Categories - Archaeologs

Ancient Pottery

Sacred Ceremonies

Ancient Languages

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Barumini

Site of a nuraghe, named Su Nuraxi, in southern Sardinia. It began with a single tower cl 7 metres high, with two upper storeys containing niches, apparently for sleeping. It was later surrounded by a wall with smaller towers in it and an outer circle of freestanding towers; these too were soon l...

Barton Ramie

A site locatecT on the Belize River in eastern Belize [formerly British Honduras] and notable for its sudden influx of foreign materials shortly before the opening of the Classic Period. This new ceramic complex, called Floral Park, while not completely eclipsing earlier local material, is virtua...

Barton Ramie

archaeologsOthers

Barrow

Mound, usually of earth and rubble, and occurring in a variety of shapes and sizes, which was raised to cover either single or multiple burials. The term ‘tumulus’ is used synonymously with barrow, while the related term ‘cairn’ is used to describe a mound constructed exclusively of stone. The te...

Barrancoid

[Barrancas]. One of the major ceramic series developed by Irving Rouse and José Cruxent to facilitate cultural comparison in the northeast South America / Antilles area. Possibly originating on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, the series was established on the Orinoco Delta by cl000 bc and contin...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Barrancoid

archaeologsAncient Pottery

Bamenez

Neolithic site in Brittany, consisting of two long cairns, one of which contained 11 passage graves, placed side by side. They display a range of architectural techniques, using both large megalithic slabs and drystone walling; some chambers had corbelled vaults. Corrected radiocarbon dates sugge...

Bamenez

archaeologsOthers

Barley

A group of cereals, members of the genus Hordeum. Wild two-row barley (//. spontaneum) occurs today in a similar area of the Near East to the wheats. This species seems to be the ancestor of all domestic forms of H. spontaneum appears in the early Neolithic of the Near East by 7000 be, as early a...

Barkaer

A site of the later Early Neolithic (TRB culture) in east Jutland. Two large rectangular structures of timber were excavated, each divided up into smaller units. These were originally interpreted as houses, but recently it has been suggested that they were in fact burial structures. Apparent offe...

Barclodiad Y Gawres

Passage grave on the island of Anglesey in Wales related to those of the Boyne culture and the nearby tomb of Bryn Celli Ddu. It consists of a chamber and passage, surrounded by a ring of stones, many decorated in a style similar to that of the Boyne tombs, all under a round barrow, c30 metres in...

Barclodiad Y Gawres

archaeologsOthers

Barche Di Solferino

Settlement at the southern end of Lake Garda in northern Italy belonging to the Bronze Age Polada culture of the 2nd millennium bc. The houses were raised off the ground on a framework of timbers covered by brushwood. Finds, including those made of organic materials such as wood, were well preser...

Barbotine

A method of decorating pottery, particularly popular in Roman Gaul and Britain, in which very soft clay was piped on to the surface of coloured wares before firing, giving an effect rather like that of icing upon a cake.

Barbar

See Bahrain.

Baray

[Khmer: ‘artificial lake’]. Large rectangular water reservoirs in Cambodia; notable examples at Angkor are the Eastern (Oriental) Baray, originally called YaSodh-aratataka, 7 by 1.8 km, built by king YaSovarman (889-900), and the Western (Occidental) Baray, 8 by 2.2 km, built by king Udayadityava...

Baradostian

The name given to the earlier Upper Palaeolithic levels of the cave of Shanidar in northern Iraq, also applied to other assemblages in Iraq and Iran. It has radiocarbon dates centring on about 30,000 be.

Baphuon

An enormous sandstone monument in the northwestern part of Angkor, Cambodia, built by king Udayadityavarman II (1050-66) as his temple-mountain and the centre of his capital. With its dimensions of 120 by 100 metres at the base and a height of 24 metres, this five-storeyed pyramid (topped origina...

Baoji

[Pao-chi]. A district on the Wei River in western Shaanxi province, China. Neolithic remains at Baoji Beishouling may represent antecedents of the Banpo culture. Western Zhou bronzes have been unearthed repeatedly in the Baoji area, including notably an altar set found in 1901 and now in the Metr...

Bantu

A linguistic term, applied to a widely distributed group of closely interrelated languages in sub-Saharan Africa. It has long been believed that the distribution of these languages, which form part of the Niger-Congo linguistic family, indicates a relatively recent expansion of population from a ...

EnglishAncient Languages

Banteay Srei

[Khmer: ‘the citadel of the ladies’]. A comparatively small, but very beautiful monument in pink sandstone to the east of the main group of Angkor in Cambodia, built in 967 by the Brahman Yajnavaraha, preceptor of the king, in honour of Siva. Famous in particular for its elaborate relief decorati...

Banteay Ch’Mar

[Khmer: ‘the narrow citadel’]. A huge stone monument near the Dangrek mountains in northwestern Cambodia, erected by king Jayavarman VII towards the end of the 12th century to the memory of one of his sons killed in action. It has historically important reliefs.

Banteay Ch’Mar

archaeologsOthers

Banshan

[Pan-shan], Site of a Neolithic cemetery in the Tao River valley south of Lanzhou in Gansu province, China. It is the type site of the Banshan culture, which belongs to the western or Gansu branch of the Yang-shao Neolithic. Banshan is best known for its pottery urns with painted designs in black...

Banpo

[Pan-p’o]. Site of an early Yangshao Neolithic village, now preserved as a museum, at Xi’an in Shaanxi province, China. Four radiocarbon dates from Banpo range from c4800 to o4300 bc. The settlement occupied about 50,000 square metres and included a cemetery and pottery kilns outside a ditch that...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Bann Point

See Larnian.

Bann Point

archaeologsOthers

Ban Kao

A burial site in Kanchanaburi Province, western Thailand, Ban Kao spans mainly the period 2000-1300 be. and the burials have produced elaborately shaped unpainted pottery with a range of bone, stone and shell artefacts. The site has produced no bronze, despite claims for use of this metal in nort...

Banjica

An early and late VinCa open settlement on the northern slopes of the Avala Hills in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The third of five occupation horizons has been dated to c3760 be. During excavations by Todorovic and Cermanovic, complete late Vinca house plans were recovered, which yielded detailed infor...

Ban Chiang

Site of major importance in northeast Thailand, containing 4.5 metres of burial deposits spanning the period 3600 bc to ad 1800. The basal burials are associated with incised and cord-marked pottery, copper and bronze artefacts, and evidence for rice cultivation and domesticated cattle, probably ...

Banbhore

Standing among desolate salt flats on a former mouth of the Indus and the only major site in a sparsely populated region, Banbhore is plausibly identified as Daibal, the first town in Sind to fall to the Moslems, in 712. Excavations revealed that occupation began in the Scytho-Parthian period (1s...

EnglishPlace Names

Banbhore

archaeologsPlace Names

Banane

A region of spectacular riceterracing, belonging to the Ifugao people of the Mountain Province of northern Luzon, Philippines. The terraces extend like giant steps up mountain sides and are of unknown antiquity, although they were considered by anthropologist Felix Keesing to have been constructe...

Banane

archaeologsRegions

Banas

A Chalcolithic culture of Rajasthan, western India, of the 3rd and 2nd millennia bc. The most important sites are Ahar and Gilund.

Banana

The edible fruit-bearing bananas belong to the genus Musa, and have been classified into two sections, termed Australi-musa and Eumusa. The major cultivar in the Australimusa section (the Fei’i banana, Musa troglodytarum) probably originated in the New Guinea-Solomons area, and was spread into tr...

Bamiyan

A high valley (2500 metres) in the Hindu Kush, which formed a corridor for the caravan route from Begram and the east to Balkh and the west. In the early centuries ad it was an important Buddist centre, and pilgrims such as Hiuen-Tsang (7th century) described the numerous rock-cut monasteries, wh...

Bamiyan

archaeologsOthers

Bambuk

The gold-yielding area of Guinea, near the headwaters of the Niger and Senegal Rivers. Through long-distance trade, the metal obtained here provided much of the wealth of the empires of Ghana and Mali. Significantly, neither of these empires appears to have incorporated the Bambuk area; instead t...

Bambata

A cave in the Matopo Hills of southwestern Zimbabwe, where excavations have revealed a long sequence of occupations probably covering most of the past 50,000 years. The cave walls also bear an interesting series of rock paintings. The site has given its name to a stone industry and a pottery type...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Bambata

archaeologsAncient Pottery

Bambandyanalo

A site in the Limpopo Valley, northern Transvaal, South Africa, where Iron Age occupation is dated to the 11th and 12th centuries ad. A large mound represents the debris of successive substantial settlements, the economy of which was evidently based upon the herding of cattle. The pottery and oth...

Balof Cave

A coral rock shelter on New Ireland, Oceania, with a preceramic industry of Talasea (New Britain) obsidian and bone points in its lower levels, dating from c5000 be. This site has one of the earliest dates for human settlement (presumably by PAPUAN-language speakers) in Oceania east of New Guinea...

Ballista

Of the numerous pieces of artillery (possibly about 55) available to the Roman legionary, remarkable were two large torsion engines, the ballista for projecting large boulders, and the catapulta for firing bolts and other arrow-like missiles. A ballista survives at Hatra. The two terms are often ...

Ball Game

Game both recreational and of ritual significance, originating in Mesoamerica and ultimately spreading over wide areas of the Americas; it is also known by the Nahuatl word tlatchli. Stone reliefs at Dainzu and the possible remains of a ball court at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan indicate that the gam...

Ball Game

archaeologsOthers

Ball Court

See ball game.

Ball Court

archaeologsOthers

Balkh

Known to its Arab conquerors as the ‘Mother of Cities’, the city of Balkh in Afghanistan was occupied long before the arrival of Islam. In the 1 st millennium bc it was associated with Zoroaster, and Alexander the Great made it his base for operations in 329-327 bc. Balkh was a caravan city on th...

Bali

Archaeologically, the island of Bali has always lived in the shadow of its bigger neighbour Java. The earliest inscriptions, dating from the end of the 9th and the 10th century, reveal an independent Indianized Balinese society practising Buddhism and Sivaism at the same time. The marriage of the...

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