Ashur

Ashir

The city of Ashir, 75 km south of Algiers, was founded in 935-6 by Ziri, the ruler of the Sanhaja berbers. Like the Fatimids of Mahdiya, the Sanhaja were Shi’ites and when the Fatimid caliph al-Mu’izz conquered Egypt and established a new capital, Cairo, in 970, he made the Zirid ruler his govern...

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Ashir

Ascalon

[Askalon, Askelon]. One of the five Philistine cities on the south coast of Palestine, 50 km southwest of Jerusalem. Excavations by Garstang in the early 1920s found mainly remains of the Roman period, though Philistine levels were reached in small soundings. Egyptian texts indicate that Ascalon ...

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Arzawa

See Beycesultan.

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Arzawa

Aryballos

[Greek: ‘bag, purse’]. A small pottery jar used for oil or perfume. The form is normally globular, quasi-spherical or pearshaped, with narrowing neck and single handle. As with askos, the term perhaps transfers from earlier leather artefacts. The term is also applied to certain Inca pottery forms...

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Aryans

A people who called themselves Arya and spoke an Indo-European language, Sanskrit, known from the Rigveda and other early Indian sources. They are thought to have invaded India from the northwest during the 2nd millennium bc and to have spread east and south in the succeeding centuries. By c500 b...

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Aryans

Aruans

Arthur

There is little resemblance between the legendary chivalric hero of medieval romance and the 5th-century British leader Ambrosius Aurelianus or Arthur. The problem for historians and archaeologists is that there are no contemporary accounts of King Arthur and his battles, and all the historical r...

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Arsenic

Metal, found as an impurity or major constituent in copper ores. Some Early Bronze Age copper contains more than 1 per cent and up to 7 per cent of arsenic, and should be classed as arsenical copper alloys.

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Arrow Straightener

Stone with a regular groove on one face, thought to have been used to smooth the wooden shafts of arrows.

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Arretium

[modern Arezzo]. An Etruscan and Roman city some 80 km southeast of Florence on the Via Cassia, celebrated in antiquity for the fine workmanship of its city walls and its pottery. Remains of the city walls, closely constructed and variously of stone and lightly fired brick, have been discovered; ...

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Arretine Ware

See Arretium; terra

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Arras

A site in Yorkshire, northern England, which has given its name to a local group of the La Tène Iron Age. This site is one of several cemeteries of barrows covering burials, some with chariots. The group is regarded as intrusive and has been associated with the migrations of the Parisii from east...

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Arpachiyah

Small tell of the Halaf-ian period near Mosul in Iraq excavated by Mallowan in the 1930s. The site appears to have been a specialized artisan village producing exceptionally fine polychrome pottery. The settlement had cobbled streets, rectangular buildings and other circular buildings with domed ...

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Aroids

The edible tubers of the family A raceae were of major importance in prehistoric Oceanic subsistence, and of sporadic importance through South and Southeast Asia. The major species, grown from India to Oceania, is Colocasia esculenta (taro), which is irrigated in terraced or bunded fields in many...

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Aroids

Arlit

See Tenere Neolithic.

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Arles

[Roman Arelate]. City in southern France. A Celto-Greco-Roman town of Gallia Narbonensis (see Gaul) was situated on the left bank of the Rhone, close to the head of the delta. Very little is known of the Celto-Greek settlement, traditionally colonized by the Phocaeans. Significant history probabl...

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Arkin

Location near Wadi Haifa in the Nubian Nile Valley, where a number of Stone Age sites have been investigated. Of particular interest are factory sites for the preparation of rough-outs for foliate points of the local Later Mousterian tradition, These factories, the products of which also show aff...

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Ariu§d

[Eròsd]. The eponymous site of a small regional painted ware variant of the Cucu-teni-Tripolye culture. The site, one of the few tells found in southeast Transylvania, is in the catchment of the Upper Olt Valley, Rumania. Excavated by F. Làszló, the site has seven occupation horizons. Levels I-VI...

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Ariu§d

Ariana

SccAlaca Huyùk.

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