Mancheng

[Man-ch’eng]. District in Hebei province, China, where very large rock-cut tombs of the Han prince Liu Sheng (¿113 bc) and his wife Dou Wan were discovered in 1968. The tombs, each of several chambers, were underground palaces: they openly imitate features of buildings above ground, and many of t...

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Mancheng

Manion

A phase of pre-Classic developments in the Lowland Maya area. Dated c550-300 bc, it was first defined at Uaxac-tun and Tikal. Although some artefacts of stone and obsidian are included in the complex, it is principally characterized by monochrome pottery, with a ‘waxy’ feel to it, which comes in ...

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Manion

Mammoth

A type of elephant. The woolly mammoth, Mammuthus (Elephas) primi-genius, evolved from an earlier form of mammoth, Mammuthus (Elephas) trogon-therii, about a quarter of a million years ago, and was perhaps the largest animal hunted by Palaeolithic man. At European Upper Palaeolithic sites like Do...

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Malwa

A district of central India which has given its name to a culture complex of the Chalcolithic period (3rd-2nd millennium BC). The characteristic pottery is painted in black on a red or cream ground in exuberant designs including geometric, plant and animal motifs. One of the most important sites ...

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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...

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Maltese Temples

Mapta

An important site in southern Siberia near Lake Baikal occupied in late Palaeolithic times. There are traces of a dwelling and a burial of a young person of possibly mongoloid affinities, as well as several art pieces.

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Mapta

Mallia

Minoan palace and town site in northern Crete east of Knossos. The town was established in the Early Minoan period, but the palace was constructed in the Middle Minoan period, c2000 bc, and then rebuilt after a destruction — probably due to an earthquake — in the 18th century BC. It was finally d...

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Maliq

A large settlement site of the Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age, located in the upland Korge basin in south central Albania. A four-metre stratigraphy contained four major occupation horizons: I, two late Neolithic building levels with rectangular houses with reed on plaster floors set on tim...

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Tal-I

A tell site northwest of Shiraz in southern Iran, excavated by a joint Irano-American team in the 1970s. This huge site covers some 400 hectares and has been positively identified from inscriptions as the Elamite city of Anshan, located far further east than had been predicted by most scholars. O...

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Tal-I

Mali

One of the early African Sudanic states, Mali rose to prominence in the 12th and 13th centuries, when it appears effectively to have taken over from ancient Ghana the control of the B ambuk goldfields and their links with the trans-Saharan trade. By the 14th century its rulers controlled an exten...

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Malâyu

An Indianized kingdom situated bn the east coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, centred in the region of Jambi. Its name was mentioned in the middle of the 7th century by a Chinese source (as Mo-lo-yii) and more information about it was given by the Chinese pilgrim I-Ching later in the same century. It a...

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Malâyu

Malaysia

Prehistory in West Malaysia (Malaya) commences with a possible Pleistocene assemblage (Kota Tampan), but the first coherent and widespread industry is the Hoabinhian (Gua Cha, Gua Kechil). Neolithic assemblages of probable Thai origin appear in north and central Malaya after 2800 bc (Gua Cha, Gua...

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Malatya

[ancient Milid]. The tell of Arslantepe near the Euphrates River in central Turkey. It has produced important Syro-HiTTiTE remains of the early 1st millennium bc, including a Lion Gate bearing relief carved mythological scenes and libations to the gods.

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Malachite

One of the copper ores. This hard, bright green mineral was also powdered and used for personal decoration in various parts of the world.

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Malacca

See Malaysia.

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Malacca

Makwe

A rock shelter in eastern Zambia, close to the border with Mozambique. Excavations revealed occupation during the last four millennia be by the makers of a stone industry in which backed microliths were virtually the only type of retouched implement represented. Traces of mastic provided evidence...

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Makassar

See Sulawesi.

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Makassar