An object to point at words whilst reading.
Name of a Greek metal vase with a narrow opening. It was filled with water and placed on a fire to make the chimney draw better or to indicate the wind’s direction. [aeolipylae, eolipyle]
A shield or defensive armor in ancient mythology, from the Greek word for shield; also used to describe the representation of a necklace on the head of a deity.
Archaic Greek sculpture discovered in the temple of Pallas-Athene at Aegina, an island in the Saronic group of Greece. They are in the Glyptothek at Munich, Germany. Aegina’s period of glory was the 5th century bc which left a legacy of sculpture.
A shaft-hole adze with additional hammer knob, normally of polished stone.
Capacity of a material to accept and retain another substance, such as moisture, on its surface.
Spanish term for sun-dried mud brick; also the name for a structure built out of this material. These claylike buff or brown mud bricks were not fired, but hardened and dried in the sun. The material was also used as mortar, plaster, and amorphous building material for walls. Adobe structures are...
Contracting stemmed point with a narrower section at the base than the main part of the arrowhead point.
A widespread Native American culture of the Early Woodland period in the Ohio Valley and named after the Adena Mounds of Ross County. It is known for its ceremonial and complex burial practices involving the construction of mounds and by a high level of craftwork and pottery. It is dated from as ...
An organic or mineral material mixed with clay by the potter to modify its properties in forming, drying, and firing. [temper]
İn lithics, severe short angles coming to a sharp point. used as a prefix to a date, it indicates years after the birth of Christ or the beginning of the Christian calendar. Anno Domini (Latin) means “In the year of our Lord.” The lower case “ad” represents uncalibrated radiocarbon years and ad d...
A set of artifacts that reveals the activities of a person.
1. A place where a specific ancient activity was located or carried out, such as food preparation or stone toolmaking. The place usually corresponded to one or more features and associated artifacts and ecofacts. In American archaeology, the term describes the smallest observable component of a s...
A sculptured figure, tripod, disk, or urn, made of bronze, marble, or terra cotta, placed on the apex of the pediment of a Greek temple or other substantial building.
First stage of the behavioral processes (followed by manufacture, use, and deposition), in which raw materials are procured.
Large earthenware or bronze vases that were used to strengthen actors’ voices and were placed in bell towers to help boost the sound of church bells. A church in Westphalia contains fine 9th-century Badorf wares, and larger relief-band amphorae were used in 10th- and 11th-century churches. [acous...
A small javelin or harpoon, consisting of a thick short pole set with spikes. This massive weapon resembles a trident or angon. [aclys, aclyx]
A small pick used by stone-cutters and masons in early Roman times.
A short sword or scimitar, often very short and worn suspended from a belt around the waist, and used by Eastern nations of antiquity, especially the Medes, Persians, and Scythians.
Use of hydrofluoric acid to etch a pattern onto a glass surface.
A Phoenician, Iron Age II, red-slip pottery type consisting primarily of jugs with a trefoil mouth of “mushroom” rims, red slipped, and highly burnished.
A European culture of the Lower Paleolithic period named for Saint-Acheul, a town in northern France, the site of numerous stone artifacts from the period. The conventional borderline between Abbevillian and Acheulian is marked by a technological innovation in the working of stone implements, the...
Early part of the Neolithic period in western Asia before the widespread use of pottery (c. 8500-6000 bc in an economy based on the cultivation of crops or the rearing of animals or both. Aceramic Neolithic groups were in the Levant (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B), Zagros area (Karim Shahir, Jarm...
Without pottery or not using pottery; a term applied to periods and societies in which pottery is not used, especially in contrast to other periods of ceramic use and with neighboring ceramic cultures. Aceramic societies may use bark, basketry, gourds, leather, etc. for containers.
Number assigned to an archaeological collection that identifies its origin; part of the catalog number.
An accounting system used in the lab after artifacts and ecofacts are initially processed and providing the numbers with which artifacts and ecofacts are marked for storage. Its records describe and record what was found during an archaeological investigation and it is the primary record for all ...
Conventionalized representation of the leaf of the Acanthus spinosus plant, found on the lower parts of Corinthian and Composite capitals, and also used for enrichment of various elements in Classical architecture.
Pottery of Canaanite (Syro-Palestinian) origin found in the royal tombs of the 1st and 2nd dynasties (the Old Kingdom) at Abydos, Saqqara, Abusir el-Melek, and other sites in Upper Egypt, dating to the Early Bronze Age II (3300-2700 bc The pottery, often red-rose slipped and burnished or painted ...
Two hieroglyphic inscriptions containing the names of Egyptian kings that were found on the walls in a small temple at Abydos, Egypt. The first tablet has the names of the kings of the 12th and 18th dynasties and it is now in the British Museum. The second tablet begins with Menes, one of the fir...
Process by which a liquid is drawn into and fills the pores of a permeable, porous body.
Determination of age with reference to a specific time scale, such as a fixed calendrical system or in years before present bp based on measurable physical and chemical qualities or historical associations such as coins and written records. The date on a coin is an absolute date, as are ad 1492 a...
Amount of time elapsed, with reference to a specific time scale, since an object was made or used.
A stone tool with abrasive qualities, such as pumice or sandstone, used in grinding, smoothing, sharpening, or shaping tools or other objects. [abrading stone]
To scrape or wear away by friction or erosion. [abrasion (n.)]
A Neolithic pottery c. 3900-3200 bc found in a causewayed camp about 15 km south of Oxford, England. The pottery is fairly heavy and formed into round-bottomed bowls with frequentstroke decoration and some having handles.
First important agricultural phase in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico, dated 3500-1500 bc after the introduction of maize.
Name for the period of the earliest hand-ax industries of Europe, taken from Abbeville, the type site near the mouth of the River Somme in northern France. The site is a gravel pit in which crudely chipped oval or pear-shaped hand axes were discovered, probably dating to the Mindel glaciation. Th...
A calculating table or frame, specifically one in which balls slide upon wires, used for the mechanical solution of arithmetical problems.
Mahayana Buddhist dynasty that appeared suddenly in the late 8th century in Central Java. Its name (‘King of the Mountain’) has been seen as the claim to ‘Universal Rulership’, taken over from the kings of Fun an ; indeed, the Sailendras exercised a sort of hegemony in the region, extending even ...
Tell site near Kashan on the Iranian plateau, occupied from the 6th to the 1st millennium bc. The earliest settlement was built of pisé, though no house plans were recovered; painted pottery was in use and some ornaments of hammered copper occurred. In Period II, after c5000 bc, mudbrick architec...
An ancient Sumatran kingdom centred on Palembang, which came into being at the end of the 7th century and developed rapidly. This development may be linked with the dismemberment of Funan. First mentioned by the Chinese pilgrim I-Ching as an important centre of Buddhist learning and a relay stati...
An early Upper Palaeolithic culture named after the cave of Szeleta in Hungary. It is characterized by leaf points, and seems to mark the transition from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Upper Palaeolithic. Indeed, the earlier Szeletian level from the type site could be regarded as Mousterian, whil...
Nucleated open settlement of the later Neolithic period, situated near Szentes in southeast Hungary. Two occupation horizons are represented: a SzakalhAt (Alfold Linear pottery) level dated to the late 5th millennium be and a thick Tisza culture level dated to the 4th millennium be. Several compl...
The eponymous site of a later Neolithic regional group of the Alfold Linear Pottery, located in the town of Hodmez-dvdsarhely in southeast Hungary. The settlement has two occupation layers, a level with late Alfold Linear pottery and a level with Szakalhat pottery. For many years Hungarian archae...
A Greek colonial settlement and principal port on the east coast of Sicily, and later capital of Roman Sicily. Earliest occupation seems to be on the island of Ortygia which helps to enclose the Great Harbour, where some early Palaeolithic material occurs. It is likely that a native settlement pr...
Name sometimes given to a type of pottery found in southern Iberia during the Copper Age. The pottery, found at sites like Los Millares, is characterized by incised stylized designs which are thought to hold symbolic meanings. One such design is the oculus motif.
Early Greek colonial settlement (perhaps 8th century bc) on the Ionian Gulf in Calabria, southern Italy, proverbial later for the luxury and decadence of its inhabitants, and destroyed by rival Croton in about 510 bc. A new settlement, Thurii, was founded in 443 bc by Pericles of Athens and a gro...
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