Biomolecular analyses enable new insights into ancient Egyptian embalming.

The ability of the ancient Egyptians to preserve the human body through embalming has not only fascinated people since antiquity, but also has always raised the question of how this outstanding chemical and ritual process was practically achieved. Here we integrate archaeological, philological and organic residue analyses, shedding new light on the practice and economy of embalming in ancient Egypt. We analysed the organic contents of 31 ceramic vessels recovered from a 26th Dynasty embalming workshop at Saqqara1,2. These vessels were labelled according to their content and/or use, enabling us to correlate organic substances with their Egyptian names and specific embalming practices. We identified specific mixtures of fragrant or antiseptic oils, tars and resins that were used to embalm the head and treat the wrappings using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analyses. Our study of the Saqqara workshop extends interpretations from a micro-level analysis highlighting the socio-economic status of a tomb owner3-7 to macro-level interpretations of the society. The identification of non-local organic substances enables the reconstruction of trade networks that provided ancient Egyptian embalmers with the substances required for mummification. This extensive demand for foreign products promoted trade both within the Mediterranean8-10 (for example, Pistacia and conifer by-products) and with tropical forest regions (for example, dammar and elemi). Additionally, we show that at Saqqara, antiu and sefet-well known from ancient texts and usually translated as 'myrrh' or 'incense'11-13 and 'a sacred oil'13,14-refer to a coniferous oils-or-tars-based mixture and an unguent with plant additives, respectively.

The origins of money: Calculation of similarity indexes demonstrates the earliest development of commodity money in prehistoric Central Europe.

The origins of money and the formulation of coherent weight and measurement systems are amongst the most significant prehistoric developments of the human intellect. We present a method for detecting perceptible standardization of weights and apply this to 5028 Early Bronze Age rings, ribs, and axe blades from Central Europe. We calculate the degree of uniformity on the basis of psychophysics, and quantify this using similarity indexes. The analysis shows that 70.3% of all rings could not be perceptibly distinguished from a ring weighing 195.5 grams, indicating their suitability as commodity money. Perceptive weight equivalence is demonstrated between rings, and a selection of ribs and axe blades. Co-occurrence of these objects evidences their interchangeability. We further suggest that producing copies of rings led to recognition of weight similarities and the independent emergence of a system of weighing in Central Europe at the end of the Early Bronze Age.

The status of imported Barremian-Bedoulian flint in north-eastern Iberia during the Middle Neolithic. Insights from the variscite mines of Gavà (Barcelona).

Barremian-Bedoulian flint from the Vaucluse region (western Provence, SE France), is traditionally considered one of the most significant chrono-cultural markers of the Chasséen culture during the Middle Neolithic (end of the 5th and beginning of the 4th millennium BC). Diffusion of Provençal flints became massive during the first half of the 4th millennium BC, penetrating in several neighbouring cultural spheres such as the Sepulcros de Fosa culture in north-eastern Iberia. The integrated study of the lithic assemblages from the variscite mines of Gavà (Barcelona) and its contextualization within the Sepulcros de Fosa culture in north-eastern Iberia have revealed unexpected complexity in the modes of consumption, use and status of imported Barremian-Bedoulian industries in north-eastern Iberia during the 5th to 4th millennia cal. BC transition. Local communities within this region, already controlling extraction and regional diffusion of variscite ornaments, exerted control over the fluxes of Vauclusian flint south of the Pyrenees, where it had a triple status (functional, symbolic and both). In addition, the results provide complementary data to better understand relevant aspects of the nature and organisation of Barremian-Bedoulian flint exploitation and early supply systems at the Provençal producing sites during the later phase of the Chasséen culture.

Tooth oxygen isotopes reveal Late Bronze Age origin of Mediterranean fish aquaculture and trade.

Past fish provenance, exploitation and trade patterns were studied by analyzing phosphate oxygen isotope compositions (δ18OPO4) of gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) tooth enameloid from archaeological sites across the southern Levant, spanning the entire Holocene. We report the earliest evidence for extensive fish exploitation from the hypersaline Bardawil lagoon on Egypt's northern Sinai coast, as indicated by distinctively high δ18OPO4 values, which became abundant in the southern Levant, both along the coast and further inland, at least from the Late Bronze Age (3,550-3,200 BP). A period of global, postglacial sea-level stabilization triggered the formation of the Bardawil lagoon, which was intensively exploited and supported a widespread fish trade. This represents the earliest roots of marine proto-aquaculture in Late Holocene coastal domains of the Mediterranean. We demonstrate the potential of large-scale δ18OPO4 analysis of fish teeth to reveal cultural phenomena in antiquity, providing unprecedented insights into past trade patterns.

Amber in prehistoric Iberia: New data and a review.

Provenancing exotic raw materials and reconstructing the nature and routes of exchange is a major concern of prehistoric archaeology. Amber has long been recognised as a key commodity of prehistoric exchange networks in Europe. However, most science-based studies so far have been localised and based on few samples, hence making it difficult to observe broad geographic and chronological trends. This paper concentrates on the nature, distribution and circulation of amber in prehistoric Iberia. We present new standardised FTIR analyses of 22 archaeological and geological samples from a large number of contexts across Iberia, as well as a wide scale review of all the legacy data available. On the basis of a considerable body of data, we can confirm the use of local amber resources in the Northern area of the Iberian Peninsula from the Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age; we push back the arrival of Sicilian amber to at least the 4th Millennium BC, and we trace the appearance of Baltic amber since the last quarter of the 2nd Millennium BC, progressively replacing Sicilian simetite. Integrating these data with other bodies of archaeological information, we suggest that the arrival of Baltic amber was part of broader Mediterranean exchange networks, and not necessarily the result of direct trade with the North. From a methodological perspective, thanks to the analyses carried out on both the vitreous core and the weathered surfaces of objects made of Sicilian simetite, we define the characteristic FTIR bands that allow the identification of Sicilian amber even in highly deteriorated archaeological samples.

Was Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus introduced into China via the ancient Silk Road? An evolutionary perspective.

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) has become widely dispersed worldwide since it was first reported in 1994, but the seroprevalence of KSHV varies geographically. KSHV is relatively ubiquitous in Mediterranean areas and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. The origin of KSHV has long been puzzling. In the present study, we collected and analysed 154 KSHV ORF-K1 sequences obtained from samples originating from Xinjiang, Italy, Greece, Iran and southern Siberia using Bayesian evolutionary analysis in BEAST to test the hypothesis that KSHV was introduced into Xinjiang via the ancient Silk Road. According to the phylogenetic analysis, 72 sequences were subtype A and 82 subtype C, with C2 (n = 56) being the predominant subtype. The times to the most recent common ancestors (tMRCAs) of KSHV were 29,872 years (95% highest probability density [HPD], 26,851-32,760 years) for all analysed sequences and 2037 years (95% HPD, 1843-2229 years) for Xinjiang sequences in particular. The tMRCA of Xinjiang KSHV was exactly matched with the time period of the ancient Silk Road approximately two thousand years ago. This route began in Chang'an, the capital of the Han dynasty of China, and crossed Central Asia, ending in the Roman Empire. The evolution rate of KSHV was slow, with 3.44 × 10-6 substitutions per site per year (95% HPD, 2.26 × 10-6 to 4.71 × 10-6), although 11 codons were discovered to be under positive selection pressure. The geographic distances from Italy to Iran and Xinjiang are more than 4000 and 7000 kilometres, respectively, but no explicit relationship between genetic distance and geographic distance was detected.

Rhubarb (Rheum species): the role of Edinburgh in its cultivation and development.

Rhubarb was grown and used throughout China for thousands of years. It then found its way to St Petersburg where the Romanovs developed a flourishing trade in the plant to the rest of Europe. James Mounsey, a physician to the Tsar, brought back seeds from Russia to Scotland at considerable risk to himself. He passed some of the seeds to Alexander Dick and John Hope. Both these physicians then grew rhubarb at Prestonfield and the Botanic Garden (both in Edinburgh), respectively. Eventually rhubarb, in the form of Gregory's powder, became a common and popular medicine throughout the UK.

[Formation and evolution of commodity specification and grade of traditional Chinese medicine].

As an important reference index to evaluate the quality of Chinese medicinal materials, the commodity specification and grade of traditional Chinese medicine has an effect on the medicinal material's price, can promote "high quality and high price" of the traditional Chinese medicine, prompt market transactions more convenient and standard, and has a great significance to the development of the whole traditional Chinese medicine industry. The formation of traditional Chinese medicine specifications and grades experienced a long historical development process. In order to provide the reference for modification of the product specifications and grades standards and management of traditional Chinese medicine products, the author consulted a large number of materia medica books and related references, sorted and analyzed the historical development process. The author divided the formation and development process into four stages, including germination stage before the Southern and Northern Dynasties, development stage of Tang and Song Dynasty, mature period of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the inheritance development stage since the foundation of the People's Republic. The author believes that the clinical curative effect is the driving force to promote the development of commodity specifications and grades. In addition, the national pharmaceutical policy, international status, the level of science and technology also influence the development of commodity specifications and grades in some extents. Finally, the author provides three piece of suggestions for the modification of the product specifications and grades standards, according to the historical development rule.

Alexandria, An emporium in the Silk Road, and the Traffic of Unusual Medicines.

In Ancient times, an active trade of exotic and peculiar drugs tool place along the Silk Road. Coming through China, India, Central Asia, Armenia, including Colchis, Arabia, Nubia as far as Greece and Rome, it was centered during Ptolemaic and Roman times in Alexandria, the world Emporium, remarkably advanced in scientific medicine. Physicians required a variety of active ingredients for their pharmacotherapy, following various related branches of medicine. These included: 1) herbal remedies: including toxic plants 2) polypharmacy: missing together all kind of drugs 3) dreckapotheke or copropharmacy, employing unclean materials 4) organic therapy, using exotic or domestic animal products 5) aromatherapy, lined to essential oils and perfumes 6) 'medical astrology and botany', regarding the laws of sympathy in the natural world 7) alchemy and magic medicine: with occult knowledge

"The Great Silk Road" and the First Description of Hypoxia.

The first written reports about the effect of high-altitude air on the human organism in Ancient China (the 30s BC) and in South America during the conquest (late XVI century) are discussed in this paper.

[Transition from Ancient Medicine Materials Traders to Pharmaceutical Manufacturers-- Cases of Gisaburo Shiono Junior and Chobei Takeda the Fifth].

The pharmaceutical industry, which developed through the Meiji and Taisho eras, is apparently one of the most important technological industries. However, only a few papers have been published regarding the entrepreneurships of the industry early on. It is crucial to research this subject in order to explore the process of how highly technical companies progressed in the early stage of modern industrialization in Japan. This paper focuses on two distinguished entrepreneurs, Gisaburo Shiono Jr. and Chobei Takeda the Fifth, who were both from the Dosho district of Osaka City. Gisaburo Shiono Jr. founded Shionogi & Co., Ltd. and Chobei Takeda the Fifth founded Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited; both of which are currently outstanding companies in the Japanese pharmaceutical market. The paper reveals that the two entrepreneurs started out by importing chemical materials from western Europe and North America, and then expanded their activities into manufacturing pharmaceutical materials in their own firms. Finally, they succeeded in developing their own new medicine products. Their lifetime histories, surveyed along with management activities, are described to clarify the process of each company's development through a few wartime experiences including World War I. Their achievements were quite similar, but the processes used were different. The case of Gisaburo Shiono Jr. shows his risk management skills, which filled his lack of technological leadership. The case of Chobei Takeda the Fifth shows his ability to gradually adapt the company to change throughout a long history of changing environment.

World trade in medicinal plants from Spanish America, 1717-1815.

This article outlines the history of the commerce in medicinal plants and plant-based remedies from the Spanish American territories in the eighteenth century. It maps the routes used to transport the plants from Spanish America to Europe and, along the arteries of European commerce, colonialism and proselytism, into societies across the Americas, Asia and Africa. Inquiring into the causes of the global 'spread' of American remedies, it argues that medicinal plants like ipecacuanha, guaiacum, sarsaparilla, jalap root and cinchona moved with relative ease into Parisian medicine chests, Moroccan court pharmacies and Manila dispensaries alike, because of their 'exotic' charisma, the force of centuries-old medical habits, and the increasingly measurable effectiveness of many of these plants by the late eighteenth century. Ultimately and primarily, however, it was because the disease environments of these widely separated places, their medical systems and materia medica had long become entangled by the eighteenth century.

[Inventories of the Earth. Mineral resource appraisals and the rise of resource economics]. / Inventuren der Erde. Vorratsschätzungen für mineralische Rohstoffe und die Etablierung der Ressourcenökonomie.

How do the earth sciences mediate between the natural and social world? This paper explores the question by focusing on the history of nonfuel mineral resource appraisal from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth century. It argues that earth sciences early on embraced social scientific knowledge, i.e. economic knowledge, in particular, when it came to determining or deposits and estimating the magnitude of mineral reserves. After 1900, assessing national and global mineral reserves and their "life span" or years of supply became ever more important, scaling up and complementing traditional appraisal practices on the level of individual mines or mining and trading companies. As a consequence, economic methods gained new weight for mineral resource estimation. Natural resource economics as an own field of research grew out of these efforts. By way of example, the mineral resource appraisal assigned to the U.S. Materials Policy Commission by President Harry S. Truman in 1951 is analyzed in more detail. Natural resource economics and environmental economics might be interpreted as a strategy to bring down the vast and holistically conceived object of geological and ecological research, the earth, to human scale, and assimilate it into social matters.

[Remedy for shortage or risk for national security? The search for oil in Switzerland]. / Lösung für das Knappheitsproblem oder nationales Risiko? Auf Erdölsuche in der Schweiz.

Over several decades, geologists, entrepreneurs, politicians, and public authorities dealt with a potential petroleum occurrence in Switzerland. They provided scientific expertise, granted concessions, invested capital and sank bore holes. Although the endeavour was never successful economically, it reveals how closely related geopolitical situations and the exploitation of natural resources were. This article investigates the search for crude oil in Switzerland from the 1930s until the 1960s, combining a history of science and technology perspective with a history of the political regulations and economic considerations concerning the extractive industry. It traces the changing fears and hopes about potential oil occurrences in Switzerland: From an investment to overcome future shortages, to the risk of imperial desires if oil would be found in abundance.

Classic Period collapse of the Central Maya Lowlands: insights about human-environment relationships for sustainability.

The ninth century collapse and abandonment of the Central Maya Lowlands in the Yucatán peninsular region were the result of complex human-environment interactions. Large-scale Maya landscape alterations and demands placed on resources and ecosystem services generated high-stress environmental conditions that were amplified by increasing climatic aridity. Coincident with this stress, the flow of commerce shifted from land transit across the peninsula to sea-borne transit around it. These changing socioeconomic and environmental conditions generated increasing societal conflicts, diminished control by the Maya elite, and led to decisions to move elsewhere in the peninsular region rather than incur the high costs of maintaining the human-environment systems in place. After abandonment, the environment of the Central Maya Lowlands largely recovered, although altered from its state before Maya occupation; the population never recovered. This history and the spatial and temporal variability in the pattern of collapse and abandonment throughout the Maya lowlands support the case for different conditions, opportunities, and constraints in the prevailing human-environment systems and the decisions to confront them. The Maya case lends insights for the use of paleo- and historical analogs to inform contemporary global environmental change and sustainability.

[Zhang-shu-zhen pharmacists' activities in the Qing dynasty].

Throughout the Qing dynasty, the commodity economy and domestic distribution in China developed dramatically. In this context, the market of Chinese medicines also expanded. At that time, the Zhang-shu-zhen pharmacists, in Jiangxi province, took the initiative in this market. This article explores their activities which were spread across China and it also examines the level of success or failure of their activities as well as the economical impact to the society of Zhang-shu-zhen. Due to its location between two important rivers that were used extensively for trade and their technical proficiency in pharmacy, Zhang-shu-zhen became an emporium of medicines. Nevertheless, many of the druggists were active in the southwest provinces of China. In order words, the activities of the druggists were coupled with the movement of immigration, from midland China to the southwest.

[White ginseng commercialization and sales expansion activities of Gaesung merchants in the 1910s and 1920s].

Ginseng has always been the typical export item in Korean history. Until the 18th century, exporting ginseng was wild ginseng from the mountains. Since the 19th century, exporting ginseng became red ginseng, which was red due to steaming and drying process. Red ginseng was produced by Gaesung merchants, so that these merchants were able to gain the control of the output. Gaesung merchants of the 19th century exported red ginseng to China and made huge economic success. However, when the Korean Empire and Japanese colonial government established red ginseng monopoly, it essentially blocked Gaesung traders from manufacturing and exporting any further of its prized commodity. Then, the traders turned to sun-dried white ginseng as a substitute to red ginseng. As a result, white ginseng production dramatically increased after 1914, which in turn made Gaesung merchants newly aware of the commercial value of white ginseng, which was previously ignored. The traders made good use of the traditional medicine herb market, which opened annually, to promote the expansion of white ginseng sales. Moreover, the merchants also adopted modern marketing techniques, as they founded companies to handle solely white ginseng sales, refreshed packaging to raise commodity values, and made an effort in advertising and mail order sales. Due to such endeavors, demand for white ginseng grew exponentially both in domestic and foreign markets, which generated steady growth of white ginseng prices despite the rapid increase of its supply. This phenomenon naturally brought about the rich economic accomplishments of Gaesung merchants. Through the white ginseng sales activities of Gaesung merchants in post-1910s era, two facts can be newly uncovered. First, the mass consumption of white ginseng today in Korean society took a full-scale step after the 1910s. Second, it was a widely-held view that during the Japanese rule, majority of Korean traditional merchants were economically ruined, while a small minority collaborated with the colonial government to obtain economic success. However, Gaesung merchants in 1910s successfully commercialized white ginseng not with the aid of the Japanese but with their own efforts alone. Such fact reveals that there were other types of traditional merchants during the Japanese colonial period who cannot be explained with the common theory.