Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (761 page)

Subdiscipline involving the application of archaeological methods to the study of major towns, cities, and urban areas, and to the process of urbanization.

 
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A cemetery containing an essentially urban-living population, generally found within or outside but nearby a major urban area. Such cemeteries are often large and long-lived.

 
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A term used by Louis Wirth to denote distinctive characteristics of urban social life, such as its impersonality, but more recently expanded to encompass physical features of urban existence such as can be recovered archaeologically, such as planning, the large size of settlement, and the presence of religious and political foci alongside residential areas.

 
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A species of sheep (Ovid vignei) found wild in Iran, Turkestan, and the Himalayas, the ancestor of nearly all modern breeds of sheep.

 
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The period broadly 2100–2000 bc corresponding with the third dynasty of
SUMERIAN
kings listed on documents found at
UR
, principally Ur-nammu (2112–2095 bc) and Shulgi (2094–2047 bc). During this time the dynasty controlled most of southern Mesopotamia and the adjacent highlands of the Zagros region with an extensive and elaborate bureaucracy exercising control over many aspects of economic life. The Ur III empire collapsed under military pressure from
ELAMITE
and
AMORITE
states.

 
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A generic name applied to a vase or jar, generally with a rounded body, narrow neck, and a height greater than its maximum diameter, that was used (not necessarily exclusively) to contain the cremated remains of the dead. The name has become applied to some styles of prehistoric pottery (e.g.
COLLARED URNS
) because examples were found in burial contexts before they were widely recognized on contemporary settlement sites. Many prehistoric urns are simply domestic vessels of a style preferentially selected for use in burial rites; in later times ceramics were especially produced for use in burial and ceremonial situations.

 
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