Sidon

[modern Sarda]. Situated on the coast of Lebanon south of Beirut, Sidon was an important trading centre for Mediterranean trade from the Early or Middle Bronze Age and, with Tyre, one of the two most important Phoenician centres. It was partially destroyed by the Assyrians in 676 bc, but grew to ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Sidi Abd Er Rahman

A Palaeolithic site close to Casablanca on the Moroccan coast. A series of pits near the airport has revealed Acheulian levels. These are earlier than the Amirian dune (perhaps 0.5 million years old or ‘Mindel’) and later than the Saletian dune of about one million years of age. They are associat...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Sidemi Culture

[Shell Midden culture]. Culture found in the Vladivostok area of eastern Siberia from the late 2nd millennium bc. The population lived in coastal settlements of semi-subterranean houses, which are associated with shell middens. Fish and shellfish were clearly important in the diet, but pigs and d...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Shwezigon Temple

Great Buddhist monument at Pagan, northern Burma, housing a copy of the tooth relic of Ceylon. Its construction began in about 1059 under king Anôratha, the founder of the Pagan dynasty, but was not completed until the reign of king Kyanzittha, half a century later. It contains the latter king’s ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shwezigon Temple

Shuruppak

[modern Fara]. Situated on the bank of the Euphrates River in southern Iraq, Shuruppak was one of the city states of Sumer. Excavations by a German expedition in the first decade of this century uncovered important remains of the Early Dynastic period. The temples produced a wealth of early docum...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Shu [Shu]

Ba and Shu; Shou Xian.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shu [Shu]

Shou Xian

[Shou-hsien]. A district on the south bank of the Huai River in Anhui province, China. In the latter part of the Eastern Zhou period this area was held in succession by the states of Wu, Yue (which annexed Wu in 473 bc) and Chu (which expelled Yue c333 bc). Bronzes and mirrors of the 6th-3rd cent...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shou Xian

Shoe-Last Adze

Common stone tool found in Early Neolithic Linear Pottery contexts throughout Europe; it is long and thin in shape with a D-shaped cross-section. It might have been used as an adze for carpentry, but it is perhaps more likely that it was an agricultural tool, a sort of hoe.

archaeologsEnglishTools

Shizhaishan

[Shih-chai-shan]. See Dian Kingdom.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shizhaishan

Shirataki

A group of Palaeolithic sites in Hokkaido, Japan. A large number of obsidian, artefacts were recovered during excavations in the 1950s and 1960s. They are divided into two groups, based on radiocarbon and obsidian hydration dates, as well as on the stratigraphy of the Yubetsu river terraces where...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shinto

The native religion of Japan. Its doctrine was only committed to writing by those with nationalistic aims in the recent past, and could only be reconstructed from fragmentary survivals in folk beliefs and court ceremonies, together with the descriptions of myths and rituals in Kojiki and Nihon Sh...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shindo

A small spur projecting southwards into the valley of the Kyi Chu River about 8 km east of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. P. Aufschnaiter discovered and excavated a group of burials there in 1950. He distinguished three phases, each occurring at a different level on the ridge. The first, Horizon A,...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Shilou

[Shih-lou]. A city in Shanxi province, China, on the southward bend of the Yellow River. Shang bronze weapons and ritual vessels have been found repeatedly in and near Shilou. These objects date from the An yang period but many are by Anyang standards eccentric in style. Central Shanxi seems to h...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shilou

Shilingxia

[Shih-ling-hsia]. See Majiayao.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shilingxia

Shell Mounds (Tropical Australia)

Found close to the shorelines along the northern Australian coast, especially at Weipa (Cape York) and Milingimbi (Arnhem Land); the steep-sided mounds are up to 10 metres high and consist of accumulations of cockle shells, charcoal, and bone and stone tools. Radiocarbon dates are 500 be-1200 ad ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shell Mounds (Tropical Australia)

Shell Mound Culture

See Sidemi culture.

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Shell Mound Culture

Shechem

Modem Balata has been identified as the site of the biblical city of Schechem, near the central Palestinian town of Nablus. There was some occupation in the Pre-pottery Neolithic period, but the first town was built in the Middle Bronze Age, defended first by a free-standing wall, then an earth r...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Shaogou

[Shao-kou]. SeeLUOYANG.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shaogou

Shanidar

Cave in northern Iraq at an altitude of 745 metres. A small village site outside, Zawi Chemi Shanidar, has produced some evidence for early farming at the time of the Zarzian, whose levels at the summit of the cave are about 10,000 be. Beneath early Upper Palaeolithic levels are Mousterian layers...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Shangcunling

[Shang-ts’un-ling]. Site of a large early Eastern Zhou cemetery excavated in 1956 and 1957 nearthecityofSanmenxiain Shan Xian, western Henan province, China. Inscribed bronzes show that members of the royal family of Guo were buried here. Guo was a small state founded perhaps before the end of th...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shang

[Shang]. The Shang or Yin dynasty, the first great Bronze Age power in China, ruled the North China plain during the latter half of the 2nd millennium bc. Of the dynasties named in Chinese historical works it is the earliest whose existence has been confirmed by archaeology (see oracle bones). Th...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shanbiaozhen

[Shan-piao-chen]. See Liu-

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shanbiaozhen

Sham Wan

Pivotal site in the prehistory of Hong Kong, situated in a beach ridge on Lamma Island. The levels span the periods from Neolithic (c3500 bc) through Bronze Age (d.500-200 bc) into Tang times. Much of the prehistoric material relates to that from the neighbouring mainland province of Guangdong.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shamarkian

A Nubian microlithic industry of the period 10,000-6000 bc, the typology of which shows certain Saharan affinities. By the 6th millennium some of the makers of this industry had adopted a specialized fishing economy using harpoons with barbed bone heads, as preserved at ‘Catfish Cave’ near the Se...

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Shahr-I Sokhta

Tell site in the province of Sistan in eastern Iran, close to the Afghan and Pakistan borders, which was the site of a vast urban centre of the 3rd millennium bc, covering cl 00 hectares and housing perhaps 20,000 people. The site, which has been under excavation since 1967, has proved remarkably...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shahr-I Qumis

Parthian city in Khurasan, northeast Iran. The remains are spread over a large area, cl by 4 km, and surface survey indicates occupation of some kind from the Iron Age to the Seljuq period; it was finally brought to an end by the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. The size of the Parthian city ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shahi Tump

Small prehistoric site in western Baluchistan, probably of the 3rd millennium bc, excavated by Aurel Stein. Three phases of use were recognized: two phases of occupation, followed by a phase of use as a cemetery. The dead were inhumed in the flexed position and provided with pottery vessels, neck...

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Shahdad

An oasis on the edge of the great Lut desert northeast of Kerman in eastern Iran, which has an important prehistoric site of the later 4th and 3rd millennia bc. A series of floods in prehistoric times destroyed most buildings, but left brick-lined tombs and many artefacts suggesting that Shahdad ...

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Shaft Tombs (China)

The vertical shaft tomb characteristic of Bronze Age China (the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties) has two distinctive features. First, its walls step inward on all four sides, part way down the shaft, forming a shelf or ercengtai. Second, beneath the coffin or wooden burial chamber in the bottom ...

archaeologsEnglishTombs

Shaft Tombs (China)

Shaft Grave

A type of grave characterized by a deep narrow shaft, with the burials either in the bottom of the shaft itself or sometimes in a small chamber opening from the bottom of the shaft. Shaft graves occur in many parts of the world at different times. Among the most famous are those in Circles A and ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shadow Marks

An archaeological site may be revealed on an aerial photograph by the shadows cast by earthworks, ditches or changes in slope. Shadow sites are best seen in the low sun of evenings and early mornings.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shadow Marks

Sgraffito Ware

Glazed vessels prepared first by incising decorations into their surfaces, and then by the addition of paint into these incisions prior to the application of glaze. The result is a fine contrast between the decoration, which is usually bright in colour, and the overall tone of the glazed vessel. ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Severn-Cotswold Tombs

A group of megalithic tombs found around the Bristol Channel in southern England. They usually have chambers of gallery grave type, sometimes transepted gallery graves, covered by trapezoidal mounds, usually far longer than required for functional support of the chambers. Other features found inc...

archaeologsEnglishTombs

Severn-Cotswold Tombs

Seven Wonders Of The World

A list was made in the Hellenistic period of what were then considered to be the seven greatest wonders of the world. These were normally: (1) the Great Pyramids of Egypt; (2) the Gardens of Babylon (New Babylonian period, 626-539 bc); (3) the Temple of Artemis (Diana) at Ephesus (4th century bc)...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Seven Wonders Of The World

Seton Rock Shelter

See Kartan culture.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Seton Rock Shelter