Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (462 page)

The native language spoken by Toltec, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican communities, still spoken in the Basin of Mexico. One of the Uto-Aztecan languages found over a large part of northwest and central America. Loan-words from Nahuatl to English include: tomato and chocolate.

 
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1
A metal spike for fixing things to wood (including other pieces of wood).
2
Round metal cylinder with an expanded flat top set in the street of trading ports for merchants to use when doing business. Some of the best preserved are in Bristol, UK.

 
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Maya urban and ceremonial centre of the Formative (middle Pre-Classic) Stage, dating to the period 600–400 bc. The site comprises 80 or more structures in two main clusters of platforms and mounds, including a pyramid some 50m high. A carved limestone stela depicting two rulers or deities facing one another is probably the oldest known stela in the Maya Lowland. The site is also important because the ceremonial centre appears to overlie an earlier village established about 1000 bc. It thus provides a glimpse of the transition from tribal villages to centralized chiefdoms. Nakbe was eclipsed by El Mirador some 13km away to the northwest in the Classic stage.
[Rep.: I. Graham , 1967,
Archaeological explorations in El Peten, Guatemala
. New Orleans: Tulane University]

 
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See
BARLEY
.

 
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Large proto-historic and early historic site in the lower Chao Phraya Valley of central Thailand. Local tradition records that it is the oldest city in Thailand and is said to have been visited by the Buddha. The town, which covers an area of nearly 4km by 2km is thought to have been the capital of the Dvaravati state. Artefacts dating from the 6th century
ad
onwards have been found. The Phra Pathom, the highest stupa in Thailand, rises to 116m. The rectangular moat may have been added around ad 1000 during the period of Khmer control of the region.
[Sum.: G. Coedès , 1966,
The making of South East Asia
. Berkeley: University of California Press]

 
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Roman official under Honorius who left Rome (probably in ad 417) to look after his ancestral Gallic estates, apparently near Toulouse, then threatened by the impending Visigothic settlement in Aquitaine. His autobiographical poem
De reditu suo
(‘On his return’) describes the devastation of Italy. His account contrasts with the prevailing fatality of the Christian historians, for he was a pagan and believed in the mission of Rome and its old gods, whom he saw as undermined by Christianity as much as by barbarian invaders.

 
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