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...

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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...

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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...

archaeologsEnglishAncient 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...

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Catfish Cave

See Shamarkian.

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Catfish Cave

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...

archaeologsEnglishPlace 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...

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Castro

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

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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...

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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, ...

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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...

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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...

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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...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Co

Cashel

A rock in

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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 ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Cascade Point

See Old Cordilleran culture.

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Cascade Point

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.

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Casamance

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...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural, 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...

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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.

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Carter