Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (482 page)

Egyptian god, the primeval ocean from which the earth emerged, personified as a god. He had a female counterpart, Nunet.

 
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Contemporary indigenous hunter-gatherer peoples living in Alaska who were the subject of detailed ethno-archaeological studies by Lewis Binford . Nunamiut communities gain over 80 per cent of their subsistence from caribou hunting, relying on stored food for 8.5 months of the year. Fresh meat is available for only two months or so.

 
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Egyptian goddess, female counterpart of Nun.

 
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A settlement built to sustain a community of religious women, comprising a church and domestic accommodation arranged around a cloister. See also
MONASTERY
.

 
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nuraghe
(pl.
nuraghi
)
[MC].

A class of stone fortress built on the island of Sardinia between the early 2nd millennium
bc
and the late 1st millennium
bc
. The early examples are simple stone towers with internal chambers. Over time, however, they become larger and more complicated in their design so that later examples tend to have multiple towers with elaborate internal rooms and a warren of passages. These later examples form one component of fairly extensive defended settlements. The nuraghi of Sardinia are very similar in form and date to the torri of Corsica and the talayots of the Balearic Islands.
The Sardinian fortifications also give the name to the
Nuraghe Culture
which is associated with a flourishing bronze-working industry using locally available ores. Amongst the diverse range of products are figurines. Stone chambered tombs also feature in Naraghe Culture, as do sacred wells.

 
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Egyptian goddess, a member of the Heliopolitan Ennead, daughter of Shut and Tefnut and wife of Geb, the earth god. She personified the vault of heaven, and representations show her as a woman standing bent over with the tips of her fingers brushing the ground. Sometimes she was represented as a cow, straddling the earth. In both cases her body is spangled with stars. She was said to swallow the sun each night and to give birth to it each morning. According to one legend, she gave birth to her five children, Osiris, Isis, Seth, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder, on the five epagomental days of the year.

 
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