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The corpus of Greek documentary papyri from Egypt consists of various types of documents, such as letters, contracts and accounts, showing different types of linguistic variation. The concept of register is applied here to examine the relationship between the presence of non-standard orthography and the situational context according to the situational variables setting, participants, genre and production circumstances. Quantitative study shows that the participants involved and the genre of the document are predictors for the amount of orthographic variation that is found in a document. Qualitative analysis of the documents in a number of archives reveals that there are also other important factors, such as the choice of scribe, method of production and the stage of composition of the text that is preserved to us, to explain the presence of orthographic variation in the corpus of documentary papyri.

A number of studies have shown that the boron isotopic composition (δ11B) and the B / Ca ratio of biogenic carbonates (mostly foraminifers) can serve as proxies for two parameters of the ocean's carbonate chemistry, rendering it possible to calculate the entire carbonate system. However, the B incorporation mechanism into marine carbonates is still not fully understood and analyses of field samples show species-specific and hydrographic effects on the B proxies complicating their application. Identifying the carbonate system parameter influencing boron incorporation is difficult due to the co-variation of pH, CO32- and B(OH)4-. To shed light on the question which parameter of the carbonate system is related to the boron incorporation, we performed culture experiments with the benthic symbiont-bearing foraminifer Amphistegina lessonii using a decoupled pH–CO32- chemistry. The determination of the δ11B and B / Ca ratios was performed simultaneously by means of a new in situ technique combining optical emission spectroscopy and laser ablation MC-ICP-MS. The boron isotopic composition in the tests gets heavier with increasing pH and B / Ca increases with increasing B(OH)4- / HCO3- of the culture media. The latter indicates that boron uptake of A. lessonii features a competition between B(OH)4- and HCO3-. Furthermore, the simultaneous determination of B / Ca and δ11B on single specimens allows for assessing the relative variability of these parameters. Among different treatments the B / Ca shows an increasing variability with increasing boron concentration in the test whereas the variability in the isotope distribution is constant.

In this collective volume, some of the leading experts in the field explore aspects of linguistic variation and change in one of the core areas of Ancient Greek grammar: tense, aspect, and modality.

Corrigendum to: Boron incorporation in the foraminifer amphistegina lessonii under a decoupled carbonate chemistry. Biogeosciences 2 (2015), Nr. 6, S.1753-1763

This essay explores the relationship between politics and religion in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s nineteenth-century antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). More specifically, the article aims to show that although Stowe’s novel breaches the ‘wall of separation between church and state’ written into the American constitution by demanding that Christian values determine government policies, her work ‘sacralizes’ the political realm only to a limited extent. Uncle Tom’s Cabin does not condone the ‘sacralization’ of politics that, as Emilio Gentile’s work on political religion points out, imbues political institutions and representatives with religious qualities: Stowe produced neither a political religion that can be denounced as totalitarian, nor the civil religion for which the United States has been presented as a model. Whereas Gentile’s work highlights the dangers of donning politicians and political institutions with a religious aura, Stowe’s efforts to introduce religious values into the public sphere do not aim to imbue the political domain and its representatives with a religious halo. On the contrary, Stowe’s distrust of, and distance from, politics bolster her religious qualms to consider anything earthly truly sacred. At the same time, Stowe undermines fears about the relationship between politics and religion best expressed by Hannah Arendt, who often complained that Christianity’s two-world perspective undermined Christian political involvement. Arendt was very much afraid that Christians would shy away from involvement in the public sphere of politics because they deemed this domain of relative importance compared to life after death.

Lepeophtheirus acutus Heegaard, 1943 (Caligidae, Siphonostomatoida, Copepoda), was collected from or observed on four of six elasmobranch species held at Burgers’ Zoo (Arnhem, The Netherlands). Circumstantial evidence suggested that a zebra shark, Stegostoma fasciatum (Hermann), from the wild carried the infection into the facility, where copepods reproduced and colonized additional hosts. Copepods typically attached on and about the eyes, in the mouth and occasionally about the cloaca and on the claspers. Severe ocular lesions were associated with infections on zebra sharks, a grey reef shark, Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos (Bleeker), whitetip reef sharks, Triaenodon obesus (Rüppell), and giant shovelnose ray, Rhinobatos typus Bennett, while blacktip reef sharks, Carcharhinus melanopterus (Quoy & Gaimard), and blacktip sharks, Carcharhinus limbatus (Valenciennes), living in infested aquaria showed no sign of infection. Water treatments using trichlorfon were considered primarily responsible for the eradication of copepods from hosts and infested aquaria. This case is the first report of a copepod infection being closely associated with disease and death of an aquarium‐held elasmobranch. Given its ability to infect a wide variety of elasmobranchs and promote life‐threatening lesions on some hosts, L. acutus should be considered a dangerous pathogen of captive elasmobranchs.

On October 23, 2008 a loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) stranded in the Netherlands at Groote Keeten N52°51’48- E4°42’47. The turtle was alive but in bad condition. It was brought to Burgers’ Zoo in Arnhem for rehabilitation and released into the wild on August 7, 2009 in Portugal. It was the fourth time a living loggerhead sea turtle was found stranded in the Netherlands. Previous occasions were in 1707, 1894 and 1927. So far, there have been four cases of stranded dead animals: in 1954, 1959, 1998 and 2007 (Brongersma, 1972; Hoogmoed, in prep.). Most strandings in the northern part of Europe concern juveniles and happened in colder periods like autumn and winter. This article describes the basic life history of the Northern Atlantic loggerhead sea turtle, and sheds some light on the possible background of the loggerhead turtle that stranded in the Netherlands. In the next RAVON issue we will present an article about a second sea turtle that stranded on November 21, 2008 at Westerschouwen N51°40’39- E3°42’48 and was brought to Rotterdam Zoo for rehabilitation. This one turned out to be a Kemp’s ridley (Lepidochelys kempii).

Op 21 november 2008 spoelde er een zeeschildpad aan bij Westenschouwen, Zeeland. Dit dier is ter revalidatie naar Diergaarde Blijdorp gebracht. Een maand eerder was ook al bij Groote Keeten een zeeschildpad aangespoeld, dit was een dikkopschildpad (Caretta caretta) (zie Goverse et al., 2009). Er werd aanvankelijk gedacht dat het Zeeuwse dier dezelfde soort betrof, maar het bleek een Kemps zeeschildpad (Lepidochelys kempii) te zijn, in het Engels Kemp’s ridley. Het dier is met succes gerehabiliteerd in Diergaarde Blijdorp, Rotterdam. Een zeer unieke vondst van een ernstig bedreigde zeeschildpad uit de Golf van Mexico. Voor Nederland is dit de vierde melding.