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perishable
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Any artifact made from organic materials that ordinarily would decay but for some reason was preserved. Such artifacts include basketry, cordage, and leather.

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Kaminaljuyú
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large and important Maya site near Guatemala City that originally contained over 200 mounds, strongly influenced by Teotihuacán during the Early Classic. As the greatest of the early centers in the highland Maya zone, Kaminaljuyú has a history of occupation dating back to c 1800 BC, but it reached its first climax during the Miraflores phase in the centuries after 300 BC. Its earliest occupation during the Early to Mid-Pre-Classic has Olmec-influenced artifacts such as the 'squashed frog' motif, kaolin pottery, and pits reminiscent of those at Tlatilco. About 200 burial sites from the Late Formative Period, 300 BC-100 AD, have been uncovered, and there are carved stelae in the Izapa manner and a hieroglyphic script unlike that of the lowland Maya.. There are also courts for playing the ball game tlachtli. Because of the lack of stone suitable for construction, pyramids and other structures at Kaminaljuyú were built of adobe and later of other perishable materials. After a period of decline, the site was revived in c 400 when it became an outpost of the Teotihuacán civilization. Kaminaljuyú controlled the obsidian production along the Pacific. Its decline took place after the Late Classic Period c 600-900 AD. Evidence suggests that various Mexican dynasties ruled over the Maya population until the Spanish conquest.
macellum
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In Roman antiquity, a marketplace for perishable foods consisting of shops around a colonnaded court; the center building was either round or octagonal. Some more sophisticated examples have individual architectural features associated with them, such as (at Leptis Magna and Pompeii) a porticoed enclosed rectangular courtyard, with one or two colonnaded pavilions in the central area. At Pompeii, shops under the portico face inward into the market and also outward into the surrounding streets. At Rome, the Macellum Magnum erected by Nero was apparently a grand-scale example, doubling both the portico and the pavilion into two-storied structures.

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