to air quality and public health. To make compromise between folk customs and air quality, the government urged the public to change the custom. To understand how successful the government¡¦s strategies are, this study used 4 social marketing variables and people¡¦s concern for ritual custom to predict people¡¦s attitude toward ghost-money burning. A convenience sample of college students, workers in local court, and people from the general public were invited to answer the questionnaire in this study. A total of 255 participated and gave valid answers. Results found that: 1. The more people believed that ghost-money burning was required by ritual customs, the more positive their attitude would be. That is, they would regard the burning as less harmful, and would be less willing to reduce it. 2. Social marketing strategies that changed cost and convenience had negative effect on attitude. That is, when people believed burning less ghost money was good for them, they would regard the burning as harmful and be more willing to reduce it. The same happened when people believed it was convenient to take alternatives for burning ghost money. 3. The effect of ritual customs on attitude toward ghost-money burning was greater than the effect of social marketing variables. In light of these findings, when urging the policy of Ghost-Money Burning reduction by means of social marketing, the government should both focus on changed cost reduction and convenience enhancement, which will be more effective on changing people¡¦s attitude toward Ghost-Money Burning.

Project Runway premiered on Bravo TV on December 1st, 2004, and is now in its sixth season, which aired on Lifetime. On Project Runway, designer contestants live together in apartments in downtown New York for the duration of filming and work on weekly challenges at Parsons The New School for Design. I am interested in determining the ways in which reality shows like Project Runway both allow and restrict the display of gender and sexual identity for contestants through the construction of a social order. This study is a textual analysis of all five currently released seasons of Project Runway. I draw from theories of social interaction to provide the interpretive framework for this study. In order to conduct the textual analysis, I purchased all five currently released seasons of Project Runway and watched them all in order one time through, making notes as I watched them. I then went back through individual episodes to hone in on key themes and framing devices. As I watched, I looked for commonalities across episodes and seasons that demonstrate elements of a manufactured social order, including rules, codes and norms that were formed both through official ceremony by the producers as well as those that emerged and were passed down unofficially through the contestants living and working together. I also looked for the various ways that performances of sexuality were allowed or constrained within this social world. I then divided the data from the analysis into two distinct chapters: the first one (Chapter III) deals entirely with the way in which social order was created and presented on Project Runway, and the second (Chapter IV) explores the way that roles and gender identities are regulated and displayed within that social order. Despite the seventy-four contestants of various gender and sexual orientation, designers on Project Runway are portrayed performing their identities within a limited range of roles. Gay male designers, while given some degree of authority within the realm of women's clothing, are represented through a series of hyper-ritualizations that tend to perpetuate stereotypes rather then challenge them. Straight male designers have few options for enacting their sexual identity on the show, and these often also play to stereotypes of masculinity. Female designers are generally not allowed to perform sexuality as part of their identities and are restricted to playing the part of the hysterical, bitchy or motherly female. Furthermore, these gender and sexual identities serve to allow and restrict certain characters in their place at Bryant Park. Patriarchal gay men and sensitive straight men are given a shot at the prize, while women are only allowed to win if they do not perform their womanhood. Left in the margins, the performance of mothers, non-patriarchal gays and non-parental straight men always end with an "auf Weidersehen."

Abstract The research compares the efficiency of particle removal from exhaust of ritual money burning by an electrostatic precipitator (ESP) and a bag-house filter (BH), both have a capacity of around 30-35 Am3/min. A stainless steel chamber of 0.6 m in diameter and 1.0 m in height was used for the ritual money burning. Combustion gas from the chamber was cooled to 300-400oC by mixing with a certain proportion of ambient air and further cooled to around 100-130oC by a fin tube gas cooler before entering either to the ESP or the BH. Results indicate that TSP in the influent gas could be reduced from 6-392 (average 83) to 1-143 (average 22) mg/Nm3 by the ESP with gas velocities of 5-10 cm/s at 100-120 oC through the spacing between collecting plates. TSP emission factors of 0.0295-9.94 (average ¡Ó standard deviation = 1.81¡Ó2.25) and 0.031-3.36 (average ¡Ó standard deviation = 0.27¡Ó0.26) g/(kg combusted ritual money), respectively, were obtained before and after the ESP filtration. Although the ESP had an initial TSP removal of 80-99%, the performance dropped in a few operation hours because of a fouling of the plate surfaces by the collected fume dusts. Cleaning of the plate surfaces helped in the recovery of the performance, however, it dropped after a few cycles of collection and cleaning. Results from BH tests indicate that TSP in the influent gas to it could be reduced from 9-182 (average 72) to 0-12 (average 2.0) mg/Nm3 with the gas flow through the filter cloth with a velocity of 3.3 cm/s at 120-130 oC which resulted in an initial pressure drop of around 100 mmAq. It was observed that some fine dusts would escape from the cloth fiber spaces when the backwash pulse was operated. It is recommended that the backwash cycle should be minimized and trigged after the gas pressure drop over the cloth reaches up to 300 mmAq. TSP emission factors of 0.0176-1.64 (average ¡Ó standard deviation = 0.52¡Ó0.33) and 0-0.491 (average ¡Ó standard deviation = 0.02¡Ó0.05) g/(kg combusted ritual money), respectively, were obtained before and after the BH filtration. BH filtration is recommended for the TSP control in the ritual money buring. XRD(X-Ray Diffraction) examination of a bottom ash sample indicates that the ash has an elemental composition of O, Na, Al, and Si of 49.9, 11.8, 23.8, and 15.1%, respectively. SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope) analysis indicates that the collected fly ash and the bottom ash have particle sizes of 20-110 (mostly 45-60 nm) and 50-300 (average 250) nm, respectively.

This thesis focuses on the impact of the notion of holiness of nature in ancient Greek thought and its reflection on urbanism and architecture with respect to the transformations that took place during the archaic period. The archaic period represented most fundamentally a shift from an era where everything was on the move to an era of territorialism which culminated in the establishment of the polis and the Greek temple. This shift was prominent in the sense that it pointed not only to a basic modification in the lifestyle of Greeks / but also to the formation of Greek identity as opposed to that of foreigners. In this respect, the thesis first concentrates on the foundation of the polis, followed by the emergence of the temple and lastly the orders of the columns. Doing so, it is aimed to analyze the transformation concerning the understanding of nature which was engendered by the Greek territorialist expansion and its effect on Greek urbanism and architecture.

This dissertation explores some of the ways in which precarity takes form in a reeling present. Many social and political analysts have described the contemporary socio-economic and political situation in the Northeastern states of India, marked by a situation of civil war for more than half-a-century, as an “impasse.” With particular focus on Manipur, one of the eight Northeastern states, this dissertation looks at some of the ways in which people live through this “impasse.” Through a series of extraordinary and ordinary scenes, brief encounters, public testimonies, biographical sketches and autobiographical accounts it speaks of the precariousness of life, relationships, rituals and cultural categories even as people suffer and respond to the ongoing “crisis” of law and order, a defining feature of the “impasse.” Inspired by the affective turn in Critical Theory, this dissertation does not see precarity as necessarily traumatizing, thereby keeping the trope of trauma at a critical distance while attending to the lives of people in a situation of low-intensity armed conflict of long duration. It does not claim to provide any final explanation of what is happening in Manipur today rather it offers an innovative way to revisit anew some of the old anthropological questions about people and places undergoing dramatic changes. / text

A growing number of Jewish women are participating in adult bat mitzvah ceremonies in many synagogues across the United States. Little is known about the reasons why women choose to participate in a bat mitzvah ritual as an adult. It is also unclear if women of different ages have different reasons for participating in bat mitzvah.Older women were often not given the opportunity to participate in the bat mitzvah ritual as a young adult, and it is unknown why older women choose to accept the challenge of bat mitzvah. It may be suspected that Jewish women are interested in adult bat mitzvah for a variety of reasons; it could be related to childhood experiences, identity concerns, learning opportunities, or any other number of reasons. Erikson's theory of human development was chosen to explore possible reasons why middle-aged and older women chose to participate in bat mitzvah as an adult because Jewish tradition views the bat mitzvah as a human development issue, and Er ikson recognized the importance of ritual and religion in people's lives.An exploratory case study design used to gather a) interviews with middle-aged and older women who participated in bat mitzvah, b) interviews with their teachers, and c) information from the women's writings about their bat mitzvah experience. This research explored whether these women were using the bat mitzvah ritual to address life stage crises as delineated by Erikson's theory of human development. Analyses of data sources indicated that the majority of women were dealing with issues during their bat mitzvah experience that were consistent with the Erikson stage they were in, as well as revisiting earlier life stages, which is suggested by the concept of epigenesis as part of normal human development. Emergent themes also explored were the use of bat mitzvah as an aging ritual and conversion. Suggestions for further research include expansion of the interview protocol to include questions related to more Erikson stages, and the examination of the role of additional Jewish rituals in human development.

This dissertation examines two major kingship rituals-- the coronation and the autumnal navaratri--as discussed in Hindu religious literature and ritual texts, and as practised in Nepal. These rituals are based on sacred myths and primarily oriented to the production of religious and socio-political dimensions of sovereign power. The Vedic, tantric, and other devotional acts as found in these rituals empower the king and construct his personal and corporate identity. The rituals are consequently strongly political, as various divine, human and other agencies invest the king with multiple powers and authorize him to rule; these agencies also negotiate their own relations, domains of influence, and hierarchies. These rituals produce a sacred and divine king and kingship, as well as sacred space, by establishing the king's connection (bandhu) and identification with many sources of power. As myth and ritual are used in the service of power and authority, they jointly promote each other to create, perpetuate, and strengthen these attributes. Since the uses of myth and ritual are strategic and ideological, they can be used to legitimize the status of the king and enforce the use of power on others. As illustrated in the recent history of Nepal, the myth and ritual can also be sites for dialogue, negotiation, resistance, subversion, and replacement of the same power. Religion and politics are deeply intertwined in these ritual activities; in fact, only in the deeply religious and devotional settings can the rituals exert maximum socio-political powers.

Humans have always been fascinated by wild carnivores. This has led to a unique interaction with these beasts, one in which these key figures played an important role as main icons in state imperialism and domination. At the Classic period site of Teotihuacan, Mexico (A.D. 1-550) this was no exception as large carnivores (mainly eagles, felids, canids and rattlesnake) were sacrificed and deposited as associated offerings in large-scale dedicatory rituals. This study investigates the zooarchaeological remains of nearly two-hundred animals found in offertory chambers at the Moon Pyramid and the Sun Pyramid to question: 1) What were the dynamic ritual processes that took place during the dedication ritual? 2) What changes do we see in the types of human-animal interactions with wild carnivores? 3) How did the participation of animals in ritualized activities lead to the concretion of a stratified sociopolitical landscape? And, 4) what were some of the meanings and functions behind the dedicatory acts? This project applies a multi-methodological approach integrating zooarchaeological, isotopic, and iconographic analyses interpreted in light of existing ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and religious studies literature. The dataset resulting from this dissertation provides the most comprehensive evidence of the central role animals played in rituals linked to monumentalism and state domination. Ferocious carnivores not only participated as victims of sacrifice and ritual paraphernalia, but were also kept in confinement in anticipation to the ritual slaughter. A shift in human-animal interactions, now characterized by dominance and control of the most powerful beast on the landscape, was central to creating a new perception of the animal hierarchy. The fauna deposited at these offering caches were social agents that helped negotiate and maintain social hierarchies, even ascribe meaning into the monuments themselves, through their participation in ritualized performances. / Anthropology