Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (265 page)

An extra-mural civilian settlement attached to or adjacent to a military fort or fortress providing accommodation and facilities for traders and merchants who provided goods and services to the moneyed troops. Such settlements are totally parasitic on the fort.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Centrally situated market square, meeting place, and administrative centre in a Roman city.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

A Latin term for a ditch.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

See
BURIED SOIL
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

A term popularized by Leslie Grinsell to refer to the first barrow to be established in a barrow cemetery, often the biggest and most distinguished. In some early Bronze Age cemeteries the founder's barrow is in fact a Neolithic structure around which the later monuments cluster.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

A collection of Bronze Age metalwork deposited together as a
HOARD
but which comprises the tools, equipment, and stock-in-trade of a bronze-worker. In addition to scrap metal and ingots there are typically moulds, punches, hammers, sets, gouges, an anvil, and a polishing stone.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

One of the noblest and most extensive monastic sites in Europe, situated in Skelldale in northeast England. It was established in ad 1132 by Cistercian monks who took over a remote valley and transformed it into one of the largest producers of wool in the north. At the height of its fortunes in the 15th century there were about 120 monks and perhaps 400 lay brethren and servants. At the centre is a great church, begun in the 1150s
ad
, with an eleven-bay nave. The seven westernmost bays were for lay brothers while those to the east of the choir were for monks. At the east end of the church is the Chapel of Nine Altars, built in the 13th century to accommodate the growing number of monks. The west range comprises at first-floor level the lay brothers' long dormitory, 91m long, with their latrine block at the end, built over the River Skell. Beneath the dormitory is a vaulted undercroft, used for storage and as the lay brothers' refectory. The monks' refectory lies at right-angles to the south range, a typical Cistercian arrangement. One of the last additions to Fountains Abbey is Abbot Huby's great bell-tower, built in the late 15th century. Externally it is decorated with statues of saints and painted biblical texts.
[Sum.: G. Coppack , 1993,
Fountains Abbey
. London: Batsford and English Heritage]