WHAT IS THE LAPIS LAZULI?

A semiprecious stone of an intense blue color, very popular in the ancient Near East for decorative inlays, beads, seals, etc. It is a metamorphosed form of limestone, rich in the blue mineral lazurite, which is dark blue in color and often flecked with impurities of calcite, iron pyrites, or gold. Its main source was Badakhshan, northern Afghanistan, and Iran, from which it was traded as far as Egypt. The Egyptians considered that its appearance imitated that of the heavens, therefore they considered it to be superior to all materials other than gold and silver. They used it extensively in jewelry until the Late Period (664–332 bc), when it was particularly popular for amulets. One of the richest collections of lapis lazuli objects was found in the burials at Tepe Gawra. It has also been found at Ovalle, Chile.

WHAT IS THE LAMASSU?

Colossal stone figures – part human, part animal – carved on the doorways of Assyrian and Achaemenid buildings, as at Nineveh. They were guardian figures.

WHAT IS THE LABRET?

A lip plug or ornament inserted in an incision in the lower lip, often made of shell, bone, ivory, metal, stone, wood, or pottery. Sometimes a succession would be worn, each larger than the predecessor. Labrets indicated the eminence of the wearer, e.g., women of high rank of the northwest coast of North America. Although styles vary and labrets were particularly popular in Mesoamerica, they occur in artifact inventories from the Arctic to the Andes.

WHAT IS THE KYLIX?

A Greek stemmed drinking cup or chalice, usually made of clay or metal. The term was originally used for a cup of any form, but modern scholars restrict it to shallow two-handed stemmed forms. This wide-bowled drinking cup with horizontal handles was one of the most popular pottery forms from Mycenaean times through the Classical Athenian period. There was usually a painted frieze around the outer surface, depicting a subject from mythology or everyday life, and on the bottom of the inside a painting often depicting a dancing or drinking scene.

WHAT IS THE KUDURRU?

1. An Akkadian term meaning frontier, or boundary, for a type of boundary stone used by the Kassites of Mesopotamia. It was a stone block or slab which served as a record of a grant of land made by the king to a favored person. The original kudurrus were kept in temples, while clay copies were given to the landowners. On the stone were engraved the clauses of the contract, the images or symbols of the gods under whose protection the gift was placed, and the curse on those who violated the rights conferred. The kudurrus are important not only for economic and religious reasons but also as almost the only works of art surviving from the period of Kassite rule in Babylonia, around the 16th to 12th centuries bc. The term also applies to the 3rd millennium cuneiform documents in southern Mesopotamia that record land transfers. 2. The word also means “son,” as in personal names such as Nabu-kudurri-usur (Nebuchadnezzar).

WHAT IS THE KRATER?

Ancient Greek vessel used for diluting wine with water. It usually stood on a tripod in the dining room, where wine was mixed. Kraters were made of metal or pottery and were often painted or elaborately ornamented. In Homer’s Iliad the prize offered by Achilles for the foot race at Patroclus’ funeral games was a silver krater. The Greek historian Herodotus describes many enormous and costly kraters dedicated at temples or used in religious ceremonies. Kraters are large, with a broad body and base and usually a wide mouth. They may have horizontal handles placed near the base, or vertical handles rising from the shoulder. Among the many variations are: the bell krater, confined to red-figure pottery, shaped like an inverted bell, with loop handles and a disk foot; the volute krater, with an egg-shaped body and handles that rise from the shoulder and curl in a volute (scrollshaped form) well above the rim; the calyx krater, the shape of which spreads out like the cup or calyx of a flower; and the column krater, with columnar handles rising from the shoulder to a flat, projecting lip rim. Some were fitted with a strainer.

WHAT IS THE KOUROS?

A Greek statue of a youth or a standing nude male youth, of the Archaic period. The large stone figures began to appear in Greece about 615–590 bc. They were funerary markers or dedications in sanctuaries. They were usually larger than life size, made of marble, bronze, or alabaster, and were sometimes painted. The kouros is thought to have been influenced by Egyptian sculpture; the first appearance of such monumental stone figures seems to coincide with the reopening of Greek trade with Egypt in c. 672 bc. The kouros remained a popular form of sculpture until about 460 bc. The female equivalent is called a kore.

WHAT IS THE KORE?

A type of freestanding statue of a maiden – the female counterpart of the kouros or standing youth – that appeared with the beginning of Greek monumental sculpture in about 660 bc and remained to the end of the Archaic period in about 500 bc. It evolved from a highly stylized form to a more naturalistic one. The statue was usually draped, carved from marble, and painted in its original form. They are often dedications in sanctuaries and some are found in funeral contexts. Important series were in the temple of Hera on Samos and on the Acropolis in Athens.

WHAT IS THE KOFUN PERIOD?

Name of the protohistoric tomb period of Japan, ad 300–710, and the type of tumulus used for the burials. Large tombs were built that were covered with artificial hillocks about 8 m (26 feet) high, with burial chambers about 2 m (6.5 feet) underneath the top surface. The burial chamber, enclosed with stones, contained coffins and various funerary offerings. The period when tombs of this kind were built in abundance was characterized by Haji ware and Sue ware. It is divided into Early (4th century), Middle (5th century), and Late (late 5th to 7th centuries). The Kofun period falls between the Yayoi period and the fully historic Nara period and partially overlaps the Asuka and Hakuho periods of art historians. In their writings, the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki texts, the culture was explained. Early kofun were built by modifying natural hills, as were Late Yayoi burial mounds. Haji pottery, used throughout the Kofun period, is very similar to Yayoi pottery and farmers lived in the same kinds of houses, using very similar tools. Technical advances over the Yayoi period include irrigation canals and dams. There were also silversmiths who made the ornaments deposited in the kofun, and professional potters began making Sue pottery in the 5th century. Those in the fertile and well-protected Yamato Basin actively sought new technical and administrative skills on the continent and thus artisans came to make new kinds of pottery, ornaments, and weapons. Yamato leaders gained control over much of Japan in the 7th century and moved the capital to Heijo in ad 710. The magnificent kofun tombs indicate that the Yamato court based in the Yamato area (the present Nara prefecture) succeeded in bringing almost the whole of Japan under its control.

WHAT IS THE KNAPPING?

Working of stone by applying force to its surface – by percussion or pressure – to produce a tool. A knapper is one who manufactures stone artifacts, especially by chipping. This technique of striking flakes or blades from a hard, brittle rock, such as flint or obsidian, is done by means of short, sharp blows delivered with a hammer of stone, bone, or wood. Knapping was used to fashion stone tools and weapons, such as blades and arrowheads, in the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley and was also applied to making beads from agate and carnelian.

WHAT IS THE KLEROTERION?

An ancient machine used to decide who would serve on a jury in courts of law. There are surviving examples, such as the one from the Agora at Athens. Different colored balls would drop when tickets were inserted; the color determined acceptance or rejection.

WHAT IS THE KIMBERLEY POINT?

A pressure-flaked bifacial point with serrated margins and long shallow surface scar beds, found in the Kimberleys region of Western Australia and neighboring areas of the Northern Territory and northwest Queensland. South of the Kimberleys, the point was a trade item and was used as a surgical knife. The points were made at the time of European contact, when bottle glass and porcelain were adapted for the industry

WHAT IS THE KILN?

A chamber built for the firing (baking) of pottery, used from prehistoric times. These, usually dome-shaped, structures are designed to produce the high temperatures needed for the industry. In a pottery kiln, the pots were often stacked upside-down on a shelf. An opening for draft was left at the top, and a flue provided at the side. Fuel was piled within and around the kiln, and when the heat was at its greatest the openings were shut to preserve the temperatures and fire the pots inside, with temperatures of 800–1000°C achieved. Other versions were used in glassmaking or the parching of corn. The kiln, like the potter’s wheel, implies craft specialization, and appears only at advanced stages of economic development. Important types of kilns include: bottle (updraft kiln with a narrow chimney shaped like a bottle), clamp (open-topped updraft kiln of semipermanent construction), climbing (kiln set along a slope to aid the draft), continuous (in which ware is fed continuously into the kiln on a track, moving through it during firing), downdraft (an enclosed periodic kiln in which the heat is passed to the top of the kiln, then the draft carries it down through the ware), intermittent or periodic (kiln that is loaded, fired, cooled, and then unloaded before firing a new batch), muffle (kiln constructed so that the ware is not directly subjected to the radiant heat from the flame or heating elements), pit (clamp that is dug partly into the ground), scove (updraft kiln usually having no permanent parts), tunnel (type of continuous kiln), and updraft (kiln in which the heat or flame passes upward through the ware and then is vented outside).

WHAT IS THE KILLKE CULTURE?

A culture and ceramic pottery style of the Cuzco Basin of Peru, from the Late Intermediate Period, c. ad 1000–1438. It immediately preceded the Inca style ceramics. Killke pots have globular bodies, white or buff slip, and simple black (or black and red) geometric patterns.

WHAT IS THE KHIRBET KERAK?

A Palestinian site on the southwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, settled from the Early/Middle Bronze Age and occupied again from the Hellenistic to the Byzantine periods. In the 4th to 3rd millennia bc, it was a small walled town which lent its name to a distinctive pottery ware (Khirbet Kerak ware, c. 3400) which has been found on many sites throughout the Near East, from Judeidah in Amuq to Lachish in the south. This highly burnished ware with red or black slip is often incised or ribbed in decoration. Its origins lie up in the southern Caucasus (it was related to early Transcaucasian wares), from which it was likely carried south by an emigration of the ancestors of the Hittites. The pottery belongs to the Early Bronze Age III phase and has a wide distribution in Syria and Palestine. It is usually thought to have originated in northeast Anatolia and may have been distributed either by emigration or by trade. The town of the mid 3rd millennium bc contains a massive public building, probably a religious structure, that comprises eight circular stone structures all enclosed by a massive

outer rectangular wall.

WHAT IS THE KHEKER FRIEZE?

Name of a decorative motif common in ancient Egyptian architecture from at least as early as the 3rd dynasty (2686–2613 bc). The motif consists of rows of knots in decorative carved or painted friezes around the upper edges of buildings.

WHAT IS THE KERNOS?

Greek cult vessel – dish, bowl, or jar – made of terra cotta or stucco-covered, sun-baked brick and used for the offering of first fruits. The jar held small cups around its lip and examples are found from the Bronze Age onwards.

WHAT IS THE KENSINGTON STONE?

A stone slab found on a Minnesota farm in 1898 with an inscription in runes purporting to record the arrival of a party of exploring Vikings. An object of controversy from the start, it is now dismissed as a forgery, despite recent confirmation of Viking visits to the eastern American coast. This supposed relic of a 14th-century Scandinavian exploration of the interior of North America is a 90 kg (200-pound) slab of graywacke inscribed with runes (medieval Germanic script). The inscription, dated 1362, is purported to be by a group of Norwegian and Swedish explorers from Vinland who visited the Great Lakes area in that year. The stone is housed in a special museum in Alexandria, Minnesota, and a 26-ton replica stands in nearby Runestone Park.

WHAT IS THE KANTHAROS?

In Greek antiquity, a large, two-handled drinking cup. This type of pottery cup was made in Greek-speaking areas and in Etruria between the 8th and the 1st centuries bc; it had a deep bowl, a foot, and pair of high vertical handles. It was often consecrated to personifications of Bacchus. Early examples are often stemmed. In the 4th and 3rd centuries bc, it became one of the most popular types of drinking vessel in the Greek world.

WHAT IS THE JOMON PERIOD?

Earliest major postglacial culture of hunting and gathering in Japan, 10,000–300 bc, divided into six phases. This early culture, its relics surviving in shell mounds of kitchen midden type around the coasts of the Japanese islands, had pottery but no metal. The pottery was heavy but elaborate, especially in the modeling of its castellated rims. The term Jomon means “cord marked,” reflecting the characteristic decoration of the pottery with cord-pattern impressions or reliefs. One of the earliest dates in the world for pottery-making has been established as c. 12,700 bc in Fukin Cave, Kyshu. Other artifacts, of stone and bone, were simple; light huts, round or rectangular, have been identified. Burials were by inhumation, crouched or extended. The Jomon was succeeded by the Yayoi period. There are over 10,000 Jomon sites divided into the six phases: Incipient (10,000–7500 bc), Earliest (7500–5000 bc), Early (5000–3500 bc), Middle (3500–2500/ 2000 bc), Late (2500/2000–1000 bc), and Final (1000–300 bc). Widespread trading networks and ritual development took place in the Middle Jomon. Rice agriculture was adopted during the last millennium bc. The origins of Jomon culture remain uncertain, although similarities with early cultures of northeast Asia and even America are often cited.

WHAT IS THE JEMDET NASR PERIOD?

A small site between Baghdad and Babylon, near Kish, Iraq, which has given its name to a period of Mesopotamian chronology and its black-and-red painted pottery ware. The period of 3100– 2900 bc was characterized by writing in pictographs, pottery with painted designs or plum-red burnished slip, and plain pottery with beveled rims. Cylinder seals are squat and plain and a drill was used in the designs. The period is characterized by increasing populations, the development of more extensive irrigation systems, towns dominated by temples, increased use of writing and cylinder seals, more trade, and craft specialization. The period – equivalent to Uruk III of the Eanna Sounding sequence – was followed immediately by the Early Dynastic period of Sumer. A building of Jemdet Nasr date may be the oldest palace discovered in southern Mesopotamia.

WHAT IS THE IVORY?

Material from enlarged teeth (or tusk) of certain mammals and used for various tools and artifacts from the Upper Paleolithic. The tusks of elephants, mammoths, and walruses have been prized throughout prehistory and history.

WHAT IS THE IRON AGE?

Period during which iron was utilized by early man, beginning about 3000 years ago, following the Stone Age and Bronze Age in the Three Age System. In this period, tools, implements, and weapons were first made of iron. Iron had many advantages over bronze, so its spread was rapid. The Iron Age began at different times in different parts of the world according to the availability of iron ore and the state of knowledge. In Europe, the earliest iron appears around 1100 bc. The traditional timing of the transition from bronze to iron is placed in the early 1st millennium bc. The age began about 1500 bc in the Middle East, about 900 bc in southern Europe, and after 400 bc in northern Europe. In most of Asia, the Iron Age falls entirely within the historic period. In America, iron was introduced by the arrival of Europeans; in Africa, it began before the earlier metal ages. The southern African Iron Age is divided into the Early Iron Age, ad 200–1000, and the Late Iron Age, ad 1000 until the 19th century. The term is general and arbitrary. There is evidence that meteorites were used as a source of iron before 3000 bc, but extraction of the metal from ore dates from about 2000 bc.

WHAT IS THE INDIRECT PERCUSSION?

A technique of stone-tool manufacture in which flakes are removed from a flint core in a way that causes less wasteful shatter of the material than direct percussion.

The hammer or hammerstone does not strike the flint but rather a wood, antler, or bone punch, usually with

a prepared edge, so that the manufacture of flakes is more controlled.