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Until quite recently the major polytheistic religious systems have been approached from essentially two different angles: as relics of primitive mentality or as the prefiguration of type of monotheism similar to Judaeo-Christianism. The study of these religions per se has been limited to philological and historical analysis. The changes in the field of religious studies during the last thirty years have affected the sociology anthro pology and history of religions and make it possible to state new terms the problems of the comparative method as applied to the ancient religions. This article treats the Greek example and in the three areas of the ritual (sacrifice), myths, and figurative system of symbols attempts to define the contents of cooperative research programme which specialists could undertake with the purpose of establishing for the written civilizations of the past, a differential typology of religious systems.

One of the most familiar narratives of ancient Southeast Asian history is the account of how Cambodian king Jayavarman II liberated his country from Javā, and consequently declared himself emperor in the year 802 CE. These events and this year are widely considered to represent the beginning of the Angkorian " empire". Recent years have seen several new scholarly contributions questioning parts of this narrative. One issue is the very historicity of the narrative elements about Jayavarman II, another topic of debate is the identity of Javā in the narratives related to Jayavarman II, and, more generally, in the history of Southeast Asia. After revealing the very weak foundations of certain recent attempts to argue that references to Javā in sources of the Southeast Asian mainland denoted a place on the continent or the Malay peninsula, this paper argues that the Khmer inscriptions refer to the island of Java when they use the term Javā. The paper shows, furthermore, that narratives involving Javā do not exclusively concern Jayavarman II, but that a certain Satyavarman is in some sources attributed a role very similar to that of the much more famous king Jayavarman II. It is proposed that this Satyavarman may well have been the king of that name who ruled in southern Campā around 800 CE, and hence that the epigraphical record of Satyavarman in Campā is likely to hold important clues not only for the history of Campā itself, but equally for international political relations between the Khmer, Cam and Javanese polities in the late 8th and early 9th century of our era.

Christian Décobert, «A Science of Our Times»: Bon-Joseph Dacier's Report on the History and Ancient Literature Class at the Institut.
Although a composite mix, the report signed Bon- Joseph Dacier on the History and Literature Class of the Institut is very consistent. In between philology and philosophy, history is confined to historiography, a science of ancient texts deemed to express reality, without the mediation of any meaning imposed from without. The contribution by Silvestre de Sacy on Oriental Languages and Literatures is in this respect symptomatic of the report as a whole.

The association of History and Geography is an ancient tradition in France, proclaimed in numerous normative texts, whilst Geography passes as being also tied to other disciplines, like Astronomy or Geology . But, through pedogogical practices, the scales have finished by tipping to the side of History, as attested by certain forms of education in the classrooms of secondary schools and "écoles centrales".

The writing of history favoured by Nicole Loraux is set upon series of shifts and variations from otherwise familiar objects : "classical" Athenian democracy and ancient Greece's politics. Nicole Loraux introduces herself as historian of institutions, but of the institution of words, of funeral oration ; historian of myths, but taken in their civic founding ; historian not of women, but of the feminine and of the political differences between sexes, historian of the dividing as the most powerful bond in the city. Her forceful writing, which presents anachronism as a virtue to present Moderns' place in these constructions, is thus producing new objects, or ancient objects that a historian is asked to look at differently.

Recognize the outset that the two books reviewed here, published almost at the same moment, the fall of 2012, written by two academics - Jean-Louis Brunaux is director of research at CNRS, Yann Le Bohec is Professor Emeritus at the Sorbonne-Paris IV - are absolutely outstanding and necessary to their readers for three complementary reasons. First, they treat the same subject by different routes. Their total mastery of the available documentation - ancient sources as the results of the most recent archaeological excavations - allow them to then twist the neck calmly to all cliches and all anachronisms accumulated since the Third Republic, and even romanticism, this sensitive theme that refers to our (alleged) 'ancestors the Gauls'. Finally, by their concomitant publication of these two books, even if they relevant ancient history, are nevertheless an excellent indicator of the underlying trends of the writing of history at the beginning of the 21st century. Adapted from the source document.

Hubert Forestier, I. R. D., Jakarta
Les éclats du passé préhistorique de Sumatra: une très longue histoire des techniques

Being a land bridge between mainland Southeast Asia and the Indonesian Archipelago, the island of Sumatra, by its geographical position, has played an important part in the human settlement of Indonesia. Since the ancient prehistory, Man has crossed the old sub-continent Sundaland and went inevitably through the Island of Sumatra before reaching Java. The first migrants, Homo erectus, the Hoabinhian foragers as well as the first farmers, all of them, from the ancient Palaeolithic until the Neolithic periods, have left behind them the splendid remains of their stone implements. We will discuss here the significance of these stone tools which are important landmarks in time and space, and which inform us about the prehistory and the ancient techniques of this still mostly unknown island. In the first place, this contribution reviews the history of discoveries in Sumatran prehistory from the beginning during the colonial period until the present. In the second place, we will present the new discoveries resulting from our recent fieldwork in order to try to give some new insights about the knowledge of the cultural sequences in the prehistory of this vast and forgotten island.

ABSTRACT- The history of public monuments in Spain, and especially in Madrid, is closely linked with that of liberalism : not till the end of the Ancient Regime did statues start to be used to adorn squares. Little by little, a sort of bronze or stone pantheon was erected in Spanish cities, through which Spanish heroes and great men of history were meant to be glorified. Cervantes came first in a long list to which some new important pieces were added at the beginning of the 20th century. To celebrate the coronation of Alphonse XIII, in 1902, a monument to Eloy Gonzalo García, the popular hero of the recent Cuban War, was erected. The contradictory image conveyed by the sculptor is one of a Revolutionary who became a patriot.

The first note shows how tradition can supersede history. In Banda Aceh, an ancient sacred tombstone locally thought to be that of a Syrian or Turkish gunner was, after the tsunami, transformed by the Turkish Red Crescent into a large cemetery of " Ottoman commanders and soldiers" supposed to have come to Sumatra to fight the Portuguese on the side of Aceh. Yet, the Arabic inscription still reads that the grave belongs to an Acehnese Sultan of the 16th century. The second one draws attention on two other sacred tombstones of the 16th century in Aceh which present the typical " Chinese" style of the Islamic funeral art of Brunei.

History and historiography of politics in africa. The need for a critical re-reading.
The ancient African political society were not only not democratical, but above all did not contain any seed directly profitable to democracy, concept and process of the developed countries. Three inherited hinderances must be underlined : the concept of social inequality, the consensus principle and inseparability of religion and politics. The autocracy of colonial regimes did not favour the democratical thought, in spite of an unavoidable influence of the parent-state, would it be only through school contacts. Nevertheless, the consciousness of the individual and the impossible but necessary search for a balance between the paradoxical but complementary principles of freedom and equality are universal attainments in history hampered by no determinism. But all african of foreign research workers should bear in mind the scouring of commonplaces inherited from the colonial period. These should note be posed as dogmas any longer, though scientific writings are still padded with them (ethny, dualism, tradition/modemity, traditional power, and so on...). In short, time has come to decolonize the history of Africa.

Maxime Rosso, The allusions to Sparta in the speeches and politics of Robespierre from 1789 to Thermidor.
Ancient Greece is one of the richest sources of Western political thought. The reflections of its philosophers and the institutions of its cities have served as models and supported intellectual constructions from the end of the Ancient World until the twentieth century, when, it is true, the classical references have slightly faded. Two separate systems distinguish themselves from the others, and have sustained attention not only by their historical importance, but by the persistent practice of later authors of contrasting their laws and their respective social rules : Athens and Sparta. One knows rather well the connection between the Ancient Greek city and the idea of democracy. But the heritage of Sparta is more difficult to define, notably in France. Yet until the end of the eighteenth century, in the realm of political ideas, Sparta was ahead of Athens, and nearly the equal of Rome. Maximilien Robespierre is at the end of the line of reflections about the city of Lycurgus ; he offered a synthesis about it, and promoted the Spartan ideal in Revolutionary France. Indeed, he could find examples and answers for his own aspirations in the history of this city. The submission to the law, the devotion to the patrie, or the regeneration of the citizen through education, are so many traits that made up the reputation of Sparta. The revolutionary context was especially propitious to the revival of these values. Robespierre, then, gave meaning to the use of Sparta in France from the Reformation to the Revolution. He illustrated its role in the construction of republican ideas.

Jean Rocher
In the ancient cemetery of Sabang (on the island of Weh in north Sumatra) is a
modest tombstone which constitutes the only French military « graveyard » in
Indonesia.
The author examines the strange history of this tomb. The story begins when the remains of two French soldiers are placed there. They were killed during the confrontation between the German cruiser Emden and the French anti- torpedo boat Mousquet (1914).
By considering the damage inflicted on this monument, one also can see the lively destiny of this little island positioned at the intersection of larger maritimes movements. However, a mystery enshrouds this tombstone. Will the reader be able to solve it ?

Abstract It is now the historian's turn to take an interest in the urban quarter after the sociologist's and the geographer's. Some historians of contemporary history have already used some well-proven methods. The challenge is different though for those historians whose research focuses on more ancient times. The origin of documents, the urban situation in XVIIth and XVIIIth France make the task all the harder. Which criteria shall we base our definition of the urban quarter upon ? Bearing in mind that we must avoid any possible confusion with the neighbourhood or the parish. The following article aims at answering these questions at least where towns in « modern » France are concerned.

Antonio Mourâo Cavalcante - Ethnopsychiatry: culture comes to the aid of health.
The Author takes a case history as a basis for developing a discussion where he emphasizes the psychiatric and cultural aspects of a situation. This is a typical ethnopsychiatric approach, which goes back to the work of Georges Devereux and Tobie Nathan. The psychiatric elements the case presents suggest a depression. The cultural aspects, closely linked to the realities of life in the Nordeste region of Brazil, reflect the world of rural traditional, steeped in religious beliefs and struggles for power. The scenario is typical of ancient Brazil which, through the aging patient, shows the decline, even the progressive disappearance, of that world, now suffused with modernity and social pluralism.