The following dissertation considers the main aspects of trade during each phase of Minoan development from its beginnings in Early Minoan times (3500 BC) until the end of Minoan period in 1430 BC. The work concentrates largely on the commodities exchanged, the development of transportation and perceived trade routes as well as the role of the palaces once they were established. The theories on the Minoan Thalassocracy and colonisation are also discussed. The evidence used is mainly archaeological, which is able to trace the movement of non-perishable materials such as pottery and metals. Reference is also made to contemporary Near Eastern texts and art, as well as the Minoan Linear A and Mycenaean Linear B documents. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / M.A. (Ancient History)

This dissertation considered trade and trade finance in Mesopotamia over a period of 2000 years commencing with Sumeria and ending with Achaemenid Persia, taking in Ur III and Assyria. A range of financial instruments was selected together with important business transactions, for instance, agricultural finance, specifically the brewing industry and the working capital requirements of merchants and money lenders. The role of women in private enterprise was examined, including their role in retail finance. The great estates of temple and palace had a substantial impact on finance and trade throughout the periods. Their interaction with merchants and money lenders was important to the study. I used reductionism to facilitate analysis of complex products highlighting the essentials of finance namely, borrowing, lending and return. The study concludes that, during the era under consideration, the evolution and enhancement of the financial instruments and products developed in self-generated, incremental and progressive steps. / Biblical & Ancient Studies / M.A. (Ancient Near East Studies)

This thesis takes as its area of exploration the papal chapel choir and its repertory, alongside the papacy and its patronage of the arts at the end of the fifteenth century. It draws on previous research concerning the singers, polyphonic manuscripts and artistic culture of the Vatican, but places Pope Alexander VI as the central figure of the thesis, showing schemes of patronage that shaped his reign. The research presents a transcription and analysis of the hymn cycle contained within the manuscript Cappella Sistina 15, alongside an assessment of the polyphonic music collection and places these against accounts of music making and evidence of music copying at the papal chapel during Alexander’s reign. The thesis also considers the environment of secular music making at Alexander’s court. In order to provide a context in which to understand this information, the life of Alexander VI is examined, tracing his artistic patronage and involvement with music both prior to his election and afterwards. Of particular note is the engagement of the artist Pintoricchio to decorate the papal apartments. Here, the artist’s representation of music as part of the seven liberal arts is analysed, providing a unique, contemporary and important insight into music practices in Alexander’s court. Three classifications of patronage are identified for Alexander’s reign, while also showing that these were strategies that he had used before he became pope. The music culture at the papal chapel is shown to be part of this strategy, through the consolidation of old music and the introduction of new music into the repertory, ending a task that had taken approximately 60 years. It shows that Alexander’s reign was an important period musically, that instituted new musical traditions and created an environment that prepared the way for the golden ages of patronage of Julius II and Leo X.

Tanto o Pavilhão Brasileiro da Exposição de Saint Louis, ocorrido em 1904, de autoria do engenheiro Francisco Marcelino de Souza Aguiar, como o da Feira de Nova York, de 1939, dos arquitetos Lucio Costa e Oscar Niemeyer, carregavam a missão arquitetônica de representar a identidade do país. Manifestaram-se distintos em suas arquiteturas pela formação de seus autores e pelo lugar e época em que foram construídos. Esses edifícios revelam dimensões da vida nacional em ressonância com as relações políticas, comerciais e culturais tecidas para a sua realização. O conjunto de circunstâncias sobre as quais essas arquiteturas se fundamentam contraria suas aparentes oposições e lhes confere sentidos complementares. Uma construção diplomática que transpôs percalços políticos, conciliando-os para um projeto de modernização e superação do país frente aos passados recentes de cada um dos períodos. Esse trabalho diplomático estreitou relações da jovem República do Brasil com os EUA, paradigma de nação nova que reunia as condições materiais e tecnológicas para a construção dos dois pavilhões. Tomar esses dois casos como exemplares permite compreender os aspectos de diálogo entre tradições europeias e suas emulações americanas. Caminhos complementares da arquitetura e da diplomacia revelam as vontades correntes de modernização e da busca do estabelecimento de maioridade do país, assim como a intenção de sua inclusão como agente no \"Jogo de Nações\" que se abriu no século 20. / Both the Brazilian Pavilion at the 1904 Saint Louis Word\'s Fair, authored by engineer Francisco Marcelino de Souza Aguiar, and the one at the New York Fair in 1939, by the architects Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer, laded the architectural mission of representing the country\'s identity. They were distinct in their architectures due to the training of their authors and the place and time they were built. These buildings show the dimensions of national life to be in resonance with the political, commercial and cultural relations woven for their implementation. The set of circumstances these architectures are based on contradicts the apparent oppositions and gives them complementary directions. A diplomatic construction that has transposed political mishaps by conciliating them around a project to modernize the country as to the recent pasts of each of the periods. This diplomatic performance straitened the relations of the young Republic of Brazil with the United States, paradigm of a new nation that matched both the material conditions and the technology for the construction of the two pavilions. Taking these two cases as exemplary allows us to understand the aspects of the dialogue between the European traditions and their American emulations. The complementary paths of both architecture and diplomacy reveal the wish for modernisation and the search for the establishment of the country\'s majority, as well as the intention of its inclusion as a player in the \"Game of Nations\" which opened up in the 20 century

This dissertation considered trade and trade finance in Mesopotamia over a period of 2000 years commencing with Sumeria and ending with Achaemenid Persia, taking in Ur III and Assyria. A range of financial instruments was selected together with important business transactions, for instance, agricultural finance, specifically the brewing industry and the working capital requirements of merchants and money lenders. The role of women in private enterprise was examined, including their role in retail finance. The great estates of temple and palace had a substantial impact on finance and trade throughout the periods. Their interaction with merchants and money lenders was important to the study. I used reductionism to facilitate analysis of complex products highlighting the essentials of finance namely, borrowing, lending and return. The study concludes that, during the era under consideration, the evolution and enhancement of the financial instruments and products developed in self-generated, incremental and progressive steps. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / M.A. (Ancient Near East Studies)

本研究將從法律及管理觀點，分析博物館文物典藏品影像檔案的法律性質，介紹大英博物館及法國羅浮宮的藏品影像授權商品業務的經營經驗，並以國立故宮博物院為例，說明博物館數位文物圖檔授權對於文化創意產業所發展發揮之效益，也透過廠商訪談獲得對於其現行授權業務營運之意見。本研究最後也對於現行典藏機構之藏品影像管理及授權業務提出幾點建議：針對不當使用行為主張法律上權利予以制止、創設特別權利保護資料庫、權利管理電子資訊及防盜拷措施保護條款之準用、積極開發潛在智慧財產，以獲得法律保護、公正、公開、公平地經營藏品影像授權業務、鬆綁或彈性適用法令程序，設計多元且適合的商業模式、平等、互惠、雙贏的合作條件、創造衍生著作、創造附加價值、確認藏品影像品質並因應不同用途進行標準化、及透過網路、集中管理典藏產出之影像檔案等建議。 / Technology of Digitalization has improved the enforcement of National Digital Archives Program. The outcomes of NDAP bridged the conserving authorities and the industries and inspired their commercial interactions. Domestic conserving authorities, which are usually museums or galleries, should promote and manage the outcomes in a positive way for the industries to make use of. This paper explains the legal protection, especially intellectual property laws, of the image of the painting, calligraphy, antique or other historical artwork. The experiences of operating commercial business of the British Museum and the Louvre Museum are introduced. Then, this paper takes National Palace Museum as an example, to investigate its commercial business related to the licensing of artworks images, and to gather the opinions from its cooperating enterprises. In the end, the paper submits several suggestions on legal and managing point of view about the operation of art images to the conserving authorities.

Ancient Maya inscription carvers at the city of Palenque in what is now Chiapas, Mexico worked in teams to complete large and complex stone tablets. Like artists everywhere, they each had developed idiosyncratic habits which the modern connoisseur can learn to discern, in order to identify which parts of a particular monument were sculpted by one or another artist. The author scrutinized several eighth-century CE inscriptions, panels in stucco and limestone, analyzing how many artists worked on each, to wit: the Temple XVIII Stuccos, the Temple XIX Platform, the Temple XIX Stuccos, the Temple XIX Panel, the Panel of the 96 Glyphs, the Lápida de la Creación and associated fragments, the Palace Tablet and its associated fragmentary panels, and the Tablet of the Slaves. The ensemble whose main components are the Panel of the 96 Glyphs and the Lápida de la Creación are all by one hand, and the Tablet of the Slaves was the work of four carvers, but the Temple XIX Platform surprisingly employed fourteen carvers, and the Palace Tablet over a score. Their territories were not divided textually, and display idiosyncratic spellings of glyph compounds as well as carving habits. The conclusion discusses possible reasons for these findings, relating them to the unusual Maya practice of never correcting mistakes in monumental inscriptions. A likely reason seems to be that the ancient Maya considered these texts not merely as a permanent record, but as ongoing, living repetitions of the ritual in question, and had to be completed in a very short time. / text

In this dissertation I argue that invisible characters, as they appear in Paul Auster’s novels, serve a very specific function within the interpretative framework of a text and that they should be considered to play a functional role, in order to arrive at a more holistic interpretation of the text and a more accurate analysis of said texts. I argue that Auster knowingly includes these characters in his novels as part of his narrative technique, in order for them to serve specific functions and to contribute to the structure of postmodern fiction. I make use of a contextualized close reading of five of Auster’s novels and attempt a hermeneutic interpretation of these novels to arrive at a hermeneutic circle when combining these novels into an integrated whole, individual, work of fiction. Certain parallels can be drawn between Auster’s various novels and these parallels contribute to the various motifs and themes found throughout his work. The importance of space in Auster’s novels is also highlighted with emphasis on liminality which serves as an instigator for transgression to occur between different fictive worlds. / Thesis (MA (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

In this dissertation I argue that invisible characters, as they appear in Paul Auster’s novels, serve a very specific function within the interpretative framework of a text and that they should be considered to play a functional role, in order to arrive at a more holistic interpretation of the text and a more accurate analysis of said texts. I argue that Auster knowingly includes these characters in his novels as part of his narrative technique, in order for them to serve specific functions and to contribute to the structure of postmodern fiction. I make use of a contextualized close reading of five of Auster’s novels and attempt a hermeneutic interpretation of these novels to arrive at a hermeneutic circle when combining these novels into an integrated whole, individual, work of fiction. Certain parallels can be drawn between Auster’s various novels and these parallels contribute to the various motifs and themes found throughout his work. The importance of space in Auster’s novels is also highlighted with emphasis on liminality which serves as an instigator for transgression to occur between different fictive worlds. / Thesis (MA (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

The following dissertation considers the main aspects of trade during each phase of Minoan development from its beginnings in Early Minoan times (3500 BC) until the end of Minoan period in 1430 BC. The work concentrates largely on the commodities exchanged, the development of transportation and perceived trade routes as well as the role of the palaces once they were established. The theories on the Minoan Thalassocracy and colonisation are also discussed. The evidence used is mainly archaeological, which is able to trace the movement of non-perishable materials such as pottery and metals. Reference is also made to contemporary Near Eastern texts and art, as well as the Minoan Linear A and Mycenaean Linear B documents. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / M.A. (Ancient History)