Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for drawing:

drawing: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A primary forming technique for producing pottery vessels, similar to pinching, whereby the body is pulled upward from the center of a ball of tempered clay with thumb and fingers.
elevation drawing: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A two-dimensional rendering of a feature, viewed from the side, showing details of surface composition.
isometric drawing: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: isometric and axonometric projection
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Projections in which the plan and the elevations are combined to give a 'three-dimensional' view, on which correct measurements can be taken either in any direction (isometric) or along two or three axes (axonometric). This three-dimensional rendering, usually of a feature or a site, is used to record and reconstruct the results of archaeological research. In contrast to perspective drawings, isometric drawings maintain a constant scale in all three dimensions.
perspective drawing: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A three-dimensional rendering, usually of a feature or a site, used to record and reconstruct the results of archaeological research. . Geometric perspective is a drawing method by which it is possible to depict a three-dimensional form as a two-dimensional image that closely resembles the scene as visualized by the human eye. Perspective drawings and photographs are easily interpreted because they closely resemble visual images.
plan drawing: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A two-dimensional rendering at a constant scale, showing the horizontal dimensions of archaeological data.
profile drawing: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: profile view
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A two-dimensional graphic representation similar to a section drawing except that features are depicted in outline without showing their internal composition.
scaled drawing: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Standardized rendering used to record archaeological data, especially during data acquisition. It would include elevation, isometric, perspective, plan, profile, and section drawings.
section: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: sectioning, section drawing
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: In excavation, the exposing of a deposit vertically to reveal the stratigraphy of a site or details of a particular feature. A balk is left across a feature or a complex of features, or a hole is cut out of a feature and trimmed to a flat face in which layers and changes in soil color may be examined. Sections automatically occur when the grid method of excavation is used, on all four sides of each trench. The term is also applied to the drawing of the vertical record of the stratification of a site or feature. A section drawing is a two-dimensional rendering, at a constant scale, depicting archaeological data and matrix as seen in the wall of an excavation. Advocates of open-area excavation prefer not to have standing sections on the site; instead of drawing sections after the whole area has been excavated, they record the profile of each deposit as it is excavated and construct what are known as 'cumulative' or 'running sections'.
technical drawing: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Graphical depiction of an object(s), intended to communicate specific information about its attributes through a graphical information language.
annealing: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: The treating of a metal or alloy with heat and then cold -- or the repeated process of heating and hammering to produce the desired shape. After casting metal, it may be necessary to further process it by cold-working, hammering, and drawing the metal -- either to produce hard cutting edges or to produce beaten sheet metal. Hammering makes the metal harder, though more brittle and subject to cracking because it destroys its crystalline structure. Annealing, the reheating of the metal gently to a dull red heat and allowing it to cool, produces a new crystalline structure which can be hammered again. The process may be repeated as often as is necessary. The final edge on a weapon may be left unannealed as it will be harder and last longer.
archaeography: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: archeography
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The systematic description or archaeological objects over time made by nonprofessionals (travelers, traders, diplomats, etc.) who are often in situations where they view sites and antiquities in a much better state of preservation than that in which they are today. These accounts, either in writings or drawings, are valued in archaeological studies.
arystichos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ephebos, aruter, arusane, arustis, oinerusis
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Greek or Roman vessel for drawing water, especially from amphorae.
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."
bodkin: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A sharp slender instrument for making holes or for other functions. It may be shaped like a dagger, stiletto, hairpin. The term is also used for a blunt needle with a large eye for drawing tape or ribbon through a loop or hem.
Carter, Howard (1874-1939): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British archaeologist who made one of the richest and most celebrated contributions to Egyptology: the discovery in 1922 of the largely intact tomb of King Tutankhamen. At 17, Carter joined a British-sponsored archaeological survey of Egypt. He received his training as an excavator and epigrapher from some of the most important Egyptologists of the late nineteenth century, including Gaston Maspero and Flinders Petrie, with whom he worked at el-Amarna in 1892. He made drawings of the sculptures and inscriptions at the temple of Queen Hatshepsut in Thebes and then served as inspector-general of the Egyptian antiquities department. While supervising excavations in the Valley of the Kings in 1902, he discovered the tombs of Hatshepsut and Thutmose IV. Around 1907 he began his association with the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, a collector of antiquities who asked Carter to supervise excavations in the valley. On November 4, 1922, Carter found the first sign of Tutankhamen's tomb, and three days later he reached its sealed entrance. For the next 10 years Carter supervised the removal of its contents, most of which now in the Cairo Museum. His patient and long unrewarded study of the Valley of the Kings brought to light the only unrobbed Egyptian pharaoh's tomb and the richest treasure ever to be discovered.
Catherwood, Frederick (1799-1854): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The first great explorer of Mesoamerica who, along with John Lloyd Stephens, explored the Maya lowlands and made drawings that provided insights into the culture and detailed the Maya glyphs.
combed ornament: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: combed ware
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Any pottery decorated by drawing a toothed instrument across the surface of the soft clay or colored slip. The pottery was often decorated by the application of two or more different-colored slips that was either brushed or combed to produce the effect of marbled paper, a broad band of parallel incisions, often wavy.
compromise section: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A method of drawing sections which may or may not define interfaces or label of the units of stratification appearing in sections.
Copán: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A ruined ancient Mayan city, in extreme western Honduras near the Guatemalan border, one of the largest and most impressive sites of that civilization. Copán was an important Maya city during the Classic Period (c 300-900 AD), peaking in the 8th century with as many as 20,000 people. The site has stone temples, two large pyramids, several stairways and plazas, and a ball court for tlachtli. Most of these structures center on a raised platform called the Acropolis and are constructed in a locally available greenish volcanic tuff. Copán is particularly known for the ornate stone carving on the buildings and the portrait sculptures on its many stelae. The Hieroglyphic Stairway, which leads to one of the temples, is beautifully carved with 2500 hieroglyphics total on the risers of each of its 63 steps. During the Classic Period, there is evidence that astronomers in Copán calculated the most accurate solar calendar produced by the Maya up to that time. The site's ruins were discovered by Spanish explorers in the early 16th century and rediscovered by American traveler John Lloyd Stephens in 1839, who purchased" the site for $50. Since then much of the beautiful carving has deteriorated but the highly detailed pen-and-ink drawings of his colleague Frederick Catherwood still survive and are a great source of iconographic detail. Restoration work revealed much of Copán's political and dynastic history through the decipherment of hieroglyphic inscriptions on its monuments. A dynasty of at least 16 kings ruled Copán from about 426-822 AD; the Maya had completely abandoned the site by about 1200. Finds date from the Late Prehistoric period (c 300 BC-AD 250."
earthworm: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: angleworm
CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: Any of nearly 2000 species of terrestrial worms which act as one of the main agents by which plant litter, humus, and minerals are incorporated and mixed in soil. Earthworms are responsible for the maintenance and stability of various types of soil, especially the brown forest soils. The character of a soil may change markedly if the plant litter made by the vegetation changes to a kind which is unpalatable to earthworms. The effects of earthworm sorting may be seen on archaeological sites in the blurring of layers and the development of worm-sorted layers in the top of buried soils. Earthworms usually remain near the soil surface, but they are known to tunnel as deep as 6 feet during periods of dryness or in winter. Indirectly they provide food for man by aerating the soil, promoting drainage, and drawing organic material into their burrows where it decomposes faster, thus producing more nutritive materials for growing plants.
ethnography: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ethnographic study
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The description and analysis of contemporary cultures, which is based almost entirely on in-depth fieldwork. The formulating of generalizations about culture and the drawing of comparisons are components of ethnography. It is part of the subdiscipline of cultural anthropology. An important technique is participant observation, whereby the anthropologist lives in the society being studied. Ethnography provides data to archaeologists through analogy and homology. An ethnographic study is that of the cultural characteristics of a particular ethnic or social group.
excavation: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The systematic and scientific recovery of cultural, material remains of people as a means of obtaining data about past human activity. Excavation is digging or related types of salvage work, scientifically controlled so as to yield the maximum amount of data. It is the main tool of the archaeologist. The excavation of a site, however, involves the destruction of the primary evidence, which can never be recovered. Excavation should therefore never be undertaken lightly or without an understanding of the obligations of the excavator to the evidence he destroys. The first decision is whether to excavate a site at all, a question of particular interest when sites are being rapidly destroyed by farming methods and road and town building. The nature and scale of the undertaking is the next decision. If time and/or money is short, sampling of the site may be all that is possible. If a large-scale excavation is to be undertaken, the approach will be either area (open) excavation, grid method, quadrant method, rabotage, sondage, etc. Removal of the topsoil will either be carried out by hand or machine. After an initial plan has been made of all visible features before excavation, digging proceeds according to the dictates of the site: sections may be taken across areas of feature intersection, or across individual features. A permanent record of the whole process should be kept: plans, drawings, notes, photographs. Excavation is only the first part of the process. For years, excavation was regarded as merely a method of collecting artifacts. Pitt Rivers in Britain and Petrie in the Near East first placed emphasis on evidence rather than artifacts, not what is found but where it was found relative to the layers of deposit (stratigraphy) and to other objects (association) -- the context. The excavator can only justify his destruction if it is done with meticulous care so that every artifact, be it an ax or a posthole, is discovered and if possible preserved; if it is recorded accurately enough for all information to remain available after the site has disappeared; and if this record is quickly made available by publication. In short, excavation is the digging of archaeological sites, removal of the matrix, and observance of the provenience and context of the finds therein, and the recording of them in a three-dimensional way.
furrowing: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Decoration made by drawing the fingers or a tool across the body of a vessel, resulting in either a series of horizontal grooves or random groups of striations.
graffiti: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Writing placed on walls or other objects; any figures or inscriptions scratched into a surface, often indicating the maker or owner. It is any casual writing, rude drawing, or marking on the walls of buildings, as distinguished from a deliberate writing known as an inscription. Graffiti is found in great abundance, as on the monuments of ancient Egypt. Graffiti are important to the paleographer as illustrating the forms and corruptions of the various alphabets used by the people, and may guide the archaeologist to the date of the building. Graffiti is important to the linguist because the language of graffiti is closer to the spoken language of the period and place than usual written language. Graffiti is also invaluable to the historian for the light thrown on everyday life of the period and on intimate details of customs and institutions.
hachure: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: In mapmaking and drawing, short lines laid down in a pattern to indicate direction of slope on the survey of an earthwork. The hachure points downhill and its length is related to the steepness of the slope.
Jarlshof: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site at the southern tip of the Shetland Island, Scotland, with a settlement from the early 2nd millennium BC. This early occupation was a Late Neolithic village comparable to Skara Brae and it was followed after an interval by oval houses of the Late Bronze Age, a round house and wheelhouse with Souterrain of the Iron Age, a Viking settlement, and continuous occupation throughout the Dark Ages. It was named after a house in a Sir Walter Scott novel. Some of the most interesting artifacts recovered from the Norse levels are a series of slates incised with drawings of animals and abstract decorations.
lateral section: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A cross section in which the cut is made perpendicular to the base line of the artifact drawing and the outline of the section is oriented like a profile view but in horizontal alignment with the points through which the cut was made
macaroni style: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: macaroni
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In art, Late Paleolithic finger tracings in clay, the oldest form of art known. Innumerable examples appear on the walls and ceilings of limestone caves associated with human habitation in France (Pech Merle) and Spain, the oldest dating from about 30,000 BC. They range from simple scratchings and jumbled lines to deliberate meanders and arabesques and outline drawings of animals and are so-called because they look like pieces of macaroni. It is thought that these macaroni, like the numerous foot and handprints pressed into the clay of the caves, were inspired by animal tracks.
mark: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In rock art studies, any drawing, painting, engraving, or other modification of nature which is the product of some human action.
Maudslay, Alfred Percival (1850-1931): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British soldier who was one of the first people to visit and make a scientific record of the great Maya sites. Inspired by travelers' accounts of the ruins, he visited Guatemala and the neighboring republics, and by 1894 had made seven expeditions. He made photographs, casts, plans, and drawings at such sites as Quirigua, Palenque, and Chichén Itzá. He was also the first archaeologist to see the important ruins of Yaxchilan. He published the results of his journeys as part of a series entitled Biologia Centrali-Americana" or "Contributions to the Knowledge of the Flora and Fauna of Mexico and Central America" (1889-1902). Maudslay's work was accurate and objective; his records are still a valuable source of information. The texts which he transcribed formed the basis of early studies of Maya hieroglyphs."
modeling: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A ceramic vessel construction technique where a mass of clay is handworked into a rough approximation of the vessel through punching, pinching, and/or drawing.
paper: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A thin vegetable based sheet used for writing, drawing, printing etc.
pictograph: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: petrograph, pictogram
CATEGORY: language; artifact
DEFINITION: Any design, picture, or drawing painted on a surface (usually rock/stone) and used to represent a thing, action, or event. Pictographs are believed to be the earliest form in the development of writing (pictography). It represents a form of nonverbal communication used by nonliterate people.
plane table: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plane-table
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: Portable surveying instrument that consists of a drawing board and a ruler (alidade) mounted on a tripod and used to sight and map topographic details and to plot survey lines directly form field observations. This piece of equipment is much used in earlier surveying and map-making. One end of the alidade is held on the point on the map representing the point of operation, and the other is directed at a marker on the point to be plotted. This gives the angle from the point of operation, and distance can be plotted directly along the ruler after scaling down from the original measurement. The technique has been replaced mainly by photogrammetry.
poculum: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Roman cup or glass for drinking, distinct from the crater for mixing, and the cyathus for drawing wine from a bowl.
Putnam, Frederic Ward (1839-1915): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Curator of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, from 1875-1909. He was a leader in the founding of anthropological science in the US. He was important as an archaeologist who classified and described finds and as an administrator and archaeological sponsor. In fieldwork, he depended on scientific techniques for surveying, excavating, drawing cross-sections of excavations, and plotting finds. He did studies of the mounds of the Midwest US and on the antiquity of humans on the continent, which he believed to predate the end of the last glaciation. In 1891, Putnam began organizing the anthropological section of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. That collection became the basis of Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. He was the curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History following that and in 1903 he went to the University of California, Berkeley, to organize both the new department of anthropology and the anthropological museum. Putnam published more than 400 zoological and anthropological articles, reports, and notes and was also a founder and the editor of the periodical American Naturalist"."
realistic section: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A means of drawing sections to give an artistic impression of a soil profile, in which no interfacial lines or layer numbers appear.
Sautuola, Marcellino Sanz de (1831-1888): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Spanish amateur geologist and archaeologist who excavated Altamira Cave, near Santillana, in northern Spain, which contains the earliest known (c 13,000-20,000 BC) examples of Stone Age painting. The colored ceiling paintings in a side cavern, which came to be regarded as the Sistine Chapel of Prehistory" were the most spectacular. Sautuola had accurate drawings of the paintings prepared and published a book in 1880. He was unable to persuade scholars of the paintings' authenticity and died dishonored and bitter. Not until other similar paintings had been found in southwestern France (1895-1901) was Sautuola's contribution finally vindicated. "
scorper: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small steel metalworking tool with a broad sharp edge used for removing the background from designs on metalwork to allow the pattern to stand out. The tool may also be moved forward or backward through the metal on alternate corners -- thus producing a zigzag or tremolo line. It is likely that scorpers had to be of iron or steel to work on bronze, and therefore they may belong to later stages in the development of metalworking than tracers. In ancient minting, engraving of the details was carried out by the use of scorpers. In wood engraving, scorpers were used for cutting away large spaces after outlining and engraving, so as to leave only the drawing in relief.
site catchment analysis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: SCA; site-catchment analysis
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of reconstructing the economy of a site by studying the resources that are available within a reasonable distance, generally 1-2 hours' walking time from the site. The technique was devised by E. Higgs and C. Vita-Finzi for 'the study of the relationship between technology and those natural resources lying within economic range of individual sites', an extension of the least-cost principle. The catchment area is defined by drawing a circle around the site; the radius has often been set at 5 km (i.e. an hour's walk) for agriculturists and 10 km (i.e. two hours' walk) for hunter-gatherers, figures which represent ethnographically observed averages. Within the catchment area the proportions of such resources as arable or pastoral land are calculated, and from these figures conclusions can be drawn concerning the nature and function of the site. The technique offers a valuable and reasonably objective method for analyzing relationships between site location, technology, and available resources. This type of off-site" analysis can concentrate on the total area from which a site's contents have been derived."
situla: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plural situlae
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A bucket-shaped vessel of pottery, silver, or sheet bronze, a Classical container, with a swinging handle across the rim. Examples of bronze from the north Italian Iron Age were particularly elaborately decorated; the style of decoration found on these situlae and other sheet bronze objects is known as situla art. A situla had a short vertical neck, a shallow shoulder, and sloped downward to a narrow base; there were two handles and a lid. It would be used for drawing water from a well.
St. Gall Plan: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An important Carolingian document, probably formulated after the Council of Inden in 816 and then sent by the Abbot of Reichenau to Abbot Gozbert of St. Gall. The plan, written in ink on parchment, is an architect's drawing for the rebuilding of the monastic complex. The St. Gall Plan epitomizes an ideal 'modern' Carolingian monastic unit, and although it was never fully realized at St. Gall it remains an important source of reference for architectural historians and archaeologists.
Stephens, John Lloyd (1852-1905): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American explorer and amateur archaeologist who visited the abandoned Maya Lowlands centers with Frederick Catherwood. His documentation was published in books which became bestsellers and did much to arouse popular interest in what was then an almost unknown civilization. The drawings by Catherwood set a new standard of scientific accuracy.
stratigraphic profile: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Drawing of natural and / or cultural deposits of strata of a trench which can be correlated with the data collections recovered from that trench.
stratigraphy: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The study and interpretation of the stratification of rocks, sediments, soils, or cultural debris, based on the principle that the lowest layer is the oldest and the uppermost in the youngest -- a major tool in establishing a relative dating sequence. The sequence of deposition can be assessed by a study of the relationships of different layers. Dateable artifacts found within layers, and layers or structures which are themselves dateable, can be used to date parts of stratigraphic sequences. An archaeologist has to master the skill to recognize it -- to distinguish one deposit from another by its color, texture, smell, or contents; to understand it -- to explain how each layer came to be added, whether by natural accumulation, deliberate fill, or collapse of higher-standing buildings; and to record it in measured drawings of the section. There can be problems where a feature filled with one type of material cuts into layers of the same material. Unless the later feature is recognized, objects of two different phases may appear to be stratified together. The underlying principles are: law of superposition, law of cross-cutting relationships, included fragments, and correlation by fossil inclusions. The stratigraphy principle was adopted from geology and is the basis of reconstructing the history of an archaeological site.
syllabogram: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The unit of a syllabary which may be of these types: vowel, consonant-vowel, vowel-consonant, consonant-vowel-consonant, or consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel. In the Cretan scripts of the 2nd millennium BC, Linear A and B, a sign denoting by means of an arbitrary drawing an open syllable.
Thiessen polygons: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Thiessen polygon method
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Method of describing settlement patterns based on territorial divisions centered on a single site or feature (locational analysis); the polygons are created by drawing straight lines between pairs of neighboring sites, then at the mid-point along each of these lines, a second series of lines are drawn at right angles to the first. Linking the second series of lines creates the Thiessen polygons. Where the exact boundaries between ancient territories are undetermined, an attempt to reconstruct them can be made if the distribution of focal points (central place), one to each territory, is known. The assumption is that any point will be dependent on the nearest central place. Thiessen polygons are useful for defining theoretical territories related to each center -- an area of production, a source of an important material, or a market center. These theoretical territories can be tested by comparison with actual archaeological data such as artifact distributions.
transverse section: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A cross section where the cut is made parallel to the base line of the artifact drawing and the outline of the section keeps the front surface at the top
vertical axis: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An imaginary line that is perpendicular to the base line and runs through the center of the artifact as it is oriented for drawing; it is the axis upon which the artifact is rotated, one-quarter for a profile, one-quarter for a back view, so that each feature and flake scar maintains its distance above the base line in the views of the front, profile, and back
winged chape: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: wing-shaped chape
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A metal cap covering the end of a sword scabbard that has one or more projecting ribs or wings so that a swordsman riding on horseback can hold the scabbard with the heel of his boot while drawing his sword singlehandedly. Winged chapes are especially characteristic of the European later Bronze Age (Hallstatt C) where they are a sure indicator of cavalry warfare.
X-ray art: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: x-ray art, x-ray style, X-ray style
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A style of prehistoric rock art depicting animals by drawing or painting the skeletal frame and internal organs. The origin of the style can be traced to the Mesolithic art of northern Europe, where the earliest examples were found on fragments of bone in southern France dating from the late Magdalenian. Animals painted in the X-ray motif have also been discovered in the art of hunting cultures in northern Spain, Siberia, the Arctic Circle, North America, western New Guinea, New Ireland, India, and Malaysia. It is found today primarily in the Aboriginal rock, cave, and bark paintings of eastern Arnhem Land, in northern Australia. Figures painted in X-ray style vary in size up to 8 feet (2.5 m) in length and are delicate, polychromed renderings of the interior cavity of the animal.

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