This article discusses how the fissures in a tradition participate in its upholding. A 20th century text largely unfamiliar to Maharashtrian audiences, the Shripur Mahatmya (Shripur being a name for Shrigonda), claims that Panduranga and Vitthal are two different deities. It locates the former to Shripura and the latter to Pandharpur – the centre of Varkaris, the mainstream Maharashtrian devotional tradition. The article argues that such an unusual claim, as locating the most popular deity of Maharashtrians to a different town, not only complicates the claims of Varkari tradition but also creates opportunities for the locals to be Varkaris, as well as Shrigondekars, on their own specific terms.

The article analyses multiple meanings of silence in the novel Chronicle of a Last Summer written by the contemporary Egyptian writer Yasmine El Rashidi. The paper moves beyond the understanding of silence as a mere absence of speech and considers its semantic ambiguity whose interpretation is circumstantially dependent. The silences depicted in the novel are not uniform; instead, they originate from various contexts. The article aims to identify these silences, explore their origins, and analyse their potential meanings and functions; some serve as a form of communication, others result from intentional silencing or even collective trauma. The paper focuses mostly on silences produced by people around the protagonist, either intentional or imposed, which have shaped her personality and her own take on silence, specifically her lack of coverage of the revolutionary period. Even though the protagonist's silence with regard to the 25 January Revolution can be interpreted in multiple waysincluding but not restricted to her profound disappointment and reluctance to revisit painful memoriesthe article argues that it can also be viewed as an expression of dissent and resistance against the official revolutionary narrative.

On 21 May 2024, the renowned Egyptologist and classical archaeologist Assist. Prof. PhDr. Květa Smoláriková, PhD. passed away prematurely after a short, serious illness. She was born in Šurany, Slovakia, on 1 September 1961 and spent her childhood in Komjatice, Slovakia, where she attended elementary school. Already as a pupil, she became interested in archaeology, mainly thanks to the research by Assist. Prof. Anton Točík in Komjatice and the books of Vojtech Zamarovský. Her interest in ancient Egypt was also inspired by Karel Brucknerʼs book The Golden Pharaoh. For Květa, archaeology was a lifelong interest, mission and hobby. In the former communist Czechoslovakia, archaeology could only be studied at the universities of Bratislava, Brno and Prague, on a rotating basiseach year in a different city. However, there was a numerus clausus for students of archaeology. Knowledge was only one of the criteria in the admissions process, together with class origin, membership and activities in the Socialist Youth Union (SZM), and last but not least, good family connections. However, Květa was never a conformist person. After finishing secondary school in Nitra, she intended to study archaeology in Brno, but she did not succeed in being included in the numerus clausus. In the autumn of 1982, after not being admitted to study archaeology in Prague, she obtained a post at the Archaeological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Nitra. She worked as an assistant technician for Assist. Prof. Anton Točík, who poeticized her name to Flora (a reference to the flowerkvet/Kveta in Slovak). She formed friendships with other (at that time) assistant technicians Táňa Macurová and Peter Bednár, with whom she enjoyed having regular meetings around creamy desserts, especially on their pay days. In the spring of 1983, she took part in excavations in Jelšovce, Slovakia, in her capacity as assistant technician. At the same time, she was preparing herself for the entrance examination in prehistorical archaeology studies in Bratislava. Here, the numerus clausus was unfavourable to her again. Květa therefore continued in her job as a technician at the Archaeological Institute in Nitra in the winter of 1983. Due to labour A sample bibliography by Assist. Prof. PhDr. Květa Smoláriková, PhD.

In 1672, the English East India Company set up factories in Taiwan and Tonkin. The Taiwan factory lasted only for 11 years (1672 -1683), but the Tonkin branch operated for 25 years (1672 -1697). Both factories had a similar role in the English East Asian commercial strategy as they served as intermediaries for trading indirectly with mainland China and Japan. Initially, the two factories were established to support English trade in Japan. However, when that plan failed, they mainly helped the English to collect Chinese products indirectly, and they were used as gateways to trade with mainland China. This article argues that the English factories in Taiwan and Tonkin played a noticeable role in maintaining the English East Asian trade in the late seventeenth century. They worked as intermediaries to maintain the Company's position and expansion in East Asia by connecting with the key markets of Japan and mainland China. Additionally, the English used small factories such as Taiwan and Tonkin in this period as a way of adapting to the special trading conditions in East Asia, where key markets were difficult to access. Moreover, the article also presents the ways in which the EIC used its overseas factories in East Asia to maintain and expand its trade there.

Burial containers (including wooden coffins and stone sarcophagi) were one of the most important aspects of burials in ancient Egypt, but especially in the case of the Old Kingdom (ca. 2592 -2120 BCE) they have not been properly researched. In particular, what remains unclear is the number of burial containers used in one burial. There are three possibilities regarding this particular issue. The first suggests that there was a wooden coffin inside each sarcophagus, the second claims that when there was a stone sarcophagus, no wooden coffin was needed, and the third envisages a variety of options. Archaeological evidence attests stone sarcophagi without wooden coffins as well as wooden coffins inside stone sarcophagi in addition to other possibilities. This brief case study draws on material from the residential, Memphite necropolis (mainly Abusir, but also from Saqqara and Giza) and demonstrates that there was considerable variation and that we do not properly understand the reasons behind the different choices in the terms of funerals and burials.

This article analyses the activities of pirates and measures to prevent piracy during the Nguyen Dynasty (Vietnam) in the Central Sea in the nineteenth century.The research is based on an analysis of original sources compiled by historians of the Nguyen Dynasty.The results show that piracy was quite common in the East Sea in the nineteenth century.Pirates originated mainly from neighbouring countries such as China, Japan and Indonesia.The study also shows that the Nguyen Dynasty applied many measures to prevent piracy and it achieved practical results.The results of the research not only contribute to clarifying the history of maritime security in the nineteenth century but also suggest recommendations to ensure maritime security in the East Sea nowadays.

Israel was in occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the West Bank of the River Jordan. The effect on all three countries was devastating, but especially for Jordan, which lost a third of its population and its prime agricultural land, and control of the Islamic and Christian sites in Jerusalem. The enormity of the defeat brought about a great change in the attitude of the Palestinians, a large number of whom now became convinced that the Arab regimes were either unable or unwilling to liberate Palestine. The Palestine Liberation Organization's new tactics began to pose a severe threat to the continuation of the Jordanian monarchy, so in 1970 its guerrillas were driven out of Jordan. Over the next few years the Jordanian government gradually reasserted its authority over the country. Jordan did not participate in the war of October 1973. However, King usayn, along with his fellow Arab leaders, was obliged to recognize the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" at the Rabat Arab summit in October 1974, which inevitably diminished both his authority, and much of what was left of his appeal, on the West Bank.