Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (713 page)

A late Neolithic temple complex on the outskirts of modern Valetta comprising the remains of at least four structures extensively excavated by T. Zammit between 1915 and 1919. The earliest temple was built about 3300 bc in the Ggantija Phase, but little survived the remodelling of the site about 3000 bc when two temples (the South and East Temples) were built in the
TARXIEN PHASE
. Both have four apses, but the South Temple is the finest of the two, with elaborate spiral decoration on the walls and the lower part of a large statue originally about 2.75m high still in position. A door in the right-hand rear apse of the South Temple leads into the fourth and latest temple on the site, the Central Temple. This example has six apses and a central niche. All the temples were abandoned about 2500 bc and for the following millennium the area was used as a cemetery for inurned cremations.
[Rep.: T. Zammit , 1930,
Prehistoric Malta: the Tarxien temples
. Oxford. OUP]

 
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Distinctive type of ceramic pitcher probably made in the Rhineland during the 8th century
ad
. Readily recognizable because it was decorated with applied tin foil. Tating ware was widely traded to sites along the North Sea and English Channel coasts and beyond.

 
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Term proposed in 1993 by Tim Ingold , which has since created wide interest and found considerable application, to refer to the entire ensemble of tasks or actions that a society, community, or individual performs. The idea of the taskscape recognizes that all tasks are interlocking, and that any one task is embedded in the way that other tasks are themselves seen and understood. Thus the very notion of a taskscape as a continuous or seamless spread of heterogeneous events and experiences stands in opposition to the widespread western practice of classifying activities into groups such as technological, subsistence, or ritual.

 
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A kind of stone-built ritual monument found on the Balearic Islands and dating to the Bronze Age. Taulas were made from two carefully fashioned stone slabs with one balanced on top of the other to form a T-shaped structure. The two stones were sometimes fixed together with a mortise and tenon joint. The largest taula is at Trepuco and is 4m high.

 
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An industrial tradition within the
KNIGHTON HEATH PERIOD
of the British middle Bronze Age that flourished in the period 1400–1200 bc and is named after a large hoard of metalwork found in the grounds of the Taunton workhouse, Somerset, in 1877. Comparable hoards have been found at Bishopsland, Co. Kildare in Ireland, and this stage is sometimes referred to as the
Taunton–Bishopsland Phase
in western parts of the British Isles. The Taunton Phase is characterized by local copying of imported continental objects, especially ornaments such as twisted torcs, armlets, lozenge-section penannulars, ribbed bracelets, cones, coiled finger-rings, and many different kinds of pin. Tools and weapons also benefited from these wider influences, especially the introduction of the basal-looped spearhead with leaf-shaped blades. The presence of so many ornaments and the continental connections led M. A. Smith to suggest in 1959 that the Taunton material in Britain was part of a widespread north European phenomenon known as the
ORNAMENT HORIZON
that could be linked with phase III and IV of Montelius' scheme for Scandinavia, Reinecke D, and Hallstatt A1/A2 in central Europe. More recently, in 1980, Colin Burgess argued that Smith's dating should be revised backwards in time to connect at least in part with Montellius IIb–c, so that a longer period of European contact can be envisaged. Also known as the Barton-Bendish Phase or the Glentool Phase.

 
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