Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for language:

digital information language: CATEGORY: database design
DEFINITION: Information language that uses symbolic representation of data to reduce data to a conventional representation and to store it, but to facilitate data retrieval by allowing amplification of a query.
graphical information language: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A set of conventions for describing entities, such as artifacts, pictorially and in a consistent way.
information language: CATEGORY: database design
DEFINITION: A language artificially created in databases to ensure unambiguous communication of information.
language: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The overall manner of speaking that reflects general shared speech patterns. It is a system of conventional spoken or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, communicate. Ancient Egyptian is probably the second oldest written language in the world, being preceded only by Sumerian in western Asia.
Papuan languages: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Non-Austronesian languages, NAN languages
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A group of over 700 languages of New Guinea and adjacent parts of eastern Indonesia and Melanesia. Today these languages are spoken by about 2.9 million people, and the family is perhaps the most diverse in the world. The Papuan languages presumably descend from the languages of the first settlers of Melanesia c 30-40,000 years ago, and some linguists claim to be able to trace population expansion and migrations within the New Guinea region from about 15,000 years ago.
protoworld language: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A single, original language, hypothesized to have been spoken by the first modern humans in Africa, from which all modern languages may have evolved. It has been suggested that linguistic traces of this language have survived into the present.
symbolic language: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Language as a communications system characterized by (1) the use of a finite number of symbols, including sounds, to create an infinite number of words, sentences, and ideas; (2) displacement where topics can deal with the past or future and thus are not limited to the present time and space; (3) arbitrary in that the actual symbols utilized need not bear any relationship to reality; and (4) learned behavior.
wickiup: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Fox (Algonquian language of the Fox, Sauk, and Kickapoo Indians) for wikiyapi house
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Hut used by the nomadic Indians of the arid regions of the western and southwestern U.S., usually with an oval base and a rough domed frame covered with reed mats, grass, or brushwood. A crude temporary shelter or hut sometimes surrounded by circles of stone and covered with pinon tree bark or juniper boughs.
Akkadian: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A Semitic-speaking dynasty founded by Sargon the Great (Sharrukin, 2334-2279 BC) c. 2370 BC with Akkad (or Agade), an unidentified site, as his capital. Under Sargon and his grandson, Naram-Sin, the dynasty established an empire that included much of Mesopotamia and neighboring Elam to the east. The dynasty saw three major developments: the beginning of the absorption of the Sumerians by the Semites, a trend from city-state to the larger territorial state, and imperial expansion. It is considered the first empire in history. Akkadian also refers to the Semitic dialects of Old Akkadian (3rd millennium) and Assyrian and Babylonian (2nd and 1st millennia). The Amarna Letters (diplomatic correspondence between Egypt and the Levant in the mid-14th century BC) are written in Babylonian, a late form of Akkadian. Akkadian was written in a cuneiform script borrowed from Sumerian and was the lingua franca of the civilized Near East for much of the 2nd millennium. It replaced Sumerian as the official language (though Sumerian was still used for religious purposes). Akkadian was gradually replaced by Aramaic.
alphabet: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A set of written symbols or characters used to represent the sounds of a language. Each character in an alphabet usually represents a single sound rather than a syllable or group of vowels or consonants. The first alphabets were devised around the eastern shores of the Mediterranean around 1700-1500 BC. The Phoenicians developed what is known as North Semitic and it is considered the ancestor of all modern alphabets. However, Semitic language scripts used only consonants. The Greeks then added vowels when they adopted an alphabet in c 8th century BC. The number of letters in an alphabet varies from 20-30 to hundreds for hieroglyphic and cuneiform scripts to thousands for Chinese in which every sign is an ideogram.
Altaic: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A language family within the subdivision of the Ural-Altaic. It includes Turkic, Mongolian, Manchu, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese. These language are distributed in an arc across northern Eurasia.
Amorites: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Amurru
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A branch of the Semites who were nomads in the Syrian desert and who overthrew the Sumerian civilization of Ur c 2000 BC and dominated Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine till c 1600 BC. In the oldest cuneiform sources (c 2400-2000 BC), the Amorites were equated with the West, though their true place of origin was most likely Arabia, not Syria. They founded a series of kingdoms throughout Mesopotamia and northern Syria, the most important being Babylon and Assur. Their arrival in Palestine was at the change from Early Bronze to Middle Bronze Age. The Amorites became assimilated into the population and culture of these regions. Eventually, the Amorites settled and amalgamated with the Canaanites of the Middle and Late Bronze Age. During the 2nd millennium BC the Akkadian term Amurru referred not only to an ethnic group but also to a language and to a geographic and political unit in Syria and Palestine. In the dark age between c 1600-1100 BC, the language of the Amorites disappeared from Babylonia and the mid-Euphrates; in Syria and Palestine, however, it became dominant. In Assyrian inscriptions from about 1100 BC, the term Amurru designated part of Syria and all of Phoenicia and Palestine but no longer referred to any specific kingdom, language, or population.
Angkor Thom: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a temple complex in the northwestern plain of Angkor built about 1200 by King Jayavarman VII (1181-c 1215 AD). In the Khmer language, the name means the big capital" and it served intermittently as the capital of the Khmer empire from the 11th century onward. It is surrounded with walls and moats of 4-by-4 km and the temple-mountain Bayon is in the center."
Angles: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Germanic people from the Baltic coasts of Jutland (Schleswig, Denmark) who, with the Saxons, were the main settlers of Britain in the 5th century AD after the Roman withdrawal. There is evidence in the late 4th century AD of their pottery at a number of late Roman settlements in England. They crossed the North Sea to settle the eastern parts of England and the cultures mixed to become known hitherto as Anglo-Saxons. They gave their name to England, its people, and their language as well as to East Anglia.
Anglo-Saxons: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The name of the combined cultures, the Angles and the Saxons, who left their North Sea coastal homelands in the 5th century AD and moved to eastern England after the breakdown of Roman Rule. The name derives from two specific groups --- the Angles of Jutland and the Saxons from northern Germany. Some other Germanic peoples took part in the migrations, such as the Jutes and the Frisians, and they are sometimes included under this name. The language, culture, and settlement pattern of medieval and later England can be traced directly to the Anglo-Saxons. The movement to the area probably began in the 4th century when barbarian Foederati went to serve in the Roman army in Britain. The main immigration began in the middle of the 5th century. Bede, writing in the early 8th century, gives the only reliable historical record for this period, though incidental information can be found in the Old English literature, particularly the poem of Beowulf. The English kingdoms took shape by the late 6th century. Archaeologically, there are three periods: the Early or Pagan Saxon period went until the general acceptance of Christianity in the mid-7th century; the Middle Saxon period until the 9th century, and the Late Saxon period which went up till the Norman invasion of 1066. The earliest period's remains are mainly burial deposits, often cremation in urns or by inhumation in cemeteries of trench graves or under barrows. Grave goods often include knives, sword or spear, shield boss, and brooches, buckles, beads, girdle-hangers, and pottery -- depending on the gender. Most archaeological evidence comes from the cemeteries, including the exceptional ship burial at Sutton Hoo. Churches were built and in the Middle and Late Saxon periods, including Bradford-Upon-Avon and Deerhurst. Important monuments of the Middle and Late Saxon periods are the royal palaces at Yeavering and Cheddar. The Late Saxon period, after the Viking invasions, saw the growth of the first towns in Britain since the Roman period, following the establishment of Burhs in response to the Scandinavian threat. There was wide-ranging trade, developed coinage, and improved pottery manufacture and metal-working. The separate British kingdoms (most important: Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex) eventually became a unified England with a capital at Winchester in Wessex. The Anglo-Saxons were responsible for the introduction of the English language and for the establishment of the settlement patterns of medieval England.
anthropological linguistics: CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The study of human language and its applications for cultural behavior.
Aramaean: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: (fr Greek Aramaios, Syria") adj. Aramaic"
CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A branch of the confederacy of Semite tribes who moved out of the Syrian desert and who conquered the Canaanites and established themselves in their own series city-states in c 16-12 BC. The foremost of these states was Aram of Damascus, a large region of northern Syria, which was occupied between the 11th-8th centuries BC, and also Bit-Adini, Aram Naharaim, and Sam'al (Sinjerli). In the same period some of these tribes seized large tracts of Mesopotamia. By the 9th century BC, the whole area from Babylon to the Mediterranean coast was occupied by the Aramaean tribes known collectively as Kaldu (also Kashdu), the biblical Chaldeans. Assyria, nearly encircled, attacked the armies of the Aramaeans and one by one the states collapsed under the domination of Assyria in the succeeding centuries. The destruction of Hamath by Sargon II of Assyria in 720 marked the end of the Aramaean kingdoms of the west. Those Aramaeans along the lower Tigris River remained independent somewhat longer and in 626 BC, a Chaldean general (Nabopolassar) proclaimed himself king of Babylon and joined with the Medes and Scythians to overthrow Assyria. Thereon in the Chaldean empire, the Chaldeans, Aramaeans, and Babylonians became one group. Their North Semitic language, Aramaic, became the international language of the Near East by the 8th century BC, replacing Akkadian. Aramaic was written in the Phoenician script and was the diplomatic and vernacular speech of the Holy Land during the time of Christ. It was replaced by Arabic after the Arab Conquest, but is still spoken in some remote villages of Syria. In the Old Testament the Aramaeans are represented as being related to the Hebrews and living in northern Syria around Harran from about the 16th century BC. Few specifically Aramaic objects have been uncovered by archaeologists.
Arawak: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A number of linguistically associated native groups -- the Antillean Arawak or Taino -- who inhabited the villages of the Greater Antilles and parts of mainland South America. They were slash-and-burn agriculturists who cultivated cassava and maize. The people were arranged in social ranks and were ruled by chiefs whose religion centered on a hierarchy of nature spirits and ancestors. Pottery of Saladoid type is found in from western Venezuela to the West Indies, and in the northern islands there is a ceramic continuity from Saladoid ware to insular Arawak. The Arawak were driven out of the Lesser Antilles by the Carib shortly before the appearance of Columbus and the Spanish, but they still numbered in the millions at that time. Since the Arawakan language is not found to the north or in Mesoamerica, it is likely that these people came to the islands from the south.
Aryan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arya; Aryans
CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A people of the Rigveda who invaded Iran and India from the northwest in the 2nd millennium BC and who then spread east and south over the succeeding centuries. Their language was an early form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European tongue. By c 500 BC, Aryan speech was probably established over much of the area in which Indo-Aryan languages are now spoken (the Indian subcontinent). Archaeologists have not found much to attribute to the Aryans except for some Painted Grey Ware. It is theorized that the Aryans may have been responsible for, or contributed to, the downfall of the Indus (Harappan) civilization.
assimilation: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: In a sociocultural system, the integration of cultural traits from previously distinct cultural groups to the culture, ethnic identity, and language of the dominant cultural group.
Assyrian: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: One of the two main dialects of ancient Mesopotamia, used in the north. A Semitic language very close to Babylonian, from which it is thought to have diverged at the end of the 2nd millennium. Assyrian probably disappeared with the destruction of Assyria in 7th century BC. Old Assyrian cuneiform is attested mostly in the records of Assyrian trading colonists in central Asia Minor (c. 1950 BC; the so-called Cappadocian tablets) and Middle Assyrian in an extensive Law Code and other documents. The Neo-Assyrian period was the great era of Assyrian power, and the writing culminated in the extensive records from the library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (c. 650 BC).
Assyriology: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Assyriological adj., Assyriologist n.
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The study of the history, language, and antiquities of ancient Assyria and Babylonia in northern Mesopotamia, principally through cuneiform lists. Assyriologists have reconstructed sequences for Assyria through limmu (eponym) lists found by excavators.
Athabascan: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: Native Americans who speak languages of the Athabascan or Dene language family. The Northern variety is in Alaska and the Yukon; the southern variety, including the Apache and Navajo, are in the U.S. Southwest. The groups diverged around 500 AD.
Attic: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The particular dialect of Greek spoken and written in classical Athens, especially in the 5th century BC. This dialect was originally only one of a number of differing regional forms, but has come to be regarded as standard classical Greek. Attic is the language of dialogue in tragedy. Thucydides and Plato wrote in Attic.
Austro-Asiatic: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A family of about 150 languages which includes Vietnamese, Munda (eastern India), Mon (southwest Burma), Khmer (Kampuchea), and several minor language groups including Nicobarese, and Aslian of peninsular Malaysia. Vietnamese, Khmer, and Mon are culturally the most important of these and have the longest recorded history. Khmer is spoken primarily in Cambodia, Mon in Thailand and Myanmar (Burma). Vietnamese and Khmer, with the largest number of speakers, are the national languages, respectively, of Vietnam and Cambodia. Austro-Asiatic was once the main linguistic family of mainland Southeast Asia and eastern India, but its speakers have become geographically split into the Tibeto-Burman, Thai, and Austronesian languages.
Austronesian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Malayo-Polynesian
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The major language family of the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific (including Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, parts of southern Vietnam, Madagascar, Melanesia (excluding much of New Guinea), Micronesia, and Polynesia). The family is divided into 1) Western Austronesian, or Indonesian, containing about 200 languages, and 2) Eastern Austronesian, or Oceanic, with about 300 languages. Proto-Austronesian probably started in southern China or Taiwan before 3000 BC. Austronesian speakers were the first humans to settle the Pacific islands beyond western Melanesia. Austronesians were the most widely spread ethno-linguistic group on earth, with the distance from Madagascar to Easter Island being 210 degrees of longitude.
Aymara: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A large South American tribal group occupying the Titicaca plateau (central Andes) in the Late Intermediate Period -- and the language spoken by them. The Aymara language is still spoken some parts of Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. The Aymara kingdoms" -- Canchi Colla Lupaca Collagua Ubina Pacasa Caranga Charca Quillaca Omasuyo and Collahuaya -- fought amongst themselves but also shared cultural characteristics. Some of these characteristics appear to have been incorporated into the Inca political system such as class stratification a powerful ruling class and chullpa burials. The peoples lived by cultivating tubers and herding alpaca and llama."
Babylonia: CATEGORY: site; culture; language
DEFINITION: An ancient region occupying southern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (southern Iraq from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf), whose capital was Babylon for many centuries. The term Babylonia also refers to the culture that developed in the area from its original settlement c 4000 BC and their language of cuneiform script. Before Babylon's rise to political prominence (c 1850 BC), the area was divided into Sumer (in the southeast; the world's earliest civilization) and Akkad (in the northwest) during the third millennium BC. The region one of the richest agricultural areas of the ancient world.
badge of office: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: badge of identity
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Clothing, crowns, tattoos, head deformation, social attitudes, or even language that become established to set certain individuals apart from others in society.
Bantu: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A Niger-Congo language family, with approximately 60,000,000 speakers of more than 200 distinct languages, who occupy almost the entire southern projection of the African continent (roughly from the bulge downward). The classification is linguistic as the cultures of the Bantu speakers are extremely diverse. The languages are closely interrelated, indicating expansion of the population from a single source, probably the eastern Nigeria/Cameroon area. Throughout the region these first farming settlements are marked by a common pottery tradition, the 'Early Iron age' complex.
Basques; Basque: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Spanish Vasco, or Vascongado, Basque Euskaldunak or Euskotarak
CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A people living in both Spain and France in areas bordering the Bay of Biscay and encompassing the western foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. The Basques are distinguished partly by an unusual pattern of blood groups, very high in the Rhesus negative factor, and by their language, quite unrelated to any other known one. They probably represent one of the people who inhabited Europe before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans. Basque is the only remnant of the languages spoken in southwestern Europe before that region was Romanized. The origin of the Basque language remains a mystery. It has been hypothesized that Basque had a genetic connection with the now-extinct Iberian and that both languages evolved from the Hamito-Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) language group -- but there is another theory that the similarities between the two arose from geographic proximity. Although Basque and Iberian are similar, the knowledge of Basque could not help decipher ancient Iberian inscriptions discovered in eastern Spain and on the Mediterranean coast of France. Basque is also linked with Caucasian, the ancient language spoken in the Caucasus region.
Behistun: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bisitun, Bisotun
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock face on the Kermanshah-Hamadan road in Iran on which Darius I (Darius the Great, reigned 521-485 BC) recorded his victories which gave him the Achaemenid empire in 522-520 BC. The bas-relief -- 400 feet above the road -- shows Darius, under the protection of the god Ahuramazda, receiving his defeated enemies. The inscriptions were carved in the cuneiform script, and repeated in the Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian languages. The rock face below them was then cut back to the vertical to prevent any attempt at defacement. In total, the area covered by the inscriptions and the relief panel were about 25-feet high and 50-feet wide. In 1833, Sir Henry Rawlinson went to Iran and became extremely interested in Persian antiquities and in deciphering the cuneiform writing at Behistun. Between 1835-1847, Rawlinson went through the intense work copying the inscription from harrowing positions above the road. It enabled him subsequently to understand the cuneiform script and to decipher the languages of the inscription. In 1837, he published his translations of the first two paragraphs of the inscription. After having to leave the country because of problems between Iran and Britain, Rawlinson was able to return in 1844 to obtain impressions of the Babylonian script. As a result, his Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistun" was published (1846-51) -- containing a complete translation analysis of the grammar and notes. The accomplishment yielded valuable information on the history of ancient Persia and its rulers. With other scholars he succeeded in deciphering the Mesopotamian cuneiform script by 1857. This provided the breakthrough to the decipherment later of other languages in the cuneiform script including Sumerian."
Boghazköy: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Boghaz Keui, ancient Hattusas, Bogazkoy, Boghaz Koy
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the Hittite capital of Hattusas, excavated by Hugo Winckler in the early 20th century and which yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets from which much of Hittite history was reconstructed. The capital is on a rock citadel near the Halys River in central Turkey and the site had been occupied since the Chalcolithic times. In c 1500 BC, it became the citadel of Hattusas. As the Hittites' power grew, so did their capital, all within a massive defensive wall of stone and mudbrick. Six gateways were decorated with impressive monumental carved reliefs, showing a warrior, lions, and sphinxes. Four temples have been excavated within the walls, each grouped around an open porticoed court. Two buildings housed the archives with over 10,000 inscribed clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform script and the Hittite language. A cemetery close to the city held large numbers of cremation burials, a surprisingly early occurrence of this rite. The city fell at the same time as the empire, c 1200 BC. Little is known of the Chalcolithic or Hittite Old Kingdom phases on the site; excavation has in the main concentrated on the monuments of the New Kingdom city.
Buddhagupta stone: CATEGORY: artifact; language
DEFINITION: A Sanskrit language inscription of c 5th century AD in western Malaysia, due to trade by Buddhists of Southeast Asia. Related inscriptions have been found in Borneo and Brunei.
Burma / Myanmar: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Burma is the name of this Southeast Asian country when it was under British control; the name Myanmar was adopted in 1989 when it became an independent nation. The first human settlements in Myanmar appeared some 11,000 years ago in the middle Irrawaddy River valley. A group of people known as the Pyu, who spoke a Tibeto-Burman language, began establishing city-kingdoms in northern Myanmar between the 1st century BC and 800 AD. To the south of the Pyu were the Mon, a people speaking an Austro-Asiatic language, who established a port capital at Thaton. It is the least-populated Southeast Asian country.
Capua: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Santa Maria di Capua Vetere; Casilinum
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient city of Italy, founded around 600 BC by the Etruscans, whose people spoke the Oscan dialect of Italic. There had been an early Iron Age settlement in the 9th century BC. After the period of Etruscan domination, it fell to the Samnites c 440 BC. Capua supported the Latin Confederacy in its war against Rome in 340 BC. After Rome's victory in the war, Capua became a self-governing community, and its people were granted limited Roman citizenship. In 312 BC, Capua was connected with Rome by the Appian Way and its prosperity increased to make it the secondmost important in Italy. During the Second Punic War (218-201 BC) Capua sided with Carthage against Rome. When the Romans recaptured the city in 211 BC, they deprived the citizens of political rights. Spartacus, the slave leader, began his revolt at Capua in 73 BC. Although it suffered during the Roman civil wars in the last decades of the republic, it prospered under the empire until 27 BC. The Vandals sacked Capua in 456 AD and Muslim invaders destroyed everything except the church of Sta. Maria in 840. Capua was famous for its bronzes and perfumes. There are ruins of a theater, amphitheater, baths, ceremonial arch of Hadrian, and a mithraeum with painted frescoes. The Etruscan artifacts include characteristic pottery, bronzes, and tombs, and an important document of the Etruscan language -- the Capua Tile, an inscription of some 62 lines that was either religious or ritual text.
Carib: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: American Indian people who inhabited the Lesser Antilles and parts of the neighboring South American coast at the time of the Spanish conquest. They were warlike immigrants from the mainland who drove the Arawak from the Lesser Antilles. They were notorious for eating captives (the word 'cannibal' is a corruption of the Spanish 'Caribal'). They were skilled pottery-makers and agriculturists but were mostly concerned with warfare. They were a maritime people who carried out long-distance raids with large dugout canoes. The Carib language was spoken only by the men; women spoke Arawak.
Carthage: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: (adj Carthaginian, Punic) Carthago; Kart-Hadasht
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A great city of antiquity founded, according to tradition, on the north coast of Africa by the Phoenicians of Tyre in 814 BC and now a suburb of Tunis. However, Phoenician occupation on the site is archaeologically attested from about a century later. The Aeneid tells of the city's founding by the Tyrian princess Dido, who fled from her brother Pygmalion (a king of Tyre). Until around 500 BC Carthage was one of three great mercantile powers in the central Mediterranean, together with the Etruscans and Western Greeks. Much of Carthage's revenue came from its exploitation of the silver mines of North Africa and southern Spain, begun as early as 800 BC, and from its role as a middleman in trade. Carthage was for many years in conflict with the Greeks, especially in Sicily. Carthage lost both Sicily and Sardinia to Rome in 241 BC at the close of the First Punic War. From an enlarged domain in southern Spain, the Carthaginian general Hannibal in 218 BC led his army across the Alps to victories in Italy. When Hannibal returned to Africa, he was defeated at Zama in 202 BC. Though humiliated, Carthage survived until it was destroyed by Rome in 146 BC, after having fought the three Punic Wars of the 3rd and 2nd centuries. Carthage was then reconstructed as a Roman city by Julius Caesar and Octavian. The Roman city prospered by shipping grain and olive oil to Italy. Carthage replaced Utica as the capital of the African province and it became the second largest city in the western part of the empire, after Rome itself. The Phoenician/Punic remains include the citadel, Byrsa, the Sanctuary of Tanit, and two manmade harbors (all pre-146 BC); the Roman remains are the Antonine Baths, odeum, theater, circus, amphitheater, aqueduct, and areas of streets and houses. Also on the Byrsa site stood an open-air portico, from which the finest Roman sculptures at Carthage have survived. The standard of living in Carthage was probably far below that of the larger cities of the classical world. In Roman times, beds, cushions, and mattresses were luxuries. The Punic language and its distinctive alphabet remained in use long after the city's destruction. After the breakup of the Roman empire, the Vandals took Carthage in 439 and stayed in control until the Byzantine invasion in 533. Carthage was the capital of the Byzantine empire in Africa until the Arab takeover of 698.
Celts: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: adj Celtic; Gaels; Goidels; Galatians; Gauls
CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: An important people of central and western Europe. Greek and Roman writers recorded them as having lived in the final centuries BC and their existence is first attested c 500 BC, but they were around long before that. They were a fierce, warrior race distinguished by three factors: their language, their beliefs, and their material culture. They are known to have invaded Italy and sacked Rome itself in the early 4th century bc, while in the following century groups of Celts invaded Greece, sacking Delphi, and others invaded Anatolia. Their language belonged to the Indo-European family and divided into two branches at an early date (2nd-3rd millennium BC), respectively represented by the Welsh and Irish Gaelic languages. Original homelands appear to have been on the western and central mainland of Europe: France, Germany, Bohemia, Austria, and Switzerland. By mid-1st millennium BC, they also lived in Iberia (Spain and Portugal), Britain, Ireland, Low Countries south of the Rhine delta, and Italy north of River Po. In Britain, they were defeated by the Romans in AD 43. Archaeologically, in central Europe there were aristocratic burials of the Hallstatt culture, often containing wagons or horses. Archaeological cultures do not necessarily coincide with ethnic or linguistic groups and it is preferable to use the cultural terms Hallstatt and La Tene when describing archaeological remains.
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.
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.
Chichimec: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A collective name applied to various barbarian tribes who invaded the valley of central Mexico from the northwest from c 7th-13th century AD in periodic waves and migrations. The Aztec, or Mexica, were one of the competing Chichimec tribes. Some of these groups, who may have been farmers, may have entered the Valley of Mexico after the fall of Teotihuacán, and there is a Chicimec constituent in Toltec culture. The Chichimec period proper, however, begins after the destruction of Tula and the decline of Toltec influence in about 1200 AD. In 1224, a band of Náhuatl-speaking Chichimecs entered the northern part of the Valley and established a kingdom at Tenayuca. After their arrival the barbarians settled down again to farming life, became civilized, and were eventually absorbed into the Aztec confederation. In the north, some independent Chichimecs maintained their nomadic and hunting way of life until the Spanish conquest. The Chichimecs are also associated with the introduction of the bow and arrow into the Valley of Mexico. Their language, also called Chichimec, is of the Oto-Pamean language stock.
Chumash: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late prehistoric and historic Native American culture originally living along the coast of southern California and speaking a Hokan language. Chumash also occupied the three northern channel islands off Santa Barbara. The major Chumash groups were the Obispeño, Purismeño, Ynezeño, Barbareño, and Ventureño, Emigdiano, and Cuyama. The Chumash were skilled artisans, made wooden-plank canoes and vessels of soapstone, as well as a variety of tools out of wood, whalebone, and other materials. They produced basketry, did rock painting, and started of clamshell-bead currency in the area. The Chumash were among the first native Californians to be encountered by the Spanish explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, who visited the islands in 1542-1543.
clay tablet: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The main writing material used by the scribes of early civilizations. Signs were impressed or inscribed on the soft clay, which was then dried in the sun. The ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hittites wrote on tablets made from water-cleaned clay. A common form was a thin quadrilateral tile about five inches long which, while still wet, was inscribed by a stylus with cuneiform characters. By writing on the surface in small characters, a scribe could copy a substantial text on a single tablet. For longer texts, several tablets were used and then linked by numbers or catchwords. Book production on clay tablets probably continued for 2,000 years in Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Either dried in the sun or baked in a kiln, clay tablets were almost indestructible. The latter process was used for texts of special value, legal codes, royal annals, and epics to ensure greater preservation. Buried for thousands of years in the mounds of forgotten cities, they have been removed intact or almost so in modern archaeological excavations. The number of clay tablets recovered is nearly half a million, but there are constantly new finds. The largest surviving category consists of private commercial documents and government archives. When the Aramaic language and alphabet arose in the 6th century BC, the clay tablet book declined because clay was less suited than papyrus to the Aramaic characters.
Clusium: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Clusius, Chiusi
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Etruscan town on the site of modern Chiusi, in Tuscany, Italy. Clusium enjoyed good agricultural fertility deposits of iron and copper ore, natural hot springs, and a key position on trade routes. Settlement appears to be unbroken and successful from the first Villanovan dwellers onwards. It was founded in the 8th century BC on the site of an older Umbrian town known as Camars. In the early 6th century BC it allied with Arretium (Arezzo) as part of the 12-city Etruscan confederation. At the end of the 6th century BC, Clusium's king, Lars Porsena, attacked Rome and may even have captured the city in an attempt to restore the power of the Tarquins there. In 391 BC, Clusium allied with Rome against invading Gauls. Like other Etruscan cities, Clusium was surrounded by cemeteries and tombs. Excavation of Clusian tombs, mostly cut into the soft tufa rock, has yielded earthenware funerary (canopic) jars, as well as ceramic human figures and Greek and locally made pottery. There is evidence for persistence of the cremation rite, seen in the wide variety of cinerary urns, canopic jars, and the characteristic hollow seated figures made from pietra fetida limestone. Clusium also had a reputation for fine bronze and stone craftsmanship. The decorations on sarcophagi in the tombs are a major source of inscriptions in the Etruscan language.
Copper Age: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Chalcolithic, Eneolithic
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: An intermediate period between the Neolithic and the Bronze Ages, characterized by the use of copper tools. According to the principles of the Three Age System, it should strictly mean the period when copper was the main material for man's basic tools and weapons. It is difficult to apply in this sense as copper at its first appearance was very scarce, and experimentation with alloying seems to have begun early on. The alternative names of Chalcolithic and Eneolithic imply the joint use of copper and stone. In many sequences, notably in Europe and Asia, there is a period between the Neolithic and Bronze Age, separated from each by breaks in the cultural development, within which copper was coming into use and Copper Age is the best term to use. In Asia, the age saw the origins of civilization, and in Europe the great folk movements of the beaker and corded ware cultures, and perhaps the introduction of the Indo-European languages. The period lasted for almost 1000 years in southeast Europe, from 3500 BC.
cuneiform: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The characteristic wedge-shaped writing of western Asia, used for over 3000 years, emerging in the 4th millennium BC in southern Mesopotamia as a system of accounting during the Uruk period. It consisted of triangular markings pressed on a clay tablet with a split reed. The word itself comes from Latin 'cuneus' meaning wedge-shaped" "wedge". The pictographic script of the Uruk period the oldest known in the world was reduced to angular forms to make it more suitable for impressing in wet clay with a split reed. The nature of the script was very like that of the Egyptians with ideographs phonograms and determinatives. The script was used for a number of languages (Sumerian Akkadian Elamite Hittite Old Persian etc.) even being adapted to serve as an alphabet at Ugarit. The first success in its decipherment was by Georg Grotefend a German philologist in 1802. In inscriptions from Persepolis he recognized the names of Darius and Xerxes and the Old Persian word for 'king'. In 1844-1847 further progress came through the recording and study of Darius's rock inscriptions at Behistun by Henry Rawlinson. He was able to translate the Old Persian version; Westergaard in 1854 tackled the Elamite text and Rawlinson with others cracked the Babylonian in 1857. This was much the most important of the three as it led directly back through the many cuneiform inscriptions at that time coming to light to the first written records those of ancient Sumer. Cuneiform texts have been found in Egypt at el-'Amarna and on various objects of the Persian Period. In the Near East cuneiform tablets from Egypt have been found at Bogazkoy in Anatolia and Kamid el-Loz in Syria. A consonantal alphabet developed at Ugarit which vanished with the town at beginning of 12th c BC; and syllabary script was used solely by Achaemenid Persians to transcribe their language from 6th-4th c BC."
Cyprus: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The third largest island in the Mediterranean, on its east end. Cyprus was inhabited as early as the late Neolithic Age (mid-6th millennium BC) and by the late Bronze Age (c 1600 BC-c 1050 BC) had become a trading center, visited and settled by Mycenaeans and Achaeans, who introduced Greek culture and language. By 800 BC, Phoenicians had begun to settle there. By the 7th century BC, a number of Cypriot kingdoms had achieved great wealth and influence. It was finally taken over by the Ptolemys of Egypt and then annexed by Rome in 58 BC. Initially its most important center was Enkomi; later Salamis.
Dálriada: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A kingdom founded by Fergus and his brothers when they led the Scots from Ireland to the northeast coast of Scotland in the 5th century AD, roughly the modern county of Argyll (Argyllshire). It was ruled from the rock fortress of Dunadd, a nucleated fortified citadel dating to around 500. It consists of a dry-stone central stronghold with two outer walled enclosures. In about 843, Kenneth MacAlpin extended his rule over the Picts to lay the foundations of the kingdom of Scotland. Dálriada was important for its Celtic church under St. Columba and for the island of Iona which was a base for the conversion of northern Britain to Christianity. The Dariada introduced the Picts to their version of the Ogham script as well as the Scottish/Gaelic language.
Diaguita: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Indian peoples of South America, formerly inhabiting northwestern Argentina and the Chilean provinces of Atacama and Coquimbo. They are characterized by distinctive ceramic complexes. Two principal subgroups have been defined -- the Argentinian, on the eastern side of the Andes and the Chilean, on the western side -- which have some cultural traits in common: funerary practices, use of bronze, and probably language. The Calchaquí, the Argentinian subgroup, farmed terraced fields, built irrigation canals, and kept herds of llama. They did loom weaving of llama-wool textiles, which they dyed; basket making; and had a rather elaborate ceramic industry. Metallurgy was also known. Religious beliefs involved shamanistic practices for the cure of illness felt to be caused by witchcraft. Polychrome funerary urns were used for burial for children; adult burials were stone-lined pit inhumations. The Chilean Diaguita ceramics are, on the whole, smaller and more delicately decorated. Influence from the north (Tiahuanaco in the early stages and Inca later) is also apparent. Petroglyphs are common throughout the Diaguita area. The earliest date for Diaguita is c 900 AD and it continued till the Spanish Conquest.
Ebla: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Eblaite, Tell Mardik Ebla, Tell Mardikh
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the River Orontes in northern Syria (now Tell Mardikh) which was the seat of a powerful state in the mid 3rd millennium BC, though occupied from the 4th millennium onward. It fell to Akkad c 2250 but continued to flourish. The remains and a large archive of 15,000+ cuneiform texts and fragments within a palace complex showed a high level of wealth and culture. The archive yielded evidence of the previously unknown language, a Semitic tongue now labeled Eblaite, and history of a powerful state of the 3rd millennium BC. The tablets also record many Semitic names which are used in the Old Testament of the Bible, suggesting that Eblites and Israelites interacted. Ebla was important under a dynasty of Amorites in the 2nd millennium, before being destroyed c 1600 BC by the Hittites. The city was clearly an important commercial center, exporting woolen cloth, wood, and furniture to Assur in Mesopotamia and Kanesh in Anatolia. The culture was contemporary with the late Early Dynastic city-states and early Akkadian rulers of southern Mesopotamia.
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.
epigraphy: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: epigrapher
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The study of ancient inscriptions and letter forms on buildings, statuary, tablets, and other durable materials and objects (such as wood, bone, pottery, stone). An expert in such studies is an epigrapher or epigraphist. Such texts are often the only surviving records of extinct cultures and chronicle ancient events, beliefs, and lists of kings. Epigraphy encompasses inscriptions from the earliest complex societies to those of modern states. Epigraphy sometimes does not include the study of texts painted on ceramics or written on papyrus or wood, which are regarded as within the studies of ceramics and papyrology, respectively. Epigraphy deals both with the form of the inscriptions, and with their content: study of the form enables assessment of the development of language and the alphabet; their content is, however, usually more important for the light thrown on the social, political, religious, and economic life of the ancient world. The science includes decipherment, translation, explanation, and evaluation of the inscriptions.
Eskimo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Inuit
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The aboriginal cultural group of the Arctic regions of North America, which evolved between 2000-100 BC. The Eskimo way of life and the distinctive tool types can be traced back into the Arctic Small Tool tradition. Other traits seem to have been adopted by the Alaskan Eskimos from the Siberian tribes. The group is characterized by uniformity in culture, language, and physical sock. The Eskimo call themselves Inuit, because 'Eskimo' is a derogatory Algonquin word meaning 'eater of raw flesh'.
ethnos: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The ethnic group, defined as a firm aggregate of people, historically established on a given territory, possessing in common relatively stable peculiarities of language and culture, and also recognizing their unity and difference as expressed in a self-appointed name (ethnonym).
Etruscan: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The people who occupied north central Italy (ancient Etruria, modern Tuscany) in the 1st millennium BC. They can first be recognized in the 8th century BC, distinguished from their predecessors the Villanovans by the wealth and oriental appearance of their tombs. They developed a high level of civilization very quickly, with extensive trade contacts with Greece and Carthage, and across the Alpine passes to central Europe. Their cities were large and rich: Populonia, Vetulonia, Tarquinia, and Caere (Cerveteri) near the coast, and Veii, Clusium (Chiusi) and Perusia (Perugia) inland. Etruscan influence spread widely, through Rome itself down to Campania in the south, and north to the Po valley and the civilization reached its height in the 6th century BC. Conflict with the Celts in the north and Rome in the south led to conquest by the latter, beginning with Veii in 396 BC and completed early in the 2nd century BC. The Etruscans' own writings, in an alphabet borrowed from the Greeks, can be transliterated, but little of their non-Indo-European language can be translated. Etruscan tombs show their genius; the finest are mounds covering a burial vault, as in the cemeteries of Tarquinia and Cerveteri. The vaults may be elaborately frescoed with scenes from life, mythology, or the rites associated with death. Also remarkable is a tomb at Cerveteri, the walls of which are covered with stucco reliefs of everyday objects. There is a high preponderance of imports, especially metalwork and Athenian pottery. Typical products of the Etruscans are decorated bronze mirrors, bucchero pottery, and sophisticated filigree jewelry. The influence of the Etruscans on Roman civilization was enormous. Rome is indebted to the Etruscans not only for its early kings, such as the notorious Tarquin, but virtually for the total infrastructure of its civilization. Roman culture is essentially the continuation of Etruscan under another name and language. Among areas of continuity are religion (e.g. Etruscan haruspex and Roman augury), political and social organization, strategic arts, architecture, art, drama, theater and civil engineering (notably hydraulics, such as aqueducts and drainage systems). The origin of the Etruscans has been a subject of debate since antiquity. Herodotus, for example, argued that the Etruscans descended from a people who invaded Etruria from Anatolia before 800 BC and established themselves over the native Iron Age inhabitants of the region, whereas Dionysius of Halicarnassus believed that the Etruscans were of local Italian origin.
glottochronology: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: lexicostatistics
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The science of the comparative study of the vocabularies of languages for measuring linguistic change through absolute time. By studying the rate of change, the length of time (time depth) during which two related languages developed independently may be calculated. Glottochronology relies on statistical comparison of the basic vocabulary shared by two or more related languages and on the assumption that the rate of vocabulary replacement is constant over sufficiently long periods of time. It is a way of arriving at a date of separation between two languages that have a common origin by studying the extent to which they have diverged from each other and provides archaeologists with approximate dates for the origination of subcultures diverging from each other. For instance, in Alaska the great difference between the Aleut language and the other Eskimo languages is thought to have been the result of the cultural isolation of the Aleuts from the 3rd millennium BC onwards. It is a controversial method.
graffiti: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Writing placed on walls or other objects; any figures or inscriptions scratched into a surface, often indicating the maker or owner. It is any casual writing, rude drawing, or marking on the walls of buildings, as distinguished from a deliberate writing known as an inscription. Graffiti is found in great abundance, as on the monuments of ancient Egypt. Graffiti are important to the paleographer as illustrating the forms and corruptions of the various alphabets used by the people, and may guide the archaeologist to the date of the building. Graffiti is important to the linguist because the language of graffiti is closer to the spoken language of the period and place than usual written language. Graffiti is also invaluable to the historian for the light thrown on everyday life of the period and on intimate details of customs and institutions.
Grotefend, Georg Friedrich (1775-1853): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: German language scholar who made the first major breakthrough in the decipherment of the ancient Persian cuneiform script. He presented a paper on his work in 1802, but it was not published and his work largely ignored. He was not particularly versed in Oriental languages, but good at solving puzzles and knowing that the inscriptions dated from about the 5th century BC and were associated with the sculptures of kings, he concluded that the recurrence of certain symbols signified king" and "king of kings." Eventually he was able to connect the names of Darius and Xerxes with the terms of royalty. A third name proved to be that of Hystaspes the governor of Parthia and father of Darius I. Of the 13 symbols he deciphered 9 were correct. He also published works on two ancient Italic dialects Oscan and Umbrian. An account of his work is found in C.W. Ceram's "Gods Graves and Scholars" (1967)."
Haftavan Tepe: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Haft Tepe
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in northwest Iran occupied off and on from the Early Bronze Age to the Sassanian period. The earliest occupation is dated to the 6th millennium BC, but its most important material comes from the Elamite period of the 15th-13th centuries BC. A royal tomb of c 1500 BC containing 21 skeletons, some covered in red ochre, is an early example of a vaulted tomb. This tomb was connected by a stairway to the main temple which contained many simple burials, some in urns. Fragments of inscribed stelae in cuneiform in the 14th-century BC Elamite language have provided details of the temple economy. In the 8th century BC, the mound became an Urartian citadel with an attached lower town. It was destroyed either by Sargon II in 714 BC or by the Cimmerians. The site was reoccupied in the Sassanian period: a town wall and numerous graves of this period are known.
Hellenistic period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hellenistic and Roman period; hellenistic
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: Period of widest Greek influence, the era between the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC) and the rise of the Roman Empire (27/30 BC), when a single, uniform civilization, based on Greek traditions, prevailed all over the ancient world, from India, in the east, to Spain, in the west. During these three centuries, Greek culture crossed many political frontiers and spread through many cities founded at that time, especially the new capitals of Alexandria, Antioch, and Pergamum. A common civilization became established throughout the known world for the first time, one which integrated the cultural heritage of each region and subsequently left a deep impression on the institutions, thought, religions, and art of the Roman, Parthian, and Kushan empires. Hellenistic cultural influence continued to be a powerful force in the Roman and Parthian empires during the early centuries AD. A common form of the Greek language, Koine [Greek: 'common'] developed, which was largely indebted to Attic Greek. The term 'hellenistic art' is applied to the post-classical material outside this geographic area, such as in Etruria or southern Italy.
Hittite: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hatti, Kheta
CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A people of obscure origin who infiltrated Anatolia and the Levant from the north during the later 3rd millennium BC. In the Old Kingdom (c 1750-1450) they established a state in central Turkey with its capital first at Kussara, then at Boghazköy. They overran north Syria c 1600 and pushed on as far as Babylon. Under the empire (1450-1200) a more stable state was built up over most of Anatolia and north Syria, displacing the kingdom of the Mitanni and successfully challenging Assyria and Egypt. The end came quite suddenly in the Late Bronze Age c 1200 BC, notably by movements of the Peoples of the Sea and Anatolian groups from the north. The Hittite outposts in north Syria, however, survived as a chain of Syro-Hittite or neo-Hittite city-states -- Karatepe, Sinjerli, Sakçe, Gözü, Malatya, Atchana, and Carchemish -- down to their final annexation by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC. They are also known for their metal-working. They exploited and traded copper, lead, silver and also iron; indeed, they were among the first peoples to use iron, and for a period maintained a virtual monopoly in the new metal. Their language, Hittite and Hieroglyphic Hittite, is Indo-European, the earliest to be recorded. Hurrian, the language of the Hurri, was non-Indo-European, as of course was the Akkadian much used for commercial and foreign correspondence. The Akkadian cuneiform script was generally used too, though for monumental purposes local hieroglyphs were preferred. The discovery of the Hittite language was the major advance this century in the field of Indo-European languages -- with archives yielding thousands of tablets in many languages. The great period of the empire was 14th-13th centuries BC when a vast amount of material was recorded -- some in the important sister Anatolian languages of Palaic and Luvian.
Hurri/Hurrian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hurrian
CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A people who appeared in northern Mesopotamia and Syria at the end of the 3rd millennium BC and by c 1600 BC had established a number of kingdoms in the area. They may have come from the Caucasus or Armenia and some evidence suggests a connection with the Kura-Araxes culture. They had a pantheon, distinct from that of their neighbors, which was recorded in the rock sanctuary of Yazilikaya by the Hittites. Their language -- non-Semitic and non-Sumerian -- is known from a number of religious texts and a letter among the archives of Tell el-Amarna. It is not related to any of the major language families. They came into contact with the Hittites, Assyrians, and Egyptians in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. The Syrian part of their territory was absorbed into the Assyrian empire, but the district of Urartu remained independent until much later. The name Mitanni has come to be applied to an Indo-Iranian element in the population, which was aristocratic and probably responsible for introduction of horse and chariot into Near East. The language is not related to any known linguistic group, but close to Urartu (Armenian). It is an agglutinative language, with a series of suffixes being added to nouns and verbs to expression grammatical inflections.
Iberians: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A prehistoric people of southern and eastern Spanish coastal regions of the 1st millennium BC who later gave their name to the whole peninsula. In the 8th-6th centuries BC, waves of Celtic peoples migrated to the region. By the time of the Greek historian Herodotus (mid-5th century BC), 'Iberian' applied to all the peoples between the Ebro and Huelva rivers, who were probably linguistically connected and whose material culture was distinct from that of the north and west. There was a common script of 28 syllabic and alphabetic characters somewhat derived from Greek and Phoenician, and a non Indo-European language which cannot yet be translated. Notable among their products are their jewelry and statues, of which the Lady of Elche is the most famous. The Iberians' origins are obscure, perhaps North African. They disappeared as a separate group under the Roman occupation, partly by fusion with the Celts of the interior, partly through displacement of their language by Latin. The Iberian economy had a rich agriculture and mining and metallurgy.
idiolect: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The linguistic system of one person; individual variation in pronunciation or the use of language or dialect.
Indianization: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hinduization
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The transplantation by peaceful means of the Indian civilization in Europe and other parts of Asia; the process of making Indian in character or composition, as by the replacement of foreigners by native-born Indians in positions of authority. The expansion of the Indian culture was founded upon their concept of royalty, and characterized by Hindu or Buddhist cults, mythology and cosmology, and use of the Sanskrit language. The process began around the beginning of the Christian era, lasted for several centuries and created so-called Indianized kingdoms or civilizations which declined in the 13th or 14th century.
Indo-Aryan: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Languages of the Indo-European family used by those settled in eastern Iran and Afghanistan, probably in the 3rd millennium BC. Some of these people, who called themselves Aryans, seem to have gradually worked their way into the Indian world. In the first millennium BC these groups of Indo-Aryans seem to have been responsible for the diffusion of the Vedic culture and of Sanskrit throughout northern India.
Indo-European: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A group of languages from which most modern European languages are derived, as well as Indian Sanskrit and the Farsi language of Iran. It is assumed that the dispersal of these languages must have occurred through large-scale migrations of people. Attempts have been made to identify the carriers of Indo-European languages with groups recognizable in the archaeological record. When the groups were literate or are recorded in other people's documents, as with the Hittites and the Luwians in Asia Minor, it is possible to establish that the groups were indeed Indo-European speakers. One school maintains that the original homeland was in the south Russian steppes in the 5th millennium BC and spread into Europe with the Single Grave, Corded Ware, and Globular Amphorae groups. Indo-European was first recognized by Sir William Jones in 1786. It includes most of the modern European languages (Romance, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Greek, Albanian) and modern Indo-Iranian (Persian, Hindi).
Iroquois: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: North American Indian tribes speaking a language of the Iroquoian family -- the Cayuga, Cherokee, Huron, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, or Tuscarora. The Iroquois occupied territory around Lakes Ontario, Huron, and Erie, in present-day New York state and Pennsylvania and southern Ontario and Quebec. It was a very important culture, dating from the middle of this millennium. The people lived in long houses, practiced agriculture, fished, hunted, and engaged in much warfare.
Isin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Mesopotamian city, probably the origin of a large mound near Ad-Diwaniyah, in southern Iraq. An independent dynasty was established at Isin about 2017 BC by Ishbi-Erra, who founded a line of Amorite rulers of whom the first five claimed authority over the city of Ur to the south. The fifth of the rulers of Isin, Lipit-Ishtar (reigned 1934-24 BC), is famous as having published a series of laws in the Sumerian language anticipating the code of Hammurabi by more than a century. About 1794 BC, Isin lost its independence, to Larsa and later to Babylon. The city revived between about 1156 and 1025 under its 2nd dynasty, a number of whose kings exercised authority over Babylonia (southern Iraq) after the Kassite period.
kana: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The Japanese writing system, developed in the ninth century AD from simplified Chinese characters. There are two types of kana (hiragana and katakana) syllabaries, each with symbols for 46 basic sounds and each of which independently represents all the sounds of the language. Although each derives its simple elements from Chinese characters, the two serve different purposes and differ stylistically. Katakana symbols, which are more angular, are used for foreign words, telegrams, and some children's books and often for advertising in print media, television, and billboards. Hiragana, a cursive, graceful writing system that is used in modern Japanese primarily to perform grammatical functions. In theory, any sound in Japanese can be written using one of the kana systems, but in practice, a combination of the two, together with Chinese characters, is used.
Karatepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An 8th century BC Neo-Hittite fortified palace on the Ceyhan River in southwestern Anatolia (Turkey), founded by Asitawandas, king of the Danunians c 740 BC. A series of carved reliefs and inscriptions on two monumental gateways tell a great deal about classical Hittite, Assyrian, and Phoenico-Egyptian, and Syro-Hittite. The gateway inscriptions are bilingual Phoenician-Luwian (Hittite) hieroglyphics, which were instrumental in the decipherment of the Luwian writing system and to understanding of the Hittite language. The Assyrians probably destroyed the city in about 700 BC, when the last remaining principalities in the region were subjugated.
Karlgren, Bernhard (1889-1978): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Swedish archaeologist was the first person to reconstruct the phonology of Chinese characters in use around 600 AD and then in earlier periods. He reconstructed the vowel system of Old Chinese to account for the language in Classic of Poetry" (800-600 BC). He studied numerous fundamental texts of the pre-Han period and succeeded in assessing their authenticity and in translating them into English and providing commentaries. In field of early bronzes he laid the foundations for an analytical method the principles of which are still valid."
Kassites: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A people of the central Zagros mountains who occupied Babylon after the Hittite raid c 1595 BC and who had a distinctive culture and language. Their occupation ended with the city's conquest by Assyria and Elam c 1157 BC. The Kassites may or may not have been Indo-Europeans, but their rulers were probably Indo-Aryan aristocracy who taught them horsebreeding and riding, which they introduced into Mesopotamia. One important source of information on the Kassites was the Amarna correspondence on foreign relations of 14th century BC. The Kassites used distinctive boundary stones called kudurru. The Kassite rule represents the longest episode of political integration in the history of southern Mesopotamia. Important sites are Aqar Quf, Warka, and Nippur.
Khoikhoin: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Khoi, Khoikhoi, Khoekhoe; Hottentots
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Stone Age pastoral people of southwestern Africa during the last 2000 years. The first European explorers found them in the hinterland and they now live either in European settlements or on official reserves in South Africa or Namibia. Khoikhoin (meaning men of men") is their own name for themselves; Hottentot is the term fashioned by the Dutch (later Afrikaner) settlers probably in imitation of the clicks in their language. They may be descended from Bantu speakers of northern Botswana. They have cattle sheep and goats and make pottery."
Khoisan: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: Collective term for the Khoikhoin and San peoples of southern Africa and their languages. The Khoisan languages are click languages spoken in southern Africa. The term Khoisan was created to refer to the related peoples known as Bushmen and Hottentots (i.e., the Khoisanid peoples) under a common name and has become increasingly accepted since its creation in 1928. The word is derived from Khoikhoi and San, the names of the peoples called, respectively and pejoratively, Hottentots and Bushmen.
Landa, Bishop Diego de (1524-1579): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Spanish Franciscan priest and bishop of Yucatán who is best known for his classic account of Mayan culture. His book Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan" is the primary resource for interpretation of Maya archaeology. Especially important was the calendar section recorded day and month names and rudimentary explanation of Katun. Landa was sympathetic to the Mayan people but he abhorred their human sacrifices. Landa in his religious zeal ordered all icons and Mayan books to be burned. At the same time he wrote his comprehensive work on Mayan culture his orders to destroy all icons and hieroglyphics obliterated the Mayan language forever helping to undermine and destroy the civilization he so vividly described. Yet his book which was not printed until 1864 provided a phonetic alphabet that made it possible to decipher about one-third of the Mayan hieroglyphs and many of the remainder have since been deciphered."
lexicostatistics: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: glottochronology
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: A method for estimating the approximate date when two or more languages separated from a common parent language, using statistics to compare similarities and differences in vocabulary. The study of linguistic divergence between two languages, based on changes in a list of common vocabulary terms and the sharing of common root words. This science comparatively studies the vocabularies of languages and measures linguistic change through absolute time. By studying the rate of change, the length of time (time depth) during which two related languages developed independently may be calculated. Lexicostatistics relies on statistical comparison of the basic vocabulary shared by two or more related languages and on the assumption that the rate of vocabulary replacement is constant over sufficiently long periods of time. It is a way of arriving at a date of separation between two languages that have a common origin by studying the extent to which they have diverged from each other and provides archaeologists with approximate dates for the origination of subcultures diverging from each other. For instance, in Alaska the great difference between the Aleut language and the other Eskimo languages is thought to have been the result of the cultural isolation of the Aleuts from the 3rd millennium BC onwards. It is a controversial method.
Linear B: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A syllabic script used in Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece from c 1450-1200 (also c 1500-1100) BC. Michael Ventris deciphered it in 1952 as an early form of Greek. It was created at Knossos when the Mycenaeans took control and spread to mainland Greece. It was mainly used at the palace sites of Mycenae, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns. Most of the Linear B writings are on clay tablets but also on terra-cotta jars that were traded throughout the Aegean region. The writings are administrative / economic in nature and its decipherment has thrown much light on the continuity between Bronze Age and classical Greece. They are from the Late Minoan II in Crete and Mycenaean III A-B on the mainland. It is probable that when the Mycenaeans overran the Minoans they adopted the script used on Crete, Linear A and adapted it for writing the Greek language; many signs were added to the existing Linear A signs.
Linear Elamite script: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A syllabic script used in Elam for inscriptions c. 2200 BC. The earliest Elamite writings are in a figurative or pictographic script and date from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. Documents from the second period, which lasted from the 16th to the 8th century BC, are written in cuneiform; the stage of the language found in these documents is sometimes called Old Elamite. The last period of Elamite texts is that of the reign of the Achaemenid kings of Persia (6th to 4th century BC), who used Elamite, along with Akkadian and Old Persian, in their inscriptions. The language of this period, also written in the cuneiform script, is often called New Elamite.
linguistic anthropology: CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The study of the human use of language and how it is both developed by and culture and helps to develop meaning within culture.
linguistics: CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: A subdiscipline of anthropology that emphasizes the relationships between cultural behavior and language. It is the study of human speech including the units, nature, structure, and modification of language.
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.
Luwian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Luvian, Luish
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An extinct Indo-European language primarily of the western and southern part of ancient Asia Minor of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, especially important to Arzawa. It was closely related to Hittite, Palaic, and Lydian and was a forerunner of the Lycian language. Knowledge of Luwian comes from cuneiform tablets discovered in the ruins of the Hittite archives at Bogazköy (modern Turkey). The pioneering work on Cuneiform Luwian was done by Emil Forrer in 1922. In addition to Luwian passages in the cuneiform tablets, a number of inscriptions occur in a hieroglyphic system of writing that originated with the early Hittite stamp seals of the 17th and 18th centuries BC. Hieroglyphic Luwian (often called Hieroglyphic Hittite) texts have been found dating from as late as the last quarter of the 8th century BC. The language was deciphered in the 1930s. More was learned about the meaning of the writing after the discovery of the Karatepe bilingual inscriptions, written in both Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician. The Lycian language of about 600-200 BC, written in an alphabetic script, is believed to be descended from a West Luwian dialect. Luwian was probably the language of the Trojans during Trojan War. The language survived in southwest Turkey until the Roman period.
macrofamily: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A classification in linguistics for a group of language families with sufficient similarities to suggest they are genetically related.
Mardikh, Tell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Ebla
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large fortified site in northern Mesopotamia, southwest of Aleppo, Syria, which was the ancient Ebla. Important Middle Bronze Age remains, including city gate, and fine sculpture have been found. Ebla was previously known from cuneiform texts, including inscriptions of kings of Akkad and Gudea of Lagash. Its large palace was destroyed by Naram-Sin c 2240 BC. The library of the palace contained c. 16,630 tablets and fragments with commercial, administrative, financial, lexical, historical, literary, and agricultural texts in cuneiform in a hitherto unknown northwest Semitic language called Eblaite. The discovery of the Eblaite tablets has aided comparative studies of Semitic languages and has also aided modern studies of the unrelated Sumerian language.
marking: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Notations on tokens and envelopes. Some of the envelopes have markings corresponding to the clay shapes inside. Moreover, these markings are more or less similar to the shapes drawn on clay tablets that date back to about 3100 BC and that are unambiguously related to the Sumerian language. These markings are thought to constitute a logographic form of writing consisting of some 1,200 different characters representing numerals, names, and such material objects as cloth and cow.
Meroe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Upper Nubia, a city-state in the Sudan which succeeded Napata (original capital of kingdom of Kush/Cush) as the capital of a vigorous state flourishing from 750 BC-350 AD. The 25th, or Ethiopian dynasty of ancient Egypt is believed to have retired to Kush after 656 BC and established itself at Meroe. After the sack of Napata in c 590 by the Egyptian pharaoh Psamtik II, Meroe became the capital of the kingdom. It is the type site of the Meroitic period (c 300 BC-350 AD) and located on the east bank of the Nile in the Butana region of Sudan. Dependent on Nile, kingdom lay in triangle of land at confluence of Nile and Atbara. It was the center of the Kushite kingdom in the fifth century BC. Meroe was able to exploit a region of considerable agricultural potential with fairly regular, if not abundant, rainfall. There was also a supply of timber adequate to fuel the smelting of the local iron deposits. By the beginning of the Christian era, if not before, the iron industry had been developed on a considerable scale. Meroitic architecture included temples in the Egyptian style and royal pyramid tombs (e.g. Musawwarat es-Sufra). Egyptian influence gradually diminished; Egyptian hieroglyphs were abandoned in about the 2nd century BC in favor of a local script. The Meroitic language thus recorded cannot at present be understood. The tenuous nature of the link with Egypt is to be appreciated by considering the trade route, which it appears did not follow the inhospitable Nile Valley, but ran along the Red Sea coast. From about the beginning of the Christian era, this route was increasingly endangered by local developments, notably the rise of the kingdom of Axum. By the 3rd century AD, Meroe was in decline; its final collapse came with the conquest by Axum early in the 4th century. The chief features are palaces and a great temple of Amon.
Mesopotamia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Term meaning land between the (two) rivers" the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in western Asia (modern Iraq) which encompasses various ancient kingdoms. This land was the home of the world's earliest civilization that of the Sumerians and of the later Babylonian Akkadian and Assyrian civilizations. The chronology of the prehistoric periods is based on radiocarbon dates; the historical periods' chronology is based on a combination of documentary sources and calendrical information. The area was the focus of the development of complex societies until the collapse of Mesopotamia at the end of the 1st millennium BC. The geography of the area allowed the development of husbandry agriculture and permanent settlements. Trade with other regions also flourished irrigation techniques were created as well as pottery and other crafts building methods based on clay bricks were developed and elaborate religious cults evolved. The birth of the city took place in the 4th millennium BC and the invention of writing occurred about 3000 BC -- both in Sumer. Excavations of Sumerian cities (Eridu Kish Uruk Isin Lagash Ur) have yielded thousands of clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform writing. Sargon the king of Akkad fought wars of conquest from the Mediterranean to the Zagros and ruled over history's first empire. The Akkadians were a Semitic people and their Akkadian language became the common vocabulary. The Akkadian rule only about two centuries. After that Ur (c 2112-2004 BC) the parallel dynasties of Isin and Larsa (to c 1763 BC) and then Babylon were the powers. The outstanding ruler of Babylon was Hammurabi (c 1792-1750 BC) who is best known for the code of laws he had inscribed on a great stela. From about 1600-1450 BC Babylonian culture declined as the Hurrians and the Kassites migrated into Mesopotamia and established themselves as rulers. Some time after 1500 BC the Mitanni kingdom extended its rule over much of northern Mesopotamia. The language of the kingdom was Hurrian but its rulers may have been of Aryan origin. Toward the end of the 15th century BC the city of Ashur in northern Mesopotamia a region that came to be known as Assyria began its rise. By 1350 BC the Assyrian empire was well-established and its kings conquered large areas from the Mitanni kingdom the Kassites and the Hittites. Another Babylonian dynasty known as the 2nd dynasty of Isin revived the greatness of the Old Empire under Nebuchadrezzar I (c 1119-1098). Assyria reached new heights of power under Tiglath-pileser I (c 1115-1077) and Ashurnasirpal II (883-859). Between 746-727 BC the Neo-Assyrian empire formed and subdued the Aramaeans who had settled much of Babylonia and then conquered Urartu Syria Israel and other areas. The empire reached its after conquering Egypt in 671 and then the reign of Ashurbanipal (668-627) but its rapid decline came soon after attacks by the Medes Scythians and Babylonians. The Assyrian empire was crushed in 609. Babylon's Nebuchadrezzar II (605-561) is best known for his destruction of Jerusalem in 588/587 and his forcing of thousands of Jews into the "Babylonian exile." The Neo-Babylonian empire ended in 539 when Nabonidus surrendered to Cyrus II of Persia. Under the Persians and Alexander the Great Babylon was a rich capital. The Seleucid kings ruled Mesopotamia from about 312 BC until the middle of the 2nd century BC. In the 2nd century BC Mesopotamia became part of the Parthian empire. Human occupation of Mesopotamia began some time around 6000 BC. The prehistoric cultural stages of Hassuna-Samarra' and Halaf succeeded each other here before there is evidence of settlement in the south (Sumer). There the earliest settlements such as Eridu appear to have been founded around 5000 BC in the late Halaf period. From then on the cultures of the north and south move through a succession of major archaeological periods that in their southern forms are known as Ubaid Warka Protoliterate and Early Dynastic at the end of which -- shortly after 3000 BC -- recorded history begins. The historical periods of the 3rd millennium are in order: Akkad Gutium 3rd dynasty of Ur; those of the 2nd millennium: Isin-Larsa Old Babylonian Kassite and Middle Babylonian; and those of the 1st millennium: Assyrian Neo-Babylonian Achaemenian Seleucid and Parthian."
Mon: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A people in mainland Southeast Asia speaking an Austro-Asiatic language akin to Khmer, who formed the earliest states in the lower Irrawaddy valley of Burma, Chao Phraya valley, Khorat, and peninsular regions of Thailand. Their origin is unknown, but archaeological evidence indicates that at the beginning of the Christian Era the Mons must have occupied a large territory stretching from Lower Burma through into the southern part of the Indochinese Peninsula. Also called Hanthawaddy Kingdom, the Mon kingdom was powerful in Myanmar (Burma) from the 9th to the 11th and from the 13th to the 16th century and for a brief period in the mid-18th century. The capital of the Mon probably was the port of Thaton, which was located northwest of the mouth of the Salween River. The Mon center eventually shifted to Pegu, located on the Pegu River, about 50 miles from present-day Rangoon. The Mon culture was not abandoned or displaced, and the Mon blended the old with the new. The Mons are now only a small ethnic minority centered around the eastern shore of the Gulf of Martaban.
Mon-Khmer: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An Austro-Asiatic linguistic family of southern Asia, comprising Mon, Khmer, and a number of languages of mountain populations in the Indochinese Peninsula as well as of India. Mon-Khmer languages constitute the indigenous language family of mainland Southeast Asia. They range north to southern China, south to Malaysia, west to Assam state in India, and east to Vietnam. The most important Mon-Khmer languages, having populations greater than 100,000, are Vietnamese, Khmer, Muong, Mon, Khasi, Khmu, and Wa. There are 130 languages total.
Mongol: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The powerful Mongol, or Yuan, dynasty (1279-1368 AD) was established by Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan. In trying to bring southern China under their control, the Mongol armies invaded and sacked the Burmese capital at Pagan. The term also refers to any member of an Asiatic ethnographic group of closely related tribal peoples who live on the Mongolian Plateau and share a common language and nomadic tradition. Their homeland is now divided into the independent nation of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, an autonomous ch'ü (region) of the People's Republic of China.
Mycenaeans: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mycenaean
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Inhabitants of Mycenae, the civilization of late Bronze Age Greece, set in the Argolid. Their name for themselves was Achaeans, and their achievements were remembered in the legends of the classical Greeks. Their forebears probably arrived in Greece around 2000 BC, bringing Minyan ware and an Indo-European language with them. Mycenaean civilization arose in the 16th century BC by the sudden influx of many features of material culture from the Minoans. Later traditions speak of the arrival of new rulers from the east. By c 1450 BC, the Mycenaeans were powerful enough to take over both Knossos and the profitable trade across the east Mediterranean, especially in Cypriote copper. Trade was extended also to the central Mediterranean and continental Europe, where Baltic amber was one of the commodities sought. The peak of their power lasted only a century and a half until natural and unnatural disaster struck. The Trojan War at the end of the 13th century points to unrest east of the Aegean. There is evidence of increasing depopulation of southern Greece about the same time, paving the way for invasion by the Dorians. At home, the Mycenaeans dwelt in strongly walled citadels containing palaces of the megaron type, exemplified at Mycenae, Tiryns, Thebes, and Pylos. To these were added the more Minoan features -- frescoes, painted pottery, skillfully carved seals, artistic metalwork, clay tablets, etc. Their writing, Linear B, was an adaptation of the Minoan script, presumably first made by the mainlanders who had occupied Knossos, for the writing of their own, Greek, language. (Linear B was deciphered by Michael Ventris.) The Mycenaeans contributed greatly to the economy and technology of Late Bronze Age Europe, and to the population of the east Mediterranean coasts after the Egyptian defeat of the Peoples of the Sea, and they also left a legacy in their language and literature to their descendants in Greece. The civilization collapsed in c 1200 BC.
Náhuatl: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A Uto-Aztecan language; the language spoken by the Aztecs and many other Mexican tribes. Related languages are disturbed sporadically from the northwestern United States to Panama. Still widely spoken in the Basin of Mexico, it is the source of a number of words current in the English language, such as tomato and chocolate. It is also the source of the widely used New World term for spear thrower, atlatl. Groups speaking Nahuatl migrated into Mesoamerica from its northern frontier, Gran Chichimec.
Nahua: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: The tribal population of Central Mexico, originating from the north. The last and best-known were the Aztecs. The language of the Aztecs, Nahua, is spoken by all the Nahua peoples in a variety of dialects.
Nana Mode: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Iron Age village site in the Central African Republic, dated to about the 7th century AD. Excavations have revealed pottery decorated by a carved wooden toothed wheel or disk. It has been suggested that this type of pottery may have been made by speakers of an Ubangian language.
Natal Early Iron Age: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A South African province of Natal which has traces of the furthest southeastern extension of the Early Iron Age complex of sub-Saharan Africa, which has been linked with the dispersal of peoples speaking Bantu languages. Evidence for Early Iron Age settlement is found in the fertile areas of the lower river valleys and dates from about the 4th century AD. Closely related sites are known from the Transvaal, as at Broederstroom and Lydenburg.
Navajo: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: Athabascan language group people of United States southwest. Their intrusion from Northwestern subarctic areas of Canada, c 900-1200 AD, helped bring about the abandonment of Pueblos in Anasazi subarea. They were probably aided by groups of Apache Indians, also Athabascans, moving into southwest at that time. The Navajo speak an Apachean language, which, like the language of their Apache cousins, is classified in the Athabascan family.
New Guinea: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The largest island of Oceania, in the eastern Malay Archipelago, north of Australia. New Guinea was joined to Australia in low sea-level periods of Pleistocene and was probably first settled by early Australoids at the same time as its larger neighbor. New Guinea archaeology examines the Highlands, which is totally Papuan-speaking, and also the coasts, which is mixed Papuan and Austronesian. The Highland prehistoric sequence in totally aceramic. Stone mortars and pestles, many elaborate shape, are also found in the Highlands. The New Guinea coasts only have sequences back to 3000-2000 years ago as earlier sites were probably drowned by rising sea levels. The best-reported are Collingwood Bay and south coastal Papua, both with pottery. Some coastal groups had developed elaborate trading networks by the time of European contact. Almost the whole of New Guinea is occupied by speakers of Papuan languages, the original settlers of the island, who live mainly in the interior and southern sections. Ethnic composition is complex among the Papuans, who speak some 700 different languages.
New Guinea Highlands: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An area of Oceania which was unknown until the 1930s and whose population is Melanesian speakers of Papuan languages. Its prehistory goes back at least 26,000 years and supported agricultural systems dating back at least 6000 years.
New Zealand: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The southernmost and (except for Chatham Islands) only temperate landmass to be settled by Polynesians/Maoris. Beginning in c 900 AD, the lifestyle was predominantly horticultural on the North Island, but hunting and gathering on the colder South Island. Language, economy, and technology are almost fully Polynesian. There are two archaeological phases: Archaic, c 900-1300, and Classic, c 1300-1800. The Classic is associated with many earthwork fortifications, a rich woodcarving tradition, and development of the chiefly society observed by Captain Cook in 1769.
Nihon shoki: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Nihongi
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The second-earliest surviving chronicle of Japan, the 'Chronicle of Japan', completed in 720. The work began in the 7th century with the same objectives as for Koji-ki, but the Nihon Shoki is a more lengthy and scholarly attempt written in Chinese, the official written language of the day. It was compiled as part of the Ritsuryo state's effort to legitimize the ruling dynasty. Numerous documents, including Chinese and Korean sources, were clearly consulted and often cited. Beginning with a slightly different version of a creation myth from the one related in Koji-ki, the chronicles end with the events at the very end of the 7th century. The accounts include imperial genealogies, legendary events, and reign chronicles. They have been used in archaeological studies of the protohistoric Kofun period.
Normans: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Vikings, or Norsemen, who settled in France; the population of the duchy of Normandy in northern France, a mixed race descending from the Franks and 10th-century Norse settlers of Denmark, Norway, and Iceland. In AD 1066, their leader, William of Normandy, conquered England, then Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The Normans also conquered Sicily and southern Italy in a volatile period that began in 1063. These military feats were consolidated by the strength of the Norman feudal aristocracy and their skill in erecting strong, expedient fortifications ranging from motte and bailey earthworks to substantial stone castles. The Normans were also the main force behind the Crusades, which began in the 11th century AD. They promoted the French language and French culture, and the Romanesque style of architecture. By 1200 the Norman conquerors had been absorbed into the countries they ruled, but many of their institutions lasted into the late Middle Ages. Despite their eventual conversion to Christianity, their adoption of the French language, and their abandonment of sea-roving for Frankish cavalry warfare in the decades following their settlement in Normandy, the Normans retained many of the traits of their piratical Viking ancestors. They were restless, reckless, and loved fighting; they extended the practice of centralized authoritarian rule, feudalism, cavalry warfare, and religious reform.
ogham: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ogam, ogam, Ogham, ogum; Pictish symbol stones
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A Celtic script used for writing in northwest Europe, probably created in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD, and used for writing Irish and Pictish languages. The alphabet has 20 letters represented by tally marks on either side of or crossing a horizontal baseline. The script is better suited for carving on stone (or possibly wood) than for writing in ink. It is believed to have originated in Ireland or south Wales as a secret script and it spread throughout the Celtic areas for use on memorial stones. It is also found associated with the symbols and carvings of the Picts, who used it till the 9th century. Ogham is used on memorial pillar stones in the Celtic regions of Britain, usually consisting of no more than the name and descent of the dead man. It was often the custom, particularly in the south and west in Wales and Cornwall, to provide a translation in Latin minuscule and this has proved important for the translation and dating of ogham. Of the more than 375 ogham inscriptions known, about 300 are from Ireland.
Palaeoasiatic: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A theoretical early 'race' of Homo sapiens sapiens in northeastern Asia. This race included the postglacial Chulmun and Jomon inhabitants of Korea and Japan and the modern Ainu. The far northeastern region of Siberia is the home of the so-called Paleoasiatic peoples, including the Chukchi, Koryak, Itelmen, and Yukaghir. The term also refers to a language group; the languages of the indigenous peoples of the Eurasian Arctic and subarctic can be grouped into four classes: Uralic, Tungusic, Turkic, and Paleoasiatic.
Philippines: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An archipelago of about 7,100 islands and islets lying about 500 miles (800 km) off the southeastern coast of Asia. A firm archaeological sequence began there c 30,000 years ago, at Tabon Cave on Palawan Island. There are Late Pleistocene stone industries, the spread of a small flake and blade technology after 5000 BC (Holocene), and the arrival and rapid spread of Austronesian-speaking horticulturists after 3000 BC. Rich jar-burial assemblages occur in the islands from about 1000 BC; bronze and iron appear later. Chinese traders visited and lived on the islands from about 1000 AD. Indian culture reached the archipelago during the 14th-16th centuries via Indonesian kingdoms, notably the Java-based kingdom of Majapahit. This is particularly noticeable in Philippine languages and literatures where Sanskrit loanwords and ancient Indian motifs abound. At the beginning of the 15th century Filipinos were primarily shifting cultivators, hunters, and fishermen with animistic beliefs. Islam was introduced later in the same century, followed by Ferdinand Magellan's discovery of the Philippines in 1521.
phoneme: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: In linguistics, a term for a unit of speech which is recognized as significant in a particular language. It is the smallest unit of speech distinguishing one word (or word element) from another, as the sound p in cap which separates that word from cab" and "can." In Chinese speakers hear and use aspirated and unaspirated 'p' as separate sounds but English speakers do not."
Pictish symbol stones: CATEGORY: language; artifact
DEFINITION: Pictish symbol stones are a unique class of sculptured monument of the Pictish people in the Post-Roman period. The Picts occupied Scotland north of the Forth and possessed a distinctive culture, seen particularly in their carved symbol stones. The stones are roughly divided into three chronological categories. The Class I stones (5th-7th century) are rough-hewn, undressed blocks or pillars, inscribed with pictorial symbols of spiral creatures, such as fishes and birds. They are also decorated with strange geometric shapes as well as inanimate objects like mirrors and combs, grouped together in various combinations. Class II (8th-10th century) stones are regularly dressed slabs which the same range of carvings but with the addition of new Christian elements and humans in animated scenes. Class III stones (from 9th century) are, in most cases, free-standing crosses decorated with a combination of a distinctive form of interlace as well as some elements of the older motifs. Some bear Ogham inscriptions from which it has recently been shown that three languages were in use, two Celtic and one pre-Indo-European. From these memorial stones, we know something of the Pictish royal succession.
place-name: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A place-name is a word or words used to indicate, denote, or identify a geographic locality such as a town, river, or mountain. Toponymy divides place-names into two broad categories: habitation names and feature names. A habitation name denotes a locality that is peopled or inhabited, such as a homestead, village, or town. Feature names refer to natural or physical features of the landscape. The study of a place-names plays a vital role in medieval studies. The form of the name will often indicate a Celtic, Latin, or Germanic origin, and its prefix or suffix may suggest the type of settlement, for instance, hamlet, village, riverside place, woodland settlement, etc. Two basic assumptions are: every place-name has a meaning, including place-names derived from personal names; place-names describe the site and record some evidence of human occupation or ownership. Toponymy can uncover important historical information about a place, such as the period of time the original language of the inhabitants lasted, settlement history, and population dispersal.
Polynesia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A vast region of scattered islands in the central Pacific occupied by closely related ethnic groups, falling mostly within a triangle made up of the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand, and Easter Island. Western Polynesia was settled by Austronesian speakers from Southeast Asia (Lapita culture) around 1500 BC, and migrations progressed throughout the triangle until New Zealand was reached c 900 AD. The Polynesians are a homogeneous population in terms of language and social organization, which developed into powerful chiefdoms in the larger islands. The Polynesian economy was based on tuber and fruit horticulture. Pottery production ceased in Western Polynesia c 300 AD and was never present in most eastern islands nor in New Zealand. Western Polynesia consists of Tonga, Samoa, and Tuvalu; Eastern Polynesia includes the Society, Cook, Austral, Marquesas, Tuamotu, and Hawaiian Islands, Easter Island, and New Zealand.
Pyu: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An ethno-linguistic group, now extinct, with a Tibeto-Burman language, calling themselves Tirchul. They were probably related to the Burmese. Their kingdom of P'iao in the Irrawaddy basin was first mentioned in the 3rd century by Chinese sources and probably existed from the 1st century BC-9th century AD. Chinese historical records noted that the Pyu claimed sovereignty over 18 kingdoms, many of them in the southern portions of Myanmar. By the 12th century, the Pyus were absorbed by the Burmans.
Quechua: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Quichua; Runa Simi
CATEGORY: site; culture; language
DEFINITION: Prehistoric Andean province and the language by its Inca empire people; it became official Inca language. Several dialects are still spoken in Peru and Bolivia and it was used for government and all communications between provinces under Inca rule. The term Quechua also refers to the Andean ecozone in which maize and other grains were grown in hillside terraces.
Rawlinson, General Sir Henry Creswicke (1810-1895): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A British diplomat who was one of a group of scholars whose work on the trilingual inscription at Behistun (Iran) was instrumental in the decipherment of the cuneiform (leading to the decipherment of Old Persian and Akkadian) languages of western Asia. He copied the Behistun inscription, deciphered it, and published the translation of the Persian text in 1851 and of the Babylonian in 1857. Rawlinson also encouraged much archaeological research and excavation in Mesopotamia.
Ruthwell Cross: CATEGORY: artifact; language
DEFINITION: A cross with an important English-language runic inscription, from the Dumfries region of Scotland. The cross, an example of Northumbrian art of the early 8th century, stands more than 18 feet (5.5 meters) high. It is carved with Gospel scenes and twining vines, as well as 18 verses of The Dream of the Rood". The inscription has linguistic significance because it contains six runic symbols indicating guttural sounds whereas the Scandinavians employed only one or two. Much of the inscription is also copied in Latin. It is now preserved in the interior of the parish church at Ruthwell in Northumberland northeast England."
San: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bushmen
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The hunter-gatherer people of southern Africa who once lived throughout the region and spoke a number of languages before becoming absorbed into agricultural societies. They were a nomadic egalitarian society with small bands of about 20 people. Men hunted with bow-and-arrow and women gathered plant foods. Their record provides insights into Later Stone Age remains and rock art. By late 20th century, many San had become laborers and trackers in settled areas. They are part of the Capoid local race, a subgroup, of the Negroid (African) geographic race (also comprised of the Khoikhoin (Hottentots)). The most striking feature of the San languages is their extensive use of click sounds.
Sanskrit: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sanscrit
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A language of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European, an early Indo-European language used by the Aryans of India, and still in use for Hindu religious texts. It is related to Greek and Latin and the most important early Indo-European language of northern India being, for several centuries, the medium for much Hindu and Buddhist religious writing. Vedic Sanskrit, based on a dialect of northwestern India, dates from as early as 1800 BC; it was described and standardized in the important grammar book by Panini, dating from about the 5th century BC. The Rigveda, the oldest religious document of India, was written in an archaic form of Sanskrit in the mid-1st millennium BC.
Semite: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A name applied to the speakers of a set of related languages who inhabited portions of southwestern Asia since the time of the first cities. Semitic languages are characterized by the importance of the consonants, usually three forming the root of each word. The vowels are omitted altogether in a number of the scripts. The Semites are first recorded on the steppe margins of the Arabian desert, encroaching upon the Sumerians to form the kingdom of Akkad c 2400 BC. The Amorites appear c 2000 in the same area and in Syria-Palestine, where they settled to become the Canaanites. The Khabiru (Hebrews) appear in the same context. In the 12th century BC, the Amorites were followed by the Aramaeans, particularly in inland Syria. The Phoenicians from the 9th century BC carried their Semitic language over much of the Mediterranean. Arabic and Hebrew are the most important surviving Semitic languages. Most, probably all, alphabetic scripts derive from the Semitic alphabet, created sometime in the 2nd millennium BC. The Semitic script was invented by speakers of some Semitic language, possibly Phoenician, who lived in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent.
Semitic: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A group of languages including Akkadian, Eblaite, Canaanite, Amorite, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic, widely spoken throughout the Near East.
Sialk, Tepe: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Siyalk
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important tell site near Kashan on the plateau of Iran with a six major phases from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. They are: I, dating to the 6th-5th millennia BC, a simple village of recently settled farmers who used pottery painted with basketry designs and copper only in the form of hammered ornaments; II, a village of mudbrick architecture with very fine pottery elaborately painted with stylized animals; III, pottery made by wheel and kiln and more use of copper; IV, around 3000 BC, the site fell under the influence of Susa and Mesopotamia, the painted ware replaced by monochrome gray or red, much jewelry, and the introduction of proto-Elamite writing. This phase was followed by a break in occupation and the resettlement -- represented in cemetery A -- is often attributed to intruders from the northeast, who are thought to have been responsible for the introduction of Indo-European languages to this area. The final occupation of Tepe Sialk, represented in cemetery B and dated to the late 2nd-early 1 millennium BC, saw the first use of iron. Around 9th-8th century BC, the site was destroyed and abandoned.
Slav: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Term used for the ethnic groups speaking related languages in eastern Europe during the second half of the 1st millennium AD. They inhabited an area concentrated in modern Poland, and by the early Middle Ages they were considered a distinct cultural group. The origins of the Slavs are obscure, though they seem to derive from the Iron Age tribes indigenous to the Oder-Vistula area. Prehistorically, the original habitat of the Slavs was Asia, from which they migrated in the 3rd or 2nd millennium BC to populate parts of eastern Europe. Subsequently, these European lands of the Slavs were crossed or settled by many peoples forced by economic conditions to migrate. State-level polities began in Greater Moravia in the 9th century AD and in Poland in the 10th century. They are principally defined by linguistic and place-name evidence rather than by historical or archaeological remains. The gród or hrad (castle") was the stronghold of Slav communities. It is the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe residing also across northern Asia to the Pacific Ocean. Slavic languages belong to the Indo-European family. Customarily Slavs are subdivided into east Slavs (Russians Ukrainians and Belarusians) west Slavs (Poles Czechs Slovaks and Wends or Sorbs) and south Slavs (Serbs Croats Slovenes and Macedonians)."
Solomon Islands: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Island nation in the center of Melanesia, southwestern Pacific Ocean. The Solomon Islands were initially settled by 2000 BC, probably by people of the Austronesian language group. The first European to reach the islands was the Spanish explorer Alvaro de Mendaña de Neira in 1568; the islands were named after the wealthy king Solomon of the Old Testament. Archaeological sequences are best known from the northern and southern extremities of the chain; the Santa Cruz islands in the south have very fine Lapita assemblages dating to c 1500-500 BC, and the island of Buka in the north has a continuous sequence from late Lapita (c 500 BC) through successive localized ceramic phases (similar to the Mangaasi tradition of Vanuatu) to recent times.
structural archaeology: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: structural anthropology, symbolic archaeology, cognitive archaeology
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: A branch of archaeology based on the assumption that codes and rules, beliefs and symbolic concepts, produce human culture systems. It is a research perspective that views culture as the shared symbolic structures that are cumulative creations of the mind and is closely related to postprocessual archaeology. The objective of structural analysis is to discover the basic principles of the human mind as reflected in myth, art, kinship, and language. Structural archaeology is concerned with how people manipulate the meaning of material culture, embedded in structural codes, to make new meanings and statements.
Sumer / Sumerian: CATEGORY: site; culture; language
DEFINITION: The earliest documented inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia (southern Iraq), c 3500 BC, considered the world's first civilization. Located between Babylon and the head of the Persian Gulf, these people spoke a language unrelated to any other known language. Formed originally by the need for irrigation agriculture, they created a social and political organization, their own art, literature, and religious observances and greatly influenced neighboring cultures. Cities appeared, such as Eridu, Lagash, Uruk, and Ur, with craft specialization and accumulation of wealth. Most important was the invention of writing. The cuneiform script developed for writing Sumerian can be read. The political unit was the city-state, in which the patron deity, through the priesthood and temple organization, was the major power in all matters. Secular rulers were required only in time of war. The various city-states were united by a common culture and religion, the patron deities such as Enki, Enlil, Nannar, and the rest being members of a single Sumerian pantheon. Sumer was conquered by the Semites of Akkad under Sargon c 2370 BC. The Sumerian culture survived this and later foreign conquests with very little change. Some scholars believe that the Sumerians go back much further and may even have been the first sedentary inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia, from about 5500 BC. The Sumerian language had invariable bisyllabic or monosyllabic roots, around which prefixes or suffixes, also invariable, were arranged to express grammatical inflections. The structure of the language must have made it easier to invent writing and, in a second period, the use of syllabic characters. Sumerian overtaken by Babylonian and ceased to be spoken at beginning of 2nd millennium BC, but then became a language used for cultural purposes and retained that function until cuneiform writing itself disappeared in 1st century AD.
Sumerian question: CATEGORY: term; language
DEFINITION: Academic question of the origins of the Sumerians, culturally and linguistically. Their language has no known relatives and is poorly understood, despite many cuneiform texts found in southern Mesopotamia. Sumerian is the oldest written language in existence.
Surkh Kotal: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Afghanistan with important monuments of the Kushans, who in the 1st century AD created an empire extending from Bactria to the upper Ganges. The famous Kushan ruler Kanishka (early 2nd century AD) built the hilltop fortress. The temple contained sculptures in clay and stone, including three statues of gods or kings. Among the inscriptions from the site is a long text in the Bactrian language using cursive Greek letters.
syllabary: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A system of written symbols used to represent the syllables of the words of a language. Writing systems that use syllabaries include modern Japanese, Cherokee, the ancient Cretan scripts (Linear A, Linear B), and various Indic and cuneiform writing systems. Some syllabaries have separate symbols for each possible syllable that may occur in the language; others use a system of consonant symbols that include an inherent vowel. Most languages would require about 80 symbols to cover all syllables in use. The unit of a syllabary is sometimes called syllabogram, which may be of these types: vowel, consonant-vowel, vowel-consonant, consonant-vowel-consonant, or consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel.
system of communication: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The underlying rationale of language, to communicate information among individuals.
Taiwan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Formosa
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Island 100 miles (160 km) off the southeast coast of the China mainland. Taiwan had a native aboriginal population of Malayo-Polynesian ancestry and it occupies an important position in the prehistory of Southeast Asia. Evidence for pre-Neolithic settlement is from c 3500 BC, followed by a Neolithic culture (Ta-p'en-k'eng culture). That culture had cord-marked pottery and was related to contemporary rice-cultivating cultures on the adjacent mainland. Linguistically, it represents the earliest recognizable phase of Austronesian language in the islands Southeast Asia. Later Taiwan Neolithic cultures also show close connections with south China and the Philippines. Major Chinese settlement of the island did not occur until the 17th century AD.
Tassili n'Ajjer: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tassili-n-Ajjer
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in southeast Algeria with famous but undated rock art covering most of the Saharan sequence. The art is in three styles -- archaic" paintings of large animal and human figures and geometric abstract symbols; a "naturalistic" style with humans and animals portrayed in great detail in scenes showing cattle running and herdsmen with bows; and a "cubist" style with dark shapes and light areas. Stone forms which were probably used as tomb sculpture have also been found at the Tassili site. There is much stone painting but not much stone carving or engraving. Scholars have been unable to decipher the hieroglyphic language that is engraved on the rocks."
technical drawing: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Graphical depiction of an object(s), intended to communicate specific information about its attributes through a graphical information language.
Timna': SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hajar Kohlan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Two sites: Capital city of the Qatabanian kingdom of southern Arabia and an area of copper-smelting sites in southern Israel. In the 1st millennium BC, Timna in Arabia was a walled city; it was destroyed c 1st century AD in a war. The site has produced a number of important inscriptions in the local South Arabian language and script. North of the city is a cemetery site with a series of structures made of stone and mudbrick. The tombs have been robbed, but have yielded some sculpture, inscribed tablets, bronze, pottery, and jewelry. In Israel, the presence of copper (in Palestine) is mentioned in the Bible, and archaeologists have identified remnants of ancient smelting operations, complete with crude furnaces and slag heaps, as being of the Egyptian pharaonic and Solomonic periods. The ancient mines are called Mikhrot Shelomo ha-Melekh -- King Solomon's Mines. There is also a temple of the goddess of Hathor, showing Egyptian interest during the New Kingdom.
Tokharian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tocharian, Tocharish
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Indo-European language that was spoken in northern Chinese Turkistan during the latter half of the 1st millennium AD. Documents from about 500-700 show two dialects: Tocharian A, from the area of Turfan in the east; and Tocharian B, chiefly from the region of Kucha in the west but also from the Turfan area.
transliteration: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The act or process of rewriting the characters or letters (signary) of one language into those of another used to represent the same sounds; writing in the closest corresponding characters of another alphabet or language. It is possible to reconstruct the original spelling from a transliteration, but not from a transcription.
Tungus: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: Ethno-linguistic group of eastern Eurasia and Siberia who spoke Tungusic languages of the Altaic language family. They are believed to have entered the Korean peninsula in the 1st millennium BC (Bronze Age).
Ugaritic: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An extinct Semitic language spoken and written from at least the middle of 2nd millennium BC at Ugarit and the surrounding area. It belonged to a western group of Semitic languages (i.e. Arabic, Hebrew) and was conveyed alphabetically -- the earliest alphabet for which we have a complete record. The cuneiform writing system used on the Syrian coast from the 15th-13th century BC. It was unique, though possibly patterned after the North Semitic alphabet. Ugaritic was written from left to right; its 30 symbols included 3 syllabic signs for vowels. Documents in Ugaritic are written on clay tablets with a wedge-shaped stylus and date from the 15th-14th century BC.
Urartu: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Urartian
CATEGORY: site; culture; language
DEFINITION: A kingdom of the 1st millennium BC in the mountains north of Assyria (northwest Iran, northeast Anatolia, Armenia, in the mountainous region southeast of the Black Sea and southwest of the Caspian Sea) which was the last important Hurrian-speaking state. Its people, relatives of the Hurri, established themselves around Lake Van during the 2nd millennium BC. Mentioned in Assyrian sources from the early 13th century BC, Urartu enjoyed considerable political power in the 9th-8th centuries BC. The citadel of their capital at Van could be entered only by a rock-cut passage, upon which are cuneiform inscriptions which supplement the records of the Assyrians, with whom the Urartians were usually at war over access to raw materials, such as metal. A promontory nearby had a temple. Urartu is famous for its metalwork, particularly the great bronze cauldrons on tripod stands which were traded as far as Etruscan Italy, and for fine, red burnished ware. They adapted a cuneiform script to their own language, a late dialect of Hurrian, which has been deciphered. The language is mainly known from rock-face inscriptions dating from 8th century BC in the eastern part of Asia Minor. Pressure from the Cimmerians, Phrygians, and Scythians led to disappearance of kingdom c 590 BC, and they were overcome by invading Armenians.
Veneti: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Illyrian people who came from the east and took possession of the region named for them (Venetia) in Italy c 1000 BC. The Venetic language is known from more than 400 funerary and votive inscriptions and from Classical writings. It is an Indo-European language of Archaic type bearing similarities to the Latin and the Germanic. The principal centers of the Veneti were Padua and Este. Their culture developed from the 9th century to the period of Romanization, with relationships with the Golasecca, Villanovan, and Etruscan cultures and with the transalpine Hallstatt culture. They peaked in the 6th-4th centuries BC and produced figured bronze situlae (conical vessels). The Veneti were horse breeders and peaceful traders and navigators. They protected by the waters of the lower Po and the lower Adige and preserved their independence against Etruscan expansion and Celtic invasion. In the 3rd century BC, they established a peaceful alliance with Rome.
writing: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Any system for symbolizing the symbols of a language. Writing was developed independently several times in different places and both the writing materials and the types of script show great variation. The earliest true writing developed in southern Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC Uruk culture. The writing material was clay; it was first inscribed and later impressed with a stylus to produce the wedge-shaped cuneiform signs. The earliest signs were pictograms ('picture writing', in which the signs represent stylized pictures of the objects in question), but these rapidly developed into ideograms (the signs indicated not only the original object, but also associated objects or concepts). The Egyptian hieroglyphic script, used for inscriptions on stone, painting on walls, and also writing on papyrus, appears well before 3000 BC. There is dispute as to whether the Egyptians developed writing independently or whether the art was diffused from Mesopotamia. The Harappan Civilization of the Indus Valley had a writing system of its own, dated to the second half of the 3rd millennium BC and is found almost exclusively on stamp seals and seal impressions. It has not been deciphered. The first true alphabet, with signs for individual letters, seems to have developed in the Levant, probably in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. The first definite evidence comes from Ugarit in the mid-2nd millennium BC. The Phoenicians spread the alphabet throughout the Mediterranean and theirs is ancestral to most of the alphabets in use today. In China, writing developed independently, first appearing on oracle bones of the Shang dynasty. In Europe the only pre-Classical writing occurs in the Aegean in the 2nd millennium BC -- the hieroglyphic and Linear A scripts of the Minoans, as yet undeciphered, and the Linear B of the Mycenaeans, used to record an early form of Greek. The development of writing in the Americas occurred only in Mesoamerica -- the glyphic writing of the Maya and related groups, found in inscriptions carved on monuments, and the pictographic writing of Post-Classic groups such as the Mixtecs and Aztecs, found on manuscripts of bark or deerskin known as codices.
Xanthian Marbles: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Sculptures found at Xanthus, principal city of ancient Lycia (Turkey), now in British Museum. The most remarkable ruins of the city are these huge rock-cut pillar tombs. British archaeologist Sir Charles Fellows sent reliefs and sections of the tombs to the British Museum in the 19th century. The figures are Assyrian in character, not later than 500 BC. Sieges, processions, and figures are shown in profile but with the eyes shown in full. Upon one of the remaining pillar tombs is the longest and most important of inscriptions in the Lycian language.
xenogram: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A word written in another language but read as if it were one's own. For example, we write lb." which stands for Latin 'libra' but read it as the English word "pound"."
Young, Thomas (1773-1829): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: English physician, physicist, and Egyptologist who helped decipher the Rosetta Stone. He was the first modern scholar to translate the demotic script. Young began studying the texts of the Rosetta Stone in 1814 and after obtaining additional hieroglyphic writings from other sources, he succeeded in providing a nearly accurate translation within a few years and thus contributed greatly to deciphering the ancient Egyptian language.
Zapotec: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Mesoamerican cultural and linguistic group centered on the highlands of southern Oaxaca, Mexico, and the culture most clearly associated with Monte Albán and Mitla. Their origins are uncertain, but by c 300 AD a distinctively Zapotec culture can be recognized. The Early Formative ancestral Zapotec had lived in scattered villages and at least one center of some importance, San José Mogote. Elaborate funerary urns in gray ware are especially characteristic. The Zapotec abandoned their capital in c 950 and appear to have relocated at other centers, such as Mitla and Lambityeco. In the 14th century AD, the area was infiltrated by Mixtecs who came from the mountains to the north and west and occupied most of the Zapotec sites. Part of the region was never conquered by the Aztecs, and the Zapotecan language has persisted to the present.

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