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One of the central mysteries of the craft of harpsichord-making involves the choice of stringing material. Years of research by a number of distinguished scientists under the guidance of senior authors, Jay Scott Odell, Chief Conservator, and Martha Goodway, Metallurgist, of the Smithsonian Institution have resulted in a pioneering study of the metallurgy of 17th-and 18th-century music wire. Drawing on the scientific resources and expertise of a number of leading institutions, these researchers have been able to analyze samples of antique stringing material, often of only microscopic size. Their conclusions add significantly to our understanding and appreciation of the tonal qualities of the historical harpsichord and will further the efforts of today's instrument makers to recreate them.
The Harpsichord and Clavichord, An Encyclopedia includes articles on this family of instruments, including famous players, composers, instruments builders, the construction of the instruments, and related terminology. It is the first complete reference on this important family of keyboard instruments. The contributors include major scholars of music and musical instrument history from around the world. It completes the three-volume Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments.
This series presents current research being conducted under the auspices of the Getty Conservation Institute.An overview of research from 1984 to 1994, including environmental controls in museums, the use of protective materials and analyses in the conservation of cultural objects and archaeological sites, and the use of new technologies for monitoring, documentation, and analysis.
Because pyrotechnology was considered a demeaning craft, there is very little about its practice in ancient texts; our knowledge of early developments is based almost entirely on interpretation of artifacts recovered by archaeology during the past century and a half. Literature in archaeology and anthropology, however, tends to concentrate on the artifact found rather than on how it was produced - on the pot or spearhead rather than the kiln or furnace. There is thus surprisingly little information on the practice and importance of pyrotechnology. The Mastery and Uses of Fire in Antiquity, written by an engineer with fifty years of experience in industrial research and pyrotechnology, rectifies this lack. J.E. Rehder covers the kinds of furnaces, the nature of the fuel used, and the productions created - fired clay, lime from limestone, metals from the reduction of ores, and glass from sand. He also shows convincingly that previous arguments that early deforestation resulted from furnace use cannot be supported. The Mastery and Uses of Fire in Antiquity provides much-needed information for anyone interested in archaeology, anthropology, and pyrotechnology.
Winner of the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Award for General Engineering from the Association of American Publishers Originally published in 1996. By applying their abundant natural resources to ironmaking early in the eighteenth century, Americans soon made themselves felt in world markets. After the Revolution, ironmakers supplied the materials necessary to the building of American industry, pushing the fuel efficiency and productivity of their furnaces far ahead of their European rivals. In American Iron, 1607-1900, Robert B. Gordon draws on recent archaeological findings as well as archival research to present an ambitious, comprehensive survey of iron technology in America from...
Examining the numerous primary sources, including inscriptions, religions, histories, literary references, legal codes, and archaeological reports, Linda Jones Hall presents a composite history of late antique Berytus - from its founding as a Roman colony in the time of Augustus, to its development into a center of legal study under Justinian. The book examines all aspects of life in the city, including geographical setting, economic base, built environment, political structures, religious transitions from paganism to Christianity, and the self-identity of the inhabitants in terms of ethnicity and occupation. This volume provides: * the first detailed investigation of late antique Phoenicia * a look at religious affiliations are traced among pagans, Jews, and Christians * a study of the bishops and the churches. The full texts of numerous narratives are presented to reveal the aspirations of the law students, the professors, and their fellow citizens such as the artisans. The study also explores the cultural implications of the city's Greek, Roman and then Syro-Phoenician heritage.
Serce Limani or -the Glass Wreck, - so called because its cargo included three metric tons of glass cullet, trafficked in both the Byzantine and Islamic worlds of its time. This first volume of the complete site report introduces the discovery, the methods of its excavation, the conservation of its artifacts, and the picture of daily shipboard life that can be drawn from this underwater museum.
The papers in this volume underscore the role that analytical techniques can play in the investigation of artifacts and debris by providing information about the technology of metallurgy in antiquity. They include contributions on copper production in Transjordan; bronze casting in classical Greece; a historical account of the Turm-Rosenhof silver mine in Germany; analytical studies of Etruscan bronze mirrors, lead and bronze artifacts from Carthage, prehistoric and early historic artifacts of the Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic, and a variety of artifacts from colonial Pennsylvania. MASCA Vol. 6