Gordium

Vila Nova De Sao Pedro

Important Chalcolithic site near Santarém, Portugal with an unenclosed settlement c 3800 BC, succeeded by one surrounded by at least two bastioned stone walls, c 3200 BC. The first belonged to the Palmella culture and the final phase belonged to Beaker culture, c 2500 BC. Artifacts include copper...

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Vila Nova De Sao Pedro

Halicarnassus

A Greek city on the west coast of Turkey (once Asia Minor), the birthplace of the 5th-century BC historian Herodotus. Formed part of the Delian league, its peak period was as capital city of Mausolus (satrap), who ruled Caria from 377-353 BC. He built walls, public buildings (agora, theater), and...

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Halicarnassus

Cinerary Urn

A sepulchral vessel or urn used to preserve the ashes of the dead after cremation.

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Cinerary Urn

Stratified Sample

The sample that results from dividing the population into subsets and sampling each.

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Stratified Sample

Intaglio

A gemstone into whose surface a decoration is cut and this technique of decoration. This prehistoric incised carving was also done on precious metal. The design was especially used on seal stones which were sometimes set into rings and used as personal seals. The engraved subject is sunk beneath ...

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Intaglio

Greek Fire

Any of several flammable materials used in warfare in ancient and medieval times. Ancient writers refer to flaming arrows, firepots, and such substances as pitch, naphtha, sulfur, and charcoal, but true Greek fire was evidently a petroleum-based mixture. It was evidently invented during the reign...

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Greek Fire

Therianthrope

Depiction in rock art combining aspects of two or more species, especially a human and an animal.

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Therianthrope

Trowel

A tool consisting of a flat piece of metal, often diamond-shaped and pointed with sharpened edges and attached to a short handle. The trowel head is usually 5 inches or shorter.

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Trowel

B Group

A term no longer used to describe the final stages of the Neolithic A Group in Nubia (c 2800-2300 BC), prior to the beginning of the C Group phase. In soils, the B horizon lies immediately beneath the A horizon and may reach a depth of 65 to 90 centimeters (26 to 35 inches). It is a zone of more ...

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B Group

Rhizome

An edible, rootlike subterranean plant stem; a thick underground horizontal stem that produces roots and has shoots that develop into new plants.

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Rhizome

Axis Of Detachment

The path of the force that removed a piece from the core of a stone tool, running from the point of impact on the platform of the artifact toward the distal end

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Axis Of Detachment

Carved Tree

A tree with designs, often geometric, cut into the bark. Carved trees occur in Australia and in the Chatham Islands.

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Carved Tree

Ile Carn

Early Neolithic passage grave in Brittany, of dry-stone walling with a corbelled vault to the chamber and dated to c 3270 bc. Inside were only a few sherds and flint flakes.

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Ile Carn

Pianello

A site near Ancona, near the Italian Adriatic coast, with a large urnfield cemetery of c 1100 BC. It is the type site of a group scattered through much of Italy and often labeled Proto-Villanovan. The ashes, sometimes accompanied by an arc fibula or quadrangular razor, were buried in a small bico...

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Pianello

Mumun

A Korean term meaning 'no decoration' for the plain pottery of the peninsula which succeeded Chulmun pottery from c 1500 BC-300 AD. It was the dominant pottery type from the Bronze Age through the Proto-Three Kingdoms period.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Mumun

Goths

A Germanic people whose two branches, the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths, for centuries harassed the Roman Empire. According to their own legend, the Goths originated in southern Scandinavia and crossed in three ships under their king Berig to the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, where they settle...

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Goths

Oca

South American wood sorrel cultivated for its edible tubers.

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Oca

Giglio Island

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.

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Giglio Island

Tembeling

River valley in peninsular Malaysia with Neolithic and metal age sites.

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Tembeling

Lustral Basin

In Minoan architecture, a sunken room reached by a short flight of steps and often screened off by a parapet. They were either bathrooms or used for ritual purification.

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Lustral Basin

Oxidized

A pottery fabric fired in an oxidizing atmosphere with abundant oxygen available to form red hematite from the iron in the clay fabric or in pigments.

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Oxidized

Foot

An appendage attached along the circumference of a vessel's base to raise it above the surface on which the vessel rest.

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Foot

Macenery, Father John

A Roman Catholic priest who excavated at Kent's Cavern, England, and discovered Palaeolithic flint tools alongside the bones of extinct animals in an undisturbed stratum. He concluded that man and these ancient animals must have coexisted, but these views found little acceptance at the time. MacE...

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Macenery, Father John

Hal Saflieni

A large rock-cut hypogeum on Malta, which was constructed by the same population that built the Maltese temples, and is a complex of many small rock-cut chambers, on three different levels, linked by a series of halls, passages, and stairways. Many of the chambers are elaborately decorated, often...

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Hal Saflieni

Rajghat

City of the Ganges Civilization, India, in Uttar Pradesh with the earliest occupation characterized by Black and Red Ware and the beginnings of iron technology. There are eight phases starting with that in c 800 BC. The settlement of this period was surrounded by a massive brick rampart. After c ...

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