Search - Archaeologs

Yan Xiadu

[Yen-hsia-tu]. See Yan.

Yan Xiadu

Yanik Tepe

A tell site near Tabriz in the province of Azerbaijan in northwest Iran. It is one of the earliest permanent settlement sites in the area, dated to the mid-6th millennium be. Nine phases of occupation of this early period were recognized, characterized by rectangular mud-brick houses with plaster...

EnglishPlace Names

Yangshao

[Yang-shao]. A site in Mianchi Xian, western Henan province, China, that has given its name to one of the two broad divisions of the Chinese Neolithic, also called the Painted Pottery Neolithic (the other is the Longshan or Black Pottery Neolithic). The Yangshao site itself is an unimportant repr...

Yangshao

Yandunshan

[Yen-tun-shan]. SeeDANTU.

Yandunshan

Yan

[Yen]. The name of a fief established early in the Western Zhou dynasty of China in the vicinity of Beijing and of the independent state that succeeded it in the Eastern Zhou period. A cemetery site at Beijing and isolated finds of bronze ritual vessels farther north in Kezuo Xian, Liaoning provi...

Yamato

(1) The name of an old province located in the present Nara prefecture, Japan. (2) The historians’ name for the ruling lineage, from which the present Imperial family claims its ancestry, and which developed in the Yamato area. (3) An archaic expression for the Japanese and things Japanese. The o...

Yala Alego

Site in southwestern Kenya, north of the Winam Gulf of northeastern Lake Victoria, where Early Iron Age Urewe ware is dated to the first half of the 1st millennium ad and associated with evidence for the working of iron.

Yala Alego

Yahya

Tell site in the province of Kerman in southeast Iran. It was occupied from the 5th millennium bc to the 3rd, with some later occupation up to the Sassanian period. In the late 4th and early 3rd millennium bc it was an important trading centre. The main commodity traded was locally quarried steat...

EnglishPlace Names

Yahya

archaeologsPlace Names

Yagul

See Mitla.

Yagul

Xun Xian

[Hsiin-hsien]. SeeXiNCUN.

Xun Xian

Xolod

See Quetzalcoatl. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry [XRF]. A technique of chemical analysis. Principle. An artefact (or sample, if the artefact is too large to fit inside the chamber of the machine) is irradiated with X-rays. Resultant changes within the atoms of the material cause secondary X-rays...

Xolod

Xochicalco

One of the earliest fortified sites of the Early Post-Classic and a likely beneficiary of the collapse of Teotihuacan (see also Cholula). Located on one of a string of hills in southern Morelos, Mexico, the site is positioned to control access to the Balsas River drainage. A strong Teotihuacan in...

Xipe Totec

See Aztec, Quetzalcoatl.

Xipe Totec

Xiongnu

[Hsiung-nu]. A large tribal confederation of mounted nomads that dominated the Mongolian steppes during much of the Han dynasty. Formed near the end of the 3rd century bc, the confederacy reached the height of its power in the early 2nd century bc, when it defeated the Yuezhi. For the next two ce...

Xinzheng

[Hsin-cheng]. district in central Henan province, China, where an early Eastern Zhou tomb was rifled in 1923. More than a hundred bronze ritual vessels and bells said to belong to the find are now divided among museums in Beijing and Taibei. The somewhat disparate contents of the hoard, accumulat...

Xinyang

[Hsin-yang]. A district on the Huai River in southernmost Henan province, China. Two large Chu tombs of the 4th century bc were excavated at Xinyang Changtaiguan in 1957-8. Among the tomb furnishings were a set of 13 bronze bells and many fine painted lacquers. The bells were the first to be foun...

Xindian

[Hsin-tien]. SeeQiJiA.

Xindian

Xincun

[Hsin-ts’un]. A Western Zhou cemetery site in Xun Xian, Henan province, China, where 82 tombs were excavated in 1932 and 1933, among them eight large shaft tombs. The inscriptions on a few inscribed bronzes suggest that this was a cemetery of the nobility of Wei, a fief established during the rei...

Xincun

Xichuan

[Hsi-ch’uan]. See Xiawanggang, Xiasi.

Xichuan

Xibeigang

[Hsi-pei-kang]. See Anyang,

Xiawanggang

[Hsia-wang-kang]. A Neolithic site in Xichuan Xian, southwestern Henan province, China. The clearly stratified remains include levels assigned to the Yangshao, Qujialing (here near the northern limit of its distribution), Hougang II and Erlitou cultures. The continuous evolution said to link the ...

Xiawanggang

Xiasi

[Hsia-ssu]. An Eastern Zhou cemetery site in Xichuan Xian, southwestern Henan province, China. Nine large tombs, five chariot burials, and 16 lesser tombs were excavated here in 1978. The major finds are all roughly contemporary with Tomb No. 2, whose owner is believed on the evidence of inscribe...

Xia

[Hsia]. According to tradition, the first Chinese dynasty. The Xia house is said to have ruled for 471 years and then to have been overthrown by the Shang. While the historicity of the Shang dynasty has been confirmed by the inscriptions on oracle bones unearthed at Anyang, the site of its last c...

Xemxija

Site of a series of rock-cut tombs on the island of Malta. The tombs are kidneyshaped with a domed roof and are entered via a circular pit. They belong to the so-called Copper Age (but non-metal-using) culture of the 4th millennium bc.

Xanten

[Roman Vetera Castra and Colonia Ulpia Traiana]. A Roman legionary camp (or rather successive camps) and a civilian settlement on the Rhine near Wesel and the confluence with the River Lupa (modem Lippe). Vetera I was designed for two legions, and probably predates 12 bc. This Augustan camp had e...

Wyc De Mituno

See Hull, tomb was furnished with a procession of miniature bronze cavalry, chariots, and

Wyc De Mituno

Wuwei

[Wu-wei]. A city in Gansu province, China, the site of a Han commandery on the Silk Route at the eastern end of the Gansu spirited horses including the well-known ‘flyCorridor. The 2nd-century tomb of a Han ing horse’. official was discovered at Wuwei Leitai in 1969. Instead of the usual pottery ...

Wun Rok

A large Iron Age settlement mound north of Wau in the Bahr el Ghazal Province, in the Southern Region of the Sudan. Throughout the occupation, which began around the middle of the 1st millennium ad, pottery was decorated by means of a twisted cord roulette. A similar technique of pottery decorati...

EnglishPlace Names

Wun Rok

archaeologsPlace Names

Wujin Yancheng

[Wu-chin Yen-ch’eng]. Site in southern Jiangsu province, China, of a walled city traditionally identified with the capital of the Eastern Zhou state of Yan (a different state from the Yan state in the neighbourhood of Beijing, written with a different character). Bronze ritual vessels found at Ya...

EnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Wujin Yancheng

archaeologsAncient Cities, Place Names

Wuguancun

[Wu-kuan-ts’un], See Anyang,

Wuguancun

Wucheng

[Wu-ch’eng]. A habitation site of Shang date in Qingjiang Xian, Jiangxi province, China, first excavated in 1973. Familiar Shang bronze weapons, tools, and a few ritual vessels suggest that the remains belong to the end of the Erligang Phase and the next few centuries thereafter. Unparalleled at ...

Wroxeter

[Roman Viroconium Comovi-orumj. 5 km from Shrewsbury in southwestern England, Wroxeter was from about 90 ad the large tribal capital (civitas) of the Cornovii. The Romans had earlier used the site first as an auxiliary and then as a legionary fortress. The town became the fourth largest in Roman ...