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Cemavoda

1) An important cemetery site of the Late Neolithic Hamangia culture, dated to the mid-4th millennium be and located near the Black Sea coast of the Rumanian Dobrogea. Over 300 extended inhumations are known, clustered in groups, some with richer grave goods. (2) The eponymous site of a Late Copp...

Cemavoda

archaeologsOthers

Ceremonial Centre

Complex of monumental buildings which formed the hub of religious and civic activities in the prehistoric New World. Permanent residence was restricted to a very few, usually the elite and their retainers, and a regionally dispersed population visited the site on a periodic (possibly seasonal) ba...

Ceremonial Centre

archaeologsOthers

Céramique Onctueuse

Distinctive type of medieval pottery made in western Brittany. Céramique onctueuse is typically very soft and has an unusual tempering material, talc, which only occurs in a small region of Finistère. It was first made in the 10th century and production of fish-platters and bowls continued until ...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Céramique Onctueuse

archaeologsAncient Pottery

Ceramics (China)

The Western world’s awareness of China has, throughout most of history, centred on two export commodities: the Romans knew China as Serica, the place from which silk came, while for Europeans of more recent centuries the country was synonymous with the porcelain it produced. China began to export...

Ceramics (China)

archaeologsOthers

Ceramic

Material, usually clay, which can be moulded when in a soft, plastic state and is then hardened by heat. See pottery.

Cephalic Index

Combination of two skull measurements, L (maximum cranial length) and B (maximum cranial breadth). The index describes the overall proportions of the cranium (brain box); see brachycephalic, dolichocephalic. In the past, it was used alone to assess genetic differences between groups of human skel...

Centuriation

Term used by the Romans to describe a method of land surveying, used in the area (territorium) surrounding a town, especially a colony. See cardo.

Cenote

The limestone formations of the arid Yucatan peninsula in Mexico are honeycombed with water-filled underground caves. The collapse of the roofs of some of these caves causes a kind of natural well, or cenote. These became the major source of water for Mayan and subsequent groups in the area. Thes...

Celtic Field

Term used for the remains of field systems of pre-Roman times in Britain and northwest Europe. The earliest are certainly Bronze Age in date, and it is misleading to associate them with the Celts. The fields are small and more or less square, and are visible because of the lynchets formed by cros...

Celtic Art

Name given to the art of the European Iron Age, which developed in central and western Europe from the 5th century bc, among presumed Celtic peoples. The term La TEne art is also used. Celtic art developed in the courts of the La Tene chieftains and it seems likely that the craftsmen worked under...

Celt

Term used in a number of different ways. In language studies it refers to a branch of Indoeuropean languages found now only in the far northwest of Europe (Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish and Breton) but once much more widespread. As an ethnic group Celts were described by classical writers such as Herodo...

EnglishNations, Ancient Languages

Cella

(Latin; Greek: naos) Architectural term used to describe either the whole of a temple apart from its outer colonnade or, in a more restricted sense, only the main hall, in which the cult statues were placed. celt. An antiquated 19th-century term for an axe or adze.

Celebes

Surprisingly, this Indonesian island, situated east of Borneo, has produced the oldest Buddhist image known in the Archipelago. The image is dated to the 4th century, and although not proof of the Indianization of the area it is at least evidence of some connections with India at an early date. I...

EnglishPlace Names

Cazador

See Cochise, Sulphur Springs.

Cazador

archaeologsOthers

Cayonii Tepesi

An important early farming site on a tributary of the Tigris River in eastern Turkey, occupied for about a millennium c7500-6500 be. The site had five major levels, all characterized by impressive architectural remains with stone foundations. The economic evidence has shown that the community dep...

Cayonii Tepesi

archaeologsOthers

Cayla De Mailhac

See Mailhac.

EnglishPlace Names

Cave Of Hearths

A cave near Pietersburg in the northern Transvaal, South Africa, located close to the Makapansgat australopithecine site. The earliest deposits are Acheulian, followed by a thick sterile horizon representing a long period of abandonment. Next comes a long succession of Pietersburg industries. Des...

Cave Earth

The name given to cave deposits composed of shattered boulders and pebbles, arising from frost action and thermal weathering.

Cave Dwelling

Especially during the colder periods of the ice ages, caves were frequently occupied by Palaeolithic man. The dwelling was usually sited in the mouth of the cave or even outside under a rock overhang. Cave dwelling was rare or unknown before the penultimate glacial period. Caves continued to be u...

Cavdar

[Cevdar]. One of the few tell sites of the west Bulgarian regional group of the First Temperate Neolithic, located in the southern part of the upland Sofia basin and dated c5100-4700 bc. Five Kremikovci occupation levels are stratified below a Karanovo VI level. The mainstays of the mixed farming...

Causewayed Camp

A type of enclosure found in the earlier Neolithic of southern England (4th millennium bc), consisting of a number of concentric ditches with internal banks. The ditches were rarely continuous, but were interrupted by causeways of untouched ground. Their function is unclear, as there is little ev...

Cauldron

Large metal vessel for use in cooking, usually with a round base and handles for suspending over a fire. In Europe, cauldrons first appeared in the Late Bronze Age. In the later Iron Age they were sometimes made of silver, and became objects of great wealth and prestige. One of the most famous co...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Cattle

Members of the genus Bos. Wild and domestic cattle are classified separately as Bos primigenias (wild cattle or aurochs) and Bos taurus (domestic), but they apparently represent only one species. They differ mostly in size — the wild form being very much larger — but there are other, more detaile...

Catfish Cave

See Shamarkian.

Catfish Cave

archaeologsOthers

Çatalhüyük

A site located south-east of Konya in Anatolia, and one of the largest Neolithic settlement known in Western Asia, covering cl 3 hectares. In the small part excavated, 14 building levels were found, without undisturbed deposits being reached. Radiocarbon dates cover the period c6250-5400 be. Cere...

EnglishPlace Names

Catacomb

A name of obscure origin, perhaps first given to the extensive subterranean Christian cemetery in the vicinity of the church of San Sebastian on the Via Appia Antica, south of Rome, and then generally to a large number of similar complexes around Rome and elsewhere. Characteristically, a labyrint...

Castro

Portuguese term for a defended site, most commonly applied to the local Iron Age

Casting

Metals with a low enough melting point can be melted in a crucible on a simple hearth, and cast in a mould. Copper, bronze, gold and silver were all commonly cast in antiquity. Iron and steel could not be melted by ancient hearths and furnaces. Metal melted over fire absorbs gas resulting from co...

Castelluccio

A settlement and cemetery site in southeast Sicily which has given its name to an Early Bronze Age culture. The cemetery contained several hundred rock-cut tombs used for collective burial; the tombs were sometimes closed with rock slabs and these were occasionally decorated with carved spirals, ...

Castanet

An Upper Palaeolithic rock shelter at Castelmerle, situated at the foot of cliffs overlooking the Vezere River of the Dordogne, southwest France. Two levels of Aurignacian type are present, containing art objects of carved or painted stone. The art from Castanet and the neighbouring Blanchard roc...

Cassibile

A Late Bronze Age settlement and large cemetery of rock-cut chamber tombs in southeast Sicily, of the early 1st millennium bc. It belongs to the Pantalica culture, which is characterized by large urban settlements, of which Cassibile was presumably one, since although the settlement site itself h...

Co

Tipperary, Ireland, which rises dramatically above the surrounding plain, and houses a cluster of important ecclesiastical buildings of the medieval period. St Patrick consecrated Cashel as a bishopric and it later bcame the see of the infamous Bishop Cormac who was killed at the battle of Ballag...

EnglishArchitectural

Co

archaeologsArchitectural

Cashel

A rock in

Cascioarele

Small long-lived settlement on an island in a former loop of the lower Danube, in southern Rumania. Excavations by V. Dumitrescu have revealed multiple occupation layers of the Middle Neolithic Boian and later Neolithic Gumelnita cultures. The former is dated c3900-3700 be, the latter c3700-3500 ...

EnglishPlace Names

Cascade Point

See Old Cordilleran culture.

Cascade Point

archaeologsOthers

Casamance

River in Senegal around the estuary of which are grouped several extensive shell middens where occupation is dated between the last centuries be and the 17th century ad. The later phases are linked with a cultural pattern related to that of the recent Diola.

Casamance

archaeologsOthers

Caryatid

Properly, a standing female figure sometimes substituted in a classical building for a column (usually of the Ionic order). Notable examples are to be found in the Cni-dian and Siphnian Treasuries (6th century bc) at Delphi in Greece, and one porch of the Erechtheum temple on the Acropolis at Ath...

EnglishArchitectural, Mythology

Carthage

The city of Carthage was founded as a colony from the Phoenician city of Tyre (the Phoenician name Qart Hadasht means ‘new city’); traditionally this occurred in 814 bc, although Phoenician occupation on the site is archaeologically attested from about a century later. The new city rapidly prospe...

Carter

(1874-1939). Egyptologist famous above all for his discovery in 1922 and subsequent excavation (in an expedition organized by Lord Carnarvon) of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes.

Carter

archaeologsOthers

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