Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac

This paper presents the results of the first systematic study aimed at defining the chronology, provenience and material components of 14 distinctive wood carvings featuring jaguar and raptorial bird imagery broadly attributed to northeastern South America, centred on Brazil’s Trombetas River region. These carvings, largely confined to drug-related paraphernalia and ceremonial objects (trumpets, rattles, staffs/sceptres and a hafted anchor axe), were part of antiquarian collections deposited in European museums mainly in the 19th century, with very little associated information.14C AMS dating of their wood, cotton and resins shows that they have deeper histories, spanning the 14th to late 17th/early 18th centuries. Wood identification indicates a relatively narrow range of taxa, mainly from the genera Brosimum and Swartzia, likely selected for their hardness and striking “snakeskin” or “leopard skin” patterns. Bindings of human hair are identified on a ceremonial weapon. Strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis of the wood is used to explore the possible provenience of the carvings, with the results divided into two groups, one from a more radiogenic region consistent with the Trombetas, and the other from a less radiogenic region, possibly the Amazon floodplain.

La découverte en 2016 d’un fragment textile unique au musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac (mqB-JC) offre des indices matériels inédits pour étudier les maro ‘ura, parmi les attributs les plus emblématiques du pouvoir des ariʻi rahi, les grands chefs des îles de la Société en Polynésie aujourd’hui française. En effet, aucun exemple ne semblait jusqu’ici avoir survécu à la conversion de l’archipel au christianisme au début du xixe siècle. Une étude pluridisciplinaire s’engage alors. En partie présentée lors d’une exposition inaugurée en octobre 2021 au mqB-JC, elle révèle un essaim d’histoires, de données techniques et d’hypothèses que cet article interroge à l’aune de mécanismes mnémoniques complexes, de phénomènes d’oubli et de résurgence. Suite au retour de ce fragment à Tahiti en 2022, l’article retrace la biographie ancienne de l’objet et examine ses fonctions de support de mémoire ainsi que les pratiques techniques qu’il illustre. Selon différentes temporalités, il souligne les enjeux de la création, de l’usage et de la préservation des objets sacrés polynésiens, du xviiie siècle à nos jours.

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Objective. - The elementary analysis of chemical disturbances of anthropogenic origin may be of considerable help to archaeological studies. For the first time, an archaeological excavation carried out by the Mus & eacute;e du Quai Branly and the University of Versailles St -Quentin applied these biomedical techniques to archaeological soils, in order to uncover the precise topography of optically invisible magico-religious practices. Material and methods. - In April 2022, in the ruins of a sacred building in the Bapa palace (Bamil & eacute;k & eacute; territory, Cameroon), samples taken from 12 stratigraphic units (US) made it possible to identify the distributions of 15 elements, measured by induced plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Results. - Most elements are present in maximum concentrations in US 14, except for elements of telluric origin (Al, Fe, Pb, Ti) which have a homogeneous distribution across all US. Conclusions. - Thanks to biomedical techniques used cross -functionally, field archeology data could be deepened, and combined with ethnographic knowledge to identify areas of ritual functions which did not leave macroscopic traces. (c) 2024 l'Acad & eacute;mie nationale de m & eacute;decine. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

The Eiffel Tower (Paris, France) has been attracting many candidates for suicide over the years. The aim of this study was to determine the patterns of people who committed suicide by jumping. Permission to access the unpublished records of the Paris Police Prefecture made it possible to compile press articles related to suicides from April 1950 to March 1989. 155 articles corresponding to 79 cases were kept for analysis. There were significantly more males (66%), as compared with an expected theoretical distribution of 1/2 for each sex ( p = 0.002). Median age was 38.0 years old. Suicide peak was reached during the months of August and October (13% for each), while February was poor in suicides (3%). Tuesdays and Saturdays were the more impacted days. Hourly suicide rates were 8% (morning), 11% (noon), 7% (afternoon), and 5% (evening-night). Moon phases did not correlate with suicide occurrence. The main context described was that of a psychiatric pathology (49%). Death occurred in 92% of the reported cases. Sex ratio, ages, decrease during the cold season, no association with moon phases, and underlying psychiatric pathologies were consistent with trends for either all-cause suicides or suicide jumps from a platform. Conversely, unusual trough in suicides on Mondays and noon peak in suicide rate have been, respectively, attributed to small sample size and closure at night. As jumping corresponds to both ease and proximity, we believe the implementation of protective measures in the early 1960s succeeded in reducing the number of suicides overall.