Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for Mercia:

Mercia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the kingdoms of central Anglo-Saxon England; it held a position of dominance for much of the period from the mid-7th to the early 9th century. Mercia originally comprised the border areas (modern Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and northern West Midlands and Warwickshire) that lay between the districts of Anglo-Saxon settlement and the Celtic tribes they had driven to the west. It later absorbed the Hwicce territory (the rest of West Midlands and Warwickshire, eastern Hereford and Worcester, and Gloucestershire) and spread also into what was later Cheshire, Salop, and western Hereford and Worcester. Mercia eventually came to denote an area bounded by the frontiers of Wales, the River Humber, East Anglia, and the River Thames. Its most famous kings were Penda (632-654), Aethelbald (reigned 716-757), and Offa (757-796). During this time the important Mercian School of manuscript illumination and sculpture developed. Thereafter it declined and disappeared under the encroachments of the Danes and of Wessex.
agora: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plural agorae
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In ancient Greek cities, an open space, serving as a commercial, political, religious, and social center. The word, first found in Homer, was applied by the Greeks of the 5th century BC in regard to this feature of their daily life. It was often a square or rectangle, surrounded by public and or sacred buildings and colonnades. The colonnades, sometimes containing shops (stoae) often enclosed the space, which was decorated with altars, fountains, statues, and trees. There were several kinds of agora, (1) archaic, where the colonnades and other buildings were not coordinated, and Athens is an example of this, (2) Ionic, more symmetrical, often combining colonnades to form either three sides of a rectangle or square, often with two or more courtyards, such as Miletus and Magnesia. In highly developed agora, like that of Athens, each trade or profession had its own quarter. It also served for theatrical and athletic performances until special buildings and places were made for those purposes. Under the Romans, it became a forum where one side was a vast basilica and the rest colonnades.
Agrigento: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: formerly Girgenti, Greek Acragas or Akragas, Latin Agrigentum; also Agrigagas
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A wealthy, flourishing Greek and Roman city near the southern coast of Sicily, Italy, originally a colony of Gela and founded by Greeks about 580 BC. The plateau site of the ancient city has extraordinarily rich Greek remains. There are extensive walls with remnants of eight gates and the remains of seven Doric temples, but there has been illegal construction in which the ruins were quarried, so little is standing where some of the buildings once were. Agrigento was sacked by the Carthaginians in 406 BC, a disaster from which it never really recovered. It was refounded by Timoleon, a Greek general and statesman, in 338 BC, but Agrigento was on the losing side for most of the Punic Wars. Agrigento returned to some commercial prosperity when textiles, sulfur and potash mining, and agriculture expanded. It was abandoned once again in the Christian era though areas were used as Roman and Christian cemeteries and catacombs. There is some evidence for even earlier settlement, possibly Neolithic.
Ampurias: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Emporion
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Greek trading settlement in Spain, 40 km northeast of present-day Gerona. It was originally a colony of Marseilles (Massalia), founded in the early 6th century BC. The town allied with Rome in the 3rd century BC and it became a Roman colony under Augustus (27 BC-14 AD). Ampurias was probably most prosperous between the 5th-3rd centuries BC, when it established extensive trading across the Mediterranean. Its commercial achievements were marked by the minting of coinage. But after Roman presence increased and the harbor began to silt up, the town declined. The end came at the destruction by the Franks in 265 AD.
Anglo-Saxons: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The name of the combined cultures, the Angles and the Saxons, who left their North Sea coastal homelands in the 5th century AD and moved to eastern England after the breakdown of Roman Rule. The name derives from two specific groups --- the Angles of Jutland and the Saxons from northern Germany. Some other Germanic peoples took part in the migrations, such as the Jutes and the Frisians, and they are sometimes included under this name. The language, culture, and settlement pattern of medieval and later England can be traced directly to the Anglo-Saxons. The movement to the area probably began in the 4th century when barbarian Foederati went to serve in the Roman army in Britain. The main immigration began in the middle of the 5th century. Bede, writing in the early 8th century, gives the only reliable historical record for this period, though incidental information can be found in the Old English literature, particularly the poem of Beowulf. The English kingdoms took shape by the late 6th century. Archaeologically, there are three periods: the Early or Pagan Saxon period went until the general acceptance of Christianity in the mid-7th century; the Middle Saxon period until the 9th century, and the Late Saxon period which went up till the Norman invasion of 1066. The earliest period's remains are mainly burial deposits, often cremation in urns or by inhumation in cemeteries of trench graves or under barrows. Grave goods often include knives, sword or spear, shield boss, and brooches, buckles, beads, girdle-hangers, and pottery -- depending on the gender. Most archaeological evidence comes from the cemeteries, including the exceptional ship burial at Sutton Hoo. Churches were built and in the Middle and Late Saxon periods, including Bradford-Upon-Avon and Deerhurst. Important monuments of the Middle and Late Saxon periods are the royal palaces at Yeavering and Cheddar. The Late Saxon period, after the Viking invasions, saw the growth of the first towns in Britain since the Roman period, following the establishment of Burhs in response to the Scandinavian threat. There was wide-ranging trade, developed coinage, and improved pottery manufacture and metal-working. The separate British kingdoms (most important: Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex) eventually became a unified England with a capital at Winchester in Wessex. The Anglo-Saxons were responsible for the introduction of the English language and for the establishment of the settlement patterns of medieval England.
Aquileia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A former city founded as a Roman colony in 181 BC, now a village in northeastern Italy near the Adriatic coast northwest of Trieste. Founded to prevent barbarian invasions, Aquileia became a trade and commercial center along the route north and east into the Black Sea areas. By the 4th century, it became capital of the regions of Venetia and Istria. The city fell to the Huns and was sacked in 452. It also once served as an episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Church.
Asyut: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Djawty, Lycopolis, Syut, Asiut, Assiout
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Capital of the Asyut muhafazah (governorate) and the largest settlement of Upper Egypt, midway between Cairo and Aswan on the west bank of the Nile. It was a center of worship for Wepwawet, the jackal-headed god. In the Middle Kingdom, it was the capital of the 17th nome (province) of Upper Egypt. It was commercially important as a terminus of caravan routes across the deserts. In Hellenistic times it was known as Lycopolis (Wolf City") referring to the worship of the jackal-headed god."
Athens: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Athínai (modern Greek), Athenai (ancient Greek)
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important classical Greek city-state with evidence for continuous occupation from the Late Neolithic, but because of its continuous occupation and the resulting disturbance of the earlier levels, its history is told from the time of the Mycenaeans in the Late Bronze Age. The citadel on the Acropolis was walled early in its history. It is the capital of Greece and generally considered to be the birthplace of Western civilization. Athens is best known for its temples and public buildings of antiquity. The Parthenon, a columned, rectangular temple built for the city's patron goddess, Athena, is considered to be the culmination of the Doric order of classical Greek architecture. Also located on the Acropolis are the Erechtheum, originally the temple of both Athena and Poseidon, and the Propylaea, the entrance of which is through the wall of the Acropolis. At the foot of the Acropolis, to the south, are the theaters of Herodes and Dionysus, while to the northwest is the Agora, the ancient marketplace of the city. The Kerameikos cemetery documents the city's Iron Age (c 11-8 BC), after which archaeology and history combine to tell of its brilliance through the classical period. It supposedly rivaled Knossos and later resisted successive waves of Dorian invaders. It is still not clear how far Athens, perhaps the base of the very early Ionian colonies, managed to ride out the 'dark age' that followed the collapse of Mycenaean civilization. There is evidence of a cultural and commercial renaissance in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. A major component of this socioeconomic revolution was the borrowing of the Phoenician alphabet for the writing of Greek. Commercial success brought rapid economic growth and a population explosion. New ideas were imported and political upheaval led to experiments in government, such as democracy. Athens resisted Persian invaders and developed a prestige which allowed the establishment of the Delian League and the extension of her political power -- the Athenian empire. In the years 447-431 BC, under Pericles, vast sums were spent on public works, such as the new group of buildings on the Acropolis including the Parthenon. Pericles would not grant the Hellenes the freedom requested by Sparta, which led to the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) after which Athens was a dependent of Sparta. Escape from Spartan imperialism in the 4th century BC was threatened by Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. By the end of the century, Macedon dominated and Athens did not achieve independence until 228 BC. Rome then intruded in the 2nd and 1st centuries and Athens was sieged and plundered by Sulla. During the Imperial period, Athens was confined to a role as a cultural center and seat of learning for the rich -- which lasted into the 6th century AD, when the edict of Justinian in 529 closed down the schools of philosophy. By the Byzantine period, Athens had become a modest provincial town. Athens' ruins will be difficult to protect from the corrosive atmosphere and millions of visiting tourists.
Bergen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Port city of southwestern Norway, originally called Bjørgvin, and founded in 1070 AD by King Olaf III. About 1100, a castle was built on the northern edge of the Vågen harbor, and Bergen became commercially and politically important; it was Norway's capital in the 12th and 13th centuries. Excavations in the Bryggen, the harbor area, have revealed a sequence of levels that illustrate the area's evolution from the 11th century onwards. The levels have been accurately dated by a series of fires which occurred at various stages of Bergen's history. Waterlogged conditions have preserved many of the timber buildings, streets, and quays. The 11th-century houses and warehouses were on piles and had sills at ground level, while jetties became popular in the Hanseatic period (14th and 15th centuries). The excavations revealed a remarkable collection of imported pottery from all over Europe as well as quantities of leather and wooden objects. Parts of three trading ships or freighters were also found, their timbers having been re-used in the buildings.
clay tablet: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The main writing material used by the scribes of early civilizations. Signs were impressed or inscribed on the soft clay, which was then dried in the sun. The ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hittites wrote on tablets made from water-cleaned clay. A common form was a thin quadrilateral tile about five inches long which, while still wet, was inscribed by a stylus with cuneiform characters. By writing on the surface in small characters, a scribe could copy a substantial text on a single tablet. For longer texts, several tablets were used and then linked by numbers or catchwords. Book production on clay tablets probably continued for 2,000 years in Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Either dried in the sun or baked in a kiln, clay tablets were almost indestructible. The latter process was used for texts of special value, legal codes, royal annals, and epics to ensure greater preservation. Buried for thousands of years in the mounds of forgotten cities, they have been removed intact or almost so in modern archaeological excavations. The number of clay tablets recovered is nearly half a million, but there are constantly new finds. The largest surviving category consists of private commercial documents and government archives. When the Aramaic language and alphabet arose in the 6th century BC, the clay tablet book declined because clay was less suited than papyrus to the Aramaic characters.
Cologne: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: (Roman) Colonia Agrippinensis, Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, Colonia
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the left bank of the Rhine, West Germany, that was colonized by the Roman general Agrippa in 53 BC. A fortified settlement was established c 38 BC and it became a Roman colony in 50 AD. It was named Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, shortened to Colonia. It became the capital of the province of Lower Germania, which was an important commercial center. After 258 AD it was, for a time, the capital of an empire comprising Gaul, Britain, and Spain. In 310, Constantine the Great built a castle and a permanent bridge to it across the Rhine. About 456 it was conquered by the Franks, and it soon became the residence of the kings of the Ripuarian part of the Frankish kingdom. Ceramics and glass were manufactured in Cologne in Roman times. Traces of the Roman period survive including the principal elements of the street plan, town walls and gates, Roman and Gallo-Roman temples, water installations, Rhine port, bridges and fort, pottery and glass factories, and villas and cemeteries. In the 5th century, the Roman town was overrun by the Franks. During the Frankish and Carolingian periods and much of the Middle Ages, Cologne was a major bishopric and a leading commercial and cultural center. Spectacular Frankish royal graves dating to the mid-6th century have been uncovered.
colonia: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: colony
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A Roman settlement in conquered territory, a name first used in the later Republican and imperial Roman periods to a township, often of retired veteran soldiers, strategically placed to defend imperial interests. Its self-governing constitution imitated that of Rome, and the citizens had either full (Roman) citizenship or limited (Latin) citizenship. After the 2nd century BC, colonia became the highest rank that a community could attain. It involved a transfer of Roman citizens to a settlement in order to administer it in collaboration with the magistrates of the capital. In exchange for a commitment to provide military aid, its citizens acquired the right to trade and contract marriages with Roman citizens. In the Greek world, a colony was a city founded by a contingent of Greek citizens in a foreign territory for agricultural and/or commercial purposes.
Corinth: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient city of Greece, located where the Peloponnese meets the isthmus that connects it to the Greek mainland. The city has an exceptionally high acropolis on Acronocorinth Hill and profited from having ports on both the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs. The site was occupied from before 3000 BC, but its history is obscure until the early 8th century BC, when the city-state of Corinth began to develop as a commercial center. There is evidence of a Neolithic and an Early Bronze Age settlement at Corinth, both of considerable size. There is little evidence of Mycenaean settlement, however, and the next major settlement belonged to the Dark Age, c late 10th century BC. Corinth was a very important city throughout the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods. Corinth's political influence was increased through territorial expansion in the vicinity, and by the late 8th century it had secured control of the isthmus. The Corinthians established colonies at Corcyra and Syracuse, later making them dominant in trade with the western Mediterranean. From c 720-570 BC, Corinthian painted vases in the black-figure technique (which the Corinthians invented) were exported all over the Greek world. Workshops dating to this period have been excavated in the potters' quarter at Corinth, producing both pottery and terracottas. Corinthian pottery provides the most useful dating method available to archaeologists studying this period. Northwest of the agora stand seven Doric columns, which are the remains of the Temple of Apollo (c 550 BC). Callimachus is said to have invented the Corinthian column capital here c 450-425 BC. Corinth was involved in most of Greece's political struggles and in 146 BC was destroyed by the Roman general Lucius Mummius. In 44 BC, Julius Caesar reestablished Corinth as a Roman colony. Many of the visible remains date from the classical Greek and especially the early Roman periods, including a Roman agora (marketplace), the Odeon, the Pirene fountain, the Glauke fountain, temples, villas, baths, pottery factory, gymnasium, basilica, theater, and an amphitheater. Parts of the classical fortifications on the acropolis survive. In the later medieval period it then passed from Frankish to Venetian and eventually to Turkish hands. Substantial buildings from all these periods have been found in excavations since 1896. Modern Corinth was founded in 1858, 3 miles north of the ancient town, after an earthquake leveled the latter.
Damascus: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rich oasis city at the inland end of a pass in Syria and the modern capital of Syria. Damascus was occupied by the 3rd millennium BC, but the settlements of the prehistoric, biblical and Roman periods underlie the modern and medieval city and are therefore not readily available for excavation. Excavations have demonstrated that an urban center existed in the 4th millennium BC at Tall as-Salhiyah, southeast of Damascus. Pottery from the 3rd millennium BC has been found in the Old City. Before the 2nd millennium BC an intricate system of irrigation for Damascus and al-Ghutah had been developed. Egyptian texts and references in the Bible attest the city's importance in international trade from the 16th century BC; it appears as Dimashqa in the Tell El-Amarna documents. The Aramaeans conquered Damascus in the late 2nd millennium BC and it was subsequently annexed by the Israelites (10th century BC) and later the Assyrians (8th century BC). By 85 BC it had become capital of Nabatean kingdom; by 64 BC it was a Roman city of commercial and strategic importance, and subsequently a major Byzantine garrison. Damascus was captured by the Arabs in 635 and chosen as their capital by the Ummayads, who formed the first Islamic dynasty and ruled from 661-750. Its most famous Islamic monument if the Great Mosque of the caliph al-Walid, built in 706-714/715. Among ancient cities of the world, Damascus is perhaps the oldest continuously inhabited. Its name, Dimashq in Arabic (colloquially ash-Sham, meaning the northern as located from Arabia), derives from Dimashka, a word of pre-Semitic etymology, suggesting that the beginnings of Damascus go back to a time before recorded history.
Delos: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small island in the Aegean, in the middle of the Cyclades, the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. There was an important sanctuary which contained a colossal marble kouros and a sanctuary of Artemis with a temple. There are four main groups of ruins on the western coast: the commercial port and small sanctuaries; the religious city of Apollo, a hieron (sanctuary); the sanctuaries of Mount Cynthos and the theater; and the region of the Sacred Lake. There is evidence for some late Neolithic and some Mycenaean settlement; it was inhabited from the late 3rd millennium BC. Sometime early in the 1st millennium BC, its association with the worship of Apollo was established. The island became a populous religious and political center, with an oracle that was perhaps second only to Delphi. Delos was also chose as the headquarters and treasury for the important maritime alliance against the Persians, the Delian League (487 BC). Tine streets, Greek and oriental temples, meeting houses for the merchant guilds, a unique colonnaded ('hypostyle') hall, and splendid houses were built. Rome took the island in 166 BC, and eventually it was abandoned. Excavations have been conducted since 1873 by the French School of Athens.
dolerite: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: diabase
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A fine- to medium-grained, dark gray to black intrusive igneous rock with the composition of basalt. It is extremely hard and tough and is commonly quarried for crushed stone (trap). It is used for monumental stone and is one of the dark-colored rocks commercially known as black granite. Diabase is widespread.
Ebla: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Eblaite, Tell Mardik Ebla, Tell Mardikh
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the River Orontes in northern Syria (now Tell Mardikh) which was the seat of a powerful state in the mid 3rd millennium BC, though occupied from the 4th millennium onward. It fell to Akkad c 2250 but continued to flourish. The remains and a large archive of 15,000+ cuneiform texts and fragments within a palace complex showed a high level of wealth and culture. The archive yielded evidence of the previously unknown language, a Semitic tongue now labeled Eblaite, and history of a powerful state of the 3rd millennium BC. The tablets also record many Semitic names which are used in the Old Testament of the Bible, suggesting that Eblites and Israelites interacted. Ebla was important under a dynasty of Amorites in the 2nd millennium, before being destroyed c 1600 BC by the Hittites. The city was clearly an important commercial center, exporting woolen cloth, wood, and furniture to Assur in Mesopotamia and Kanesh in Anatolia. The culture was contemporary with the late Early Dynastic city-states and early Akkadian rulers of southern Mesopotamia.
Gades: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Phoenician Gadir, modern Cádiz
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city of southwestern Spain that was prosperous in antiquity for more than a millennium as a commercial port. It was founded by Phoenicians from Tyre around 1100 BC, but a date in the 7th or 8th century BC is perhaps more plausible. Prosperity declined with the rise of nearby Hispalis (Seville) in the 2nd century AD. Trade and fishing are reported on early coins; trade was strongly associated with the area's metallurgy. By the 1st century BC, Gades seems to have had a significant market in tin-mining and the tin trade. It defected from the Carthaginian side to Rome in 206 BC. It was known to the Romans for its gaiety and exotic pleasures.
Gloucester: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Roman Glevum
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Roman colonia of Glevum in southwest England, founded by the emperor Nerva, 96-98 AD. The Abbey of St. Peter by King Osric of Northumbria was founded in 681 and it became the capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. It achieved reasonable prosperity and had a colonnaded forum, a basilica, and houses with mosaic floors.
Hedeby: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Haithabu, Haddeby
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important Viking settlement in northern Germany and one of the earliest Scandinavian urban centers, established in the late 8th century. It is situated on a fjord, defended by a large earth rampart. Between 800-1050, Hedeby was a major trading center and many imported luxury goods have been found, especially in graves. Excavation has revealed many wooden buildings, well preserved in waterlogged conditions, and evidence of industrial and commercial activity. It served as an early focus of national unification and as a crossroads for Western-Eastern European and European-Western Asian trade.
Hittite: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hatti, Kheta
CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A people of obscure origin who infiltrated Anatolia and the Levant from the north during the later 3rd millennium BC. In the Old Kingdom (c 1750-1450) they established a state in central Turkey with its capital first at Kussara, then at Boghazköy. They overran north Syria c 1600 and pushed on as far as Babylon. Under the empire (1450-1200) a more stable state was built up over most of Anatolia and north Syria, displacing the kingdom of the Mitanni and successfully challenging Assyria and Egypt. The end came quite suddenly in the Late Bronze Age c 1200 BC, notably by movements of the Peoples of the Sea and Anatolian groups from the north. The Hittite outposts in north Syria, however, survived as a chain of Syro-Hittite or neo-Hittite city-states -- Karatepe, Sinjerli, Sakçe, Gözü, Malatya, Atchana, and Carchemish -- down to their final annexation by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC. They are also known for their metal-working. They exploited and traded copper, lead, silver and also iron; indeed, they were among the first peoples to use iron, and for a period maintained a virtual monopoly in the new metal. Their language, Hittite and Hieroglyphic Hittite, is Indo-European, the earliest to be recorded. Hurrian, the language of the Hurri, was non-Indo-European, as of course was the Akkadian much used for commercial and foreign correspondence. The Akkadian cuneiform script was generally used too, though for monumental purposes local hieroglyphs were preferred. The discovery of the Hittite language was the major advance this century in the field of Indo-European languages -- with archives yielding thousands of tablets in many languages. The great period of the empire was 14th-13th centuries BC when a vast amount of material was recorded -- some in the important sister Anatolian languages of Palaic and Luvian.
Hohenasperg: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Iron Age oppidium on a 6th century BC site of the Hallstatt D period. Hohenasperg was a commercial center whose finds included many luxury items from Greece.
horse: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: A large solid-hoofed herbivorous mammal domesticated since prehistoric times and used as a beast of burden, a draft animal, or for riding. During ancient cold periods, horses also occupied the open vegetation which then existed in northern and western Europe. At some sites, horse bones formed a major part of Palaeolithic hunters' diet. It was widespread in temperate regions during the Pleistocene. With the end of the last glaciation, they disappeared from northwest Europe and became restricted to the temperate grassland and dry shrubland of Central Europe and Asia. In America it was hunted to extinction, to be reintroduced only in recent centuries. In the steppes, the horse was domesticated much later than cattle, sheep, etc. The first evidence for possible manipulation of horse by man occurs in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC in sites of the Tripolye culture and related cultures of the Ukraine. It spread rapidly through the Near East with northern peoples like the Hurri, Hyksos, Kassites, and Aryans, particularly after the invention of the chariot in Syria. The domesticated horse was introduced into Egypt from western Asia in the Second Intermediate Period (1650-1550 BC) at roughly the same time as the chariot. Only later, as a heavier stock was bred, did the practice of riding become important. Its use for commercial draft and general agricultural purposes came much later still. Today's horses all seem to represent one species, Equus caballus.
Isfahan: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in Iran which was a Parthian provincial capital and possibly occupied throughout the Sassanian period, the central province of the ancient pre-Islamic Iranian empires. The Great Mosque of Isfahan was one of the most influential of all early Seljuq religious structures; it was probably completed around 1130 after a long and complicated history of rebuildings. The best known Safavid monuments are located at Isfahan, where 'Abbas I built a whole new city. 'Abbas expressed his new role by moving his capital in about 1597-98 to Isfahan. According to one description, it contained 162 mosques, 48 madrasahs, 1802 commercial buildings, and 283 baths. Most of these buildings no longer survive, but what remains constitutes some of the finest monuments of Islamic architecture.
jetton: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A kind of token with an engraved design that could be used as a gaming piece or in private commercial transactions.
Kharosti script: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A writing system used in northwestern India before about 500 AD; one of the two main early Indian scripts. The earliest extant inscription in Kharosti dates from 251 BC, and the latest from the 4th-5th century AD. The system probably derived from the Aramaic alphabet while northwestern India was under Persian rule in the 5th century BC. Aramaic, however, is a Semitic alphabet of 22 consonantal letters, while Kharosti is syllabic and has 252 separate signs for consonant and vowel combinations. A cursive script written from right to left, Kharosti was used for commercial and calligraphic purposes. It was influenced somewhat by Brahmi, the other Indian script of the period, which eventually superseded it. The name Karoshti literally means asses' lips, and is said to refer to the similarity of the highly curvilinear script to the movement of asses' lips.
Kilwa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A major trading city of the East African coast, on an island off Tanzania. For three centuries before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500 it was the leading entrepot on the East African coast. It was first occupied in the 9th century AD, with the earliest settlement being a village of thatched, timber-framed houses. The only industries were iron-working and the manufacture of shell beads. Small quantities of pottery from western Asia and, towards the end of the period, chlorite-schist from Madagascar indicate commercial activity on a modest scale. Prosperity began c 1200, marked by the introduction of coins, widespread use of masonry, and the construction of the mosque. In the 14th century the sultan built a spectacular palace, known as Husuni Kubwa, just outside the town. The establishment of a wealthy Islamic community is identified with the arrival of the so-called Shirazi dynasty which, according to tradition, came from the Persian Gulf. In the 14th and 15th centuries, Kilwa controlled the coast far to the south and grew even more wealthy through its control of the trade in Zimbabwean gold. The arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean at the end of the 15th century heralded Kilwa's decline.
Kufa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Before the founding of Baghdad, one of the largest and most important towns in Iraq. It was founded as a garrison by the caliph Omar I in 638. In 749, it served briefly as the capital of the Abbasids, before they founded Baghdad. Kufa became a large commercial and intellectual center, but a series of incursions by the Qarmathians caused extensive damage and by the 14th century it was almost deserted. The mosque, built in 670, was a stone structure with columns 15 meters high supporting the roof without the use of arches.
Lydia: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Lydians
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A small kingdom which appeared in western Anatolia (Turkey) in the 1st millennium BC known to the Assyrians as Luddu. Their land extended east from the Aegean Sea, occupying the Hermus and Cayster river valleys. By about the 7th century BC, Lydia was important in trade between the Aegean and the oriental civilizations. Its capital at Sardis became rich, exploiting the gold of the nearby Pactolus River; the Lydians are said to the originators of gold and silver coins. In the mid-7th century the kingdom was overrun by the Cimmerians, but reemerged powerfully. The kingdom was most powerful under Alyattes (c 619-560 BC), who extended his rule in Ionia. The legendary rich king Croesus (560-546 BC) was ruler when Lydia was finally overcome by the Achaemenids (c. 546-540). Sardis subsequently became the western capital of the Persian empire, linked to Susa by a royal road. The Lydians are known for two achievements in particular: mastery of fine stone masonry, witnessed in the Acropolis wall at Sardis and in the Pyramid Tomb and the Tomb of Gyges in the royal cemetery, and the invention of a true coin currency, which was adopted by both the Greeks and the Persians. The Lydians were a commercial people, who, according to Herodotus, had customs like the Greeks and were the first people to establish permanent retail shops. Sardis was captured by Alexander the Great in 334 BC and became a Greek city.
mansiones: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: mansionis
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In the Roman Empire, hostelries called mansionis were situated along the Roman road system to accommodate travelers on government or commercial business. It was a kind of Roman lodging-house. In the Roman Empire, communications were carried along main roads and the houses were used for overnight stays. They were spaced one day's journey apart. They usually had a defended post, with a ditch, rampart, gatehouses with guardrooms for the road police, and a canteen or taberna. Between these rest houses were mutationes with stables for changing horses and a taberna for refreshing the riders.
Mardikh, Tell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Ebla
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large fortified site in northern Mesopotamia, southwest of Aleppo, Syria, which was the ancient Ebla. Important Middle Bronze Age remains, including city gate, and fine sculpture have been found. Ebla was previously known from cuneiform texts, including inscriptions of kings of Akkad and Gudea of Lagash. Its large palace was destroyed by Naram-Sin c 2240 BC. The library of the palace contained c. 16,630 tablets and fragments with commercial, administrative, financial, lexical, historical, literary, and agricultural texts in cuneiform in a hitherto unknown northwest Semitic language called Eblaite. The discovery of the Eblaite tablets has aided comparative studies of Semitic languages and has also aided modern studies of the unrelated Sumerian language.
Mirgissa: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Iken
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Fortified site of the Middle Kingdom (2055-1650 BC), located in Lower Nubia, at the northern end of the second cataract of the Nile. The site has been submerged beneath Lake Nasser since completion of Aswan High Dam in 1971. It was the major commercial center known in ancient times as Iken.
Naukratis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Kom Gi'eif, Naucratis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Greek town in the Nile River delta, on the Canopic (western) branch of the river. An emporion (trading station") with exclusive trading rights in Egypt Naukratis was the center of cultural relations and trade between Greece and Egypt in the pre-Hellenistic period. It was established by Milesians in the 7th century BC and flourished throughout the classical period. There was a shared administrative building called the Helleneion. It declined after Alexander's conquest of Egypt and the foundation of Alexandria (332 BC). There is evidence for the minting of silver and bronze coins and for the existence of a new building program under the early Ptolemies. By Roman imperial times the site may have been abandoned. Dedications to deities and Greek pottery have thrown light on the early history of the Greek alphabet and the commercial activity of various Greek states especially in the 6th century BC. It was mentioned by Herodotus as the chief point of contact between Egypt and Greece until Hellenistic period and rise of Alexandria."
Nishapur: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Neyshabur
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the most important towns of Khorasan in the early Islamic period (now in Iran); for a short period in the 9th century it replaced Marv as the regional capital. The town was a major commercial center, noted for its textiles. Nishapur became a capital again in 1037 under Tughril Beg, the first Salijuq ruler. His successor, Malik Shah, made the city a center of learning, the home of Omar Khayyam, among other famous scholars. It declined in the 12th century as a result of earthquakes (in 1115, 1145). In 1221, Nishapur was sacked by the Mongols, and never regained its former prominence. The most important contribution of the Samanid age (819-999 AD) to Islamic art is the pottery produced at Nishapur. The ceramics were of bold style and showed links with Sassanian and Central Asian work. The style originated in Transoxania, an ancient district of Iran, and showed such specific characteristics as black and ochre birds with dashes of white and green. There was also a rougher type portraying human and animal figures against an ornamental background.
Offa's Dyke: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A linear earthwork, some 270 km long, built by King Offa of Mercia (reigned 757-796) as a frontier between his Anglo-Saxon kingdom and the kingdom of Powys. It is a large earthen bank and quarry ditch, and runs almost continuously between Treuddy and Chepstow, close to the border of England and Wales. Offa's reign is also noteworthy for the close connections he established between Mercia and the Carolingian empire (his daughter married one of Charlemagne's sons) and the introduction of regular coinage based on pennies.
Phimai: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Moated settlement in the Mun Valley, Khorat, Thailand, occupied before 600 BC. It became a major ironworking and trading center between c 200 BC-300 AD. Phimai Black Pottery is found in large quantities. A temple made of sandstone was built by the Khmer kings Jayavarman VI (1080-1107) and Dharanindravarman I (1107-1112) of Angkor and is in the Angkor Wat style. It was a commercial, administrative, and religious center under the Khmer rule.
Phoenician: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Phoenicia
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Semitic people who lived in the coastal area of Lebanon and Syria from about 1000 BC, the cultural heirs of the Canaanites. They flourished as traders from their ports of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. They are crediting with founding Carthage and inventing the alphabet; the Greek, Roman, Arabic and Hebrew alphabets are all derived from the Phoenician. Even after their incorporation into the Babylonian empire in 574 BC, they continued to influence world politics, in the Near East through their fleets, in the west through their powerful colony of Carthage. They also established colonies in Utica, north Africa; Gades in Spain, Motya in Sicily, Nora and Tharros in Sardinia, and other settlements in Malta and Ibiza. Culturally their role as merchants and middlemen was uninterrupted until they were absorbed into the Hellenistic and Roman world. They are reputed to have circumnavigated Africa. They developed the alphabet to assist their commercial activities. They are not well-known archaeologically in their homeland, though there has been some exploration of their major sites; they have left few lasting memorials in the form of great works of art or monumental architecture. The Phoenicians engaged in a series of three Punic Wars with the Romans, which led to their ultimate defeat and incorporation into the Roman world in the 2nd century BC.
Repton: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The church of St. Wystan at Repton in Derbyshire, England with parts of the upstanding masonry belong to the pre-Conquest period. There is an 8th-9th century crypt, the only English example of that date supported on four central columns. Repton is known to be the burial place of the Mercian kings and recent excavations have found evidence of a mausoleum outside the main building, as well as evidence of the Viking encampment of 867.
Samos: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Greek island in the Aegean just off mainland western Asia Minor. There is evidence of Early Neolithic occupancy on the south coast, near Tigáni. About the 11th century BC, the Ionians appeared and by the 7th century BC the island was one of the leading commercial centers of Greece. The tyrant Polycrates ruled from c 540 BC, in what was perhaps the golden age of Samos. He ruled in alliance with the Egyptian pharaoh and had a powerful fleet that blockaded the Persian-controlled mainland until his death c 522 BC. Samos was part of Delian league of Aegean states and then eclipsed by Rhodes in Hellenistic times. Ruins include the late 5th-century BC Temple of Hera and sanctuary and an aqueduct tunnel about 3/4 mi. (1 km) long. Samos was the birthplace of the mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras.
sceatta: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: sceat
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Small silver coin minted when the Anglo-Saxons reintroduced currency into England in the 7th century. The earliest identifiable ones are of Eorpwald of East Anglia (625-627) and Penda of Mercia (625-654). Our penny may owe its name to the latter. With this change of name it remained the standard coin from the reforms of Offa of Mercia (757-796) until the 12th century. Sceattas are distinctive because they were made from pellets which were hammered between two dies, not minted from a flattened piece of metal (as after c 790 in England). The kings of Kent imitated these sliver coins in about 690, and issued them with a variety of designs which are collectively known as the primary series of sceattas. The primary series is virtually confined to Kent and ended about 720. The secondary series include a wider variety of designs which occur over a larger area.
Spiro: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in eastern Oklahoma of the Mississippian Tradition (Middle Mississippi) Caddo culture beginning in the 8th century AD as a village of one-room houses, and by 950 had reached its maximum extent with the addition of eight burial mounds. The eight mounds are of various sizes and one served as a temple mound and burial mound (Craig Mound). In about 1200, Spiro was abandoned as a settlement and became a specialized mortuary and temple complex. To this final period, 1350-1400, belongs the enormous Craig Mound, covering an intact wooden mortuary house. Commoners and servants received only simple burial, but the ruling elite were placed in funerary litters filled with weapons, fabrics, smoking pipes, imported minerals, and copper, and shell ornaments decorated with designs of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (Southern Cult). Because of its abundance of paraphernalia of the Southern Cult, it is often linked to the centers at Etoway and Moundville, even though it is culturally distinct from them. Many of designs on carved shell gorgets and embossed sheet copper ornaments probably came from Mesoamerica, perhaps from Huastec culture of Veracruz. The site's archaeological value has been considerably diminished, as it was heavily vandalized during a period of commercial exploitation in the 1930s.
Sticna: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Iron Age fortified settlement site and burial mounds near Ljubljana, Slovenia. Over 6000 graves are known, in about 140 burial mounds, of the later Hallstatt period. An iron-rich site, it was an iron-smelting and commercial center.
stoa: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pl. stoae
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A classical Greek building with a long open colonnade, one- or two-story, for civil, religious, or commercial purpose. It essentially was a long, straight colonnade, with vertical wall (and sometimes rooms) behind and roof over. The colonnade is sometimes doubled, and a projecting wing may be added to either end. They are often found on the edge of an agora or a temenos. Several such buildings are in Athens, from about 650 BC onwards, such as the Stoa of Attalus and Stoa Poikile (c 460 BC). The popular Hellenistic and Roman philosophy of Stoicism takes its name from the Stoa Poikile.
Sutton Hoo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Sixth and seventh century AD burial mounds in Suffolk, England, the richest treasure found in British soil. It was the royal cemetery of the Wuffingas, early Anglo-Saxon kings of East Anglia. The largest of the burial mounds was found to cover a Saxon boat, its form preserved only by the impression left in the sand by its vanished timbers, with their iron bolts still in their original positions. The boat had been propelled by 38 oars; there was no mast. The grave goods include a decorated helmet, sword, and shield; ceremonial whetstone; gold belt buckle; purse and cloak clasps; Millefiori glass; cloisonné garnets; Merovingian gold coins; and Byzantium silver vessels and spoons. It is likely to have been prepared as a cenotaph in honor of Redwald (d. 625). He was the most important East Anglian king. The treasure shows a higher cultural level and wider commercial contacts than had previously been figured for the early Saxon period in England. This type of funerary ritual is known from Migration Period Europe and is described in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. The ship and artifacts are now housed in the British Museum.
Tamworth: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a palace built by Offa, 8th-century king of Anglo-Saxon Mercia. In the early 10th century it was reestablished as a burh town. Parts of the burh defenses and a gate have been found and a mill believed to be part of the 8th-century royal complex. Waterlogged conditions have preserved many of the structures. By Anglo-Saxon standards, the Tamworth mill was large and sophisticated, probably driven by a horizontal wheel.
Trier: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Augusta Treviroum; Roman Augusta Treverorum; Trèves
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Principal Roman city of northeast Gaul, first the capital of Treveri, a Celto-Germanic tribe. It became the chief city of the Roman province of Belgica in the 2nd century AD and was adopted by Constantius and Constantine in the 4th century AD as an imperial capital. The city's strategic position at a crossroads contributed to its rapid rise as a commercial and administrative center. Remains include an amphitheater (c 100 AD), Constantinian basilica, baths, and Porta Nigra (ornate late Roman gateway). Trier has more preserved Roman monuments than any other German city. A mint was in use from about 296 AD.
Turfan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Chinese: Turpan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City in the Uygur autonomous ch'ü (region) of Sinkiang, China, long the center of a fertile oasis and an important trade center on the main northern branch of the Silk Road. An oasis city, it was traditionally on the border between the nomadic peoples of the north and settled oasis dwellers of Sinkiang. Under the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) the Chinese knew it as the Chü-shih kingdom. In 450, it became the new state of Kao-ch'ang. Eventually taken in the 13th century by the Mongols, Turfan enjoyed a new commercial prosperity as the Central Asian land routes flourished.
Ugarit: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Ras Shamra, Ra's Shamra
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important site of an ancient Syrian city, north of Latakia on the Syrian coast, occupied from an aceramic Early Neolithic (7th millennium BC) through the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It was destroyed c 1200 BC; its fall coincided with the invasion of the Northern and Sea Peoples and earthquakes and famines. In its last three centuries it was in commercial contact with Egypt, the Hittites, and the Mycenaeans. Temples to Baal and Dagon (2nd millennium BC) and an elaborate palace with archives of cuneiform clay tablets have been excavated. These commercial and administrative documents and religious texts are very important records of the Canaanites. The texts are written either in the Babylonian cuneiform script or in the special alphabetic cuneiform script invented in Ugarit, dating to the 15th-14th centuries BC when it came first under strong Egyptian influence and then under Hittite dominance. Ugarit may be credited with the development of the first true alphabet: simplified cuneiform signs were used for an alphabet of 30 letters. Bronzes, ivories, stelae, high priest's library, and built tombs also survive.
Unetice: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Unetice period; Aunjetitz; Unetician culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early Bronze Age culture centered on Bohemia, Bavaria, Germany, Poland, and Moravia, named after a type site cemetery north of Prague, Czechoslovakia. Characteristic metal objects include ingot torcs, lock rings, various pins, flanged axes, riveted daggers, and the halberd. Regional groups include: Nitra, Adlerberg, Straubing , Marschwitz, and Unterwölbling (Austria). In late Unetice times, there is evidence of commercial contact with the Wessex culture of Britain and, via the amber route, perhaps with southeast Europe and the Mycenaeans. The Veterov culture of Moravia and the Mad'arovce culture of Slovakia, which had links with the Mycenaean world, are sometimes considered to be subgroups within the final Unetice tradition. Innovations of the culture include two-piece mold and use of tin to make bronze. The earliest Bronze Age center, Unetician A, consisted of a complex of flat inhumation graves with modest grave goods in copper and bronze. Unetice is an umbrella term for the local groups and is dated to c 1800-1500 BC.
Wasit: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Military and commercial city of medieval Iraq, especially important during the Umayyad caliphate (661-750 AD). It was established as a military encampment in 702 on the Tigris River, between Basra and Kufah. A palace and the chief mosque were built and irrigation and cultivation were encouraged. Because of its location on the Tigris, Wasit became a shipbuilding and commercial center. Even after the caliphal capital was moved from Damascus to Baghdad, the city remained important. The only standing building is a shrine with a monumental portal flanked by minarets, datable to the 13th century. Excavations revealed a congregational mosque with four periods of construction, the earliest with a large courtyard surrounded on three sides by a single arcade and a sanctuary 19 bays wide and 5 bays deep. Adjoining the mosque was the Dar al Imara, or governor's palace.

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