̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Jordan

Belief that honour killings are ‘justified’ still prevalent among Jordan’s next generation, study shows

tdk25 — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:01:36 +0000

A study into the attitude of teenagers in Jordan’s capital city of Amman reveals that almost half of boys and one in five girls believe that killing a daughter, sister or wife who has ‘dishonoured’ or shamed the family is justified. A third of all teenagers involved in the research advocated honour killing.

Importantly, the study found that these disturbing attitudes were not connected to religious beliefs. ̽��ֱ��research is published in the journal Aggressive Behavior.

Researchers surveyed over 850 students, and found that attitudes in support of honour killing are far more likely in adolescent boys with low education backgrounds.

After analysing the data, researchers concluded that religion and intensity of religious belief were not associated with support for honour killing. Instead, the main factors include patriarchal and traditional worldviews, emphasis placed on female ‘virtue’, and a more general belief that violence against others is morally justified.

̽��ֱ��researchers, from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Institute of Criminology, say the study is one of the first to attempt to gauge cultural attitudes to honour killings in the region. To assess these attitudes they developed the honour killing attitudes (HKA) scale - devised specifically for this study.

̽��ֱ��study suggests a large proportion of teenagers in Jordan believe that killing a woman deemed to have ‘dishonoured’ her family is “morally right”, and the findings reveal “risk factors” for attitudes in support of the vigilante murder of women as justifiable punishment in instances of perceived dishonour.

“While we found the main demographic in support of HKA to be boys in traditional families with low levels of education, we noted substantial minorities of girls, well-educated and even irreligious teenagers who consider honour killing morally right, suggesting a persisting society-wide support for the tradition,” said Professor Manuel Eisner, who conducted the study with his Cambridge graduate student Lana Ghuneim.

“Any meaningful attempt to reduce attitudes in support of such practices requires a broader societal commitment, including coherent messages against honour-related violence from political and religious elites, and decisive action by the criminal justice system.”

̽��ֱ��researchers sampled a total of 856 ninth graders - average age of 15 - from a range of secondary schools across Amman - including private and state, mixed-sex and single gender.

Participants completed a questionnaire based on researchers’ newly-developed sliding scale of attitudes towards honour killing, asking teenagers to place themselves on the scale in relation to different situations where it may be justified to kill a person. ̽��ֱ��participants were not allowed to confer while they filled out the surveys.

In total, 33.4% of all respondents either “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with situations depicting honour killings. Boys were more than twice as likely to support honour killings: 46.1% of boys and 22.1% of girls agreed with at least two honour killing situations in the questionnaire.

61% of teenagers from the lowest level of educational background showed supportive attitudes towards honour killing, as opposed to only 21.1% where at least one family member has a university degree.

41.5% of teenagers with a large number of siblings endorsed at least two honour-killing situations, while this was only the case for 26.7% of teens from smaller families.

Jordan, like some other countries in the Middle East and Asia, has an old tradition of honour killings and a poor record when it comes to criminalising such violence against women. Right up until 2001, an article of the Jordanian Penal Code stated that a man who “catches his wife, or one of his female close relatives committing adultery with another, and he kills wounds or injures one or both of them, is exempt from any penalty.”

̽��ֱ��government of Jordan has increasingly criminalized honour killings, and in 2009 a special court for prosecuting honour crimes was established. Researchers were therefore able to examine the extent to which a change in attitudes could also be found amongst young people more generally.

While stricter legislation has been introduced - despite conservative fears - cultural support for violence against women who are seen as breaking norms has remained widespread - even as Jordan is considered by many to be “modern by Middle Eastern standards”, say researchers.

̽��ֱ��authors hope that their research will help governments to take firm action against attitudes that condone honour killing, and patriarchal violence against women more broadly.

New research into attitudes of 15-year-olds in Middle Eastern nation shows that the practice of brutal vigilante justice, predominantly against young women, for perceived slights against family ‘honour’ still holds sway for significant proportions of the adolescent population.

Any meaningful attempt to reduce attitudes in support of such practices requires a broader societal commitment

Manuel Eisner

Craig Finlay.

Jordanian women in Amman.

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Yes

̽��ֱ��man who discovered a ‘lost’ wonder of the world

bjb42 — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 11:15:36 +0000

Among Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library’s 200 miles of shelving and eight million books are three soft leather folders and a scrap book volume sitting alongside countless other items in the manuscripts and archives of its Near Eastern collection.

Unremarkable to the casual observer, the contents of the folders include personal letters, sketches, bills of sale, letters of introduction and other papers.

Contained within, however, are first-hand documents relating to the travels leading up to the rediscovery of one of the lost wonders of the world – Petra, in Jordan – which took place exactly 200 years ago today.

̽��ֱ��archive was the property of one John Lewis Burckhardt. Born into a wealthy Swiss family in 1784, he became a scholar and explorer, shunning a life of professional responsibility to satisfy an insatiable urge to travel.

Until Burckhardt discovered Petra on August 22, 1812, it had remained hidden from western eyes for centuries; the last Europeans to visit the city being Crusaders many hundreds of years prior. In the interim, it had faded from memory and native inhabitants jealously kept the whole of Wadi Musa - where Petra is situated - guarded from intruders.

But discovering the ancient city was not without its dangers. Nor was it the intended purpose of Burckhardt’s trip. His goal, set by Sir Joseph Banks, President of the African Association, was a daring commission to traverse the African continent from Cairo and across the Sahara to the Niger with the aim of discovering the river’s source.

Among its archives, the ̽��ֱ�� Library has the original manuscript copy of the Minutes of the African Association which details all Burckhardt's exploits as they were reported back to the Committee until his untimely death. It also owns a first edition copies of Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, the published diary of his trip, as well as the rest of his published works. ̽��ֱ��original diary now resides in the London archives of the Royal Geographical Society, although the ̽��ֱ��’s archive is one of the largest and most significant Burckhardt collections anywhere in the world.

Burckhardt’s Petra entry for August 22, 1812, is 12 pages in length and paints a vivid and detailed account, describing exactly where he went, what he saw, the dimensions of the buildings, the carvings on them and their state of preservation. He also describes the lengths he took to avoid arousing suspicion which could have jeopardised the success of his mission. He was aware that as a foreign traveller, even though disguised in Arab dress, he might provoke distrust and be thought to be a treasure hunter. One of his biggest fears was being stripped of his journal, his most treasured possession.

He wrote: “I was particularly desirous of visiting Wadi Mousa, of the antiquities of which I had heard the country people speak in terms of great admiration. I therefore pretended to have made a vow to slaughter a goat in honour of Haroun whose tomb is situated in the extremity of the valley and by this stratagem I thought I should have the means of seeing the valley on my way to the tomb.

“I was without protection in the midst of a desert where no traveller has ever before been seen; and a close examination ... would have exited suspicions that I was a magician in search of treasures … and in all probability would have been stripped of my journal book.”

Though his descriptions lack the modern names for Petra’s antiquities, his journal clearly describes the now well-known rock-cut tombs, the ‘Treasury’ and the theatre. He seems to have penetrated the site as far as the Qasr al-Bint al-Faroun (Palace of the Pharaoh’s daughter) but at this point, and before he had completed his explorations, the local guides became suspicious of his motives and he thought it prudent to cut short his exploration, but not before making the intended sacrifice of the goat in sight of the tomb of Haroun and departing after the sun had set.

Catherine Ansorge, Head of the Near Eastern Department at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library said: “Leafing through Burckhardt's notes and letters - all that remains of the papers relating to his travels up to his visit to Petra – one is thrown back to an earlier time when exploration was more hazardous. Here is a man determined to carry out his mission, but also a man of vision with a deep interest in his subject matter. These letters are unresearched and unpublished since they came to the Library in 1817. Some have a list at the beginning hand written by George Renouard, Burckhardt’s friend and mentor, who was the Professor of Arabic at the time and who must have taught Burckhardt the Arabic necessary for his travels”.

Before Petra, however, Burckhardt visited London, where he met Sir Joseph Banks and agreed on the trip to Africa. In preparation for the visit he was sent to Cambridge in 1807-8 to learn Arabic and spend time learning a variety of useful practical skills. ̽��ֱ��archive at the Library contains his Arabic homework notes and writing practice.

He began his expedition in February 1809, having set sail to Malta and then travelled on to Aleppo where he stayed for nearly three years. From 1809 to 1812, he travelled in Syria, Palestine and Arabia and went by the name Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn ‘Abd Allah. He also dressed in in Arab style to disguise his European identity. Burckhardt carried out expeditions to Damascus, Palmyra and Ba’albek and kept more or less daily details of his activities in journals. He recounted many stories of his difficulties with the climate, terrain and local inhabitants but also his constant fascination with his everyday experiences.

Following on from his discovery of Petra, the Minutes of the African Association from 1815-17 record Burckhardt waiting in Cairo for a favourable caravan to travel across Africa. Suffering further delays, he grasped the opportunity to travel along the Nile visiting ancient Egyptian sites and then across the red Sea to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. In fact, he never carried out his original plan to cross the desert from the Nile to the Niger, tragically falling ill with food poisoning and dying in October 1817. He was buried in Cairo.

During his travels Burckhardt purchased Arabic manuscripts and he bequeathed his collection of more than 300 Arabic manuscripts to Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library in recognition of the days he enjoyed here as a student and of his friendship with Edward Daniel Clarke, himself a traveller and collector of antiquities.

On his deathbed in Cairo he dictated the details of his will to Henry Salt, the Egyptologist and personal friend, “Let my whole library…go to the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge … to the care of Dr Clarke…”.

During the time Burckhardt was in the Middle East, Clarke had been appointed to the post of the ̽��ֱ�� Librarian (1817-1822) and so was instrumental in the manuscripts collection reaching the library.

̽��ֱ��manuscripts, which arrived in 1819, contain many important historical texts, including the Library’s oldest Arabic manuscript written on paper (dating from 1037) and a copy of the complete ‘1001 Nights’ stories.

̽��ֱ��Library also possesses letters and papers relating to the early part of Burckhardt’s travels up until 1812. These are personal letters, extracts from manuscripts, letters of introduction which served the purpose of ‘passports’ giving him permission to travel though particular regions and tribal territories.

Added Ansorge: “ ̽��ֱ��200^th anniversary of this visit of discovery to Petra provides a convenient opportunity to commemorate Burckhardt’s extraordinary achievements as a scholar, traveller, collector, writer and perhaps the first European anthropologist of Middle Eastern societies. He was a brave man and fearless traveller undergoing many difficulties and privations on his often dangerous journeys.”

Among the numerous treasures at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library are the private documents of the explorer, John Lewis Burckhardt, who rediscovered Petra 200 years ago today.

I was without protection in the midst of a desert where no traveller has ever before been seen. A close examination would have excited suspicions that I was a magician in search of treasures.

John Lewis Burckhardt

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

A portrait of John Lewis Burckhardt from his ‘Travels in Syria and the Holy Land’.

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Yes

From foraging to farming: the 10,000-year revolution

lw355 — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:30:18 +0000

̽��ֱ��moment when the hunter-gatherers laid down their spears and began farming around 11,000 years ago is often interpreted as one of the most rapid and significant transitions in human history – the ‘Neolithic Revolution’.

By producing and storing food, Homo sapiens both mastered the natural world and took the first significant steps towards thousands of years of runaway technological development. ̽��ֱ��advent of specialist craftsmen, an increase in fertility and the construction of permanent architecture are just some of the profound changes that followed.

Of course, the transition to agriculture was far from rapid. ̽��ֱ��period around 14,500 years ago has been regarded as the point at which the first indications appear of cultural change associated with agriculture: the exploitation of wild grains and the construction of stone buildings. Farming is believed to have begun in what is known as the Fertile Crescent in the Levant region, which stretches from northern Egypt through Israel and Jordan to the shores of the Persian Gulf, and then occurred independently in other regions of the world at different times from 11,000 years ago.

Recent evidence, however, has suggested that the first stirrings of the revolution began even earlier, perhaps as far back as 19,000 years ago. Stimulating this reinterpretation of human prehistory are discoveries by the Epipalaeolithic Foragers in Azraq Project (EFAP), a group of archaeologists and bioarchaeologists working in the Jordanian desert comprising ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Dr Jay Stock, Dr Lisa Maher ( ̽��ֱ�� of California, Berkeley) and Dr Tobias Richter ( ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen).

Over the past four years, their research has uncovered dramatic evidence of changes in the behaviour of hunter-gatherers that casts new light on agriculture’s origins, as Dr Stock described: “Our work suggests that these hunter-gatherer communities were starting to congregate in large numbers in specific places, build architecture and show more-complex ritual and symbolic burial practices – signs of a greater attachment to a location and a changing pattern of social complexity that imply they were on the trajectory toward agriculture.”

Fertile Crescent

Working at the fringes of the Fertile Crescent, at sites in the Azraq Basin and the marshlands of Jordan, the EFAP team is excavating the archaeological remains of the hunter-gatherers who occupied the region. Such sites have been under studied, said Dr Stock: “Because these early hunter-gatherers have been perceived as building only transient camp sites, they have been largely disregarded in explanations of the development of agriculture. Instead, excavations have focused on the later ‘Natufian’ period, beginning around 14,500 years ago, since this period more clearly shows cultural precursors of the transition to agriculture.”

Today, the Azraq Basin is a 12,000 sq km area of dusty, wind-blown desert, and a very challenging place to work. Temperatures can soar to 45°C, requiring the researchers to start field work at 5 am and finish by midday when the heat and winds become too strong to allow work to continue.

But when the first humans were leaving Africa, the open grasslands and lush marshlands of the Fertile Crescent teemed with gazelle, antelope and plant life. Given this region is situated at the crossroads between Africa and the rest of the world, it is perhaps unsurprising that it should be the site of regional agricultural innovation.

Few previous archaeological excavations have been carried out in this inhospitable terrain, most instead focusing on regions closer to the Mediterranean. With funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the researchers set out four years ago to redress the balance.

Complex burials

Dr Stock’s expertise lies in the analysis of hunter-gatherer bones. Over the past 15 years, he has analysed over 1,400 skeletons from around the world to understand what it is about early humans that made them such successful colonisers of the natural environment.

One of the most startling of the researchers’ findings in Jordan has been the hunter-gatherer graves. Evidence suggests that, far from simple burials, the hunter-gatherers had elaborate mortuary and sociocultural practices. In one grave in ʻAyn Qasiyya, an adult male was placed in marshland in a sitting position, and was likely to have been tightly wrapped in cloth. A previous finding by another archaeologist at Kharaneh IV was a burial of an older man underneath a hut floor, his age suggesting that he would have required the care of others in life.

At another site, ‘Uyun-al-Hammam, a ̽��ֱ�� of Toronto-based project led by Dr Maher has excavated a total of 11 burials, some of which show elaborate mortuary treatments. Indeed, one grave that includes a human buried together with a fox, said Dr Maher: “suggests a close emotional or symbolic tie between humans and foxes prior to the first domesticated animal – the dog – and shows continuity in burial and social practices with the later Neolithic”. Dr Stock’s study of the human remains demonstrates that these people were ancestral to the later farmers.

̽��ֱ��researchers argue that these examples may represent an increasing cultural sophistication and a greater complexity in the relationship between humans and animals – trends that had only previously been identified in later time periods.

Mega camp site

A major focus of the work of the EFAP team over the past four years has been the excavation of the site of Kharaneh IV, in the Azraq Desert of eastern Jordan. ̽��ֱ��site is much more than the sort of temporary camp site normally ascribed to hunter-gatherer groups. Covering almost two hectares, the 19,000-year-old site was occupied for 1,200 years and is, as Dr Stock described, “so huge, it’s the earliest sign of human activity that is large enough to be visible on Google Earth.”

“To produce the debris of stone tools and bones, in some places almost 3 m deep, we believe that many groups of hunter-gatherers would meet and live together for several months of the year before splitting into mobile groups at other times.”

̽��ֱ��team is researching the area in astonishing detail – in a technique known as 100% flotation, every square centimetre excavated is floated to check for plant remains and charcoal. As Dr Richter pointed out: “even very small remains are providing very important clues towards our understanding of the relationship between prehistoric humans and their habitat”.

To date, they have found plant remains, animal bones carved with repeated incised motifs, stones carved with geometric patterns, stone tools in their thousands, hearths, pierced shells and, just recently, oval hut structures. As the work continues, all indications point towards an advanced cultural and technological complexity in the exploitation of bone, shell, plants and architecture. “ ̽��ֱ��size of the site, combined with evidence for huts and other symbolic goods, imply that Kharaneh IV was long-term and repeatedly occupied,” said Dr Stock. “It could be regarded as a precursor to later farming villages.”

̽��ֱ��revolution that wasn’t

̽��ֱ��team’s discoveries extend many aspects of the behavioural complexity associated with the Neolithic to about 10,000 years earlier, pushing back the true roots of the transition to agriculture.

“On evolutionary timescales, the transition to agriculture can undoubtedly be regarded in revolutionary terms,” said Dr Stock. “But, we can now see this as a culturally dynamic process that began much earlier than previously thought.”

“This picture would not have come together through the excavation of one site alone,” he added. “ ̽��ֱ��burial complexity of ʻUyun-al-Hammam and ʻAyn Qasiyya, together with the architecture and size of the settlement at Kharaneh IV, collectively offer glimpses of a protracted period in which humans worked through the cultural and biological changes that needed to happen before village life and the systematic exploitation of grain could emerge.”

Excavation of 19,000-year-old hunter-gatherer remains, including a vast camp site, is fuelling a reinterpretation of the greatest fundamental shift in human civilisation – the origins of agriculture.

Because these early hunter-gatherers have been perceived as building only transient camp sites, they have been largely disregarded in explanations of the development of agriculture.

Dr Jay Stock

EFAP/L.Maher

Kharaneh shells

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Yes

Was the fox prehistoric man’s best friend?

ns480 — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:53:55 +0000

Researchers analysing remains at a prehistoric burial ground in Jordan have uncovered a grave in which a fox was buried with a human, before part of it was then transferred to an adjacent grave.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge-led team believes that the unprecedented case points to some sort of emotional attachment between human and fox. Their paper, published today, suggests that the fox may have been kept as a pet and was being buried to accompany its master, or mistress, to the afterlife.

If so, it marks the first known burial of its kind and suggests that long before we began to hunt foxes using dogs, our ancestors were keeping them as pets - and doing so earlier than their canine relatives.

̽��ֱ��cemetery, at Uyun-al-Hammam, in northern Jordan, is about 16,500 years old, which makes the grave 4,000 years older than the earliest known human-dog burial and 7,000 years earlier than anything similar here involving a fox.

Writing in the open-access journal, PLoS One, the researchers also suggest that this early example of human-animal burial may be part of a bigger picture of growing cultural sophistication that has typically been associated with the farming societies of the Neolithic era, thousands of years later.

Sadly for fox-lovers, however, the relationship between man and that particular beast was probably short-lived. ̽��ֱ��paper also says it is unlikely that foxes were ever domesticated in full and that, despite their early head start, their recruitment as a friendly household pet fell by the wayside in later millennia as their human masters took to the more companionable dog instead.

" ̽��ֱ��burial site provides intriguing evidence of a relationship between humans and foxes which predates any comparable example of animal domestication," Dr Lisa Maher, from the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said.

"What we appear to have found is a case where a fox was killed and buried with its owner. Later, the grave was reopened for some reason and the human's body was moved. But because the link between the fox and human had been significant, the fox was moved as well, so that the person, or people, would still be accompanied by it in the afterlife."

̽��ֱ��research focused on the contents of two particular graves at Uyun-al-Hammam, which is situated on an ancient river terrace in the small river valley of Wadi Ziqlab. ̽��ֱ��site has been one of major interest for archaeologists since the first graves were opened in 2005 because it provides a rich source of information about the so-called early Epipalaeolithic period, 16,500 years ago.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge-led team spotted a connection between Grave I on the site and Grave VIII, which lies beside it but was only opened more recently. In the first, they identified the remains of two adults, probably a man and a woman.

̽��ֱ��man had been buried earlier than the woman, and alongside him were the skull and humerus of a fox, as well as other grave goods.

It was only when Grave VIII was opened, however, that the researchers found both human remains that may have belonged to the same man, and the skeletal remnants of what was, almost certainly, the same fox. ̽��ֱ��fox skeleton was complete apart from its skull and right humerus - which is exactly what they had already found in the adjacent grave. Further studies indicated that the remains were indeed those of a red fox.

̽��ֱ��movement of the body parts is believed to be highly significant. If the human body is the same in both cases, then none of the other grave goods except the fox were considered worth moving, strongly suggesting that the fox had some sort of special relationship to the human.

Other such cases are very rare. Many of the next earliest involve dogs, including one site in Israel where a woman was buried with her hand resting on a puppy, but even they are about 4,000 years younger than Uyun-al-Hammam.

" ̽��ֱ��very first evidence of dog domestication in the Near East involves a burial of a puppy with a human," Dr. Jay Stock, also from the Leverhulme Centre at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said. "It's easy to imagine that the similarly-sized fox was also viewed by prehistoric people as a potential companion in the same way. Clearly, it had significant social status."

Studies carried out on foxes suggest that they can be brought under human control, but that the process is not easy because they are skittish and timid by nature. Perhaps for that reason, the researchers suggest, dogs ultimately achieved "best friend" status among humans instead.

Early humans may have preferred the fox to the dog as an animal companion, new archaeological findings suggest.

̽��ֱ��burial site provides intriguing evidence of a relationship between humans and foxes which predates any comparable example of animal domestication.

Dr Lisa Maher

fox

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Yes