A second group of poems share the same characteristics with the poems discussed in part I of this article, and are of equally late authorship. However, they lack the explicit evidence of a later date. These are nos. VII, X, XIX, LXXIX.2 Poem no. VII is yet one more of those ‘defensivexs’ poems which seem to indicate that not only the poet, but the whole tribe, in the wider sense, are on the defensive. Although it can be argued that the poem is not by Ḥassān, there is evidence of a deliberate attempt to give the impression that it is. At the same time there is evidence, too, of even later interpolations.

The monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai possesses a large collection of odocuments concerning its own affairs and dating from the Fāṭimid, Ayyūbid, Mamlūk, and Ottoman periods. They were used for historical purposes as early as the seventeenth century by certain writers belonging to the monastery, but, if exception be made for the pioneer (but limited) work done by B. Moritz in the early years of this century, they remained unexploited by modern scholars. The American expedition of 1950, which has microfilmed about one-half of the library's manuscripts in various languages, brought back microfilms of the entire collection of Arabic and Turkish documents, thus making a thorough study of them possible for the first time. There is no need to specify the earlier bibliography of the Sinai documents, since readers of this Bulletin can obtain the necessary information from an article of mine published in an earlier volume.

One of the major political and social results of the Ottoman Tanzimat in Syria and Palestine during the nineteenth century was the transformation whichit wrought upon the form of rule in the towns. The era of Turkish reform notonly gave a new shape and a different content to the struggle for authorityin the Syrian city between the Ottoman government and the local forces; italso contributed largely to the crystallization and consolidation of the urbanleadership of ‘ulamā’ and a'yan, by the establishment of local councils (Majlis)in the towns, which formed the main basis of future municipal life and autonomyin the area. The internal strife in the Syrian town, although acquiring a differentcharacter during the Tanzimat period, had its roots in the pre-reform era, whena fierce contest for power took place in many cities between various forces, of which the Turkish Pasha was only one. In the eighteenth century feudsoccurred in the big cities, either between the rival Janissary units, or betweenthem and the Ashrāf militia, the descendants of the Prophet. The Pashas withtheir own forces also took part in this struggle, usually siding with one factionand seeking to establish their control.1 Involved also in this struggle were thelocal ‘iulamā’, in whose hands was the administration of justice, and the a'yān, who controlled the civil administration in the towns.2

The first text of al-Bīrūnī (A.D. 973-C. 1050) published in Europe which contains a reference to his translation of Patañjali's Yogasūtra is his Risāla fī fihrist kutub Muḥammad ibn Zakarīya' al-Rāzī, the relevant part of which was published by E. Sachau, Leipzig, 1876ndash;8.1 In his list of his own works, which is included in this Risāla, al-Bīrūnī states that this list comprises the works he has written up to the end of 427/1037.2 Several years later Sachau published al-Bīrūnī's India (London, 1887), in which al-Bīrūnī not only refers to his having translated this work of Patañjali, 3 but also quotes from it copiously.4

It was in the year 1856, with the publication of Stanislas Julien's partial translation of the then fairly recently published T'ao-lu of 1815, that Europe and America first became aware of the possible existence of an ‘imperial kiln’ or group of kilns at Ching-te Chen Nor was this all, for according to Julien's translation such an ‘imperial kiln’ was established in the year 1369, the second year of the Hung-wu period. In view of Julien's standing in his own time, it is not unnatural that the facts as recorded by him with regard to this important event should have remained virtually unchallenged for the better part of a century. Jacquemart, in his monumental Histoire de la cÉramiqite, from which so many terms for wares and techniques have survived to become common currency, is heavily dependent upon his predecessor in the field.

The cowry

‘Parmi tant de coquilles que le flot des mers rejette sur les plages, il n'en est pas que les homines aient recherchÉes, recueillies, portÉes plus que les cauris.’

The purpose of this study is to investigate the cowry in the Western Sudan. But it is impossible to study any aspect of cowry diffusion and use in isolation, and some understanding of the complex and fascinating global history of the shell is essential to our knowledge of its history in this area.

The very hard, grey basalt stone on which this inscription is cut was discovered in 1961 by Mr. Shalom Kotzer (of the kibbutz Shā'ar ha-Golān) in shallow water off the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, near the modern amphitheatre ofTsēmaḥ (Samakh). In 1962 it was moved from the water to the kibbutz by Mr. Kotzer and his son Moshe. A preliminary note on the inscription in Hebrew by the present writer appeared in 'Al ha-Mishmār of 11 January 1963. The inscription consists of eight readable lines insimple Kūfī script, incised on afairly smooth surface. The back of the stone is not worked.