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Chartres

A city in Eure, northern France, where since the Carolingian period there has always been an important pilgrimage church holding relics of the Virgin Mary. A series of disastrous fires destroyed the earlier churches, although part of the Ottoman period (10th century) ambulatory crypt still surviv...

Charsada

This site on the plain of Peshawar, at the foot of the Khyber Pass in Pakistan, is a series of mounds, up to 20 metres high, concealing the caravan city of Pushkalavati [Peukolaotis], one of the capitals of Gandhara. Occupation extended from the 6th century bc, when the Achaemenians occupied Gand...

EnglishPlace Names

Charred

Organic materials may be preserved as a result of charring. Partial burning reduces the material to a carbon-rich residue. In the case of wood, this residue is familiar as charcoal. Other parts of plants may also be charred — seeds, grain, twigs, etc. Many organic materials may not retain their s...

Charlemagne

Charles the Great [Charlemagne] is one of the greatest historical and legendary heroes of western romance. The son of Pepin the Short, he became sole king of the Franks and leader of the Amulfing dynasty in 771. The monk Einhard, Charlemagne’s court biographer, gives the impression of a cultured,...

EnglishPublic Figures

Chariot Burials

(China). Chariots and chariot burials provide the earliest generally acknowledged evidence of foreign influence on Chinese Bronze Age civilization. The first Chinese chariot burials are at the Anyang site (at Xiaotun, Dasikongcun, and Xiaomintun) and belong to the latter part of the Shang dynasty...

Chariot Burials

archaeologsOthers

Charentian

After a detailed analysis of the Middle Palaeolithic Mousterian culture, F. Bordes and his collaborators suggested that it had two distinct components: a Charentian group characterized by the dominance of racloirs (side scrapers) and Quina retouch, and another ‘true’ Mousterian group including th...

Charcoal

Partly burned (’charred’) wood, consisting mostly of carbon, sometimes found in situ as burned timbers of buildings and other structures or in hearths, but more frequently widely disseminated through the deposits of an archaeological site. Charcoal survives because catbon cannot be utilized by th...

Charaman

A stone industry of Zimbabwe, parts of southern and central Zambia and adjacent areas, where it was the local successor of the Sango an. Formerly often referred to as ‘Proto-Stillbay’, its connections with the Sangoan are now seen to have been stronger than was previously implied. Many Charaman a...

Chanka

See Inca.

Chanka

archaeologsOthers

Chanhu-Daro

A town of the Harappan Civilization of the 3rd millennium bc. Situated on the eastern side of the Indus Valley, cl 30 km south of Mohenjo-Daro, Chanhu-Daro covered c6.5 hectares, and was characterized by the typical gridiron street plan and well-built drainage system of Harappan towns. The most i...

Changzhi

[Ch’ang-chih]. SccLiyu.

Changzhi

archaeologsOthers

Changtaiguan

[Ch’ang-t’ai-kuan]. See Xin-YANG.

Changtaiguan

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Changsha

[Ch’ang-sha]. Present-day capital of Hunan province, China. Only a few isolated finds hint at Shang and Western Zhou settlement in this area, but in Eastern Zhou and Han times Changsha was a major centre of the Chu culture. Well over a thousand Chu burials have been excavated in the neighbourhood...

Chang’An

[Ch’ang-an], Capital of the Western Han dynasty in China and, moved to a site just southeast of the Han city, of the Tang dynasty; the modem city of Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi province, occupies the latter site. In the Tang period, Chang’an was the eastern terminus of the Silk Route and one of the...

Chang’An

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Chandraguptasee

Maury as.

Chandraguptasee

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Chandoli

Site in southern India occupied in the 2nd millennium bc. Ground stone axes, copper objects (flat axes and antenna swords or daggers) and pottery of Malwa type were found. Um burials also occur.

EnglishPlace Names

Chanchan

See Chimu.

Chanchan

archaeologsOthers

Chancay

Cultural entity which arose in the Late Intermediate Period in the northern area of the Peruvian central coast. Found in the Huara, Chancay, Ancon and Chillon valleys, it is characterized especially by a unique black-on-white pottery style. It has a white (often yellowish) slip and black line geo...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Chams

An AusTRONESiAN-speaking population of unknown origin (possibly Borneo or the Philippines) who settled Vietnam from about 1000 bc. Their early prehistory appears to be associated with the Sa-Huynh culture, with its strong Philippine connections. From the 2nd century ad the Chams developed the pow...

Chams

archaeologsOthers

Champollion

(1790-1832). French scholar, one of a number brought to Egypt under the French occupation of Napoleon Bonaparte, who accomplished the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system. His work, which was published in 1822, was based largely on the Rosetta Stone, which has inscriptions in ...

Champollion

archaeologsOthers

Champlevé Enamelling

An effective enamelling technique which was probably developed by Celtic metal-workers and afterwards copied by the Anglo-Saxons. The process involved the melting of enamel into the incised hollows in a piece of metal. It was often employed in the decoration of the escutcheons on hanging bowls, o...

Champlevé Enamelling

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Champa

A now-vanished Indianized kingdom on the eastern coast of the Indochinese Peninsula, corresponding roughly to present central Vietnam. There, to the south of their own province of Chiao-Chih, the Chinese mentioned the foundation of the kingdom of Lin-Yi in 192 ad, later called Champa (unknown ety...

Chamber Tomb

Term for any tomb, whether rock-cut or built above ground, with a large or fairly large chamber to contain the dead and accompanying grave goods. Chamber tombs were often, but by no means always, used for collective burial over long periods of time. They occur in many parts of the world at differ...

Chaitoon

[choltun, chultun]. A bottle-shaped underground chamber or series of chambers, found in Mesoamerica. Principally for storage, they may also have been used as sweat baths or burial chambers. In the southern Maya Lowlands they were most often used to store dry foods especially ramon (bread) nuts. I...

Chaitoon

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Chaldea

The Chaldean (Kaldu) tribes occupied the swamp area of the lower courses of the Tigris and Euphrates in southern Babylonia. They were controlled by sheikhs who assumed the kingship of Babylonia in the 7th century bc. The Chaldean Dynasty was founded in 625 bc by Nabopolassar and continued with hi...

Chalcolithic

A term used, like its alternatives Eneolithic and Copper Age, to refer to a period between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age when copper was used for tools, but not bronze (an alloy of copper and tin). The term is much less widely used than other divisions and subdivisions of the Three Age System,...

Chalchuapa

See Barton Ramie.

Chalchuapa

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Chalcedony

A very finely crystalline form of the mineral silica, rather similar to Chert. There are many varieties, several of which are prized as semi-precious stone — agate, onyx, cornelian and jasper, for example. These may be used in making beads and other jewellery.

Chalcatzingo

See Las Bocas.

Chalandriani

An Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium bc) settlement and cemetery on Syros in the Cyclades. The settlement was surrounded by dry-stone defences with six semi-circular bastions; inside were a number of small rooms, separated by narrrow paths. The cemetery of c500 tombs, built of drystone walling and...

Chagar Bazar

A tell site in the upper Khabur valley in northeast Syria, occupied from the Halaf period (5th millennium be) to the mid-2nd millennium bc. It gradually grew in size and importance and during the reign of the Assyrian king, Shamsi Adad I (early 2nd millennium bc) it was an administrative centre a...

Chaco Canyon

An alluvium-filled canyon in northwest New Mexico, USA, occupied by the Anasazi during Pueblo I and II times. Between 850 and 1150 it supported at least a dozen pueblo-type towns, such as Pueblo Bonito, as well as hundreds of small villages. Evidence of town planning, water control systems, inter...

Chacmool

A life-sized sculpted stone figure in the standardized form of a reclining human, with flexed legs and head gazing to one side, holding a plate-like receptacle flat on the stomach. A widespread phenomenon in the Post-Classic Period of Mesoamerica, it is particularly associated with the Toltec. Th...

Cerveteri

[Roman Caere vetus, Etruscan Xaire, Greek Agylla]. A town in central Italy, some 48 km north-west of Rome, Caere was one of the 12 great cities of the Etruscan federation. Earliest occupation seems to be Iron Age Villanovan of 9th to 8th centuries BC. Two necropoleis from this period have been id...

Cerro Sechin

A site in the Casma Valley on the north-central coast of Peru and probably dating to the Initial Period (1800-900 be). The primary construction of this ceremonial centre is a rectangular platform mound with an enclosing wall of decorated monoliths. Carvings of warriors, dismembered humans and ind...

Cerro De Las Mesas

Site in southern Veracruz, Mexico on the northern edge of the Tuxtla Mountains. Although there is a PreClassic component to the site (possibly associated with Izapa), the major occupation was in the Classic Period. An inheritor of Olmec traditions, along with nearby Tres Zapotes, Cerro survived l...

EnglishPlace Names

Cemica

An important Neolithic site, comprising both settlement and cemetery, dated to the late 5th millennium be and lying south of Bucure§ti, Rumania. In the settlement, a Boian II pit cuts superposed levels of the late Dude§ti and Boian I phases — one of the few such stratigraphic relationships noted ...

EnglishPlace Names

Cemica

archaeologsPlace Names

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