Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (313 page)

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

A group of tribes whose origins are uncertain but who emerged as a unified state in the early 2nd millennium
bc
and expanded to control Anatolia, Syria, and surrounding areas. Their history has three main phases, representing cycles of integration, expansion, and collapse. The Old Kingdom (
c.
1750–1450 bc) had its capital at Kussara (Hattusas) and later at Boghaz Köy. Mursilis I expanded control by overrunning north Syria in about 1600 bc and pushing as far as Babylon. Under the Empire (
c.
1450–1200 bc) a stable state was built up covering most of Anatolia and north Syria, displacing the kingdom of the Mitanni, and successfully challenging both Assyria and Egypt. The end of the Empire came suddenly in about 1200 bc when it was overwhelmed by invaders, the identity of whom is uncertain but who were probably part of the general movements of people in the period of unrest in the Mediterranean at the time. During the third phase (
c.
1200–720 bc) areas such as north Syria continued as neo-Hittite city-states, but in the early 1st millennium
bc
the Hittite empire came under
ASSYRIAN
rule after the defeat of the Hittite army by Sargon II
c.
720 bc. The Hittite language is one of the earliest recorded Indo-European languages; the Hittites also developed a means of smelting iron, a secret they guarded fairly well until their downfall.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Anglo-Saxon term for a round barrow. Leslie Grinsell argues that the term was used almost exclusively to refer to barrows created and used by the pagan Saxons.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

The term applied to a deliberate deposit of complete and/or broken objects buried in the ground at one time for subsequent recovery or as a symbolic act. Hoards of metal objects are especially common during the European Bronze Age, and several different types have been recognized: for example, merchant's hoards, founder's hoards, personal hoards, weapon hoards, and votive hoards.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Hoare , Sir Richard Colt
(1758–1838)
[Bi].

British antiquary and traveller who engaged William Cunnington to carry out a number of excavations in the county of Wiltshire. He was born to abundant wealth in a family of bankers, being educated at private schools before joining the family business. He lived at Stourhead, a large estate with land in Wiltshire, Dorset, and Somerset, which he took over at the age of 25. After some years of foreign travel he took more interest in the local area and this brought him face to face with the rich antiquities of Salisbury Plain. These he started to research, eventually opening no fewer than 468 barrows in the process, and between 1812 and 1821 he privately published two substantial volumes entitled
The ancient history of Wiltshire
(reprinted 1975, Wakefield: EP Publishing). The opening line of the first volume, ‘We speak from facts, not theory’ echoes much of the
INDUCTIVIST
thinking of early 19th-century antiquarianism.
[Bio.: K. Woodbridge , 1970,
Landscape and antiquity
. Oxford: Clarendon Press]

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

A single or double-handled flagon with a cylindrical neck and outcurved rim, triangular in section; named after types from the mid 1st century
ad
military site at Hofheim, Germany.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search