Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (144 page)

A ceremonial board of wood or stone used by Australian Aborigines which bears secret sacred designs. Usually the designs are painted or engraved.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Artefacts defined by form that are sufficiently distinctive to act as time markers. Useful in
CROSS-DATING
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

An ordered sequence of related events, episodes, or defined blocks of time. A
relative chronology
exists where items in the sequence are related to one another but not to absolute dates, such as may be established through stratigraphy, typology, artefact correlations, or cross-dating. An
absolute chronology
exists where the items in the sequence are each independently dated in calendar years using techniques such as
RADIOCARBON DATING
or
DENDROCHRONOLOGY
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Dating method that provides an actual age in years for a defined piece of material or event. Because all such dates are, in statistical terms, estimates, the results are usually reported with a measure of probability, typically expressed as a standard deviation.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

A high-quality Greek statue built up on a wooden core and covered with plates of gold for the clothing and ivory for the uncovered parts of the body. The two most famous examples are the cult statue of Athena that stood in the Parthenon in Athens and the statute of Zeus at Olympia. Both date to the 5th century
bc
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Literally meaning ‘belonging to the earth’, a term used to describe a god or goddess of the earth or the underworld. Also extended to mean the divine creative force, and the source of fertility in the crops, animals, and humans. The term is also used for underground deities connected with death. In ancient Greece, belief in the Olympian gods, under the sky god Zeus , succeeded the old belief in chthonian powers.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search