Batán Grande

A large architectural complexes of South America located in the Lambayeque valley of north coastal Peru. The site has more than 30 huge platform mounds with an estimated 750,000 burials - most of them looted by treasure hunters who have taken immense quantities of gold, silver, copper, and bronze...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Batán Grande

Unguentarium

A container for perfumed oil used in Hellenistic times. They were often of ceramic or glass and found in tombs.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Unguentarium

Klein Aspergle

The site of a rich Celtic burial of the early La Tène period in Ludwigsburg, Würtemberg, Germany. Funerary offerings included an Etruscan bronze vessel, a native copy of an Etruscan beaked flagon, gold mounts for a pair of drinking horns, and two imported Attic cups dated around 450 BC. In the sa...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Klein Aspergle

Newgrange

The most famous and splendidly decorated of the Irish passage graves, part of the Boyne Valley cemetery, in Meath County. The kidney-shaped mound, dated to c 3100 BC, is over 100 meters in diameter and 13 meters high. The cairn itself was carefully made of alternate layers of stones and turf. A k...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Newgrange

Structured Deposition

Material entering the archaeological record through specific activities or behavior patterns, not randomly.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Structured Deposition

Snap

A purposeful break that was a step in the manufacture of a stone tool

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Snap

Meander

Any running design consisting of a single line or band twisting regularly. The spiral meander is a simple running spiral, the square meander a rectilinear form of the same thing. The earliest known examples of finger painting are the prehistoric decorative and figurative meanders traced on walls ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Meander

Consistency

A property of soil that is defined by cohesion and adhesian - or by resistance to deformation. Consistency varies greatly with soil-water and clay content.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Consistency

Ceremonial Object

Any artifact associated with a ritual or ceremony or that functions only in a symbolic sense, as opposed to a tool or other practical device.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Ceremonial Object

Cunnington, William

British antiquary who, like his contemporary Colt Hoare, recorded and excavated many barrows and other prehistoric monuments in southern England, especially on Salisbury Plain. His excavations were of good quality for the time.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Cunnington, William

Lagoa Santa Caves

A system of caves in Minas Gerais, Brazil, occupied from the late Pleistocene, with human remains, stone tools, and remains of extinct mastodon and sloth. Dated to 15,300 bp is an industry of quartz flakes. The Cerca Grande complex of 10,000-8000 bp had small rock-crystal flakes, axes, bone proje...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Lagoa Santa Caves

Blowpipe

A long hollow tube used to blow molten glass into shapes.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Blowpipe

Stadium

In classical Greece, a long narrow track for foot-races and other athletic events. It most often is exactly one "stadium" or 600 feet (180 meters) long a Greek measure equaling 1/8 of a Roman mile. It is an open-air construction with seating probably on raised embankments along the two sides and ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Stadium

Lomas

Patches of vegetation outside of valleys that were watered at that season by fogs. The Peruvian coast was covered with areas of this type of vegetation which could live off the moisture from the fog in the air. Lomas were created as a result of climatic shift at end of Pleistocene. Lomas culture ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Lomas

Forensic Archaeology

A subset of archaeology applying archaeological and bioarchaeological knowledge in legal proceedings

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Forensic Archaeology

White Pottery

Soft white, fairly rare earthenware made only in the Shang period (dates given for the founding of the Shang dynasty vary from about 1760-1520 BC; dates for the dynasty's fall also vary from 1122-1030 BC). Found chiefly at Anyang, China, it was probably made for ritual or mortuary purposes and wa...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

White Pottery

El Inga

An Early Preceramic Paleo-Indian site in Ecuador at a height of 9100 ft in Rio Inga gorge. There is an obsidian workshop and hunting campsite with an estimated date of 10,000 BC. Fishtail stemmed points show technological similarities to the Clovis/Folsom points of Fell's Cave. The variety of poi...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

El Inga

Raqqa

City in northern Syria on the Euphrates River, founded by the 'Abbasid caliph al-Mansur and reputedly modeled on those of Baghdad. Raqqa is on the site of an ancient Greek city, Nicephorium, and a later Roman fortress and market town, Callinicus. It flourished again in early Arab times when the '...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Raqqa

Coregency

A term applied to the periods during which two rulers were simultaneously in power, usually with an overlap of several years.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Coregency

Motto Beaker

A beaker made in Gaul or the Rhineland decorated with white-painted scrolls and words forming phrases such as: da mihi vinum (give me wine); valete or vivas (good health); nolite sitire (thirst not); and bibe (drink up).

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Motto Beaker

Crater

A large, wide-mouthed two-handled Greek or Roman bowl or vase, usually made of pottery or metal. It is characteristic of Greece in the Mycenaean and classical periods and they were used to serve wine, mixed with water in varying proportions, into individual drinking cups, and handed out at banque...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Crater

Hiba, Al-

An Egyptian settlement site important in the 21st Dynasty (1075-c 950 BC) where there is a poorly preserved temple of Amun (of the crag), built by Sheshonq I (945-924 BC). The fortress town was the northern frontier of the Theban priests' domain (much of the Nile Valley) during the Tanite 21st Dy...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Hiba, Al-

Hokuriku

An industrial region of Japan on northern Honshu Island, consisting of Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa, and Fukui prefectures. Hokuriku's traditional industries included the manufacture of silk, timber products, lacquer ware, and agricultural tools.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Hokuriku

Sebbakh

A term for the deteriorated mud-brick of ancient buildings. It was used as fertilizer by Arab peasants and the practice of digging for it has unearthed many artifacts which are now in museums.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Sebbakh

Cutting Tool

Any tool used for cutting, gouging, shaving, piercing, scraping, and sawing.

archaeologsEnglishTools

Cutting Tool