Opus Reticulatum

[Latin: ‘net-like work’]. Technical term used by Vitruvius (Roman architectural writer, c30 bc) to describe the diamond pattern of square stones that was often used as a decorative facing to an inner rough concrete core. The pattern is popular, roughly in the period cl00 bc-200 ad.

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Offa’S Dyke

A linear earthwork, 192 km long, built by King Offa of Mercia (r. 757-96) as a frontier between his kingdom and the kingdom of Powys. It consists of a large earthen bank and quarry ditch, and runs almost continuously between Treuddy and Chepstow, close to the border of England and Wales. Archaeol...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Offa’S Dyke

Odeum

[Greek odeion: ‘music-hall’]. The term perhaps originates with the Odeion built by Pericles at Athens in the 5th century bc and intended for musical and artistic performances of some kind. This seems to have been a large rectangular building, with a forest of internal columns, and capped by a pyr...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Oculus

A decorative motif found on pottery, usually incised, consisting of double circles or spirals, resembling a pair of eyes. It occurs in the Spanish Copper Age, for instance at Los Millares, and is also found in Ireland and northern Europe in the late Neolithic. Indeed similar motifs occur in many ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery, Architectural

Oc-Èo

A site in southern Vietnam, near the border with Cambodia, thought to have been the main port of the kingdom of Fun an, built on a Neolithic site. Excavated in the 1940s, it yielded, in addition to objects of local production, a large amount of traded goods not only from India and China, but also...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Oc-Èo

Nymphaeum

[Greek nymphaiorv. ‘sanctuary of the Nymphs’]. An inexact term, used of a Roman pavilion or pleasure-house, which could vaguely be characterized as having fountains, statues and flowers; often a fountain with a rich architectural surround.

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

New Grange

One of the largest and most splendidly decorated passage graves of the Boyne area of Ireland, c40 km north of Dublin. The mound has a diameter of 80-85 metres and is cl 1 metres high; it is surrounded by a kerb and an outer freestanding circle of stones, originally 35 in number, of which only 12 ...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

New Grange

Nakada

[NagadaJ. See Pre-Dynastic Egypt.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Architectural

Nakada

A settlement site in the western suburbs of Tokyo, Japan, best known for the 79 pit houses of the Kofun Period. A change in heating and cooking methods was introduced in the middle of the Kofun Period, from a central hearth on the floor to a clay stove built against the wall. Various, but not num...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Architectural

Nakada

Murus Gallicus

Type of rampart used in Europe during the La Tène Iron Age; it was given this name by Caesar, when describing the oppidum of Avaricum. The ramparts were made of earth and stone with horizontal timber lacing, held together with iron nails. This type of construction used large quantities of timber ...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Monte Alban

Located in the central Southern Highlands of Mexico, overlooking the valley of Oaxaca, this Zapotec capital is an immense complex of monumental construction. At the heart of the site is a huge plaza (300 by 200 metres) dominated by three central mounds. It is flanked on the east and west by templ...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Monte Alban

Mississippi Tradition

The last major cultural tradition in prehistoric North America, the core area of which was the central Mississippi Valley. At its maximum extent it covered most of the southeastern USA and had outposts as far north as Aztalan in Wisconsin. Although there is considerable internal variability, its ...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Mississippi Tradition

Metallurgy (Japan)

Metal tools are first reliably documented in Japan as continental imports about the same time as wet-rice cultivation was established in northern Kyushu around 300 bc. By the middle of the Yayoi period, in the 1st century ad, bronze bells and weapons that were much larger than their continental p...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Metallurgy (Japan)

Megaron

A building consisting usually of three rooms: a large hall, usually with a central hearth, entered by way of a smaller vestibule, which is itself preceded by a porch. Buildings of this sort formed the central structures of Mycenaean palaces, but there are predecessors of generally similar form in...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Mastaba

[Arabic: ‘bench’]. The name given to the low rectangular superstructures which mark many tombs of the Egyptian Early Dynastic period and the Old Kingdom. Nobles and court officials were buried in tombs of this type, sometimes adjacent to the royal burial place. Initially made of mud-brick, the la...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural, Tombs

Mansio

Kind of Roman lodging-house. Communications throughout the Roman Empire were maintained by the provision along main roads of places to change horses (mutationes) and to stay overnight {mansiones). The mansio can be archaeologically difficult to identify, but is frequently sited near the town gate...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Maltese Temples

The tiny islands of Malta and Gozo in the central Mediterranean south of Sicily provided the setting for the development of an impressive prehistoric architectural tradition of stone temple-building. Between <4000 and 2500 bc the inhabitants of the islands constructed at least 12 major temple com...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Maltese Temples

Lubna

The type site for a regional group of the earlier Bronze Age Trzciniec culture, the Lubna group is distributed in central Poland in the early 2nd millennium be. Stratified settlement sites are rare, with many sites constructed in sandy areas. One of the best-preserved cemeteries is the type site,...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Architectural

Lubna

Loro Jonggrang

Monument of the Pram-banan group in the region of Yogyakarta in central Java, Indonesia, built c913 by king Daksha as the funerary temple of his predecessor, king Balitung. The largest monument of the group, it is particularly known for its lively Brahmanic relief scenes.

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Loro Jonggrang

L’Anse Aux Meadows

A site on Epaves Bay, Newfoundland, Canada, containing evidence of a Viking settlement during pre-Columbian times. Material which is anomalous to the cultural setting of the time, such as remains of turf-built houses (which have cognates in Greenland and Iceland), iron rivets, slag, a ring-headed...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

L’Anse Aux Meadows

Iron And Steel (China)

The earliest iron artefacts known from China are a few blades forged from meteoritic iron (see Beijing, Gaocheng, Xincun). Iron does not seem to have been smelted until about the 6th century bc, at which time wrought iron and cast iron appear more or less simultaneously. The iron artefacts of thi...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Iron And Steel (China)

Ionic

(1) One of the principal regional dialects of ancient Greece, closely related to Attic, and characteristic of the so-called ‘Ionian’ cities of Asia Minor. (2) In classical architecture, the Ionic order, which emerged after Doric (perhaps from about 570 bc) in the context of Aegean and eastern Gre...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Ionic

Inchtuthil

An unfinished Roman fort in Tay, eastern Scotland, built by Agricola during his Scottish campaigns of the early 80s ad. Started about 83, the fort covered some 20 hectares, and was constructed largely of earth and timber. Its buildings include 64 barracks; a commandant’s house, officers’ quarters...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Inchtuthil

Île Longue

An Early Neolithic passage grave in the Locmariaquer area of southern Brittany, situated on a small island in the Gulf of Morbihan. The tomb, built of stone orthostats with a corbelled vault, is a good example of a classic passage grave.

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Île Longue

Île Carn

An Early Neolithic grave in Brittany, built of dry stone walling with a corbelled vault to the chamber. Inside were only a few sherds and flint flakes. There is a radiocarbon date of c3270 be (c4100 bc).

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Île Carn

Hull

City on the Humber estuary, northeast England. A 12th-century settlement called Wyc de Mitune is known to have existed somewhere close to modem Hull, but the centre of commerce seems to have changed from the mid- to late 13th century onwards, when High Street became the core of the new town. Exca...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Hull

Huaca Del Sol

See Moche. Huaca Prieta. A village site located in the Chicama valley of north-coast Peru with evidence of an early sedentary way of life. Excavated by Junius Bird and dating to the Pre-ceramic Period VI, it has an initial radiocarbon date of c2300 be. Built on an artificial hill of refuse and ot...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Huaca Del Sol

Heuneburg

Hillfort of the Hallstatt Iron Age, overlooking the River Danube in Württemberg, southern Germany. The site has five main building phases, the most remarkable of which was the second, when the traditional timber-framed construction was replaced by a Greek type of construction, with a bastioned wa...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Heuneburg

Hariharalaya

[Sanskrit: ‘abode of Hari-Hara’, i.e. the combined god Vishnu and Siva]. The ‘eastern district’ of Angkor, at present known by the name of Roluos, situated about 15 km southeast of Siem Reap. The ‘Roluos group’ consists of several brick edifices with pre-Angkorian art, as well as monuments dating...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Hariharalaya

Hangtu

[hang-t’u]. A kind of rammed-earth construction used for walls, foundations, and shaft tombs in China throughout the Shang and Zhou periods. Earth was packed between wooden forms in successive thin layers, each layer being pounded hard before the next was added. In the Shang city wall at Zhengzho...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural