Categories - Archaeologs

Ancient Pottery

Sacred Ceremonies

Ancient Languages

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Agordat

Town in western Eritrea, Ethiopia, best-known archaeologically for the presence of four village sites, never excavated but attributed on the basis of surface collections to about the 3rd millennium be. The artefacts, notably the stone mace-heads and ground stone axes, show affinities to those of ...

EnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Agop Atas

See Madai Caves.

Agop Atas

archaeologsOthers

Aghia Triadha

See Ayia Triadha.

Aghia Triadha

archaeologsOthers

Agger

A Latin military term meaning a rampart, earthwork or embankment. The term is applied in a broad way and is used, for instance, for the artificial earthworks erected to support battering engines and for the slightly raised causeway that formed the basis of most Roman roads.

ageing of skeletal material

Age at death may be estimated from ancient skeletons in a number of ways: (a) Epiphyseal fusion. Long bones grow in zones just behind their joint surfaces. Thus a growing bone consists of three elements: the central part, or diaphysis, and the ends, the ephiyses. When the bone reaches adult size,...

ageing of skeletal material

archaeologsOthers

Agate Basin

See Plano.

Agade

See Akkad.

EnglishAncient Cities

Afyeh

See Nubian Group.

Afyeh

archaeologsOthers

African food-production

The beginnings of food-production in Africa have only been documented with any precision in relatively recent years. Formerly, it was generally believed that techniques of food-production had been introduced into Africa in a relatively developed form, their initiation and formative processes havi...

African food-production

archaeologsOthers

Afrasiab

See Samarkand.

Afrasiab

archaeologsOthers

Afontova Gora II

See Yenisei.

Afontova Gora II

archaeologsOthers

Afanasievo

Culture of southern Siberia, probably beginning in the late 3rd millennium bc. The Afanasievo people were the first foodproducers in the area, breeding cattle, sheep and horses, but also practising hunting. There is no direct evidence of agriculture, but it may have been practised. Most known sit...

EnglishCultures

Afanasievo

archaeologsCultures

Afalou

See Mechta-afalou.

Afalou

archaeologsOthers

Aerial Photography

Technique that has proved to be one of the most successful methods of discovering archaeological sites. Large areas of ground can be covered quickly, and the ground plan of a new site can be plotted from the photographs. Accurate surveys can in fact be made by this method (see photogrammetry). Wh...

Adulis

Located on the Red Sea coast of Ethiopia, southeast of the modem port of Massawa, Adulis was the principal seaport of Axum, to which it was linked by a well-travelled trade route. There are indications that Adulis may have been established in Ptolemaic times and, indeed, it must be assumed that p...

Adria

[Atria]. Port in northeast Italy. A principal 6th-5th century BC port on the Adriatic, and important crossover point for Etruscan and Greek trade, linking the sea routes with Etruria, the Po Valley and northern Europe. Variously described as of Venetie, Greek or Etruscan foundation, the town seem...

EnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Adrar Bous

Site in the Air massif, on the edge of the Tenere Desert in Niger, where excavations have revealed a long succession of prehistoric occupation. Levalloiso-Mous-terian settlement was followed by an arid phase when the region was probably uninhabited. The succeeding Aterian industry represents a lo...

EnglishPlace Names

Adobe

An American term for sun-dried mud

Adlerberg

Early Bronze Age group in southwest Germany, a variant of the Unétice culture. It is known mainly from a number of flat inhumation cemeteries such as that of Adlerberg itself. The dead were usually accompanied by fairly simple offerings such as copper and bronze daggers and pins, flint tools and ...

Adichanallur

See megaliths (India).

Adichanallur

archaeologsOthers

Adena

A widespread native American culture of the Early Woodland period, centred on Southern Ohio. It is best known for its ceremonial burial practices, particularly mound building (e.g. Grave Creek Mound). Adena mounds date from as early as cl000 be, but do not become common until 500 be. Hunting and ...

EnglishPlace Names

Addaura

Cave in the Monte Pellegrino group near Palermo, Sicily, with engravings of the Upper Palaeolithic period. The main scene is dominated by human figures. Two in the centre are lying and seem to be bound, while figures round them seem to be masked and dancing: it may be an initiation or circumcisio...

AD

Years ‘after the birth of Christ’ (Anno Domini). The" lower case ‘ad’ represents uncalibrated radiocarbon years; the capitals ad denote a calibrated radiocarbon date, or a date such as an historically derived one, that does not need calibration (see Table 8, page 422). There is no year 0: AD 1 is...

AD

archaeologsOthers

Acroterion

An end ornament or ornamental figure, mounted with plinth at any of the three comers of the pediment of a classical building.

Acropolis

[Greek: akros (high, top), polis (city)]. The higher or citadel section found in a number of Greek cities, notably Corinth and Athens. The name is often used to refer specifically to the Acropolis at Athens, surmounted by the Parthenon, and the associated complex of monumental public buildings.

EnglishPlace Names

Acoustic Vessels

From the 9th century large pots were cemented into bell-towers to help boost the chimes of the church bells. A fine 9th-century collection of painted Badorf wares, for example, was found in the church of Meschede in Westphalia, and larger reliefband amphorae were used in 10th- and 11th-century ch...

Acoustic Vessels

archaeologsOthers

Acheulian

The term Epoque de St Acheul was introduced by de Mortillet in 1872 for a span of prehistoric time, the early part of the Palaeolithic period. This usage is still occasionally found today but after 1925 the idea of epochs began to be supplanted by that of cultures and culture traditions, and it i...

Achaemenid

The Persian dynasty that ruled from its homeland in central and southern Iran from c547 bc, when Cyrus II conquered Lydia, to 331 bc, when the empire fell to Alexander the Great. The Achaemenid Empire reached its height under Darius, who built a splendid new capital at Persepolis and ruled an are...

EnglishArchitectural

Achaemenid

archaeologsArchitectural

Aceramic Neolithic

Term applied to groups demonstrating evidence of a Neolithic economy — that is, an economy based on the cultivation of crops or the rearing of stock or both — but without the use of pottery (which was regarded by an earlier generation of archaeologists as a defining characteristic of the Neolithi...

Acculturation

The adoption of traits characteristic of one culture by another.

Acapana

See Tiahuanaco.

Acapana

archaeologsOthers

Acacus

Region of the central Sahara, in what is now southwestern Libya, noted for the presence of rock shelters with occupation deposits and rock paintings. Pottery was made in this region from about 7000 be: the earliest vessels include examples with the wavy-line decoration typical of the so-called ‘a...

Abydos

Major town in northern Egypt, which was a centre for the worship of Osiris and the chosen burial place of the pharaohs of the First Dynasty (seeDynastic Egypt). The royal tombs consisted of large underground brick-built rooms lined with wood, covered by a low mound surrounded by a brick wall. Ear...

EnglishAncient Cities

Abu Simbel

Great temple on the west bank of the Nile in northern Nubia, 230 km upstream of Aswan, constructed by Rameses II in the 13th century bc as part of the cultural Egyptianization of Nubia under the Eighteenth Dynasty (see Dynastic Egypt). The facade of the temple is dominated by four 20-metre-high s...

EnglishArchitectural, Tombs, Place Names

Abu Shahraim

See Eridu.

Abu Shahraim

archaeologsOthers

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