Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for alphabet:

alphabet: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A set of written symbols or characters used to represent the sounds of a language. Each character in an alphabet usually represents a single sound rather than a syllable or group of vowels or consonants. The first alphabets were devised around the eastern shores of the Mediterranean around 1700-1500 BC. The Phoenicians developed what is known as North Semitic and it is considered the ancestor of all modern alphabets. However, Semitic language scripts used only consonants. The Greeks then added vowels when they adopted an alphabet in c 8th century BC. The number of letters in an alphabet varies from 20-30 to hundreds for hieroglyphic and cuneiform scripts to thousands for Chinese in which every sign is an ideogram.
futhark: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: runic alphabet
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The writing system of uncertain origin used by Germanic peoples of northern Europe, Britain, Scandinavia, and Iceland from about the 3rd century to the 16th or 17th century AD. Runic writing appeared rather late in the history of writing and is clearly derived from one of the alphabets of the Mediterranean area. It has angular letter forms which were written from right to left like the earliest alphabets. It is so named from its first six symbols.
Abu Simbel: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abu sunbul
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of two rock-cut temples of the Egyptian king Rameses II (1279-1213 BC), located southeast of Aswan, formerly Nubia. The facade of the largest temple is dominated by four 20-meter-high (67 feet) seated figures of Rameses and the main part of the temple is cut into the solid rock of the hillside, penetrating it about 55 meters. The temples were salvaged in the 1960s from the rising waters of the Nile, caused by the erection of the Aswan High Dam. The temples were discovered by the traveler Jean-Louis Burckhardt in 1813 and cleared by Egyptologist Giovanni Battista Belzoni four years later. There are also reliefs illustrating the king's life, accomplishments, and military campaigns in Syria and Nubia, small figures representing Rameses' queen, Nefertari, and their children; and graffiti providing important evidence of the early history of the alphabet. It was also built so that, on certain days of the year, the first rays of the morning sun would penetrate its length and illuminate the shrine in the innermost sanctuary. The smaller temple was dedicated to Nefertari for the worship of the goddess Hathor. Between 1964-1968, a UNESCO- and Egyptian-sponsored task began with a team of international engineers and scientists and funds from more than 50 countries to uncover and disassemble both temples and reconstruct them on high ground 60 meters (200 feet) above the riverbed.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A chronological account of events in Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, a compilation of seven surviving annals that is the primary source of the early history of England. Believed to have been started around 870, during the reign of King Alfred (871-899), it was mostly finished by 891 though further accounts were added until 1154. The annals were probably written in the monasteries of Abingdon, Canterbury, Peterborough, Winchester, and Worcester. They include vivid accounts of the Viking raids, Alfred's reign, and the period of anarchy under Stephen. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also included the Venerable Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum" genealogies regnal and episcopal lists some northern annals and some sets of earlier West Saxon annals. The compiler also had access to a set of late 9th-century Frankish annals. The completeness and quality of the entries vary for different periods; the Chronicle has sparse coverage of the mid-10th century and the reign of Canute for example but is an excellent authority for the reign of Aethelred the Unready and from the reign of Edward the Confessor until the annal ends in 1154. The Chronicle survived in seven manuscripts (one of these being destroyed in the 18th century) and a fragment which are generally known by letters of the alphabet. The oldest the A version is written in one hand up till 891 and then continued in various hands. The B version and the C version are copies made at Abingdon from a lost archetype. B ends at 977 whereas C which is an 11th-century copy ends mutilated in 1066. The D version and the E version share many features. D which was written up until 1079 probably remained in the north whereas the archetype of E was taken south and continued at St. Augustine's Canterbury and was used by the scribe of manuscript F. The extant manuscript E is a copy made at Peterborough written in one stretch until 1121. It is the version that was continued longest. The F version is an abridgment in both Old English and Latin made in the late 11th or early 12th century based on the archetype of E but with some entries from A and it extends to 1058. The fragment H deals with 1113-14 and is independent of E."
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.
Canaanite: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Canaan
CATEGORY: culture; site; language
DEFINITION: The original pre-Israelite inhabitants of an area encompassing all of Palestine and Syria, sometimes including all land west of the Jordan River and the coast from Acre north. The names Canaan and Canaanite occur in cuneiform, Egyptian, and Phoenician writings from about the 15th century BC as well as in the Bible. They were the branch of the Semites related to the Hyksos who occupied the Levant from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age, c 2000-1200 BC. In the south they were displaced by the Israelites and Philistines; in the north they were the ancestors of the Phoenicians. Their main significance in history lies in their role as middlemen and traders, through whose hands passed cultural influences between Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Hittites. Canaanite sites include Lachish, Megiddo, Byblos, and Ugarit. The Canaanites were responsible for the invention of the first alphabetic writing system.
Canario: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The name of a site, culture, and people in the Canary Islands. The population is thought to have been of Cro-Magnon origin and may possibly have come from central and southern Europe via northern Africa. . They left alphabet-like engravings and characters whose meanings are obscure This aboriginal group had brown complexion, blue or gray eyes, and blondish hair, and these characteristics still persist in a large number of present inhabitants of the islands. The name Canarios is now applied to all present residents.
Carthage: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: (adj Carthaginian, Punic) Carthago; Kart-Hadasht
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A great city of antiquity founded, according to tradition, on the north coast of Africa by the Phoenicians of Tyre in 814 BC and now a suburb of Tunis. However, Phoenician occupation on the site is archaeologically attested from about a century later. The Aeneid tells of the city's founding by the Tyrian princess Dido, who fled from her brother Pygmalion (a king of Tyre). Until around 500 BC Carthage was one of three great mercantile powers in the central Mediterranean, together with the Etruscans and Western Greeks. Much of Carthage's revenue came from its exploitation of the silver mines of North Africa and southern Spain, begun as early as 800 BC, and from its role as a middleman in trade. Carthage was for many years in conflict with the Greeks, especially in Sicily. Carthage lost both Sicily and Sardinia to Rome in 241 BC at the close of the First Punic War. From an enlarged domain in southern Spain, the Carthaginian general Hannibal in 218 BC led his army across the Alps to victories in Italy. When Hannibal returned to Africa, he was defeated at Zama in 202 BC. Though humiliated, Carthage survived until it was destroyed by Rome in 146 BC, after having fought the three Punic Wars of the 3rd and 2nd centuries. Carthage was then reconstructed as a Roman city by Julius Caesar and Octavian. The Roman city prospered by shipping grain and olive oil to Italy. Carthage replaced Utica as the capital of the African province and it became the second largest city in the western part of the empire, after Rome itself. The Phoenician/Punic remains include the citadel, Byrsa, the Sanctuary of Tanit, and two manmade harbors (all pre-146 BC); the Roman remains are the Antonine Baths, odeum, theater, circus, amphitheater, aqueduct, and areas of streets and houses. Also on the Byrsa site stood an open-air portico, from which the finest Roman sculptures at Carthage have survived. The standard of living in Carthage was probably far below that of the larger cities of the classical world. In Roman times, beds, cushions, and mattresses were luxuries. The Punic language and its distinctive alphabet remained in use long after the city's destruction. After the breakup of the Roman empire, the Vandals took Carthage in 439 and stayed in control until the Byzantine invasion in 533. Carthage was the capital of the Byzantine empire in Africa until the Arab takeover of 698.
Champollion, Jean-François (1778-1867): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French historian and linguist who founded scientific Egyptology and played a major role in the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics by deciphering the Rosetta Stone. A masterful linguist, Champollion started publishing papers on the hieroglyphic and hieratic elements of the Rosetta Stone in 1821-1822, and he went on to establish an entire list of hieroglyphic signs and their Greek equivalents. He was first to recognize that some of the signs were alphabetic, some syllabic, and some determinative (standing for a whole idea or object previously expressed). His brilliant discoveries met with great opposition, however. He became curator of the Egyptian collection at the Louvre, conducted an archaeological expedition to Egypt, and received the chair of Egyptian antiquities, created specially for him, at the Collège de France. He also published an Egyptian grammar and dictionary, as well as other works about Egypt.
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.
Cumae: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient city, probably the oldest Greek mainland colony in the west, and home of the Sibyline Oracle (Greek prophetess), described by Virgil in the opening of the sixth book of the Aeneid. Located on a hill on the Italian coast west of Naples, it was founded about 750 BC by Greeks, though there were earlier Bronze and Iron Age settlements, too. Cumae came to control the most fertile parts of the Campanian plain and fought mainly with the Etruscans during the last half of the 6th century and first half of the 5th. The Samnites, however, overwhelmed Cumae in 428/421 BC, and was dominated by Rome from 338 BC. In 1205 it was destroyed, but remains of fortifications and graves from all periods have been found on the city's acropolis hill and elsewhere on the site. It is probably through Cumae that a Chalcidaean version of the Greek alphabet was transmitted to the Etruscans in the 7th century BC and thence eventually to the Italian peninsula.
cuneiform: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The characteristic wedge-shaped writing of western Asia, used for over 3000 years, emerging in the 4th millennium BC in southern Mesopotamia as a system of accounting during the Uruk period. It consisted of triangular markings pressed on a clay tablet with a split reed. The word itself comes from Latin 'cuneus' meaning wedge-shaped" "wedge". The pictographic script of the Uruk period the oldest known in the world was reduced to angular forms to make it more suitable for impressing in wet clay with a split reed. The nature of the script was very like that of the Egyptians with ideographs phonograms and determinatives. The script was used for a number of languages (Sumerian Akkadian Elamite Hittite Old Persian etc.) even being adapted to serve as an alphabet at Ugarit. The first success in its decipherment was by Georg Grotefend a German philologist in 1802. In inscriptions from Persepolis he recognized the names of Darius and Xerxes and the Old Persian word for 'king'. In 1844-1847 further progress came through the recording and study of Darius's rock inscriptions at Behistun by Henry Rawlinson. He was able to translate the Old Persian version; Westergaard in 1854 tackled the Elamite text and Rawlinson with others cracked the Babylonian in 1857. This was much the most important of the three as it led directly back through the many cuneiform inscriptions at that time coming to light to the first written records those of ancient Sumer. Cuneiform texts have been found in Egypt at el-'Amarna and on various objects of the Persian Period. In the Near East cuneiform tablets from Egypt have been found at Bogazkoy in Anatolia and Kamid el-Loz in Syria. A consonantal alphabet developed at Ugarit which vanished with the town at beginning of 12th c BC; and syllabary script was used solely by Achaemenid Persians to transcribe their language from 6th-4th c BC."
Egyptology: CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: A branch of archaeology specializing in the investigation of ancient Egyptian civilization, especially the study of pharaonic Egypt (c 4500 BC-641 AD) and its relics. Some scholars date the beginning of the discipline September 1822, when Jean-François Champollion wrote his Lettre a Dacier relative a l'alphabet des hierglyphes phonetiques" in which he demonstrated that he had deciphered the hieroglyphic script. Others say Egyptology began when the scholars accompanying Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt (1798-1801) published the "Description de l'Égypte" (1809-28) which made large quantities of source material about ancient Egypt available to scholars."
epigraphy: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: epigrapher
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The study of ancient inscriptions and letter forms on buildings, statuary, tablets, and other durable materials and objects (such as wood, bone, pottery, stone). An expert in such studies is an epigrapher or epigraphist. Such texts are often the only surviving records of extinct cultures and chronicle ancient events, beliefs, and lists of kings. Epigraphy encompasses inscriptions from the earliest complex societies to those of modern states. Epigraphy sometimes does not include the study of texts painted on ceramics or written on papyrus or wood, which are regarded as within the studies of ceramics and papyrology, respectively. Epigraphy deals both with the form of the inscriptions, and with their content: study of the form enables assessment of the development of language and the alphabet; their content is, however, usually more important for the light thrown on the social, political, religious, and economic life of the ancient world. The science includes decipherment, translation, explanation, and evaluation of the inscriptions.
Etruscan: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The people who occupied north central Italy (ancient Etruria, modern Tuscany) in the 1st millennium BC. They can first be recognized in the 8th century BC, distinguished from their predecessors the Villanovans by the wealth and oriental appearance of their tombs. They developed a high level of civilization very quickly, with extensive trade contacts with Greece and Carthage, and across the Alpine passes to central Europe. Their cities were large and rich: Populonia, Vetulonia, Tarquinia, and Caere (Cerveteri) near the coast, and Veii, Clusium (Chiusi) and Perusia (Perugia) inland. Etruscan influence spread widely, through Rome itself down to Campania in the south, and north to the Po valley and the civilization reached its height in the 6th century BC. Conflict with the Celts in the north and Rome in the south led to conquest by the latter, beginning with Veii in 396 BC and completed early in the 2nd century BC. The Etruscans' own writings, in an alphabet borrowed from the Greeks, can be transliterated, but little of their non-Indo-European language can be translated. Etruscan tombs show their genius; the finest are mounds covering a burial vault, as in the cemeteries of Tarquinia and Cerveteri. The vaults may be elaborately frescoed with scenes from life, mythology, or the rites associated with death. Also remarkable is a tomb at Cerveteri, the walls of which are covered with stucco reliefs of everyday objects. There is a high preponderance of imports, especially metalwork and Athenian pottery. Typical products of the Etruscans are decorated bronze mirrors, bucchero pottery, and sophisticated filigree jewelry. The influence of the Etruscans on Roman civilization was enormous. Rome is indebted to the Etruscans not only for its early kings, such as the notorious Tarquin, but virtually for the total infrastructure of its civilization. Roman culture is essentially the continuation of Etruscan under another name and language. Among areas of continuity are religion (e.g. Etruscan haruspex and Roman augury), political and social organization, strategic arts, architecture, art, drama, theater and civil engineering (notably hydraulics, such as aqueducts and drainage systems). The origin of the Etruscans has been a subject of debate since antiquity. Herodotus, for example, argued that the Etruscans descended from a people who invaded Etruria from Anatolia before 800 BC and established themselves over the native Iron Age inhabitants of the region, whereas Dionysius of Halicarnassus believed that the Etruscans were of local Italian origin.
Gezer: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important Biblical tell site of Palestine near Jerusalem, occupied from the Chalcolithic (5th millennium BC) to the Byzantine period. The first fortified town belonged to the Middle Bronze Age (early 2nd millennium BC); an important discovery of this phase was a 'High Place' (ceremonial meeting place) consisting of a row of 10 tall monoliths. To the Iron Age belong the remains of a gateway built by Solomon. Succeeding levels show a decline, with destruction attributed to Assyrians and later, Babylonians. The city became important again in the Hellenistic period. The most noteworthy finds were a potsherd with one of the earliest uses of the alphabet (18th-17th c BC) and the Gezer calendar (11th-10th centuries BC), the oldest known inscription in Early Hebrew writing. The city was particularly prosperous during 2nd millennium BC and is mentioned in Egyptian texts from 15th century onwards.
graffiti: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Writing placed on walls or other objects; any figures or inscriptions scratched into a surface, often indicating the maker or owner. It is any casual writing, rude drawing, or marking on the walls of buildings, as distinguished from a deliberate writing known as an inscription. Graffiti is found in great abundance, as on the monuments of ancient Egypt. Graffiti are important to the paleographer as illustrating the forms and corruptions of the various alphabets used by the people, and may guide the archaeologist to the date of the building. Graffiti is important to the linguist because the language of graffiti is closer to the spoken language of the period and place than usual written language. Graffiti is also invaluable to the historian for the light thrown on everyday life of the period and on intimate details of customs and institutions.
Iberians: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A prehistoric people of southern and eastern Spanish coastal regions of the 1st millennium BC who later gave their name to the whole peninsula. In the 8th-6th centuries BC, waves of Celtic peoples migrated to the region. By the time of the Greek historian Herodotus (mid-5th century BC), 'Iberian' applied to all the peoples between the Ebro and Huelva rivers, who were probably linguistically connected and whose material culture was distinct from that of the north and west. There was a common script of 28 syllabic and alphabetic characters somewhat derived from Greek and Phoenician, and a non Indo-European language which cannot yet be translated. Notable among their products are their jewelry and statues, of which the Lady of Elche is the most famous. The Iberians' origins are obscure, perhaps North African. They disappeared as a separate group under the Roman occupation, partly by fusion with the Celts of the interior, partly through displacement of their language by Latin. The Iberian economy had a rich agriculture and mining and metallurgy.
inscription: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Something that is inscribed; the act of inscribing. It is writing or any type cut into or raised upon a hard surface -- clay, wood, stone, metal, etc. -- and therefore endures. Inscriptions on coins, medals, seals, currency notes, etc., may be done with symbolic picture writing, abbreviations, or phonetic alphabets.
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.
Lachish: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tell Duweir, Tell ed-Duweir
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Palestinian Biblical site which was a Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age cave dwelling, after which the caves were used for burials and a settlement founded. A massive plastered glacis of Hyksos type belonged to the Middle Bronze Age settlement, but was destroyed by the Egyptians c 1580 BC. The Canaanites built three successive temples in the 15th-13th centuries BC. Lachish was sacked in 701 BC by the Assyrians, noted in the palace reliefs in Nineveh. It fell to Babylonians in 588 BC. There were later levels of Achaemenid and Hellenistic date. The site is most famous for three vital groups of inscriptions, including a dagger dated to the 18th or 17th century BC with four symbols engraved on it -- one of the earliest alphabetic inscriptions known. Lachish has also produced a group of incised pottery vessels associated with the temple at the foot of the mound and dated to c1400 BC, and a group of incised potsherds found within a guardhouse by the gate and dating to the period immediately before the Babylonian destruction.
Landa, Bishop Diego de (1524-1579): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Spanish Franciscan priest and bishop of Yucatán who is best known for his classic account of Mayan culture. His book Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan" is the primary resource for interpretation of Maya archaeology. Especially important was the calendar section recorded day and month names and rudimentary explanation of Katun. Landa was sympathetic to the Mayan people but he abhorred their human sacrifices. Landa in his religious zeal ordered all icons and Mayan books to be burned. At the same time he wrote his comprehensive work on Mayan culture his orders to destroy all icons and hieroglyphics obliterated the Mayan language forever helping to undermine and destroy the civilization he so vividly described. Yet his book which was not printed until 1864 provided a phonetic alphabet that made it possible to decipher about one-third of the Mayan hieroglyphs and many of the remainder have since been deciphered."
long-branch: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Danish runes
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: One of the two main versions of the Scandinavian runic alphabet used during the Viking Age; the other is short-twig.
Luwian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Luvian, Luish
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An extinct Indo-European language primarily of the western and southern part of ancient Asia Minor of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, especially important to Arzawa. It was closely related to Hittite, Palaic, and Lydian and was a forerunner of the Lycian language. Knowledge of Luwian comes from cuneiform tablets discovered in the ruins of the Hittite archives at Bogazköy (modern Turkey). The pioneering work on Cuneiform Luwian was done by Emil Forrer in 1922. In addition to Luwian passages in the cuneiform tablets, a number of inscriptions occur in a hieroglyphic system of writing that originated with the early Hittite stamp seals of the 17th and 18th centuries BC. Hieroglyphic Luwian (often called Hieroglyphic Hittite) texts have been found dating from as late as the last quarter of the 8th century BC. The language was deciphered in the 1930s. More was learned about the meaning of the writing after the discovery of the Karatepe bilingual inscriptions, written in both Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician. The Lycian language of about 600-200 BC, written in an alphabetic script, is believed to be descended from a West Luwian dialect. Luwian was probably the language of the Trojans during Trojan War. The language survived in southwest Turkey until the Roman period.
Montet, Pierre (1885-1966): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French Egyptologist who worked at Tanis and Byblos. He conducted major excavations of the New Empire (c 1567-525 BC) capital at Tanis, in the Nile Delta, discovering, in particular, funerary treasures from the 21st and 22nd dynasties. At his first major excavation at Byblos (modern Jubayl, Lebanon), one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in the world, he found what was then believed to be the earliest alphabetical writing and published his researches in Byblos et l'Égypte" (1928). He published "La Nécropole royale de Tanis" 3 vol. (1947-60; "The Royal Cemetery at Tanis") and "Everyday Life in the Days of Ramesses the Great" (1958) and "Eternal Egypt" (1964)."
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."
ogham: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ogam, ogam, Ogham, ogum; Pictish symbol stones
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A Celtic script used for writing in northwest Europe, probably created in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD, and used for writing Irish and Pictish languages. The alphabet has 20 letters represented by tally marks on either side of or crossing a horizontal baseline. The script is better suited for carving on stone (or possibly wood) than for writing in ink. It is believed to have originated in Ireland or south Wales as a secret script and it spread throughout the Celtic areas for use on memorial stones. It is also found associated with the symbols and carvings of the Picts, who used it till the 9th century. Ogham is used on memorial pillar stones in the Celtic regions of Britain, usually consisting of no more than the name and descent of the dead man. It was often the custom, particularly in the south and west in Wales and Cornwall, to provide a translation in Latin minuscule and this has proved important for the translation and dating of ogham. Of the more than 375 ogham inscriptions known, about 300 are from Ireland.
papyrus: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Cyperus papyrus
CATEGORY: flora; language
DEFINITION: A reed of the sedge family growing in Mediterranean lands, particularly Egypt along the banks of the Nile. It is the flexible writing material produced from the plant. By splitting and opening out its stems, laying them together in two layers at right angles to each other, then beating them together, activating the plant's natural starch to form an adhesive -- an inexpensive writing material was created. Examples preserved by the dry climate of Egypt and other regions in tombs, caves, etc., have yielded invaluable evidence on the ancient history of the area. 'Papyrus' is the Latin form, from which our word 'paper' derives. Its stems were also bound together in bundles together to make lightweight boats. Used first in Egypt, it later replaced clay tablets in the Near East when the Aramaic alphabet replaced the cuneiform script. Unlike engraved clay tablets, papyrus allowed a light, cursive script, thus encouraging the spread of a technique that was originally very restricted and specialized. The earliest papyrus dates to the 1st Dynasty, the latest to the Islamic Period, when the plant died out in Egypt.
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.
Pithekoussai: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Aenaria, Inarime; modern Ischia
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A volcanic island off the northern part of the Bay of Naples, and site of arguably the earliest Greek colony in the western Mediterranean. Lying on sea trade routes to Italy, and especially Etruria, the colony was established by Euboean Greeks from Chalcis and Eretria, c 775-750 BC. The Monte Vico region shows occupational evidence going back to the Bronze Age, and the acropolis shows also Bronze Age and Iron Age material. The island had good agricultural land and rich deposits of potters' clay and it became the principal supplier to Campania. There was also a wide variety of metalworking. A large necropolis has inhumation and cremation burials containing oriental trinkets, Egyptian scarabs, and varied imported and local pottery, including inter alisa, a Rhodian cup bearing one of the earliest examples of the Greek alphabet, a Chalcidian version written from right to left. This cup, bearing the inscription in Greek in the Euboean script I am the cup of Nestor can be securely dated to before 700 BC. Cumae, a mainland Italian offshoot of the island settlement of Pithekoussai, was founded c 750 BC.
potter's stamp: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small block that the potter impresses into the base of a vessel he/she has made while still soft in order to give it a personalized mark. Some potter's stamps give the potter's name in the Latin or Greek alphabet; other stamps are so-called ?illiterate' and comprise only lines and signs. Especially common on Samian, Arretine, and Gallo-Belgic wares.
rune: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: futhark; runic
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An angular script for carving on wood or stone developed by Germanic peoples (northern Germany, Scandinavia) around the 4th century AD through contact with Mediterranean alphabets. The early alphabet, with 24 letters divided into three groups of eight, was mainly used for short commemorative or magic protective formulae. A simplified alphabet of 16 characters was developed in Scandinavia from the 9th century, and this was used for more elaborate inscriptions, continuing for a long period in the Middle Ages. The etymology of the word means 'secret', 'mystery', 'counsel', and 'charm'. It is first recorded in Denmark and Schleswig and spread widely across northern Europe. The voyages of the Vikings later carried it as far as Russian and Iceland, where it remained in use into the Middle Ages. There are no substantiated runic inscription from the New World. A rune stone is a freestanding memorial stone with an inscription in runes. Runes are also associated with ceremonial artifacts, but also seen as graffiti.
Semite: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A name applied to the speakers of a set of related languages who inhabited portions of southwestern Asia since the time of the first cities. Semitic languages are characterized by the importance of the consonants, usually three forming the root of each word. The vowels are omitted altogether in a number of the scripts. The Semites are first recorded on the steppe margins of the Arabian desert, encroaching upon the Sumerians to form the kingdom of Akkad c 2400 BC. The Amorites appear c 2000 in the same area and in Syria-Palestine, where they settled to become the Canaanites. The Khabiru (Hebrews) appear in the same context. In the 12th century BC, the Amorites were followed by the Aramaeans, particularly in inland Syria. The Phoenicians from the 9th century BC carried their Semitic language over much of the Mediterranean. Arabic and Hebrew are the most important surviving Semitic languages. Most, probably all, alphabetic scripts derive from the Semitic alphabet, created sometime in the 2nd millennium BC. The Semitic script was invented by speakers of some Semitic language, possibly Phoenician, who lived in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent.
Shechem: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Balatah, Balata
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Palestinian site and biblical city with its most important period of occupation in the Middle Bronze Age c 17th century BC, when it was given a great insloping wall of Cyclopean masonry. To the same period belongs a stone plaque bearing one of the earliest known alphabetic inscriptions. The town was destroyed at the end of the Middle Bronze Age and not reoccupied until the 16th century BC. The site included a glacis of the Hyksos Period, when it probably controlled the territory from Megiddo to Gezer. It was clearly an important city in the Late Bronze Age and it figures prominently in the Amarna letters. It that time, fortifications and a temple with a massebah were erected. The town was destroyed in the 12th century BC and there was another break in occupation until the 10th century BC, when it became an Israelite city and the short-lived capital of the Kingdom of Israel. This was destroyed by the Assyrians in 720 BC, after which there was intermittent occupation until its final destruction in 101 BC. The site was replaced by Nablus (Neapolis) in 67 AD. There was also some occupation in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period.
short-twig: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Swedo-Norwegian runes, common runes
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: One of the two main versions of the Scandinavian runic alphabet (the other, long-branch) in use during the Viking Age, mainly before 800 AD.
Sinai: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Triangular peninsula linking Africa with Asia and occupying an area of 23,500 square miles. It lies between the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal on the west and the Gulf of Aqaba and the Negev desert on the east, and it is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the north and the Red Sea to the south. Occupied since prehistoric times, the earliest written information about it dates from 3000 BC, when the ancient Egyptians recorded their explorations there in search of copper ores. From very early times it was an important source of malachite, turquoise, and copper. Certain inscriptions associated with the copper mines are believed to be among the earliest examples of the alphabet, c 16th century BC.
Smithsonian number: CATEGORY: typology
DEFINITION: A unique catalog number given to sites, consisting of a number for the states's alphabetical position, a letter abbreviation of the county, and the site's sequential number within the county
tell or tepe: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: tell mound; tel (Hebrew); choga, tepe (Persian); hüyük (Turkish)
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A large mound formed by superimposed habitation layers, particularly in the Middle East (Near East). Tells are the result of continuous habitation over a long time span, and are important ancient settlement sites. Tells are normally found only in regions where buildings were of mud-brick, a material of limited life and too plentiful to be worth salvaging when it collapses. This, coupled with the accumulation of domestic refuse, can build up vast mounds 100 feet/30 meters +. The tells of the Middle East offer valuable stratigraphic evidence. Such mounds incorporate other settlement refuse, graves, and many other materials. [Site names beginning with Tell" in this dictionary are alphabetized under the second part of the name.]"
transliteration: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The act or process of rewriting the characters or letters (signary) of one language into those of another used to represent the same sounds; writing in the closest corresponding characters of another alphabet or language. It is possible to reconstruct the original spelling from a transliteration, but not from a transcription.
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.
Ugaritic: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An extinct Semitic language spoken and written from at least the middle of 2nd millennium BC at Ugarit and the surrounding area. It belonged to a western group of Semitic languages (i.e. Arabic, Hebrew) and was conveyed alphabetically -- the earliest alphabet for which we have a complete record. The cuneiform writing system used on the Syrian coast from the 15th-13th century BC. It was unique, though possibly patterned after the North Semitic alphabet. Ugaritic was written from left to right; its 30 symbols included 3 syllabic signs for vowels. Documents in Ugaritic are written on clay tablets with a wedge-shaped stylus and date from the 15th-14th century BC.
writing: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Any system for symbolizing the symbols of a language. Writing was developed independently several times in different places and both the writing materials and the types of script show great variation. The earliest true writing developed in southern Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC Uruk culture. The writing material was clay; it was first inscribed and later impressed with a stylus to produce the wedge-shaped cuneiform signs. The earliest signs were pictograms ('picture writing', in which the signs represent stylized pictures of the objects in question), but these rapidly developed into ideograms (the signs indicated not only the original object, but also associated objects or concepts). The Egyptian hieroglyphic script, used for inscriptions on stone, painting on walls, and also writing on papyrus, appears well before 3000 BC. There is dispute as to whether the Egyptians developed writing independently or whether the art was diffused from Mesopotamia. The Harappan Civilization of the Indus Valley had a writing system of its own, dated to the second half of the 3rd millennium BC and is found almost exclusively on stamp seals and seal impressions. It has not been deciphered. The first true alphabet, with signs for individual letters, seems to have developed in the Levant, probably in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. The first definite evidence comes from Ugarit in the mid-2nd millennium BC. The Phoenicians spread the alphabet throughout the Mediterranean and theirs is ancestral to most of the alphabets in use today. In China, writing developed independently, first appearing on oracle bones of the Shang dynasty. In Europe the only pre-Classical writing occurs in the Aegean in the 2nd millennium BC -- the hieroglyphic and Linear A scripts of the Minoans, as yet undeciphered, and the Linear B of the Mycenaeans, used to record an early form of Greek. The development of writing in the Americas occurred only in Mesoamerica -- the glyphic writing of the Maya and related groups, found in inscriptions carved on monuments, and the pictographic writing of Post-Classic groups such as the Mixtecs and Aztecs, found on manuscripts of bark or deerskin known as codices.

Another Dictionary Search