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Full-Text Articles in Jewish Studies

A Study Of Rachel Galinne’S Dybbuk For Solo Clarinet: A Classical Work With Klezmer Influences, Rachel S. Levison May 2025

A Study Of Rachel Galinne’S Dybbuk For Solo Clarinet: A Classical Work With Klezmer Influences, Rachel S. Levison

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Composer Rachel Galinne self-identifies first and foremost as an Israeli with Swedish roots. She was born and raised in Sweden to Holocaust survivors and always felt a deep connection to Jewish traditions and culture, leading her to immigrate to Israel. Her compositions are derived from her formal education in musicology and composition in contemporary music, as well as from her Jewish community. Her Jewish heritage is represented in her compositions through text, motivic ideas, and specific topics. Dybbuk for solo clarinet is an excellent example.

This solo follows the perspective of Leah, one of the main characters in Solomon Ansky’s …


A Survey Of And Performance Guide To Representative Flute Music By Two Twentieth-Century Serbian Composers: Ljubica Marić And Enriko Josif, Sanda Mašić May 2025

A Survey Of And Performance Guide To Representative Flute Music By Two Twentieth-Century Serbian Composers: Ljubica Marić And Enriko Josif, Sanda Mašić

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Flute pieces by twentieth-century Serbian composers Ljubica Marić and Enriko Josif are little-known gems of modern repertoire that are almost completely unknown outside Serbia. Unique in their styles, these works illustrate the composers’ close relationship to the Serbian culture in which they lived and the religions they practiced. In addition, these works reflect the time they were created in, and are, therefore, modern with a distinctive sound. This document presents a study of seven selected flute works by these two important Serbian composers, places them in historical context, and reveals influences from both Serbian religious music (Orthodox and Jewish) and …


Beyond Memory: The Transmission Of Trauma, Identity, And Resilience In Grandchildren Of Holocaust Survivors, Harper Gordman Mar 2025

Beyond Memory: The Transmission Of Trauma, Identity, And Resilience In Grandchildren Of Holocaust Survivors, Harper Gordman

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The present study aims to investigate how third-generation Holocaust survivors (3G) articulate and experience intergenerational trauma. By conducting narrative interviews with five third-generation survivors, six main themes emerged: (1) Early Awareness and Understanding, (2) Transmission of Trauma, (3) Family Communication Patterns, (4) Identity Formation and Jewish Connection, (5) Responsibility to Preserve Memory, and (6) Contemporary Relevance. The participants communicated experiencing anxiety and protective behavioral patterns likely linked to their family history, while also developing high levels of resilience. Many reported feeling a great personal responsibility to preserve their family’s stories and experience a deep connection to their Jewish identity. Although …


Identity-Driven Targeted Violence: Attending To Identity, Emotion, And Personality-Related Predictors Of Attitudinal And Behavioral Prejudice, Patrick Timothy Mcgonigal Apr 2024

Identity-Driven Targeted Violence: Attending To Identity, Emotion, And Personality-Related Predictors Of Attitudinal And Behavioral Prejudice, Patrick Timothy Mcgonigal

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Identity-driven targeted violence driven by gender identity, sexuality, race, and religion overwhelmingly impacts marginalized groups of individuals. Existing evidence suggests that acts of bias on college campuses are often unreported by students, leaving those who engage in these behaviors to continue without proper redress. A great wealth of data illustrates the deleterious impacts of identity-driven behavior on student victims, including heightened psychological distress, poorer academic performance, and lower retention. In contrast, limited research has examined relevant underpinnings of perpetrating identity-driven harassment. The current dissertation developed and disseminated a large survey to undergraduate students spanning three years of data collection. The …


Weaving Rituals For Resistance: Queering The Tallit, Sam Simons Jan 2024

Weaving Rituals For Resistance: Queering The Tallit, Sam Simons

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

“Weaving Rituals for Resistance” explores the history and significance of the tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl, as an immersive and transformative experience. Since 2022, I have been researching the historical development, making practices, and use of tallit, and its intersections with gender, sexuality, and power. Traditionally, tallit are worn by men; that is changing. There is no one way to feel about wearing tallit, but many share that they feel safe, protected and held. I worked with my rabbi to develop educational programming – a five-session course in Fall 2023. We covered history, textual sources for design and use, biblical …


I Am Not A Hero: Heroic Action Divorces The Hero From The Political Community, Ari Kohen, Brian Riches, Andre Sólo Jan 2024

I Am Not A Hero: Heroic Action Divorces The Hero From The Political Community, Ari Kohen, Brian Riches, Andre Sólo

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

Most people who perform a heroic act will, afterward, deny that their actions were heroic and claim that anyone would have done the same, even though that is demonstrably false (and, often, others were present who failed to act heroically at all). The literature on the psychology of heroism has never investigated why this is. This theoretical paper proposes an answer and seeks to provoke exploration of a previously unexplored topic. We note that people who undertake heroic action face a unique conflict: they embody their community’s highest values, while simultaneously breaking norms to stand apart from that community. We …


Music Of The Divine: Interweaving Threads Connecting Contemporary Chant-Based Piano Repertoire, Jeremy D. Duck Dec 2023

Music Of The Divine: Interweaving Threads Connecting Contemporary Chant-Based Piano Repertoire, Jeremy D. Duck

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The purpose of this document is to prove chant remains an important source of inspiration among living composers, and, despite the number of piano works already incorporating chant, composers today are still finding unique ways to include chant in their music. To achieve this objective, representative works have been selected for research and analysis for four of the major chant traditions. Connor Chee’s The Navajo Piano, Victoria Bond’s Illuminations on Byzantine Chant, and Hayes Biggs’ E.M. am Flügel: Poem-Étude for Piano Solo, though the chants from which they are inspired are diverse in concept and style, they …


Nebraska Stories Of Humanity: Increasing Accessibility To Holocaust Education, Aila Ganic Jan 2022

Nebraska Stories Of Humanity: Increasing Accessibility To Holocaust Education, Aila Ganic

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis seeks to answer the question: How can the digital humanities provide a vehicle that elevates the human impact of survivor narrative and testimony? An analyzation of how the digital humanities could preserve survivor testimony is conducted through an examination of how Bea Karp’s narrative will be shared through the Nebraska Stories of Humanity portal project. Based on this analyzation, the Nebraska Stories of Humanity portal could be an effective method for teaching Holocaust education for three main reasons. First, this portal project avoids perpetrator-oriented narratives by highlighting survivors and soldiers who liberated camps. Further, it also offers a …


Introduction To Antisemitism On The Rise: The 1930s And Today, Ari Kohen, Gerald Steinacher Jan 2021

Introduction To Antisemitism On The Rise: The 1930s And Today, Ari Kohen, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

We live in uncertain and unsettling times. Tragically, today's global culture is rife with violent bigotry, nationalism, and antisemitism. The rhetoric is not new; it is grounded in attitudes and values from the 1930s and the 1940s in Europe and the United States. Antisemitism on the Rise is a collection of essays by some of the world's leading experts, including Joseph Bendersky, Jean Cahan, R. Amy Elman, Leonard Greenspoon, and Jurgen Matthaus, regarding two key moments in antisemitic history: the interwar period and today. Ari Kohen and Gerald J. Steinacher have collected important examples on this crucial topic to illustrate …


Bridging The Divide Through Graphic Novels: Teaching Non-Jews’ Holocaust Narratives To Jewish Students, Matt Reingold Sep 2019

Bridging The Divide Through Graphic Novels: Teaching Non-Jews’ Holocaust Narratives To Jewish Students, Matt Reingold

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The following paper considers how integrating Holocaust graphic novels that prominently feature non-Jewish characters can be effective in introducing Jewish students to new perspectives on contemporary understandings of the Holocaust. Drawing on the results of recent studies about rising anti-Semitism and Jews' concerns for their safety, feelings of insularity are understandably becoming more pervasive within the Jewish community. The author argues that in order to combat the negative aspects of this entrenchment, Jewish students need to be introduced to thoughtful and complex narratives that relate to historical anti-Semitic incidents which also model ways of building relationships between the disparate communities …


Introduction To Unlikely Heroes: The Place Of Holocaust Rescuers In Research And Teaching, Ari Kohen, Gerald Steinacher Jan 2019

Introduction To Unlikely Heroes: The Place Of Holocaust Rescuers In Research And Teaching, Ari Kohen, Gerald Steinacher

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

The aim of this collection is not to provide an all-encompassing work about "rescuers" or the phenomenon of rescue. The topic is too large to cover exhaustively, of course, but doing so is also not our aim. We use a few examples in this volume to illustrate research findings and teaching techniques related to Holocaust rescuers in order to show the issues at stake. We open with some new research on the phenomenon of rescue and resistance during the Holocaust.


Listening For Licia: A Reconsideration Of Latin Licia As Heddle-Leashes, Magdalena Öhrman Jan 2017

Listening For Licia: A Reconsideration Of Latin Licia As Heddle-Leashes, Magdalena Öhrman

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The semantic field of Latin licium and its plural form licia is undoubtedly wide, with the term applied to thread both generally and in specific legal, medical and magical usage as well as in relation to weaving, and this paper does not aim to survey Latin usage of this term comprehensively. Rather, it focuses on one of the uses of licia in Latin literary sources, namely those where licia appears to denote heddle-leashes. Two much-discussed passages occur in Augustan poetry where licia may be used in this sense: Vergil’s Georgics 1.285 and Tibullus elegy 1.6.79. Both passages have been subject …


Observations On The Terminology Of Textile Tools In The Edictum Diocletiani On Maximum Prices, Peder Flemestad, Mary Harlow, Berit Hildebrandt, Marie-Louise Nosch Jan 2017

Observations On The Terminology Of Textile Tools In The Edictum Diocletiani On Maximum Prices, Peder Flemestad, Mary Harlow, Berit Hildebrandt, Marie-Louise Nosch

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The Edictum Diocletiani et collegarum: The so-called Edict of Maximum Prices was issued in AD 301 as part of a comprehensive administrative and financial reform released in the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian. Diocletian came to power in AD 284 after a period in Roman history traditionally understood as a time of ‘crisis’, produced by a series of inter-related factors: a frequent turnover of emperors; problems with the economy in terms of production and coinage; incursions by various tribes on the edges of the empire; internal unrest; the rise of Christianity and periodic persecutions. Diocletian’s actions were arguably pragmatic …


Textile Terminologies From The Orient To The Mediterranean And Europe, 1000 Bc To 1000 Ad -- Covers & Frontmatter, Salvatore Gaspa, Cécile Michel, Marie-Louise Nosch Jan 2017

Textile Terminologies From The Orient To The Mediterranean And Europe, 1000 Bc To 1000 Ad -- Covers & Frontmatter, Salvatore Gaspa, Cécile Michel, Marie-Louise Nosch

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

Front and "back" covers

Title page

Copyright page

Preface

Acknowledgements

Table of contents


Jewish Terminologies For Fabrics And Garments In Late Antiquity: A Linguistic Survey Based On The Mishnah And The Talmuds, Christina Katsikadeli Jan 2017

Jewish Terminologies For Fabrics And Garments In Late Antiquity: A Linguistic Survey Based On The Mishnah And The Talmuds, Christina Katsikadeli

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The main texts of the Rabbinic literature, the Mishnah and the Talmuds encompass a wide range of textile and clothing terms embedded in everyday situations as well as in ritual contexts. A great deal of intertextuality shared both by the Mishnah and the Talmuds as well as by other exegetic works like the Tosefta and the early Midrash – not to mention the Bible – makes these texts a valuable source for the investigation of cultural history and language change and contact, even in micro-contexts, in adherence to the traditions and heuristics of historical comparative linguistics, concerning etymology, language change …


Conceptualizing Greek Textile Terminologies: A Databased System, Kalliope Sarri Jan 2017

Conceptualizing Greek Textile Terminologies: A Databased System, Kalliope Sarri

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

One of the major challenges in costume and textile research is dealing with the vast number of terms related to textiles and garments, especially because similar terms are found in different languages and dialects, in various regions and over long periods of time, where they have survived in a complicated network of linguistic and cultural interrelations. There have been many attempts to collect textile terms in glossaries as parts of costume studies or as parts of museum archival projects. These glossaries however are usually limited to specific topics, geographical areas, languages, and time periods.

Creating a diachronic and global costume …


Sasanian Exegesis Of Avestan Textile Terms, Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo Jan 2017

Sasanian Exegesis Of Avestan Textile Terms, Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The Zoroastrian religion, taking its name from the prophet Zoroaster, Greek version of the Avestan name Zaraϑuštra, developed in South and Central Asia out of the Indo-Iranian religious practices going back to the 2nd millennium BC, and is one of the few ancient Indo-European religions that still survive, concretely in some communities in Iran, India and the diaspora. The most ancient Zoroastrian sacred texts, commonly designated as the Avesta, were orally composed and transmitted during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC in the most archaic Iranian language preserved, known as Avestan, until they were eventually put down to writing in …


Ordinary People’S Garments In Neo- And Late-Babylonian Sources, Luigi Malatacca Jan 2017

Ordinary People’S Garments In Neo- And Late-Babylonian Sources, Luigi Malatacca

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The investigation of textiles and clothes in ancient Mesopotamia has been anything but neglected in Assyriological studies. For the Neo- and Late Babylonian periods, in particular, two fundamental monographs have shed light on the clothes worn by the deities worshiped in lower Mesopotamia. 2 Scholars, however, have focused almost exclusively on clothing in the cultic context. This is due to a prevalence of textual sources – mostly economic or administrative documents – recording clothing items worn by divine images during festivals and rituals. Sources on the clothes worn by common people, instead, are close to non-existent. Still, we cannot overlook …


Zur Textilterminologie Auf Römischen Bleitäfelchen: Probleme Der Lesung Und Interpretation, Herbert Graßl Jan 2017

Zur Textilterminologie Auf Römischen Bleitäfelchen: Probleme Der Lesung Und Interpretation, Herbert Graßl

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

Die Vorlage und das Studium römischer Bleitesserae, das in den letzten Jahren einen beachtlichen Aufschwung erlebt hat,1 lieferte gerade für die kaiserzeitliche römische Textilwirtschaft viele neue Einsichten. Dazu zählen neben dem in diesem Wirtschaftszweig tätigen Personenkreis vor allem die Herstellung, Verarbeitung und Vermarktung von Textilien, ihre Bezeichnungen und auch Preise in verschiedenen Provinzen des Imperiums. Trotz aller neuer Erkenntnisse bleibt auf diesem Feld aber noch viel zu tun: die Lesung der Texte ist häufig nicht gesichert, die inhaltliche Deutung auch wegen der häufigen Verwendung von Abkürzungen schwierig, dazu kommt noch die verstreute und oft nur schwer erreichbare Publikationsform. Dass sich …


A Name Of A Private Factory (Or Workshop) On A Piece Of Textile: The Case Of The Document A.L.18 (Vienna), Anne Regourd, Fiona J. L. Handley Jan 2017

A Name Of A Private Factory (Or Workshop) On A Piece Of Textile: The Case Of The Document A.L.18 (Vienna), Anne Regourd, Fiona J. L. Handley

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The Arabic Leinwand (A.L.) collection is held by the Department of Papyrus (Papyrussammlung) in the Austrian National Library of Vienna.1 The collection was acquired in Egypt in the late 19th century by an antiquity trader in Cairo commissioned by Joseph von Karabacek, the famous papyrologist, and contains 68 items.2 Almost all of these have an association with writing, hence the reason why they were collected for the Library, and only eight objects have no association at all. The language for the most part is Arabic with a few texts in Greek, or with Greek with Arabic. The collection of pieces …


A Diachronic View On Fulling Technology In The Mediterranean And The Ancient Near East: Tools, Raw Materials And Natural Resources For The Finishing Of Textiles, Elena Soriga Jan 2017

A Diachronic View On Fulling Technology In The Mediterranean And The Ancient Near East: Tools, Raw Materials And Natural Resources For The Finishing Of Textiles, Elena Soriga

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

Among the operations required in the overall cycle of the ancient production of textiles, Greek and Roman sources refer to the fulling of woollen fabrics as the most complex and expensive technical process performed both in the 1st millennium BC and the 1st millennium AD. Indeed, the finishing of woollen clothes needed a large amount of time, energy and labour, as well as involving the use of specialized skills and costly raw materials. Fulling fulfilled two functions that were necessary for the proper finishing of cloth, namely the scouring and consolidation of the fibres in the fabric. Woven cloth straight …


Flax And Linen Terminology In Talmudic Literature, Nahum Ben-Yehuda Jan 2017

Flax And Linen Terminology In Talmudic Literature, Nahum Ben-Yehuda

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

Material culture data is mentioned in Talmudic (or ‘rabbinical’) literature when a relevant legal (‘halakhic’) or homiletic (‘midrashic’) context arises. Therefore, certain details may be lacking or ambiguously stated. This however is not presented in a systematic and detailed manner, such as in ‘Pliny’s Natural History’.2 Additional classical authors mention flax and linen. First and foremost: Diocletian3 in his edict of maximum prices. And in less scope and detail: Xenophon,4 Virgil,5 Strabo,6 Columella,7 Pausanias,8 and Theodosius II9 – in his codex. In some instances, these sources may be useful for comparison, contrast and clarification – to Talmudic sources. It is …


Armenian Karmir, Sogdian Karmīr ‘Red’, Hebrew Karmīl And The Armenian Scale Insect Dye In Antiquity, Agnes Korn, Georg Warning Jan 2017

Armenian Karmir, Sogdian Karmīr ‘Red’, Hebrew Karmīl And The Armenian Scale Insect Dye In Antiquity, Agnes Korn, Georg Warning

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

This paper looks at three terms denoting the colour ‘red’, viz. Armenian karmir, the obviously corresponding Sogdian word karmīr, and karmīl ‘scarlet’ found in the Hebrew Bible. It will first briefly discuss the etymology of these words (summarising an argument made elsewhere) and argue that the words in question represent a technical term for a red dye from Armenia produced by scale insects. We will then attempt to show that historical data and chemical analysis of extant historical textiles confirm the Armenian red as the relevant dye.

Late Biblical Hebrew karmīl occurs only three times. All three attestations are …


Textilnet.Dk – A Toolkit For Terminology Research And Presentation, Susanne Lervad, Tove Engelhardt Mathiassen Jan 2017

Textilnet.Dk – A Toolkit For Terminology Research And Presentation, Susanne Lervad, Tove Engelhardt Mathiassen

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

Since February 2015, the digital dictionary or term database, textilnet.dk, has been accessible on the Internet.1 The purpose of this paper is to present the background and methods of this pilot project. Since 2010, the project has collaborated with The Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research (CTR), University of Copenhagen, and has gained moral support from Sabine Kirchmeier-Andersen, director of Dansk Sprognævn, the Danish National Language Advisory Committee.2 From 2011 to 2015, we have been working with generous funding from the Danish Ministry of Culture. The objective of textilnet.dk is to preserve and communicate the cultural heritage of …


Irritating Byssus – Etymological Problems, Material Facts, And The Impact Of Mass Media, Felicitas Maeder Jan 2017

Irritating Byssus – Etymological Problems, Material Facts, And The Impact Of Mass Media, Felicitas Maeder

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

Byssus and sea-silk made of the fibre beard of the Pinna nobilis – zoologically called byssus – have both become subjects of scholarly interest in the last decade. The subject is discussed not only in scientific books and journals, but also in mass media around the world. Although scientific research has clarified some old misunderstandings, the double meaning of the term byssus has created new doubts and scepticism in the scholarly debate, bearing the danger of new, additional erroneous interpretations. This article recapitulates the present state of knowledge and calls attention to the consequences of assumed ‘old/new knowledge’ entering the …


The Oscillum Misunderstanding, Francesco Meo Jan 2017

The Oscillum Misunderstanding, Francesco Meo

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

In this passage the Latin term oscillum refers to a particular class of objects: a small face or mask hung on trees during certain religious feasts celebrated by the Ausones in honour of Bacchus (Fig. 1). The Roman oscilla most probably derives from the Aἰῶραι, small images related to Dionysus hung on trees during the Aἰῶρα, an Athenian public feast. They were believed to purify the air as they swung in the wind. Both the Greek and the Latin words refer to objects used during particular sacred feasts, in the first case public and in the second case …


The Textile Terminology In Ancient Japan, Mari Omura, Naoko Kizawa Jan 2017

The Textile Terminology In Ancient Japan, Mari Omura, Naoko Kizawa

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

This paper investigates key Japanese words related to textiles and their production in ancient Japan that is during the 1st millennium AD. At this time the language known as ‘Old Japanese’ evolved and eventually systems for writing it down emerged, based on borrowing the Chinese characters. Textiles used for clothing, coverings, tax items, and ritual objects played an integral role in the society, and thus terms related to textiles provide insight into the life style, politics, religion and economy of Japan as it emerged from a tribal-based localized society into a centralized nation state. The linguistic study also points to …


Textile Terminology In Old High German Between Inherited And Loan Words, Roland Schuhmann Jan 2017

Textile Terminology In Old High German Between Inherited And Loan Words, Roland Schuhmann

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

A particular language consists of course not only of words inherited from its respective parent language but contains also a certain amount of loan words (however, this amount differs depending on the respective language). This universal principle then also holds true for the speakers of the Germanic languages. The vocabulary of the Germanic languages includes not only the lexicon inherited from Proto‑Indo‑European but a range of languages later on heavily influenced it. In the times before the documentation of the Germanic languages, the two most important sources that influenced the Germanic lexicon were Celtic and (prolonged) Latin. Influence in the …


Terminology Associated With Silk In The Middle Byzantine Period (Ad 843-1204), Julia Galliker Jan 2017

Terminology Associated With Silk In The Middle Byzantine Period (Ad 843-1204), Julia Galliker

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

During the 1st millennium AD, silk became the most desirable fibre in the Mediterranean region. While the expansion of silk production and consumption is widely acknowledged, specific features of the industry’s development are more difficult to discern. Chroniclers had little reason to document silk manufacturing processes, and producers were not inclined to record or publicise their trade secrets. Historical knowledge of silk comes mainly from accounts of its consumption in a variety of forms and contexts.

For the middle Byzantine period (AD 843-1204), the two most elaborated sources associated with silk date from the 10th century. The Book of the …


The Textile Term Gammadia, Maciej Szymaszek Jan 2017

The Textile Term Gammadia, Maciej Szymaszek

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

This paper aims to investigate the origin of the term gammadia by determining the oldest examples of its use both in source texts and secondary literature.1 For nearly four centuries this term was commonly applied to the various motifs on mantles of figures represented in art of the 1st millennium AD.2 These right-angled and letter-like signs attracted the attention of several authors who were seeking to explain their possible symbolic meaning, but they did not pay attention to the correctness of the term adapted to name such motifs.3 This approach contributed to the terminological confusion and difficulties in understanding the …