Loutrophoros

In Greek antiquity, a container with a slender ovoid body, long neck, flaring mouth, and two long handles. They were used from the 6th century BC for ritual purposes at weddings and funerals. The shape also appears in relief on in the round on Attic grave stelae.

archaeologsEnglishArtifacts, Ancient Pottery

Loutrophoros

Meir

Important group of decorated rock-cut tombs in Middle Egypt, about 50 km northwest of modern Asyut. The tombs belonged to the local nomarchs of the late Old-Middle Kingdom, dating to the 6th-12th Dynasties (2345-2181 and 1985-1795 BC).

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Meir

Red-Slipped

Any pottery to which a slip, a thin layer of fine clay, is applied to pottery before firing by dipping the pot into a thick liquid mixture of clay and water. Slip decorates the fabric, often chosen to bake to a color such as red, yellow, or black, and makes the pot more watertight by clogging the...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Red-Slipped

Biotope

The smallest subdivision of a habitat, constituting a specific plant and animal grouping and a high degree of uniformity in the subdivision's environmental conditions.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Biotope

York Ware

Style of wheel-thrown late Saxon pottery current in the period AD 850-1150, one of a series of regional industries of the period making cooking pots, jars, pitchers, flagons, bottles, jugs, bowls, and dishes. York ware is distinctive hard wheel-thrown quartz-gritted fabric, light red to brown or ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

York Ware

Mari

A city and kingdom of Mesopotamia, on the right bank of the Euphrates near the Syrian-Iraqi border. It was the chief city of the middle Euphrates until its destruction by Hammurabi c 1759 BC. It was founded in the early 3rd millennium BC and was occupied until the late 1st millennium BC. Major te...

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Mari

Arambourg, Camille

Palaeontologist and professor who carried out excavations and surveys in Africa, especially in Maghreb, Ain Hanech, Ternifine, Omo-Turkana, and Omo Valley. The Omo remains, a group of hominid fossils, the oldest of which are about 3 million years old, were found by Arambourg, Yves Coppens, F. Cla...

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Arambourg, Camille

Ridgeway

An ancient communications route following the line of an upland ridge. these are tracks along the watersheds from hillfort to hillfort, used by prehistoric man. Often there is no artificially constructed roadway, but some routes became Roman roads or medieval droveways. The dates of the finds ext...

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Ridgeway

Post-Classic Stage

The final pre-Columbian period in New World cultural history, following the collapse of Classic period civilizations, start in 750/900 until 1520 AD. The period is characterized by metalworking, complex urban societies, advanced commerce, militarism, imperialism, and secularism. It is traditional...

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Post-Classic Stage

Gaocheng

Area in southern Hebei province, China, with widely scattered Shang remains. At Taixicun, the main occupation postdates the Erligang Phase and has one radiocarbon date of c 1500 BC. The site is dominated by three large rectangular Hangtu platforms and a large house foundation with sacrificial bur...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Gaocheng

Awilum

The class of citizens in Mesopotamia who owned land in their own right and were freemen not dependent on the palace nor on the temple, according to Hammurabi's Law Code. The threefold system of the populace was divided into awilum, muskenum, and wardum. The wardum was any slave in bondage who cou...

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Awilum

Sandshaker

A container for sand which was used to stop ink from spreading.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Sandshaker

Majapahit

The last Indianized kingdom in Indonesia; based in eastern Java, it existed between the 13th and 16th centuries. The founder of the empire was Vijaya, a prince of Singhasari, who escaped when Jayakatwang, the ruler of Kadiri, seized the palace. From 1292, it developed into the most powerful empir...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Majapahit

Boscoreale

The site of two villas that were suburbs of Rome, near Pompeii, with important and sumptuous artifacts and painted rooms dating c 40 BC. These include possessions of the great patrician families of Rome, such as paintings illustrating Dionysiac mysteries, jewels, and magnificent gold and silver h...

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Boscoreale

Cutlass

A flat heavy slightly curved blade.

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Cutlass

Tzompantli

Skull rack on which, in the Aztec and some other Mesoamerican cultures, the skulls of sacrificial victims were displayed.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Tzompantli

Pozzolana

Volcanic ash or dust found in central Italy, especially near Pozzuoli. It was used to fortify Roman concrete and line water channels. The Romans used it from the 2nd century BC onwards. The natural properties of this and related materials may well have been of central importance in the rapid deve...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Pozzolana

Bridle

Headgear for a horse, usually consisting of a series of buckled straps and a mouthpiece, bridle bit, by which the horse is controlled. A bridle bit is a metal mouth piece used to control an animal, usually used on a horse.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Bridle

East Greek Pottery

A type of pottery produced during the Archaic Period within the Greek islands an on the western coast of Turkey at Chios, Samos, Ephesus, Miletus, Clazomenae, and Rhodes.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

East Greek Pottery

Stamnos

A type of Classical Greek vase, similar in size to the amphora, and likewise used typically for the storage of wine. The stamnos, however, is more squat in form, with two horizontal handles and a round mouth. The shape is popular with Athenian Red-Figure vase-painters in the period from about 525...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Stamnos

Cosa

A town on west coast of Italy, north of Rome, that was a Latin colony founded in 273 BC. There is well-preserved massive polygonal masonry surviving in the city walls, the forum, basilica, citadel, capitol, baths, and temples - as well as remains of the grid street plan. The site was abandoned in...

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Cosa

Activity

Used to describe the customary use of a given artifact, such as food preparation.

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Activity

Proglacial

Landforms and deposits just beyond the margin of glacial ice; the deposition or environments at the edge of an ice sheet or glacier. This includes lakes, streams, loess, and periglacial features. Melt water released from the glacial mass carries loads of material eroded by the ice and this materi...

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Proglacial

Leakey, Mary Douglas

English-born archaeologist and paleoanthropologist who made several of the most important fossil finds subsequently interpreted and publicized by her husband, the noted anthropologist Louis Leakey. She discovered the skull of Proconsul africanus, an apelike ancestor of both apes and early humans ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Leakey, Mary Douglas

Abydos, Tablets Of

Two hieroglyphic inscriptions containing the names of Egyptian kings that were found on the walls in a small temple at Abydos, Egypt. The first tablet has the names of the kings of the 12th and 18th Dynasties and it is now in the British Museum. The second tablet begins with Menes, one of the fir...

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Abydos, Tablets Of