see Skeat, Malay Magic, pp. 33–42, 57–59, 191–193, 225–228, 254, 259, 263–265, 344–351, &c. On Madagascar see v. Gennep, Tabou et totémisme; for the Jews see Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, ii. 38, 394; iv. 825. For the Semites see Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, passim. For a general discussion of taboo see Marillier, loc. cit., v. Gennep, do. For sexual taboos see Crawley, Mystic Rose, and in Journ. Anth. Inst. xxiv. 116, 219, 430. For taboos of commensality see Crawley in Folklore, vi. 130. See also Hubert and Mauss in Année Sociologique, ii. 29–138 on sacrifice; and vii. 108, on mana; Durkheim, ib. i. 38–70 on incest and exogamy; Mauss in Revue de l’histoire des religions, xxxv. 49–60 on taboo and penal law; J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 297–464 on royal and priestly taboos, also iii. 1–134, 201–236, 463–467; J. Tuchmann, articles on “La Fascination” in Mélusine, 1881, &c.; J. G. Frazer, on burial rites, in Journ. Anth. Inst., xv. 64 sq. For purity and holiness in the Old Testament see Baudissin, Studien, ii. 3–142; for mana see Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, vii. 232. (N. W. T.)
TABOR, a town in western Bohemia, on the Francis-Joseph railway, 104 kilometres from Prague. Pop. (1908) 10,703. It is the chief town of a government district and the seat of a provincial law-court, and also of an industrial school. The town was founded in 1420 by the more advanced party of the church-reformers or Hussites, who, as it became their centre, soon began to be known as the Taborites. The town is situated on the summit of an isolated hill separated from the surrounding country by the Luznice stream and by an extensive pond, to which the Hussites gave the biblical name of Jordan. The historical importance of the city of Tabor only ceased when it was captured by King George of Poděbrad in 1452. Though a large part of the ancient fortifications has recently been demolished, Tabor—or Hradiste Hory Tabor, the castle of the Tabor Hill, as it was called in the Hussite period—has still preserved many memorials of its past fame. In the centre of the city is the market-place (rynk). Only very narrow streets lead to it, to render the approach to it more difficult in time of war. In the centre of the market-place is the statue of Žižka, the greatest of the Taborite leaders. Here also is the diaconal church, built in 1516 in the style of the Bohemian Renaissance, and the town hall, in connexion with which a museum has been founded, which contains interesting memorials of the Hussite period. Some parts of the ancient fortifications and the very ancient Kotnov tower also still exist.
See Thir, Hradiste Hory Tabor (1895).
TABRIZ, the capital of the province of Azerbaijan in Persia, situated in the valley of the Aji Chai, “Bitter River,” at an elevation of 4400 ft. in 38° 4′ N., 46° 18′ E. Based on a census taken in 1871 the population of Tabriz was in 1881 estimated at 165,000, and is now said to be about 200,000.
The popular etymology of the name Tabriz from tab=fever, rīz=pourer away (verb, rīkhtan=pour away, flow; German rieseln?), hence “fever-destroying,” is erroneous and was invented in modern times. It is related that Zobeideh, the wife of Harun-al-Rashid, founded the town in 791 after recovering there from fever, but the earlier chronicles give no support to this statement, and it is nowhere recorded that Zobeideh ever visited Azerbaijan, and the name Tabriz was known many centuries before her time. In 1842 Hammer-Purgstall correctly explained the name as meaning the “warm-flowing” (tab＝warm, same root as tep in “tepid”) from some warm mineral springs in the neighbourhood, and compared it with the synonymous Teplitz in Bohemia. In old Armenian histories the name is Tavresh, which means the same. The popular pronunciation to and tau for tab has given rise to the spellings Toris and Tauris met with in older travellers and used even now.
Overlooking the valley on the N.E. and N. are bold bare rocks, while to the S. rises the majestic cone of Sahand (12,000 ft.). The town possesses few buildings of note, and of the extensive ruins few merit attention. The ark, or citadel, in the south-west extremity of the city, now used as an arsenal, is a noble building of burnt brick with mighty walls and a tower 120 ft. in height. Among the ruins of old Tabriz the sepulchre of the Mongol king, Ghazan Khan (1295–1304), in a quarter once known as Shanb (generally pronounced Sham and Shām) i Ghazan, is no longer to be distinguished except as part of a huge tumulus. The great Shanb (cupola or dome) and other buildings erected by Ghazan have also disappeared. They stood about 2 m. S.W. from the modern town, but far within the original boundaries. The “spacious arches of stone and other vestiges of departed majesty,” with which Ker Porter found it surrounded in 1818, were possibly remains of the college (medresseh) and monastery (zavīeh) where Ibn Batita found shelter during his visit to the locality. On the eastern side of the city stand the ruins of the Masjed i jehan Shah, commonly known as the Masjed i Kebud, or “Blue Mosque,” from the blue glazed tiles which cover its walls. It was built by Johan Shah of the Kara Kuyunli, or Black Sheep dynasty (1437–1467).[1] Tabriz is celebrated as one of the most healthy cities in Persia.
Tabriz was for a long period the emporium for the trade of Persia on the west, but since the opening of the railway through the Caucasus and greater facilities for transport on the Caspian, much of its trade with Russia has been diverted to Astara and Resht, while the insecurity on the Tabriz-Trebizond route since 1878 has diverted much commerce to the Bagdad road. According to consular reports the value of the exports and imports which passed through the Tabriz custom-house during the years 1867–73 averaged £593,800 and £1,226,660 (total for the year, £1,820,460); the averages for the six years 1893–9 were £212,880 and £544,530. There are reasons to believe that these values were considerably understated. For the year 1898–9 the present writer obtained figures directly from the books kept by the custom-house official at Tabriz, and although, as this official informed him, some important items had not been entered at all, the value of the exports and imports shown in the books exceeded that of the consular reports by about 10 per cent. Since that time the customs of Azerbaijan have been taken over by the central customs department under Belgian officials, and it is stated that the trade has not decreased. British, Russian, French, Turkish and Austrian consulates and a few European commercial firms are established at Tabriz; there are also post and telegraph offices. Tabriz has suffered much from earthquakes, notably in 858, 1042 and 1721, each time with almost complete destruction of the city. (A. H.-S.)
TABULARIUM (tabula, board, picture, also archives, records), the architectural term given to the Record office in ancient Rome, which was built by Q. Lutatius Catulus, the conqueror of the Cimbri. It was situated on the west side of the Forum Romanum, and its great corridor, 220 ft. long, raised 50 ft. above the forum on a massive substructure, is still partly preserved. This corridor was lighted through a series of arches divided by semi-detached columns of the Doric order, the earliest example of this class of decoration, which in the Theatre of Marcellus, the Colosseum, and all the great amphitheatres throughout the Roman empire constituted the decorative treatment of the wall surface and gave scale to the structure. Traces of an upper corridor with semi-detached columns of the Ionic order have been found in the Tabularium, but this structure was much changed in the 13th century, when the Palace of the Senators was built.
TACHEOMETRY (from Gr. ταχύς, quick; μέτρον, a measure), a system of rapid surveying, by which the positions, both horizontal and vertical, of points on the earth’s surface relatively to one another are determined without using a chain or tape or a separate levelling instrument. The ordinary methods of surveying with a theodolite, chain, and levelling instrument (see Surveying) are fairly satisfactory when the ground is pretty clear of obstructions and not very precipitous, but it becomes extremely cumbrous when the ground is much covered with bush, or broken up by ravines. Chain measurements are then both slow and liable to considerable error; the levelling, too, is carried on at great disadvantage in point of speed, though without serious loss of accuracy. These difficulties led to the introduction of tacheometry, in which, instead of the pole formerly employed to mark a point, a staff similar to a level staff is used. This is marked with heights from the foot, and is graduated according to the form of tacheometer in use. The azimuth angle is determined as formerly. The horizontal distance is
- ↑ This mosque is popularly attributed to Ghazan Khan (end of 13th century).
