WHAT IS THE IMPRESSED WARE?

Earliest Neolithic pottery of the Mediterranean area, with decoration impressed into the clay by sticks, combs, fingernails, or seashells, from before 6000 bc to around 4000 bc (though until later in North Africa). The pottery itself was characterized as having simple, round-bottomed shapes. The serrated edge of the cardium shell was particularly popular in the western area, giving the alternative name of Cardial ware. Before c. 5000 bc the ware is found mainly in caves or rock shelters or shell midden sites, where it was associated with hunting-gathering and the breeding of sheep. Around 5000 bc, crop cultivation was introduced and large settled villages sprang up. Other types of pottery are found alongside Impressed ware at this stage, including fine red-painted ware in Italy, Stentinello ware in Sicily, and Ghar Dalam ware in Malta, which represent specialized versions of Impressed ware. The pottery style may have originated in Asia Minor or even Yugoslavia (Starcevo culture).

WHAT IS THE IMPASTO?

1. A type of early pottery of Etruria, made from unrefined clay and fired to a dark brown or black, especially during the Villanovan period. Some pieces were biconical urns and hut models and were used for cremations. 2. A paint that is applied to a canvas or panel in quantities that make it stand out from the surface. It was used frequently to mimic the broken-textured quality of highlights – i.e., the surfaces of objects that are struck by an intense light.

WHAT IS THE ICE AGE?

A period of intense cold and the expansion of glaciers, resulting in a lower sea level. Such periods of large-scale glaciation may last several million years and drastically reshape surface features of entire continents. In the past, there were many ice ages; the earliest known took place during Precambrian time dating back more than 570 million years. The most recent periods of widespread glaciation occurred during the Pleistocene epoch (1,600,000–10,000 years ago). A lesser, recent glacial stage called the Little Ice Age began in the 16th century and advanced and receded intermittently over three centuries. Its maximum development was reached about 1750, at which time glaciers were more widespread on Earth than at any time since the principal Quaternary ice ages. The idea of an ice age in the geological sequence is usually credited to Jean Louis Agassiz, a Swiss naturalist, who suggested it c. 1837. Agassiz conceived a worldwide cold period when areas as far apart as North America and Germany had been glaciated.

WHAT IS THE HYDRIA?

A form of Greek water pot; a large jar or pitcher for carrying water with two or three handles. The body was bulbous, the neck round. It was wider and usually lower than the amphora and it had a welldefined foot and neck. There were two horizontal loop handles on the body for carrying and one vertical handle from the rim to the shoulder for pouring.

WHAT IS THE HORSEHOOF CORE?

A steep-edged, often large, domed core with flat-based striking platforms, heavily step-flanked around their margins. Both very large and smaller varieties are found commonly on Pleistocene sites in most areas of Australia and on some mid-Holocene sites; they are considered characteristic of the Australian Core Tool and Scraper tradition. They were chopping tools mainly used in woodworking. The step-flaking could have resulted from repeated striking to remove flakes.

WHAT IS THE HOLOCENE?

Present geological epoch, which began some 10,000 (bp) years ago (8300 bc). It falls within the Quaternary period (one of the four main divisions of the Earth’s history) and followed the Pleistocene Ice Age. The Holocene is marked by rising temperatures throughout the world and the retreat of the ice sheets. During this epoch, agriculture became the most common human subsistence practice. During the Holocene, Homo sapiens diversified his tool technology, organized his habitat more efficiently, and adapted his way of life. The Holocene stage/series includes all deposits younger than the top of either the Wisconsinian stage of the Pleistocene series in North America or the Würm/Weichsel in Europe.

WHAT IS THE HOARD?

Any collection of objects buried at one time; a deliberate deposit of complete and/or broken objects buried in the ground for subsequent recovery or as a symbolic act. A hoard often includes valuables or prized possessions. Many hoards represent the personal property of individuals, buried for safety at a time of threat and not recovered. Hoards are a useful source of evidence for archaeologists, because they provide considerable quantities of material and, except in the case of some votive hoards, that material represents a true association. Various classes are distinguished according to their method of accumulation. A merchant’s hoard will contain new objects ready for sale. A founder’s hoard by contrast will contain obsolete, worn out, or miscast objects, and frequently cake metal as well – all of it awaiting melting down and recasting. A votive hoard is rather different in that the objects were deposited, possibly over a long period of time, in temples or caves, buried, or thrown into water as religious offerings, with no intention of recovery. A hoard of loot is self-explanatory. Bronze Age hoards provide much of the evidence for the period.

WHAT IS THE HISPANO MORESQUE POTTERY?

A tin-glazed, lustrous, highly decorated earthenware made by Moorish potters in Spain in the late medieval period, chiefly at Málaga in the 15th century, and in the region of Manises, near Valencia, in the 16th century. The pottery tends to be plates and jugs with bold, semiabstract designs painted on a creamy background and with a gold luster finish. These wares were much in demand throughout Europe and, judging from finds in northern Europe, they were widely traded. The tin glaze was applied over a design usually traced in cobalt blue; after the first firing, the luster, a metallic pigment, was applied by brush over the tin glaze, and the piece was fired again. Imitation of this pottery in Italy led to the development of Italian majolica ware.

WHAT IS THE HEMBURY WARE?

A type of plain Early and Middle Neolithic pottery found in southwestern England in the 4th millennium bc, characterized by round-bottomed vessels with straight sides or S-profiled bodies.

WHAT IS THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD?

Period of the widest Greek influence, the era between the death of Alexander the Great (323 bc) and the rise of the Roman Empire (27/30 bc), when a single, uniform civilization, based on Greek traditions, prevailed all over the ancient world, from India in the east, to Spain in the west. During these three centuries, Greek culture crossed many political frontiers and spread through many cities founded at that time, especially the new capitals of Alexandria, Antioch, and Pergamum. A common civilization became established throughout the known world for the first time, one which integrated the cultural heritage of each region and subsequently left a deep impression on the institutions, thought, religions, and art of the Roman, Parthian, and Kushan Empires. The Hellenistic cultural influence continued to be a powerful force in the Roman and Parthian Empires during the early centuries ad.

WHAT IS THE HELL GAP?

A Plano tradition complex of the Paleoindian period from c. 11,200 to 8000 bc (the complex dates to c. 10,000–9500 bp) and centered on a well-preserved, deeply stratified site in eastern Wyoming. Hell Gap is also the name of a projectile point type of the Plano tradition, which is bifacially worked with a broad pointed top set on a straight-sided trapezoidal body. The base is narrow and straight. Experiments show that these points were probably spearheads and fully capable of penetrating the hide and ribcage of large beasts such as bison.

WHAT IS THE HARPOON?

A spear-like missile with a detachable head, often consisting of a pointed shaft with backward-pointing barbs. It was often loosely hafted so that it would separate from its shaft after the point had struck its target. The appearance of this weapon is associated in particular with the Magdalenian culture, was particularly popular during the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic, and was used for hunting or fishing. An attached line was used to retrieve the catch. Some anthropologists refer to all barbed bone or antler points as harpoons.

WHAT IS THE HARDAWAY POINT?

A bifacially worked, chipped stone projectile point with a triangular outline, slightly hollow base, and a side notch towards the base on either side. It may be a variation of the Dalton tradition

c. 8500–7000 bc.

WHAT IS THE HANIWA?

Unglazed earthenware funerary sculptures or cylinders of the Kofun period (4th to 7th centuries ad) in Japan. They were erected on, around, or inside mounded tomb surfaces and often had representations of horses, animals, birds, humans, and houses. They are considered to have developed out of the tall stands for the late Yayoi ritual vessels of the 3rd century.

WHAT IS THE HANGING BOWL?

Thin bronze, shallow bowls found in Anglo Saxon graves up until the 7th century, an important part of a Celtic metalworking tradition which has its origins in the Roman and pre Roman Iron Age. They have three equally spaced suspension rings, fixed to the bowl by escutcheons usually decorated with colored enamel and millefiori.

WHAT IS THE HAND AXE?

A large bifacially worked core tool, normally oval, pointed, or pear-shaped, and one of the most typical stone tools of the Lower Paleolithic. It is the diagnostic implement of certain Lower Paleolithic industries (Abbevillian, Chellean, Acheulian), and one variety of the Mousterian. In spite of the name it was not an ax at all and probably served as an all-purpose tool. The oldest and crudest hand axes have been found in Africa; the finer, Acheulian tools are known from most of Africa, Europe, southwest Asia, and India. It was used for chopping, chipping, flaking, cutting, digging, and scraping. Hand axes first appear between 1 and 2 million years ago and they were common in assemblages for about a million years.

WHAT IS THE HALAF?

A large tell site on the Khabur River in northeastern Syria near the Turkish border, which is the type site of an important stage of north Mesopotamian development, roughly from the 6th millennium bc to the beginning of the 5th millennium (5050–4300 bc). The distinctive pottery, known as Halaf ware, was exceptionally fine – a thin hard ware in a wide range of competent and attractive shapes bearing brilliant carpet-like designs painted in black, red, and white on the buff surface. Simple steatite stamp seals were coming into use, which imply the development of personal property. In the villages, the typical dwelling was a round house with a vaulted dome (tholos), constructed of mud brick, sometimes on stone foundations. The Halaf culture was succeeded in northern Mesopotamia by the Ubaid culture. It was the seat of an Aramaean kingdom and then a provincial capital of the Neoassyrian Empire. In 808 bc, Adad-nirari III of Assyria sacked the city and reduced the surrounding district to a province of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrian archives provide valuable details of the administrative affairs of the time. It was the Old Testament “Gozan” to which the Israelites were deported in 722 bc after the capture of Samaria.

WHAT IS THE HADRA WARE?

A kind of Hellenistic pottery first found in the Hadra cemetery at Alexandria. It was a burial container inscribed with the name of the deceased and often the date painted or incised on the shoulder.

WHAT IS THE HACKSILVER?

Fragments of ornaments and ingots in Viking silver hoards, having been deliberately cut up in order to be weighed out for the purpose of making payments, before the use of coins as money.