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Results for olive:

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olive

CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: Subtropical, broad-leaved, evergreen tree and its edible, oil-producing fruit. It was recorded from El Garcel in Spain in the Neolithic and the edible olive was grown on the island of Crete about 3500 BC; the Semitic peoples apparently cultivated it as early as 3000 BC. Olive oil was prized for anointing the body in Greece during the time of Homer; and it was an important crop of the Romans c. 600 BC. Later, olive growing spread to all the countries bordering the Mediterranean.

olive jar

CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A type of pottery vessel used to ship olives and wine (and other commodities) from Spain; commonly found in Spanish colonial archaeological sites.

olivella

CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: A genus of marine univalve shell commonly used as raw material for the manufacture of beads and ornaments. It is a small spiral shell.

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Atchana, Tell

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Alalakh
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A mound on the Amuq plain of northern Syria (southeastern Turkey), next to the River Orontes and identified as the ancient city of Alalakh with occupation levels from the 4th-late 2nd millennium BC. Seventeen building phases spanned c 3400-1200 BC, including a long Copper Age, a period as an independent state, and one as a provincial capital of the Hittites. There was a mix of cultural influences from Mesopotamia and the Aegean. Atchana was wealthy from trade and from the timber of the Amanus Mountains. Woolley discovered the remains of a small kingdom of largely Hurrian population. In level VII, dated to the 18th and 17th centuries BC, was the palace of Yaram-Lim II (Yamhad) demonstrating an early form of Syrian architecture in which stone, timber and mud-brick were all used. Another palace was excavated in level IV, of the late 15th and early 14th centuries, belonging to Niqmepa, with rooms around a central court and a large number of tablets in Akkadian cuneiform. The tablets describe trading with cities such as Ugarit and the Hittite capital Hattusas, involving food products such as wheat, wine, and olive oil. Later in the 14th century the city fell to the Hittites and became a provincial capital of the Hittite empire. It was eventually abandoned after destruction c 1200 BC, perhaps at the hands of the Peoples Of The Sea.

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.

factorium

CATEGORY: artifact; ceramics
DEFINITION: A vessel containing exactly a factum, or quantity of grapes or olives to be placed under the press (torcular) in one making.

Ghassul

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Teleilat, Teleilat el Ghassul; Ghassulian
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Chalcolithic site northeast of the Dead Sea in the Jordan Valley with four major occupations indicated -- most notably the culture of the 4th millennium BC known from the sites of Teleilat Ghassul and Nahal Mishmar. The houses were of pisé (simple mud-brick on stone foundations) and had elaborate polychrome frescoes. A wide range of well-made pottery shapes were in use, which were found on many other Palestinian sites. Carbonized date and olive stones are among the earliest evidence for the cultivation of these fruits. Burials were in cists, made of stone slabs and covered by stone cairns. The culture exploited copper early on and was the last period of large-scale stone tool use in Palestine.

Giglio Island

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A mountainous volcanic island off the coast of Etruria which has an archaic Etruscan shipwreck with a cargo of amphorae filled with olives, ingots, and perfumed oil in Corinthian and Etruscan aryballoi.

gley horizon

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: gleying
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A soil horizon characterized by blue, gray, or olive coloring due to excessive moisture in anaerobic conditions; a waterlogging of soil. Gleying may result from a raised water table or from impeded drainage within the soil profile; the latter condition occurs in some podzols. Gley horizons and gley soils are conducive to preservation of organic remains.

gleying

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: gley horizon
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: The process of waterlogging of soil in which iron is bacterially reduced under anaerobic conditions. Gleying may result from a raised water table or from impeded drainage within the soil profile -- especially in bogs, fens, floodplains, lakes, and swamps. The soil is blue, gray, or olive in coloring and forms gley horizons.

Hyksos

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Heka Khaswt, Hycsos, Poimenes, Mentiou Sati, Asian Shepherds, Scourges
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A nomadic desert tribe of Palestine whose name means rulers of foreign lands" and who infiltrated Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period (1800-1650 BC). They infiltrated the Eastern Delta during the Middle Kingdom and from 1630 to 1521 BC they dominated the Nile Valley from their capital of Avaris in the Delta. They became powerful enough to form the 15th Dynasty; traditionally they also formed the 16th Dynasty. Their breaking of Egyptian isolation opened the way for the flowering of culture in the New Kingdom which immediately followed their expulsion by Ahmose. Ahmose was the founder of the 18th Dynasty and the end of the Hyksos rule marked the beginning of the New Kingdom. The Hyksos were responsible for the introduction of the horse and chariot and perhaps the upright loom olive and pomegranate. They made improved battle axes and fortification techniques. The name Hyksos was used by the Egyptian historian Manetho (fl 300 BC) who according to the Jewish historian Josephus (fl 1st century AD) translated the word as "king-shepherds" or "captive shepherds.""

Myrtos

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Minoan settlement in southern Crete, occupied c 2600-2200 BC. It was a village of irregularly grouped buildings on a sloping hillside. There is evidence of relatively complex economic organization, attested by seals and sealings and by evidence of craft specialization. The economy may have been based in part on cultivation of the olive. A Neopalatial country house, built c 1550 BC, was destroyed by fire c 1450 BC.

Numidia

CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Under the Roman Republic and Empire, a part of Africa north of the Sahara, the boundaries of which at times corresponded roughly with those of modern Algeria and western part of Tunisia, excluding the area of Carthage. Its earliest inhabitants were divided into tribes and clans and were racially indistinguishable from the other Berber inhabitants of early North Africa. From the 6th century BC, points along the coast were occupied by the Carthaginians, who by the 3rd century BC had expanded into the interior as far as Theveste (Tébessa). Numidians were frequently found in the Carthaginian armies by that time. Their leader, Maninissa (240-148 BC), was largely responsible for the spread of Phoenician culture into this area, and who by skillful management of his link with Rome was able to bring greatly increased prosperity and stability to his community. After 146 BC, thousands of Carthaginians fled to Numidia after the destruction of Carthage. This kingdom, formed by nomads, was converted into a Roman province (Africa Nova) in 46 BC and its chief city was Cirta. Numidia seems to have grown wine and olives very successfully on the plain, and horses and sheep were reared on higher ground. Caesar formed a new province, Africa Nova, from Numidian territory, and Augustus united Africa Nova (New Africa") with Africa Vetus ("Old Africa the province surrounding Carthage); but a separate province of Numidia was formally created by Septimius Severus. There are remains at Lambaesis, Timgad, and Theveste.

strigil

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Latin strigilis
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A narrow curved scraper, made of horn or metal (bronze, silver), used by Roman and Greek bathers for the cleansing of the skin. A strigil was used to remove olive oil applied after bathing or exercising. Romans used them particularly in the hot room (caldarium) and the task was often performed by slaves. On Athenian pottery, strigils are shown in the hands of athletes.

Yassi Ada

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A graveyard of ancient ships off the Turkish coast near Bodrum, the most important being a Byzantine wreck of the 6th century. The 30-meter vessel was well-preserved and traces of the galley-end and of the cargo holds were found. Amphorae have illustrated trading of later Roman wares and olive oil between North Africa and Anatolia in the Justinian period. Peter Throckmorton, who discovered the site in 1958, developed the mapping of wrecks photogrammetrically with stereophotographs and using a two-man submarine, the Asherah launched in 1964. The Asherah" was the first submarine ever built for archaeological investigation."

Yue

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Yüeh
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Ancient ethnic group of southeastern mainland China during the Han dynasty, an aboriginal people who in the 5th-4th century BC formed a powerful kingdom in present-day Chekiang and Fukien provinces. The name 'Vietnam' means south of the Yüeh and some Chinese scholars consider the Vietnamese to be descendants of the Yüeh. It is also the name of an olive-colored glazed stoneware preceding celadon and porcelain and created during the Tang period of 3rd-10th centuries AD in Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces.