Coffin Commerce

This discussion will be centered on one ubiquitous and rather simple Egyptian object type – the wooden container for the human corpse. We will focus on the entire 'lifespan' of the coffin – how they were created, who bought them, how they were used in funerary rituals, where they were placed in a given tomb, and how they might have been used again for another dead person. Using evidence from Deir el Medina, we will move through time from the initial agreement between the craftsman and the seller, to the construction of the object by a carpenter, to the plastering and painting of the coffin by a draftsman, to the sale of the object, to its ritual use in funerary activities, to its deposit in a burial chamber, and, briefly, to its possible reuse.

The Coffyn/Coffin Dynasty is a genealogical recapitulation of fifteen generations born in the United States. At first, I was going to title it The Coffin Saga Continues, but R. Gardner and Louis Coffin expired. I fell in love with a wonderful culmination of people belonging to my husband's family. I added the years before the stepping on US soil. There are millions more of people out there to be added. One can enjoy reading cover to cover about so many important individuals such as presidents, a Union Station president, aviators, college owners, and patented people besides farmers, teachers, doctors, etc. It is not the norm of "born and died" information.

Blessed with numerous safe harbours, accessible ports, and a rich hinterland, Gujarat has been central to the history of Indian Ocean maritime exchange that involved not only goods, but also people and ideas. This volume maps the trajectory of the extra-continental interactions of Gujarat and how it shaped the history of the Indian Ocean. Chronologically, the volume spans two millennia, and geographically, it ranges from the Red Sea to Southeast Asia The book focuses on specific groups of Gujarati traders, and their accessibility and trading activities with maritime merchants from Africa, Arabia, Southeast Asia, China, and Europe. It not only analyses the complex process of commodity circulation, involving a host of players, huge investments, and numerous commercial operations, but also engages with questions of migration and diaspora. Paying close attention to current historiographical debates, the contributors make serious efforts to challenge the neat regional boundaries that are often drawn around the trading history of Gujarat.

Considers legislation to establish SBA as a permanent agency; to provide for formation of private and Federal Reserve System national investment companies to aid small businesses; to authorize SBA loans to nonprofit organizations; to assist state small business programs; and to authorize S.