Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for cemetery:

cemetery: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A place set apart for burial or entombment of the dead.
Royal Cemetery: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Ur in southern Mesopotamia with 1500 tombs from the later Early Dynastic to the Ur III period, mostly of the c 2600-2300 BC time. The richest tomb belonged to king Meskalamdug, which held many precious materials and famous artifacts of the Sumerian civilization. The royal burials were accompanied by soldiers and servants, carts, and horses.
Abu Ruwaysh: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abu Rawash; Abu Roash
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The Egyptian site of the unfinished pyramid of the 4th Dynasty ruler Djedefra (Redjedef) (c 2566-2558 BC), the third of the seven kings of that dynasty. The pyramid, situated northwest of Giza on the west bank of the Nile, appears unfinished because the walls to the mortuary temple next to it were hastily made of mud brick instead of the usual cut stone. The complex was deliberately ransacked as Djedefra was involved in a dynastic struggle. An Early Dynastic (c. 2925- c. 2575 BC) private cemetery has also been found at Abu Ruwaysh.
Acropole of Susa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southwestern Iran including a large cemetery and platform from Susa's initial occupation, dating to the end of the 5th millennium BC. The site is divided into Acropole 1 and 2; Acropole 1 has provided a sequence of 27 levels up to the Akkadian period. Some levels contain evidence of the development of writing: tablets marked with numbers, tokens in envelopes, and tablets of the Proto-Elamite script.
Aha (c 3100 BC): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: One of the earliest 1st Dynasty rulers of a unified Egypt, whose name means The Fighter". Funerary remains at Abydos Saqqara and Naqada attest the reign and Flinders Petrie's excavation at Umm el-Qa'ab (Early Dynastic cemetery at Abydos) in 1899-1900 revealed objects bearing the name Aha in Tomb B19/15. However the earliest of the elite tombs at north Saqqara of the 1st and 2nd Dynasty also contained jar-sealings from that time. Evidence suggests that Narmer was Aha's father and that one of the two was also called Menes."
Alaca Hüyük: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in north central Turkey, near Boghaz Köy and 150 km east of Ankara, that was occupied in the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd millennia BC. Its Chalcolithic and Copper Age phases include a cemetery of 13 extremely rich tombs from c 2500 BC (Early Bronze Age II). The burials were single and double inhumations in rectangular pits, with fine metalwork including copper figurines (thought to be mounts from funeral standards), sun discs, ornaments, weapons, jugs and goblets, diadems, bracelets, and beads. The quantity of gold and copper imply that this was a royal cemetery. The tombs were lined with rough stone and skulls and hooves of animals were hung from the wooden beams as part of the funeral rite. The site was later reoccupied under the Hittites, who erected a monumental gateway with two great stone sphinxes. It has been tentatively identified as the Hittite holy city of Arinna.
Alcalà: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery in southern Portugal containing corbel-vaulted tombs of megalithic tradition from the early metal ages. Like Los Millares, it was once thought to be an Aegean colony.
Alsónémedi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large cremation cemetery 30 km south of Budapest, Hungary, of the Bronze Age Nagrév group. It is near a large inhumation cemetery of the Late Copper Age's Baden culture.
Amorgos: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island in the eastern Cyclades, Greece, which was prosperous in the Early Bronze Age and had three cities, Arcesine, Minoa, and Aegiale. There is an important cemetery on the island with single burials in cist graves, accompanied by copper weapons and pottery. Fine carved stone figurines of Early Cycladic type have also been found, usually made of marble and some being almost life-sized.
Anedjib (c 2925 BC): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Adjib, Andjyeb, Enezib
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Ruler of the late 1st Dynasty who is thought to have been buried in Tomb X in Abydos, the smallest of the Early Dynastic royal tombs in the cemetery of Umm el Qa'ab.
Aniba: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Miam
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a cemetery and settlement in Lower Nubia, founded as an Egyptian fortress in the Middle Kingdom (2055-1650 BC). It is near the gold-mining region of Nubia.
Anlo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Holland with a long sequence of occupation, starting with the Funnel Beaker culture. It was followed by a cattle enclosure during the Late Neolithic (protruding foot beaker) people, then a cemetery of five flat graves with foot beakers and bell beakers with cord ornament. The next phase was a settlement with late varieties of Beaker pottery, followed by a Middle Bronze Age plow soil, and a Late Bronze Age urnfield.
Antequera: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Roman Anticaria, Moorish Madinah Antakira
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a town in Málaga province, in the autonomous community (region) of Andalusia, southern Spain, northwest of Málaga, at the foot of the Sierra del Torcal which is famous for its three Neolithic (Copper Age) chambered tombs (dolmens): the Cuevas de Menga, de Viera, and El Romeral. They are partially cut into the hillside, but each is constructed differently. The Cueva de Menga has a huge orthostat chamber c 5 m wide, 3 m high, and 1.45 m long, roofed by five large capstones supported by three central pillars and drystone walls. Human figures in scenes are carved on its walls. The Cueva de Romeral has a magnificent corbel vault nearly 5 m high, dry-stone tholos, and a passage over 30 m long. The Cuevas de Viera has a long orthostat-lined passage with porthole slabs and a small square chamber. A cemetery of rock-cut tombs of the Bronze Age imitating the tholos form is nearby.
Anyang: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: An-yang, Yinxu
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in the Honan province of China that was the last capital of the Shang (Yin) Dynasty, occupied in the 12th and 11th centuries BC. It was founded c 14 BC and overthrown by the Chou in 1027 BC and was the seat of 12 kings who ruled for 273 years, a time referred to as the historical Anyang period. Anyang is one of the most extensively excavated sites, beginning in 1928. The buildings had rammed earth floors and many sacrifices of men and animals and chariot burials were found under them. Deep storage pits held oracle bones with inscriptions in an archaic form of Chinese, but the most important finds came from the cemeteries, which included royal tombs. At least as early as the Song dynasty (960--1279), Anyang was known as a source of bronze ritual vessels. Very large cruciform shaft tombs were found near the village of Houjiazhuang. There were eight large tombs in the western part of the Xibeigang cemetery and five more in the east. Excavation has shown that rows of satellite burials in the eastern section were not laid down at the time of the royal entombments but instead were later sacrifices offered to the tombs' occupants; these burials correspond with the oracle texts descriptions of victims sacrificed, sometimes by the hundreds, to the reigning king's ancestors. The only intact royal tomb yet discovered is that of Fu Hao, which is not in the Xibeigang cemetery but across the river at Xiatoun. Later excavations have established that Anyang was heir to the flourishing civilization of the Erligang Phase.
Archanes: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arkhanes
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Minoan site on Crete with a 16th century BC palatial structure, cemetery complex, and artifacts of gold, ivory, and marble.
Argos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Argos (meaning agricultural plain)"
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City in the northeastern Peloponnese of Greece, just north of the head of the Gulf of Argolis. The name was applied to several districts of ancient Greece but it is most often used to describe the easternmost part of the Peloponnesian peninsula and the city of Argos was its capital. Homer described it as the fertile plain inhabited by Agamemnon, Diomedes, and other heroes in the Iliad". The site was probably occupied since the Neolithic / Early Bronze Age and was very prominent in Mycenaean times (c 1300-1200 BC). Argos was probably the base of Dorian operations in the Peloponnese c 1100-1000 BC and from then on the dominant city-state of Argolis until it allied itself with Sparta after the Peloponnesian War in 420 BC. In 392 it broke with Sparta to unite with Corinth in the Corinthian War. Argos later joined the Achaean League (229) and Argos became its center after the Roman conquest and destruction of Corinth (146). The city flourished in Byzantine times and did not decline until around 1204 AD. One tyrant Pheidon is thought to have introduced primitive coinage and a weights and measures system. Archaeological excavations began in 1854 on the Argive Heraeum and Argos was famed for its connection with the goddess Hera. There was a natural sanctuary there long before the Dorians came c 1100-1000 BC. The shrine is reported to be of extreme antiquity. The statue of Hera for a new 5th-century temple was done by the celebrated sculptor Polycleitus whose work was said to rival that of Pheidias the sculptor of the Parthenon. There is material evidence of Neolithic Early and Middle Bronze Age a Mycenaean cemetery with chamber tombs Geometric and Archaic features and ruins of the classical and Roman city. The Larisa hill was evidently the Mycenaean acropolis and citadel holding a classical temple. There was also a Roman theater and small odeum. The site is mostly covered by the modern city."
Arras: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Aras
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The site of an Iron Age cemetery in Yorkshire, England, with at least 90 burials, some barrows covering the burials and some with chariots. There are several related sites (Danes' Graves) in east Yorkshire with similar grave goods which define the Arras culture along with the burials. Material dates the Arras culture to c 5-1 BC and the Arras people seem to have been intruders from the continent. Their artifacts suggest links with the migrations of the Parisii from eastern France and the Rhineland. The chariot gear includes a distinctive three-link horse bit.
Aszód: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic site (4th millennium BC) in the Zagyva Valley, 30 km east of Budapest, Hungary. There are remains of a settlement with 40 rectangular houses containing rich assemblages and a cemetery with rows of graves. There are varying degrees of wealth in the grave goods. Aszód is a rare example of a site east of the Danube River with a western Hungarian material culture.
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.
Aylesford: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery of cremation burials of the 1st century BC discovered in the 1880s in the county of Kent, England. It was excavated by Sir Arthur Evans, who identified the grave goods as belonging to the Iron Age Belgae. It is thought to represent the arrival of Belgic peoples fleeing from Gaul in advance of Caesar's army. Aylesford and Swarling are now the type sites of that culture in southeastern England. There was urned cremation in flat graves and the use of wheel-thrown pots with pedestal bases and horizontal cordon ornament. Brooches (fibula), wooden stave-built buckets, and bronze have also been found. The culture survived for a time after the Roman conquest in 43 AD.
Badari, el-: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Badari, al-
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An area of Upper Egypt between Matmar and Qau where a Predynastic culture existed. Numerous cemeteries (Mostagedda, Deir Tasa and the cemetery of el-Badari) and a settlement site at Hammamia have been found.
Baden: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Baden-Pécel; Ossarn or Pecel culture; Channeled Ware or Radial-decorated pottery culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A third millennium Copper Age culture over much of central Europe (the Carpathian basin: northern Yugoslavia, all of Hungary, most of Czechoslovakia, southern Poland, and parts of Austria and Germany). Ancient Baden was occupied by Celts and then by Germanic peoples and was conquered by Rome in the 1st century AD. It was a successor to the Lengyel culture. They produced metal tools including ax-hammers and torcs of twisted copper wire. The pottery was plain and dark, but some have channeled decoration and handles of Ansa Lunata type. The horse was domesticated and carts mounted on four solid disk-wheels were used. Baden had contacts with the Early Bronze Age cultures of the Aegean. It was named for the town of Baden, near Vienna. A radiocarbon chronology has divided the Baden culture into three phases: Early (2750-2450 BC), Classic (2600-2250 BC), and Late (2400-2200 BC). The most complete sequences are in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Baden was remarkable at the time because it had a highly dispersed settlement pattern and a central cemetery pattern.
Balanovo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site in south-central Russia dating to the early 2nd millennium BC near several short-lived settlement sites confined largely to the main river valleys. The regional culture made Corded Ware. The cemeteries mainly used flat inhumation rites, including double burials and some rich graves with copper battle-axes. Corded beakers, stone battle-axes, and fired clay model wheels are characteristic finds.
Banpo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of an early Yangshao Neolithic village, now a museum at Xi'an, China, in the basin of the confluence of the Yellow River (Huang Ho), the Fen Ho, and Kuei Shui. Radiocarbon dates range from c 4800-4300 BC. The settlement was about 50,000 sq. meters and included a cemetery and pottery kilns outside a ditch that surrounded the residences. Dogs, cattle, sheep, chicken and pigs were domesticated and millet, rice, kaoling, and possibly soybeans grown. The horse and silkworm may also have been raised. Unpainted pottery was cord-marked or stamped, and fine ceremonial" pottery vessels were painted in black or red with some simple geometric patterns and drawings of fish turtles deer and faces. There were some elaborately worked objects in jade as well as everyday objects made from flint bone and groundstone. Sites with similar remains have been excavated at nearby Jiangzhai Baoji Beishouling and Hua Xian Yuanjunmiao. These sites all exhibit the first evidence of food production in China."
Banshan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pan-shan
CATEGORY: site; culture; artifact
DEFINITION: Site of a Neolithic cemetery in the Tao River valley of China, the type site of the Banshan (or Pan-shan) culture which belongs to the western or Gansu branch of the Yangshao Neolithic. Banshan is best known for its painted pottery first found in a grave in 1923. Pan-shan ware is generally considered to date from between 2500-2000 BC, but it may extend as far back as 3000 BC or be as late as c 1500 BC (the Shang dynasty). Most are unglazed pottery urns or reddish brown with painted designs in black and brown, probably applied with a brush, consisting of geometric patterns or stylized figures of people, fish, or birds. The wares probably shaped on a slow or hand-turned wheel. The handles are set low on the body of the urns, and the lower part of the body is left undecorated -- much like Greek Proto-Geometric funerary ware. It was an important find because of the lack of Neolithic Chinese pottery up to 1923. A late stage of Banshan is named after the site of Machang.
Banshan pottery: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: site of a Neolithic cemetery in the Tao River valley of china, the type site of the Banshan (or Pan-shan) culture which belongs to the western or Gansu branch of the Yangshao Neolithic. Banshan is best known for its painted pottery first found in a grave in 1923. Pan-shan ware is generally considered to date from between 2500-2000 BC, but it may extend as far back as 3000 BC or be as late as c 1500 BC (the Shang dynasty). Most are unglazed pottery urns or reddish brown with painted designs in black and brown, probably applied with a brush, consisting of geometric patterns or stylized figures of people, fish, or birds. The wares probably shaped on a slow or hand-turned wheel. The handles are set low on the body of the urns, and the lower part of the body is left undecorated -- much like Greek Proto-geometric funerary ware. It was an important find because of the lack of Neolithic Chinese pottery up to 1923. A late stage of Banshan is named after the site of Machang.
Beijing: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pei-ching, Peking
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The modern capital of China. More than 2,000 years ago, a site just outside present-day Peking was already an important military and trading center for the northeastern frontier of China. The Shang civilization reached this area in the early part of their dynasty and a grave of c 14th century BC at Pinggu Liujiacun contained bronze ritual vessels and a bronze ax with a blade of forged meteoritic iron. There have been many early Zhou finds, notably at the cemetery site of Fangshan Liulihe. In 1267, during the Yüan (Mongol) dynasty (1206-1368), a new city built on the site (called Ta-tu) which became the administrative capital of China. During the reigns of the first two emperors of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Nanking was the capital, and the old Mongol capital was renamed Pei-p'ing (Northern Peace"); the third Ming emperor however restored it as the Imperial seat of the dynasty and gave it a new name Peking ("Northern Capital"). Peking has remained the capital of China except for a brief period (1928-49) when the Nationalist government again made Nanking the capital (then to Chungking during World War II)."
Bodrogkeresztur: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a Middle Copper Age cemetery and culture in eastern Hungary, c 3900-3500 BC. It is the type site for an occupation that made Linear Pottery and used metal battle-axes and ax-adzes of shaft-hole type. The cemetery has at least fifty inhumation graves. The Bodrogkeresztur culture represents the first peak of metallurgical development in Hungarian prehistory, defined by large-scale production of gold ornaments and heavy shaft-hole copper tools. The occurrence of Transylvanian gold, Slovakian copper, and flint from Poland suggests long-distance exchanges.
Boghazköy: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Boghaz Keui, ancient Hattusas, Bogazkoy, Boghaz Koy
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the Hittite capital of Hattusas, excavated by Hugo Winckler in the early 20th century and which yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets from which much of Hittite history was reconstructed. The capital is on a rock citadel near the Halys River in central Turkey and the site had been occupied since the Chalcolithic times. In c 1500 BC, it became the citadel of Hattusas. As the Hittites' power grew, so did their capital, all within a massive defensive wall of stone and mudbrick. Six gateways were decorated with impressive monumental carved reliefs, showing a warrior, lions, and sphinxes. Four temples have been excavated within the walls, each grouped around an open porticoed court. Two buildings housed the archives with over 10,000 inscribed clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform script and the Hittite language. A cemetery close to the city held large numbers of cremation burials, a surprisingly early occurrence of this rite. The city fell at the same time as the empire, c 1200 BC. Little is known of the Chalcolithic or Hittite Old Kingdom phases on the site; excavation has in the main concentrated on the monuments of the New Kingdom city.
Bougon: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site of megalithic tombs at Deux-Sèvres, France with radiocarbon dates to the mid-5th millennium BC, making them among the oldest chambered tombs in Europe. There is pottery from the Early Neolithic and Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age.
Brahmagiri: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site and cemetery dating from at least the 2nd millennium BC in southern India. Wheeler found a Chalcolithic level (c 2800-1250 BC) with abundant microliths, polished stone axes, and crude burnished gray pottery, an Iron Age level (1st millennium BC) with black-and-red ware, 300 tombs, stone circles, and ossuaries for bones, and a level from the 1st century AD with rouletted ware and traces of Roman contact. Bone points and some evidence of a stone-blade industry have also been found. There are many cattle bones, but also sheep and goats. The culture seemed to continue with little change for many centuries.
Branc: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site in southeastern Czechoslovakia of the Early Bronze Age where the burials were differentiated according to sex and the orientation was reversed from contemporary sites. At Branc, 81 percent of females were on their left side and 61 percent of males on their right. These mostly simple rectangular pits, sometimes with a wooden lining, of 308 inhumation graves spanning 200-400 years of the early Unetician culture were also analyzed for their grave goods. Within the graves there was clear evidence of community differentiation, with some individuals having more elaborate grave goods than others (on the basis of the rarity of the raw materials used and the time needed to produce the goods). This suggests that there would be leading families, and that wealth and status would tend to be inherited (ascribed) and there is evidence that each member of the community was placed according to lineage, sex, and age.
Brzesc Kujawski: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large settlement site in central Poland of the Lengyel culture of the early 4th millennium BC. There were about 60 trapezoidal long houses, smaller areas of one or more house clusters, and a large inhumation cemetery with double graves, animal burials, and rich copper grave goods. There were four phases of occupation.
Buccino: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of sites near Buccino, southwest Italy, with a cemetery of rock-cut tombs of the Copper Age with radiocarbon dates of c 3350-2500 BC. There is also an Early Bronze Age settlement of the Apennine culture surrounded by a stone wall and containing rectangular stone-built huts.
Budakalász: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Baden culture cemetery near Budapest, Hungary, where a very early four-wheeled wagon was found in a grave.
Cajamarca: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Cajamarquilla
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Inca city, the site of the capture, ransom, and execution of the Inca chief Atahuallpa by conquistador Francisco Pizarro in 1532. In the north Peruvian highlands, Cajamarca developed a strong regional civilization and was a provincial capital, flourishing between 200-1476 AD. Cajamarca pottery is slip-painted with linear running patterns (cursive) or with stylized creatures and animal heads in brownish black over a cream background. The Spanish capture ended the Inca period and Andean prehistory. It was a cultural center during the Early Intermediate period. The cemetery, Nievería has Huari-related artifacts.
Caka: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Bronze Age urnfield cemetery in Slovakia with some high-status burials of bronze breastplate.
campo santo: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: In Spanish, holy field" or a cemetery or burial ground associated with a church."
Carmel, Mount: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of prehistoric limestone caves near Haifa, Israel, with deposits from the Acheulian and Mousterian. The name is derived from Hebrew kerem ('vineyard' or 'orchard') due to the mountain's fertility back in ancient times. There is a cemetery in the Skhul cave, whose occupants were between Neanderthal and modern man. The caves' Upper Palaeolithic sequence ends with the Natufian. Sanctified since early times, Mt. Carmel is mentioned as a holy mountain" in Egyptian records of the 16th century BC and was a center of idol worship as well as sacred to the early Christians."
Carrowmore: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site in Sligo, Ireland, with megalithic tombs consisting of circular boulder kerbs and boulder-built chambers. The radiocarbon date is c 4500 BC, which would make these the earliest chambered tombs of Ireland.
Cassibile: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Bronze Age settlement and cemetery containing 2,000 rock-cut chamber tombs near Syracuse in southeast Sicily. It is the type site of a Late Bronze Age phase -- Pantalica II -- of the early 1st millennium BC. The Pantalica culture was characterized by large urban settlements. Artifacts include a distinctive buff painted ware with plume or 'feather' motifs, c 1250-1000 BC, and a number of typical bronze types, including stilted and thick-arc fibulae and shaft-hole axes.
Castelluccio: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age settlement and cemetery of rock-cut tombs near Syracuse, Sicily. Excavated by Orsi in 1891-1892, the cemetery contained several hundred tombs used for collective burial and one tomb had a carved facade and several were closed by slabs with carved double spirals. The characteristic pottery was a buff ware painted with black or green lines and designs. Pottery shapes included splay-necked cups and pedestaled bowls. There were also bossed bone plaques, showing connections with the Aegean world well before 2000 BC.
catacomb: CATEGORY: feature; structure
DEFINITION: A subterranean cemetery of galleries or passages with side niches (loculi) for tombs. Catacombs consisted of galleries, burial niches, and chambers cut into the rock and the walls and ceilings decorated with pagan and Christian motifs. The term was first applied to the subterranean cemetery under the Basilica of San Sebastiano (on the Appian Way near Rome), which was reputed to have been the temporary resting place of the bodies of Saints Peter and Paul in the last half of the 3rd century. By extension, the word came to refer to all the subterranean cemeteries around Rome, though they are widely known elsewhere, especially around the Mediterranean. Their subterranean nature is explained by the need for security and secrecy on the part of the Christian religion that was banned in many places.
Cernavoda: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site of the Late Neolithic near the Black Sea coast of Rumania dating to the mid-4th millennium BC. Over 300 inhumations are known, occurring in groups, some with rich grave goods of the Hamangia culture. There is also a Late Copper Age site dating to the 3rd millennium BC that ranges over the Black Sea coast of Rumania and Bulgaria. The latter had short-lived occupation sites and is associated with the Ezero group.
Cernica: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic site of the late 5th millennium BC in Rumania. There is a settlement and cemetery with over 350 graves, some with richer grave goods of marble, shell and bone beads, and some copper ornaments.
Chalandriani: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age settlement and cemetery in the Cyclades islands off Greece, dating to the 3rd millennium BC. The settlement was surrounded by stone defenses with six semi-circular bastions; inside were a number of small rooms, separated by narrow paths. The cemetery of around 500 tombs, each containing one or two bodies, had artifacts of the so-called Keros-Syros culture, including the highly decorated dishes known as frying pans.
Ciempozuelos: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Copper Age cemetery site near Madrid, Spain, which has given its name to a late variety of Spanish beaker of the 2nd millennium BC. Artifacts come mainly from pit tombs or cistburials. The Ciempozuelos beakers and other pottery are of high quality with a red or brown burnished slip and complex incised decoration. Most of the burials were flexed inhumations in cists.
Cirencester: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Corinium Dobunnorum
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Gloucestershire, southwest England, where the Romano-British Corinium, the capital of the Dobuni tribe, was located. At the junction of important Roman and British routes, a cavalry fort was erected during 43-70 AD and by the 3rd century the town walls enclosed c100 hectares. Remains within those walls include an amphitheater and many rich villas. Occupation continued well into the Anglo-Saxon period. Excavations have revealed much of the layout of the town and the plan of the forum and basilica, a market hall, shops and houses. Cemetery finds have shown that the skeletons contained high levels of lead, supporting the view that lead poisoning contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire. The town was the largest in Roman Britain after London and was probably a capital in the 4th century. The Corinium Museum houses a Roman collection. Saxons captured the town in 577, and it later became a royal demesne (dominion or territory).
Dakhla Oasis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ad-Dakhilah Oasis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of a chain of oases located in the Libyan Desert, west of the Egyptian city of Luxor. The main pharaonic sites in Dakhla include a town site of the Old Kingdom (2686-2160 BC) and its associated cemetery of 6th Dynasty mastaba tombs, near the modern village of Balat.
Dendra: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Dhendra
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age cemetery in Greece with a Middle Helladic tumulus, Mycenaean tholos tomb (15th-14th centuries BC), and rich chamber tombs. The associated settlement may be the Mycenaean citadel of Midea.
Dereivka: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Dereivca
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic settlement site located on the river Omifinev in the Ukraine and dated to the 3rd millennium BC. A site of the Sredni Stog culture includes a cemetery of the Mariupol type, with 100+ extended inhumations arranged in groups. Adjacent to the cemetery is the settlement with Dnieper-Donets pottery, traces of dwellings, hearths, and other features.
Dian kingdom: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tien
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age culture and barbarian kingdom in southwest China centered on Lake Dian in Yunnan province. According to Chinese sources, the Dian royal house traced its descent from a Chu general who invaded Yunnan in the late 4th century BC and remained to rule the local tribes. In 109 BC, Dian surrendered to Han armies; a generation later the kingdom was destroyed after a revolt. The highly distinctive culture is known mainly from cemetery sites, especially Shizhaishan where the burials date from the Han occupation. Earlier burials of the period c 600-300 BC have been excavated at Dapona and Wanjiaba. Many of the objects unearthed at Shizhaishan were imports from China: coins, mirrors, belt hooks, silk, crossbow mechanisms, and a gold seal from the Han court that reads 'Seal of the King of Dian'. Other finds seem to be local adaptations of prototypes originating in the state of Chu. There was active trade with the southern Zhou states of Shu and Ba before the Han Dynasty.
Diospolis Parva: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Predynastic cemetery site in Egypt c 3500 BC, famous for Petrie's sequence dating.
Djer (c 3000 BC): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: An early king of the 1st Dynasty, who was probably third in the sequence of rulers beginning with Narmer -- as listed on a clay seal impression from his tomb in the royal cemetery at Abydos. He may also be the same as Iti, mentioned in the king list in the temple of Sety I at Abydos.
Doigahama: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Yayoi cemetery site in Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan. The remains of at least 200 men and women of various ages were found buried in pits, in extended or flexed position. Apart from personal ornaments of glass, stone and shell, the burials were sparsely furnished, unlike the Middle Yayoi burials, such as Sugus, in Kyushu. The body type is different from the Palaeoasiatic Jomon.
Duvanli: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tumulus cemetery in Thrace (modern Bulgaria) of the 5th century BC, with imported Athenian pottery and items of Greek gold-figured silver plate.
el-Ajjul, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site in Palestine of the Early to Middle Bronze Age with graves including copper daggers. Tell el-Ajjul has large palaces and much gold jewelry and seals have been found in excavations.
Elsloo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement and cemetery of the Neolithic Linear Pottery culture of southern Netherlands. Long houses of various types have been found, as in the other Dutch sites of this culture (Geleen, Sittard, Stein). Elsloo has been organized into six main chronological phases. The grave goods have provided information about the Linear Pottery social stratification.
Ensérune: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Iron Age oppidum (promontory fort) in Hérault, southern France, first founded in the 6th century BC. It had defenses of Cyclopean masonry and well laid-out stone houses, both of which are very similar to those found on Greek settlements in the area. Large storage jars and silos excavated into the tufa were probably for grain or water. Nearby is a large cremation cemetery of the 3rd century with inurned burials. A major reconstruction took place in c 200 BC and then again in the 4th century.
Episkopi-Phaneromeni: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle or Late settlement site of Cyprus, occupied c 1600-1500 BC, with a Middle Cypriot chamber tomb cemetery.
Eridu: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abu Shahrain
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site at Abu Shahrain, identified as the ancient Eridu, the oldest city of Sumer -- possibly the oldest in history. Occupation began in the 'Ubaid period, the earliest phase of which is named after this site, in the mid 6th millennium BC. A series of temples of the 'Ubaid and Uruk periods have been found, decorated with typical Sumerian buttresses and niches in the walls. Its long succession of superimposed temples portrayed the growth and development of an elaborate mud-brick architecture. A palace of the Early Dynastic period c 2500 BC has also been excavated. It was important throughout Mesopotamian history as a religious center and sanctuary of Enki (Ea). Outside the temple precinct, a large cemetery of the late 'Ubaid period was found; containing around 1000 graves. Grave goods include painted pottery vessels, terra-cotta figurines, and baked clay tools, such as sickles and shaft-hole axes. The site declined in importance with the rise of Ur under its 3rd dynasty (c 2100 BC) and was occupied until around c 600 BC.
Fat'janovo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Fatyanovo
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site on the upper Volga in central Russia with a regional culture on the edge of a broader corded ware complex. In the cemetery, the dead were buried with spherical amphorae with cord ornament, model wheels of terra-cotta, stone battle-axes with drooping blades, and copper trinkets. Although the tombs are not covered by mounds, the Fat'janovo culture is a late (Copper/Early Bronze Age) sub-group within the main Single-Grave/Battleax tradition.
Fikellura ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: An Archaic East Greek black-figure pottery style. It has been found in the Fikellura cemetery on Rhodes; the source of the clay was Miletus.
Finglesham: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early Saxon cemetery in Kent, used between the early 6th and mid-7th centuries. The large inhumation cemetery has produced an impressive collection of material including a pattern-welded sword, garnet-inlaid bird brooches made in Kent, radiate brooches from the continent, and a richly decorated square-headed brooch. Wooden boxes with bronze binding, strings of beads, corroded buckets, and bone objects of the period were also found. Some of the female burials seem to have been interred alive.
Gaudo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Chalcolithic cemetery site in Campania, Italy, with 3rd millennium BC rock-cut tombs; the type site of the Campanian Gaudo culture. The tombs produced up to 25 disarticulated skeletons each, and great quantities of highly burnished unusual pots, especially asymmetric straight-necked flasks (sometimes called askoi as they approximate the form of an askos). There were also cups, open dishes, lids, and double vessels. This group has with parallels with Central Italian Rinaldone. There are flint arrowheads and daggers; metalwork is rare, but some copper daggers and awls occur and a few small silver objects.
Gaza: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palestinian site under modern Gaza; the southernmost city of the Philistine Pentapolis. Philistines, Egyptians, and 'Peoples of the Sea' occupied the site. The earliest evidence comes from two cemeteries, one to the north and one to the east of the main mound, with shaft graves containing pottery and daggers of the late 3rd millennium BC. On the tell itself, the earliest excavated remains are of the Middle Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC); earliest of all was a cemetery, underlying a large building interpreted by Flinders-Petrie as a palace of the Middle Bronze Age II period. This was succeeded by four other large buildings, of the later Bronze Age and early Iron Age. There are famous mosaics in the Synagogue from c 6th century AD and the Great Mosque, originally a cathedral of the 12th century AD.
Gerzean: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Nagada II
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late predynastic culture of Upper Egypt, successor of the Amratian, c 4000-3500 BC. It is named after the site of El Gerza or Gerzeh in the Fayum and is well represented at the cemetery of Naqada in Upper Egypt; another important site is Hierakonpolis. Flintwork included ripple-flaked knives and their was metalworking as copper was coming into use for axes, daggers, etc. Faience was introduced and ground stone vessels were popular and very finely worked. Typical pottery is a light-colored fabric in shapes imitating the stone vessels, decorated with red painted designs. These include imitations of stone markings, geometrical patterns and designs taken from nature. Ships were common, especially the papyrus-bundle craft used on the Nile. There is much evidence of contacts with southwestern Asia (in wavy-ledged handles on the jars, in cylinder seals, representations of mythical animals, the use of mudbrick in architecture, and possibly writing). These seem to have led to the advances which brought Egypt to the level of unified civilization at the start of the Dynastic period c 3200 BC.
Giza: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the pyramid complexes of the Egyptian kings Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure on the west bank of the Nile opposite modern Cairo. It is most famous for the Great Pyramid of Khufu, two only slightly smaller pyramids, the Great Sphinx (statue of a human-headed lion) and its temple, and the tomb of Hetepheres, erected in the 4th Dynasty c 2600-2500 BC. The Great Pyramid is 481 feet (146.6 m) high and covers 13.1 acres. The earliest known monument is Mastaba V, which probably dates to the reign of the 1st Dynasty ruler Djet (c 2980 BC). The royal pyramid cemetery derived from earlier tomb types as seen at Saqqara. Elaborate measures were adopted to prevent disturbance of the royal burials, but all the pyramids were looted in antiquity.
Golasecca: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Iron Age culture whose type site is a cemetery in Lombardy, Italy. Occupied from the 9th century BC to the 3rd century BC, it is an urnfield cemetery with some burials accompanied by wheeled vehicles. Some contain rich grave goods of metal, showing connections both with the Hallstatt Iron Age culture of central Europe and with the Etruscans in central Italy.
Goljamo Delcevo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Golyamo Delchevo
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic and Copper Age tell site of the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture in northeast Bulgaria. The settlement with adjoining cemetery are dated pre-4000 to 3600 BC and has 16 occupation layers with many complete house-plans. There is a system of rectangular fortifications with palisades. In the small Copper Age cemetery of 30 graves, contracted inhumation is the norm, with occasional cenotaph graves.
Gomolava: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large, frequently occupied, double-tell site on the Sava River in Serbia. On both tells, the prehistoric sequence goes from the Late Neolithic to the Middle Ages. The Late Neolithic occupation belongs primarily to the Vinca culture, with houses, pits, and a cemetery with copper grave goods. The subsistence economy of most levels indicates reliance on einkorn wheat, flax, and cattle husbandry.
Gordium: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Gordion
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The capital of the Phrygians in the 8th century BC, on the bank of the Sakarya River in central Anatolia (now Turkey). Gordion was surrounded by a massive mud-brick wall and a monumental gateway and was dominated by about 10 important buildings built on the megaron plan, and a palace complex. Outside the city gate was a cemetery of nearly 80 large tumuli, which has yielded rich finds from the 8th-6th centuries BC. The great royal tomb investigated was once identified as King Midas, who allegedly committed suicide when the Cimmerian nomads sacked the city in 685 BC. The tomb also contained inscriptions in the Phrygian script, nine tables and two screens of wood, three bronze cauldrons, 166 other bronze vessels, and 146 bronze fibulae. Traces of linen and woolen textiles were found on the bed, and traces of purple cloth were also found on the throne in another rich tumulus. Occupation of the site continued into Roman times.
Guweicun: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ku-wei-ts'un
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A late Eastern Zhou cemetery site in Hui-hsien, China. Three large shaft tombs has north and south entrance ramps and are similar in construction to far earlier Shang tombs. The largest of the three was marked at ground level by a low mound edged with large stones, a new feature modeled on works of the northern nomads. A number of cast-iron tools -- plowshares, picks, hoes, shovels, axes, and chisels -- were found in the tomb.
Hadra ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A kind of Hellenistic pottery first found in the Hadra cemetery at Alexandria. It was a burial container inscribed with the name of the deceased and often the date painted or incised on the shoulder.
Haguenau: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age and Iron Age cemetery of burial mounds in Bas-Rhin, France. The richest mounds date to c 1500-1350 BC when the area was under the influence of the Tumulus culture of southern Germany. There were heavy palstaves and pottery with geometric excised decoration.
Hallstatt: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hallstatt period
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A site on Lake Hallstatt in the Austrian Alps with a cemetery of over 3000 cremation and inhumation graves with great quantities of local and imported grave goods. There were prehistoric salt mines in the area. Hallstatt is also a late Bronze age and early Iron Age cultural tradition, c 1200-6000 BC in continental temperate Europe. The term also refers to a cultural period of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in central Europe, divided into four phases, Hallstatt A, B, C, and D. In central European archaeology the terms Hallstatt A (12th and 11th centuries BC) and Hallstatt B (10th-8th centuries BC) are used as a chronological framework for the urnfield cultures of the Late Bronze Age. The first iron objects north of the Alps appear at the close of this period, and the Iron Age proper begins with the Hallstatt C (or I) stage of the 7th century BC. The area of fullest development is Bohemia, upper Austria and Bavaria, where hillforts were constructed and the dead were sometimes interred on or with a four-wheeled wagon, covered by a mortuary house below a barrow. Sheet bronze was still used for armor, vessels, and decorative metalwork, but the characteristic weapon was a long iron sword (or bronze copy). These swords are found as far afield as southeast England, in the so-called 'Iron Age A' cultures. During the Hallstatt D (or II) period, in the 6th century, the most advanced cultures are found further west, in Burgundy, Switzerland, and the Rhineland. Wagon burials are still prominent and trade brought luxury objects from the Greek and Etruscan cities around the Mediterranean. By the close of this period in the mid-5th century BC, elements of Hallstatt culture are found from southern France to Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. The Hallstatt precedes the La Tène period; the Hallstatt Iron Age culture certainly developed out of the Urnfield Bronze Age groups.
Handan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Han-tan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The capital of the Eastern Chou (Zhou) state of Chao from 386-228 BC. The area was already settled in Shang times (c 1766-1122 BC) and first mentioned in about 500 BC, but became a center of trade and famed for luxury and elegance as the capital. In 228 it was attacked and taken by the armies of the Ch'in dynasty (221-206 BC) and became a commandery. Under the Han (206 BC-220 AD) it became the seat of an important feudal kingdom, Chao-kuo. The remains of the walls and foundations of buildings of both the Chao capital and the Han city still remain to the southwest of the modern city. A cemetery north of the walled city contained six chariot burials and 12 rich tombs, five with human sacrifices.
Harappa: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: One of the twin capitals of the Indus Civilization, located in Pakistan and northwest India, c 2300-1750 BC. Excavation has revealed a pre-Indus occupation related to that of Kot Diji and perhaps the Zhob Valley. There was a brick-walled town with pre-Harappan material, rare Indus inhumation cemetery, granaries, and cemetery of dismembered burials with non-Indus pottery, dating from reoccupation, possibly by Aryans. Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are remarkable for their town planning and public and private systems of hygiene and sanitation. Unfortunately the site was largely destroyed during the last century by the extraction of bricks for ballast for the Lahore-Multan railway, then under construction.
Hoëdic: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small island off the southern coast of Brittany, France, with a Mesolithic settlement and cemetery with 14 individuals accompanied by antlers. The artifacts were of Tardenoisian type and the whole site was a Mesolithic midden, though there are remains of domestic sheep. The radiocarbon date is 4625 BC.
horizontal stratigraphy: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Chronological sequences based on successive horizontal displacements, such as sequential beach terraces. Stratigraphy is by definition obtained from superposed deposits, but other circumstances can be treated in the same way. For example, the oldest burials are likely to be those nearest the settlement, the top of a hill, or some other favored position. The later ones will be progressively further out as the cemetery expands. The concept can be a helpful tool in the interpretation of a site.
Hyrax Hill: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site located on Lake Nakuru in central Kenya with Later Stone Age material and a pastoral Neolithic settlement. The earlier settlement is attributed to the East African Pastoral Neolithic complex. The second phase is of the Iron Age, and includes a series of so-called Sirikwa Holes which are interpreted as semi-subterranean cattle pens constructed by Nilotic-speaking peoples. There is also a cemetery of stone-covered flexed burials.
Jellinge: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Jelling
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in East Jutland, in Denmark, which seems to be the remains of a 10th-century royal palace and important burial ground. Among the groups of remarkable monuments are the two largest barrows in that country. The barrows are traditionally held to be that of Viking king Gorm (d. c 950 AD) and Thyra, his queen. In the cemetery area stand fifty bauta stones forming a boat-shaped outline and two fine rune stones outlining the exploits and Christian conversion of Gorm and Harald Bluetooth. One of the stones depicts the oldest crucifixion scene in Denmark and on the other is a magnificent lion -- inspiring the term Jellinge Style.
Jordanów: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Jordansmühl; Jordanów Slaski; Jordanova
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement and cemetery site in Silesia, southern Poland, the type site for a subgroup of the Late Neolithic Lengyel culture. Its pottery is incised or painted, and copper objects were beginning to be used -- among the earliest-known from north of the Carpathians. The settlement had timber houses which were trapezoidal in plan.
Kandahar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Qandahar
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site near the crossing of the Arghandab in southern Afghanistan. The city was included in the Achaemenian empire by Darius I, was taken by Alexander the Great in 329 BC, was surrendered by Seleucus I to Candra Gupta in 305 BC and dignified by a rock inscription in Greek and Aramaic by his grandson Ashoka, and thereafter was successively held by Greco-Bactrians, Parthians, Sakas, Kushans, and Sasanians. The town seems to have been occupied continuously until the 18th century and a large barrow cemetery belongs to the Islamic period.
Katoto: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Katotan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Iron Age cemetery on the Lualaba River, southeastern Zaire, probably dating to around the 13th century AD, and is contemporary with the Iron Age Kisalian tradition. The collective graves were accompanied by rich and varied grave goods including pottery, copper, and iron artifacts, notably an iron gong of a type which serves as a symbol of political authority in central African societies. The presence of sea shells and imported glass beads indicates links with the Indian Ocean coast.
Kephala: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late (Final) Neolithic settlement and cist grave cemetery on the Cycladic island of Kea, dated to the mid-4th millennium BC. The cemetery of graves made of small flat stones in circular or rectangular constructions each had a number of burials. Children were commonly buried in pottery jars (pithoi). The typical pottery was covered with a red slip and decorated by patter burnishing. Evidence for copper-smelting was found, one of the earliest occurrences in the Aegean. There is evidence of close links between Kephala and sites in Attica (Athens, Thorikos).
Kerameikós: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The most prestigious cemetery and pottery workshop region of Athens, including a multiple burial of Spartans from the 5th century BC. Many tombs were marked by stelae with relief decoration. There was a precinct for the Messenians, one for some immigrants from Heraclea on the Black Sea, and one for those from Sinope, also in the Black Sea region.
Kheit Qasim: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Three sites in east-central Iraq. Kheit Qasim I has a large Early Dynastic cemetery of brick tombs with multiple inhumations, unusual for southern Mesopotamia. Kheit Qasim III was a small 'Ubaid site.
Khok Charoen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Prehistoric cemetery in Pa Sak valley of central Thailand which dates to c 1000 BC and has polished stone adzes and stone ornaments, but no metal has been found.
Kietrz: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large urnfield cemetery of the Lusatian culture of Silesia, Poland, containing over 3000 graves. Some appear to have had mortuary structures erected above them.
Kisalian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Iron Age industry of southeastern Zaire which succeeded the Kamilambian c 8th century AD. There is a large cemetery site at Sanga on the shore of Lake Kisale, with numerous objects in ceramics, iron, copper, and ivory and items suggesting East African coastal trade. The industry reached its full development in the 10th-14th centuries. The funerary practices indicate the beginning of a hierarchical society in central Africa.
Knowth: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the largest Neolithic burial grounds on the River Boyne in County Meath, Ireland. It is a circular burial mound containing two passage graves entered from opposite sides. The first is a large but simple passage grave, with several decorated stones but no evidence of corbelling. The second tomb, also a passage grave, has a corbel-vaulted burial chamber with three niches. One of these contained a stone basin ornamented with grooves and circular designs, and there is further carving on the walls of the tomb itself. The central mound was surrounded by at least 15 smaller tombs, each under its own cairn, and these 'satellite' tombs included both entrance graves and passage graves of cruciform plan. Knowth is one of the three principal elements of the Boyne Valley megalithic cemetery, dating from the 4th millennium BC. Knowth was later reoccupied in the early historic period when Souterrains were constructed within the mound. Excavations have also revealed the remains of the Early Christian royal center here, belonging to the Northern Brega known from the Irish annals.
Kouklia-Palaepaphos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Old Paphos, Palaipaphos
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Southern Cyprus site occupied from the 3rd millennium BC, which became a major center in the Late Cypriot period. It was settled by Greek colonists in the Mycenaean period. Besides the Evreti cemetery, there was an ashlar temple built c 1200 BC for Aphrodite's cult. Palaepaphos was capital of one of the Cypriot kingdoms in 498 BC when it was attacked by the Persians. The Cinyrad dynasty ruled Palaeopaphos until its final conquest by Ptolemy I of Egypt (294 BC).
Kow Swamp: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large cemetery site in Murray Valley, Victoria, Southern Australia, dated to between 15,000-9000 bp. More than 40 crania and mandibles show marked robusticity of the fronto-facial regions combined with more modern, but still thick-boned, posterior areas of the crania. There is evidence of artificial deformation. Kow Swamp stone tools consisted of a few small quartz flakes and bipolar cores, similar to finds of the same age at Green Gully. Kow Swamp had the large single Late Pleistocene population in the world.
Krefeld-Gellep: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large Roman and Frankish cemetery located on the lower Rhine in Germany. Among the 2000 excavated burials within the cemetery, one grave of outstanding wealth dated to about 630 AD contained a gilded helmet, a sword inlaid with precious stones, three spears, a dagger, ax, and shield. There were other items of silver, gold, and bronze. The personal apparel included a garnet-inlaid purse and gold belt-buckle and ring. The occupant may have been a chieftain or the founder of a settlement.
Kufr Nigm: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cemetery site of the Archaic Period in the eastern Nile Delta of Egypt. There are ceramic jars incised with the name of Narmer.
Kulli: CATEGORY: culture; ceramics
DEFINITION: An important Chalcolithic culture and pottery style of south Baluchistan. The pottery is mainly buff and wheelmade, painted in black with friezes of elongated humped bulls, cats, or goats and spiky trees between zones of geometric ornament. Clay figurines of women and bulls are found in this culture, as are copper tools and ornaments of lapis lzauli, bone and other materials. The culture is further distinguished from those of Amri-Nal in the same area by the practice of cremation burial; an important cemetery was excavated at Mehi. Mud-brick architecture and small tell sites are common to the two cultures. There are signs of Indus civilization influence on later Kulli material with carved stone vessels identical with examples from Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, dating to the early 3rd millennium BC.
Lagoa Santa caves: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A system of caves in Minas Gerais, Brazil, occupied from the late Pleistocene, with human remains, stone tools, and remains of extinct mastodon and sloth. Dated to 15,300 bp is an industry of quartz flakes. The Cerca Grande complex of 10,000-8000 bp had small rock-crystal flakes, axes, bone projectile points, hammerstones, and a cemetery of 50 flexed inhumations. There are hundreds of rock paintings from the Planalto Tradition of 7000-3000 bp.
Laterza: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A cemetery of rock-cut tombs near Taranto, southeast Italy, which has given its name to a local Copper Age culture of the 3rd millennium BC. The tombs were used for collective burial and contained grave goods including a few copper weapons, tools, and ornaments, bifacially worked flint arrowheads and a variety of decorated pottery bowls and cups, some of which appear to be ancestral to the Apennine pottery of the Bronze Age. Other Laterza burial sites are known; these include rock-cut tombs and stone cists and possibly megalithic tombs.
Latians: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Latin
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The ancient people of Latium; an Iron Age people of the region just south of Rome. Their cremation cemeteries are known particularly from the Alban Hills, and from Rome itself. The Latians seem to have developed from the Pianello urnfielders, notably those who buried their dead in the cemetery at Allumiere, and were certainly the ancestors of the Romans. The first huts on the Palatine Hill were built by these people in the 9th century BC. Latium was an ancient area in west-central Italy, originally limited to the territory around the Alban Hills, but extending by about 500 BC south of the Tiber River as far as the promontory of Mount Circeo.
Lengyel: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late Danubian culture with the type site in western Hungary and many regional variants in Hungary, parts of Austria, and much of Czechoslovakia and Poland. It is closely linked to the Tisza culture of the Hungarian plain, and it may have been from this area that the Lengyel people adopted painted pottery and the occasional use of copper (some of the earliest use in temperate Europe). With the Rössen and Tisza culture, it is a descendant of Linear Pottery culture. The Lengyel culture is divided into two main phases: the Painted Lengyel, defined by white, red, and yellow crusted wares and dated c 4000-3500 BC, and the Unpainted Lengyel, characterized by knobbed and incised pottery and dated c 3500-3000 BC. The type site was a settlement adjoining a cemetery of some 90 inhumation graves. Sites have trapezoidal longhouses and some defensive works.
Lerici periscope: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Nistri periscope
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A subsurface detection probe fitted with a periscope or camera and light source, used to examine subterranean chambers -- most often Etruscan tombs. The Lerici Foundation of Milan and Rome has had great success with this method since the development of the periscope, first used in 1957 in an Etruscan tomb in the cemetery of Monte Abbatone. The periscope is inserted into the burial chamber and can photograph the walls and contents of the whole tomb.
Lindholme Hoje: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Lindholm Hills
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the northern shore of Limfjord in Jutland, used as a gravefield from the prehistoric period until the Viking era, including a Viking ship cemetery. In the 11th century it was overlaid by a Viking village which functioned as a small trading and industrial settlement. One interesting find was a spoked wagon wheel. The settlement went out of use around 1100 due to the silting-up of the fjord and continual sand drifts.
Lombards: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A tribe of Germanic descent who conquered northern Italy in the late 6th and early 7th centuries. The region was weak from the gothic wars and vulnerable by the death of the Emperor Justinian (565). Having swept through Venice, Milan, Tuscany, and Benevento, King Alboin established Pavia, on the Ticino River, as the capital of the newly created Lombard kingdom in 572. Although their territorial expansion extended as far south as Benevento, the Lombards never managed to gain complete control of the peninsula. Many major Byzantine cities fell to them but the Eastern Empire maintained a firm hold in the coastal ports of Ravenna and Venice. The Lombards' impact was considerable and they imposed distinct cultural traditions on Italy's decaying classical past. They made rich inlaid gold jewelry, fine sculpture, and created new architectural design which played a significant part in the development of the Romanesque style. The Lombard settlement seems to have been largely to the north of the Po River, the area with the majority of Lombard place-names and Germanic-style archaeological finds, mainly from cemetery sites. The Lombard language seems to have disappeared by the 8th century, leaving few loanwords in the Italian language. When the Franks invaded, Lombards and Romans moved together still more as a conquered, by now Italian people.
Los Millares: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important Chalcolithic settlement and cemetery in Almeria, southeast Spain, of c 2400 BC and located on a spur between the River Andarax and a stream. Within the settlement are circular houses, outside there are forts, megalithic walls, and a cemetery with 80+ passage graves (circular tholos type). The rich grave goods included bone idol figurines, copper axes and daggers, pottery with double-eye motifs, and ivory and ostrich-eggshell artifacts. The site typifies Millaran culture" of mid-3rd millennium BC in southern Spain and Portugal with the emergence of ranked societies whose power may have been based on the control of water supplies and sources of metal ores."
Lower Nubia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The part of the Nile Valley south of the traditional border of Egypt at Aswan as far as the Second Cataract of the Nile River. The region of Lower Nubia, basically between the first and second Nile cataracts, saw one of the earliest phases of state formation in the world when rulers of the A-Group culture, who were buried in a cemetery at Qustul, adopted symbols of kingship similar to those of contemporary kings of Egypt of the Naqadah II-III period. Lower Nubia is now one of the most thoroughly explored archaeological regions of the world. Most of its many temples have been moved, either to higher ground nearby, as happened to Abu Simbel and Philae, or to quite different places, including various foreign museums.
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.
Münsingen-Rain: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Iron Age cemetery near Berne, Switzerland, with more than 200 graves of the early and middle La Tène periods (to c 200 BC). The graves are scattered along a ridge, and the cemetery has a horizontal stratigraphy with the oldest tombs at the north and the more recent ones at the southern end. Grave goods include swords, spears, fibulae, and a necklace of amber beads.
Magdalenska Gora: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Iron Age (Hallstatt period) complex of tumuli of the early La Tene period, located near Smarje/Sticna, in Slovenia. The cemetery comprises large barrows into which as many as 40 burials are inserted. The rich grave goods include weapons, armor, helmets, horse trappings, jewelry, and bronze vessels, including a complete bronze situlae -- all from the 7th century BC.
Maiden Castle: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the largest and most famous Iron Age hillforts in Britain, located in Dorset, England. The oldest structure on the hilltop is a Neolithic causewayed camp (c 2000-1500 BC), followed after an interval by an earthen long barrow, which is partly built over the ditches of the earlier camp. Occupation resumed in the Early Iron Age (c 5th century BC) with the construction of a hillfort (c 250 BC) which was later extended to fortify the entire hill. Maiden Castle was at that time a permanent settlement with stone and wooden huts linked by surfaced trackways. Sometime before 50 BC, the site came under the control of the Belgae and became the tribal capital of the Durotriges, with coinage and imported Gallo-Roman luxuries. During the Roman conquest, the fort was sacked by Vespasian's legion (43-44 AD), and the slain defenders were buried in a cemetery near the east gate. The Romans moved the remaining population to a new site at Durnovaria (Dorchester), and the hillfort was abandoned until the 4th century AD when a Romano-Celtic temple was built there.
Mailhac: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of important Late Bronze Age and Iron Age sites near Narbonne in southwest France, dating from the 8th-1st centuries BC. The sites comprise a defended hilltop settlement (Le Cayla) and a series of urnfield cemeteries (Le Moulin, Grand Bassin I and II). The earliest phase has an urnfield-type cemetery, wooden houses, and evidence of farming supplemented by hunting. In the second phase (early 6th century BC), Hallstatt influences include iron and a chieftain's wagon burial (La Redorte). Greek and Etruscan imports appear in both graves and occupation deposits in this and in the succeeding phase. Occupation ended early in the 1st century BC with a burning, probably a Roman punitive action after threatened uprisings in the area.
Marathon: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A coastal plain on the northeast coast of Attica, Greece, famous for battle between Persians and Athenians in 490 BC and for news of battle being taken by the runner Pheidippides from Marathon to Athens -- about 25 miles. The defeat of the Persians is commemorated by the Soros, the large mound where the Athenians were buried, and the tomb of the Plataeans, which seems to be the grave of the Greek allies. Their fine black- and red-figure ware were grave goods. There are many other tombs: an Early Helladic cist grave cemetery, Middle Helladic tumuli, and a Mycenaean tholos tomb with two horses as grave offerings. The area shows evidence for some kind of occupation from Neolithic times, through Helladic, continuously to Classical.
Mariupol: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Zhdanov
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Neolithic cemetery of the Dnepr-Donets culture on the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine. Burials included flint tools, pendants and beads of animal teeth, bone, and shells. Non-local stone beads were also found.
Marlik Tepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Iron Age royal cemetery of the late 2nd millennium BC southwest of the Caspian Sea in northern Iran. Its tombs include a wealth of gold and silver vessels, jewelry, and weapons. Some graves have rectangular stone slabs on which the body with its grave goods was laid and then covered with earth. Characteristic decoration is in relief and portrays mythical animal and human figures. Marlik Tepe may represent an early phase in the development of the art of the Medes.
Mehi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site of the Kulli culture in southern Baluchistan (Pakistan) with a settlement and cremation cemetery. Grave goods include copper tools, beads, and terra-cotta figurines of females, bulls, and birds. The tell also yielded Indus civilization material such as carved stone vases. A number of steatite bowls imported from Tepe Yahya around 2800 BC have been found.
Mikhajlovka: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mikhailovka, Mykhailvka
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement of the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age, located in the lower Dnieper Valley near Nikopol, Ukraine. Three main occupation horizons have been distinguished, the first a Cucuteni-Tripolye culture, the second of the Sredni Stog culture, and the last of the Catacomb Grave culture. Near the settlement was a flat cemetery of pit graves (Yamnaya burial rite).
Milazzo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town founded in 716 BC by colonists from Zankle (Messina). It was taken by the Athenians in 426 BC and by the Syracusan tyrant Agathocles in 315 BC. The consul Gaius Duilius won the first Roman naval victory over the Carthaginians in the bay in 260 BC. It is located on the northeast coast of Sicily, facing the Aeolian Islands, and demonstrates close cultural connections with the prehistoric sequence on these islands. It was occupied throughout the Bronze Age; the Middle Bronze Age culture had a cemetery of pithos burials (with the dead placed in large jars in the crouched position) while in the succeeding Late Bronze Age phase (Ausonian culture) had a cemetery of urnfield type, characterized by cremations in urns and bronzes of local Urnfield (Proto-Villanovan) type. The old town on a hill above is partly surrounded by Spanish walls from the 16th century and contains a 13th-century Norman castle.
Millares, Los: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A walled township, with projecting bastions and four outlying forts, near the coast in Almeria, southeast Spain. The cemetery includes 100 megalithic bombs. The pottery, of the Millaran culture, consisted of plain ware, including troncoconic vessels and carinated forms, and also much decorated ware. Symbolism appears on the decorated ware and on other pottery, stone, and bone. Arrowheads were bifacially worked, leaf-shaped, rhomboid, and barbed-and-tanged and copper was in common use. The settlement was townlike, with rows of stone houses, alleys, and a central communal place within the walls. An artificial watercourse may have led to the settlement. There was specialization of production between households. Their culture was succeeded by that represented by Beakers.
Mindelheim: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Hallstatt C cemetery west of Munich in West Germany, dated to the 7th century BC. The grave goods include distinctive melon-shaped urns and wide open bowls, heavily decorated with incised geometric designs, as well as the long sword type to which the site has given its name. Mindelheim swords are made of bronze or iron, are around 90 cm long, with a leaf-shaped blade and a pommel on the hilt.
Minshat Abu Omar: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Predynastic and Early Dynastic/Archaic cemetery site located in the northeastern Delta, Egypt, which, like the roughly contemporary settlement of Maadi, shows evidence of trade with southern Palestine. Grave goods (ceramic and stone vessels, slate palettes, jewelry, copper tools) included imports from Palestine and Upper Egypt.
Mo'alla, el-: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock-cut cemetery of the First Intermediate Period (2181-2055 BC), located on the east bank of the Nile, about 24 km south of Luxor.
Mochlos: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island on the northern coast of Crete that was once a peninsula where an Early Minoan cemetery of house tombs and a Middle-Late Minoan settlement have been found. Communal tombs at Mochlos had rectangular compartments or rooms and flat roofs, such as those in contemporary houses. Some of the finest jewelry was found in communal tombs at Mochlos and well as stone vases dating to c 2000-1700 BC. The hairpins with flower heads are reminiscent of jewelry from the royal tombs at Ur in Mesopotamia. After the eruption of Thera c 1500 BC, Mochlos was never inhabited again.
Mokrin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The type site of an earlier Bronze Age group in the lowland Banat, dated to the early 2nd millennium BC. Located near Kikinda (north Yugoslavia), it has a large cemetery with over 300 graves. The graves are organized in 11 lines radiating from the central area, a possible indication of family groupings. Some rich graves have gold ornaments and imported metal objects.
Molfetta: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Middle Neolithic settlement on the Italian Adriatic coast near Puglie, Italy -- in the 'Pulo di Molfetta' -- by an enormous collapsed cave. A Neolithic village and cemetery beside this provide a type site for the south Italian impressed ware, for which radiocarbon dates around 5200 BC have been obtained. In about 1600 BC a Bronze Age people, bringing an early version of the Apennine culture, occupied the floor of the depression and caves in its walls. It was originally a circular cave over 100 m across. An Early Neolithic village had small round huts with stone footings and wattle-and-daub walls.
Monte Albán: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A major ceremonial center of the Zapotec people in Oaxaca, Mexico, built around 900 BC on top of an artificially flattened mountain. Monte Albán (I = 900-300 BC) was probably created to serve as the capital of the entire valley, which had previously been divided among several states. It was an immense complex of monumental construction, with a huge plaza (300 x 200 m) dominated by three central mounds. The plaza was flanked on the east and west by temples, pyramids, and platform mounds; on the northern and southern extremities are more complexes of monumental building, including a ball court. There are also underground passageways. By the end of Period I, the city had between 10,000- 20,000 inhabitants living in houses on hill slope terraces around a nucleus of ceremonial and governmental buildings. Hieroglyphic writing was in use, with bar-and-dot numerals, and dates were expressed in terms of the calendar round. More than 300 carved slabs ('danzantes') depict naked and contorted figures who may be captives, and inscriptions definitely recording conquests occur soon afterwards. In Late I/Early II, the city was surrounded by a defense wall. Period I includes the appearance of Grey Ware and Olmec-influenced monumental art. Period II is characterized by contact with Maya lowland centers and later, by the increasing influence of Teotihuacán. Period IIIA (the 3rd-5th centuries AD) is marked by increased contact with Teotihuacán, reflected in pottery (thin orange ware, cylindrical tripod vases), tomb frescoes, Talud-Tablero architecture, and stela inscriptions. Monte Albán reached the height of its power in Period IIIB, 500-900 AD, during which elaborate funerary urns in Grey Ware make their appearance and when the site reached its peak population of 50-60,000 people. Most of the surviving buildings belong to this time. During Monte Albán IV, 900-1521 AD, building ceased. After 900, the centers of power moved elsewhere and Monte Albán was considerably depopulated. It was essentially abandoned. In Period V, Monte Albán was of only secondary importance as a city and a political force. Mixtec art styles make their appearance in the valley and Monte Albán was used as a cemetery, with earlier Zapotec tombs reused for the Mixtec dead. One of the richest discoveries in ancient Mexico was Tomb 7, with over 500 precious offerings in Mixtec style gold and silver ornaments, fine stonework, and a series of bones carved with hieroglyphic and calendrical inscriptions.
Monteoru: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A fortified hilltop near Bucharest which is the type site of a Middle to Late Bronze Age culture, c 2000-1600 BC, covering much of eastern Romania. This culture of the Sub-Carpathian zone was of local origin, but absorbed influences from both the south (notably faience in trade) and the steppes. It had a rich, varied collection of pot and metal forms. The site had a citadel with a long occupation and four large grave groupings in an adjoining cemetery. The citadel was fortified by box-like ramparts and stone walls, with house platforms in the interior. The burial rite is predominantly contracted inhumation, with pottery, bronze jewelry, and stone or faience beads as grave goods.
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)."
Mucking: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement and cemetery site in Essex, one of the largest and most extensively excavated Early Saxon sites in England. It is situated on the high gravel terraces of the Thames estuary and more than 100 sunken huts as well as at least two hall houses have been found. The main occupation debris from the site consists of clay loom-weights; handmade, grass-tempered pots, and some fine metalwork. The cemeteries contain a mixture of inhumation and cremation burials, including some wealthy graves that possess a full range of Early Saxon jewelry and weapons.
mummy label: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Greek tabla
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of identification tag used during the Greco-Roman period, when corpses were regularly being transported from the home to the cemetery or back to their village. The tags were made of wood and, occasionally, stone. Mummy labels were inscribed with short ink texts in Greek or demotic, giving name, age, hometown, and destination of the deceased.
Musingen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery of the Early and Middle La Tène Iron Age in Berne, Switzerland. The 200+ graves were commonly lined with stone and contained coffins. The typology of the grave goods, especially the brooches, has provided the basis for the detailed subdivision of the La Tène period in this area.
Nag el-Deir: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Naga-el-Der
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cemetery site in northern Upper Egypt situated on the east bank of the Nile south of Akhmim and spanning the Predynastic period to the Middle Kingdom (c 4000-1650 BC).
Nahal Oren: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cave and open terrace site on the western slope of Mount Carmel, Israel, occupied from the early Upper Palaeolithic (Kebaran, c 16,300-13,850 BC) to the early Aceramic Neolithic (PPNA) and PPNB (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B). Natufian levels show a strong bias towards the selective hunting, or possibly herding, of gazelle and this continued through to the PPNA levels. There was a growing assemblage of processing tools such as mortars, suggesting that plant-gathering was becoming more important. The material culture included chipped stone tools, ground stone tools, bone tools, stone vessels, and art objects. Natufian and PPNA buildings were round houses with central fireplaces. In the PPNB, they switched to rectangular houses with paved floors; these were sited on the artificial terrace outside the cave, constructed in the Natufian phase. A cemetery of early Natufian date is associated with the site: bodies were buried individually, usually tightly flexed with knees drawn up to the chin; old mortars were used as grave markers. Grave goods include carved stone and bone work; the most notable example was a gazelle's head.
Naqada: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Nubt, Ombos; Nagada
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Upper Egypt which produced the first evidence of the Neolithic in Egypt and provided the framework for the Predynastic sequence of the area. Its large Predynastic cemetery yielded some 2,000 burials of the Amratian and Gerzean periods. Naqada I was the Predynastic culture of ancient Egypt and Naqada II had new features accounted for by direct imports and by increasing cultural contact with the rest of the Near East, particularly Mesopotamia.
Narmer (c 3100 BC): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Menes
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: One of the first pharaohs of Egypt, perhaps to be equated with Menes who founded the 1st Dynasty c 3200 BC and mythical founder of Memphis (and united Egypt). He ruled in Upper Egypt in the late Pre-Dynastic Period and is best known from the 'Main Deposit' of ritual objects at Hierakonpolis. The most important record of him, indeed one of the first from Egypt, is a slate palette on which he is shown in the White Crown of Upper Egypt conquering his enemies on one side, and in the Red Crown of Lower Egypt reconstructing the land on the other. The Narmer Palette is in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo. Narmer is thought to have been buried in Tomb B17-18 in the Umm el-Qa'ab royal cemetery at Abydos.
Natufian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The final Epipalaeolithic (Mesolithic) culture complex of the Levant, dated to c 12,500-10,000 BP, with its type site at Wadi an-Natuf in Palestine. Hunting and gathering were still the basis of subsistence, but some Natufian communities had adopted a settled mode of life and the period saw the development of cereal grain exploitation. They built first permanent village settlements in pre-agricultural times in Palestine (Mallaha) and on middle Euphrates in Syria (Mureybet, Abu Hureyra). A series of burials was excavated at Mount Carmel; one important site is Wad Cave with a large cemetery, querns, sickles. The shrine at the base of the tell at Jericho was built during the Early Natufian phase, and the descendants of the Natufians built the earliest Neolithic town at the site. The characteristic toolkit includes geometric microliths, sickles, pestles, mortars, fishing gear, and ornaments of bone and shell. Generally, Natufian sites demonstrate greater diversity in economy and more permanent settlement than earlier cultures.
necropolis: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A cemetery or burial place, often near a town, the Greek word for a city of the dead". It refers to Egyptian cemeteries from all periods and includes the Valley of the Kings Giza and Saqqara. 'Necropolis' normally describes large and important burial areas that were in use for long periods 'cemetery' smaller and more homogeneous sites; cemeteries may also be subdivisions of a necropolis."
Newgrange: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: New Grange
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The most famous and splendidly decorated of the Irish passage graves, part of the Boyne Valley cemetery, in Meath County. The kidney-shaped mound, dated to c 3100 BC, is over 100 meters in diameter and 13 meters high. The cairn itself was carefully made of alternate layers of stones and turf. A kerb of large stones carved with wavy lines, lozenges, triangles, etc. encloses the base of the mound. On either side of the entrance the green kerbstones were topped by a retaining wall of white quartz. Some distance from the original base of the mound is a surrounding circle of free-standing stones. The burial chamber, cruciform in plan, is roofed by corbelling and has three subsidiary cells; the tomb has a very long passage, 19 meters in length, and built of orthostats. Midwinter sunrise shines through an opening above the door to illuminate the central chamber, the clearest example of an astronomical orientation recorded from a European prehistoric monument. Many stones of both chamber and passage carry pecked designs including an unusual triple spiral. Excavation has shown that the upper surfaces of the capstones had drainage channels, as well as art which would have been invisible once the overlying cairn had been built. Traces of cremation burials were found in the cells of the chamber, and soil from a habitation site, possibly close to the tomb, had been used to pack the interstices of the passage roof. There are two radiocarbon dates around 3200 BC and the site was reoccupied after the tomb-builders had left it and the cairn had begun to slump by a group which used Late Neolithic and Beaker pottery.
Nitra: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Neutra, Nyitra
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A fortified site where excavations have revealed traces of the 9th-century stronghold and a large cemetery of the Linear Pottery culture of southern Slovakia. Within Nitra's walls there were workshops producing relics and metalwork that were distributed to other Slavic sites. The cemetery's artifacts and remains have provided data on mortality, age, and sex during the Early Neolithic. Grave goods included spondylus shell ornaments and shoe-last axes.
Njoro River Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the earliest well-documented Pastoral Neolithic sites in southern Kenya, of the Elmenteitan industry and dated to c 12th century BC. It was a cemetery for cremated burials, each interment being accompanied by a stone bowl, mortar, and pestle, as well as by numerous hard stone beads and pendants. A finely decorated wooden vessel and a gourd were also preserved.
Nkudzi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Later Iron age cemetery site on the southwestern shore of Lake Malawi (formerly Lake Nyasa), probably dating to the late 18th-early 19th centuries AD. The abundant grave goods may reflect the material culture in the area at a time of increasing slave-raiding and coastal trade.
Nubian A Group: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Nubian A-Group culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The name conventionally given to the earliest fully food-producing society known in the archaeological record of Nubia, late in the 4th millennium BC. The 'A Group' people probably had an indigenous Nubian ancestry, but were evidently in regular trade contact. The A Group is known mainly from graves, as from the excavated cemetery at Qustul, and adopted symbols of kingship similar to those of contemporary kings of Egypt of the Naqadah II-III period. It was one of the earliest phases of state formation in the world. Some settlement sites have been investigated, as at Afyeh near the First Cataract where rectangular stone houses were built, as well other rural villages. Sheep and goats were herded, with some cattle, while both wheat and barley were cultivated. Luxury manufactured goods imported from Egypt included stone vessels, amulets, copper tools and linen cloth.
Nuri: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Upper Nubia, the successor to Kurru as the main royal pyramid cemetery of the Napatan kings of the mid-7th to early-3rd centuries BC. It is about 25 km southwest of the fourth Nile cataract and a few kilometers to the northeast of Napata (a principal political center of Kush/Cush). The largest pyramid, that of the king Taharqa (reigned 690-664 BC), is situated there. Royal burials continued to take place at Nuri until 315 BC.
Oleneostrovski Mogilnik: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large Mesolithic cemetery on Lake Onega in northern Russia with thousands of artifacts from the excavated graves.
Palmela: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery of four Copper Age (Chalcolithic) rock-cut tombs in Setúbal, Portugal, near Lisbon. Each has a kidney-shaped chamber, originally used for collective inhumation, entered by a long passage or through a hole in the roof. The cemetery forms the type site of a culture flourishing in central Portugal c 3800-3200 BC. A variety of amuletic objects in stone includes decorated plano-convex or cylindrical stylized human figurines, crescents, model hoes or adzes, and a pair of sandals from Alapraia. Stonework follows Neolithic traditions, but adds deeply concave-based arrowheads. The tombs were rich in Beaker material, including 50 beakers with copper knives and fragments of gold foil. Pottery, too, follows on from the Almeria culture, though foreign elements have been connected with the dark-slipped Urfirnis ware of Greece. There is also a distinctive type of arrowhead with near-circular copper blade and long tang, the Palmela point. The settlements are likely a variant of the Vila Nova de Sao Pedro culture.
Passy-sur-Yonne: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Middle Neolithic long mound cemetery in Yonne, France, with associated pottery and a date of c 3800 BC.
Peribsen (c 2700 BC): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sekhemib
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Egyptian king of the 2nd Dynasty (c 2775-2650 BC), who promoted the cult of the god Seth over that of Horus, the god favored by his predecessors. His tomb was located in Seth's district in Upper Egypt, at Abydos (Tomb P in the Umm el-Qa'ab cemetery). The supremacy of Horus was restored after his death.
Petrie, Sir William Matthew Flinders (1853-1942): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: An English Egyptologist and a leading figure in the development of archaeology; he developed the technique known as sequence-dating. He was self-taught and, in 1880, went to Egypt to draw up plans and take measurements of the Pyramids (Tanis, Naucratis, Daphnae, Hawara, Kahun, Meidum, El Amarna, Nagada, Abydos, Memphis, Sedment, Qau). He is recognized as the first scientific excavator in Egypt and he wrote many books on general topics, tools and weapons, ancient weights and measures, and Egyptian architecture; in all, he published more than 1000 books and articles. His work was summarized in Seventy Years in Archaeology" (1931). At Tell el-Hesi in 1890 the importance of stratigraphy in the excavation was for the first time fully appreciated. At Naqada in 1894 his discovery of the predynastic cemetery led him to devise the technique of sequence-dating a form of seriation. Sequence dating used the pottery types found in the nearly 3000 graves of the Naqada cemeteries. His other achievements in Egypt include a survey of the Giza pyramids excavation at El-Amarna and the discovery of the Greek city of Naukratis. After 1926 he concentrated on Palestine for example at Tell el-Ajjul."
Pianello: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Proto-Villanovan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site near Ancona, near the Italian Adriatic coast, with a large urnfield cemetery of c 1100 BC. It is the type site of a group scattered through much of Italy and often labeled Proto-Villanovan. The ashes, sometimes accompanied by an arc fibula or quadrangular razor, were buried in a small biconical urn and covered with inverted bowls used as lids.
Poliochni: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site on the island of Lemnos in the northern Aegean, first occupied in the Final Neolithic. Its seven successive phases span the Neolithic to Middle Bronze Age, parallel to the first six cities of Troy. Its Neolithic cities, equipped with stone baths, represented the most advanced Neolithic civilization yet found in the Aegean. The Copper Age city was dated to c 5000 BC. In the Early Bronze Age (c 3000 BC) it was a fortified township with stone defenses, one of the largest in the Aegean, with houses laid out along streets and evidence of the practice of metallurgy. An associated cemetery of inhumation burials has many with rich grave goods. There was a catastrophic destruction, though it was later reoccupied.
Port aux Choix: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Archaic cemetery site in northwest Newfoundland, Canada, dated between late 3rd-late 2nd millennia BC. The 100 burials had grave goods of ochre, polished slate, barbed bone points, toggled bone harpoon heads, shell beads and combs, needles, knives, and scrapers.
Puabi or Pu-abi (c 2900-2334 BC): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Shubad; Shub-Ad
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A queen of Ur buried in Grave 800 of the Royal Cemetery (Sumeria) around the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, whose tomb contained the bodies of more than 60 attendants. In the grave was the skeleton of Puabi, adorned with ornaments of gold, silver and lapis lazuli, and an attendant. In the entrance shaft were skeletons of richly adorned women and men, as well as a sledge and the skeletons of the two oxen which had pulled it. Rich grave goods include many vessels of gold, silver, and copper, a gaming board and a silver harp inlaid with shell and red and blue stone.
Quinzano: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A quarry near Verona, Italy, with several lower and middle Palaeolithic levels and a human occipital skull-bone of Neanderthal type. There was an open settlement of the Square-Mouthed Pottery Neolithic culture and a cemetery of crouched inhumations. The name Finale-Quinzano is sometimes given to a variant of square-mouthed pottery named after this site and Arene Candide.
Qumran: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site near the Dead Sea in Israel where the first Dead Sea Scrolls were found, leading to excavation of the headquarters of a religious community and of a large cemetery at Khirbet Qumran, both of Greco-Roman period. The Essenes, a Jewish sect living there from c 1st century BC to the 1st century AD left their religious writings in caves during the time when the Romans put down the Jewish Revolt. Discovered in 1947, the scrolls are dated to the last two centuries BC and 1st century AD.
Rössen culture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Röessen culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The successor of western branch of the Neolithic Linear Pottery Culture, with which is has many features in common. Its main distribution was in Rhineland and central and southern Germany, parallel to Lengyel culture in Czechoslovakia and mid-Danube. It is characterized by pottery with complex incised geometric motifs and by sites with trapezoidal longhouses. Radiocarbon dates indicate early 4th millennium BC. It is named after a cemetery site in Halle with 70 burials accompanied by bone and jet necklaces, shaft-hole-stone axes, and some long trapezoidal ones.
Remedello Sotto: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Remedellian
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A village and cemetery in Lombardy, Italy of the Chalcolithic Remedello culture of the Po valley and Veneto in the 3rd millennium BC. Its famous cemetery of 117 tombs is the type site of a Copper Age culture. Skeletons were crouched in trench graves, accompanied by bifacially flaked fling daggers, triangular copper daggers; halberds, axes, and awls in copper, and barbed-and-tanged flint arrowheads. Pottery was scarce and variable. Sherds of beakers have been found associated with this material with a date c 2500 BC.
Republic Groves: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Archaic cemetery in Florida with well-preserved human and animal bone, stone artifacts, and burial goods.
Rinaldone: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A cemetery in Lazio, Italy, the type site of a Copper Age culture lying between those of Remedello and Gaudo, and showing some connections with both. There are collective burials in rock-cut tombs or single or collective burials in trench graves -- with crouched skeletons, pottery; flat copper axes, halberds, and daggers; stone battleaxes, fine flint daggers, and numerous barbed-and-tanged arrowheads. The dark burnished ware has bottle shapes with lug and tunnel handles. It dates from c 3000-2200 BC.
Roonka: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An open-site burial ground on the Lower Murray river, South Australia, with areas dating to 18,000 bp. It was exclusively a cemetery from 7000-4000 bp. From 2000 BC until the last century it was again a campsite as well as a cemetery with a variety of mortuary practices. Grave goods were found only in shaft graves and included food animals, ochre, bone and shell ornaments, and stone and bone tools.
sacrifice: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Many societies in various parts of the world and at different times have practiced animal or human sacrifice or both. One of the best-known examples in the Old World is the Mesopotamian city of Ur's Royal Cemetery. The Vedic and Hindu religions of India also have a complicated system of sacrifice. In the New World, the practice of animal and human sacrifice was an aspect of almost all Mesoamerican cultures and dates back into the early Formative Period, c 6000-4800 BC. The extreme expression of sacrifice occurs in the Post-Classic, especially under the Aztec, whose perception of the universe as a continuing battle between the forces of generation and destruction made sacrifice a prerequisite for the continuation of the world. Sacrifice is fundamentally a religious act that has been of profound significance to individuals and social groups throughout history.
Sai: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Island in Upper Nubia with a cemetery of the Kerma culture.
Samarra: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Islamic city of the Abbasid dynasty, mid-8th to mid-10th century AD, founded as the new capital in 836 AD on the Tigris River in central Iraq. Its Neolithic culture, 6th millennium BC, was remarkable for its elaborate painted pottery with geometric or naturalistic patterns. At that time, it was characterized by large villages with complex, multi-room buildings, and introduction of irrigated agriculture and cattle rearing. The pottery, found mainly in the Samarra cemetery, replaced Hassuna ware, on which it marked a considerable advance. It was absorbed by the Halaf tradition c 5000 BC. It is a rich source of information on early Islamic architecture, public monuments, and town planning.
Sanga: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important Iron Age cemetery in Upemba depression, southeastern Zaire. The numerous graves that have been investigated are attributed to the Kisalian and Kabambian industries dating from the end of the 1st millennium AD to the last two centuries. Isalian iron and copper objects and pottery are associated with the 11th-12th centuries AD.
Santa Lucia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An inhumation and cremation cemetery in Slovenia with more than 6,000 graves, dating to c 9th-2nd centuries BC. The graves' contents showed extensive trade with north Italy and central Europe. The Roman city of Emona (1st century BC) was located there.
Saqqara: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sakkara, Saqqarah
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the principal necropolis of the ancient city of Memphis, near Cairo, Egypt, used from the 2nd Dynasty to the Christian period. There are 15 royal pyramids, mainly of the Old Kingdom (c 2575-2130 BC), the most being the Step Pyramid erected by Imhotep for Djoser, pharaoh of the 3rd dynasty, c 2630 BC. The royal mastaba tombs of the nobility making up most of the cemetery have yielded much evidence on the Archaic Period. Also buried here, at the Serapeum, were the sacred Apis bulls. With the passage of time burial chambers were more massively constructed of stone, and eventually hewn from solid rock. There are a large number of important private tombs of the Archaic through the Graeco-Roman period.
Sardis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sardes
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City in western Anatolia (near Izmir, Turkey), associated with Croesus and the Lydians, the capital city of Lydia. The Lydian city, of the 7th-6th centuries BC, had an acropolis and walled lower settlement. From about 560-546 BC, Sardis was ruled by Croesus, who was renowned for his great wealth and was the last king of Lydia. Taken by the Persians (c 546 BC), Sardis fell in turn to the Athenians, the Seleucids, and the Attalids until bequeathed to the Romans in 133 BC. Among the ruins are the Palace of Croesus, Temple of Artemis, gold works, and grave mounds of the royal cemetery. It was first occupied in the Early Bronze Age and became the first city where gold and silver coins were minted. Leveled by an earthquake in 17 AD, the city was rebuilt and remained one of the great cities of Anatolia until the later Byzantine period. The Mongol Timur (Tamerlane) then destroyed it in 1402. Its ruins include the ancient Lydian citadel and about 1,000 Lydian graves. Excavations of Sardis have uncovered more remains of the Hellenistic and Byzantine city than of the Lydian town described by the Greek historian Herodotus.
Scorpion (c 3150 BC): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Name held by two Protodynastic rulers, one of whom was perhaps buried in Tomb U-j of the Umm el Qa'ab cemetery at Abydos.
serapeum: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Serapeum, Sarapeum, Sarapieion
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Two temples of ancient Egypt dedicated to the worship of the Greco-Egyptian god Sarapis (Serapis). The original elaborate temple of that name was located on the west bank of the Nile near Saqqara and was a monument to the deceased Apis bulls. Though the area was used as a cemetery for the bulls as early as 1400 BC, it was Ramesses II (1279-13 BC) who designed a main gallery and subsidiary chambers. Under the Ptolemaic dynasty, the temple was called the Sarapeum. The vast underground galleries at Saqqara housed the 64 embalmed bodies of the Apis bulls. French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette discovered the ruins, first finding a limestone sphinx almost hidden in the sand in an area northwest of the Step Pyramid of Djoser and uncovering an avenue leading into the Western Desert, at the end of which lay a small temple built by a 30th-Dynasty pharaoh. He also found a large blocked doorway and 24 vaulted burial chambers within. Another important serapeum was built at Alexandria, the new Ptolemaic capital. Ptolemy I Soter (reigned 305-284 BC) selected Sarapis as the official god for Egypt and built largest and best known of the god's temples. There Sarapis was worshipped until 391 AD, when the serapeum was destroyed. In Roman times other serapeums were constructed throughout the empire.
Shahi Tump: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Small tell site in western Baluchistan with a small inhumation cemetery, probably of the 3rd millennium BC. Pottery and other artifacts show connections both with Iranian sites and the Kulli culture of southern Baluchistan. Grave goods included fine gray ware bowls with swastika motifs in soft black paint; rich copper work, a shaft-hole ax, and five compartmented stamp seals. Three phases of use were recognized: two phases of occupation, followed by a phase of use as a cemetery.
Shahr-i Sokhta: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Tell site in the Seistan district of eastern Iran, close to the Afghan and Pakistan borders, which was the site of a vast urban center of the late 4th-early 2nd millennium BC. As well as abundant structural remains, enormous numbers of finds have been excavated -- thousands of potsherds and stone tools, clay figurines, and animal bones. The wealth of Shahr-i Sokhta was due at least in part to its role in the trade in lapis lazuli between its source in north Afghanistan and the markets of Mesopotamia and Egypt. An industrial area produced thousands of unfinished lapis lazuli beads, as well as flint drills and other tools used in their manufacture. Shahr-i Sokhta also has a huge cemetery, estimated to have contained 200,000 burials. In the early 2nd millennium BC, the course of the Helmand River, on which the city depended, changed; this led to the decline and abandonment of the settlement. The site is still important for understanding the urbanization, production and subsistence techniques, and complex societies of Bronze Age Iran and Afghanistan.
Shangcunling: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Shang-ts'un-ling
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a large early Eastern Chou cemetery near the city of Sanmenxia in Shan Xian, Honan province, China. Inscribed bronzes show that members of the royal family of Guo were buried here. Guo was a small state founded probably before the end of the Western Chou period (771 BC) and ending in 655 BC, when its territory was absorbed by the state of Jin. The cemetery includes well-preserved chariot burials and remarkably simple bronze ritual vessels.
Shih-chai-shan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Shizhaishan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of a group of 1st-century BC sites near Lake Tien in Yunnan province, southwest China, with the cemetery of a regional Dian bronze culture contemporaneous with the Han dynasty. The graves have bronze and iron weapons and tools with unique motifs -- and bronze cowrie containers and drums. Links with southeast Asia and western areas of China are seen in the Dian drums.
Shub-Ad (fl 3rd millennium BC): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Puabi
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A queen or Ur c 2600 BC (Early Dynastic Period in Mesopotamia, c 2900-2334 BC), whose tomb was discovered in the Royal Cemetery. The tomb contained the bodies of more than 60 attendants. The queen herself lay on a wooden bier within a stone-built chamber beside that of Abargi, probably her husband. She was wearing a cloak of beads of gold, silver, and precious stones, an elaborate headdress of gold ribbons with gold and lapis lazuli pendants, and large lunate gold earrings. There were also bowls and other vessels of gold, silver, and copper, as well as pottery. In the shaft of the tomb were a wooden sledge with mosaic decoration and two oxen to draw it, an inlaid gaming board, and a magnificent harp inlaid with shell, red and blue stone.
Si Mu Wu fang ding / Ssu Mu Wu: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ssu Mu Wu fang-ting
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Late Shang bronze ritual vessel, a tetrapod weighing 1,925 pounds (875 kilograms), the largest metal-casting surviving from Chinese antiquity. Late Shang ritual vessels reveal high technological competence and large-scale, labor-intensive metal production. Said to have been found in the Anyang royal cemetery, the vessel is inscribed with a dedication to an empress and dates probably from the 12th century BC. It is now in the Historical Museum, Beijing.
Sialk, Tepe: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Siyalk
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important tell site near Kashan on the plateau of Iran with a six major phases from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. They are: I, dating to the 6th-5th millennia BC, a simple village of recently settled farmers who used pottery painted with basketry designs and copper only in the form of hammered ornaments; II, a village of mudbrick architecture with very fine pottery elaborately painted with stylized animals; III, pottery made by wheel and kiln and more use of copper; IV, around 3000 BC, the site fell under the influence of Susa and Mesopotamia, the painted ware replaced by monochrome gray or red, much jewelry, and the introduction of proto-Elamite writing. This phase was followed by a break in occupation and the resettlement -- represented in cemetery A -- is often attributed to intruders from the northeast, who are thought to have been responsible for the introduction of Indo-European languages to this area. The final occupation of Tepe Sialk, represented in cemetery B and dated to the late 2nd-early 1 millennium BC, saw the first use of iron. Around 9th-8th century BC, the site was destroyed and abandoned.
Sibri: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site with a suggested date of 2000 BC, near Mehrgahr, Pakistan, with a cemetery. Much of the material culture is identical to Central Asian forms -- and with foreign" copper and bronze tools and weapons and typical pottery forms from cemeteries of the Sapalli-Tepe group in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The connection of Sibri to these two areas has not yet been worked out."
Sitio Conte: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Panamanian site, in Coclé province, occupied from 200-1300 AD. Its cemetery, used 500-900, had some 60 tombs filled with gold regalia, tools and weapons, ornaments of carved stone or bone, and thousands of pots, some painted in several colors. All these items were decorated with elaborate scroll designs and animal forms. Elements of this Sitio Conte (or Coclé) art style are found at other sites right up to the Spanish conquest.
Sondershausen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Linear Pottery culture cemetery in eastern Germany with spondylus shell ornaments.
Sopron: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Iron Age cemetery of the Hallstatt C period in western Hungary. Cremation burials under barrows were in urns with incised and unusual human figures. Artifacts from the area indicate Neolithic, Bronze Age, Illyrian, and Celtic settlements prior to the town's becoming the Roman municipium of Scarabantia.
Sotira-Teppes: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sotira culture
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Southern Cyprus type site of the Neolithic II of the later 5th millennium BC. There were circular and oval stone and mud-brick houses, a simple pit-grave cemetery, and combed ware. A Chalcolithic Philia culture of the mid-3rd millennium BC was also found in nearby Sotira-Kaminoudhia. Small ornaments of picrolite (a type of soapstone) and pottery distinguish the Sotira culture; toward the end of the period copper came into use.
Soufli: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Aceramic Neolithic-Bronze Age settlement in Thessaly, northern Greece. It had a Larisa phase cremation cemetery and is known for a rare piece of monumental sculpture depicting a more than life-size woman wearing a skirt and necklace.
stela: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: stele, stelae (pl.)
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An upright, freestanding stone monument, often inscribed or carved in relief, and sometimes painted. These pillars or tablets of stone were often used to mark a grave or erected as a monument. Inscriptions may commemorate a victory or a major event, or proclaim a formal decree. Stelae are frequently encountered in Maya and Olmec sites of Mesoamerica (often carved with calendrical and hieroglyphic inscriptions), in the Buddhist civilizations of Asia, and in early Greece. The earliest funerary stelae are from a cemetery of 1st- and 2nd-Dynasty kings at Abydos, and are located in publicly accessible superstructures of the tombs. Commemorative stelae were erected in temples. Votive stelae recorded an individual's veneration of a particular deity(ies).
stela or stele: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pl. stelae
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An upright, freestanding stone monument, often inscribed or carved in relief, and sometimes painted. These pillars or tablets of stone were often used to mark a grave or erected as a monument. Inscriptions may commemorate a victory or a major event, or proclaim a formal decree. Stelae are frequently encountered in Maya and Olmec sites of Mesoamerica (often carved with calendrical and hieroglyphic inscriptions), in the Buddhist civilizations of Asia, and in early Greece. The earliest funerary stelae are from a cemetery of 1st- and 2nd-Dynasty kings at Abydos, and are located in publicly accessible superstructures of the tombs. Commemorative stelae were erected in temples. Votive stelae recorded an individual's veneration of a particular deity(ies).
Sugu: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sugu site group
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan, with many Yayoi settlements, cemeteries, and workshops. The Sugu site proper is a cemetery containing over 200 jar burials. The most famous burial was that of a probable political leader inside two jars, set mouth to mouth, along with at least 33 imported Chinese bronze mirrors, several bronze weapons, and ornaments of glass, stone, and antler. The fine pottery used in the funerary jars is known as the Sugu type, characteristic of the Middle Yayoi (100 BC-100 AD) of Kyushu.
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.
Taforalt: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large cave in eastern Morocco with a blade industry of c 22,000 bp (Mousterian) through Aterian to a long succession of Iberomaurusian phases. A large Iberomaurusian cemetery and shell midden have been excavated. The cemetery had 185 people and is of the Mechta-Afalou type (c 11,900 bp).
Tarragona: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Kallipolis; Iberian Cissa or Cissis; Carthaginian Tarchon; Roman Tarraco
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important city of Roman Spain, later capital of the province of Hispania Tarraconensis, with the first identifiable occupation by the local Iberian. In 218 BC, it was captured by Roman generals and was transformed into one of the earliest Roman strongholds in Spain. Augustus recuperated there during his Cantabrian wars, where an altar and temple were later dedicated to him. The emperors Hadrian and Trajan endowed Tarragona with power and cultural prestige, while its flax trade and other industries made it one of the richest seaports of the Roman Empire. It prospered until being sacked by the Franks in 260 AD. Remains surviving include the Republican-period walling, Augustus' palace, an amphitheater, a section of aqueduct (the Devil's Bridge), and a Romano-Christian cemetery.
Tarxien: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Late Neolithic temple complex in eastern Malta with four temples dated c 3500-2500 BC. Many stone slabs in the walls and courtyards are decorated with relief carvings. The most remarkable find is the lower half of an enormous statue of a 'fat lady', known also from figurines and thought to represent a goddess, and is 2.75 meters high. The temples were abandoned c 2500 BC. In the ruins, Bronze Age people placed a rich cremation cemetery, dating 2500-1500 BC. The Bronze Age culture is named the Tarxien Cemetery culture after this site.
Teti (fl 23rd century BC): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: First king of the 6th Dynasty (c 2325-2150 BC) whose reign does not represent a marked break with the preceding reign of Unas. Around Teti's pyramid in northern Saqqarah was a cemetery of large tombs, including those of several viziers. Together with tombs near the pyramid of Unas, this is the latest group of private monuments of the Old Kingdom in the Memphis area.
Thapsos: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Site of a Middle Bronze Age cemetery near Syracuse, Sicily, of nearly 400 rock-cut tombs with dromos entrances. Most have a vertical shaft and were used for collective inhumations. It is the type site of the Thapsos culture, characterized by pottery, bronze swords and daggers, and Mycenaean imports of pottery and faience beads. The local ware has large cups and vases, often on high pedestals and with handles, with decoration in chevrons and cordons. The material is dated c 1400-1200 BC. Thapsos is a promontory but was once an island. The Thapsos culture follows the Castelluccio culture and is succeeded by the Pantalica culture in the same area.
Tibava: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Copper Age cemetery and settlement of the Tiszapolgár culture, located in the upper Bodrog Valley in eastern Slovakia and dated to the late 4th millennium BC. The site lies near a pass across the Carpathians. The richness of its grave goods shows it was an area of trade; the largest collection of Early Copper Age gold pendants in the Carpathians has been found, as well as south Polish and Volhynian flint nodules and rich copper finds.
Tillya-Depe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Iron Age site in southern Bactria, Afghanistan, dating to the first half of the 1st millennium BC. There was a central fortified architectural platform and a group of Kushan royal tombs" dug after abandonment. The graves were very rich with gold vessels and jewelry and were dated to the late 1st millennium BC. Afghanistan's archaeological discoveries are recounted by Viktor Sarianidi in "The Golden Hoard of Bactria: From the Tillya-tepe Excavations in Northern Afghanistan" (1985) an illustrated account of grave goods excavated from an early Kushan princedom cemetery."
Timmari: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Hilltop settlement site and associated cemetery near Matera, Italy, with the main occupation in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. The Neolithic occupation had Serra d'Alto ware. The associated cemetery is an urnfield of the so-called Proto-Villanovan group. The urns were placed in several layers and sometimes marked by small standing stones; there are some bronzes of Proto-Villanovan type. The cemetery is dated c 11th-10th centuries BC.
Timna': SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hajar Kohlan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Two sites: Capital city of the Qatabanian kingdom of southern Arabia and an area of copper-smelting sites in southern Israel. In the 1st millennium BC, Timna in Arabia was a walled city; it was destroyed c 1st century AD in a war. The site has produced a number of important inscriptions in the local South Arabian language and script. North of the city is a cemetery site with a series of structures made of stone and mudbrick. The tombs have been robbed, but have yielded some sculpture, inscribed tablets, bronze, pottery, and jewelry. In Israel, the presence of copper (in Palestine) is mentioned in the Bible, and archaeologists have identified remnants of ancient smelting operations, complete with crude furnaces and slag heaps, as being of the Egyptian pharaonic and Solomonic periods. The ancient mines are called Mikhrot Shelomo ha-Melekh -- King Solomon's Mines. There is also a temple of the goddess of Hathor, showing Egyptian interest during the New Kingdom.
Tiszapolgár: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The oldest stage of the Hungarian Copper (Eneolithic) Age, c 3500-3000 BC, and successor to the Tisza culture. It is named for Tiszapolgár-Basatanya, a cemetery in the plain of eastern Hungary with 156 graves containing single inhumations accompanied by pottery, long flint blades, and a few copper objects. The oldest graves belong to the Tiszapolgár phase, while the more recent ones are of the Bodrogkeresztur culture. Most domestic occupations were small-scale and short-lived farmsteads. The pottery is a continuation of the Tisza tradition, however with little or no decoration.
Tlatilco: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Pre-Classic village site right just outside present-day Mexico City, dated to c1500-1000 BC, with a cemetery of more than 500 graves. The graves had local artifacts and some of the Olmec style, including figurines showing clothing types, hairstyles, skin decoration, and various occupations. Although there is no monumental stone architecture, low earth pyramids and bottle-shaped pits filled with household refuse indicate permanent residence. Located on an exit point on the western side of the valley, Tlatilco may possibly have been one of a number of stations on an Olmec trade route Veracruz with the raw material sources of western Mexico.
Trusesti: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large settlement and cemetery site of the Late Neolithic Cucuteni-Tripolye culture, in Moldavia, Rumania. The site has almost 100 complete house-plans on a promontory, enclosed on one side by a double ditch, and there were rich pottery assemblages of the Cucuteni A phase.
Tustrup: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Neolithic mortuary house in a megalithic tomb cemetery in Jutland, Denmark, c 2900 BC. Highly decorated pottery vessels accompanied the burial.
Uhle, Max (1856-1944): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Peruvian archaeologist, one of the greatest in South American archaeology. He was one of the first to use artifact style and stratigraphic associations to produce a chronological sequence. Uhle was the first to apply the principles of stratigraphy and seriation to central Andean material, and he carried out more fieldwork in western South America than any scholar before or since. He worked at Tiahuanaco, Pachacamac, at several Mochica sites, an early Chimú cemetery, in the valleys of Chincha, Moche, Chancay, and Ica; near Ancon, near Cuzco, and in Chile and Ecuador. He established the Early, Middle, and Late Tiahuanaco and Inca Ceramic sequence, which though corrected and elaborated, still stands today. His more than 130 volumes of unpublished notes and other records are housed at the University of California.
Umm an-Nar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Umm an-nar
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Bronze Age settlement and chamber tomb cemetery on a small island of Abu Dhabi on the Oman peninsula. The site has given its name to an early 3rd-millennium BC culture, also found through southeastern Arabia. Characteristic Umm an-Nar pottery, funerary architecture, and other artifacts are dated c 2500-2000 BC. Evidence suggests that the Umm an-Nar culture might be identified with the land of Magan, mentioned in cuneiform Sumerian documents.
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.
Ur: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Tell el-Muqqayr
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A site in southern Mesopotamia occupied from 'Ubaid times (6th-5th millennia BC), which grew in importance during the Early Dynastic period (3rd millennium BC) to become an important Sumerian city. Ubaid and Uruk levels are separated by a flood level. In the last century of the 3rd millennium, it was the ceremonial center of the Ur III empire which controlled much of Mesopotamia. Located south of the Euphrates and west of Basra, it has a Royal Cemetery c 2800. The arch and dome were used in constructing the tombs and they contained precious metal and stones, animal figures; shell, lapis lazuli, and carnelian mosaic inlays; gold and lapis jewelry; and evidence for the sacrifice of human attendants to accompany the dead royal master or mistress. There is also spectacular 3rd millennium BC religious architecture (the ziggurat of Nanna/Sin, the moon god), residential architecture and street plans, and texts from then to the late 1st millennium BC. It was destroyed by Elam and the Amorites, but recovered by the early 2nd millennium BC. The city later declined and was finally abandoned in the 4th century BC.
urnfield: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A type of cremation grave or cemetery in which the ashes of individuals were placed in pottery vessels or funerary urns. Sometimes unurned cremations may also be present.
Urnfield period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Urnfield period; Urnfield; Urn culture, Urnfield complex
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A widespread group of related Bronze Age cultures practicing burial by cremation in pottery urns, at first in central and eastern Europe and later spreading to northern and western Europe. Such funerary urns were buried in a cemetery of urns (urnfields) and the practice dates from c 1300 BC to c 750 BC. Other features of the Urnfield period include copper-mining, sheet bronze metalworking, and fortified settlements. At the start of the Iron Age, inhumation once again became the dominant form of burial in many areas. A small pot with holes in it is often found interred with the urn, which may have been the ritual fire igniter or an incense burner. The Urnfield cultures succeeded the Tumulus culture in central Europe and developed into the Hallstatt Iron Age culture.
Usatovo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Usatovo culture
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Settlement, barrow cemeteries, and flat-grave cemeteries near Odessa, in the Ukraine -- a regional variant of the Eneolithic Cucuteni-Tripolye culture. It is the type site of a copper-using culture with painted pottery and with the kurgan burial of the steppe zone. It is thought to date c 2600-2100 BC. One barrow cemetery at Usatovo was one of the richest in the steppe zone and lay next to a stone-built settlement. Crouched inhumations as primary burials were often accompanied by many secondary burials in cists or pits. Widespread contacts are documented by the presence of Baltic amber and Anatolian silver and antimony, and the existence of corbel-vaulted tombs suggest Aegean affinities.
Valley of the Kings: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Biban el-Muluk
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Rocky valley in the western desert opposite Thebes and just west of Luxor, on the Nile in Upper Egypt, which was chosen as the royal cemetery during the New Kingdom. From 1580 BC, the tombs of the pharaohs were cut in the limestone of its walls. It actually consists of two separate valleys: the eastern valley is main cemetery of 18th-20th Dynasties while the Western (Cemetery of Monkeys/Apes) has only four tombs: Amenhotep III, Ay, and two others uninscribed (KV24-25). There are 62 total. One of the main features of the royal tombs at the Valley of the Kings was their separation from the mortuary temples which were built some distance away, in a long line at the edge of the desert. The discovery of the unspoiled tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922 revealed for the first time just how lavishly these tombs were equipped.
Valley of the Queens: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Biban el-Harim
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cemetery of the royal wives and sons of some of the New Kingdom pharaohs, located on the west bank at Thebes, just northwest of Medinet Habu, Egypt. Late 17th and early 18th Dynasty royal families are buried there; most of the 18th Dynasty rulers' wives were buried with their husbands in the Valley of the Kings. The 19th and 20th Dynasty royal wives and offspring were then buried in the Valley of the Queens. There are about 75 tombs at the site.
Varna: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Odessus
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Late Copper Age cemetery site on the Black Sea coast of eastern Bulgaria, of the Gumennita culture (Karanovo VI), with some of the richest burials of the 4th millennium BC. It is the largest collection of pre-Mycenaean gold in Europe. The cemetery contains over 100 extended inhumations as well as two special grave types: the 'mask' grave (where the skull is replaced by a clay mask) and the 'centotaph' grave (where grave goods are arranged as if the missing body were present). These grave categories contained some of the richest grave goods: gold scepters, diadems, pendants, appliqués, copper tools and weapons; stone, shell, and bone jewelry. Foreign items include copper and graphite, spondylus and dentalium shells, carnelian, and marble. Analysis of the Varna gold indicates two sources, probably in the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus. Varna was founded as Odessus by Milesian Greeks in the 6th century BC.
Vedbaek Bogebakken: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Danish Mesolithic cemetery on Zealand dated to c 4800 BC. There are 17 graves of the Ertebolle phase.
Vergina: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Royal capital of Macedonia in northern Greece with a tumulus cemetery of the Early Iron Age. A pair of royal tombs from the fourth century BC contained many objects of gold, silver, bronze, and iron, several wall frescoes, and two caskets of human bones, which may be the remains of the parents of Alexander III, Philip II and his fourth wife Olympias.
Vikletice: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Corded Ware culture cemetery in Bohemia.
Vounous: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Cypriot cemetery in northern Cyprus of the late 3rd millennium BC. the tombs are oval rock-cut chambers entered through a short dromos. Grave goods include terra-cotta models.
Windmill Hill: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Windmill Hill culture
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Neolithic causewayed camp north of Avebury, Wiltshire, England, the type site of the culture of the same name. The camp of c 3350 BC has three ditch circuits which are part of the Avebury complex of Neolithic ritual monuments. Windmill Hill ware sensu stricto (decorated with grooves and pits), was closely followed by the oldest (Ebbsfleet) variant of Peterborough ware -- 3330 +/- 150. More recent levels have Peterborough styles, grooved ware, and beaker sherds. An earthen long barrow has a radiocarbon date of 4030 +/- 150 and there is a cemetery of Bronze Age round barrows. This culture and that of Peterborough were the two first main food-growing and cattle-raising peoples. Stone axes, coarse scrapers, and pressure-flaked leaf-shaped arrowheads were used. They raised pigs, cattle, goats, and had dogs for herding; cereals were grown. The pottery is now divided into separate traditions (Grimston-Lyles Hill, Hembury, Abingdon), and the rest of the cultural content, causewayed camps, long barrows, leaf-shaped arrowheads and polished flint or other stone axes, is now regarded as simply 'British Neolithic'. The culture existed until c 2500 BC.
Woolley, Sir (Charles) Leonard (1880-1960): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British archaeologist known for his work at Ur, Carchemish, Tell el-Amarna, Tell Atchana, Al Mina, and Al 'Ubaid. At Ur, he revealed 5000 years of history and wrote it up in a 10-volume series (Ur Excavations"). His discovery of geological evidence of a great flood suggested a possible correlation with the deluge described in Genesis and his findings in the Royal Cemetery brought the astonishing wealth and skills of the Sumerian civilization to the public's attention. He was an exacting excavator outstanding in interpretation and published popular accounts of his results. His other books include "The Sumerians" (1928) "Ur of the Chaldees" (1929) and "Digging up the Past" (1930)."
Xiasi: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hsia-hsu
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Eastern Zhou (Chou) cemetery site in southwestern Honan province, China. Nine large tombs, five chariot burials, and 16 lesser tombs have been excavated. More than 200 bronze ritual vessels and bells were found in the large tombs and represent Chu bronzecasting. The Xiasi bronzes include the earliest cire perdue castings yet known from China, used to cast the openwork parts of a bronze table and the flamboyant handles, feet, and lid knobs of vessels. Dates are 6th century BC.
Xibeigang: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: [Hsi-pei-kang]
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Hebei Province, China, of the Royal Cemetery of the Late Shang, with seven shaft tombs with wooden-chamber burials and human sacrifices. There are also over 2000 small pit-graves with human sacrifices. The hierarchy of burials at this and other cemeteries in the area reflected the social organization of the living. The large pit tombs, some nearly 42 feet deep, were furnished with four ramps and massive grave chambers for the kings. Only a few undisturbed elite burials have been unearthed, the most notable being that of Fu Hao, a consort of Wu-ting. Her relatively small grave contained 468 bronze objects of the Anyang style, 775 jades, carved bone objects, and more than 6,880 cowries -- suggesting how great the wealth placed in the far larger royal tombs must have been.
Zawayet el-Aryan: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site of two unfinished pyramids, a number of mastaba tombs of the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC), and a cemetery of the New Kingdom (1550-1069 BC), located on the west bank of the Nile, between Giza and Abusir.
Zebbug: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cemetery of five rock-cut tombs on the island of Malta, which has given its name to the Zebbug phase of the Maltese Islands pre-temple Neolithic, dated c 4100-3800 BC.
Zengövárkony: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large Neolithic settlement and cemetery of the Lengyel culture in Hungary, dated to the 4th millennium BC. The site consists of clusters of graves interspersed with areas of settlement debris, a pattern is consistent with family groups buried close to where they lived. Over 360 graves are known, mainly crouched inhumations, including 47 with preserved skeletal material. The grave goods include copper and fine stone artifacts.
Zlota: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Settlement and cemetery site of the Neolithic-Copper Age in southern Poland and a culture of the same name. The dead, laid in a contracted position on stone pavements in simple graves, were accompanied by pots whose shape and cord ornament suggest links with the globular amphora and corded ware cultures. Upturned handles of Ansa Lunata-type suggest contact with the Baden culture. Other funerary offerings included stone battle-axes, copper beads, amber ornaments, and V-perforated plaques. The community lived by farming and the exploitation of nearby flint mines.
Zvejnieki: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Mesolithic and Neolithic cemetery in Latvia next to a settlement. Perforated elk teeth pendants, bone points, and ochre have been found.

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