A possible alchemist apparatus from the early islamic period excavated at Ramla, Israel

Abstract: During extensive salvage excavations carried out during the years 2004-2008 in a large Early Islamic industrial area at the vicinities of Ramla, in Central Israel, an unparalleled industrial device was unearthed. The star-shaped, soil embedded installation, whose lower part was preserved, consisted of a central pottery jar surrounded by five minor jars, linked by ceramic pipes. Evidence of heat was observed mainly around the central vessel, and metal hollow cones perforated in the tip were found inside the surrounding jars. Although the manufacturing procedures and operation techniques of the installation are not completely clear, it is proposed that the installation is part of an industrial workshop or an alchemy laboratory. Both industry and alchemy were well-developed during the Early Islamic period and very often closely related, to the point that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between them. The identification proposed is based on comparisons with tools described in literary sources, and somewhat later drawings and etchings. Circumstantial ceramic evidence was found, as well as the proximity of a bathhouse whose guests could have been the consumers of perfumes and unguents seem to reinforce this possibility. Due to the poor state of preservation of the device and the lack of available comparisons, the identification proposed here is tentative, and future research coupled with eventual new discoveries is needed in order to clarify this matter.

Teodora e Porcina: faces simbólicas da natureza em narrativas de mulheres sábias

This research looks at the collective imagination in which it keeps alive the issue of heroin wise. Two wise women appear in the narratives of popular history and the History of Donzela Theodora and History Imperatriz Porcina, collated by Luís da Câmara Cascudo in his Five Books of the People. The universality, mobility and circularity of these narratives are discussed by authors such as Bakhtin and Guinzburg. The research is developed from three key categories: Knowledge Magic as the knowledge of tradition (Almeida), sensitive knowledge (Levi-Strauss), thought mythical / magical / symbolic (Morin); Wise Women as carriers of this knowledge, which merge and overlap with the imagery of witches and healers; and Mythical Elements which corresponds to the archetypal images (Jung and Silveira), symbols and other images that relate to the magic universe, the magical beliefs and practices considered, ie belonging to the imaginary magic (Bethencourt). Porcina and Theodora are understood as bearers of knowledge of Métis (Detienne and Vernant), or the cunning intelligence, the manipulation of phármakon (Derrida), the healing potion, which may be the word or ointment of the herb. The route takes us to meet the great archetype of the Wise Woman as psychic power of the feminine, the anima. Narratives are medicinal balms (Estes) and is the clash between the anima and its embodiments by wise women, and animus, his opponents, which gives the transmutation of the psyche, a work comparable to that of alchemyThe Knowledge Magic, operating through the female, myth and nature can recover from its essential value to the emerging paradigm that suggests a more complete human science and a more plural

Opobalsami orientalis : in Theriaces Confectionem Romae reuocati examen doctiorumq[ue] calculis approbati sinceritas /

Mode of access: Internet.

Memoria científica sobre la naturaleza, usos y virtudes extraordinarias del balsamo samaritano ó aceite comun, del de Malats, Izquierdo y otros semejantes /

Mode of access: Internet.

Cura mágica

Em se tratando do estudo comparativo entre o Almanaque Brasileiro Garnier, produzido por uma das últimas filiais francesas no Rio de Janeiro, e o Almanach Hachette, editado pela Librarie Hachette em Paris, propomos a aferição das cidades excelentes, Paris e Rio de Janeiro, por meio da análise de duas propagandas ou almanaquias concernentes a tratamentos terapêuticos, Nutrigène e Pilules Pink, para cura - em um microcosmo popular inscrito no mítico-poético - dos males da modernidade. Ora, a construção, de tais sítios oníricos enraizados no popular, permite que façamos a inferência segundo a qual os antigos tratamentos naturais, como as garrafadas, os chás e as ervas, agora recebam uma roupagem moderna, em que os antigos pacotes ou sacos, são, doravante, encapsulados e enfrascados, como as Pilules Pink e o Nutrigène, uma espécie de ‘’modernização’’ dos princípios terapêuticos e místicos advindos dos bálsamos populares de outrora.