In a previous paper, we discussed a series of solar eclipse observations recorded in medieval Arabic chronicles both for their astronomical and chronological value. In the present paper we investigate lunar eclipses reported in these same sources as well as in many further chronicles. It should be stressed that our interest here is limited to eclipse records from chronicles; we have not included any material from technical treatises composed by astronomers. The observations are largely from al-Andalus (Islamic Spain), Egypt, Iraq, and Syria; they mainly cover the date range from A.D. 867 to 1520, with additions from 1674 to 1791.

The documented history of the theory of the muwashshaḥ and one of its constituent parts, the kharja, spans almost 800 years: from Ion Sanā' al-Mulk (d. 608/1211) to the present day. Apologists for the various theories broadly belong to one of two schools, which for the sake of convenience I shall label ‘integralist’ and ‘partialist’. The integralist view holds that the muwashshaḥ is an indivisible poetic unit with a coherent internal structure; partialists, on the other hand, divide the muwashshaḥ into two separate units where certain linguistic criteria are applicable: the main body of the muwashshaḥ in Classical Arabic and the kharja if it employs a Romance and/or Arabic vernacular.

One of the great ‘lost’ stories of Chinese tradition concerned a magistrate, a courtesan, and a tea-smuggler. It was probably based on real-life events, and was one of the most popular tales during the Southern Sung (1127–1279) and Yüan (1280–1368) dynasties. Yet the piecing together of its outline has entailed much effort, much painstaking sifting and mooting. A tentative reconstruction of it runs as follows:

Few non-Asian sinological scholars would not recognize the name of James Legge (A.D. 1815–97), partly because his voluminous translations of the Confucian canon still continue to be reprinted and used by Western sinological circles 120 years after their first publication. In China itself, Legge has recently received new attention with the republication of bilingual editions of The Four Books and The Book of Changes. Japanese readers have had rather more access to Legge's English translations of The Four Books, beginning with the early Meiji period and continuing into the twentieth century. Unfortunately, none of these Chinese or Japanese editions has included the extensive commentarial notes drawn from Chinese Confucian and early Western sinological sources which earned Legge his reputation as a world-class Chinese scholar in the nineteenth century.

The Japanese language was traditionally written vertically. Recently, journals, textbooks and academic reference works have appeared with the script written horizontally. One reason for this may be that quotations of foreign names and articles (written in European languages) and mathematical equations often appear in technical texts, and it is therefore more convenient to have the main text of this kind of work written horizontally.

It is hardly possible to praise the work which is the subject of this article too highly. It follows quite rapidly in the wake of a quartet of volumes devoted to the study of the languages of the Horn (Lamberti 1986, 1988a, 1988b; Haberland and Lamberti, 1988), and together with the more recently published Materialien zum Yemsa, (Lamberti, 1993b) constitutes a deeply impressive contribution to this area of scholarship. It is the present writer's long-held opinion that within this field the most pressing need continues to be good synchronic descriptions and dictionaries of the lesser-known languages and dialects. The work in hand meets just that need. As it happens, Shinassha has not been altogether neglected by previous research (cf. Grottanelli, 1941; Plazikowsky Brauner, 1950; Rottland, 1990), but every reader of this book will agree with me when I say that we now have a treatment of the language far beyond anything we have had previously. Indeed, as far as ‘Westkuschitik’ (alias ‘North Omotic’) languages are concerned, this bids well to be the most thoroughgoing description yet. Of course, it goes without saying that, short of reduplicating the researcher's fieldwork, it is impossible for any reader of such a book to vouch for the forms presented; but such is the scrupulous attention to detail in transcription, the accuracy in cross-referencing, and the general internal consistency in this particular work that little doubt could be entertained as to its being anything but authoritative.

In the 1994 season of the excavations in Ramla, archaeologist Don Glick, digging on behalf of Israel Antiquities Authority, exposed in a field on the eastern part of the city, some 600 m. to the south east of Birkat al-ՙAnaziyya, a complex of water installations consisting of two small basins or troughs (one 1.00 × 1.50 m. and the other 0.50 × 0.62 m.), and water canals and pipes. One of the canals was covered with a slab of marble, with an Arabic inscription, in a secondary usage. In the course of fitting the stone to its new purpose, it was cut and a few lines from the top and bottom of the inscription were lost. From the contents of the inscription, as we shall soon see, it can be learnt that the field and the water installations continued to be in use, long after the inscription ceased to serve its purpose, for it was utilized in the repairs of the water installations in the field at some later date.