Archaeology Wordsmith

archaeology editor/writer providing solutions for busy archaeologists

Results for excavate:

excavate: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: To dig out and remove archaeological materials from a site; to carry out the process of excavation.
: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the world's earliest towns, a huge Neolithic site in south central Turkey's Konya plain. At least 14 levels have been excavated so far with radiocarbon dates from 6500 BC to 5400 BC, without undisturbed deposits being reached. Cereals were cultivated, cattle and sheep were bred, and hunting took place. Pottery had apparently only just been introduced. Trade in such materials as obsidian and seashells was extensive. There were flaked stone tools and polished obsidian mirrors. The mud-brick buildings were rectangular with access only possible through the roofs. Built-in furniture included benches and platforms. The earliest evidence of religious beliefs have been found at the mound of Çatal Hüyük. Shrines were very frequent, with huge figures of goddesses in the posture of giving birth, leopards, and the heads of bulls and rams modeled in high relief on the walls. Other shrines contain elaborate frescoes of the hunting of deer and aurochs, or vultures devouring headless human corpses. Stone and terra-cotta statuettes found in these shrines represent a female figure, sometimes accompanied by leopards and, from the earlier levels of excavation, a male either bearded and seated on a bull or youthful and riding a leopard. The main deity of these people was evidently a goddess. The dead were buried beneath plastered platforms within the shrines or under the floors of the buildings. Evidence suggests both craft specialization and social stratification.
Abbevillian: SYNONYM: Abbevillean, Chellean, Abbeville
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The name for the period of the earliest handax industries of Europe, taken from Abbeville, the type site near the mouth of the River Somme in northern France. The site is a gravel pit in which crudely chipped oval or pear-shaped handaxes were discovered, probably dating to the Mindel Glaciation. This was one of the key places which showed that man was of great antiquity. Starting in 1836, Boucher de Perthes excavated the pits and the significance of these discoveries was recognized around 1859. These pits became one of the richest sources of Palaeolithic tools in Europe. In 1939, Abbé Breuil proposed the name Abbevillian for both the handax and the industry, which preceded the Acheulian in Europe.
Absolon, Karel (1887-1960): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A Czech archaeologists who excavated at Dolni Vestonice, Ondratice, Pekarna, Byci Skala, and other Palaeolithic sites.
Abu Hureyra, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small tell on the Euphrates River, 120 km east of Aleppo in Syria. The site was excavated in 1972-73 prior to flooding by the Tabqua/Tabqa Dam. Two major phases of occupation were found: Mesolithic or Epi-Palaeolithic (early 9th millennium BC) to a Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Culture in the 6th millennium. There was a long period of abandonment in the 7th millennium and then a final abandonment c 5800 BC. The site depicted a transition from gathering to cultivation, including large quantities of einkorn wheat, and from hunting to herding (sheep and goats, also gazelle and onager). The Neolithic settlement was of enormous size, larger than any other recorded site of this period -- even Çatal Hüyük. In the uppermost levels, a dark burnished pottery appeared.
Abu Sir: SYNONYM: Abusir
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient site between Giza and Saqqara where several 5th Dynasty (c. 2494-2345 BC) kings built their pyramids, a sun temple, a number of mastaba tombs, and Late Period (747-332 BC) shaft tombs. The pyramids were poorly constructed; those of King Userkaf and King Neuserre have been excavated.
Aijul, Tell el-: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell near Gaza in Palestine that was excavated by Flinders Petrie in 1930-1934 and 1938 and found to be Middle Bronze Age, though cemeteries of the Chalcolithic and Intermediate Bronze Age were discovered nearby. The town had walls, a plastered Hyksos-type glacis, and a fosse. Five successive palaces were excavated within the walls and hoards of gold jewelry were found.
Aijul, Tell el-: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell near Gaza in Palestine that was excavated by Flinders Petrie in 1930-1934 and 1938 and found to be Middle Bronze Age, though cemeteries of the Chalcolithic and Intermediate Bronze Age were discovered nearby. The town had walls, a plastered Hyksos-type glacis, and a fosse. Five successive palaces were excavated within the walls and hoards of gold jewelry were found.
Akhmim: SYNONYM: ancient Ipu, Khent-Mim
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the east bank of the Nile opposite modern Sohag, that was the capital of the ninth nome of Upper Egypt during the Pharaonic period, c. 3100-332 BC. The earliest surviving remains are Old and Middle Kingdom rock-cut tombs. The city originally included a number of temples dedicated to Min, but few stone buildings have survived because of the plundering. Colossal statues of Rameses II and Meritamun have been excavated.
Alchi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town in Ladakh, Tibet, where a number of nomads' tombs" were discovered and excavated between 1900-1910 by A.H. Francke. Each tomb contained from 3-20 long-headed skulls many small handmade pottery vessels filled with bones and grave goods including bronze beads pendants bracelets and bronze vessels. There was also pottery decorated with dark red incised or zigzagged patterns and possibly stylized leaves or grass. Other examples were found at Teu-gser-po and Ba-lu-mk'ar."
Aleppo: SYNONYM: Arabic Halab, Turkish Halep
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in northern Syria which stands on the site of an ancient, as yet unexcavated, city. On the route between the Euphrates and Orontes, the ancient site is mentioned in texts from the 2nd millennium onwards as the capital of the Amorite kingdom of Yamkhad in the 18th century BC. It subsequently came under Hittite, Egyptian, Mitannian, and again Hittite rule during the 17th-14th centuries. It was known to the Hittites as Halpa. The city was conquered by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC and then controlled by the Achaemenian Persians from the 6th-4th centuries BC before the Seleucids took it over, rebuilt it, and renamed it Beroea. Aleppo was very important during the Hellenistic period for its position along trade routes. The city became part of the Roman province of Syria in the 1st century BC. Conquered by the Arabs in 637, it reverted to its old name of Halab.
Ali Kosh: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early farming site near Deh Luran in southwestern Iran, occupied c 7500-5600 BC. It was the first excavated farming site where significant quantities of plant remains were collected using the flotation technique, a landmark in the study of farming origins. The earliest phase, named Bus Mordeh and dated c 7500-6750 BC is characterized by simple mud-brick buildings and a combination of wild and domesticated foods, some herding, and the catching of fish. The succeeding phase, Ali Kosh and dated c 6770-6000 BC had similar plants and animals, hunting and fishing, but a decline in wild plant foods which points to more successful cereal cultivation. The buildings were much more substantial in this period. The final phase, Muhammed Jaffar and dated c 6000-5600, saw the introduction of pottery and ground stone. The evidence shows some strain of over-exploitation and by the mid-6th millennium BC, the area was abandoned. The site illustrates the transition from food gathering to food production and the improvement of house-building quality.
Amratian: SYNONYM: Naqadah I
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Egyptian predynastic culture, centered in Upper Egypt and named for the site El Amrah (or al-'Amirah; c 4500-4000 BC) near Abydos. Numerous sites, dating to c 3600 BC, have been excavated. They reveal an animal husbandry and agricultural lifeway similar to the preceding Badarian culture. There are large cemeteries, like that at Naqada, which imply that the settlements were permanent and large. Many of the dead were buried crouched with rich grave goods. Flint was quarried for the variety of finely worked daggers, points, and tools. Copper came into use for beads, harpoons, and pins. There was trading with Ethiopia, the Red Sea, and Syria based on the finds. Several pottery wares, in a range of shapes, were made: black-topped red ware from the Badarian period onward and white cross-lined (red ware painted in white) added.
Amri: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Indus Valley in Pakistan, probably dating to the early 3rd millennium. It was the first site to be recognized as belonging to the Early Harappan Period when excavated by Majumdar in 1929. Its name has been given to a style of hand- and wheel-made painted pottery found in its Chalcolithic levels and on tells over much of Sind and up into the hills of Baluchistan. These tall globular beakers of fine buff ware are painted with geometric designs in black between red horizontal bands. Chert and some copper were used for tools and the architecture was in mud-brick. Fractional burial was the practice for the dead. Periods I and II represent the pre-Harappan settlement of agricultural farmers, who kept cattle, sheep, goat and donkey, but also hunted (or herded) gazelle. In the later part of Period II Harappan ceramics appear alongside Amri wares; Period III represents a full mature Harappan occupation. The culture was gradually succeeded by that of the Indus civilization. The uppermost levels contained Jhukar and Jhangar material.
Anau: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in the Kara Kum oasis of southern Turkestan, first excavated in the 1880s and again in 1904. Its name has been given to a Chalcolithic culture of the 5th and 4th millennium BC that parallels that of the sites of Sialk and Hissar (Hassuna) in Iran, especially with connections in pottery styles.. Characteristic finds include fine pottery with geometric painted decoration and simple copper tools. There was a farming subsistence economy and metal ores were probably imported from the south.
Andrae, Walter (1875-1956): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A German scholar and archaeologist who excavated the major Mesopotamian city of Assur, capital of Assyria, between 1903-1914. His high-quality excavations exposed major buildings, including a series of temples of the Early Dynastic Period that pre-dated the Temple of Ishtar.
Anyang: SYNONYM: 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.
Arad: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in southern Israel west of the Dead Sea named for Biblical Arad and having ruins visible at Tel 'Arad, just a few miles northeast. First excavated in 1962, 'Arad has three separate phases of occupation. The first settlement was in the Chalcolithic period with a walled city at the beginning of the 3d millennium BC, which was destroyed by c 2700 BC. Imported Egyptian pottery was found in that phase. A resettlement occurred in the Early Bronze I and II phases and a succession of walled citadels and a temple have been found as well as ostraca (inscribed pottery). The last period of occupation was confined to a citadel on the highest part of the earlier town and it was occupied from the 12th-11th centuries BC. It served as a southern frontier post of the kingdom of Judah. There was a sanctuary for the worship of Yahweh. There were also citadels on this site in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The Book of Numbers (21:1-3) tells how the Canaanite king of 'Arad fought the Israelites during the exodus from Egypt, but his cities were utterly destroyed" by Israel's armies. The city's name appears on the Temple of Amon al-Karnak Egypt in the inscription of Pharaoh Sheshonk I first ruler of the 22nd Dynasty (reigned c 945-924 BC)."
archaeology: SYNONYM: archeology (from archaia"
CATEGORY: and "logos"
DEFINITION: science knowledge or theory)" branch The scientific study and reconstruction of the human past through the systematic recovery of the physical remains of man's life and cultures. Artifacts, structures, settlements, materials, and features of prehistoric or ancient peoples are surveyed and / or excavated to uncover history in times before written records. Archaeology also supplements the study of recorded history. From the end of the 18th century onwards, archaeology has come to mean the branch of learning which studies the material remains of man's past. Its scope is, therefore, enormous, ranging from the first stone tools made and fashioned by man over 3 million years ago in Africa, to the garbage thrown into our trash cans and taken to city dumps and incinerators yesterday. The objectives of archaeology are to construct cultural history by ordering and describing the events of the past, study cultural process to explain the meaning of those events and what underlies and conditions human behavior, and reconstruct past lifeways. Among the specialties in the field are: archaeobiology, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, and social archaeology. Modern archaeology, often considered a subdiscipline of anthropology, has become increasingly scientific and relies on a wide variety of experts such as biologists, geologists, physicists, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians. The methods appropriate to different periods vary, leading to specialized branches of the subject, e.g. classical, medieval, industrial, etc., archaeology.
architectural unit method: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method in which observable architectural zones of predefined structures are excavated as a single horizontal provenience. An example of this is a room in a palace being treated as its own excavation area.
Arica: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Tarapacá region on the north coast of Chile at the foot of El Morro. Preceramic shell mounds were excavated at Quiani, Pichalo, and Taltal which were dated between 1200-1450 AD. The city of Arica was founded as San Marcos de Arica in 1570 on the site of a pre-Columbian settlement, it belonged to Peru until 1879, when it was captured by Chile. Arica is near the Peru border and is the northernmost Chilean seaport.
Arikamedu: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the Madras coast of southern India near Pondicherry excavated by Mortimer Wheeler. It was an important trading post of the Romans after the mid-first century BC, though black-and-red ware found there began well before the period of Roman contact. A town with warehouses in an industrial quarter was built. Black-and-red Iron Age wares associated with Arretine ware of the 1st century AD, Mediterranean amphorae, and imperial Roman coins were found by Wheeler. Other excavations have found Roman pottery, beads, intaglios, lamps, and glass which indicate continuous occupation. Graffiti on pottery indicates the presence of Indian traders.
Arslan Tash: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the ancient city of Hadâtu, a provincial capital of the Assyrian kings of northern Syria, first excavated by the French in 1928. There was a central tell surrounded by a circular wall and a palace and temple containing fine ivories, dating from the beginning of the 8th century BC.
Asiab, Tepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A semi-permanent settlement in the Zagros region of western Iran, dated between 7100-6750 BC, belonging to the Karim Shahir culture. There is evidence of tool manufacture, settlement patterns, and subsistence methods, including the crude beginnings of the domestication of both plants and animals in this site as well as nearby sites at Guran, Ganj-e Dareh, and Ali Kosh. Burials have been excavated, covered in red ochre.
Atchana, Tell: SYNONYM: ancient Alalakh
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A mound on the Amuq plain of northern Syria (southeastern Turkey), next to the River Orontes and identified as the ancient city of Alalakh with occupation levels from the 4th-late 2nd millennium BC. Seventeen building phases spanned c 3400-1200 BC, including a long Copper Age, a period as an independent state, and one as a provincial capital of the Hittites. There was a mix of cultural influences from Mesopotamia and the Aegean. Atchana was wealthy from trade and from the timber of the Amanus Mountains. Woolley discovered the remains of a small kingdom of largely Hurrian population. In level VII, dated to the 18th and 17th centuries BC, was the palace of Yaram-Lim II (Yamhad) demonstrating an early form of Syrian architecture in which stone, timber and mud-brick were all used. Another palace was excavated in level IV, of the late 15th and early 14th centuries, belonging to Niqmepa, with rooms around a central court and a large number of tablets in Akkadian cuneiform. The tablets describe trading with cities such as Ugarit and the Hittite capital Hattusas, involving food products such as wheat, wine, and olive oil. Later in the 14th century the city fell to the Hittites and became a provincial capital of the Hittite empire. It was eventually abandoned after destruction c 1200 BC, perhaps at the hands of the Peoples Of The Sea.
Avebury: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Wiltshire, England, at which stands one of Britain's finest megalithic monuments (known as henges) and one of the largest ceremonial structures in Europe. It was built c 2000 BC in the Neolithic, where the ridgeways of southern England meet, a natural site for tribal gatherings. It consists of a large bank with internal ditch (1.2 km long) with four equally spaced entrances. Inside the ditch was set a circle of 98 sarsen stones, weighing as much as 40 tons each. In the center were two smaller stone circles, each c 100 meters in diameter. The northern circle contains a U-shaped setting of three large stones, and the southern inner circle once had a complex arrangement of stones at its center. The Ring Stone, a huge stone perforated by a natural hole, stood within the earthworks and main stone circle at the southern entrance. The southern entrance leads out to two parallel rows of sarsens forming an avenue 15 m wide and 2.5 km long which ends at a ritual building (the so-called Sanctuary) on Overton Hill. Traces of a second avenue remain on the opposite side of the monument. From the bottom of the ditch came sherds of Neolithic Windmill Hill, Peterborough, and Grooved Ware styles, while higher up were fragments of South British (Long Necked) Beaker and Bronze Age pottery. Burials with Beaker and Rinyo-Clacton wares have been excavated at the bases of some of the stones. Near the southern end of the Avenue was an occupation site with Neolithic and Beaker sherds. The complex geometry of the site is studied, especially the possible astronomical alignments built into it. The circles at Avebury and the wooden structure on Overton Hill were all probably built at the same time by Neolithic communities.
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.
Baal: SYNONYM: (lord" or "owner")"
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: A god worshipped in many ancient Middle Eastern places and the most important deity of the Canaanites. He was first mentioned in inscriptions of the Middle Bronze Age, middle of the 2nd millennium BC, and was depicted as a young armed warrior with bull's horns coming from his helmet. He was the fertility deity and also the lord of life and of rain and dew. Baal was also worshipped by the Phoenicians and at Carthage. An important temple dedicated to Baal has been excavated at Ugarit, which is where the first tablets bearing his name were discovered.
Babylon: SYNONYM: Bab-ilu (Babylonian), Bab-ilim (Old Babylonian), Bavel or Babel (Hebrew), Atlal Babil (Arabic)
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the most famous cities of antiquity, the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium BC and capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) Empire in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. It was located about 80 km south of Baghdad, Iraq on the Euphrates River. Babylon was occupied from the 3rd millennium BC, but it first reached prominence under King Hammurabi (reigned 1792-1750 BC), who made it the capital of his empire. (Hammurabi is best known for his code of laws.) Babylon was destroyed by the Hittites c 1595 BC and ruled by the Kassites until c 1157 BC. The city had frequent wars with Elam and Assyria during several short-lived dynasties until the 11th and last dynasty (626-539 BC), when the city was at its highest development and largest size. This last dynasty -- that of Nebuchadnezzar -- was instrumental in destroying Assyria and it conquered lands from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean before being overthrown by Cyrus in 539 BC. It continued in existence through the Achaemenid period, though with much reduced importance, until its abandonment in 641 AD after the Muslim conquest. The city itself covered around 200 hectares and had a population of about 100,000. Excavations beginning at the turn of the 20th century revealed the city's plan and scanty remains of the ziggurat, the original Tower of Babel. The high water table, which has risen in the last few millennia, allowed those excavators (R. Koldewey from 1899-1917) access to only buildings of the Neo-Babylonian period. The ruins, including temples (some for Marduk, the city's patron deity), fortifications, palaces, and the substructure of the Hanging Gardens, have not held up well over time, especially due to brick-robbing. The finest surviving monument is the Ishtar Gate and Procession Street. Important buildings excavated include Nebuchadnessar's palace, close to the Ishtar Gate, a huge building with many rooms arranged around five different courtyards. Another huge palace of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (605-562 BC) -- the 'Summer Palace' -- was constructed to the northwest of the Inner City and was enclosed by a triangular outer wall.
backfill: SYNONYM: backfill (v.), back-filling (n.); backdirt
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Excavated earth put to one side at an archaeological site, which is later used to refill the excavation. The purpose of backfilling may be to prevent erosion or vandalizing.
Badorf ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A type of pottery of the 8th-9th centuries in the hills of Cologne, Germany. The globular pitchers and bowls of the Carolingian period are the best known. Badorf-ware kilns have been excavated at Bruhl-Eckdorf and Walberberg and products have been found in the Netherlands, eastern England, and in Denmark. In the 9th century, the pots began to be decorated with red paint. Gradually new forms and styles known as Pingsdorf Wares evolved.
Bakun, Tall-e: SYNONYM: Bakun, Tall-I
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric tell site near Persepolis in south-central Iran, occupied continuous from c 4200 to c 3000 BC. The site, the oldest yet discovered in that area of Iran, was first excavated in 1928. It consisted of 12 mud-brick buildings with 1-7 rooms each. Bakun was occupied by an agricultural community that made fine painted pottery related to Susa A wares. Vessels included conical bowls and goblets with a large variety of geometric patterns and animal motifs. Other finds include flint implements, stamp and button seals, vessels of calcite and many animal and human figurines. The pottery is especially important for the study of early Iranian art.
balk: SYNONYM: baulk
CATEGORY: term; technique
DEFINITION: A strip (usu. 10-25 centimeters) of unexcavated earth left in place between excavated units, pits, or trenches for the purpose of revealing the stratigraphy of an excavation for as long as possible. The balk provides a constant reference to the original pre-excavation level of the site, and also carries all sections along or across the site. In an excavation carried out according to the grid method, 25% of the site may consist of balks. Balks may also serve to facilitate access to different areas of the excavation.
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."
Beersheba: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Israel which was a frontier post in ancient Palestine. The earliest occupations were in 12th and 11th centuries BC, but the first town belonged to the period of the United Monarchy (10th century). The 8th century BC town wall with a great gateway flanked by double guard chambers and external towers has been excavated. There was also a 15-meter ring road inside the wall which divided the inner and outer towns. Beersheba may have been the administrative center of the region and there are indications of storerooms which may have contained the royal stores for the collection of taxes in kind (grain, wine, oil, etc.). The town was destroyed in the mid-7th century BC. Beersheba is first mentioned as the site where Abraham, founder of the Jewish people, made a covenant with the Philistine king Abimelech of Gerar (Genesis 21). Isaac and Jacob, the other patriarchs, also lived there (Genesis 26, 28, 46).
Bennett, Wendell Clark (1905-1953): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American archaeologist who excavated many important sites in Peru from the 1920s-1950s. His studies of Peruvian ceramics produced many of the early sequences on the Peruvian coast and the central highlands, which was considered a major breakthrough in Andean archaeology.
Beth-Shan: SYNONYM: Bet She'an, Baysan (Arabic), Beisan (modern); Scythopolis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A very large tell of northeastern Israel, site of one of the oldest inhabited cities of ancient Palestine. Overlooking the town to the north is Tel Bet She'an (Arabic Tall al-Husn), one of the most important stratified mounds in Palestine. It was excavated in 1921-1933 by the University of Pennsylvania, which discovered the lowest strata date from the late Chalcolithic period in the country (c 4000-3000 BC) through Bronze Age and Iron Age levels and upward to Byzantine times (c AD 500). Buildings, including temples and administrative buildings, span the Egyptian period -- the earliest from the time of Thutmose III (ruled 1504-1450 BC), and the latest dating to Rameses III (1198-66 BC). Important stelae (stone monuments) show the conquests of Pharaoh Seti I (1318-1304 BC) and of the worship of the goddess Astarte. During the Hellenistic period, the city was called Scythopolis; it was taken by the Romans in 64 BC and given the status of an imperial free city by Pompey. In 1960 a finely preserved Roman amphitheater, with a seating capacity for about 5,000, was excavated. The city was an important center of the Decapolis (a league of 10 Hellenistic cities) and under Byzantine rule was the capital of the northern province of Palaestina Secunda. All these periods were also represented in the surrounding cemeteries. It declined after the Arab conquest (636 AD).
Biblical archaeology: CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The branch of historical archaeology devoted to the discovery and investigation of the places and artifacts recorded by the Bible and the study of Biblical times and documents. Biblical archaeology, culminating perhaps in the discovery of Masada, the Judaean hill fortress where the Jews made their last stand against the Romans in the revolt of AD 66-73 and that was mainly excavated in 1963, has given a new perspective to Old Testament and to studies of ancient Judaism. The value of archaeology and of topographical and linguistic studies for biblical history is well understood.
Biskupin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Iron Age defended settlement of the Lusatian culture of c 550-400 BC, on a former island in Lake Biskupin, northwest Poland. The island site was ringed by a breakwater of piles and fortified by a rampart of timber compartments filled with earth and stones. Inside were more than 100 wooden cabins, which were all erected within a year, arranged along parallel streets made of logs. Up to 1200 people may have been housed there. Workshops for craftsmen in bone, bronze, and horn have been excavated. Waterlogged ground preserved the structures.
boat-shaped buildings: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, there is evidence of a variety of longhouse with bowed sides during the Viking period. The finest examples have been excavated at 11th-century Viking camps such as Trelleborg in southern Jutland. A reconstructed example there has walls made of halved tree trunks set in rows, with the curved face outwards as in stave churches. A series of angled posts around the outside acted as buttresses and gave additional support to the gabled roof with its curved ridge. The roof may have been covered in wooden shingles, thatch, or turf. There is considerable variation in boat-shaped houses, depending on function and location. Two British examples are a boat-shaped building in Hamwih and another in Bucken.
Boghazköy: SYNONYM: 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.
boomerang: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A curved wooden throwing stick with a bi-convex or semi-oval cross-section, distributed widely over Australia except for Tasmania, and used for hunting and warfare. The boomerang had marked regional variations in design and decoration. Returning boomerangs were used in Australia as playthings, in tournament competition, and by hunters to imitate hawks for driving flocks of game birds into nets strung from trees. The returning boomerang was developed from the nonreturning types, which swerve in flight. Boomerangs excavated from peat deposits in Wyrie Swamp, South Australia, have been dated to c 8000 BC. Boomerang-shaped, nonreturning weapons were used by the ancient Egyptians, by Indians of California and Arizona, and in southern India for killing birds, rabbits, and other animals.
borrow pit: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A prehistoric pit from which mud, clay, or earth was taken for building purposes. The term also refers to an excavated area where material has been dug for use as fill at another location.
Borsippa: SYNONYM: modern Birs, Birs Nimrud
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Babylonian city southwest of Babylon, Iraq. It is the site of the highest surviving ziggurat (154 feet/47 m), built by Nebuchadrezzar (reigned 605-562 BC) and dedicated to its patron god, Nabu. Borsippa's proximity to Babylon led to its being identified with the Tower of Babel and it became an important religious center. The incomplete and now ruined ziggurat was excavated in 1902 by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey. Hammurabi (reigned 1792-50 BC) built or rebuilt the Ezida temple at Borsippa, dedicating it to Marduk. Borsippa was destroyed by the Achaemenian king Xerxes I in the early 5th century and never fully recovered.
Bosumpra: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site near Abetifi, Ghana, which yielded one of the first scientifically excavated assemblages of a West African Neolithic industry. Radiocarbon dating has shown that occupation began around the middle 4th millennium BC and continued for at least 3000 years. Throughout the sequence, a microlithic chipped-stone industry was associated with simple pottery and with ground-stone ax- or hoe-like implements.
Boucher (de Crèvecoeur) de Perthes, Jacques (1788-1868): SYNONYM: Boucher de Perthes
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French archaeologist and writer who was the first to develop the idea that prehistory could be measured on the basis of periods of geological time. In 1837, in the Somme Valley, he discovered flint hand axes and other stone tools along with the bones of extinct mammals in deposits of the Pleistocene Epoch (or Ice Age, ending about 10,000 years ago). Boucher de Perthes was the first to draw attention to the Stone Age's revolutionary significance, because at the time, 4004 BC was still believed to be the year of the creation. His claims that these objects were the tools of ancient man and that they occurred in association with the bones of extinct animals were ridiculed. In 1859, Boucher de Perthes's conclusions were finally upheld by a group of eminent British scientists, including Charles Lyell, Hugh Falconer, John Preswich, and John Evans, who visited the excavated sites. His archaeological writings include De la Création: essai sur l'origine et la progression des êtres" (1838-41) and "Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes" (1847-64)."
Breasted, James Henry (1865-1935): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American Egyptologist, archaeologist, and historian who excavated Megiddo (Armageddon), established ancient Egyptian historical periods, and founded University of Chicago's Oriental Institute (1919). Breasted promoted research on ancient Egypt and the ancient civilizations of western Asia as well as compiled a record of every known Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription and published a translation of these in a five-volume work, Ancient Records of Egypt" (1906). He led expeditions to Egypt and the Sudan (1905-1907) and copied inscriptions from monuments that had been previously inaccessible or were perishing. The Oriental Institute is a renowned center for the study of the ancient cultures of southwest Asia and the Middle East. His other books included "History of Egypt" (1905) and "Ancient Times" (1916) and "Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt" (1912). His excavation at Megiddo uncovered a large riding stable thought to have been King Solomon's and one at Persepolis yielded some Achaemenid sculptures."
Bubanj: SYNONYM: Bubanj-Hum
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic culture of late 4th to early 3rd millennia BC in the Morava valley of eastern Yugoslavia, close to Nis. The site, on a gravel terrace of a river, was first excavated in the 1950s and the culture is derived from the Vinca and closely related to Salcuta in Romania. The main periods recognized include the early Neolithic Starcevo with graphite painted ware and Vinca-like dark burnished ware; a phase of Baden pottery; and an Early Bronze Age occupation.
burial pit: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A pit aboriginally excavated for the interment of human remains.
Carchemish: SYNONYM: Europus
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient city-state near modern Jarabulus, Syria. The site was a strategic crossing at the Euphrates River for caravans in Syrian, Mesopotamian, and Anatolian trade. The great tell of Carchemish was excavated by David G. Hogarth and later by Sir Leonard Woolley and was first occupied in the Neolithic Period. Halaf ware from the Chalcolithic (5th millennium BC) was found as well as later finds of Uruk-Jamdat Nasr pottery, a product of the southern Euphrates Valley in Sumerian cities of c 3000 BC. There were also tombs from the end of the Early Bronze (c 2300 BC) and the Middle and Late Bronze Age (c 2300-1550; c 1550-1200 BC). Written records concerning Carchemish first appear in the Mari letters -- royal archives of Mari, c 18th century BC. At that time the city was a center for trading wood and shipped Anatolian timber down the Euphrates. The large fortified citadel was important under the empire of the Hittites (14th century BC) and remained so after the fall of the empire, during the period of Syro-Hittite city-states (12th-8th centuries BC). The monumental city gates, temples, and palaces all bore considerable numbers of carved reliefs and inscriptions of the period. The Hittite hieroglyphic inscriptions were of great importance in helping to piece together its history down to its annexation by Assyria in 716 BC.
Caso y Andrade, Alfonso (1896-1970): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Mexican archaeologist and government official who explored the early Oaxacan cultures and who excavated Tomb Seven at Monte Albán, the earliest-known North American necropolis. His discovery and analysis of the burial offerings at Tomb Seven proved that Monte Albán had been occupied by the Mixtec people after they had displaced the Zapotecs before the Spanish conquest. Caso found evidence of five major phases, dating back to the 8th century BC, and established a rough chronology through comparisons with other sites. Caso also deciphered the Mixtec Codices. He made important contributions to regional archaeology and to the interpretation of Mixtec manuscripts, Mexican calendars, and dynastic history in general. He held posts as head of the Department of Archaeology at the National Museum, director of the museum, and director of the National Institute for Indian Affairs.
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.
Chagar Bazar: SYNONYM: Tell Chagar Bazar
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site on a tributary of the River Khabur in northeast Syria with levels from the 5th millennium BC (Halaf period) to the mid-2nd millennium BC. It gradually grew in size and importance and during the reign of the Assyrian king, Shamsi Adad I (early 2nd millennium BC) and was an administrative center. Excavated by Sir Max Mallowan from 1935-37, it yielded an important sequence of prehistoric wares, particularly Halaf and Samarra. There was iron (from the 28th c BC) and copper, too.
Changsha: SYNONYM: Ch'ang-sha
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City and capital of Hunan province, China, where Neolithic sites have been investigated since 1955. Isolated finds hint at Shang and Western Zhou settlement in this area. Over a thousand Chu burials have been excavated, with the richest being the early 2nd century BC tombs at Mawangdui. Artifacts from the Chu capital at Jiang-ling are comparable in date and importance.
Chanhu-Daro: SYNONYM: Chanhudaro, Chanhu-daro
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city of the Harappan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC that is located in the Indus Valley south of Mohenjo-Daro in modern Pakistan. First excavated in the 1930s, it was characterized by a gridiron street plan and drainage system of typical Harappan towns. Evidence was found for the processes of sawing, flaking, grinding, and boring of stone beads. Occasional copper or bronze weapons of foreign" type are found in late contexts at Chanhu-daro. Excavation also showed that like Mohenjo-Daro Chanhu-Daro had been inundated by floods: it was twice destroyed and subsequently rebuilt on a different plan. After the end of the Indus Valley civilization it was reoccupied by the Jhukar culture."
chariot: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A light vehicle of war, usually carrying two people, a warrior, and a driver. Examples have been found from the Uruk period in Mesopotamia and the chariot was on the standard of Ur. It first appeared in the Near East in the 17 century BC, associated with the immigrant peoples who became the Hyksos, Kassites, and Hurri. Its arrival in Egypt can be fairly reliably dated to the Second Intermediate Period (1650-1550 BC). The Aryans carried it to India, and in China it formed the core of the Shang army. The Mycenaeans introduced it to Europe, where it spread widely and rapidly. It revolutionized warfare by allowing warriors to be transferred rapidly from one part of a battlefield to another. It was mainly for aristocrats, which explains its popularity as a funeral offering. Burials of complete chariots with horses and charioteers have been excavated in Shang China (1200 BC), in Cyprus from the 7th century BC, and among the La Tène Celts. The earliest Celt chariot burials are in the Rhineland and eastern France with dates around 500 BC, and later burials are in east Yorkshire and Europe as far east as Hungary, Bulgaria, and southern Russia. The chariot was replaced by the mounted warrior or knight when horses of sufficient strength had been bred in the late and post-Roman periods.
Choga Zanbil: SYNONYM: Dur-Untash, Choga Zambil, Chogha Zambil, Dur Untashi
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Elamite site located near Susa in southwestern Iran. It is especially known for its remains dating to the Middle Elamite Period (c 1500-1000 BC), when the Elamite ruler Untash-Gal built a magnificent ziggurat, temples, and a palace. The remains of the ziggurat, the largest one known, are 335 feet (102 m) square and 80 feet (24 m) high, less than half its estimated original height. Other palaces, a reservoir, and the fortification walls have been excavated of the city, which was lavishly laid out but never completed. There are also a variety of small artifacts, including an excellent collection of Middle Elamite cylinder seals, and evidence of glass and glazes.
Cistercian ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A lead-glazed English earthenware of the 15th-16th centuries. The earthenware is dark red with a black or brown metallic-appearing glaze and was called Cistercian because they were first excavated at Yorkshire Cistercian abbeys. The pottery forms were mainly drinking vessels, tall mugs, trumpet-shaped tygs (with 2, 4, or 8 handles), and tankards. The majority of the ware is undecorated, but some examples are distinguished by horizontal ribbing or by white slip ornamentation consisting of roundels or rosettes. Potteries producing these wares were at Abergavenny, Monmouthshire; Tickford, Derbyshire; and Wrotham, Kent.
Cloggs Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A limestone cave in northeastern Victoria, Australia, with human occupation deposits dating from c 16,000-7000 BC. Ochre and hearths as well as stone tools of the Australian Core Tool and Scraper Tradition have been found and the tools resemble similar Tasmanian artifacts. Bones of extinct animals found in deposits which are more than 20,000 years old and are separate from the human deposits. Australian Small Tool Tradition artifacts were excavated from late Holocene deposits in a rock shelter outside the main cave.
Colt Hoare, Sir Richard (1758-1838): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British antiquary who established the techniques of archaeological excavation in Britain. He excavated a large number of barrows (mostly on Salisbury Plain), classified and published his findings. He also recorded many other monuments of the area. However, at the time there was no means of dating the material he found.
Corinth: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient city of Greece, located where the Peloponnese meets the isthmus that connects it to the Greek mainland. The city has an exceptionally high acropolis on Acronocorinth Hill and profited from having ports on both the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs. The site was occupied from before 3000 BC, but its history is obscure until the early 8th century BC, when the city-state of Corinth began to develop as a commercial center. There is evidence of a Neolithic and an Early Bronze Age settlement at Corinth, both of considerable size. There is little evidence of Mycenaean settlement, however, and the next major settlement belonged to the Dark Age, c late 10th century BC. Corinth was a very important city throughout the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods. Corinth's political influence was increased through territorial expansion in the vicinity, and by the late 8th century it had secured control of the isthmus. The Corinthians established colonies at Corcyra and Syracuse, later making them dominant in trade with the western Mediterranean. From c 720-570 BC, Corinthian painted vases in the black-figure technique (which the Corinthians invented) were exported all over the Greek world. Workshops dating to this period have been excavated in the potters' quarter at Corinth, producing both pottery and terracottas. Corinthian pottery provides the most useful dating method available to archaeologists studying this period. Northwest of the agora stand seven Doric columns, which are the remains of the Temple of Apollo (c 550 BC). Callimachus is said to have invented the Corinthian column capital here c 450-425 BC. Corinth was involved in most of Greece's political struggles and in 146 BC was destroyed by the Roman general Lucius Mummius. In 44 BC, Julius Caesar reestablished Corinth as a Roman colony. Many of the visible remains date from the classical Greek and especially the early Roman periods, including a Roman agora (marketplace), the Odeon, the Pirene fountain, the Glauke fountain, temples, villas, baths, pottery factory, gymnasium, basilica, theater, and an amphitheater. Parts of the classical fortifications on the acropolis survive. In the later medieval period it then passed from Frankish to Venetian and eventually to Turkish hands. Substantial buildings from all these periods have been found in excavations since 1896. Modern Corinth was founded in 1858, 3 miles north of the ancient town, after an earthquake leveled the latter.
Creswell Crags: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The type site of the Creswellian culture, a gorge about 1500 feet long near Creswell, England, which has caves that have yielded one of the most important British series of extinct vertebrate remains, accompanied by implements of Paleolithic hunters. The Creswellian culture is regarded as a variant of the Magdalenian culture of southwestern France and occurred during the final stages of the Würm glaciation. Finds include flint tools of Mousterian, 'proto-Solutrean', Creswellian, and Mesolithic types, as well as harpoons and a bone fragment with an engraved horse's head in Late Magdalenian style. Mammal remains include reindeer, woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, and wild horse. The Creswellian culture never used the stone ax but their tools were Gravettian-type of blunted-back blades showing development in manufacture over a long period. Creswell Crags was first excavated in 1875.
Cueva Morin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic cave site of northern Spain with seven Mousterian levels, a lower Perigordian layer dated to 36,350 bp, and Aurignacian levels with dwellings and burials. It was one of the first Spanish sites excavated by scientific methods.
Cunningham, Sir Alexander (1814-1883): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British general and archaeologist who excavated many sites in India, including Sarnath and Sanchi, and served as the first director of the Indian Archaeological Survey. He published an annual report, listing and describing the principal monuments of ancient India for the first time. His writings include The Bhilsa Topes (1854), the first serious attempt to trace Buddhist history through its architectural remains; The Ancient Geography of India (1871), the first collection of the edicts of the 3rd-century-BC Indian emperor Ashoka; and The Stûpa of Bharhut (1879).
Cunnington, William (1754-1810): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British antiquary who, like his contemporary Colt Hoare, recorded and excavated many barrows and other prehistoric monuments in southern England, especially on Salisbury Plain. His excavations were of good quality for the time.
Dörpfeld, Wilhelm (1853-1940): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A German archaeologist who excavated many important prehistoric and classical sites in the Greek world. He worked first under Ernst Curtius on the excavations of Olympia and then assisted Heinrich Schliemann on his third and fourth seasons at Troy, bringing to this work the careful digging and recording techniques worked out at Olympia. After Schliemann's death he continued work at Troy, then later worked on the Ionian island of Leukas, off the west coat of Greece which, contrary to most other authorities, he believed to be Homer's Ithaca, home of Odysseus.
Damb Sada'at: SYNONYM: Quetta
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric site in the Quetta valley of western Pakistan which was occupied during the 3rd millennium BC. Well-built mud-brick houses consisting of several small rooms, copper tools, and wheel-turned pottery painted in black designs on a buff or greenish ground known as Quetta ware have been excavated.
Dazaifu: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The remains of a frontier administrative center near Fukuoka, Japan. Established just after Japan's defeat in the Korean campaign of 663, Dazaifu remained an important outpost of the government in the western frontier for the next few centuries and was the bureaucratic gateway from Kyushu to the continent. The Dazaifu area, with administrative buildings and temples, has been excavated.
Deh Luran: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site in Iran where Frank Hole and Ken Flannery studied the origins of food production. They excavated at Tepe Ali Kosh, Tepe Sabz, and Choga Sefid to create a cultural sequence from around 8000 bc through the Uruk period to historical times.
Deir el-Medina: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Settlement site on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor, situated in a bay in the cliffs midway between the Ramesseum and Medinet Habu. It is the site of the village of the workmen who built the tombs in the Valleys of the Kings during the New Kingdom. The inhabitants were stone cutters, masons, plasterers, scribes, draftsmen, and artists who excavated and adorned royal and private tombs in the Theban necropolis from the early 18th Dynasty until the end of the New Kingdom. The site produced a large number of documents, mainly on ostraka.
Dian kingdom: SYNONYM: 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.
dig: SYNONYM: diggings
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: An archaeological excavation or the site that has been or is being excavated.
diggings: CATEGORY: artifact; term
DEFINITION: Excavated materials or the site that has been or is being excavated.
Diyala: CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: One of the main tributaries of Tigris River, east of Baghdad, Iraq, where four sites were excavated: Tell Asmar (Eshnunna), Khafajah (Khafaje), Ischali, and Tell Aqrab of the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. The work allowed the establishment of a pottery sequence for this part of Mesopotamia, from the late 4th to the early 2nd millennium BC and the investigation of a number of important buildings of the periods.
Djet (c 2980 BC): SYNONYM: Wadj
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A ruler of the 1st Dynasty who was probably buried in the Tomb Z at Abydos, which was first excavated by Emile Amélineau and Flinders Petrie at the beginning of the 20th century.
Dorestad: SYNONYM: Duurstede
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The trading center of the Frisians in the Netherlands, from which they controlled the old Rhine, the Vecht, and the Lek until the course of the river changed. Excavations have located an earthwork defense of this medieval site and have produced enormous quantities of occupation debris including large amounts of imported Rhenish and local pottery, wine casks from the Mainz area, Niedermendig lava Querns, and stone mortars made in eastern Belgium. There is also evidence of industrial activities like weaving, shipbuilding, bone and metalworking. Dorestad is the best-excavated and finest example of a Carolingian emporium and illustrates the scale of commerce between the imperial estates in the Rhineland and other North Sea communities.
dry screening: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The sieving of excavated soil and sediment through (usually) 1/4-inch mesh, to recover artifacts not found in excavation.
Emery, Walter Bryan (1903-1971): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British Egyptologist noted for his careful surveying and study of prospective sites. He discovered galleries of the Bucheum in Armant, burials of Nubian X-Group kings, queens and nobility of 4th-6th century AD, and at Saqqara, excavating many Archaic Period mastabas. His most important discovery was a row of 1st-Dynasty tombs attributable to kings or nobles. He excavated at Thebes-West Bank, Nubia's Buhen and Ballana and Qustul.
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.
Eridu: SYNONYM: 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.
Erlitou: SYNONYM: Erh-li-t'ou
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Type site of the Erlitou phase in Henan province, north China. The Erlitou phase represents the earliest known stage of the Chinese Bronze Age of c early 2nd millennium BC. The earliest bronze ritual vessels yet known from China, along with bronze blades and fine jades were also found. Two palace compounds have been excavated. The Erlitou remains provide the fullest evidence now available for the emergence of the Shang civilization from its local forbears.
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.
experimental archaeology: SYNONYM: experimental studies
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The reconstruction and reproduction of past behavior and processes to obtain or evaluate archaeological data and test hypotheses about the way man dealt with subsistence and technology. The experiments involve such activities as creating and using stone tools, duplicating prehistoric methods of farming, building, and travel, etc. The term is normally used only for those experiments which deal with material culture, such as industry, the building of structures, mining, and crop processing. The more theoretical aspects, such as ideas about the development and organization of society, are generally thought of a part of processual archaeology rather than experimental. Reconstructions can be based on excavated ground plans, and some of these have been deliberately burned or left to decay so that an idea can be gained of what the archaeologist might expect to find later. Boats have been built and sailed, food has been cooked in earth ovens and eaten, stone monuments have been laboriously erected, and trumpets and stringed instruments have been made and played. Although past events are not exactly repeatable, experimental simulation can prove very instructive and is being increasingly used. One of the earliest examples was General Pitt-Rivers' observations of the rate and duration of ditch silting on his excavations at Cranbourne Chase in the 19th century.
Far'ah, Tell el-: SYNONYM: el-Fara
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Two tells of this name, excavated in Palestine, inland from Gaza. The northern tell had a 4th millennium BC Chalcolithic settlement with circular, semi-subterranean dwellings and an Early Bronze Age occupation. It later became an Israelite town; for a few years in the 9th century BC, the northern tell was the capital of Israel (Tirzah), before Omri moved to Samaria. The southern tell may have been a Hyksos fortification. Its remains include a large building of the Late Bronze Age and remains of the Philistines from the Iron Age. The most impressive material came from five rich Philistine tombs containing characteristic Philistine decorated pottery, native Late Bronze Age undecorated wares, bronze bowls, daggers and spears; an iron dagger and an iron knife were also found, among the earliest finds of this metal in Palestine.
feature record: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A comprehensive and detailed summary of how a given feature was excavated, what was found in or associated with it, and an interpretation of what the feature represents.
floor vault: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A large, formally constructed, rectangular pit, usually excavated into the floor of a pit structure, kiva, or great kiva. Its walls may be earth- or masonry-lined, and evidence for a roof or superstructure may be present. Sometimes vaults are paired, one to the east and one to the west of the hearth. Single floor vaults have been found directly north of the hearth.
Gamio, Manual (1883-1960): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Mexican archaeologist, one of the first to work in Mesoamerica and excavate using metric stratigraphy. He carried out a monumental study of the populations of Teotihuacán Valley and set up a ceramic sequence for the Valley of Mexico.
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.
Godin Tepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Kangavar valley of Luristan, western Iran, with continuous occupation from the early 5th millennium to c 1600 BC (late Iron Age) when it was abandoned following an earthquake and not reoccupied for around 800 years. The cultural sequence provides the framework for the cultural history of this section of the Zagros Mountains. The earliest two building levels are associated with straw-tempered, poorly fired pottery and a stone industry. Most interesting is Godin V of the late 4th millennium BC in which Late Uruk materials (bevel-rimmed bowls, pottery, seal styles, tablets) are found. In Godin II, c 750 BC, the site was a fortified town of the Medes, and an important building with three colonnaded halls and a throne room has been excavated. A stain on an amphora has revealed the world's earliest wine c 3500 BC.
grid: SYNONYM: grid unit
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A system of perpendicular lines and equally spaced points to form a rectangle which is used as a frame of locational reference on an archaeological sites. A grid is usually defined by its distance and direction in reference to a datum point. Excavations units are often planned and recorded by grid. Grids are often aligned with either the anticipated site layout or with a landform upon which the site sits. Many archaeological sites are surveyed by measuring from a grid enclosing the site. It is a rectilinear system of X, Y coordinates which is established over the area to be excavated so that spatial control can be maintained.
Heekeren, H. Robert Van (1902-1974): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Dutch archaeologist who spent his career in Indonesia and wrote two important books -- The Stone Age of Indonesia" (1957 1972) and "The Bronze-Iron Age of Indonesia" (1958). Van Heekeren excavated on Sulawesi and Java."
Herzfeld, Ernst (1879-1948): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A German archaeologist/Orientalist who excavated in the Middle East before World War II, particularly at Persepolis, Samarra, and Tall-1 Bakun. He also wrote Zoroaster and His World" (1947 reprinted 1974)."
Hili: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A number of small settlement sites in southeastern Arabia. Hili 8 provided the architectural and ceramic sequence for the Bronze Age of the region, c 3000-1800 BC. The occurrence of domesticated sorghum is among the earliest known. Burials, ceramics, and stone vessels have been excavated.
Hong Kong: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island country with evidence of human habitation from Neolithic times. The excavated artifacts suggest an influence from northern Chinese Stone Age cultures, most notably the Lung-shan. Before the British occupation, Hong Kong Island was inhabited only by a small fishing population. Hong Kong was firmly incorporated in the Chinese cultural sphere in the late Chou and Han Dynasties (late 1st millennium BC). The earliest sites in Hong Kong date from about 3500 BC and belong to Yueh coastal Neolithic. There was geometric-stamped pottery during the 2nd millennium BC.
Huaca Prieta: SYNONYM: Huaca Prieta de Chicama; Chicama
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Preceramic site on the desert coast of north Peru with a radiocarbon date of c 2300 BC and probably occupied from c 3500-1800 BC. It was the first preceramic village to be excavated in the country and one of the first sites dated by the radiocarbon method. Evidence of a sedentary life is seen in subterranean houses, gourd containers, and reliance on sea food, wild plants, and cultivated beans, peppers, and squashes -- the earliest agriculture in South America. The people made patterned cotton textiles by twining without the aid of a loom and also produced basketry.
Izmir: SYNONYM: Smyrna
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City on the west coast of Turkey, one of the oldest cities of the Mediterranean world and has been of almost continuous historical importance during the last 5,000 years. Excavations indicate settlement contemporary with that of the first city of Troy, dating from the 3rd millennium BC. Greek settlement is first attested by pottery dating from c 1000 BC. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Greek city was founded by Aeolians but soon was seized by Ionians. By the 7th century, it had massive fortifications and blocks of two-storied houses. Captured by Alyattes of Lydia c 600 BC, it disappeared for about 300 years until it was refounded by either Alexander the Great or his lieutenants in the 4th century BC at a new site on and around Mount Pagus. It soon emerged as one of the principal cities of Asia Minor and was later the center of a civil diocese in the Roman province of Asia, vying with Ephesus and Pergamum for the title first city of Asia." Smyrna was one of the early seats of Christianity. Capital of the province of Samos under the Byzantine emperors Smyrna was taken by the Turkmen Aydin principality in the early 14th century AD. It was annexed to the Ottoman Empire c 1425. Although severely damaged by earthquakes in 1688 and 1778 it remained a prosperous Ottoman port with a large European population. The city's landmarks include the partly excavated remains of its agora and the ancient aqueducts of Kizilçullu. The archaeological museum has a fine collection of local antiquities."
Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The third president of the United States and considered by many to be the father of American archaeology because of his meticulous excavation of a Virginia burial mound. Jefferson was the first person, in North America or anywhere, to undertake (1784) excavations of a prehistoric site as a means to understanding the people who built it. He wanted to find out why the burial mounds on his land had been built. One mound he excavated carefully with trenches, noting that in a number of levels that skeletons had been placed in the ground and covered -- producing a mound 12 ft (4 m) high. In observing the different levels, he was anticipating the stratigraphical method which became common practice in Europe and America only at the end of the 19th century. Worsaae's work in Denmark came a half a century later and the wider adoption of stratigraphical excavation methods was 100 years later.
Kakóvatos: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a Mycenaean settlement in Messenia, Greece (in Triphylia). There are three tholos tombs that have been excavated. It was once thought to be the site of Homeric Pylos.
Koldewey, Robert (1855-1925): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: German architect and archaeologist who worked in Anatolia, the eastern Mediterranean (Assus, Lesbos), and especially Mesopotamia. He excavated at Al Hiba, Fara, Assur, and Babylon, uncovering the Ishtar Gate, the temple of Marduk, a ziggurat, and palace of Nebuchadnezzar. He began digging on March 26, 1899, and continued to work there with little interruption for the next 18 years. He believed he had found the remains of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, when he uncovered an arched structure with a well nearby. His work revealed the destroyed capital of Hammurabi, the capital of the Neo-Babylonian empire (7th-6th centuries BC), and remains from Seleucid-Parthian and Sassanian periods. This work marked the beginning of scientific archaeology in Near East. The results were published in Koldewey's book The Excavations at Babylon" (1914) as well as in reports over the years."
Kostrzewski, Józef (1885-1969): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Polish archaeologist who excavated at Biskupin and other important sites. He founded the department of archaeology at the University of Poznan.
Krak des Chevaliers: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The greatest fortress built by European crusaders in Syria and Palestine, one of the most notable surviving examples of medieval military architecture. Built at Qal'at al-Hisn, Syria, near the northern border of present-day Lebanon, Krak occupied the site of an earlier Muslim stronghold. It was built by the Knights of St. John (Hospitallers), who held it from 1142-1271, when it was captured by the Mamluk sultan Baybars I. It has two concentric towered walls separated by a wide moat and could accommodate 2,000 men. It is one of the few crusader castles to have been systematically excavated and restored.
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.
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.
La Madeleine: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Dordogne rock shelter in France, extremely rich in mobiliary art, which is the type site for the Magdalenian -- the final West European Upper Palaeolithic industry. First excavated by Edouard Lartet and Henry Christy, the Magdalenian dated from approximately 16,000-10,000 BC. Very numerous carved art pieces have been found with the stone and bone tools.
Laming-Emperaire, Annette (1917-1977): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French prehistorian specializing in prehistoric rock art who found and studied sites in Chilean Pantagonia -- Englefield, Ponsonby, Munición -- and in Brazil, José Vieira and several sambaquis (shell middens). She also excavated at Marassi (Tierra del Fuego), Lapa Vermehla, and Lagoa Santa.
Lartet, Edouard (1801-1871): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A French scholar, one of the pioneers of Palaeolithic archaeology, known as the founder of the science of palaeontology. He proposed a classification scheme for the Palaeolithic period based on animal bones: the Cave Bear period; the Woolly Mammoth and Rhinoceros period; the Reindeer period and the Aurochs or Bison period. He collaborated with Henry Christy in excavating many of the well-known rock shelter sites of southern France and was one of the first to recognize in situ mobiliary art; the publication of these objects from well-excavated contexts made it easier for scholars to accept the authenticity of cave art. With Christy, he carried out the first systematic study of south French caves, and excavated many of the most famous sites in the Dordogne (Laugerie-Haute, Le Moustier, La Madeleine). Their results appeared in several important articles, and also, during the decade 1865-1875, in the volumes of Reliquiae Aquitanicae"."
Layard, Sir Austen Henry (1817-1894): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British excavator and explorer -- one of the earliest in Mesopotamia. His most important discoveries were at Nimrud, which he identified wrongly as Nineveh. The Assyrian winged bulls and reliefs he excavated from the massive palace complexes are now in the British Museum. At Nineveh proper (modern Kuyunjik), he recovered a library of cuneiform tablets from Sennacherib's palace. His book on his finds, Nineveh and its Remains" (1849) ranks as one of the first archaeological bestsellers. He also excavated at Assur Babylon and Nippur."
Leopard's Kopje: SYNONYM: Nthabazingwe
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site near Khami, southwestern Zimbabwe, and the name of a later Iron Age industry which developed in c 10th-11th century AD. At the type site, large circular houses were excavated. During later phases, from about the 14th century, gold mining and building with stone occurred. The complex covered adjacent areas of the northern Transvaal, South Africa. There was trade with the East African coast, class distinction, and the development of sacred leadership leading up to the Zimbabwe culture.
level: CATEGORY: tool; term
DEFINITION: An instrument used in surveying which takes vertical measurements and which is much used in excavation for the recording of site contours and accurate depths of features, especially for making maps and identifying the location of artifacts. There are several types of leveling instrument, the Y or dumpy level, the tilting level, and the self-leveling level. Each consists of a telescope fitted with a spirit level and, generally, mounted on a tripod. It is used in conjunction with a graduated rod placed at the point to be measured and sighted through the telescope. The theodolite (q.v.), or transit, is used to measure horizontal and vertical angles; it may be used also for leveling. The differences between the types are in the ease of leveling: the first has a single spirit level for the whole instrument, the second a separate spirit level for spindle and telescope with a tilting mechanism and adjustable screw on the telescope, and the third an optical part operated by a pendulum so that the line of sight is always horizontal. Having established a datum point, the instrument is sighted on a leveling staff or rod which is marked in a graduated scale, metric, or imperial. The difference in level between the telescope and the base of the rod can be read off on this scale, and the result subtracted from the height of the level itself above ground; the final figure gives the real height, or depth, of the feature above or below the ground at instrument point. Subtracting the stadia rod reading from the height of the level above the ground surface gives the difference in height between ground surface at the instrument station and the ground surface at the datum point. A series of levels taken across a site will give contours, while excavated features and small finds can be leveled in with greater accuracy than with tapes from a hypothetical ground surface. The term is also used to refer to the actual height measurements taken with such an instrument. More generally, archaeologists often use the term 'level' interchangeably with layer. In excavations the remains are divided into levels that contain the buildings and objects belonging to a phase.
level record: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Written record completed for each level in each excavation unit, providing detailed information on how a given level was excavated and what was found in it.
Lindenschmit, Ludwig (1809-1893) and Wilhelm (1806-1848): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Brothers who attributed burials they excavated at Selzen near Mainz to Great Invasions and the Franks. They used comparative methods and made proper use of terminus post quem provided by dates on coins.
Linyi: SYNONYM: Lin-i; Lin-yi; Champa
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An ancient Indochinese kingdom founded in 192 AD in the southern Shandong province, China, and lasting to the 17th century AD. In the past decade, at least ten important Western Han tombs have been excavated in this district, some richly furnished with paintings on silk and lacquers comparable to those from Mawangdui. One tomb contained nearly 5000 inscribed bamboo slips that preserve the texts of a number of late Eastern Chou philosophical works and military treatises, including the Sun Zi bing fa ('Master Sun on the Art of War'). The kingdom later became known as the Indianized kingdom of Champa, which was eventually absorbed by Vietnam.
Liulige: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town in Hui Xian, Hunan province, China, where many burials of the Shang and Eastern Chou periods have been excavated. The Shang burials, some containing bronze ritual vessels, belong to the Erligang Phase. Eastern Chou finds date from the 7th-2nd centuries BC, and include one of the largest of Chinese chariot burials -- a single pit containing 19 chariots.
loomweight: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A perforated stone or ceramic block weighing around 1kg that was used for stretching the threads forming the warp or the weft on a loom. In many cases the loomweights and pin-beaters are all the physical evidence that remains for weaving at an excavated settlement.
Loyang: SYNONYM: Lo-yang; Luoyang; formerly Honan-Fu; Honan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Ancient city in northwestern Honan province, China, near the south bank of the Yellow River. It was important in history as the capital of nine ruling dynasties and as a Buddhist center. Lo-yang is divided into an east town and a west town. Lo-i (modern Lo-yang) was founded at the beginning of the Chou dynasty (late 12th century BC), near the present west town, as the residence of the imperial kings. It became the Chou capital in 771 BC, following the loss of Tsung Chou in Shensi, and was later moved to a site northeast of the present east town; it was named Lo-yang because it was north (yang) of the Lo River, and its ruins are now distinguished as the ancient city of Lo-yang. Traces of its rammed earth walls and one of its cemeteries of pit graves have been found. Bronzes and pottery recovered from some 270 tombs excavated at Luoyang Zhongzhoulu supply a valuable artifact sequence, spanning the entire Eastern Chou period. Particularly rich finds from Jincun, just northeast of the modern city, belong to the latter part of Eastern Chou; lesser tombs from the end of Eastern Chou and the Han period have been excavated at Shaogou. During the Qin and Western Han dynasties the capital returned to Shaanxi, but Luoyang was again the capital during the Eastern Han dynasty and, for the last time, from 494-535 AD, when the Northern Wei emperors ruled there. It finally fell to the Ch'in in 256.
Lund, Peter W. (1801-1880): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Danish naturalist who excavated more than 800 caves in Brazil. His finds of fossilized animals were used by Darwin in his evolution research. The discovery of human bones in association with animal remains from the Pleistocene led him to suggest in 1844 that these animals might have been contemporary with an antediluvian" man."
Luristan bronze: SYNONYM: Lorestan
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Any of the horse trappings, utensils, weapons, jewelry, belt buckles, and ritual and votive objects of bronze probably dating from roughly 2600-600 BC that have been excavated in the Harsin, Khorramabad, and Alishtar valleys of the Zagros Mountains in the Lorestan region of western Iran, especially at the site of Tepe Sialk. Their precise origin is unknown. Scholars believe that they were created either by the Cimmerians, a nomadic people from southern Russia who may have invaded Iran in the 8th century BC, or by such related Indo-European peoples as the early Medes and Persians. The term denotes a broad region of this metalwork and therefore has little cultural historical meaning.
mace: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small clublike weapon, usually of stone, crafted to fit snugly in the hand, for pounding. It often had a perforated head and was attached to a shaft of wood (or ivory or horn), often tapering towards the end that was gripped. Many maceheads have been excavated from Predynastic and Early Dynastic cemeteries in Egypt. In medieval times, it was made of iron and used for breaking defensive armor.
MacEnery, Reverend J. (17??-d. 1841): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A Roman Catholic priest who excavated at Kent's Cavern, England, and discovered Palaeolithic flint tools alongside the bones of extinct animals in an undisturbed stratum. He concluded that man and these ancient animals must have coexisted, but these views found little acceptance at the time. MacEnery died without publishing his results; William Pengelly did publish the report of MacEnery's excavations (1869).
Maheshwar: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A central Indian site in western Madhya Pradesh state, just north of the Narmada River -- the ancient site of the capital of a Haihaya king, Arjuna Kartavirya (c. 200 BC), mentioned in the Sanskrit epics Ramayana" and "Mahabharata". On the opposite bank of the Narmada lies the early site of Navdatoli where painted pottery and other artifacts have been excavated."
manor: SYNONYM: manorial system, seignorialism, seignorial system
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A political, economic, and social system by which the peasants of medieval Europe were dependent on their land and on their lord. Its basic unit was the manor, a self-sufficient landed estate, or fief, that was under the control of a lord who enjoyed a variety of rights over it and the peasants who were serfs. It was the focus of the feudal societies that developed in western Europe form the 8th-9th centuries. Well-known examples are 10th-12th-century sites of Goltho in Lincolnshire and Sulgrave in Northamptonshire for the Anglo-Norman period, and Wintringham, Lincolnshire, and Hound Tor, Devon, for the later Middle Ages. Houses of feudal lords from the 11th and 12th centuries in northern and western France have been excavated as well as small castles inside fortified villages, as at Rougiers in Provence or in Renaissance villages in Tuscany.
Mariette, François Auguste Ferdinand (1821-1881): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French Egyptologist who excavated many of the major Egyptian sites and monuments and founded the Egyptian Antiquities Service and what was to become the Cairo Museum (National Museum of Egyptian Antiquities). He excavated the Saqqara Serapeum and found the burials of the Apis bulls and the jewels belonging to Rameses II. He also uncovered sites at Giza, Abydos, Thebes, Edfu, Elephantine, and in the Delta. He is buried in sarcophagus in front of Cairo Museum.
Marshall, Sir John (1876-1958) (DISPUTED d. 1959): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British archaeologist who worked in India as Director-General of Archaeological Survey in India and who was part of revealing India's long prehistory. He excavated at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro and at sites of the Indus Civilization. He discovered much about the Chalcolithic cultures preceding it. He was also interested in Alexander's campaign and in Graeco-Buddhist monuments at Sanchi, and Taxila.
Maspero, Gaston Camille Charles (1846-1916): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French Egyptologist who succeeded August Mariette as Director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service and who edited the first 50 volumes of the immense catalog of the collection there. He excavated numerous sites from Saqqara to the Valley of the Kings. At Deir el Bahari (Dayr al-Bahri), he came upon fabulous collection of 40 royal mummies, s, including those of the pharaohs Seti I, Amenhotep I, Thutmose III, and Ramses II, in inscribed sarcophagi, as well as a profusion of decorative and funerary artifacts. Maspero's intensive study of these findings was published in Les Momies royales de Deir-el-Bahari" (1889; "The Royal Mummies of Dayr al-Bahri"). He also published an account of the Nubian monuments threatened by construction of first Aswan Dam. He helped found the Egyptian Museum in 1902. During his second tenure as director general (1899-1914) Maspero regulated excavations tried to prevent illicit trade in antiquities sought to preserve and strengthen monuments and directed the archaeological survey of Nubia. His writings include "Histoire ancienne des peoples de l'Orient classique". (1895-97; "Ancient History of the Peoples of the Classic Orient") "L'Archéologie égyptienne" (1887; "Egyptian Archaeology") "Les Contes populaires de l'Égypte ancienne" (4th ed. 1914; "Popular Tales of Ancient Egypt") and "Causeries d'Égypte" (1907; "New Light on Ancient Egypt")."
Medes: SYNONYM: Medians
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Indo-European speaking people, related to the Persians, who settled in northwest Iran after moving southward through the Zagros from a still undetermined region during the Iron Age. Between the 8th-6th centuries BC, they played an active part in the complicated power politics of the Middle East, their greatest achievement being the destruction of Assyria in 614-612, under Cyaxares. They migrated to Iran at the same time as the Persians and at first were the more powerful of the two peoples. Though the initiative was seized by the Persians under Cyrus, the Medes remained ruling partners in the Achaemenid empire he set up and the peoples were subsequently united by marriage connections. The Persian king Cyrus II the Great overran the Medes in the mid-6th century BC. The Medians are well illustrated in the friezes of Persepolis. Their capital was at Ecbatana (modern Hamadan). Median sites have been excavated at Godin Tepe, Baba Jan, and Nush-i Jan. By tradition, the Medes are credited with the invention of trousers.
Messene: SYNONYM: Messini
CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: Ancient Greek city in southwest Peloponnese, Greece, founded in 369 BC after the defeat of Sparta by Athens. The site includes with Megalopolis, Mantineia, and Argos; the summit of Mt. Ithómi served as the acropolis. The classical city withstood several Macedonian and Spartan sieges. After the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, it was absorbed into the domain of Philip II of Macedonia, and it remained important under the Romans. The Hellenistic agora, theater, stadium, Temple of Artemis, city walls, and council chamber have been excavated.
Moche: SYNONYM: Mochica
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The major culture of the northern coast of Peru during the Early Intermediate Period. It originated in the Moche and Chicama Valleys and later spread by conquest as far south as the Santa and Nepeña Rivers. The culture developed around the start of the Christian era and lasted until c 700 AD. Dominant during the Early Intermediate Period (c 400 BC-600 AD), it is best known for its irrigation works, its massive adobe temple-platforms, and for its pottery. Especially famous are the modeled vessels and portrait head vases, and the jars, often with stirrup spouts, painted in reddish brown with scenes of religion, war, and everyday life. The pottery sequence has five phases which are identified by the details of the spout formation on the stirrup-necked bottles and it is used for relative dating of the sites (c 300-700 AD). The Moche culture was the major contributor to the subsequent Chimú culture of the north coast. Huge structures at the ceremonial center include a large, terraced, truncated pyramid, Huaca del Sol, and the smaller Huaca de la Luna, on top of which is a series of courtyards and rooms, some with wall paintings. Huaca del Sol was perhaps the largest single construction of the prehistoric Andean region. Grave goods in gold, silver and copper display a fairly advanced metalworking technology. Archaeologists excavated a site called Huaca Rajada and found the elaborate, jewelry-filled tomb of a Moche warrior-priest. Several more burial chambers containing the remains of Moche royalty have been excavated, all dating from about 300 AD, whose finds greatly aided the understanding of Moche society, religion, and culture. Incised lines on lima beans have recently been interpreted as a form of nonverbal communication similar in concept to the quipu. Developing out of Cupisnique, Gallinazo and Salinar, Moche survived into the Middle Horizon but appears ultimately to have been overtaken by the Huari culture. In the last phase (Moche V), the southern part of the Moche territory was abandoned and a new capital established in the north, at Pampa Grande.
Mohenjo-daro: SYNONYM: Mohenjo-Daro
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the two capitals of the Indus civilization, the best known of the Mature Harappan cities, located in the Sind region on the right bank of the Indus in Pakistan. Radiocarbon dates and corroboration with Mesopotamian data date the capital to about 3000-1700 BC. The city, covering approximately 2.5 square km, was laid out on a grid plan, the oldest recorded. The larger blocks, separated by broad streets with elaborate drains, were subdivided. It was the largest of all the Indus Valley sites, and like other Indus Valley settlements, Mohenjo-Daro consists of two parts: a lower town in the east, overlooked by a high artificial mound or citadel on the west side. Traces of mud and baked brick defenses have been found. Within these an assembly hall, 'college', great bath, and granary were excavated. Numerous craft installations were in the lower town, for pottery, beadmaking, shell working, dyeing, and metalworking. Artifacts provide the basic definition of the Mature Harappan material culture for pottery styles, seals, weights, bead forms, metal forms, figurines, etc. There are many flood deposits, which many times overwhelmed the city. Mohenjo-daro was abandoned c 1700/1600 BC, apparently after a massacre, as in the latest layers groups of skeletons were found lying in houses and in the streets. The other capital, Harappa, was 400 miles away.
Motupore: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on an offshore island near Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, with an excavated sequence from 1100-1700 AD, ancestral to the present Austronesian-speaking Motu inhabitants of the region. The sequence documents the development of the specialized ethnographic Motu trading system, in which pottery, shell beads, and marine resources were exchanged for sago and wallaby meat from adjacent Papuan Gulf communities.
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.
Mylonas, George (1898-1988): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Greek archaeologist who excavated at Ayios Kosmas, Eleusis, Mycenae, and Olynthus.
Nal: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cultural group named after the site of Sohr Damb (Red Mound), near the village of Nal in central Baluchistan, Pakistan. It is related to the Kulli culture further south and is dated to the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. Both settlements are associated with water-control systems which allowed exploitation of alluvial plains for agriculture. The Chalcolithic population used copper for many tools and weapons, as well as ground stone. They made beads from agate and perhaps also lapis lazuli. The fine buff pottery, some wheelmade, is decorated with geometric patterns in black paint; red, blue, green, and yellow pigments were often applied after firing. Some traits in the pottery, a glazed steatite seal and many faience beads point to contact with the Indus Civilization. Many burials were excavated on the type site, belonging to a period later than the settlement. The rite employed was fractional burial, the graves containing fragmentary skeletons together with quantities of distinctive pottery.
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: SYNONYM: NAGPRA
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A 1990 law establishing procedures for protecting and determining disposition of Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony that are intentionally excavated or inadvertently discovered on federal or tribal lands. It also establishes procedures for conducting summaries and inventories and repatriating human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony in museum or federal agency collections.
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.
Ninevite 5: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The period or horizon from c 2900-2500 BC in northern Mesopotamia characterized by distinctive painted and incised and excised pottery. The name derives from the site of Nineveh where it was first excavated. The term also refers to the pottery itself.
Noin Ula: SYNONYM: Noin-ula
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A range of hills in northern Mongolia near Lake Baikal where a rich burial site, possibly of the Xiongnu nobility of the 1st century AD, has been excavated. To the north of Ulaanbaatar on the Selenge River, Noin Ula had horse burials and the furnishings of one tomb were especially lavish. The prince for whom it was made must have been in contact with China, for his coffin was apparently made for him there, as were some of his possessions buried with him -- a lacquer cup inscribed with the name of its Chinese maker and dated September 5, 13 AD. His horse trappings are elaborately decorated and the saddle covered with leather threaded with black and red wool clipped to resemble velvet. The magnificent textiles in the tomb included a woven wool rug lined with thin leather with purple, brown, and white felt appliqué work. Other textiles are of Greco-Bactrian and Parthian origin. Some objects are similar to ones from Pazyryk in the Altai. The tombs, which were plundered in antiquity, take the form of wooden burial chambers in deep shafts over which earthen barrows were raised.
Non Nok Tha: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Extensively excavated prehistoric site in north-central Thailand (Khorat region), with burials spanning the period c 3500 BC to late 1st millennium AD. There is evidence for possible 4th-3rd millennium BC domestication of cattle, pig, and dog; the cultivation of rice, and the use of copper and bronze. Non Nok Tha and Ban Chiang may have the earliest evidence for bronzeworking in the world. Unlike Ban Chiang, it appears to have been abandoned before iron was in general use.
Novo Mesto: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Iron Age settlement and complex of tumuli in Slovenia and dated to the Hallstatt D (5th century BC). A stone wall encircled the settlement and 10 tumuli have been excavated. Bronze situlae, breastplates, and helmets and objects of Baltic amber have been found.
Nubian A Group: SYNONYM: 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.
Nubian rescue campaign: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: An international movement, coordinated by UNESCO between 1960-1980, to limit the loss of archaeological data as a result of the building of the Aswan High Dam and the subsequent flooding of much of Lower Nubia by Lake Nasser. The movement wanted to survey and excavate as many of the sites as possible and dismantle and re-erect the most important temples -- Abu Simbel, Philae, and Kalabsha.
Nuzi: SYNONYM: modern Yorgan Tepe
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A provincial center with Old Akkadian, Old Assyrian, and Middle Assyrian/Hurrian levels ('Ubaid to Sassanian times), near Kirkuk (ancient Arrapha) in northern Mesopotamia (Iraq). A palace and private houses of the 15th-14th centuries BC were excavated and finds include some 20,000 Old Akkadian clay tablets of the 23rd century BC. There is material from a mid-2nd millennium occupation associated with the kingdom of Arrapkha and with the Mitanni. Texts recovered provide the richest available documentation of the Mitanni empire. During the 2nd half of 2nd millennium BC, Nuzi was known as Gasur. Its distinctive type of pottery (Nuzi ware) dates to the time of association with the Mitanni and is found at other sites such as Tell Atchana from the mid-2nd millennium BC.
Ocean Bay tradition: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A culture of the southern coast of Alaska, dated from c 4000-1000 BC, a marine mammal-hunting tradition. The principal excavated sites are Sitkalidak Roadcut (Kodiak Islands) and Takli Island.
Oleneostrovski Mogilnik: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large Mesolithic cemetery on Lake Onega in northern Russia with thousands of artifacts from the excavated graves.
overburden: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Soil and rock overlying a bed of clay or other base to be dug, excavated, mined, or quarried.
pa: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A Maori term for a fortified village. Excavated examples, mostly in the North Island of New Zealand, are of Classic Maori date. Most are defended by ditch-bank combinations or scarped terraces (Kauri Point, Otakanini, Tirimoana), but some were built up from swamps and defended by multiple rows of palisades (Lake Mangakaware, Lake Ngaroto).
Padre Island: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site off the coast of Texas with the remains of three Spanish treasure ships that wrecked in 1554. The ships have been scientifically excavated.
Palliser Bay: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An area at the southern limit of New Zealand's North Island with Archaic Maori sites associated with sweet potato cultivation, attesting a fairly large horticultural population between 1100-1400 AD. After 1450 the area became depopulated, due to environmental degradation and an adverse climatic change. Settlements and burials have been excavated
Panlongcheng: SYNONYM: P'an-lung-ch'eng
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Chinese archaeological site from about the middle of the Shang dynasty period (18th-12th century BC). The site, located near the confluence of the Yangtze and Han-shui rivers in central Hupei, consists of five graves and two storage pits. It is thought to be the southernmost outpost of the political system in the 15th-13th centuries BC. Palatial foundations, elite burials with Erligang-style bronze ritual vessels, and a hang-tu city wall have been excavated. There are poor burials, pottery, stone tools, and other bronze items. The earliest wood carvings yet found in China were at Panlongcheng.
Pantelleria: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Small island in the central Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia. A fortified Neolithic village c 3000 BC has been excavated, with remains of huts, pottery, and obsidian tools. Of volcanic origin, it has a source of obsidian which was exploited in prehistory. There are tombs, known as sesi, similar to the nuraghi of Sardinia, comprising rough lava towers with sepulchral chambers in them. After a considerable interval of no habitation, the Phoenicians established a trading station there in the 7th century BC. Later controlled by the Carthaginians, it was occupied by the Romans in 217 BC. Under the Roman Empire it served as a place of banishment.
Paso: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A shell mound on the shore of Lake Tondano in northern Sulawesi, which is the best-preserved pre-Neolithic midden to be excavated in Indonesia. Dated to c 6500 BC, there are obsidian flake tools and bone points pre-dating the Toalian. Its inhabitants lived on shellfish and hunted the local fauna. Paso provides and important terminus post quem for the small flake and blade industries and Neolithic cultures (after 3000 BC) which later appear in the region.
pedestaling or pedestalling: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: An excavation technique in which excavated items are left in place (in situ) on columns of soil until the entire unit is excavated.
Peyrony, Denis (1869-1954): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French prehistorian who discovered the cave art at Font de Gaume, Bernifal, and Teyjat and excavated at La Ferassie and Laugerie Haute. He proposed the Perigordian system and founded the prehistory museum of Les Eyzies. The La Ferassie skeletons are hominid fossils found in a rock shelter gravesite north of Bugue, Dordogne, Fr., by R. Capitan and D. Peyrony between 1909-1921, but not fully reported until 1934. The fossils of La Ferassie are estimated to date from about 60,000 years ago and are associated with the Mousterian stone tool industry.
Piette, Edouard (1827-1906): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French prehistorian who excavated many caves in the Pyrenees and was the first to recognize the Azilian culture, bridging the gap between the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. He was a pioneer in accepting the authenticity of Altamira's art and worked at Le Mas D'Azil and Brassempouy. He amassed the greatest collection of Palaeolithic portable art for the French government. He was the author of various classificatory schemes for prehistory, subdividing the Palaeolithic period into three, the Amydgalithic, Niphetic and Glyptic periods (approximately equivalent to the Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic), but this system was never very widely adopted.
Piotrovsky, Boris B. (1908-?): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Russian archaeologist who excavated Urartu (Armenia), the citadel of Karmir-Blur (ancient Teishebaini). He wrote on the Scythians in Caucasus and Transcaucasia. Urartu" (1967) offers a popular survey of the kingdom's art while his "The Ancient Civilization of Urartu" (1969) is an illustrated political and cultural history."
pothunter or pot-hunter: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Any person who collects archaeological objects or excavates sites in an unscientific manner for personal gain, and whose actions result in the destruction of surrounding data. Pothunting is illegal artifact collecting.
probe: SYNONYM: soil probe
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A tool consisting of a metal rod or tube pushed into unexcavated deposits to locate as yet unexposed hard features such as walls, floors, or bed rock. It is also used for exploring subsurface stratigraphy and is less expensive than a core but works down only a few meters.
provenience lot: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A defined spatial area, in either two dimensions (for surface data) or three dimensions (for excavated data), used as a minimal unit for provenience determination and recording.
Pusan: SYNONYM: Busan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A region of the South Korean peninsula with a well-excavated prehistoric sequence. The first period, Chodo, is not dated but may be contemporary with the Early Jomon of Japan. The Chodo culture is ceramic and classed as Neolithic. The second period, Mokto, has a radiocarbon date of c 3950 BC. The third period, Pusan, is radiocarbon dated to c 3000 BC and was succeeded by the Tudo period characterized by 'comb-pattern' ware. Trade with Japan is documented by imported obsidian and by glycemeris shell bracelets.
Qasr Ibrim: SYNONYM: ancient Pedeme, Primis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site of a Lower Nubian fortified settlement, now located on a headland in Lake Nasser. Its occupation was almost continual and mainly military from as early as the New Kingdom. A Roman garrison has been excavated. It was abandoned in 1812 AD.
quadrant method: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A procedure for excavating a circular feature such as a mound, barrow, pit, etc. by laying out trenches. Material is extracted from four quarters of the feature, starting with the two opposite each other and ending with the other two. The quadrants are slightly offset, so that the outer face of the east balk of one is continuous (in reverse) with the outer face of the east balk of its opposite, going through the center of the feature. After the recording of the sections, the balks may be removed and the rest of the center excavated. Before the complete removal of the feature, it allows a look at all four quarters, at two complete cross-sections, and at part of the center, allowing a better interpretation of the stratigraphy of the site.
ranging pole: SYNONYM: range rod, line rod, lining pole, range pole, ranging rod, sight rod
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: In surveying, a rod or pole for setting a straight line, for sighting points and lines, or for showing the position of a ground point. The pole, often 6-8 feet long, is graduated for measuring vertical distances and is frequently included in photographs of an excavated site.
recovery theory: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Any of the various principles that archaeologists employ in the process of recovery, such as where and how to search for sites and how to excavate those sites.
Reisner, George Andrew (1867-1942): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American Egyptologist who set new standards in Egyptian archaeology with his meticulous excavation methods, which were then comparable only with those of the British archaeologist Flinders Petrie. He carried out long-term excavations at Giza, Nag ed-Der, Kerma, and Deir el-Ballas. He directed a campaign in Nubia to survey threatened monuments, and conducted excavations at Samaria in Palestine and in Sudan (Kerma, Meroe, Gebel Barkal). In Egypt, he excavated many tombs (Pyramid of Menkaure, tomb of Hetepheres) and the Valley Temple of Mycerinus at Giza.
Rogachev, Aleksandr Nikolaevich (1912-1984): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Soviet archaeologist who specialized in the Palaeolithic and the study of stratigraphy and remains at Kostenki-Borshchevo sites. He also excavated at Avdeevo.
Roy Mata (b ?-c 1265): SYNONYM: Roymata
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A great chief of central Vanuatu, especially on the island of Efate and Retoka, who arrived around 1200 AD and set up a highly stratified society. His death was marked by an elaborate ritual that included the burying alive of one man and one woman from each of the clans under his influence. His grave, on Retoka, has been excavated and it was surrounded by evidence for the mass-sacrifice of 35 retainers, including 11 male-female pairs. Many bodies had ankle, wrist and neck ornaments of shells and pig tusks.
Rudenko, Sergei I. (1885-1969): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Russian archaeologist and ethnographer who became an expert on the peoples of Siberia and the Volga area. He excavated the frozen tombs at Pazyryk and wrote Frozen Tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk Burials of Iron Age Horsemen" (1970)."
saff tomb: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A type of rock-cut tomb of the Theban 11th Dynasty that consisting of a row of openings -- or colonnade -- in the hillside. They were constructed primarily in the el-Tarif area of western Thebes for the local rulers of the 11th Dynasty (Intef I-III, 2125-2055 BC). The term 'saff' (Arabic for 'row') refers to the rows of rock-cut pillars which stood around three sides of a large trapezoidal sunk forecourt, forming the distinctive frontage of each of the tomb chapels. Private saff tombs have also been excavated at Armant and Dendera.
Saintonge ware: CATEGORY: ceramics; culture
DEFINITION: Major pottery industry in the region of Saintes in western France from the 13th century until recent times. The best-known of these wares are the tall jugs with polychrome glazed decoration which appear to have been traded with western French wine to the English. The jugs exported were only one of the variety of wares made at centers like La Chapelle des Pots, where kilns and workshops have been excavated. Saintonge was originally the territory inhabited by the Santones, a Gallic tribe.
sample assemblage: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: The portion of the fossil assemblage that has been excavated or collected and then analyzed.
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. "
Savernake ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Output from a substantial Roman pottery industry focused in northwest Wiltshire, especially the area now known as Savernake Forest. A number of kilns have been excavated and together suggest a nucleated industry comprising many separate workshops. The pottery itself is typically light grey in color, flint-tempered, with clay pellets and grog visible in the fabric. Typical products include jars, bowls, flagons, butt beakers, and platters. Output starts at about the time of the Roman conquest or a little before and continues through into the later 2nd century AD.
Schliemann, Heinrich (1822-1890): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: German businessman and archaeologist who discovered and excavated Troy, Tiryns, Mycenae, and Ithaca. Retiring from business a wealthy man at 41, he sought to identify Homer's Troy. He did so, on a site overlooking the Dardanelles with nine superimposed cities containing a startling wealth of material. He was the first to recognize stratigraphy in a Near Eastern tell (Hisarlik was the first large dry-land man-made mound to be dug.), he popularized archaeology; and he set standards of careful observation, recording, and rapid publication. He also worked at Mycenae, where his discovery of the shaft graves and their implications was as important as his work at Troy. Schliemann, together with Wilhelm Dörpfeld, excavated the great fortified site of Tiryns near Mycenae. They revealed the wealth and civilization of the Aegean Bronze Age and gave added support to the reliability of the classical legends. Modern archaeologists have criticized his approaches, but Schleimann remains a pioneer and extremely important contributor to the study of the Mycenaean civilization. He had long thought that there must have existed in the Mediterranean a civilization earlier than Mycenae and Bronze Age Hisarlik, and he guessed that it might be in Crete. At one time he wanted to excavate in Crete, but he could not agree to the price asked for the land. The discovery of the pre-Mycenaean civilization of Minoan Crete was left to Sir Arthur Evans, 10 years after Schliemann's death.
screening: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The passing of excavated matrix through a metal mesh to recover artifacts and larger ecofacts.
section: SYNONYM: 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'.
Shahr-i Qumis: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Parthian city in northeast Iran with occupation of some kind from the Iron Age to the Seljuq period; ended by the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. The size of the Parthian city and its location on a major highway linking Mesopotamia with Central Asia suggests that it might be the Parthian capital known to the Greeks as Hecatompylos ('The City of a Hundred Gates'). Parthian structures that have been excavated include vaulted mud-brick chambers used for burials; and a fortified mansion with six towers, a large courtyard, and a number of long rooms on the ground floor.
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.
Shamshi-Adad I (c 1813-1781 BC): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The first of the great rulers of Assyria, who started with a tribe near Mari on the Euphrates River. He created an empire in northern Mesopotamia from the middle Euphrates to the mountains in the east. His capitals were at Assur and Shubat-Enlil. His sons, Ekallatum and Mari, acted as governors -- but could not maintain the empire after Shamshi-Adad's death. The remains of Shamshi-Adad's palace were partially excavated, with the most important find at the site being an archive of royal correspondence preserved on more than 1,000 cuneiform tablets. The archives consist mostly of financial and administrative records, with some diplomatic correspondence between the ruler of Shubat-Enlil and neighboring kings. They complement the archives found at the site of the ancient city of Mari in the great palace of Zimrilim.
Sipán: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the northern coast of Peru, in the Lambayeque region, with a complex of tombs of the Moche culture (Early Intermediate Period). There are royal or very lavish tombs, including that of the Lord of Sipán, a warrior-priest, with spectacular artifacts. Several more burial chambers containing the remains of Moche royalty have been excavated, all dating from c 300 AD. These finds have greatly aided the understanding of Moche society, religion, and culture.
Snaketown: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large, important Hohokam site in the lower Gila River valley of Arizona with 1400 years of continuous occupation beginning c 300 BC. It is the best documented of all Hohokam villages, with 60 mounds (some rubbish heaps, others platforms) and a ball court, as well as fields, irrigation canals, and more than 200 excavated pithouses. The pottery and shell show craft specialization and contact with Mesoamerican cultures. At its peak, c 1100, the village had about 1,000 inhabitants, but was abandoned then or soon after. Snaketown followed the standard sequence of Hohokam development, with Mexican influence becoming marked during the final centuries.
Staré Mesto: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Settlement site (Old Town") in the March Valley of Poland on the right bank of the Vltava dating from the 12th century. A fortified citadel with a stone-and-mortar church and rich graves have been excavated. It was a great industrial center specializing in gold work."
stratigraphic excavation: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The layers of a site are excavated accroding to their natural shapes and dimensions and in the reverse order to that in which they were deposited.
Strong, William Duncan (1899-1962): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American anthropologist who was a pioneer of Plains archaeology and one of the founders of modern Peruvian archaeology. He excavated extensively on coast of Nazca, in Pachacamac, Paracas, and Viru Valley. He also worked on south coast and defined stylistic relationships between the various pre-Inca cultures of the area. Strong helped developed the Direct Historical Approach of working back through archaeological sequences from the known historical past.
Szegar-Tuzkoves: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A later Neolithic settlement near Szentes, southeast Hungary. There is an occupation of the Szakalhát (Alföld Linear Pottery) of the late 5th millennium BC and a Tisza culture level dated to the 4th millennium BC. Several complete Tisza culture house plans have been excavated, some with bucrania on the gable ends. Also found was the 'Sickle God', a complete, seated, fired-clay male figurine carrying a sickle.
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).
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."
Trialeti: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in southern George in the Caucasus where kurgans have been excavated and an extensive culture revealed. The Bronze Age burials (c 2nd millennium BC) were often accompanied by chariots, gold and other metal objects, jewelry, and pottery.
Tsountas, Christos (1857-1934): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Greek archaeologist who excavated cemeteries of earlier phases of the Bronze Age on other Cycladic islands and continued the work begun by Heinrich Schliemann at Mycenae. He also investigated settlement sites in Thessaly (Dhimini, Sesklo).
Ugarit: SYNONYM: modern Ras Shamra, Ra's Shamra
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important site of an ancient Syrian city, north of Latakia on the Syrian coast, occupied from an aceramic Early Neolithic (7th millennium BC) through the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It was destroyed c 1200 BC; its fall coincided with the invasion of the Northern and Sea Peoples and earthquakes and famines. In its last three centuries it was in commercial contact with Egypt, the Hittites, and the Mycenaeans. Temples to Baal and Dagon (2nd millennium BC) and an elaborate palace with archives of cuneiform clay tablets have been excavated. These commercial and administrative documents and religious texts are very important records of the Canaanites. The texts are written either in the Babylonian cuneiform script or in the special alphabetic cuneiform script invented in Ugarit, dating to the 15th-14th centuries BC when it came first under strong Egyptian influence and then under Hittite dominance. Ugarit may be credited with the development of the first true alphabet: simplified cuneiform signs were used for an alphabet of 30 letters. Bronzes, ivories, stelae, high priest's library, and built tombs also survive.
Ushki Lake: SYNONYM: Ushki
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Five sites in Kamchatka, Siberia, with Neolithic levels overlying Upper Palaeolithic. Wedge-shaped cores and sidescrapers have been dated to the early Holocene c 8790 bp. A Dyuktai culture assemblage is dated to c 10,760-10360 bp. The lowest layer is c 14,300-13,600 bp with stemmed bifacial points and perforated stone ornaments. Hearths and a burial were excavated in this level, with red ochre surviving. This is the only Palaeolithic site in Siberia to represent a tundra rather than a forest adaptation.
Valdivia pottery: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Formative period culture dating to the later 4th millennium BC on the coast of Ecuador, South America, named after a site of the same name excavated by B. Meggars and C. Evans in the early 1960s. The culture is important in being amongst the earliest in the region to have a developed ceramics industry which used a variety of plastic techniques for decorative motifs. Artifacts suggest a marine-orientated subsistence pattern.
Wace, Alan (1879-1957): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British archaeologist who was director of the British School at Athens and excavated in Laconia, Thessaly, and Mycenae. He discovered one of the earliest royal burials at Mycenae, a grave circle consisting essentially of vertical shafts cut into bedrock.
Western Chin Dynasty: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A phase of the Chin dynasty, ruling China from AD 265 to 317. Important tombs of this period have been excavated in Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces in southeastern China, as well as Yüeh ware and rare jewelry items.
Wilkinson, (Sir) John Gardner (1797-1875): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British Egyptologist who traveled, surveyed, and excavated such sites as Karnak, Valley of the Kings, and ancient Nubian capital of Gebel Barkal. He was the first to produce a detailed plan of the ancient capital city of Akhenaten at el-Amarna and his map of the Theban temples and tombs was the first comprehensive survey of the region. He spent 12 years (1821-1833) copying and collecting material in Egypt and his copies of monuments and texts were then made available to European scholars.
Worsaae, Jens Jacob Asmussen (1821-1886): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Danish archaeologist who laid the foundations for the study of prehistory. He was the successor to Christian J. Thomsen at the National Museum at Copenhagen and he applied the Three Age System to stone monuments. He wrote Danmarks Oldtid oplyst ved Oldsager og Gravhøie" ("The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark" 1843) which introduced such other concepts as nomenclature typology and diffusion and discusses the value and principles of prehistoric research. He focused on the study of excavated artifacts particularly in their geographic and stratigraphic contexts. His standards and professionalism put him ahead of his time."
Xiasi: SYNONYM: 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.
Xinyang: SYNONYM: Hsin-yang
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City in southern Honan province, China, traditionally on a cultural divide between the plains and the hilly districts. The area has been settled since early times. Neolithic remains have been discovered in several sites, and important finds from the southern culture of Ch'u (722-220 BC) have also been made in the vicinity. Two large Ch'u tombs of the 4th century BC have been excavated, which included 13 bronze bells and many fine painted lacquers.
Xiongnu: SYNONYM: Hsiung-nu
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Tribal confederation of mounted nomads who dominated the Mongolian steppes during much of the Han dynasty and formed c 5th century BC. They dominated the area for more than 500 years. Their raids on the northern Chinese spurred the building of the Great Wall during the Zhou (Chou) period. Few archaeological remains are definitely assigned to the Xiongnu. Kurgans with horse burials excavated in Noin Ula are thought to be 1st-century AD tombs of Xiongnu nobility. Aristocratic burials in Liaoning province and in Mongolia have yielded a wealth of gold and silver objects. In 51 BC the Xiongnu empire split into two bands: an eastern horde, which submitted to the Chinese, and a western horde, which was driven into Central Asia. China's wars against the Xiongnu led to the Chinese exploration and conquest of much of Central Asia.
Yarim Tepe 2: SYNONYM: Yarim Tepe
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Tell site near the Caspian Sea in northern Iraq occupied in the Halaf period. Many circular houses have been excavated and a rectangular building that may be a shrine. It was then abandoned and reoccupied in the late 4th millennium BC. Yarim 2 is mainly of the Middle Halaf period, with tholos architecture and painted pottery. Abandoned again in the early 2nd millennium BC, it was reoccupied in the Iron Age (late 1st millennium BC). The site was occupied into the late Parthian period, c 200 AD.
Yeavering: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Royal seat of the Anglo-Saxon Northumbria, England, in the 7th century AD and site of an impressive group of buildings. Great timber halls and a semicircular timber grandstand for meetings and assemblies have been excavated. Of the smaller buildings uncovered, one is thought to have been converted from a pagan temple into a church. It has advanced our knowledge of Saxon timber architecture.
Yungang: SYNONYM: Yun-kang
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Series of magnificent Chinese Buddhist cave temples created in the 5th century AD (Six Dynasties period) and located just west of the city of Ta-t'ung (Datong). The caves are among the earliest remaining examples of the first major flowering of Buddhist art in China. A low ridge of soft sandstone was excavated to form about 20 major cave temples and many smaller niches and caves. Activity at Yungang declined after 494, when the Northern Wei capital moved from Datong to Luoyang (Lo-yang).

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