Assur

A solar deity which was the chief god of the city of Assur and the kingdom of Assyria. With the latter's conquests, Assur assumed leadership of the Assyrian pantheon and supremacy over the other gods of Mesopotamia. The deity was conceived in anthropomorphic terms. The image of the deity was fed ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Assur

Indo-Aryan

Languages of the Indo-European family used by those settled in eastern Iran and Afghanistan, probably in the 3rd millennium BC. Some of these people, who called themselves Aryans, seem to have gradually worked their way into the Indian world. In the first millennium BC these groups of Indo-Aryans...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Languages

Indo-Aryan

Kamoa

A site on the Kamoa River in southeastern Zaire that was the first place in central Africa at which Acheulian artifacts were found, revealing human occupation in the region back to the Earlier Stone Age. The culture evolved through the Later Stone Age.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Kamoa

Staré Mesto

Settlement site ("Old Town") in the March Valley of Poland on the right bank of the Vltava dating from the 12th century. A fortified citadel with a stone-and-mortar church and rich graves have been excavated. It was a great industrial center specializing in gold work.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Staré Mesto

Xenogram

A word written in another language but read as if it were one's own. For example, we write lb., which stands for Latin 'libra' but read it as the English word "pound.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Xenogram

Thermoluminescence

Chronometric method of dating ceramic materials by measuring the stored energy created when they were first fired. It is based on the principle that ceramic material, like other crystalline non-conducting solids, contains small amounts of radioactive impurities such as potassium, uranium, and tho...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Thermoluminescence

Delphi

An important sanctuary site in central Greece, where the Delphic oracle was located. Situated at the foot of Mount Parnassus, Delphi was thought (by the Greeks) to lie at the center of the earth. The setting has a striking backdrop of cliff-face, rock fissures, and springs. The sanctuary of Apoll...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Delphi

Off-Site Archaeology

The recovery and analysis of unclustered physical remains produced by human activities. Non-site archaeology generally concentrates on remains recovered in a surface or plow zone context. It is an approach, especially in archaeological survey, where the unit of analysis is the artifact rather tha...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Off-Site Archaeology

Phoenician

A Semitic people who lived in the coastal area of Lebanon and Syria from about 1000 BC, the cultural heirs of the Canaanites. They flourished as traders from their ports of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. They are crediting with founding Carthage and inventing the alphabet; the Greek, Roman, Arabic and ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Phoenician

Triad

A term used to describe a group of three gods, usually a divine family of father, mother, and child worshipped at particular cult centers. It was also a means of linking three formerly independent gods of an area, especially in Egypt's New Kingdom.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Triad

Taruga

Settlement site on the slopes of the Jos Plateau in central Nigeria of the Iron Age. Terra-cotta figurines of Nok type were found in association with domestic pottery and iron-smelting debris c 5th-3rd centuries BC. The iron-smelting debris and furnaces are among the oldest discovered in West Afr...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Taruga

Hang Gon

A prehistoric bronze-working site in southern Vietnam from the late 1st millennium BC. It overlapped the Cu Lao Rua and had urnfield remains.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Hang Gon

Ear

Pointed or rounded projections from the base or hafting area of certain projectile points.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Ear

Hearth

Any place where a pit was dug and a fire built, sometimes identified by charcoal, baked earth, ash, discoloration, or an outline of stones or clay footing. The site of an open domestic fire might have served as kiln or oven. Hearths often appear in one layer of soil after another as an archaeolog...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Hearth

Lough Gur

A series of 16 Neolithic and Early Bronze Age settlement sites around the shores of a lake in Limerick, Ireland, one of the greatest concentrations of sites in Ireland. There were rectangular Neolithic houses, some associated with Beaker pottery. Some are enclosed by a double ring of stones, date...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Lough Gur

Moi Fort

Small circular earthen-walled enclosures set in series along the foothills of the middle Mekong valley in Cambodia. They are considered late Neolithic, c 2500-2000 BC, with polished stone adzes and no metal.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Moi Fort

New Guinea

The largest island of Oceania, in the eastern Malay Archipelago, north of Australia. New Guinea was joined to Australia in low sea-level periods of Pleistocene and was probably first settled by early Australoids at the same time as its larger neighbor. New Guinea archaeology examines the Highland...

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New Guinea

Swieciechów Flint

Variety of flint found in the Holy Cross Mountains of central Poland, used by the Funnel Beaker culture and distributed over a broad area. It was commonly made into very large blades and axes.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Swieciechów Flint

Capsian

A Mesolithic/Stone Age (8000 BC-2700 BC) cultural complex prominent in inland northern Africa near the present border between Tunisia and Algeria. Its shell midden sites are in the area of the great salt lakes of what is now southern Tunisia, the type site being Jabal al-Maqta'. The tool kit of t...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Capsian

Pedra Furada

Large painted sandstone rock shelter in Piauí region of Brazil with hearths of c 47,500 bp. The rock art is dated from 12,000-17,000 bp. There was some post-Palaeoindian occupation.

archaeologsEnglishRegions

Pedra Furada

Ashurbanipal

The last of the great kings of Assyria (668-627 BC), who established the first systematically organized library in the ancient Middle East, a huge collection of Assyrian clay tablets in his palace and that of his grandfather, Sennacherib. The library has been extremely valuable in revealing the a...

archaeologsEnglishPublic Figures

Ashurbanipal

Toalian Industry

Mid-Holocene stone flake and blade industry of a number of caves in southern Sulawesi, Indonesia, c 6000 BC and later. The industry developed out of preceding flake industries and is characterized by small backed flakes and microliths, and well-made Maros points. The Toalian industry may have con...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Toalian Industry

Gully

An eroded landform which is a trench with steep sidewalls and a headwall cut into the land by an accelerated stream of water. The process of erosion can remove large quantities of sediment and destroy archaeological deposits. Some deep gullies have been used as settlement sites.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Gully

Cueva Morin

A Palaeolithic cave site of northern Spain with seven Mousterian levels, a lower Perigordian layer dated to 36,350 bp, and Aurignacian levels with dwellings and burials. It was one of the first Spanish sites excavated by scientific methods.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Cueva Morin

Milling Stone

Any stone slab or basin that is used to process seeds, nuts, and other such foods by rubbing, grinding, or pounding them against this object with another stone.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Milling Stone