Categories - Archaeologs

Ancient Pottery

Sacred Ceremonies

Ancient Languages

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Balanovo

The eponymous cemetery of a regional group of the Corded ware culture group, distributed in the Volga-Oka area of south central Russia in the early 2nd millennium be. Most sites are cemeteries, the majority using flat inhumation rites as at the type site. At Balanovo some 120 graves are known, in...

Bala Kot

Site of the Harappan civilization on the Makran coast of Baluchistan, Pakistan.

Bala Kot

archaeologsOthers

Bala Hisar

See Charsada.

Bala Hisar

archaeologsOthers

Bakun

Tell site near Persepolis in southern Iran, occupied in the Chalcolithic period, probably from the early 5th millen nium be. The site consisted of 12 mud-brick buildings with from one to seven rooms each; it was occupied by a simple agricultural community, that excelled in the production of fine ...

Bakun

archaeologsOthers

Baktun

See calendar (Americas).

Bakong

A monument in the southeastern part of Angkor, in Roluos, just east of present Siem Reap, Cambodia. Founded by king Indravannan in 881, it is the first Khmer monument to represent a temple-mountain and the first to be built in sandstone (earlier ones having been built of brick). The central tower...

Bakers Hole

Chalk pit at Northfleet close to the Swanscombe sites of northwest Kent. Its ‘coombe rock’ deposits are geologically a little later than the Swanscombe high terrace deposits, and contain a large series of Leval-lois flakes and cores.

Bakers Hole

archaeologsOthers

Bäile Herculane

A large cave site with an important Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Copper Age stratigraphy, located in a side valley 10 km north of the Iron Gates gorge of the river Danube in the Rumanian Banat. The long stratigraphy comprises three main occupation horizons: I, Upper Palaeolithic levels...

Bäile Herculane

archaeologsOthers

Baikal Neolithic

The Neolithic of the Lake Baikal region in eastern Siberia is relatively well known (the term Neolithic being used here to refer to communities that used pottery, rather than those that practised farming). The first stage is called after the site of Isakovo and is known only from a small number o...

Bahrain

The island of Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf has been identified plausibly with the land of Dilmun, mentioned in Mesopotamian documents of the second half of the 3rd millennium bc. A Danish expedition has investigated sites ranging in date from prehistoric to the 16th century ad. Two important sites...

Bahia

A regional development on the central coast of Ecuador which flourished from c500 bc to ad500. Characterized by large stone-lined platform mounds and unique pottery forms, Bahia represents a well developed socio-political and religious unit. Some continuities with earlier Formative Period ceramic...

Bahia

archaeologsOthers

Baghdad

The present-day capital of Iraq and the Islamic capital from the 8th century to the 13th century. When the Abbasids overthrew the last Umayyad caliph in 750, they decided to move the Islamic capital from Damascus, which was full of Umayyad sympathizers and too close to the Byzantine frontier. Two...

Badorf Ware

Distinctive type of pottery dating to the later 8th century and the 9th century, made in the Vorgebirge hills west of Cologne. The pottery was probably produced in the typical cream fabric as early as the 7 th century, but the globular pitchers and bowls of the Carolingian period are the best kno...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Baden Culture

A 3rd millennium be Copper Age culture group of vast extent, covering northern Yugoslavia, all of Hungary, most of Czechoslovakia, southern Poland and part of the east Alpine zone. On the basis of E. Neustupny’s radiocarbon chronology, the Baden culture is divided into three phases : Early (2750-...

EnglishCultures

Baden Culture

archaeologsCultures

Badbury Rings

See Arthur.

Badbury Rings

archaeologsOthers

Badarian

An early predynastic industry of Upper Egypt, dating from the early 4th millennium bc. Settlement sites have proved elusive, and much of the available information comes from graves. Badarian material culture was essentially Neolithic, the only metal objects being beads made of native, that is not...

Bactria

The fertile region of Afghan Turkestan, south of the River Oxus. Its earliest significance was as one of the 20 satrapies of the Achaemenid empire. Bactria remained important after its conquest by Alexander in 329 bc and subsequently as part of the Parthian empire. Its wealth and importance depen...

Bacsonian

An early Holocene (c8000-4000 be) stone tool industry of northern Vietnam, normally regarded as a late variant of the more widespread Southeast Asian Hoabinhian industry. The Bacsonian industry is characterized by a high proportion of edge-ground pebble tools, and some sites have produced cord- o...

Bacini

Pottery vessels that were placed for decorative purposes high in the walls of churches, over church doorways or in church towers. The best-known group occurs in northern Italy, where several hundred later medieval churches have such vessels, ranging in date from the 11th century to the 15th centu...

Bacho Kiro

A cave in central Bulgaria with a series of Mousterian levels (14 to 12) and then Upper Palaeolithic levels (11 to 3). The earliest Upper Palaeolithic levels have Aurignacian features. Backed blades appear towards the top. On the basis of radiocarbon and other indications, the earliest Upper Pala...

Babylonia

Geographically, Babylonia refers to southern Mesopotamia, the southern part of modem Iraq, lying between Baghdad and the Gulf. Babylonia is a flat alluvial plain formed by the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, which made this arid region one of the richest agricultural areas of the ...

EnglishAncient Cities, Regions, Place Names

Babylon

The capital of Babylonia, situated on the Euphrates River south of Baghdad in modem Iraq. The city was occupied from the 3rd millennium bc but became important early in the 2nd millennium under the kings of Babylon’s First Dynasty (see Table 3, page 321). The sixth king of this dynasty was Hammur...

EnglishAncient Cities

Babadag

Tell settlement site of the Late Bronze Age, located on a fortified promontory in the middle of Lake Babadag, in the Rumanian Dobrogea. Six levels of occupation have been identified in a two-metre strati graphy, all of which are associated with rich assemblages of pottery, bones, carbonized cerea...

Ba And Shu

[Pa-Shu]. Ba and Shu, names often coupled in Chinese texts, were kingdoms ruling the area of modern Sichuan during the Eastern Zhou period, Ba dominating the eastern half of the province and Shu the plain of Chengdu (the word Shu survives today as the literary name for Sichuan). Under pressure fr...

Baalbek

A settlement in the Lebanon, which achieved importance in late Hellenistic and Roman times, especially as holy city for the predatory Ituraean tetrarchs, and as religious centre of the Beqa’a region. Often known by its Greek name of Heliopolis (City of the Sun), it shows magnificent ruins of the ...

EnglishAncient Cities

Baal

An ancient Canaanite god, first appearing in inscriptions of the early Middle Bronze Age (c2000 bc). An important temple dedicated to Baal has been excavated at Ugarit. One of his main roles was as a god of fertility. The worship of Baal continued into Phoenician times and also appears in the Pun...

EnglishMythology, God Names

Aruans

See Marajo Island sites.

Abejas

See TEHUACAN valley.

Atria

Port in northeast Italy. A principal 6th-5th century BC port on the Adriatic, and important crossover point for Etruscan and Greek trade, linking the sea routes with Etruria, the Po Valley and northern Europe. Variously described as of Venetie, Greek or Etruscan foundation, the town seems to have...

Aztec

Centred on the Basin of Mexico, the NAHUATL-speaking Aztec, also known as the Mexica, were the dominant polity of the Late Post-Classic Period. Their origin is obscure, partly because of the deliberate destruction of their own records, but tradition holds that in 1193 ad the last of seven Chichi-...

Azmak

[Asmaska Moghila]. A tell site of the Bulgarian Neolithic and Copper Age, located near Stara Zagora in south Bulgaria. In the 7.5-metre stratigraphy, five settlement horizons were distinguished by the excavator, G. Georgiev: five building levels of the early Neolithic Karanovo I culture, one buil...

EnglishPlace Names

Azmak

archaeologsPlace Names

Azilian

The culture or stage which follows the Magdalenian in France. It is now known to date from c9000 to 8000 bc, the closing millennia of the last ice age. According to some definitions this would make it late Palaeolithic, but traditionally it has often been regarded as Mesolithic. Red deer has repl...

Azelik

A number of sites around Azelik in Niger have yielded evidence for metal working at a very early date, with copper smelting firmly attested by the 5th century bc and possibly extending back to the late 2nd millennium. It appears that iron was not worked until somewhat later, although its presence...

Azcapotzalco

See Aztec, Triple Alliance.

Azcapotzalco

archaeologsOthers

Ayutthaya

[Ayut’ia, Ayuthya, Ayudhaj. A city in southern central Thailand, about 75 km north of Bangkok, founded in 1350 by king Ràmàdhipati to unify the countries of Syàm (Sukhothai) and Lavo (Lopburi). It became the capital of the powerful Thai kingdom of the same name for more than four centuries until ...

EnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Aymara

The Aymara language, still spoken and once widespread in southern Peru and the Bolivian Highlands, is one of the defining characteristics of numerous polities in and around the Lake Titicaca basin in the Late Intermediate Period. These ‘Aymara Kingdoms’ (the largest being Colla and Lupaqa) were f...

EnglishAncient Languages, Nations

Ayia Triada

Minoan villa in southern Crete, built around 2200 BC and inhabited until its destruction C1450 bc. It was connected by a road to the palace at Phaestos. One room contained many clay tablets with Linear A inscriptions. Subsequently a megaron was built on the site. Aylesford. A cremation cemetery o...

EnglishArchitectural, Palaces

Ayia Triada

archaeologsArchitectural, Palaces

Ayampitin

An open camp-site in the province of Cordoba in northwest Argentina containing evidence which implies a transition from generalized big game hunting to a more specialized, regionally oriented hunting and gathering economy. The assemblage contains lithic hunting tools and toolmanufacturing debris ...

EnglishPlace Names

Axum

[Aksum]. From at least the 3rd century ad, this city in the highlands of northern Ethiopia, rose to be the centre of an important kingdom. Its antecedents are clearly rooted in the Pre-Axumite culture of the area, but the origins of the city itself remain uncertain. The political history of Axum ...

EnglishAncient Cities, Nations

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