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Biconical Urn

Style of Early Bronze Age pot of northwestern Europe with a deep, largely plain, outwardly flared body. Above that is a sharp carination, decorated and sometimes with an applied cordon, and an inwardly angled neck with impressed cord designs. The rim is typically beveled and lightly ornamented.

Biconical Drilling

A means of perforating beads or pendants for suspension. Accomplished by drilling in from both sides with a tapered drill resulting in an hourglass-shaped hole.

Biconical

Pertaining to a vessel when the sides make a sharp, inward change of direction, as if two truncated cones were placed base to base.

Bi Disk

A flat jade disk with a small hole in the center, made in ancient China for ceremonial purposes, possibly symbolizing heaven. Bi disks have also been described in ancient Chinese texts as a symbol of rank. Jade disks and disklike axes have been found in 4th and 3rd millennium bc graves at east-co...

Bewcastle Cross

A runic standing cross monument in the churchyard of Bewcastle, Northumberland, northern England, dating from the late 7th or early 8th century. Although the top of the cross has been lost, the 4.5 m (15-foot) shaft remains, with distinct panels of the figures of Christ in Majesty, St. John the B...

Bevel

A surface or edge which slopes away from a horizontal or vertical surface; the angle or inclination of a line or surface that meets another at any angle but 90°. [beveled (adj.)]

Benton Flaking

This flaking technique involved the removal of large and small percussion flakes, which resulted in numerous step fractures. Pressure flaking was often used to form serrations. Oblique-transverse flaking was used to shape the blade of a few examples.

Benben Stone

A cult object made of stone, found at sites such as the one for the sun god Re at Heliopolis. The sacred stone symbolized the Primeval Mound and perhaps also the petrified semen of the deity. It served as the earliest prototype for the obelisk and possibly even the pyramid. It was probably constr...

Belt Hook

Small decorative and functional object used as a garment hook in China, Korea, and other Near Eastern areas as early as the 7th century bc . Belt hooks have been found in Han tombs in southwestern China, but this luxury item was most in vogue during the Warring States period (5th to 3rd centuries...

Belt

A strip of leather or other material worn round the waist to support or hold in clothes or to carry weapons.

Bell Glass

A bell-shaped glass cover used, especially formerly, as a cloche.

Bell Beaker

A type of pottery vessel found all over western and central Europe from the Final Neolithic or Chalcolithic, c. 25001800 bc . The culture’s name derives from the characteristic pottery, which looks like an inverted bell with globular body and flaring rim. The beakers were valuable and highly deco...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Bell

The earliest bell founding (i.e., the casting of bells from molten metal) is associated with the Bronze Age. The ancient Chinese were superb founders, their craft reaching an apex during the Zhou/Chou dynasty (c. 1122-221 bc ). Characteristic were elliptical temple bells with exquisite symbolic d...

Belgic Pottery

General term sometimes applied to the range of Late Iron Age wheel-turned pottery vessels found in southeastern England, especially Aylesford-Swarling pottery.

EnglishAncient Pottery

Beehive Quern

Type of rotary quern of Roman times with an extremely thick dome-shaped upper stone and a slightly flared base.

Bec

A Paleolithic flake-boring tool that was retouched on one edge to form a point.

Beating

A technique to thin and even out the walls of coil- or slab-built vessels after they have partially hardened to “leather” hardness, to improve the bonding between coils, or add surface texture. One holds an anvil or fist inside the vessel while the outside is struck repeatedly with a paddle, whic...

Beater

1. In music, a wooden or metal object used to provide a rhythm by striking another object. 2. A general tool used to beat objects with.

Beaker

A simple pottery drinking vessel without handles, more deep than wide, much used in prehistoric Europe. The pottery was usually red or brown burnished ware, decorated with horizontal panels of comb-or cord-impressed designs. It was distributed in Europe from Spain to Poland, and from Italy to Sco...

Beadwork

Decorative work made of beads.

Bead Rim

A rim in the form of a small, rounded molding, in section at least two-thirds of a circle. It was often used on bowls, dishes, and jars. [beaded rim]

Beacharra Ware

Type of decorated Middle Neolithic pottery of western parts of Scotland. The ware is classified into three groups: (1) unornamented, bag-shaped bowls; (2) decorated, carinated bowls with a rim diameter less than the diameter at the carination and with incised or channeled ornament; and (3) small ...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Bce

An abbreviation used to denote so many years before the common era or before the Christian era. Dates are often listed as bce ( bc ) and ce (common era or Christian era ad ). In the Gregorian calendar, eras are designated bce and ce , terms which are equivalent to bc (before Christ) and ad (Latin...

Bayonet

A blade adapted to fit the muzzle end of a rifle and used as a weapon in close combat. an abbreviation used to denote so many years before Christ or before the beginning of the Christian calendar. The lower case “bc” represents uncalibrated radiocarbon years; the capitals bc denote a calibrated r...

Bayeux Tapestry

A medieval embroidery depicting the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, which is considered a remarkable work of art and important as a source for 11th-century history. It consists of a roll of unbleached linen worked in colored worsted with illustrations and is about 70 m (75 yards) long and 50 ...

Battersea Shield

A Late Iron Age parade shield found in the River Thames at Battersea, England. It is a fine example of insular Celtic art, with an elongated bronze body with rounded ends and decorated in relief and with red glass inlay.

Battering-Ram

An ancient military engine used for smashing in doors and battering down walls. It consisted of a beam of wood with a head of iron - originally a ram’s head but later in the form of a ram’s head - and swung by chains from an overhead scaffolding. It had a roof to protect those working it from the...

Baton Perce

An Upper Paleolithic artifact, occasionally encountered in Aurignacian, Gravettian, and Solutrean assemblages but more typically found in Magdalenian toolkits. It consists of a decorated cylinder of antler with a hole through the thickest part. The baton may be decorated with intricate carving. I...

Bâton De Commandement

A name given to perforated batons made of antler rod of the Upper Paleolithic period in western Europe, from the Aurignacian period (30,000 years ago) through the Magdalenian. They have a hole through the thickest part of the head, are usually 30 cm (12 inches) long, but are often broken. The per...

Baton

A soft hammer used to strike flakes from a stone core, often made of antler, bone, or wood. [billet, percussor]

Bat

A slab, disk, or board of plaster, fired clay, asbestos, or other slightly porous material used to dry a wet clay body by absorbing moisture from it, as a support in shaping an object from the clay, or as a detachable wheel head. [batt]

EnglishGoddess Names

Basse-Yutz

Bronze wine flagons found in Moselle, France, with coral and enamel inlay, from c. 400 bc . The pair is thought to have come from a Celtic chieftain’s grave.

Bas-Relief

A low-relief technique of sculpture or carved work in which the figures project less than half of their true proportions from the surface on which they are carved. The term also describes sculptures or carvings in low relief. Mezzo-relievo means projecting exactly half; alto-relievo more than hal...

Basketry

A class of artifacts created by the practice of weaving containers from vegetable fibers, twigs, or leaves. It was known in Mexico before 7000 bc and in Oregon before 8000 bc , and the earliest recorded examples in the Old World are from Fayum in Egypt, c. 5200 bc . However, taking into considera...

Basketmaker Tradition

Late Archaic and Post-Archaic sedentary communities living in southwestern parts of North America between c. 1000 bc and ad 750 with three main phases. Basketmaker Phase I, dated to c. 1000-1 bc , is essentially the same as the Archaic. Basketmaker Phase II, c. ad 1-450, is the same as the Desert...

Basketmaker Tradition

archaeologsTools

Basket

A container that is usually woven and may have handles.

Baselard

A type of dagger, usually used by civilians in the medieval period, with an H-shaped hilt.

Base

1. Proximal or end portion of a knife, tool, or projectile point. The base is usually designed for hafting or gripping, but not designed or intended for cutting, scraping, or penetrating. Oftentimes, base edges were ground so that sharp edges would not abrade the hafting materials and cause halti...

Basalt

A type of very hard, dark, dense rock, igneous in origin, composed of augite or hornblende and containing titaniferous magnetic iron and crystals of feldspar. It often lies in columnar strata, as at the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland and Fingal’s Cave in the Hebrides. It is greenish- or brownish-bla...

Basal-Looped Spearhead

Type of leaf-shaped socketed spearhead of the European Middle Bronze Age which has two small holes or loops at the base of the blade, one either side of the socket - possibly for securing the metal spearhead to the wooden shaft or to tie streamers to the top of the spear.

Basal Thinning

İntentional removal of small, longitudinal flakes from the base of a chipped stone projectile point or knife to facilitate hafting.

Basal Notch

A flaking technique applied to accommodate hafting, which involved the flaking of notches into the basal edge of a preform.

Basal Grinding

The grinding of projectile points at their base and lower edges (so that the lashings will not be cut), a Paleoindian cultural practice. Basal thinning obtains the same result through the removal of small chips instead of grinding. [basal notching]

Basal Edge

Proximal edge of a triangular or lanceolate projectile or stem of a stemmed type. There are eight major types of basal edges convex, straight, concave, auriculate, lobbed, bifurcated, fractured, and snapped.

Bar-Shaped Ingot

Flat rectangular ingots of silver of Roman times in Britain.

Barrel Urn

Type of large Middle Bronze Age pot found within the Deverel-Rimbury ceramic tradition of southern Britain c. 1500 bc through to 1200 bc . Barrel urns have a distinctive profile, wider in the middle than at the base or the rim, often with applied cordons that are decorated with fingertip impressi...

Barrel

A cylindrical container, often of wood, that holds liquids.

Bar-Gorget

A barlike ornament, usually of polished stone and perforated, worn around the throat.

Barbotine

A technique of decorating pottery by adding thick slip to the surface of a pot before firing. The term also refers to the creamy mixture of kaolin clay itself, for pottery ornamented with barbotine, and the technique of applying an incrustation of this mixture to a ceramic surface for decorative ...

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