Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for gold:

Cibola: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Seven Golden Cities of Cibola
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A mythical gold-rich land sought by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, legendary cities of splendor and riches. The fabulous cities were first reported by Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca who, after being shipwrecked off Florida in 1528, had wandered through what later became Texas and northern Mexico before his rescue in 1536. In 1540, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was sent to search for the cities; he found only a group of Zuni pueblos, though he had explored as far north as modern Kansas.
gold: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A chemical element; a dense, lustrous, yellow precious metal with several qualities that have made it exceptionally valuable throughout history. It is attractive in color and brightness, durable to the point of virtual indestructibility, highly malleable, and usually found in nature in a comparatively pure form. It was one of the first metals to be exploited by man. Early working was basically by hammering, to which more complicated techniques like casting, soldering, granulation, and filigree were later added.
gold-figured: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Greek technique of decorating silver plate with gold foil, especially on cups, phiale, and kantharos. Detail is incised in the gold foil and the decoration is similar to the red-figured technique used particularly on Athenian pottery.
gold-glass: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Denoting a technique used to decorate Greek silver plate with gold foil. Some of the more important examples of the technique, which include cups, a phiale, and a kantharos, have been found at Duvanli and Semibratny with complex figured scenes like chariot races. Detail is incised in the gold foil. It is used particular on Athenian pottery.
Abbasids: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The second of two Arab dynasties of the Muslim Empire of the Caliphate (caliphs = rulers) and descended from al-Abbas, uncle of the Prophet Muhammad. It overthrew the Umayyad caliphate in AD 750 and was based in Baghdad until 1258 when it was sacked by the Mongols. The end of the Umayyad dynasty meant a shift in power from Syria to Iraq. The Abbasids' settlement in Baghdad marked the beginning of the golden age of Arabic literature. The Abbasids, of great intellectual curiosity, adapted elements of earlier high cultures and incorporated them into their own.
acratophorum: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Greek and Roman table vessel for holding pure wine, as opposed to the crater which held wine mixed with water. This vessel was often made of earthenware and metal, though some were gold or silver.
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.
Alaca Hüyük: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in north central Turkey, near Boghaz Köy and 150 km east of Ankara, that was occupied in the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd millennia BC. Its Chalcolithic and Copper Age phases include a cemetery of 13 extremely rich tombs from c 2500 BC (Early Bronze Age II). The burials were single and double inhumations in rectangular pits, with fine metalwork including copper figurines (thought to be mounts from funeral standards), sun discs, ornaments, weapons, jugs and goblets, diadems, bracelets, and beads. The quantity of gold and copper imply that this was a royal cemetery. The tombs were lined with rough stone and skulls and hooves of animals were hung from the wooden beams as part of the funeral rite. The site was later reoccupied under the Hittites, who erected a monumental gateway with two great stone sphinxes. It has been tentatively identified as the Hittite holy city of Arinna.
Alfred Jewel: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An elaborate gold ornament which is an example of 9th century Anglo-Saxon craftsmanship and found at Somerset, England in 1893 (now in Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). It consists of an enameled plaque with an oval portrait in different-colored Cloisonné, enhanced with filigree wire and backed by a flat piece of gold engraved with foliate decoration. Engraved around the frame are the Old English words which translate to, 'Alfred ordered me to be made', assumed to be King Alfred.
alloy: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Any of a number of substances which are a mixture of two or more metals, such as bronze (copper and tin), brass (copper and zinc), or tumbaga (copper and gold). An alloy has properties superior to those of the individual metals. They are not simple mixtures, but complex crystalline structures which may differ considerably from any of their constituents. Slight alterations of the proportions of the metals can bring significant changes in the properties of the alloy. Alloys containing only two major metals are known as binary alloys and those with three as ternary alloys. Gold is alloyed with various metals; when mixed with mercury it is called an amalgam and with silver, native gold. Bronze was the most important alloy in antiquity. The term is also used to describe the technique of mixing the metals.
Amlash: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in northwest Iran, southwest of the Caspian Sea, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Rich burials in tombs have produced gold and silver vessels, pottery figurines, animal-shaped pottery rhytons (ritual vessels) -- material similar to that at Marlik Tepe.
amphora: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plural amphorae, amphoras
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A large Greek or Roman earthenware storage jar, with a narrow neck and mouth and two handles (two-eared"; each called an anem) at the top. The body of the jar is usually oval and long with a pointed bottom. It was used for holding or transporting liquids especially wine or oil and other substances such as resin. Its shape made it easy to handle and ideal for tying onto a mule's or donkey's back. They were often placed side-by-side in upright positions in a sand-floored cellar. Sinking it into the sand or ground kept the contents cool. Amphorae were also made of glass onyx gold stone and brass and some had conventional jar bottoms with a flat surface. The container would be sealed when full and the handle usually carried an amphora stamp impressed before firing giving details such as the source the potter's name the date and the capacity. Amphorae were probably not normally re-used."
Aniba: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Miam
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a cemetery and settlement in Lower Nubia, founded as an Egyptian fortress in the Middle Kingdom (2055-1650 BC). It is near the gold-mining region of Nubia.
Animal Style: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A term describing a type of gold production whose themes were animals and which arose from the Scythians, a seminomadic people from the Eurasian steppes who moved from southern Russia into the territory between the Don and the Danube and then into Mesopotamia. During the 5th-4th centuries BC, this style appeared on shaped, pierced plaques made of gold and silver, which showed running or fighting animals (reindeer, lions, tigers, horses) alone or in pairs facing each other. The animal-style had a strong influence in western Asia during the 7th century BC. Ornaments such as necklaces, bracelets, pectorals, diadems, and earrings making up the Ziwiye treasure (found in Iran near the border of Azerbaijan) show evidence of highly expressive animal forms. This Central Asian Scythian-Iranian style passed by way of Phoenician trading in the 8th century BC into the Mediterranean and into Western jewelry. The most popular themes are antlered stags, ibexes, felines, birds of prey and, above all, the animal-combat motif, which shows a predator, usually bird or feline, attacking a herbivore. The joining of different animals and the use of tiny animal figures to decorate the body of an animal are also characteristic. Animal bodies were also contorted -- animals curved into circles and quadrupeds with hindquarters inverted. The term is shorthand for this complex of motifs and treatments, which for long periods represented the art of the vast steppe zone of Europe and Asia. The transformations they underwent in the course of their long history on the steppes often leave the sources and affiliations of particular versions obscure.
Archanes: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arkhanes
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Minoan site on Crete with a 16th century BC palatial structure, cemetery complex, and artifacts of gold, ivory, and marble.
Ardagh Chalice: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A large, two-handled silver cup decorated with gold, gilt bronze, and enamel, that is one of the finest examples of early Christian art from the British Isles. Discovered in 1868 along with a small bronze cup and four brooches in a potato field in Ardagh, Ireland, the chalice may have been part of the buried loot form a monastery after an Irish or Viking raid. The outside of the bowl is engraved with the Latin names of some of the Apostles. There are similarities between the letters of the inscription and some of the large initials in the Lindisfarne Gospels, which probably dates from about 710-720 AD. Thus, the Ardagh Chalice is thought to date from the first half of the 8th century. The chalice displays exceptional artistic and technical skills applied to a variety of precious materials. So far, its manufacture has not been attributed to a particular workshop but the chalice does have similarities to the celebrated Tara brooch and the Moylough belt-reliquary. It is now housed in the National Museum of Ireland at Dublin.
Argar, El: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age settlement near Almeria in southeast Spain that is the type site of a culture of the 2nd millennium BC. The settlement was fortified and contained rectangular stone houses, though little has been recovered as they are not as well-preserved as the Argaric sites Ifre and El Oficio. The settlement also contained 950 interments, with the earliest in cists and later switching to jar burial. Grave goods in the cist burial phase included daggers, halberds, and wristguards. In the jar burials, there was also faience, and swords and axes of copper or bronze and gold and silver ornaments. Silver was more common in this area than anywhere else in Europe at the time. The pottery of this culture was plain burnished in simple shapes. The Agaric culture, which developed trading with eastern Mediterranean centers, reached its peak between 1700-1000 BC and spread through the central, southern, and Levantine regions and to the Balearic Islands. The area may owe its origin to immigration from western Greece.
Ariusd: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Erosd
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic settlement (c 3000 BC) found on a site in Romania's Upper Olt Valley. The regional painted ware is a variant of the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture. At the site, there are at least seven occupation horizons, some with gold jewelry and copper artifacts. The seventh level was a late Copper Age assemblage of the Schneckenberg type.
Armorico-British dagger: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Breton dagger
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of bronze dagger found in the ESSEX I Phase of the early Bronze Age (c.1700-1500 BC) in southern Britain which has similarities with examples from Brittany. It has a flat triangular blade, lateral grooves, and six rivets for attaching the blade to the hilt. Sometimes a small tang or languette is present to assist securing the blade to the hilt. Traces of wooden and leather sheaths have been found with some blades; the hilts were probably of wood and in the case of an example found in the Bush Barrow, Wiltshire, were inlaid with gold tacks.
Aten: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Aton, Yati
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: The deity represented in the form of a sun disk and introduced as the sole gold by the heretic pharaoh, Akhenaten (Amenophis IV, 1353-1336 BC) during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, c 1350 BC. Akhenaten built the city of Akhetaton (now Tell el-Amarna) and established a temple at Karnak dedicated to Aten's worship. The sun god was depicted as the solar disk with rays terminating in human hands.
Aulnat: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important Iron Age settlement site in Puy-de-Dome, France, dating to the 3rd century BC, with evidence of gold, silver, bronze, coral, glass, bone, and textiles. It was abandoned soon after the Roman conquest.
aureus: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A gold coin that was a unit of currency in the Roman Empire between 30 be and ad 310
Awdaghast: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tegdaoust
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a trading center in southern Mauritania at the southern end of the main caravan route across the Sahara to Ghana. In the closing centuries of the 1st millennium AD, it is probably that much gold was exported northwards along this route.
Axum: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Aksum
CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A kingdom formed from at least the 1st century AD in southwestern Ethiopia which developed into an empire including northern Ethiopia, Sudan, and southern Arabia. It is also the name of a city there, in existence since the 3rd century AD which rose to be the center of the kingdom. The culture incorporated elements from pre-Axumite cultures of the area. It was the first state in eastern Africa to make gold, silver, and copper coins, which is evidence of economic prosperity from international trade (possibly of ivory). The history of Axum is reflected in the inscriptions and religious symbols on those coins, which run approximately from the 3rd-7th centuries. Axum adopted Christianity in 4th century. There is archaeological evidence for large multi-story stone buildings and a series of monolithic funerary stelae up to 33 meters high. Axum was finally conquered by the Axumites in the 4th century, though it achieved political control over parts of southern Arabia in the 6th century. Thereafter it declined and was sacked in the 10th century.
Bambuk: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An area of alluvial gold fields in Guinea, near the headwaters of the Niger and Senegal Rivers. The gold, traded to trans-Saharan markets, contributed to the wealth of the empires of Ghana and Mali which had an intermediate position between Bambuk and the markets.
Batán Grande: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large architectural complexes of South America located in the Lambayeque valley of north coastal Peru. The site has more than 30 huge platform mounds with an estimated 750,000 burials -- most of them looted by treasure hunters who have taken immense quantities of gold, silver, copper, and bronze objects. Occupation at Batán Grande went from the Formative (Cupisnique) to the Inca period. The site was the capital of a powerful state between 850-1300 AD. With Batán Grande, Cerro de los Cementerios was a copper-processing area, linked to the Cerro Blanco mine by a prehistoric road. Excavations have revealed metal artifacts, smelting furnaces, grinding slabs, crushed slag, and pottery blowtubes.
battle-ax: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: battleaxe, battle-axe
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A type of prehistoric stone weapon, designed as a weapon of war. It is always of the shaft-hole variety, and frequently has a hammer, knob, or point at the opposite end from the cutting edge. In stone, they are common throughout most of Europe in the Late Neolithic and Copper Age, and often associated with corded ware and beakers. (The term Battle-Ax culture is often used as a synonym for Corded Ware or Single Grave culture.) Further east, more elaborate ones of copper or gold were more ceremonial than functional. The Vikings made iron battle-axes and used them well into the Middle Ages. The pole-ax is distinguished from the battle-ax by a spike on the back of the ax.
belt hook: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: toggle
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Small decorative and functional objects used as garment hooks in China, Korea, and other Near Eastern areas as early as the 7th century BC. Belt hooks have been found in Han tombs in southwestern China, but this luxury item was most in vogue during the Warring States period (5th-3rd centuries BC). These belt hooks were inlaid with gold or silver foil, polished fragments of turquoise, or more rarely with jade or glass; sometimes they were gilded. Most examples are bronze, often lavishly decorated with inlays, but some are made of jade, gold, or iron. The belt hook consists of a bar or flat strip curving into a hook at one end and carrying at the other end, on the back, a button for securing it to the belt. The hooks vary widely in size, shape, and design, and although contemporary sculptures sometimes show them at the waists of human figures, some examples are far too large to have been worn and their function is unclear. Textual evidence hints that the belt hook was adopted by the Chinese from the mounted nomads of the northern frontier of inner Asia, perhaps along with other articles of the horseman's costume. They were probably worn by both men and women.
Birdlip: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Celtic site near Gloucester, England, dated to the 1st century BC. There are four cist graves, one with a woman's skeleton together with bronze bowls, gold and silver bracelets, bronze brooch, and a bronze mirror with incised and enamel decoration.
Bodrogkeresztur: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a Middle Copper Age cemetery and culture in eastern Hungary, c 3900-3500 BC. It is the type site for an occupation that made Linear Pottery and used metal battle-axes and ax-adzes of shaft-hole type. The cemetery has at least fifty inhumation graves. The Bodrogkeresztur culture represents the first peak of metallurgical development in Hungarian prehistory, defined by large-scale production of gold ornaments and heavy shaft-hole copper tools. The occurrence of Transylvanian gold, Slovakian copper, and flint from Poland suggests long-distance exchanges.
Boscoreale: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of two villas that were suburbs of Rome, near Pompeii, with important and sumptuous artifacts and painted rooms dating c 40 BC. These include possessions of the great patrician families of Rome, such as paintings illustrating Dionysiac mysteries, jewels, and magnificent gold and silver household furnishings. The cubiculum of one villa at Boscoreale is preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of New York City and other items are kept at the Louvre. Many of the rich hoards were accidentally saved by the volcanic catastrophe of 79 AD.
boshanlu: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Chinese incense burner (lu) with a lid designed to represent mountain peaks, such as Boshan, a mountain in Shangdong province. They are stemmed bowls of pottery or bronze with a perforated conical lid. Most examples date from the western Han period. One from the tomb of Liu sheng (d.113 BC) at Mancheng, is inlaid with gold.
bracteate: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A coin, medal, dish or ornament made of thin, beaten metal -- usually gold or silver. These items were often disk-shaped -- hollow on the underside and convex on the upper.
Brak, Tell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Brak, Tall Birak at-Tahtani
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell on the upper Khabur River in Syria which had an Akkadian fortress and garrison and was occupied from at least the Halaf and Ubaid period until the mid-2nd millennium BC. On the Syrian-Iraqi border, it was a powerful fortress on the imperial line of communication and its most important remains are the four 'Eye Temples' of the Jemdet Nasr period, c 3000 BC. They are so-called for the large number of small, flat alabaster figurines of which the eyes are the only recognizable features. Eye temples were decorated with clay cones, copper panels, and gold work, in a style very similar to that found in the contemporary temples of Sumer. Halaf, Ubaid, and Uruk sherds have been found. When the site became a frontier post of the kingdom of Akkad, a palace was built by Naram-Sin c 2280 BC, and it became a depot for the storage of tribute and loot. The city was plundered after the fall of the Akkadian empire, but the palace was rebuilt in the Ur III period by Ur Nammu. A Roman fort was built there later.
brass: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: The general name for alloys of copper with zinc or tin, with the proportions about 70-90% copper and 10-30% of the other base metal. It is possible that due to difficulties in introducing the zinc ore calamine into the melt, brass appeared later in use than bronze (copper and tin) and other copper alloys. Mosaic gold, pinchbeck, prince's metal, are varieties of brass differing in the proportions of the ingredients. Corinthian brass is an alloy of gold, silver, and copper.
Buhen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Egyptian fort site of Lower Nubia, near Wadi Halfa, where the ruins of an Egyptian colony of the Middle Kingdom are located. Pharaoh Snefru (c 2575 BC) raided Nubia and established an Egyptian outpost at Buhen on the west bank of the Nile at the north end of the Second Cataract, and it endured for 200 years. Graffiti and inscribed seals at Buhen document Egyptian presence until late in the 5th dynasty (c 2325 BC). It was a center for Egyptian mining expeditions and to secure Egyptian control of trade in gold and other commodities. Buhen was probably abandoned in the face of immigration from the south and the deserts.
Byzantine empire: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Byzantium (later Constantinople, now Istanbul)
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The eastern half of the Roman Empire, based in Byzantium (later Constantinople, now Istanbul), an ancient Greek settlement on the European side of the Bosporus. It was inaugurated in AD 330 by the Emperor Constantine I who transferred the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium. The empire survived the collapse of the Western empire until overrun by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Originally a Greek colony at the entrance to the Black Sea, a typical Roman town was then laid out over it. Remains of the imperial palace lie south of the former Greek city nucleus. The land walls, giving the city an area greater than that of Rome, were built by Theodosius II (408-450 AD) and are among the best-preserved ancient fortifications anywhere. In the 7th century BC Dorian Greeks founded the settlement of Byzantium on a trapezoidal promontory on the European side of the Bosporus channel which leads from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and separates Europe from Asia. Septimus Severus (193-211 AD) was responsible for restoring the city, re-walling it and beginning the construction of the limestone racecourse, the Hippodrome. In 368 AD, Valens raised his still impressive aqueduct. In 413 Theodosius II built the colossal surviving walls of stone and brick-faced concrete, with 96 variously shaped towers, and the principal entrance at the Golden Gate. The Eastern Christian empire preserved much of Greek and Roman culture and introduced eastern ideas to the west. Byzantium was essentially a Christian church state, preserving its religion against the onslaught of Islam, despite the Arab encroachments on Palestine, Syria, and northern Africa during the 6th-7th centuries AD. The Byzantine period is the time, about the 6th-12th centuries AD, when its style of architecture and art developed. Byzantine architecture is noted for its Christian places of worship and introduced the cupola, or dome, an almost square ground plan in place of the long aisles of the Roman church, and piers instead of columns. The apse always formed part of Byzantine buildings, which were richly decorated, and contained much marble. St. Sophia (532-537), St. Mark's (Venice, 977) and the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle (796-804) are of pure Byzantine style. Byzantine painting preceded and foreshadowed the Renaissance of art in Italy. Mosaics are perhaps the supreme achievement of Byzantine art.
Cairo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arabic Al-Qahirah
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The capital of modern Egypt, which has more than 400 registered historical monuments -- the largest number of any African or Middle Eastern city -- dating from 130 AD. The ancient metropolis has stood for more than 1,000 years on the same site. The Pyramids of Giza stand at the southwestern edge of the Cairo metropolis. The Egyptian (National) Museum is in Cairo which specializes in antiquities of the Pharaonic and Greco-Roman periods. It contains more than 100,000 items, including some 1,700 items from the tomb of Tutankhamen, including the solid-gold mask that covered the pharaoh's head. Other treasures include reliefs, sarcophaguses, papyri, funerary art and the contents of various tombs, jewelry, ornaments of all kinds, and other objects.
cenote: CATEGORY: geology; geography
DEFINITION: A type of natural well or reservoir, common in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, formed when a limestone surface collapses, exposing water underneath. Cenotes are the major source of water in Yucatán and they are associated with the cult of the rain gods, or Chacs. In ancient times, especially at the Maya site of Chichén Itzá, precious objects, such as jade, gold, copper, and incense -- and human beings, usually children, were thrown into the cenotes as offerings. A survivor was believed to bring a message from the gods about the year's crops.
Cerveteri: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Caere; Roman Caere vetus, Etruscan Xaire, Greek Agylla
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the most important cities in Italy, north of Roman, whose earliest occupation was the Iron Age Villanovan of the 9th-8th centuries BC. It flourished from the 7th-5th centuries as one of the 12 major cities of the Etruscan federation. Two necropoleis from this period have been identified, with evidence for pit, trench, and chamber tombs. Accumulating wealth is reflected in the grandeur of many surviving tombs. There were two ports, Pyrgi and Alsium, the former with evidence of temples, which have provided scholars of the Etruscan language an important pieces of evidence -- a text on gold laminae. The city lost importance during the Roman period, and by the early Empire was reported to be no more than a village.
Chan Chan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Chanchan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient pre-Inca city on the northern coast of Peru, the capital of the Chimú kingdom c 1200-1400 AD. The ruins cover nearly 14 square miles (36 square km) and are in good condition because there is no rain. The buildings were made of adobe brick and there are 10 walled citadels (quadrangles) each containing pyramidal temples, cemeteries, gardens, symmetrical rooms, and reservoirs. These quadrangles probably the living quarters, burial places, and warehouses of the aristocracy. Most of the city's population (40,000-200,000 total) lived outside of the quadrangles in modest quarters. The Chimú kingdom was the chief state in Peru before the establishment of the Inca empire and its economy was agricultural. The Chimús made produced fine textiles and gold, silver, and copper objects. Between 1465-1470, the Chimú came under Inca rule. It was one of the largest Pre-Columbian cities in Peru.
Chavín de Huántar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Chavín
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The area of the great ruin of the earliest highly developed culture in pre-Columbian Peru, which flourished between about 900 and 200 BC and may have originated c 1200 BC. During this time Chavín art spread over the north and central parts of what is now Peru. It is not known whether this was the actual center of origin of the culture and art style. The central building at Chavín de Huántar is a massive temple complex constructed of dressed rectangular stone blocks, with interior galleries and bas-relief carvings on pillars and lintels. The principal motifs of the Chavín style are human, feline, and crocodilian or serpentine figures. Carved stone objects, fantastic pottery that demonstrates the most advanced skill, stone construction, and remarkably sophisticated goldwork have been found. Chavín pottery is known from the decorated types found in the temple and in graves on the northern coast, where it is called Cupisnique. Until the end of the period, the ware was monochrome -- dull red, brown, or gray -- and stonelike. Vessels were massive and heavy and the main forms are open bowls with vertical or slightly expanding sides and flat or gently rounded bases, flasks, and stirrup-spouted bottles. The surface may be modeled in relief or decorated by incision, stamping, brushing, rouletting, or dentate rocker-stamping. Some bowls have deeply incised designs on both the inside and outside faces. Its art style was never surpassed in the complexity of its iconography. The buildings, which show several periods of reconstruction, consist of various temple platforms containing a series of interlinked galleries and chambers on different levels. In the oldest part of the complex is a granite block, the Lanzón, on which is carved a human figure with feline fangs and with snakes in place of hair. Relief carvings in a similar style decorate the lintels, gateways, and cornices at the site, and human and jaguar heads of stone were on the outside wall of one of the platforms. On the coast, where stone is scarce, the highland architecture is replaced by work in adobe. Further south, the Paracas culture shows strong continuing Chavín influence.
Chibcha: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Muisca
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A South American people who lived in the high valleys around the modern cities of Bogota and Tunja in Colombia. They had a population of more than 500,000 and were more centralized politically than any other South American people outside the Inca empire. Each of the many small districts had its own chief and they belonged to several lesser states that in turn were allied to two major states, each headed by a hereditary ruler. The arrival of the Spanish cut short the Chibchas' development and their political structure was crushed in the 16th century. Their language was no longer spoken by the 18th century. Archaeological evidence is of a scattered rural population who cultivated highland crops and traded salt and emeralds for cotton, gold, and luxury goods. Gold, copper and tumbaga (a copper-gold alloy) were also worked in a variety of techniques. The ceremonial coating of the chief's body with gold leaf may well by the origin of the El Dorado legend. Chibcha's ceremonial practice centered around sun worship and included human sacrifice.
Chichén Itzá: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a ruined ancient Mayan city in south-central Yucatán state, Mexico. Chichén Itzá was founded in about the 6th century AD, presumably by Mayan peoples of the Yucatán Peninsula who had occupied the region since Pre-Classic, or Formative, Period times (1500 BC-AD 300). The only source of water in the region is from wells (Mayan cenotes) formed by the collapse of portions of the limestone formation of the area. Two big cenotes on the site made it a suitable place for the city and gave it its name, from chi (mouths") chen ("wells") and Itzá the name of the tribe that settled there. There are traces of early occupation at the site but the oldest surviving buildings are in the Puuc style of the 8th-early 10th centuries. In the 10th century after the collapse of the Maya cities of the southern lowlands Chichén Itzá was invaded -- probably by the Toltecs. New buildings have their closest parallels at Tula and offerings thrown into the Sacred Cenote or Well of Sacrifice show widespread trade contacts. Chichén Itzá was the dominant power in Yucatan until about 1200 when it was superseded by Mayapán. At the center of the site is the Castillo or temple-Pyramid of Kulkulkan the Maya equivalent of Quetzacóatl; this is linked by a causeway to the nearby Sacred Cenote. Other major structures include the Temple of the Warriors (in front of which stands a Chacmool) large 'dance platforms' the Group of a Thousand Columns the Temple of the Jaguars and the largest Ball Court in Mesoamerica. Bas-relief carvings on a massive skull rack (tzompantli) shows the Ball Game to be associated with scenes of sacrifice. Relief carvings with themes of conquest and violence about and representations of Maya warriors submitting to Toltec warriors have been found on gold discs recovered from the Sacred Cenote."
Chimú: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: South American Indians who created the largest and most important political system in Peru before the Inca, and who developed large-scale irrigation systems. The distinctive pottery of the Chimú aids in dating Andean civilization in the late periods along the north coast of Peru. The black pottery had molded reliefs with some vessels in the shape of people, animals, houses, and everyday items. The stirrup-spout and spout-and-bridge vessels are the most common forms. There were also objects of silver and gold. The Chimú expanded by conquest and the state began to form, according to legend, as a political entity was the creation of Ñançen-pinco (reigned c 1370 AD), but archaeology shows that Chimú material culture developed out of the terminal Moche (Mochica) culture of the north coast from c 850/900 onwards. Chanchan was capital, a vast settlement of giant rectangular enclosures. In 1465-70, however, they were conquered by the Inca, who absorbed much of the culture, including their political organization, irrigation systems, and road engineering.
Chiriquí: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An area of Panama known for its fine gold objects and elegant pottery, with dates from 1100 AD to the Spanish conquest though it may have begun centuries earlier in the highlands. The pottery is often decorated with negative painting or modeled animals. Some large stone sculptures from Penonomé, in Chiriquí, suggest the use of stone in large structures but apparently all of these structures were destroyed in the years after the Spanish Conquest.
Chotnica: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hotnica
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Tell settlement site of the Late Neolithic, c late 5th-early 4th millennium BC, in northern Bulgaria. The cultures found represent regional variants on Rumanian groups of the lower Danube Valley. There are three main occupation horizons: I, with pits and post holes and a rich pottery assemblage; II, Boian level with ceramics; and III, a complete village plan with over 15 houses. A hoard of 44+ gold ornaments was found in the third horizon.
chryselephantine statue: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of figurine sculpture made of ivory and gold. The flesh was of ivory and the drapery of gold. These were produced in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Crete, and in Greece from the 6th century BC. They were often colossal cult figures placed in the interiors of major temples, such as that of Minerva by Pheidias, which stood in the Acropolis at Athens and was 40 ft high, and that of Zeus, 45 ft high, also by Pheidias, in the temple of Olympia.
cloisonné: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A technique of decorative enameling in which different colors of a pattern are separated by thin strips of metal. It consists of soldering to a metal surface, thin metal strips bent to the outline of a design and filling the resulting spaces, called cloisons" (French for "partitions or cells") with vitreous enamel paste. The object is fired ground smooth and polished. Sometimes metal wire is used in place of gold brass silver or copper strips. It was used in Anglo-Saxon England and by Germanic metalsmiths to decorate polychrome jewelry and metalwork. The technique is somewhat similar to champlevé but it allows more intricacy of design. Among the earliest examples of cloisonné are six Mycenaean rings of the 13th century BC. The great Western period of cloisonné enameling was from the 10th-12th century especially in the Byzantine Empire. In China cloisonné was widely made during the Ming (1368-1644) and Ch'ing (1644-1911/12) dynasties. In Japan it was especially popular during the Tokugawa or Edo (1603-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) periods."
Coclé: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A region in Panama where the type site of Sitio Conte has yielded deep rectangular tombs with grave goods of a rich ceramic and metallurgical tradition of c 500-1000 AD. The Coclé region was strongly influenced by the Quimbaya style. It is particularly known for its striking gold pieces set with precious stones, including emeralds, quartzes, jaspers, opals, agates, and green serpentines. The extremely fine polychrome pottery is characterized by decoration of intricate geometric patterns and by stylized biomorphic forms. Gold- and tumbaga-working techniques, probably imported from Columbia, include cire perdue casting. Some association with Tairona is recognized in some artifacts especially in the wing-shaped pendants. In addition to the grave goods, there are indications that wife and servant sacrifice took place at the death of an important person.
coin: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A piece of metal or, rarely, of some other material (such as leather or porcelain) certified by a mark or marks upon it as being of a specific value. Coinage is considered to be any standardized series of metal tokens, their specific weights representing specific values, and usually stamped with designs and inscriptions. Coins or coinlike objects were first issued by the Lydians of Anatolia in the late 7th century BC, made of the gold-silver alloy electrum. Their use was then adopted in the Far East, then around the Mediterranean, and has since spread throughout the world. Early coins were used for specialized, prestigious purposes and not for everyday exchange. The early Greek coins were also made of electrum, silver, or gold; the first Roman coins were produced in the early 3rd century BC and were also made of precious metals. Later in that century the first bronze coin was introduced. These material remains are self-dating, though they do not always date" the materials they are found with as they may have been traded handed down through generations or displaced in the stratigraphy of a site."
coin balance: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Small lightweight scales used by merchants for checking the weight of coins offered in exchange. This was important because the value of a coin was in part determined by its metal content. Because precious metals such as gold and silver were used in making coins in order to retain their value, a good trade could be made by clipping off small amounts of metal from many coins to produce forged coins or other items.
cold hammering: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: cold working
CATEGORY: geology; artifact
DEFINITION: A technique for making metal artifacts in which the metal is shaped by percussion without heating. Most metals, such as copper, bronze, gold, and silver, are soft enough to be worked while cold. Operations such as hammering and beating could be carried out without any heating to make the metal softer. These softer metals, however, cannot be cold-worked indefinitely because the metal becomes brittle and eventually fractures. It can be counteracted by gentle heating called annealing. Annealing allows crystals within the metal to recrystallize and distribute the stress that has built up. Cold working can then go on until the metal becomes brittle again. Metallographic examination, the study of crystal structure, can give information about the cold working and annealing processes in the last stages of the making of an artifact. Pure gold is one of the few metals that can be cold worked indefinitely without annealing.
copper: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A ductile, malleable metallic element used in many functional and decorative artifacts. It was one of the first metals to be exploited by man because, like gold, it can be found in the native form, pure and requiring no smelting. It is most frequently obtained from a variety of ores: the carbonate (malachite), oxides, and sulphides. Shaping could be done by simple hammering, which served also to harden the metal. 'Pure' copper may contain up to one per cent of impurities and the concentrations of these impurities may indicate the source of the ore. Arsenical copper alloys (2-3% arsenic) have some advantages over pure copper in ease of casting and in the hardness of a hammered edge. In the New World, cire perdue casting of copper is first recorded in the Paracas culture of Peru and by the European conquest, the technique was practiced from the southwest U.S. to Argentina. Copper occurs fairly widely in the Old World, and was first used in Western Asia before 8000 BC as a substitute for stone, though it did not come into common use until after 4000 BC. Metallurgy dawned in Egypt as copper was cast to shape in molds (c 4000 BC), was reduced to metal from ores with fire and charcoal, and was intentionally alloyed with tin as bronze (c 3500 BC). The earliest surviving examples from Egypt are small artifacts such as beads and borers of the Badarian period, c 5500-4000 BC. Great copper hoards occur in the Ganges-Yamuna alluvial plain and just south of the lower Ganges, and elsewhere in India and Pakistan.
Coricancha: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The principal religious site of the Inca in their capital of Cuzco, Peru, called the enclosure of gold". There are temples dedicated to the sun stars rainbow thunder and moon. The walls were once covered with sheets of gold and life-sized statues in gold and silver were found there. Coricancha was thoroughly plundered during the Spanish Conquest."
cupellation: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A process in metallurgy, the separation of gold or silver from impurities by melting the impure metal in a cupel (crucible) and then directing a blast of hot air on it in a special furnace. The impurities, including lead, copper, tin, and other unwanted metals, are oxidized and partly vaporized and partly absorbed into the pores of the cupel. It is used to obtain silver by separating it from the lead with which it is naturally associated in argentiferous lead ores, or to obtain gold from the naturally occurring alloy of argentiferous gold (electrum).
Dacia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Roman frontier province north of the Danube in the area of the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania, in present-day western Romania, spanning c 106-270 AD. The Dacians were agricultural and worked their rich mines of gold, iron, and silver. As a people, they first lived south of the Danube and traded with the Greeks. They were a threat to the Romans from 112 BC, extending their kingdom. The Dacian Wars (85-89 AD) took place under the emperor Domitian and then the Romans under Trajan reopened hostilities in 101-106 AD, finally taking the country. The Dacian Wars were commemorated on Trajan's Column in Rome. The Romans exploited the Dacian mines, constructed roads, and made Sarmizegethusa and Tsierna (Orsova) colonies. The new province was divided under Hadrian: Dacia Superior was Transylvania and Dacia Inferior was the region of Walachia. Marcus Aurelius made the provinces a single military region in about 168 AD; but the province was abandoned by Aurelian in 270.
depletion gilding: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A New World metallurgical technique in which tumbaga (copper and gold alloy) metal artifacts wee treated with chemicals that removed much of the copper from the surface, leaving a finish that looks like pure gold.
Dian kingdom: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tien
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age culture and barbarian kingdom in southwest China centered on Lake Dian in Yunnan province. According to Chinese sources, the Dian royal house traced its descent from a Chu general who invaded Yunnan in the late 4th century BC and remained to rule the local tribes. In 109 BC, Dian surrendered to Han armies; a generation later the kingdom was destroyed after a revolt. The highly distinctive culture is known mainly from cemetery sites, especially Shizhaishan where the burials date from the Han occupation. Earlier burials of the period c 600-300 BC have been excavated at Dapona and Wanjiaba. Many of the objects unearthed at Shizhaishan were imports from China: coins, mirrors, belt hooks, silk, crossbow mechanisms, and a gold seal from the Han court that reads 'Seal of the King of Dian'. Other finds seem to be local adaptations of prototypes originating in the state of Chu. There was active trade with the southern Zhou states of Shu and Ba before the Han Dynasty.
Dowris: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Ireland where a hoard of over 200 bronzes of the Irish Late Bronze Age have been dated to the 8th century BC. Implements of the Dowris A phase (c 1000-c 800 BC) include many gold ornaments and a series of bronzes showing great proficiency in casting and sheet metalwork. Ireland was at this time in contact with Mediterranean and Nordic lands. Bronze cauldrons and V-notched shields demonstrate western links, while U-notched shields, bronze buckets and horns, pins with sunflower-shaped heads, and the use of conical rivets show connections with northern and central Europe. Ireland did not enter the Iron Age until just after 400 BC (i.e. during the La Tène period), though a few swords and axes show contact with Hallstatt Iron Age cultures. Dowris B and C were the final Irish bronze industries (c 800-400 BC) contemporary with the first part of the continental Iron Age.
Duvanli: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tumulus cemetery in Thrace (modern Bulgaria) of the 5th century BC, with imported Athenian pottery and items of Greek gold-figured silver plate.
el-Ajjul, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site in Palestine of the Early to Middle Bronze Age with graves including copper daggers. Tell el-Ajjul has large palaces and much gold jewelry and seals have been found in excavations.
Elam: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Elamite
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: An ancient kingdom of southwest Iran with its capital at Susa and other centers at Anshan and Dur-Untash. This broad valley of the Karkeh and Karun rivers was geographically an extension of the southern plain of Mesopotamia. Early on, it adopted writing and devised its own pictographic script (proto-Elamite) to suit its language; later it used Akkadian cuneiform. Politically the two regions were usually bitterly opposed and the Elamites overthrew the 3rd dynasty of Ur shortly before 2000 BC and raided as far as Babylon in the later 13th century BC. The Golden Age of Elamite civilization was c 1300-1100 BC, reaching its peak under Untash-Gal (c 1265-1245 BC), the builder of Choga Zambil. Raids into Mesopotamia brought the downfall of Kassite Dynasty in 1157 BC. The period was also remarkable for glass technology and bronze casting (cire perdue). Elam was absorbed into the Achaemenid empire in the 6th century BC, after falling to the Assyrians when Ashurbanipal sacked the city of Susa. Little is known about the Elamite language, which is not related to any known tongue and still not fully deciphered.
electrum: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A natural or artificial alloy of gold and silver (at least 20%) from which artifacts were once made and used to make the first known coins in the Western world. Most natural electrum contains copper, iron, palladium, bismuth, and perhaps other metals. The process of extracting the silver from the gold is complex; it was used particularly for decorative vessels. Electrum's color was whiter and more luminous than that of gold, and its metal supposed to ward off poison. In the ancient world, the main source was Lydia, in Asia Minor, where the alloy was found in the area of the Pactolus River (modern Turkey).
element: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A substance that cannot be broken down any further, made up of atoms with the same atomic number. It joins with other elements to form compounds. Common examples are hydrogen, gold, and iron. The term also means, in faunal analysis, the specific part of the animal (e.g. humerus).
enamel: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A comparatively soft glass, a compound of flint or sand, red lead, and soda or potash. The materials are melted together, producing an almost clear glass, with a slightly bluish or greenish tinge (flux or frit). The degree of hardness of the flux depends on the proportions of the components in the mix. Enamels are called hard when the temperature required to fuse them is very high and it will not decompose as soft enamel would. Soft enamels require less heat to fire them and consequently are more convenient to use, but they do not wear as well. Enamel was first used in the Bronze and Iron Ages. It was often melted and united with gold, silver, copper, bronze, and other metals in a furnace. Enamel is colored white by oxide of tin, blue by oxide of cobalt, red by gold, green by copper. Different kinds of enamel are: 1) inlaid or incrusted, 2) transparent, showing designs on the metal under it, 3) painted as a complete picture. The various techniques practiced by craftsmen in the past differ mainly in the methods employed in preparing the metal to receive the powdered enamel. Some of those methods are cloisonné, champlevé, encrusted enameling, and painted enamels.
Etruria: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The area to the north of Rome, bounded by the Tiber and Arno Rivers and the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Etruscans inhabited the area and colonized Aleria, the Po Valley, and parts of Campania. The area is rich in gold, iron, and bronze. The dead were buried in underground tombs or tumuli and were accompanied by a range of funerary goods. The tombs are an important source of Athenian pottery.
fibula: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pl. fibulae
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In antiquity, a clasp, buckle, or brooch of various designs, usually shaped like a modern safety pin. It was often used for fastening a draped garment such as a toga or cloak, made of bronze, gold, silver, ivory, etc.; and consisted of a bow, pin, and catch. It is the Latin word for brooch" and is so named for the outer of two bones of lower leg or hindlimb which together with the tibia resemble an ancient brooch. The earliest examples date to around 1300 BC. There are two main families of fibulae. In the south they were made in one piece starting with the Peschiera or violin bow form in northern Italy and Mycenaean Greece. From this developed the arc fibula north of the Mediterranean and the harp and spectacle fibulae in the eastern Alps in the years around 1000 BC. From the Certosa form was derived the long series of La Tène Iron Age varieties. Even wider variation is found among the succeeding Roman fibulae leading on to the final forms in the Saxon and Migration periods. Around the same time there was an apparently independent development in northern Europe of the two-piece variety. Fibula types include: violin bow arc elbowed serpentine dragon harp disk with 'elastic bow' leech boat two-piece fibula spiral La Tène I III. Fibula terms include: catchplate pin spring bow stilt elongated catchplate disk catchplate knobbed (Certosa) catchplate. Although primarily functional fibulas were often also highly decorated items of personal adornment sometimes inlaid with glass and precious stones. An enormous number of different types of fibulae were made and they can often be a useful guide to dating."
filigree: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: filagree, filigraine
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A technique of decorating jewelry with gold, silver, or electrum soldered onto metalwork. It consists of creating a fine open metalwork pattern out of wire which is soldered together and to the main body of the piece. The wire can be plain or decorative. For goldwork, the solder was normally a gold-copper alloy (82% gold, 18% copper), which had a lower melting point than pure gold. The word is derived from the Italian 'filigrana' which is 'filum' and 'granum' or 'granular network'. It was first developed in the Near East and was often used in combination with granulation. The technique had been mastered by the Early Dynastic Sumerian craftsmen of the 3rd millennium BC and fine jewelry decorated in this way appears in the Royal Tombs of Ur. Anglo-Saxon and Germanic metalworkers greatly developed the technique.
food vessel: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: food vessel culture
CATEGORY: culture; artifact
DEFINITION: One of the two main cultures of the Bronze Age; the name given to a series of pottery vessels in northern Britain, Scotland, and Ireland. It was a prototype derived from that of the Beaker Folk and other Neolithic cultures. The food vessel culture people were hunters and farmers, raising sheep and growing corn. They also sold bronze and other metal goods made in Ireland. They buried food vessels with their dead (inhumation, in crouched positions, buried in cists under cairns or barrows). In the graves, too, are found the crescent-shaped necklaces of jet and shale beads, and gold necklaces of the same shape (lunula) from Ireland. Then there are bronze, halbards, axes, daggers, earrings of gold and bronze, bone hairpins, and plano-convex flint knives. The culture is dated to 2000-1600 BC.
gadroon: CATEGORY: artifact; ceramics
DEFINITION: A decorative pattern used in the ornamentation of gold and silver metalwork and pottery, consisting of an embossed tear shape. A gadroon is one of a set of convex curves or arcs joined at their ends to form this pattern, usually one of a series radiating from the base of a work.
Gandhara: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Gandhara grave culture complex
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A culture of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC in the valleys of northwestern Pakistan -- and the Achaemenid (Persian) satrapy of this name. This culture was important in passing Persian ideas on to the civilizations of the Ganges valley. It also introduced Hellenistic art styles to India. Western influence is also apparent in the grid town planning found at the Gandharan cities of Charsada and Taxila. Characteristic burials are in tombs consisting of two small chambers, one on top of the other; the lower chamber contained both the burial (inhumed or cremated) and the grave goods, while the upper chamber was empty. The population, which bred livestock and carried out agriculture, were accomplished metalworkers, producing tools, weapons, and ornaments of copper, bronze, gold, silver, and iron. The pottery within the grave goods was mostly a red or gray plain burnished type.
Gedi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early Swahili coastal town on the East African coast of Kenya. Gedi was probably founded around 1300 AD and enjoyed prosperity into at least the 16th century due to the Indian Ocean trade and increased exploitation of Zimbabwean gold. The ruins of the houses and great mosque are well preserved.
Genoa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A major medieval port that probably began as a Ligurian village on the Sarzano Hill overlooking the natural port (today Molo Vecchio). It prospered through contacts with the Etruscans and the Greeks and as a flourishing Roman municipium, became a road junction, military port, and a market of the Ligurians. After the fall of the Roman Empire and the invasions of Ostrogoths and Lombards, Genoa existed in comparative obscurity as a fishing and agrarian center with little trade. In medieval times, it completed with Venice, Pisa, and Florence for the trade of the Mediterranean. Eastern spices, dyestuffs and medicaments, western cloth and metals, African wool, skins, coral, and gold were the main articles of diversified international commerce. The medieval city wall enclosed a substantial area and dates to the 12th century. The notable project at the Cloister of San Silvestro, for example, revealed well-preserved buildings and a rich range of pottery from many parts of Italy and Spain.
Ghana: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The earliest and one of the most important of the West African empires, on the border of southern Mauretania and Mali and dating from at least the 8th century AD. It may have arisen as an organization of agricultural people who fought Saharan nomads. This early Sudanic state was well-established when it was first visited by Muslims from north of the Sahara. Its capital is believed to have been at Kumbi Saleh, where ruins of a large stone-built town have been investigated. Ghana also controlled the trading center at Awdaghast, at the southern end of the one of the major trans-Saharan caravan routes. The state regulated and profited from trade in gold, ivory, and salt. From the 11th century, Arabic written accounts are an important source for the history of ancient Ghana; late in that century the state was conquered by the Almoravids, who imposed Islam. Ghana was effectively eclipsed by Mali during the 13th century.
gilding: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The art of decorating with a thin layer of gold paint or gold leaf. The term includes the application of silver, palladium, aluminum, and copper alloys.
gorytos: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A sheath, combining quiver and bowcase, which was characteristic of the Scythians in the 6th-3rd centuries BC. Fancy ones, covered with golden plaques decorated with artistic relief scenes, are known from the Scythian Kurgans of the 4th century BC, such as Solokha and Chertomlyk. There is a depiction of a gorytos on the famous golden Scythian vase from the Kul'-oba kurgan.
granulation: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A technique used in the decoration of jewelry by soldering it with grains of gold, electrum, or silver. Tiny spherical drops of metal were soldered on to a background, forming the required pattern and giving it a granular texture. The drops may have been made by heating a gold wire until a drop formed, or by melting gold and slowly pouring it into cold water. As also for filigree, the solder was normally a gold-copper alloy with a lower melting point than gold. First used as early as the 3rd millennium BC, it was widely known in western Asia and Egypt. The ancient Greeks perfected the technique, but by the 5th century BC granulation had been largely replaced by filigree in Greek work. The art of granulation probably reached its peak with the Etruscans between the 7th and 6th centuries BC, in the elaborately granulated and embossed earrings, pronged shoulder clasps for clothes, and beads found in Etruscan tombs. Granulation was particularly important in India and Persia after contact with the Roman Empire.
Great Zimbabwe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Iron Age site in southeastern Zimbabwe, by far the largest and most elaborate of the dry-stone constructions to which the term dzimbahwe is applied. After an Early Iron Age phase of 500-900 AD, the main sequence of occupation began around 1000 when Shona speakers occupied Zimbabwe Hill and began building stone walls around 1300. Great Zimbabwe was the capital of the Shona empire from 1270-1450 AD, which stretched from the Zambezi River to the northern Transvaal of South Africa and eastern Botswana. There was a class system and the kings accumulated wealth through trade, attested by items such as glass vessels and beads, pottery, and porcelain. Gold was the principal export; Great Zimbabwe appears to have been at the center of a network of related sites through which control was exercised over the gold-producing areas. Archaeologically, the culture is called the Zimbabwe Tradition and is divided into Mapungubwe, Zimbabwe, and Khami phases. In the 15th century the site declined with trade and political power shifting to the north near the Zambezi Valley.
Gumelnita: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Gumelnitsa, Gumeilnita
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic/Copper Age culture of eastern Romania, Bulgaria, and northern Greece (eastern Balkans) c 3800-3000/2500 BC. There were permanent villages of rectangular houses forming low tells, use of copper and gold, and a flourishing painted pottery. The pottery was often decorated with graphite designs. Gumelnita can be derived from the Hamangia, Boian, and Maritza cultures which preceded it in this area. The culture parallels the partitioning of the closely related Karanovo V and VI culture in Bulgaria. The Gumelnita represents the climax of the Neolithic sequence in south Rumania.
Hagia Sophia: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Church of the Holy Wisdom
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: In Constantinople (now Istanbul), a splendid cathedral built under the direction of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. It is a unique building and one of the world's great monuments. The domed basilica, was built in an amazing six years, completed in 537 AD. The architects were Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus. Constantinople was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire at the time. For many years the Hagia Sophia was unsurpassed in size and the interior still retains much of its original elegant appearance. Its lower walls are faced with polished multicolored marbles and the vaults, domes, and pendentives are covered with brilliant Byzantine mosaics set in their background of gold.
Hajdúsámson: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A level of Hungarian and Rumanian metalwork hoards (Apa-Hajdusamson horizon) dated to the later Early Bronze Age, c 1700-1500 BC. The bronze solid-hilted swords, disk-butted and shaft-tube axes and daggers are often richly decorated, but the gold-working is even finer. The horizon includes many small ornaments (disks, rings, bracelets) as well as unique pieces such as the Persinari sword and the Bihar cups. The unique pieces were probably the products of a single workshop in Transylvania.
Hasanlu: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site on Lake Urmia, northwest Iran, with a sequence beginning in the late 7th millennium BC. Much information has been gained on the early Ceramic Neolithic phase of the late-7th to mid-6th millennia BC. The citadel dates from the 10th century BC and is surrounded by a lower town. Four buildings on the citadel, facing onto a court and linked to a higher court with further buildings, have been interpreted as a palace complex. In c 800 BC, Hasanlu was destroyed. One of the skeletons held a magnificent gold bowl decorated with mythical scenes in relief. The bowl is related artistically to the finds from Marlik and Ziwiyeh. Other rich finds of gold, silver, electrum, glass, and ivory have been made at Hasanlu.
Heavenly Horse, Tomb of the: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A 5th century AD mounded tomb of the Silla Kingdom in Kyongju City, Korea. There was an internal wooden chamber with a lacquered wooden coffin of a male dressed in gold crown and with very rich grave goods.
Helgö: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small island in Lake Malaren in Sweden which was a migration period trading and industrial post in the 1st millennium AD. There are several important artisans' (brooch, bead) houses spanning of the 5th-6th centuries up to the 9th century. Exotic finds include a 7th-century Buddha from Kashmir, a Coptic ladle, a number of gold coins, and Rhenish pots. The molds and debris from the brooch-making provide a great deal of new information about the development of this craft up to the beginning of the Viking period. Helgö was probably abandoned before the end of the 9th century.
helmet: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Protective headgear that goes back almost as far as evidence for warfare. The basic function was to protect the head, face, and sometimes the neck from the cutting blows of swords, spears, arrows, and other weapons. The Assyrians and Persians had helmets of leather and iron, and the Greeks created bronze helmets, some of which covered the entire head, with only a narrow opening in front for vision and breathing. The Romans developed several forms of helmets, including the round legionary's helmet and the special gladiator's helmet, with broad brim and pierced visor, giving exceptional protection to head, face, and neck. The troops on the Royal Standard of Ur wear leather helmets. The Blue Crown worn by pharaoh in the New Kingdom of Egypt was a war helmet. One type covered with boar's tusks was current among the Mycenaeans. More obviously for parade than war are the bronze examples from the European Late Bronze and Iron Ages. Among the Villanovans the cinerary urn was often covered with the helmet of the dead warrior. Several fine examples from Britain are decorated with Celtic art. The New World has yielded helmets made of gold and of wood encrusted with turquoise mosaic. The term 'helm' was applied by both Saxons and Normans, in the 11th century, to the conical steel cap with a noseguard, the common head piece of the day. Helmet is the diminutive of helm.
Hispano-Moresque pottery: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A tin-glazed, lustrous, highly decorated earthenware made by Moorish potters in Span in the late medieval period, chiefly at Málaga in the 15th century, and in the region of Manises, near Valencia, in the 16th century. They tend to be plates and jugs with bold semi-abstract designs painted on a creamy background and with a gold luster finish. These wares were much in demand throughout Europe and, judging from finds in northern Europe, they were widely traded. The tin glaze was applied over a design usually traced in cobalt blue; after the first firing, the luster, a metallic pigment, was applied by brush over the tin glaze, and the piece was fired again. Imitation of this pottery in Italy led to the development of Italian maiolica ware.
Hochdorf: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Iron Age tumulus in Baden-Würtetemberg, Germany, from the 6th century BC (late Hallstatt). One burial chamber had very rich grave goods, including Mediterranean materials, a Greek bronze cauldron, gold-covered shoes, and bronze couch.
Hohmichele, the: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rich Hallstatt grave near the Heuneburg hillfort on the Danube in southern Germany. The barrow was one of the satellite graves around the hillfort and covered a central grave and 12 secondary burials of the 6th century BC Iron Age. The central grave was robbed in antiquity, but it had been an inhumation grave within a wood-lined chamber, which acted as the display area for the wealth of the deceased. The walls seem to have been draped in textiles with thin gold bands, and the deceased, dressed in finery including silk, was placed on a bed next to a four-wheeled wagon. It is the earliest documented occurrence of silk in Europe. The objects implied wine-drinking ceremonies and there is furniture directly imported from the south (central Europe).
illuminated manuscript: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Handwritten books that were decorated with gold or silver, brilliant colors, or elaborate designs or miniature pictures. Though various Islamic societies practiced this art, Europe had the longest and probably the most highly developed tradition of illuminating manuscripts. These medieval handwritten books were usually done on parchment or vellum. The illustrations themselves fall into several categories: miniatures (small paintings incorporated into the text of border, or occupying a whole page), decorated monograms or initial letters, and decorative borders. Before the year 1000, the books most commonly illustrated in this way were gospels or psalters. The origins of manuscript illumination are thought to lie in 5th century Coptic Egypt. It is now thought that illuminated manuscripts were relatively few in number even at the time they were produced. Very few religious or classical texts survive. After the development of printing in Europe in the second half of the 15th century, illumination was superseded by printed illustrations.
Ingombe Ilede: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Iron Age site in southern Zambia, occupies in the 14th-15th centuries AD by peoples who engaged in extensive trade in copper and gold. Elaborate graves contained metal bangles, ingots, iron hoes and gongs, bundles of copper wire, woven cotton cloth, marine gastropod shells, gold beads, and imported glass beads. This evidence for development of trade in the Zambezi Valley coincides in date with the decline of Great Zimbabwe.
Inti: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Punchau; Apu-Punchau
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: In Inca religion, the sun god, believed to be the ancestor of the Incas. Inti was the head of the cult and his worship was imposed throughout the empire. He was represented in human form with his face being a gold disk from which rays and flames extended. The temple of the Sun was called Inti-huasi (house of the sun) with 7 principal divisions: inti or sanctuary (center of temple), mama-quilla (moon), cayllur (stars), illapa (thunder), ckuichi (rainbow), huilacuma (chief priest), and the dwelling of the priests. Inti's sister and consort was the moon, Mama-Kilya (or Mama-Quilla), who was portrayed as a silver disk with human features.
Iximché: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Maya site in Guatemala of the Post-Classic period. A burial, dating to less than 100 years before the Spanish conquest (when it was the capital of the Cakchiquel Maya), has the largest cache of gold items found in the Maya area.
Jincun: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Chin-ts'un
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A village near Luoyang, China, where rich tombs yielded 5th-2nd century BC carved jades and inlaid bronze ritual vessels, many of which are now in Western collections. The name Jincun is often applied to a style of Eastern Chou bronze decor, also called the inlay style, characterized by inlays of gold, silver, malachite, turquoise, jade, and glass.
Kas: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Kas-Ulu Burun
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site of a Bronze Age shipwreck off Cap Uluburun, Turkey, which was probably going to the Aegean when it sank in the 14th century BC. Objects found in 1982 in the shipwreck include the first known gold scarab of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. Other items are copper, tin and glass ingots, bronze tools and weapons, jewelry for the Near East, Egypt, and the Aegean; and pottery from Cyprus, Canaan, and Mycenae. The ship's contents reveal a tight web of interconnections in the later 14th century among Mycenaean Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Africa.
Kernonen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A burial mound of the Armorican Early Bronze Age Tumulus Culture c 2000-2500 BC in Finistère, France. The circular stone cairn covered a rectangular dry-stone chamber. Grave goods include fine flaked flint arrowheads, amber beads, bronze axes and daggers, and wooden hilts decorated with gold nails.
Kilwa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A major trading city of the East African coast, on an island off Tanzania. For three centuries before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500 it was the leading entrepot on the East African coast. It was first occupied in the 9th century AD, with the earliest settlement being a village of thatched, timber-framed houses. The only industries were iron-working and the manufacture of shell beads. Small quantities of pottery from western Asia and, towards the end of the period, chlorite-schist from Madagascar indicate commercial activity on a modest scale. Prosperity began c 1200, marked by the introduction of coins, widespread use of masonry, and the construction of the mosque. In the 14th century the sultan built a spectacular palace, known as Husuni Kubwa, just outside the town. The establishment of a wealthy Islamic community is identified with the arrival of the so-called Shirazi dynasty which, according to tradition, came from the Persian Gulf. In the 14th and 15th centuries, Kilwa controlled the coast far to the south and grew even more wealthy through its control of the trade in Zimbabwean gold. The arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean at the end of the 15th century heralded Kilwa's decline.
Klein Aspergle: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a rich Celtic burial of the early La Tène period in Ludwigsburg, Würtemberg, Germany. Funerary offerings included an Etruscan bronze vessel, a native copy of an Etruscan beaked flagon, gold mounts for a pair of drinking horns, and two imported Attic cups dated around 450 BC. In the same village is a slightly earlier tumulus burial, of the late Hallstatt D period, with imported ivories (including a sphinx) as well as bronzes.
Koptos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Qift, ancient Kebet, Qebtu
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Town site in Upper Egypt just below Luxor, at the entrance to the Wadi Hammamat (the road to the Red Sea), existing since early dynastic times. It was important for nearby gold and quartzite mines in the Eastern Desert, worked during the 1st and 2nd dynasties, and as a starting point for expeditions to Punt. The town was associated with the god Min, whose temple ruins remain, and the goddess Isis, who, according to legend, found part of Osiris' body there. Destroyed in 292 AD by Diocletian, it later became a Christian community. This valley also served as the principal trade route between the Nile valley and the Red Sea.
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.
La Gorge-Meillet: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Rich Iron Age chariot burial of the Marnian culture, Marne, France. The body of a youth is accompanied by sword, bronze helmet, gold items, spearheads, wheelmade pottery vessels, and an Etruscan bronze flagon. It is dated to La Tène c 475-450 BC.
Langkasuka: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An early Indianized state in the Pattani region of peninsular Thailand. The name of first appears (as Lang-ya-hsiu) in a Chinese source of the 6th century AD, asserting that it was founded 400 years earlier; its name reappears in later Malayan and Javanese chronicles. Langkasuka was the most important of the Indianized states and controlled much of northern Malaya. Malaya developed an international reputation as a source of gold and tin, populated by renowned seafarers. Between the 7th and 13th centuries many of these small, often prosperous peninsular maritime trading states may have come under the loose control of Shrivijaya, the great Sumatra-based empire.
lapis lazuli: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: khesbed
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A semiprecious stone of an intense blue color, very popular in the ancient Near East for decorative inlays, beads, seals, etc. It is a metamorphosed form of limestone, rich in the blue mineral lazurite, which is dark blue in color and often flecked with impurities of calcite, iron pyrites, or gold. Its main source was Badakhshan, northern Afghanistan, and in Iran, from which it was traded as far as Egypt. The Egyptians considered that its appearance imitated that of the heavens, therefore they considered it to be superior to all materials other than gold and silver. They used it extensively in jewelry until the Late Period (747-332 BC), when it was particularly popular for amulets. One of the richest collection of lapis lazuli objects was found in the burials at Tepe Gawra. It has also been found at Ovalle, Chile.
Laurion: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Roman Laurium
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A hilly region of Attica, Greece, which was important for silver mines from the Bronze Age in the 1st millennium BC. The region developed into a principal mining area, especially from about 483 BC until the end of the 5th century BC. The mines may have been worked as early as 1000 BC, but in 483 BC Athenians exploited the veins to finance construction of a large fleet, which then defeated the Persians at Salamis in 480. Production remained low until after 350 and the mines were closed in the 2nd century AD. The mines were state property, rented out to individual contractors, and worked by slaves. The area has ancient mineshafts, processing areas, surface mining structures, water cisterns, and ore-washeries. The Laureot Owls, Athenian silver coinage attributed to the mines, were circulated throughout the classical world, but by Roman times the mines lay neglected because of competition from the gold and silver mines in Macedonia and pirate raids on the Laurium mines. About the beginning of the Christian Era, the silver was exhausted.
Lefkandi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important settlement site on Euboea, an island in the Aegean, occupied from the later 3rd millennium till the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Early levels have Anatolian-type pottery. At Toumba there is an artificial tumulus covering an apsidal structure which is surrounded by a peristyle of wooden columns, c 1000 BC. The rich burial of a man and woman may have been a shrine for a hero cult. Artifacts link this site to the eastern Mediterranean: the large bronze vessel in which the man's ashes were deposited came from Cyprus, and the gold items buried with the woman are of sophisticated workmanship. Remains of horses were found as well; the animals had been buried with their snaffle bits. The grave was within a large collapsed house, whose form anticipates that of the Greek temples two centuries later. This burial and finds at other cemeteries further attest contacts between Egypt and Cyprus between 1000-800 BC.
Leki Male: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A complex of tumulus burials of the Unetice culture of southern Poland. The central burials are in stone cists with wood ceilings, covered with stone. Grave goods include bronze axes, daggers, and halberds; gold ornaments, amber ornaments, and pottery. These are similar to burials of the Wessex culture.
Lelang: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: [Lo-lang; Korean: Nangnang]
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the Han colonies established in the Korean peninsula, a Chinese commandery established in 108 BC. Lelang survived as an outpost of the Chinese empire until 313 AD. Tombs contained Han lacquers, bronze mirrors, and gold filigree work. Some of the lacquers carry dated inscriptions, the dates ranging from 85 BC-102 AD, indicating that they were made in Sichuan in western China.
Leopard's Kopje: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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.
Leubingen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early Bronze Age chieftain's burial of the Unetice culture of Saxony, Germany. It consisted of a lean-to wooden mortuary chamber under a stone cairn, itself covered by a barrow. Inside was the burial of an extended elderly male and, placed at right angles across him, a second body, of an adolescent, perhaps female. Grave goods included a series of gold ornaments (pins, spirals, hair-rings, beads, earrings, and an arm-ring), bronze daggers, axes, halberds, and chisels; stone tools, and pottery.
lock ring: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: lock-ring
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Small penannular (almost complete ring) ornament of gold or bronze popular in the Early to Middle Bronze Age in northern Europe. They are thought to have been used as hair ornaments.
lock rings: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: lock-ring
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Small penannular (almost complete ring) ornaments of gold or bronze popular in the Early to Middle Bronze Age in northern Europe. They are thought to have been used as hair ornaments.
Lombards: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A tribe of Germanic descent who conquered northern Italy in the late 6th and early 7th centuries. The region was weak from the gothic wars and vulnerable by the death of the Emperor Justinian (565). Having swept through Venice, Milan, Tuscany, and Benevento, King Alboin established Pavia, on the Ticino River, as the capital of the newly created Lombard kingdom in 572. Although their territorial expansion extended as far south as Benevento, the Lombards never managed to gain complete control of the peninsula. Many major Byzantine cities fell to them but the Eastern Empire maintained a firm hold in the coastal ports of Ravenna and Venice. The Lombards' impact was considerable and they imposed distinct cultural traditions on Italy's decaying classical past. They made rich inlaid gold jewelry, fine sculpture, and created new architectural design which played a significant part in the development of the Romanesque style. The Lombard settlement seems to have been largely to the north of the Po River, the area with the majority of Lombard place-names and Germanic-style archaeological finds, mainly from cemetery sites. The Lombard language seems to have disappeared by the 8th century, leaving few loanwords in the Italian language. When the Franks invaded, Lombards and Romans moved together still more as a conquered, by now Italian people.
lost-wax: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: cire perdue, lost-wax casting; lost wax process, lost-wax casting technique
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A method of casting metals in which the desired form was carved in wax, coated with clay and baked; the wax runs out through vents left in the clay for the purpose, and molten metal is then poured through the same vents into the mold. When the metal is cool, the clay is broken off to reveal the metal casting. Each mold can only be used once. The technique was first developed in the 4th millennium BC in the Near East, especially by the Shang bronzeworkers of China. It was also used for gold in South America and Mesoamerica. The method was used for casting complex forms, such as statuary.
Lothal: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Harrapan town, one of the most important of the southern Indus Civilization sites, at the head of the Gulf of Cambay, northwestern India. Besides typical Indus structures like a walled citadel, granary, drainage system, and a grid street plan, it had a dock faced with baked brick. There were residential and craftworking (shell, bone, bead, copper, gold) areas. The site was important for its sea trade, as shown by the discovery of a Dilmun seal from the Persian Gulf. There were also contacts with the Chalcolithic cultures of the Deccan peninsula and the practice of rice cultivation which had been introduced from further east. There was much local non-Harappan pottery in the Mature Harappan levels. Radiocarbon dates place it in the later 3rd millennium BC (c 2400-2100 BC).
lunula: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pl. lunulae
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A crescent-shaped sheet of gold, probably worn as a collar or chest ornament in the Early Bronze Age, possibly for rituals. Their incised geometric decoration suggests is similar to that on bell beakers. They originated with the food vessel people of Ireland, Scotland, and perhaps Wales in the Early Bronze Age, and traded not only to southern England but also across to northern Europe. The decoration has led to the suggestion that it imitates the multiple-strand necklaces of jet and amber that are also found during the Early Bronze Age.
Lydia: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Lydians
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A small kingdom which appeared in western Anatolia (Turkey) in the 1st millennium BC known to the Assyrians as Luddu. Their land extended east from the Aegean Sea, occupying the Hermus and Cayster river valleys. By about the 7th century BC, Lydia was important in trade between the Aegean and the oriental civilizations. Its capital at Sardis became rich, exploiting the gold of the nearby Pactolus River; the Lydians are said to the originators of gold and silver coins. In the mid-7th century the kingdom was overrun by the Cimmerians, but reemerged powerfully. The kingdom was most powerful under Alyattes (c 619-560 BC), who extended his rule in Ionia. The legendary rich king Croesus (560-546 BC) was ruler when Lydia was finally overcome by the Achaemenids (c. 546-540). Sardis subsequently became the western capital of the Persian empire, linked to Susa by a royal road. The Lydians are known for two achievements in particular: mastery of fine stone masonry, witnessed in the Acropolis wall at Sardis and in the Pyramid Tomb and the Tomb of Gyges in the royal cemetery, and the invention of a true coin currency, which was adopted by both the Greeks and the Persians. The Lydians were a commercial people, who, according to Herodotus, had customs like the Greeks and were the first people to establish permanent retail shops. Sardis was captured by Alexander the Great in 334 BC and became a Greek city.
macehual: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: In the Aztec period, commoners who made up the bulk of the population and who cultivated land held by his or her descent group. The macehual class was further differentiated into class levels. Certain occupations were accorded higher prestige than others (merchants, lapidarians, goldsmiths, and featherworkers are mentioned, and the list probably included stone sculptors); and all urban occupations were assigned higher status as compared with rural farming.
magatama: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: kogok
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Term meaning curved bead /jewel" a jade or jasper pendant made since the Neolithic but especially during the Jomon Yayoi and Kofun periods. These comma-shaped beads (with a perforation at the thick end) have been found in 4th-7th century AD tombs in Korea and Japan. They purportedly had magic properties. In the Tumulus/Kofun period (3rd-6th centuries) of Japan it was an imperial emblem. Many of these beads decorated the gold crowns of Silla (Korea). Its form may derive from prehistoric animal-tooth pendants."
Maikop: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The site of one of the richest Eneolithic Kurgan burials ever discovered, located in the northern Caucasus Mountains of Russia and dating to the late 3rd millennium BC. The barrow covered a timber mortuary house divided into three sections. In the central one was a royal burial of a man sprinkled with ochre and laid under a canopy with gold and silver supports. The corpse was accompanied by copper tools and weapons, gold ornaments, gold vessels and figurines, rich textiles, carnelian and turquoise jewelry, wooden carts or wagons, and silver vases engraved with animal scenes. The metalwork shows links with Mesopotamia and southwest Asia. The Maikop burials have given their name to the Maikop culture and its walled settlements.
Mali: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A landlocked country in western Africa, one of the early African Sudanic states which rose to prominence in the 12th-13th centuries. It effectively took over control of the Bambuk goldfields from ancient Ghana -- as well as their links with the trans-Saharan trade. By the 14th century its rulers controlled an extensive stretch of territory, including the Songhai country of the middle Niger, and Mali's ruler made the pilgrimage to Mecca. The empire declined in the late 15th century after its overthrow by Songhay. Mali was occupied in the Paleolithic and Neolithic, with remains including Asselar man, a human skeleton found north of Timbuktu in 1927, and rock paintings and carvings.
Man-ch'eng: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mancheng
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Hebei province, China, where two Early Han-dynasty tombs are cut into a rock cliff -- the tombs of Liu Sheng (c 113 BC), Prince of Chung-shan, and his wife Tou Wan. Numerous grave goods, 2800 items, including jade, gold, silver, iron, glass articles; inlaid and gilded vessels, earthenware, lacquer ware, silk fabrics, and fine weapons are in the chambered tombs behind sealed doors. Both tombs were provided with large stores of food and wine and escorts of chariots and horses. The bodies of Liu Sheng and Dou Wan were dressed in shrouds made of jade plaques sewn together with gold thread, the first of some dozen jade shrouds thus recovered from Han tombs.
Mapungubwe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Late Iron Age hilltop site in northern Transvaal, that was South Africa's first urban center. It has given its name to the southern facies of phase B of the Leopard's Kopje complex and it was occupied between 1220-1270 AD. The material from the earliest levels is very similar to that from the nearby site of Bambandyanalo. Mapungubwe was a forerunner of the developments at Great Zimbabwe and may have been the capital of a state that controlled trade with the East African coast. In Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe, a wealthy and privileged elite built with stone and were buried with gold and copper ornaments, exotic beads, and fine imported pottery and cloth. Their homes, diet, and ostentatious burials are in stark contrast to those of the common folk. The 13th-century burial of an important official uncovered at Mapungubwe was accompanied by a gold-covered statue of a rhinoceros, a golden staff, and other artifacts -- one of the earliest indications of gold mining in southern Africa. The Mapungubwe gold was panned from alluvial deposits.
Marlik Tepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Iron Age royal cemetery of the late 2nd millennium BC southwest of the Caspian Sea in northern Iran. Its tombs include a wealth of gold and silver vessels, jewelry, and weapons. Some graves have rectangular stone slabs on which the body with its grave goods was laid and then covered with earth. Characteristic decoration is in relief and portrays mythical animal and human figures. Marlik Tepe may represent an early phase in the development of the art of the Medes.
Maya: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Classic Maya
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Very important culture of Mesoamerica, one of the major Classic civilizations, which occupied the peninsula of Yucatan and Belize, the lowland jungle south of it, and the highlands of Guatemala and western Honduras. The civilization developed from other pre-Classic cultures by about 200 BC and continued until being conquered by the Spaniards in 1541 AD. By c 200 BC, at sites like Tikal and Uaxactún, the first pyramids were being built. Population increase and the introduction of new ceramic and architectural forms are accompanied by an artistic transition from Olmec through Izapan to Mayan. The classic Maya civilization dates to c 292 AD, the earliest Long count date found on stele 29 at Tikal. The Early Classic period (200-600) was the golden age of the lowland culture and the great centers acted as foci for administration, religion, and the arts. Architecture, sculpture, and painting were highly developed; records were kept in hieroglyphic writing, and elaborate ceremonies were carried out in the temples on top of their pyramids. A class of astronomer-priests observed the sun, moon, and planets, and had evolved a calendrical system more accurate than the Julian calendar used in Christian Europe. In mathematics the priests used a vigesimal system with the concept of zero and with a positional notation. The Classic Maya culture is characterized by an immense investment of labor in construction of ceremonial architecture, the erection of stelae, and a growing differentiation between the elite and the peasant population. The Maya practiced swidden agriculture as well as intensive agriculture, terracing and raised fields, and arboriculture. Polychrome pottery is a hallmark of the Maya Lowland Classic culture. The Late Classic period (c 600-900 AD) shows development in sculpture and architecture -- and regional styles can be recognized. Northern Yucatan began to come into its own at sites like Chichén Itzá and Uxmal, where fine buildings in the Punc style were erected during the 7th-9th centuries. The later part of this period witnessed the end of civilization in the lowlands; the great centers were abandoned during the 9th and early 10th centuries. The Post-Classic period, c 900 to the Spanish conquest, had strong Mexican influence, particularly at Chichén Itzá where buildings were constructed in the Toltec style of central Mexico, and the art shows representations of Toltec warriors overpowering Maya chiefs. During the collapse in the southern Lowlands, centers in the northern Lowlands began to grow, c 800-1000 AD. The South's decline may have played a role in the North's prosperity. Sometime around 1200, the Itzá were driven from their capital, and Mayapán became the leading city of Yucatan. In about 1440-1450, Mayapán was overthrown and there followed a time of disunity and warfare which lasted until the Spaniards conquered Yucatan in 1541. The Maya kingdoms of highland Guatemala were subdued in 1525, but in the lowlands the descendants of the exiled Itzá held out until 1697. The collapse of Maya culture (in c 900) is a puzzling phenomenon, but its relative suddenness still remains without satisfactory explanation. There are no Long Count dates after 900, after which time lowland populations dwindled by as much as 90 percent. The term Maya also refers to a culture area and is typically divided into the lowland and highland Maya. Descendants of the Maya still occupy the region.
Megarian bowl: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A handleless hemispherical Greek drinking cup made in molds and often decorated in relief and finished in the black-glossed technique. Widespread in the Hellenistic period from the 3rd century BC, they developed into the red-glossed Arrentine wares. The type was first recognized at Megara and were made until the 1st century AD. They were imitations of gold and silver vessels and served as the first form of book illustration". They often bear on their exteriors scenes in relief from literary texts that are sometimes accompanied by Greek quotations. They likely served as models for Roman artists who created the first "true" book illustrations."
melting: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: The point at which a metal liquefies. This point must be reached if a metal object is to be cast. In antiquity, gold, silver, copper, and lead were all melted and cast, but the melting and casting of iron was not achieved until the medieval period. Melting points are as follows: tin, 232? C; lead, 327? C; silver, 960? C; gold, 1063? C; copper, 1,083? C; iron 1,525? C.
Meluhha: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The ancient Akkadian name for the Indus region. It was a land which traded with the city-states of Sumer, to its west, and appeared in Mesopotamian texts of the Akkadian and Ur III periods. The land was described as a source of gold and is usually identified as the area of the Harappan civilization in western India and Pakistan during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. In the 1st millennium BC, Meluhha refers to Nubia, to the south of Egypt. Literary references to Meluhhan trade date from the Akkadian, Ur III, and Isin- Larsa Periods (i.e., c. 2350-1800 BC), but as texts and archaeological data indicate, the trade probably started in the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2600 BC). During the Akkadian period, Meluhhan vessels sailed directly to Mesopotamian ports, but by the Isin-Larsa Period, Dilmun (modern Bahrain) was the entrepôt for Meluhhan and Mesopotamian traders. By the subsequent Old Babylonian period, trade between the two cultures evidently had ceased entirely.
Merida: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Emerita Augusta, Roman Augusta Emerita
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Roman colony in Spain, founded by the Romans in 25 BC as Augusta Emerita. As the capital of Lusitania (roughly equivalent to modern Portugal), it became one of the most important towns in Iberia and was large enough to contain a garrison of 90,000 men. It prospered anew in the 7th century under the Visigoths. Roman buildings survive: theater, amphitheater (both built by Agrippa), circus, temples, aqueducts, and a Roman bridge of 64 arches. There is a temple of Diana, an arch of Trajan, aqueducts and conduits, a group of structures devoted to Mithras and other mystery cults, and a number of rich houses with colonnaded courts and mosaics (including the so-called 'Creation of the Universe'). Gold tesserae are found, and some of the sculptures, especially Roman marble portraits, are of fine quality.
metal artifact: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Any artifact made from metal, including copper, bronze, iron, gold, silver, tin, and lead. They were commonly used as constituents of alloys.
Mi-so'n: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mison
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the northern part of Champa, in the present province of Quang-nam, central Vietnam, which has given its name to the earliest style in Cham art, dating from the 7th century. It is also important for inscriptions of the 5th century, attesting to the oldest known royal linga in Southeast Asia. Goldwork and silverwork of the Cham culture are preserved from the 10th century. It is exemplified by a crown and heavy jewelry made for a lifesize statue found in the ruin of a temple at Mison.
mica-dusted pottery: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pottery coated with a slip containing mica particles to give a golden or bronze-like sheen. Also called mica-gilt pottery.
Minoan: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The Bronze Age civilization of Crete, a name coined by Sir Arthur Evans derived from the legendary ruler of Knossos, Minos. The civilization is divided into three phases: Early (c 3000-2000 BC), Middle (c 2000-1550 BC), and Late (c 1550-1050 BC). Each had three subdivisions marked with Roman numerals. They stand out as the first civilized Europeans, with a highly sophisticated way of life and material equipment, and were surprisingly modern. They probably represented a fusion between Anatolian immigrants and the native Neolithic population, with some trading contacts through the east Mediterranean. In the Middle Minoan period, urbanization became apparent, towns appeared and, a Minoan specialty, the first of the great palaces, Knossos, Mallia, and Phaestos. Overseas trade was greatly expanded, too. The height of its development was in the 18th-15th centuries BC. By about 1580 BC Minoan civilization began to spread across the Aegean to neighboring islands and to the mainland of Greece. Minoan cultural influence was reflected in the Mycenean culture of the mainland, which began to spread throughout the Aegean about 1500 BC. The palaces were destroyed c 1450, probably by the cataclysmic eruption of Santorini/Thera -- or by conquerors from the mainland. After that, Greek-speaking Mycenaeans gained control of Knossos and Crete; only Knossos was reoccupied on a significant scale. The final fall of Knossos, c 1400 BC, marked the end of Crete's period of greatness. Their Linear A script has not been deciphered, but Linear B has been successfully translated as an early form of Greek, written in a syllabary, but belongs only to the period of mainland domination, and is therefore more relevant to Mycenaeans than Minoans. Their pottery is among the most artistic of any place or time, using abstract curvilinear, floral, and marine designs. Craftsmen reached high levels of technical skill and aesthetic achievement in pottery, metal work, stonework, jewelry, and wall painting (the palaces are lavishly decorated with frescoes). Vessels, figurines, and magnificent seal stones were also carved in stone and bronze and gold objects made. There were many bull sporting events. Cult activities normally took place either in hilltop shrines, often in caves, or in small shrines within the palaces, and often involved animals, including goats and especially bulls. There is an alternative division of the Minoan civilization into Prepalatial (Early Minoan I-III), Protopalatial (Middle Minoan I-II), Neopalatial (Middle Minoan III-Late Minoan IIIA1), and Postpalatial (Late Minoan IIIA2-IIIC).
Moche: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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.
Mokrin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The type site of an earlier Bronze Age group in the lowland Banat, dated to the early 2nd millennium BC. Located near Kikinda (north Yugoslavia), it has a large cemetery with over 300 graves. The graves are organized in 11 lines radiating from the central area, a possible indication of family groupings. Some rich graves have gold ornaments and imported metal objects.
monstrance: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: expositorium; ostensorium
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An ornamental vessel of gold, silver, silver-gilt, or gilded or silvered copper, in which the eucharistic host is carried in processions and ceremonies. The decoration often represents usually a sun with rays, in the center of which is a lunule or glass box in which the consecrated wafer is carried and exposed on the altars of churches. The earliest do not date before the 12th century. First used in France and Germany in the 14th century, monstrances were modeled after pyxes or reliquaries, sacred vessels for
Monte Albán: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A major ceremonial center of the Zapotec people in Oaxaca, Mexico, built around 900 BC on top of an artificially flattened mountain. Monte Albán (I = 900-300 BC) was probably created to serve as the capital of the entire valley, which had previously been divided among several states. It was an immense complex of monumental construction, with a huge plaza (300 x 200 m) dominated by three central mounds. The plaza was flanked on the east and west by temples, pyramids, and platform mounds; on the northern and southern extremities are more complexes of monumental building, including a ball court. There are also underground passageways. By the end of Period I, the city had between 10,000- 20,000 inhabitants living in houses on hill slope terraces around a nucleus of ceremonial and governmental buildings. Hieroglyphic writing was in use, with bar-and-dot numerals, and dates were expressed in terms of the calendar round. More than 300 carved slabs ('danzantes') depict naked and contorted figures who may be captives, and inscriptions definitely recording conquests occur soon afterwards. In Late I/Early II, the city was surrounded by a defense wall. Period I includes the appearance of Grey Ware and Olmec-influenced monumental art. Period II is characterized by contact with Maya lowland centers and later, by the increasing influence of Teotihuacán. Period IIIA (the 3rd-5th centuries AD) is marked by increased contact with Teotihuacán, reflected in pottery (thin orange ware, cylindrical tripod vases), tomb frescoes, Talud-Tablero architecture, and stela inscriptions. Monte Albán reached the height of its power in Period IIIB, 500-900 AD, during which elaborate funerary urns in Grey Ware make their appearance and when the site reached its peak population of 50-60,000 people. Most of the surviving buildings belong to this time. During Monte Albán IV, 900-1521 AD, building ceased. After 900, the centers of power moved elsewhere and Monte Albán was considerably depopulated. It was essentially abandoned. In Period V, Monte Albán was of only secondary importance as a city and a political force. Mixtec art styles make their appearance in the valley and Monte Albán was used as a cemetery, with earlier Zapotec tombs reused for the Mixtec dead. One of the richest discoveries in ancient Mexico was Tomb 7, with over 500 precious offerings in Mixtec style gold and silver ornaments, fine stonework, and a series of bones carved with hieroglyphic and calendrical inscriptions.
mummy: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: The dead body of a person or animal preserved according to the rites practiced in ancient Egypt. After removal of the organs to separate canopic jars, the body was treated with resin (natron) to dry it out thoroughly. It was then wrapped tightly in linen bandages, accompanied by jewelry, religious texts, and unguents of various kinds. Human mummies were then generally enclosed in cartonage, wooden, stone, or gold cases of human form, before being placed in the tomb. All stages of the procedure were accompanied by elaborate rituals, culminating in the ceremony of the 'opening of the mouth', which symbolically restored to the completed mummy the faculties of life. The practice arose from the accidental preservation of bodies by desiccation in the desert sand, giving rise to the idea that such preservation was necessary to the survival of the dead man's soul. It continued until the end of pharaonic times. The name derives from 'moumiya', or bitumen, with which the Persians mistakenly thought the bodies were coated.
Namazga-depe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large Chalcolithic and Bronze Age settlement in southern Turkmenia (western Central Asia) on the north slope of Kopet Dagh. The Namazga phases I-III are assigned to the Chalcolithic period, while Namazga IV and V belong to the Bronze Age -- the Eneolithic (c 4800-3000 BC) and Bronze Age (c 3000-1500 BC); the sequence covers Anau IA Neolithic to the beginning of the Iron Age. The site was urban in character with a high population concentration and separate artisans' quarters, producing evidence of specialist production of bronze, gold, and silver goods, and wheelmade, kiln-fired pottery. The 'proto-civilization' of southern Turkmenia in the later 3rd millennium BC was characterized by two large towns -- Namazga-depe and Altin-Depe -- and a number of smaller settlements such as Ulug-depe. Other features include a wide-ranging trade network and an incipient writing system with repetitive symbols incised on flat clay figurines. This civilization never reached the levels achieved by the fully fledged civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley. There was a marked decline in the early 2nd millennium BC, possibly due to environmental changes, and a collapse in its final 'tower' phase in the late 3rd or early 2nd millennium BC. Altin-depe was abandoned while Namazga-depe survived only as a small village.
Noricum: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Iron Age polity (kingdom) in the eastern Alps, with its seat in Magdalensberg, Austria. The region comprised modern central Austria and parts of Bavaria. Earlier Illyrian in culture, the region came under Celtic influence from the 3rd century BC, and the name Noricum is thought by some to derive from the Celtic Norici centered around Noreia. Becoming a Celtic kingdom, with reasonably friendly relations with Rome, it became a province about 15 BC. With wealth derived from its mineral resources (iron and gold), it was able to develop a markedly Romanized culture (evident from Latin legends on coins and other Latin inscriptions). Five of its communities were made into Roman municipia by the emperor Claudius (reigned 41-54 AD), and the province supplied many soldiers for legions and the Praetorian Guard. The capital was at Virunum in the Klagenfurt area. The area was sub-divided into two provinces by the emperor Diocletian c 300 AD; Roman rule finally collapsed with German incursions in the 5th century. It was linked to the Italian peninsula through trade; mining and ironworking were important.
Olmec: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tenocelome, La Venta
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The first complex civilization of Mesoamerica and its distinctive art style, beginning in the Early Preclassic (c 1200 BC) and ending c 400 BC. The farming population built and supported great ceremonial centers (La Venta, San Lorenzo, Tenochititlan, Tres Zapotes), importing tons of serpentine and basalt from outside the region. The Olmecs were great stone-carvers whose products ranged from basalt heads almost 2 meters high to small jade figurines in which the attributes of a baby-faced human being merge and blend with those of a jaguar to form a composite monster (were-jaguar). Carvings in this distinctive style have been discovered over much of Mexico and as far south as El Salvador and Costa Rica. They are also noted for a distinctive black, white-rimmed kaolin pottery. Olmec figurines and pottery have been found at various sites in central Mexico and contacts were strong with the cultures of Oaxaca before the construction of Monte Albán. The Olmec are also known for art in jadeite and shell and the first hieroglyphic writing system. The Olmec golden age was the early part of the 1st millennium BC. They developed many of the religious traditions that were to sustain the Maya and other Mesoamerican civilizations such as Teotihuacán. They are not to be confused with historic Olmecs, who were a later group and may have helped destroy Teotihuacan, and whose tyranny was responsible for migration of many Mesoamerican peoples.
Oxus Treasure: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A collection of Persian art of the Achaemenidian period (6th-4th century BC) now in the British Museum, London. It was discovered in 1877 on the bank of the Oxus River near the present Afghanistan-Russian border. This large hoard of gold and silver metalwork included a variety of jewelry, ornamental plaques, figurines, chariot models, and vessels. One of the armlets consists of a circular gold band with its two ends meeting in the form of finely worked griffins.
paleometallurgy: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: palaeometallurgy
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The study of ancient metallurgy from its beginnings up to industrial age, examining and interpreting the remains of old metal-working equipment and sites. Paleometallurgists look at the areas where metal was extracted, where ore was treated, and the workshops of goldsmiths, silversmiths, bronze- and iron-workers.
Paleozoic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Palaeozoic
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Major interval of geologic time extending from 540-245 million years ago. It is the first era of the Phanerozoic Eon. It is a geological era in the earth's history before the Mesozoic and after the Precambrian, marked by the development of fishes, land plants, insects, reptiles, and fernlike trees. The early Paleozoic (probably the first 130 million years) was characterized by widespread ups and downs of the Earth's crust, which resulted in mountain building and geosynclines (downward flexing) in parts of North America, Europe, and Asia. Great seas were formed in the southern areas of the emergent landmasses. Much of North America was covered by a warm shallow sea with many coral reefs. The late Paleozoic, which extended from about 410 to 245 million years ago, saw tremendous changes wrought in the Earth. Both plant and animal life flourished in the great, warm, shallow seas, and the various convolutions of the Earth laid down extensive mineral deposits. Much of the copper, gold, lead, zinc, and other minerals mined today derive from Devonian times in the late Paleozoic. Huge swampy forest regions covered much of the northern continents, and these were repeatedly and suddenly invaded by the seas, which buried the vegetation, then covered it with silt. When the sea subsequently withdrew, the forests revived and were again buried in rhythmic cycles that are now evident in deposits called cyclothems. Heat and pressure transformed the buried vegetation into the oil and coal. During the Devonian Period animal life emerged from the ocean, and various species adapted themselves to breathing air and moving about on land. This happened by way of the amphibians, which evolved in the Carboniferous and Permian periods, and were succeeded by reptiles. The late Paleozoic also saw the beginning of insect life -- and fishes and land plants underwent rapid development.
Palermo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Major city of Sicily, on the northwest coast of the island, which has been continuously occupied for two and a half millennia. The Phoenicians established a port of the site by the 8th century BC, and from the 5th century BC the city was controlled by Carthage. The Romans captured Palermo in 254 BC. The city decayed under Roman rule but prospered after AD 535, when the Byzantine general Belisarius recovered it from the Ostrogoths. The island remained in Byzantine hands until the Islamic offensive in 831. Palermo was prosperous when it fell to the Norman adventurers Roger I and Robert Guiscard in 1072. The ensuing era of Norman rule (1072-1194) was Palermo's golden age, particularly after the founding of the Norman kingdom of Sicily in 1130 by Roger II. Palermo became the capital of this kingdom and has some notable buildings from the Norman and succeeding periods. It continues to be Sicily's chief port and center of government.
Palmela: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery of four Copper Age (Chalcolithic) rock-cut tombs in Setúbal, Portugal, near Lisbon. Each has a kidney-shaped chamber, originally used for collective inhumation, entered by a long passage or through a hole in the roof. The cemetery forms the type site of a culture flourishing in central Portugal c 3800-3200 BC. A variety of amuletic objects in stone includes decorated plano-convex or cylindrical stylized human figurines, crescents, model hoes or adzes, and a pair of sandals from Alapraia. Stonework follows Neolithic traditions, but adds deeply concave-based arrowheads. The tombs were rich in Beaker material, including 50 beakers with copper knives and fragments of gold foil. Pottery, too, follows on from the Almeria culture, though foreign elements have been connected with the dark-slipped Urfirnis ware of Greece. There is also a distinctive type of arrowhead with near-circular copper blade and long tang, the Palmela point. The settlements are likely a variant of the Vila Nova de Sao Pedro culture.
parting vessel: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A container, usually square or rectangular, used in metal processing for separating metals one from another, usually silver from gold.
Pecica: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Geto-Dacian walled city during Burebistas' reign (82-44 BC), in western Romania, near Arad. It was a long-lived tell settlement of the Bronze Age. At least 16 occupation horizons have been distinguished, with one of the clearest sequences of pottery development in the Banat. A large collection of stone molds for metallurgy was found along with inhumation cemeteries containing rich grave goods of gold, bronze, and faience and amber beads.
Philippi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Old Thasian settlement in Kavála, Greece, which Philip II of Macedon fortified in 356 BC to control neighboring gold mines. In 42 BC Philippi was the site of the decisive Roman battle in which Mark Antony and Octavian (later the emperor Augustus) defeated Brutus and Cassius, the leading assassins of Julius Caesar. Located in Thrace, it was the object of an unsuccessful attempt at colonization by Thasos in the 6th century BC and for a time was known as Crenides and Daton. After his victory, Mark Antony established Philippi as a colonia for his veterans, and the town gained strategic importance from its position and its proximity to the port of Neapolis. Philippi was important in the early history of Christianity, as is shown by the prominence given to the story of St. Paul preaching there in 49 AD and being consequently imprisoned and extensive early Christian building. Among the ruins are walls, acropolis, forum, gymnasium, macellum, baths, and theaters.
Pizarro, Francisco (1475-1541): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Spanish explorer and adventurer who came to Peru in 1532 looking for gold and destroyed the Inca empire. The Inca wrongly believed the Spaniards to be gods returning as prophesied in legends. He founded Lima.
plating: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The coating a metal or other material such as plastic or china with a hard, nonporous metallic surface to improve durability and beauty. Gold, silver, stainless steel, palladium, copper, and nickel are formed by dipping an object into a solution containing the desired surface material, which is deposited by chemical or electrochemical action. While much plating is done for decorative purposes, still more is done to increase the durability and corrosion-resistance of softer materials.
Puabi or Pu-abi (c 2900-2334 BC): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Shubad; Shub-Ad
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A queen of Ur buried in Grave 800 of the Royal Cemetery (Sumeria) around the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, whose tomb contained the bodies of more than 60 attendants. In the grave was the skeleton of Puabi, adorned with ornaments of gold, silver and lapis lazuli, and an attendant. In the entrance shaft were skeletons of richly adorned women and men, as well as a sledge and the skeletons of the two oxen which had pulled it. Rich grave goods include many vessels of gold, silver, and copper, a gaming board and a silver harp inlaid with shell and red and blue stone.
Punt: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pwenet
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A district bordering the mouth of the Red Sea in eastern Africa, probably close to the Sudan/Eritrea border, from which Egyptian naval expeditions brought myrrh trees, gold, ivory, etc. from at least the 5th Dynasty (2494-2345 BC) onwards. The most famous of these expeditions is recorded at Deir el-Bahri in the funerary temple of Queen Hatshepsut of the 18th dynasty, c 1478 BC.
Quimbaya: CATEGORY: culture; artifact
DEFINITION: A late prehistoric culture of western Colombia, South America, dated 300-1600 AD. It is known for its fine goldwork -- flasks, helmets, jewelry, pins, etc. It represents some of the most advanced metallurgical techniques in the prehistoric New World. Pottery with negative painting and incision, and sometimes modeled, belongs to the final centuries before the Spanish Conquest. The Coclé region in Panama was strongly influenced by the Quimbaya style. It is particularly known for its striking gold pieces set with precious stones, including emeralds, quartzes, jaspers, opals, agates, and green serpentines.
repoussé: CATEGORY: artifact; geology
DEFINITION: A jewelry-making and metalworking technique whereby a design is raised or embossed by hammering or punching out the metal from behind. Repoussé is usually done on bronze, but also on gold and silver. It consists of hammering up the design from the back of the object using round-edged punches. The surface of the raised design can then be decorated. Further work on the design can be done using chisels and punches on the front of the sheet --- a technique known as chasing.
ribbon torc: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Gold neck ornament current in the middle Bronze Age of northwestern Europe (1200-900 BC) comprising a circlet of twisted metal with simple hooks and balls at the terminals to fasten the ends together when worn.
Rillaton: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Rillaton cup
CATEGORY: site; artifact
DEFINITION: A gold cup found in a Wessex culture grave in Cornwall, southwest England, from the Bronze Age. It is one of the finest pieces of Wessex Culture craftsmanship -- made of sheet gold, strengthened with corrugations, and has an S-shaped profile and a single handle. The burial was a stone cist beneath a burial mound. The cup is dated to c 1650-1400 BC.
Routsi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site of a Mycenaean tholos tomb in Messenia, Greece, with grave goods including bronze weapons, gold, amber and glass jewelry, and pottery.
Samos: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Greek island in the Aegean just off mainland western Asia Minor. There is evidence of Early Neolithic occupancy on the south coast, near Tigáni. About the 11th century BC, the Ionians appeared and by the 7th century BC the island was one of the leading commercial centers of Greece. The tyrant Polycrates ruled from c 540 BC, in what was perhaps the golden age of Samos. He ruled in alliance with the Egyptian pharaoh and had a powerful fleet that blockaded the Persian-controlled mainland until his death c 522 BC. Samos was part of Delian league of Aegean states and then eclipsed by Rhodes in Hellenistic times. Ruins include the late 5th-century BC Temple of Hera and sanctuary and an aqueduct tunnel about 3/4 mi. (1 km) long. Samos was the birthplace of the mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras.
San Agustín: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A locality in the south Colombian Andes highland, with a number of cemeteries, house platforms, ancient fields, stone-built chambers underneath mounds, and also a series of more than 300 stone statues representing mythological personages, some of them with jaguar fangs. The mounds commonly have internal stone-lined passageways and chambers, some of which contain sculpture, suggesting their use as places of worship as well as burial. Sculptures are rendered in a variety of techniques but are usually freestanding stelae and can be up to four meters high. Though stylistic comparisons are often made with Chavin, these themes have strong parallels in Olmec iconography. Occupation extends from about 700 BC almost to the Spanish conquest. The spectacular stonework falls somewhere between 500 BC and 1500 AD. There is also incised and modeled pottery and gold ornaments from the underground burial chambers.
Sardis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sardes
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City in western Anatolia (near Izmir, Turkey), associated with Croesus and the Lydians, the capital city of Lydia. The Lydian city, of the 7th-6th centuries BC, had an acropolis and walled lower settlement. From about 560-546 BC, Sardis was ruled by Croesus, who was renowned for his great wealth and was the last king of Lydia. Taken by the Persians (c 546 BC), Sardis fell in turn to the Athenians, the Seleucids, and the Attalids until bequeathed to the Romans in 133 BC. Among the ruins are the Palace of Croesus, Temple of Artemis, gold works, and grave mounds of the royal cemetery. It was first occupied in the Early Bronze Age and became the first city where gold and silver coins were minted. Leveled by an earthquake in 17 AD, the city was rebuilt and remained one of the great cities of Anatolia until the later Byzantine period. The Mongol Timur (Tamerlane) then destroyed it in 1402. Its ruins include the ancient Lydian citadel and about 1,000 Lydian graves. Excavations of Sardis have uncovered more remains of the Hellenistic and Byzantine city than of the Lydian town described by the Greek historian Herodotus.
Sarmatian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A people originally of Iranian stock who migrated from Central Asia to the Ural Mountains between the 6th-4th century BC and eventually settled in most of southern European Russia and the eastern Balkans. These nomadic tribes were related to Scythians and became a political and cultural force whose influence extended into central Asia and Transcaucasia, as well as into western Europe where the Sarmatians challenged the Romans before themselves being driven back by the Huns c 370 AD. Sarmatian art was strongly geometric, floral, and richly colored. They made jewelry in the form of rings, bracelets, diadems, brooches, gold plaques, buckles, buttons, and mounts and exceptional metalwork was found in the tombs, including gold openwork plaques, bronze bracelets, spears, swords, gold-handled knives, and gold jewelry and cups. The Sarmatians were also very experienced in horsemanship and warfare.
Semibratny: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The Seven Brothers' tumuli in Kuban, Georgia -- rich Scythian burials of the 5th century BC. They included numerous horses, examples of Scythian craftsmanship, and examples of Greek gold-figured silver plate.
Shaft Grave Circles A and B: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Richly furnished tombs at Mycenae made up of circles enclosed by a low stone parapet and containing 30 graves total. The offerings suggest that the rules of Mycenae must have been buried here, probably in the later 17th and 16th centuries BC. The grave goods include gold and silver cups, jewelry, dress ornaments, golden diadems, elaborate hairpins, amethyst beads, amber, and bronze weapons. The great influence of Crete on these graves is visible in the metal cups, faience sacral knots" appliquéd ostrich eggs conch shells gold triple shrine facades and imported pottery. There is a wealth of local art such as formal gold cups gold worked in patterns of lions bulls and plants and lions twisted as ornament."
Shub-Ad (fl 3rd millennium BC): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Puabi
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A queen or Ur c 2600 BC (Early Dynastic Period in Mesopotamia, c 2900-2334 BC), whose tomb was discovered in the Royal Cemetery. The tomb contained the bodies of more than 60 attendants. The queen herself lay on a wooden bier within a stone-built chamber beside that of Abargi, probably her husband. She was wearing a cloak of beads of gold, silver, and precious stones, an elaborate headdress of gold ribbons with gold and lapis lazuli pendants, and large lunate gold earrings. There were also bowls and other vessels of gold, silver, and copper, as well as pottery. In the shaft of the tomb were a wooden sledge with mosaic decoration and two oxen to draw it, an inlaid gaming board, and a magnificent harp inlaid with shell, red and blue stone.
Silla: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A kingdom traditionally dated 57 BC-668 AD, the oldest of the monarchies of the Three Kingdoms period, and including the Unified or Great Silla period of 668-935, the golden age of Korean art. It eventually came to cover most of southeastern Korea east of the Naktong River. The original territory of the Silla kingdom, the modern North Kyongsang province, is a mountain-secluded triangle. Silla was in competition with the Koguryo and Paekche until 668 and had relations with Japan's Yamato. When it unified in 668, its capital remained in Kyongju. At that site are large mounded tombs of the 5th-6th centuries with fine gold work. It became a gridded city in the 7th century and the Anapchi pond was built.
silver: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A white, lustrous metal valued for its decorative beauty and electrical conductivity. It is found nearly as early as copper and gold, in the form of beads, trinkets, and display vessels. The main source of this metal in antiquity was the lead ore galena, in which silver sulfide occurs as an impurity. After smelting the ore, silver was recovered by the process of cupellation, where the lead is oxidized, leaving silver unaltered. Silver is soft and could be cold-worked but it was too soft for most purposes and was often alloyed with other metals, even in antiquity.
silver-figured: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Technique used to decorate Greek and Etruscan bronze and gold in which silver figures were attached to the other metal or silver foil was placed over relief decoration.
Sitio Conte: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Panamanian site, in Coclé province, occupied from 200-1300 AD. Its cemetery, used 500-900, had some 60 tombs filled with gold regalia, tools and weapons, ornaments of carved stone or bone, and thousands of pots, some painted in several colors. All these items were decorated with elaborate scroll designs and animal forms. Elements of this Sitio Conte (or Coclé) art style are found at other sites right up to the Spanish conquest.
Snettisham: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Norfolk, England, of a hoard of fine late Iron Age metalwork, dated to the 1st century BC. The hoard consisted of around 200 gold, silver, and bronze torcs (neck -rings), gold bracelets, and coins. The finest torc was made of eight twisted strands of electrum wire, each strand made of eight strands; the terminals were decorated in relief and one contained a Gallo-Belgic coin of the late 1st century BC.
Spissky Stvrtov: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Spissky Stvrtok
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Bronze Age hillfort of the Otomani culture in eastern Slovakia and dated to the mid-2nd millennium BC. A partly encircling stone wall defends the site on the east side, where the main entrance is flanked by towerlike bastions. In the fort interior, 26 houses are arranged around a 'village square' and these houses, with stone foundations, sometimes had below-ground chests containing gold and bronze objects. Houses outside this acropolis" were of simpler construction. This was a fortified site of economic administrative and strategic importance. That there was differentiation into an acropolis and a settlement area with the houses of the acropolis built using a different technique and the amount of gold and bronze objects hidden in chests under the floors of the houses in the settlement area suggests that there were economic and social distinctions among the inhabitants. Bronze workshops are known as well as a ritual area where a rhomboidal stone upright lies near two inurned cremations."
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."
surface enrichment: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: In metal alloy coinage, an occurrence where the more 'noble' metal has a higher observed concentration at the surface of the coin than at the center. A silver-copper alloy has a higher concentration of silver and a gold-silver alloy has a higher concentration of gold. This phenomenon is important since the composition of coins is used to locate their source and gain other data.
Sutton Hoo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Sixth and seventh century AD burial mounds in Suffolk, England, the richest treasure found in British soil. It was the royal cemetery of the Wuffingas, early Anglo-Saxon kings of East Anglia. The largest of the burial mounds was found to cover a Saxon boat, its form preserved only by the impression left in the sand by its vanished timbers, with their iron bolts still in their original positions. The boat had been propelled by 38 oars; there was no mast. The grave goods include a decorated helmet, sword, and shield; ceremonial whetstone; gold belt buckle; purse and cloak clasps; Millefiori glass; cloisonné garnets; Merovingian gold coins; and Byzantium silver vessels and spoons. It is likely to have been prepared as a cenotaph in honor of Redwald (d. 625). He was the most important East Anglian king. The treasure shows a higher cultural level and wider commercial contacts than had previously been figured for the early Saxon period in England. This type of funerary ritual is known from Migration Period Europe and is described in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. The ship and artifacts are now housed in the British Museum.
T'ang Dynasty: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tang
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: One of the greatest Chinese Dynasties, ruling from its capital Ch'ang-an (Sian), over a large portion of central Asia from 618-907 AD. It succeeded the short-lived Sui dynasty and developed a successful form of government and administration and stimulated a cultural and artistic golden age. The dynasty reached its peak in the early 8th century.
Tairona: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Late prehistoric culture of northeast Colombia in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The Taironas were organized into small political states (chiefdoms) and had one of the most advanced cultures of the Caribbean mainland. Their crafts were ceramic ware (black and red painted with zoomorphic design and appliqué); stone utensils (metates); bone and shell ornaments; and beads, buttons, and jewelry made of gold, copper, and gold-copper alloy (tumbaga). Most sites, like Pueblito and Buritaca-200, have hundreds of stone foundations for circular houses. There are also remains of tombs, stone-built retaining walls, bridges, stairways, roads, agricultural terraces, and irrigation canals. A central feature of most villages was a ceremonial building, usually on a platform-mound, and often of dressed masonry. The town site at Pueblito had all these features and, in addition, paved streets, the remains of large irrigation projects, and urn burials. Specialized funerary vessels are often modeled with life forms which are similar to Mesoamerican motifs. Populations in the thousands occupied Tairona towns and villages at the time of the Spanish conquest.
Takamatsuzuka: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Mounded tomb (tumulus) of the Kofun period which is about 18 m in diameter and 5 m high, dating to the 7th century AD in Nara Prefecture, Japan. Excavation revealed paintings of human and mythological figures and celestial bodies, and murals of Chinese directional symbols, on the walls and the ceiling of the burial chamber. Close similarities to the Tang are seen and a Tang mirror and some gold- and silver-plated ornaments have been found.
Tanis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Djanet; biblical Zoan; modern San al-Hajar al-Qibliyah
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Most important archaeological site in the northeastern Nile Delta of Egypt and capital of 14th nome of Lower Egypt in the Late Period (747-332 BC) and, at one time, of the entire country. There are massive mud-brick temple enclosure walls built by Ramesside and the 21st-Dynasty pharaohs. The site is best known for the rich royal tombs of the 21st and 22nd Dynasties of c 1070-715 BC, built near the great temple of Amon. Silver coffins, gold masks, and jewelry in gold and silver have been found and the tombs and some sarcophagi were reused from earlier periods. The Tanite Dynasty is the 21st dynasty of Egypt (1075-945 BC). The pharaohs of the 22nd Dynasty continued to reside at Tanis until the collapse of their shrinking domain in 712 BC.
Tarascan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tarascans, Purépecha
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An independent state of the Late Post-Classic Period centered in the mountains of the Michoacán province of Mexico, one of the very few to successfully resist Aztec incursions. It is also the name of the people there, who were linguistically unrelated to any other Mesoamerican group. Their capital, Tzinzunzan, was built overlooking Lake Patzcuaro, and appears to be a ceremonial center consisting of a huge platform mound surmounted by five pyramids. Fine gold and tumbaga jewelry and well-made copper and bronze tools have been found. The Tarascan state, with its later capital of Pátzcuaro, survived into historic times. They reached a level of social and political organization comparable to that of the Aztec and the Maya.
Tartessos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: biblical Tarshish, Greek Tarsis; Tartessus
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Early trading kingdom at the mouth of the Guadalquivir Valley in southwestern Spain, site of a semi-mythical city referred to by ancient writers as a source of gold, silver, tin, and lead. Tartessos, in fact, was the late Bronze Age society that included the mines of the Río Tinto in its territory. There is strong circumstantial evidence in the Huelva hoard, for trading with Sardinia, Sicily, Cyprus, the Phoenicians, France, Brittany, and Ireland c 800-550 BC. It has given its name to the Tartessian culture of the early 1st millennium BC which is essentially Phoenician with Etruscan and Greek admixture and whose influence in Spain, on the civilized Iberians of the east coast and the less advanced peoples of the center and north, was considerable.
Tekkalakota: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tekkalkota
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Neolithic site in the south-central Deccan, India with two phases of settlement in the early 2nd millennium BC. There are mud/stone floors of circular or rectilinear huts and fractional burials early on, later replaced by extended burials in interconnected vessels for adults, while children were buried in urns. Artifacts include rare metal objects (copper, gold). Three gold ornaments were found, indicating exploitation of local gold deposits. The people produced distinctive burnished gray pottery, smaller quantities of black-on-red painted pottery, stone axes, and bone points, and there is some evidence of a stone-blade industry.
tessera: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: adj. tessellated; pl. tesserae
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A piece of stone, colored glass, or tile used with others to make mosaic patterns on floors, walls, ceilings, etc. The pieces were set in cement by Roman and later craftsmen. Small cubes of up to 1 inch in size were used to make the floors. In the Roman period, tesserae, sometimes inscribed, were in circulation for various purposes. These were small tokens of bronze, lead, terra-cotta, and bone. The earliest tesserae, which by 200 BC had replaced natural pebbles in Hellenistic mosaics, were cut from marble and limestone. Stone tesserae dominated mosaics into Roman times, but between the 3rd-1st centuries BC tesserae of smalto (colored glass) also began to be produced. An important variety of glass tesserae, appearing first in Roman mosaics of the 4th century AD, were those made with gold and silver leaf.
Tiahuanaco: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tiwanaku
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Large urban and ceremonial site which dominated the Titicaca Basin and the high Andes of Bolivia from c 100-1250 AD, a major Middle Horizon site and probably the capital of an empire. The central area has principal religious structures on a large rectangular plaza, a large U-shaped mound around a spring, and a monumental Gate of the Sun cut from a single block of stone. The Tiahuanaco people had trade links with the Amazon jungle and the Pacific coast, exporting potatoes, root crops, and llama products. In the 10th century, Tiahuanaco colonies were established on the coasts of southern Peru and northern Chile. Tiahuanaco's distinctive art and architectural styles influenced the central highlands and southern Peru, northern Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina. Tiahuanacan influence spread over a wide area of the Central Andes and is especially evident because of its unique ceramics. Typically, pottery was pointed black-on-white on a red polished surface, although later styles employed as many as six colors. Geometric designs were common as well as stylized pumas, condors, and serpents. The kero (a flared-rim beaker) is a characteristic form. Articles of bronze, copper and gold suggest that the city may also have been an important metallurgical center. Iconographic links with Huari to the north are such that a strong economic and cultural bond between the two is assumed. Tiahuanaco and Huari together constitute the Middle Horizon style of the Andes.
Tibava: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Copper Age cemetery and settlement of the Tiszapolgár culture, located in the upper Bodrog Valley in eastern Slovakia and dated to the late 4th millennium BC. The site lies near a pass across the Carpathians. The richness of its grave goods shows it was an area of trade; the largest collection of Early Copper Age gold pendants in the Carpathians has been found, as well as south Polish and Volhynian flint nodules and rich copper finds.
Tillya-Depe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Iron Age site in southern Bactria, Afghanistan, dating to the first half of the 1st millennium BC. There was a central fortified architectural platform and a group of Kushan royal tombs" dug after abandonment. The graves were very rich with gold vessels and jewelry and were dated to the late 1st millennium BC. Afghanistan's archaeological discoveries are recounted by Viktor Sarianidi in "The Golden Hoard of Bactria: From the Tillya-tepe Excavations in Northern Afghanistan" (1985) an illustrated account of grave goods excavated from an early Kushan princedom cemetery."
Timur (1336-1405): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Timour, Timur Lenk, Timurlenk, Tamerlane, Tamburlaine
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Turkic/Mongol conqueror who made Samarkand the capital of a vast nomad empire extending from Mongolia to the Mediterranean, but centered on Iran, Afghanistan, and Soviet central Asia. Many Timurid monuments, built by Timur himself and his grandson, Ulugbek, still survive in Samarkand. The monuments are covered in azure, turquoise, gold, and alabaster mosaics and are dominated by the great cathedral mosque and his mausoleum, the Gur-e Amir. Of Islamic faith, he is remembered for his barbarous conquests and the cultural achievements of his dynasty.
Toprakkale: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Topra Kaleh
CATEGORY: site; artifact
DEFINITION: Site on Lake Van, eastern Anatolia (Turkey), which was the center of the Urartian state, c 850-600 BC. There is a large temple complex which was a Urartian fortress, storerooms, and residential area, including bronze, carved ivory, and silk artifacts. There are other temples, storerooms, etc. in the area in which some wall paintings remain. The walls of Toprakkale, erected in the 8th century BC, were of cyclopean masonry and sloped slightly inward, perhaps as a defense against earthquakes. Artifacts show a high level of artistic achievement, in bronze, gold, silver, and ivory. Excavations have also uncovered a basalt floor inlaid with limestone and marble, parts of a decorated marble frieze, and brilliantly polished red pottery vessels. Toprakkale is also the name of a fine burnished red ware of the Urartian period.
Toprakkale complex: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: site on Lake Van, eastern Anatolia (Turkey), which was the center of the Urartian state, c 850-600 BC. There is a large temple complex which was a Urartian fortress, storerooms, and residential area, including bronze, carved ivory, and silk artifacts. There are other temples, storerooms, etc. in the area in which some wall paintings remain. The walls of Toprakkale, erected in the 8th century BC, were of Cyclopean masonry and sloped slightly inward, perhaps as a defense against earthquakes. Artifacts show a high level of artistic achievement, in bronze, gold, silver, and ivory. Excavations have also uncovered a basalt floor inlaid with limestone and marble, parts of a decorated marble frieze, and brilliantly polished red pottery vessels. Toprakkale is also the name of a fine burnished red ware of the Urartian period.
torc: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: torque
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A neckring, of gold or bronze, and penannular in shape (an almost-complete ring). Examples are made of spirally twisted metal and appeared in the Early Bronze Age of central Europe and continued to the Roman occupation, being particularly popular among the Celts. Very common in the La Tène Iron Age, examples of gold, silver and electrum occur in graves and hoards.
touchstone: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A stone used to test how genuine an object is by rubbing the object against the stone, particularly used for testing gold and silver.
treasure trove: CATEGORY: term; artifact
DEFINITION: In law, treasure found hidden in the ground etc. but of unknown ownership. In Britain, treasure troves are the property of the State, though sometimes they are in part returned or recompensed to the owner of the land. To be declared treasure trove by a coroner's inquest, the items must be of gold or silver, must have been lost or hidden with the intention of recovery, and by someone who is no longer traceable. In these circumstances, the Crown takes possession, rewarding the finder with the market value or with the object itself if it is not required for the national collections.
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.
Tripolye: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The type site, in the Balkans near Kiev, of a Neolithic-Copper Age culture which formed in the Western Ukraine and east Romania (Cucuteni culture) in the 4th millennium BC. It is best known for its villages of up to 100 timber longhouses, and for fine polychrome vessels painted with curvilinear and geometric designs. They also had copper and gold objects. Tripolye people practiced shifting agriculture, frequently moving their settlements. The Tripolye culture came to an end with the expansion westwards of steppe cultures of kurgan or single-grave type. The Cucuteni-Tripolye culture was a Neolithic European culture that arose in Ukraine between the Seret and Bug rivers, with an extension to the Dnieper River, about 3000 BC.
Troy: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hisarlik, Hissarlik, Ilion or Ilium
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Ancient city in northwestern Anatolia (Turkey) that holds an enduring place in both literature (the Iliad" "Odyssey" etc.) and archaeology. A large mound called Hisarlik (or Hissarlik) by the Turks holds the ruins -- as discovered by the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann. Between 1870-1890 Schliemann exposed most of the remains of the Early Bronze Age and showed that nine successive cities had stood on the site of which he considered the second to be that described in Homer's Iliad. Wilhelm Dörpfeld who continued excavations after Schleimann's death established a chronology for the cities and believed the sixth to be Troy. In Troy VI (c 1900-1300 BC) there was the arrival of invaders with horses and superior building techniques -- possibly the Luwians. It was devastated by an earthquake c 1300 BC. Carl William Blegen who also worked there argued for the earlier part of the seventh city. Troy VIIa represents a rebuilt city along the plan of Troy VI but it was destroyed by fire c 1220 BC in what may have been the Trojan War. The nine main periods of occupation began in mid-3rd millennium BC and ended with Greco-Roman city of Ilion/Ilium. At the end of each period when a settlement was destroyed (usually by fire or earthquake or both) the survivors leveled the site and built new houses on it. Priam's gold treasure was found in Troy II c 2400-2200 BC."
tumbaga: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: An alloy of gold and copper common in Central and South America during the first millennium AD. It was used for making fine ornaments, particularly in the native cultures of Colombia.
Tutankhamun (reigning c1336-1327 BC): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tutankhamen
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A minor Egyptian pharaoh of the late 18th Dynasty who came into great prominence when his tomb in the Valley of Kings at Thebes was found with minimal disturbance by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon in 1922. A son of Amenhotep III, he succeeded the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten. During an undistinguished reign of nine years he began the restoration of the worship of Amen (Amun) and returned the capital to Thebes. His more orthodox successors attempted to obliterate him from memory because of the taint of Aten worship which he apparently never entirely threw off. The tomb, though probably far poorer than those of the greater pharaohs, yielded a remarkable treasure and great detail of the ritual of Egyptian royal burials. The mummy, with a magnificent inlaid gold mask, lay inside three cases -- the innermost of pure gold weighing over a ton, the outer two of gilded wood. These were enclosed in a stone sarcophagus within successive shrines also of gilded wood, nearly filling the burial chamber. Three other rooms held chariots, furniture, statues, and other possessions of the king. It took three years to clear and preserve the contents of the wealthy tomb. The discovery stirred the public imagination and opened up a great interest in archaeology.
Ur: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Tell el-Muqqayr
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A site in southern Mesopotamia occupied from 'Ubaid times (6th-5th millennia BC), which grew in importance during the Early Dynastic period (3rd millennium BC) to become an important Sumerian city. Ubaid and Uruk levels are separated by a flood level. In the last century of the 3rd millennium, it was the ceremonial center of the Ur III empire which controlled much of Mesopotamia. Located south of the Euphrates and west of Basra, it has a Royal Cemetery c 2800. The arch and dome were used in constructing the tombs and they contained precious metal and stones, animal figures; shell, lapis lazuli, and carnelian mosaic inlays; gold and lapis jewelry; and evidence for the sacrifice of human attendants to accompany the dead royal master or mistress. There is also spectacular 3rd millennium BC religious architecture (the ziggurat of Nanna/Sin, the moon god), residential architecture and street plans, and texts from then to the late 1st millennium BC. It was destroyed by Elam and the Amorites, but recovered by the early 2nd millennium BC. The city later declined and was finally abandoned in the 4th century BC.
Vapheio: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Vapheio cup
CATEGORY: site; artifact
DEFINITION: The site of a Mycenaean tholos tomb in Laconia, Greece, dated to the 15th century BC and the style of magnificent gold cup found there. The popular shape was straight or slightly splayed walls widening to the rim, and a single handle. The form occurs in pottery from the Middle Minoan period (late 16th-early 15th century BC) on Crete and was important to the Mycenaeans in the Late Helladic period. The two examples are decorated with scenes of bulls. Other rich grave goods were bronze weapons and fine jewelry.
Varna: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Odessus
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Late Copper Age cemetery site on the Black Sea coast of eastern Bulgaria, of the Gumennita culture (Karanovo VI), with some of the richest burials of the 4th millennium BC. It is the largest collection of pre-Mycenaean gold in Europe. The cemetery contains over 100 extended inhumations as well as two special grave types: the 'mask' grave (where the skull is replaced by a clay mask) and the 'centotaph' grave (where grave goods are arranged as if the missing body were present). These grave categories contained some of the richest grave goods: gold scepters, diadems, pendants, appliqués, copper tools and weapons; stone, shell, and bone jewelry. Foreign items include copper and graphite, spondylus and dentalium shells, carnelian, and marble. Analysis of the Varna gold indicates two sources, probably in the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus. Varna was founded as Odessus by Milesian Greeks in the 6th century BC.
Vergina: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Royal capital of Macedonia in northern Greece with a tumulus cemetery of the Early Iron Age. A pair of royal tombs from the fourth century BC contained many objects of gold, silver, bronze, and iron, several wall frescoes, and two caskets of human bones, which may be the remains of the parents of Alexander III, Philip II and his fourth wife Olympias.
Vetulonia: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Etruscan Vetluna
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Principal Etruscan city and, according to traditional sources, one of the confederation of twelve. The original settlement was probably early Iron Age (Villanovan) and it prospered between the 9th-6th centuries BC. There are Villanovan pits, biconical ossuaries (a type of circular tomb with a tumulus), and some monumental tholos-like vaulted examples. The grave goods are often rich, of gold, silver, and particularly bronze. From the Tomba della Pietrera have come the earliest examples of Etruscan stone statuary, which are flat, rectilinear figurines.
Vidra: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Middle and Late Neolithic tell settlement near Giurgiu in the lower Danube Valley, southeast Rumania. The main occupation horizons include a Boian level, a Boin-Gumelnita transitional level, and three Gumelnita levels. Of the Gumelnita levels, the first two have rich metal finds, including gold pendants and copper pins and earrings.
Villanovan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Villanovan culture; Villanova period
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early Iron Age people of the Po Valley, Etruria, and parts of Campania, Italy, c 900-700 BC. The culture is defined by artifacts from the type site of Villanova: metalwork in gold and bronze. The craftsmen played a major part in the development of the fibula and the technique of sheet metalwork, especially the situla. The cemeteries were urnfields with decorated biconical urns and bronze objects; subsidiary vessels, fibulae, ornaments, crescentic razors, etc., frequently accompanied the ashes. The pottery was handmade, dark burnished, decorated with meanders of grooved bands. The Villanovans were replaced culturally by the Etruscans in the south in the 8th century, in the north in the 6th century. This period laid the foundations for the Etruscan culture and city-states of the 8th century BC.
Vix: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Iron Age burial mound in Côte-d'Or, France, a rich Celtic burial of the Hallstatt D period (late 6th century BC). In a mortuary house under a barrow, the body of a woman was accompanied by a four-wheeled cart with bronze fittings and by rich offerings, including a gold diadem, bronze and silver bowls, brooches, Etruscan wine flagons, and a Attic Black Figure cup dated c 520 BC. the most spectacular object is a massive bronze crater with a capacity of nearly 1300 liters (1.64 m high) and of Greek workmanship. The burial at Vix is associated with the nearby hillfort of Mont Lassois.
Waldalgesheim: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: (Kreis Kreuznach)
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Chariot burial of the La Tène Iron Age in Rhineland, Germany, depicting the 4th century BC decorative style of the same name. Funerary offerings included gold ornaments, bronze flagon, imported Italian bronze bucket, and bronze plaques with repoussé human figures. The native pieces (gold torcs, bracelets) are decorated in the Waldalgesheim curvilinear style of ornament based on tendril patterns. After c 350 BC metalwork decorated in this Waldalgesheim style made its appearance all over Celtic Europe from Britain to Romania and Bulgaria.
Wessex culture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Wessex Culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early Bronze Age culture of southern England with cemeteries of found barrows of special types (bell, disc and saucer barrows and enclosures strangely labeled 'pond barrows') c 2650-1400 BC. It developed from the Beaker tradition and was closely related to the Armorican Tumulus Culture. The Wessex I period, c 2650-2000 BC, is associated with the major rebuilding of Stonehenge (III). There are rich grave goods, including bronze daggers and axes, amber and shale beads and buttons, copper and gold. The pottery is mainly incense cups and the first collared urns. In the Wessex II period, c 1650-1400 BC, cremation replaced inhumation and there are faience beads. Bronze was normal in Wessex II, and contained up to 17 percent tin. They had contacts with Egypt, Mycenae, and Crete. Unfortunately no settlements of the Wessex culture are known.
Xiongnu: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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.
Ziwiyeh: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ziwiye
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Tell site in Kurdistan, northwest Iran with a hoard of gold, silver, and ivory in a coffin of the 7th century BC. It illustrates the workmanship of the local Mannai, strongly influenced by Assyria, Urartu, and the Scythians. The collection is thought by some to have been the property of a Scythian chief who temporarily ruled Mannai. There was also a palace of Mannaeans upon a hilltop fortress.

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