A Dictionary of Archaeology

for sale’ as described by Herodotus (The Persian Wars, book IV). Archaeological evidence reveals an economy based on intensive agriculture, including the cultivation of emmer, hulled barley and (to a lesser extent) bread wheat, club wheat, rye, Italian millet and pulses (pea, lentil). Numerous imported Greek goods (mostly pottery and metalware) attest to strong trading links with the Greek colonies. The ethnicity of the forest-steppe groups remain unclear. However, it is now generally accepted by the Russian scholars that the ‘royal Scythians’ spoke a northern dialect of the Iranian language. See also

ARZHAN and PAZYRYK.

A.I. Terenozˇkin and V.A. Il’inskaya: ‘Skifija’ [Scythians],

Arheologija Ukrainskoi SSR [The archaeology of the Ukrainian SSR], ed. S.D. Kryzhitsky (Kiev, 1986), vol. 2, 43–169; R. Rolle: The World of the Scythians (London, 1984); T. Taylor: ‘Thracians, Scythians and Dacians’, The Oxford illustrated prehistory of Europe, ed. B. Cunliffe (Oxford, 1994), 373–410.

PD

Scythopolis (Beth Shan, Tell el-Husn, Baysan) Settlement-site located at the eastern edge of the plain of Jezreel on the West Bank (Israel/Jordan), which was occupied from the Chalcolithic to the Islamic period. It was excavated between 1921 and 1933 as well as in the 1990s.

1 Pre-Roman period (Beth Shan/Tell el-Husn). The site’s location in the Jordan valley, on the most convenient route between the Nile valley and the Euphrates, made it a key site for trading and campaign routes, particularly from the point of view of New Kingdom pharaohs such as Thutmose III (c.1440 BC), during whose reign two sanctuaries were dedicated to the CANAANITE deity Mikal. From at least as early as the reign of Ramesses II (c.1290–1224 BC) an Egyptian garrison was established at Beth Shan, and it is possible that a group of clay anthropoid coffins in the ‘north cemetery’ may have contained the remains of foreign mercenaries drafted into the Egyptian army, since many of the coffins bear depictions of feathered headdresses similar to those worn by some of the SEA PEOPLES. In the early Iron Age the site was influenced by the PHILISTINES (judging from the presence of ‘Philistine pottery’) but by the 10th century BC it had been incorporated into the kingdom of ISRAEL.

2 Roman/Islamic period (Scythopolis/Baysan). The excavation of the later town-site, dating primarily to the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods, is of great importance in terms of the process of change that was taking place in the period between the 4th century AD and the early Islamic period. The trans-

SEA PEOPLES 515

formation of the urban space and fabric of Scythopolis that took place during this period is by no means peculiar to this site but it has been better studied than at most other places. The excavations show the evolution of a pagan Roman grid-plan town into a Christian Byzantine town which continued to be occupied into the early Islamic period. This evolution corresponds to what happened at Damascus, JERUSALEM, Jarash (in Jordan) and Tiberias (in Israel), and the model represented by Scythopolis is probably applicable throughout the region. Indeed, the same process has been recognized as far west as the Libyan coast.

A. Rowe and G.M. Fitzgerald: Beth-Shean, 3 vols (Philadelphia, 1930–40); F.W. James: The Iron Age of Beth-Shan (Philadelphia, 1966); E. Oren: The northern cemetery at Beth Shean (Leiden, 1973); F.W. James and P.E. McGovern: The Late Bronze Egyptian garrison at Beth Shan: a study of levels VI and VIII, 2 vols (Philadelphia, 1993); Y. Tsafrir and G. Foerster: ‘From Scythopolis to Baysân – changing concepts of urbanism’,

The Byzantine and early Islamic Near East II: land use and settlement patterns, ed. G.R.D. King and A. Cameron (Princeton, 1994), 95–115.

GK/IS

Sealand Area of ancient southern Mesopotamia roughly corresponding to the region of modern Iraq now occupied by the Marsh Arabs and currently under severe threat both from political persecution and environmental change. The ‘second dynasty’ of Babylon (1026–1005 BC) is also known as the Sealand dynasty. According to the Babylonian Royal Lists, it consisted of 11 kings. Its capital city, Urukug, has not been located archaeologically.

G. Maxwell: A reed shaken by the wind (London, 1957); W. Thesiger: The Marsh Arabs (London, 1964; Harmondsworth, 1967).

IS

Sea Peoples Term used by the Egyptians to describe a large group of sea-going Indo-European migrants (including the Ekwesh, Shekelesh, Tjeker, Weshesh, Teresh, Sherden, Peleset Lukka and Denyen) of uncertain origins. A relief on the wall of Karnak temple records an unsuccessful invasion of Egypt by an alliance of Libyans and Sea Peoples in c.1207 BC. The attacks of the Sea Peoples appear to have been part of a general scenario of invasions and population movements in the Mediterranean region. In 1174 BC the Egyptian ruler Ramesses III defeated them again in a great naval battle, which was depicted on the outer wall of his mortuary temple at MEDINET HABU (in western Thebes). Although the 20th-dynasty pharaohs

516 SEA PEOPLES

maintained control of Canaan, the Sea Peoples (particularly Peleset and Tjeker) were allowed to settle there and the Egyptian garrison at Beth-shan came to be manned by Peleset mercenaries. By the 11th century BC, Canaan seems to have been largely controlled by Sea Peoples. See also PHILISTINES.

G.A. Wainwright, ‘Some Sea-Peoples and others in the Hittite archives’, JEA 25 (2) (1939) 148–53; W. Helck, Die Beziehungen Ägyptens und Vorderasiens zur Agäis bis ins 7.Jh. v.Chr. (Darmstadt, 1979); N.K. Sandars, Sea Peoples (London, 1985).

IS

Sebekian see SEBILIAN

Sebilian Upper Palaeolithic industry found at sites in Upper Egypt, originally identified by Edmund Vignard in the KOM OMBO plain, about 40 km north of Aswan. Vignard (1923) divided the Sebilian into three basic phases (c. 13,000–10,000 BC), developing gradually from LEVALLOIS flakes in phase 1 to microblades in phase 3. According to more recent work in the Kom Ombo plain, however, the earliest Sebilian assemblages were contemporary with the Silsilian and the Sebekian microblade industries (Smith 1968), suggesting a much greater technological diversity for the Kom Ombo plain during the Upper Palaeolithic than Vignard’s simple evolutionary model had implied. Whether the three industries can be interpreted as different ethnic groups or simply the remains of three roughly contemporaneous groups practising different combinations of hunting, fishing and gathering remains a matter for discussion.

E. Vignard: ‘Une nouvelle industrie lithique: le “Sébilien”’, BIFAO 22 (1923), 1–76; A.E. Marks: ‘The Sebilian industry of the Second Cataract’, The prehistory of Nubia I, ed. F. Wendorf (Dallas, 1968), 461–531; P.E.L. Smith: A revised view of the later Paleolithic of Egypt (Paris, 1968); F. Hassan and F. Wendorf: ‘A Sebilian assemblage from El Kilh (Upper Egypt)’, CdE 49 (1974), 211–21.

IS

secondary products revolution Hypothesis outlined by Andrew Sherratt in 1981, and refined by him in 1983, which suggested that the ‘secondary’ products of animal husbandry were intensively and connectedly exploited from the mid-4th millennium BC in temperate Europe in such a way as to promote significant and multiplying changes in farming and social systems. Secondary products, in contrast to primary animal products such as meat or hide, may be defined as those economic benefits that are produced by,

rather than from, domestic animals: dairy foodstuffs; wool; traction for ploughs and wagons; riding and pack transport. Sherratt believed that the use of secondary products first developed, from the 5th millennium BC or earlier, in various areas of the Near East (the horse in the Steppes region), and that these innovations then spread as a distinct package into much of temperate Europe. The theory thus suggests that the development of Old World agriculture can be divided into two stages: ‘an initial stage of hoe cultivation . . . in which animals were kept purely for meat; and a second stage in which both plough agriculture and pastoralism can be recognized.’

Sherratt regards the elements of this ‘second wave’ of farming as dependent upon one another, so that, for example, the deforestation encouraged by plough agriculture eventually also promoted pastoralism. The various elements of the secondary products revolution can be recognized archaeologically in various ways, for example age and sex differences in the culling of herds; representation of plough and traction animals in art; specialized pottery for the handling of milk products or artefacts for the processing of wool. Criticism of the hypothesis has centred on whether the archaeological manifestations of the secondary products revolution are indeed connected and contemporary (Chapman 1982: reply, Sherratt 1986). Greenfield attempted to test the theory with regard to a specific area, the Central Balkans; he concluded that there was evidence for a relatively rapid and significant adoption of the use of secondary products in the area, but questioned the idea of a distinct ‘package’ spreading from the Near East. Sherratt himself has increasingly stressed the complexity of local adoptions of secondary products, pointing to the importance of social symbolism and social prestige in the adoption of the secondary products revolution.

A. Sherratt: ‘Plough and pastoralism: aspects of the secondary products revolution’ Pattern of the past: studies in honour of David Clarke, ed. Ian Hodder et al. (Cambridge, 1981), 261–305; J. Chapman: ‘The secondary products revolution’, Institute of Archaeology Bulletin 19 (1982), 107–22; A. Sherratt: ‘The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World’, WA 15/1 (1983), 90–104;

––––: ‘Wool, wheels and ploughmarks: local developments or outside introductions in Neolithic Europe?’,

Institute of Archaeology Bulletin 23 (1986), 1–15; H.J. Greenfield: ‘The origins of milk and wool production in the Old World: a zoological perspective from the Central Balkans’, CA 29/4 (1988), 573–94 [additional comments 743–8].

RJA

Second Series see ARMORICAN FIRST and

SECOND SERIES

section Vertical face of a BAULK showing the changes in soil colour and texture comprising the stratigraphy of a site or feature, and allowing archaeologists to record the relative positions of those layers and features ‘caught’ in the section. Features as small as stakeholes are also often ‘sectioned’ so that their vertical profile can be accurately recorded. Section drawings are invariably made by setting up a horizontal piece of string across the face of the baulk and measuring offsets from this ‘datum line’.

Sehonghong Middle/Later Stone Age rockshelter in southeast Lesotho, South Africa. The explanation in symbolic terms of a painting on the wall of this shelter, given by a Bushman in 1874, has provided the key to understanding much of the art in southern Africa. The excavations of Pat Carter in 1971 and Peter Mitchell in 1992 have revealed a succession of industries including four stages of the Middle Stone Age: MSA 3 (oldest, with segments); and MSA 5, 6, and 9, without segments; a Late Pleistocene microblade industry (13,000–12,000 uncal BP); and Midand Late Holocene microlithic industries. This is one of only a few sites with occupations spanning the Middle Stone Age/Later Stone Age transition, and provides evidence of the survival of Middle Stone Age technique to almost 20,000 years ago, with indications of increasing emphasis on reduction in blade size over a period of thousands of years prior to the transition.

P.L. Carter, P.J. Mitchell and P. Vinnicombe:

Sehonghong: the Middle and Later Stone Age industrial sequence at a Lesotho rockshelter (Oxford, 1988).

RI

Seima-Turbino Bronze Age metalworking tradition, and associated culture, identified at various sites in European Russia and Siberia. Typology and a single radiocarbon date from Yelupino cemetery in the Altai mountains suggest that the tradition dates to 1700–1600 BC. It was first recognized before the First World War by A.M. Tallgren and V.A. Gorodtsov, who noticed the similarities between certain types of bronze implements; it was later studied by O.N. Bader (1970) and others. Information regarding the Seima-Turbino culture comes from several cemeteries excavated over a prolonged period and with varying degrees of professionalism.

Seima (Sejma) cemetery is situated on a sand-

SEIMA-TURBINO 517

dune ridge on the left bank of the River Oka, at its confluence with the Volga. The site was excavated in 1912–14 by a local military detachment, and judging from the incomplete records, no less than 50 graves were discovered. Out of the 112 metal objects found, no more than 70 have survived. Turbino-1 cemetery lies within the town of Perm. Excavated by A.V. Schmidt in 1924–7 and by O.N. Bader in 1958–60, the cemetery contained about 200 graves; no skeletal remains were found. Among 3128 metal implements were: 44 socketed celts, 40 daggers or knives, 13 spearheads, three shaft-hole axes, 23 temple rings, and 9 bracelets. At the neighbouring cemetery of Turbino-2, a knife with a terminal cast as a bull’s head was found.

Reshnoe cemetery is located in Nizhni-Nov- gorod district, on a dune ridge, on the right bank of the River Oka. It was excavated in 1974–5 by Bader, who found 18 graves arranged in three rows, but no human remains. The metal objects included socketed celts, spearheads, knives-daggers, adzes and awls. The grave inventory comprises numerous flint implements, two nephrite rings and nine ceramic vessels.

Rostovka cemetery lies on the River Om, in the southern suburb of the city of Omsk. V.I. Matyushchenko excavated (1966–9) 38 shallow rectangular graves, in which the dominant burial rite was inhumation, in some cases combined with partial cremation. The remaining bodies were generally oriented to the west. Some bodies had been beheaded; there were also separate burials of skulls.

Figure 46 Seima–Turbino Bronze celts of the Seima–Turbino tradition. Source: E.N. Chernykh and S.V. Kuz’minykh: ‘Pamyatniki seiminsko-turbinskogo tipa v Evrazii’, Epoha bronzy lesnoi polosy SSSR, ed. O.N. Bader (Moscow, 1987), fig. 42.

518 SEIMA-TURBINO

The Seima-Turbino metal tools fall into three main categories: celts, spearheads and daggersknives with numerous sub-types. Tin and tin-arsenic bronze alloys account for 41.4% of the analyzed objects. Tools made of these materials are spread over a wide area, from Finland to the Altai. E.N. Chernykh (1970) suggests that these tools were manufactured from ores originating in the Altai mines. Copper sandstone east of the Urals probably formed the source of the ‘pure’ copper. Metal artefacts showing Seima-Turbino characteristics are known from the numerous sites over a very wide area: from Finland in the west to the Baikal Lake in the east.

O.N. Bader: Bassein Oki v epohu bronzy [The Oka basin in the Bronze age] (Moscow, 1970); E.N. Chernykh: ‘Drevneišaja metallurgija Urala i Povolzˇ’ja’ [The most ancient metallurgy of the Urals and Volga area], MIAS 172 (Moscow, 1970); E.N. Chernykh and S.V. Kuz’minykh: ‘Pamyatniki seiminsko-turbinskogo tipa v Evrazii’ [Sites of Seima-Turbino type in Eurasia], Epoha bronzy lesnoi polosy SSSR [The Bronze age in the forest zone of the USSR], eds. O.N. Bader et al., Arheologija SSSR (Moscow, 1987).

PD

Seine-Oise-Marne culture see SOM

CULTURE

Seip Middle WOODLAND geometric earthwork in Ross County, Ohio (USA). Radiocarbon-dated to a calendar date of c.AD 200–300, it consists of two circles and a square enclosing more than 40 ha. Within the earthworks are a large loaf-shaped mound, three large conjoined mounds and a number of smaller mounds. Archaeological investigations spanning much of the 20th century indicate that the site is a HOPEWELL mortuary/ceremonial centre. Excavation within the earthworks exposed the remains of at least seven structures, apparently associated with the production of elaborate ceremonial and ornamental objects of mica and other exotic materials, suggesting that earthworks like Seip were not ‘vacant’ ceremonial centres.

H. Shetrone and E. Greenman: ‘Explorations of the Seip group of prehistoric earthworks’, Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 40 (1931), 343–509: R. Baby and S. Langlois: ‘Seip Mound State Memorial: nonmortuary aspects of Hopewell’, Hopewell archaeology: the Chillicothe conference, ed. D. Brose and N. Greber (Kent, OH, 1979), 16–18.

RJE

Seleucid The historical definition of the Seleucid period is relatively straightforward,

stretching from 312 to 64 BC. After the death of Alexander the Great, his generals quarrelled and by 312 BC the Macedonian empire had been divided into two halves. The former Achaemenid areas of Western Asia were then ruled by Seleucus, a former satrap of Babylon, and his descendants, while North Africa and the Levant were ruled by Ptolemy and his successors. At the beginning of the period a new royal city, Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, was founded 90 km to the north of Babylon, but Esagila, the precinct of the god Marduk, at Babylon clearly retained its importance and cuneiform continued to be used until at least AD 75, particularly for reading astronomical observations. The ‘Seleucid period’ drew to a close when the territories of the Seleucid dynasty were effectively squeezed between the expanding empires of Rome and PARTHIA. A great deal of socio-economic information has survived in the form of texts on clay tablets, papyrus and parchment, as well as bullae (small clay balls inscribed with Greek or Aramaic texts and attached by string to papyrus or parchment documents).

A. Kuhrt and S. Sherwin-White, eds: Hellenism in the East (London, 1987); –––– and ––––: From Samarkand to Sardis: a new approach to the Seleucid empire (London, 1993).

IS

SEM see SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

Semaina see HIW-SEMAINA REGION

Semainean culture Discredited term for the final protodynastic phase of the Upper Egyptian predynastic period, introduced by Flinders Petrie at the turn of the century.

Semna Egyptian fortified settlement site founded in c.1950 BC on the west bank of the Nile at the southern end of a chain of Egyptian fortresses established in the 2nd-cataract area of Lower Nubia during the 12th dynasty (c.1991–1783 BC). A cluster of four mud-brick fortresses (Semna, Kumma, Semna South and Uronarti, all now submerged under LAKE NASSER) were constructed in the strategically important area of the Semna gorge, the narrowest section of the entire Nile valley and the southern frontier of 12th-dynasty Egypt (for a detailed description and interpretation of the Semna forts see Kemp 1989: 172–8). Semna and Kumma also included the remains of temples, houses and cemeteries dating to the New Kingdom (c.1550–1070 BC), contemporary with such Lower

Nubian towns as AMARA West and SESEBI, when the 2nd cataracts region was no longer a frontier zone but effectively part of the Egyptian ‘empire’.

G.A. Reisner: ‘Excavations in Egypt and Ethiopia’, BMFA 22 (1925), 18–28; D. Dunham and J.M.A. Janssen:

Second cataract forts I: Semna, Kumma (Boston, 1960), 5–112; B.J. Kemp: Ancient Egypt: anatomy of a civilization

(London, 1989), 172–8.

IS

Sepharvaim see SIPPAR

sequence dating Method of ‘occurrence SERIATION’ used by Flinders Petrie in the early 20th century to construct a relative chronology for the Egyptian predynastic period (see EGYPT 1). Since virtually all excavated Upper Egyptian predynastic material was from cemeteries rather than stratified settlement sites, only seriation could provide an adequate framework for a relative chronology. Petrie arranged the pottery that he had excavated from the cemeteries of Diospolis Parva (see HIWSEMAINA REGION) into a set of more than 700 different pottery types. He then assigned the material from 900 different graves (each containing at least five different types of artefact) to 51 phases in a relative chronology, which he numbered from SD30 (i.e. sequence date 30) to SD80. The task of compiling this sequence was aided by Petrie’s own intuitive observations, such as the apparent tendency for wavy-handled vessels to grow smaller and more cylindrical over time, while handles seemed to diminish in size. Confirmation of the reliability of sequence dating has since been provided by radiocarbon dating and by the excavation of stratified predynastic settlements such as

Hammamiya (see EL-BADARI) and HIERAKONPOLIS.

Whereas Petrie developed his sequence by the relatively crude technique of arranging strips of cardboard into lines, in 1963 the statistician David Kendall provided a more rapid and scientific method of seriation in the form of a computer program using a version of the Shepard-Kruskal

routine (Kendall,

W.M.F. Petrie: ‘Sequences in prehistoric remains’, JAI, n.s. 29 (1899), 290–301; ––––: Diospolis Parva: the cemeteries of Abadiyeh and Hu, 1898–9 (London, 1901); D.G. Kendall: ‘A statistical approach to Flinders Petrie’s sequence-dating’, Bulletin of the International Statistics Institute 40 (1963), 657–80; B.J. Kemp: ‘Automatic analysis of Predynastic cemeteries: a new method for an old problem’, JEA 68 (1982), 5–15.

IS

SERIATION 519

Serabit el-Khadim Group of Egyptian turquoise mines in central southern Sinai, with an unusual associated temple complex dating to the Middle and New Kingdoms (c.2040–1070 BC). In the temple precincts and the surrounding area there are numerous rock-cut and free-standing stelae dedicated by mining expeditions to the goddess Hathor ‘Lady of Turquoise’, as well as inscriptions

in the PROTOSINAITIC script.

W.M.F. Petrie: Researches in Sinai (London, 1906); A. Gardiner and J. Cerny: The inscriptions of Sinai II

(London, 1955), 32–51; D. Valbelle and C. Bonnet: ‘Le sanctuarie d’Hathor, maîtresse de la turquoise’ (Paris, 1996).

IS

Serapeum see ALEXANDRIA; SAQQARA

Serçe Liman Site of the wreck of a deepdraughted cargo ship, 15 m long, 5.13 m across its beam, with a capacity of 30–40 tons, which sank off the coast of southwestern Turkey in c.AD 1025. Underwater excavations between 1977 and 1981 by Frederick Van Doorninck and George Bass brought to light the complex nature of its cargo. Its principal hold contained a large quantity of glass waste, probably brought from a Fatimid glass factory in Egypt. Several small cargoes included Fatimid ceramic lamps, and a collection of Byzantine maiolica dishes from southern Turkey. It is believed to have been bound for western Anatolia, or possibly Constantinople. The finds are now on display in the St Peter’s Castle Museum at Bodrum, Turkey.

G. Bass and F.H. Van Doorninck, Jr.: ‘An 11th-century shipwreck at Serçe Liman, Turkey’, IJNA 7 (1978), 119–32; J.R. Stiffy: ‘The reconstruction of the 11th century Serçe Liman vessel, a preliminary report’, IJNA 11 (1982), 13–37.

RH

serdab (Arabic: ‘cellar’) Term used to describe the room in Egyptian MASTABA-TOMBS where statues of the deceased were usually placed. There were often eye-holes in the wall of the serdab to allow offerings to pass through to the statues from the tomb chapel.

A.M. Blackman: ‘The ka-house and the serdab’, JEA 3 (1916), 250–4; A.J. Spencer: Death in ancient Egypt (Harmondsworth, 1982), 60–1.

IS

seriation Method of arranging artefacts, sites or assemblages into a linear sequence on the basis of

520 SERIATION

the degree of similarity between the various elements in the sequence. First scientifically applied in the early 19th century, seriation is still a common means of constructing relative chronologies for prehistoric cultures (on the basis of such criteria as developments in artefactual style, function or material), particularly when there is a lack of stratified material.

Christian Jurgensen Thomsen (1788–1865) was the earliest exponent of seriation. In 1816 he began to use the method to organize the collection of prehistoric artefacts in the National Museum of Antiquities at Copenhagen into a chronological order that corresponded to the Three Age System (i.e. a sequence of three culture-history stages distinguished by the use of Stone, Bronze and Iron respectively; see Gräslund 1981, 1987). Thomsen’s seriation of artefacts from Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in Denmark laid the foundations for the chronology of European prehistory. By 1885 Gustav Oscar Montelius had produced a more refined artefactual seriation for the Bronze Age (Montelius, 1986), but it was the use of stratigraphic excavation by Jens Worsaae that eventually provided conclusive corroboration of the Three Age chronological sequence.

Thomsen and Montelius used seriation to construct simple evolutionary typologies of artefacts, but in 1899 Flinders Petrie became the first archaeologist to apply seriation methods to excavated assemblages from specific sites, with his development of ‘SEQUENCE DATING’ for the Egyptian predynastic period (Petrie, 1899). A distinction is usually made between Petrie’s application of ‘occurrence’ or ‘incidence’ seriation (a sequence constructed on the basis of presence or absence in an assemblage of many different artefactual types) and the use of ‘frequency’ or ‘abundance’ seriation (which relied on observation of changing frequencies of a smaller number of artefacts), such as that applied by Kroeber and Spier to the ceramic sequence of the Zuni people of North America (Spier 1917). The essential techniques of frequency seriation are summarized by Brainerd (1951) and Robinson (1951).

Various computerized methods of seriation have been devised to analyse particular sets of data, such as Goldmann’s seriation of about 4000 finds from various European Bronze Age sites, which utilized stratigraphic information in the interpretive stage of the analysis (Marquardt 1978) and Kendall and Kemp’s reanalysis of Petrie’s predynastic material (Kendall 1963; Kemp 1982).

The mathematical aspects of seriation itself have been considerably refined, but its validity in any

individual instance still depends on the answers to numerous contextual questions. What types of attributes are the best chronological indicators and how can they be distinguished from other variants? What social situations are likely to encourage rapid technological or stylistic development? David Clarke has pointed out that there are various potential problems with the use of seriation, such as the assumption that all aspects of a material culture must have developed at a similar rate, and there is also a risk (especially when using data from more than one site) that spatial patterns may be confused with chronological trends, but he concludes that ‘if the data is carefully controlled and if the interpretation is of the broad kind . . . then these techniques [of seriation] remain dangerous but invaluable, like all the most useful methodology’.

W.M.F. Petrie: ‘Sequences in prehistoric remains’, JAI, n.s. 29 (1899), 295–301; L. Spier: An outline for a chronology of Zuni ruins (New York, 1917); G.W. Brainerd: ‘The place of chronological ordering in archaeological analysis’, AA 16 (1951), 301–13; W.S. Robinson: ‘A method for chronologically ordering archaeological deposits’, AA 16 (1951), 293–301; D.G. Kendall: ‘A statistical approach to Flinders Petrie’s sequence-dating’, Bulletin of the International Statistics Institute 40 (1963), 657–80; W.H. Marquardt: ‘Advances in archaeological seriation’,

Advances in archaeological method and theory, I (1978), 257–314; B. Gräslund: ‘The background to C.J. Thomsen’s Three-Age system’, Towards a history of archaeology, ed. G. Daniel (London, 1981), 45–50; B.J. Kemp: ‘Automatic analysis of predynastic cemeteries: a new method for an old problem’, JEA 68 (1982), 5–15; O. Montelius: Dating in the Bronze Age with special reference to Scandinavia (Stockholm, 1986); B. Gräslund: The birth of prehistoric chronology (Cambridge, 1987).

IS

Serpent Mound Prehistoric site in Adams County, Ohio (USA), consisting of an ‘animaleffigy’ mound built in the form of a serpent (see EFFIGY MOUND CULTURE). It was once considered to be of Early WOODLAND origin (c.1000–200 BC), but radiocarbon dates suggest that it was built during the Late Prehistoric period (c.AD 1070; see Fletcher et al. 1996). The serpent, which extends for more than 365 m along a low ridge overlooking Brush Creek, has a tightly coiled tail, an undulating body and a wide-opened mouth. The head and the neck are extended, pointing to the west, with the head resting on its right side. Immediately in front of the opened mouth is a large (18 × 36 m) ovalshaped mound resembling an egg or eye. At its midpoint, the serpent’s body was about 6 m wide and 1.5 m high, gradually tapering toward the tail.

E. Randall: The Serpent Mound, Adams County, Ohio

A.L. Blackman and H.W. Fairman: Preliminary reports in JEA 23–5, 34 (1937–9, 1948); R. Morkot: ‘The excavations at Sesebi (Sudla) 1936–38’, Beiträge zur Sudanforschung 3 (1988), 159–64.

IS

Sesklo Neolithic tell site on the plains of Thessaly, about 15 km southwest of Volos, Greece. Sesklo is particularly important in that it has yielded a succession of levels from the earliest agricultural phases until the proto-urbanism of the Sesklo culture proper. The tell was investigated in the early 1900s by Christos Tsountas, and again between 1956 and 1977 by Demetrios Theocharis, but it has not been fully published. The earliest level (c.7000 BC) is recorded as ‘pre-ceramic’, with

SHABTI 521

evidence for domesticated cereals and animals and the scanty remains of huts – it may be compared to

similar phases at FRANCHTHI CAVE and ARGISSA.

This is followed by an Early Neolithic phase, characterized by largely monochrome and some simple painted ware. By the Middle Neolithic, the settlement had developed into a small, lightly fortified town with perhaps 3000 inhabitants. There are narrow, parallel streets, and a large central ‘MEGARON’ structure with a paved courtyard. In this period there developed a distinctive painted pottery tradition, with vessels typically adorned with a limited range of zig-zag triangular and sawtooth motifs painted in red on a white slip. The style spread over much of Thessaly, and defines what has become known as the ‘Sesklo culture’; some very accomplished schematic figurines are associated with this pottery.

D. Theocharis et al.: Neolithic Greece (Athens, 1973); M. Wijnen: ‘The Early Neolithic I settlement at Sesklo: an early farming community in Thessaly, Greece’, Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia XIV (Leiden, 1981).

RJA

Setouchi technique Lithic technique characteristic of the Late Palaeolithic of Japan, particularly adapted to the manufacture of tools from sanukite (a form of andesite). Large flakes were struck from a sanukite block to produce a dihydral striking platform from which a series of uniform trapezoidal long flakes could be removed for the manufacture of Kou knives.

C.M. Aikens and T. Higuchi: The prehistory of Japan (London, 1982), 52–3.

SK

Severn-Cotswold tombs see COTSWOLD-

SEVERN TOMBS

SG see SPECIFIC GRAVITY ANALYSIS

shabti (ushabti, shawabty) Mummiform figurine which was introduced into the Egyptian funerary repertoire by the Middle Kingdom (c.2040–1640 BC). Shabtis were at first carved individually out of wood or stone but by the late New Kingdom they were being mass-produced in glazed composition, and often several hundred might accompany a single burial (frequently placed in shabti-boxes). Most New Kingdom shabtis were inscribed with at least a short extract from chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead (a collection of funerary spells), the text of which indicates that shabtis were intended to

522 SHABTI

undertake specific agricultural tasks for the deceased in the afterworld.

H. Schneider: Shabtis, 3 vols (Leiden, 1977); H.M. Stewart: Egyptian shabtis (Princes Risborough, 1995).

IS

shadow sites see AERIAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Shaduppum see HARMAL, TELL

shaft-and-chamber tomb Tomb in South America consisting of a vertical, sloping or stepped shaft off the bottom of which open one or more chambers where burials are placed. The incredible variety of such tombs indicates their multiple origins and local evolutions.

Shahdad Group of sites in an oasis northeast of the Iranian city of Kirman, where the major archaeological remains are a set of three cemeteries of the late 4th and 3rd millennia BC. The extravagant funerary equipment, including baked clay statuary as well as artefacts of silver, bronze, steatite and lapis lazuli, combined with surface survey across the settlement, indicate that there were extensive areas of stone-carving and metalworking. The town was an important early trade centre in contact with the Sumerians of the

period in Mesopotamia. A large quantity of sherds from the earlier phases of Shahdad are incised with an unusual pictographic script, as well as one inscription using the rare Linear ELAMITE script, 17 examples of which were found at SUSA.

IS

el-Shaheinab see KHARTOUM NEOLITHIC

Shaheinab culture see KHARTOUM

NEOLITHIC

Shahi Tump Site of a small settlement and cemetery of the KULLI COMPLEX of the late 3rd millennium BC in southwest Baluchistan, Pakistan. Small-scale excavations were carried out by Auriel Stein in the 1920s, revealing traces of stone and mud-brick architecture, grey-ware ceramics (‘Anjira ware’) and painted Kulli ceramics. The site also incorporated approximately 14 burials (including one adult male buried with a copper axe) and other disarticulated human remains, many associated with distinctive ceramic vessels. These

vessels were highly uniform with extremely thin walls, and decorated with simple painted designs incorporating narrow bands, triangles and swastikas. Some of the forms, such as rimless bowls and cups, were found to be nested within each other. Other goods found in the burials included animal bones, copper beads and bangles and stone beads.

M.A. Stein: ‘An archaeological tour in Gedrosia’, MASI 43 (1931), 88–103.

CS

Shahr-i Sokhta Large tell-site in the Seistan region of the eastern Iranian plateau, dating mainly from the late 4th to the early 2nd millennium BC, which perhaps developed as a result of its important role in one of the lapis lazuli trade-routes from Afghanistan to SUSA and beyond. The site, excavated by Maurizio Tosi in the 1960s and 1970s, was found to be remarkably well-preserved as a result of an overlying saline deposit. The settlement covers about 100 ha, with an additional 40 ha taken up by its unusually large cemetery. The study of the patterning of activities within the settlement has produced interesting results concerning the state organization of craftwork, suggesting that certain crafts, such as stone-working, were practised by specialists, almost on an industrial scale, whereas others, such as weaving, were common throughout the residential parts of the town. The lapis lazuli workshops still contained large quantities of flint artefacts and unfinished stone beads. Tosi (1984) has interpreted the intra-settlement patterning from a MARXIST point of view, with the aim of assessing the ‘variability in the spatial allocation of craft production’, but this approach is open to the charge that it imposes politicized jargon on a comparatively straightforward socio-economic system. Philip Kohl, on the other hand, in an impressive example of ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY, analysed the chlorite carved vessels made at Shahr-i Sokhta and Tepe Yahya, comparing the methods of production and consumption with those employed at the modern chlorite-working centre of Meshed (Kohl 1975).

R. Biscione: Dynamics of an early southern Asian urbanization’, South Asian Archaeology, ed. N. Hammond (London, 1973), 105–18; K. Fischer: ‘Micro-drilling at Shahr i-Sokhta’, South Asian Archaeology, ed. N. Hammond (London, 1973), 119–30; P.L. Kohl: ‘Carved chlorite vessels’, Expedition 18 (1975), 18–31; M. Tosi: ‘The notion of craft specialization and its representation in the archaeological record of early states in the Turanian Basin’, Marxist perspectives in archaeology, ed. M. Spriggs (Cambridge, 1984), 22–52.

IS

Shakado A series of five Early and Middle Jomon (c.5000–2000 BC) habitation sites in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan, where 1000+ fragments of ceramic anthropomorphic figurines were excavated in 1980–81. Refitting of the fragments has shown that the figurines were designed so as to be easily broken. Rituals involving the breakage and distribution of these figurines were important in the social relations of Jomon communities from the surrounding region.

M. Yamagata: ‘The Shakado figurines and Middle Jomon ritual in the Kofu Basin’, JJRS 19/2–3 (1992), 129–38.

SK

Shalfak Egyptian fortress located on the west bank of the Nile in the 2nd cataract region; one of a string of fortresses established by Senusret III in order to safeguard the economic and political interests in Nubia. The barracks and granary, together occupying an area of some 2250 sq. m, were protected by a 5 m thick mud-brick outer wall and three spur-walls.

D. Dunham: Second cataract forts II: Uronarti, Shalfak, Mirgissa (Boston, 1967), 115–40; B.J. Kemp: Ancient Egypt: anatomy of a civilization (London, 1989), 172–3.

IS

shaman, shamanism Shaman is the Tungusian word for a priest or priest-doctor. The term shamanism was therefore originally applied by anthropologists to the religion of the Ural-Altaic peoples of Siberia, according to which the good and evil elements in life were regarded as deriving from spirits over whom the shaman exercised some control. The word has since been applied to similar priestly figures in many different places and periods, from the magical man-beast figure of the Yang-Shao Neolithic culture of China (see YANG-SHIH) to the medicine-man of north-western America. A perception has also grown up that there may have been strong connections between shamanism and various forms of ancient art (see Schrire et al. 1986; Reichel-Dolmatoff 1988). The ceramics and jewellery from the site of CALIMA in Colombia and the rock art of CUEVA IGLESIA in Venezuela are regarded as possible expressions of shamanism.

A. Lommel: Shamanism: the beginnings of art (New York and Toronto, n.d.); H. Breuil: ‘Partiques religieuses chez les humanités quarternaires’, Scienza e Civilita (1951): 45–75; M. Eliade: Shamanism: archaic techniques of ecstasy

(New York, 1964); P.T. Furst: ‘The roots and continuities of shamanism’, Stone bones and skin, ed. A.T. Brodzky et al. (Toronto, 1977), 1–28; C.J. Schrire, J. Deacon, M. Hall and D. Lewis-Williams: ‘Burkitt’s milestone’, Antiquity

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60 (1986): 123–31; G. Reichel-Dolmatoff: Goldwork and shamanism (Bogotá, 1988).

IS

Shamarkian Nubian microlithic industry found at a number of Nilotic sites in the region of Wadi Halfa, radiocarbon-dated to c.4500–4000 BC and therefore roughly synchronous with the KHARTOUM MESOLITHIC of Central Sudan. It is currently not clear whether the Shamarkian – the earliest Lower Nubian culture to produce pottery – was contemporary with the ARKINIAN industry or a later development. Both the Shamarkian and Arkinian lithic industries appear to have been subphases – or perhaps regional variants – of the EPIPALAEOLITHIC period in Lower Nubia. There are also a number of sites described as ‘postShamarkian’, which are larger than Shamarkian sites and incorporate stone tools imported from Upper Egypt. Post-Shamarkian sites date to c.4000-3000 BC (i.e. roughly contemporary with the

ABKAN industry and KHARTOUM NEOLITHIC).

R. Schild et al.: ‘The Arkinian and Shamarkian industries’, The Prehistory of Nubia II, ed. F. Wendorf (Dallas, 1968), 651–767.

IS

Shancunling see SHANG-TS’UN-LING

Shang The earliest of the periods in Chinese history that are documented by contemporaneous written records (inscribed ORACLE BONES). See

CHINA 2.

Shanga Early SWAHILI HARBOUR TOWN with

international contacts from the 9th or late 8th century AD, situated on Pate island off the northern Kenyan coast. The lowest excavated levels (Horton 1996) corroborate the findings at nearby Manda and at Kilwa on the southern Swahili coast, and contribute to the reinterpretation of the conclusions and dating proposed there by Neville Chittick (1974, 1984). At the beginning of its sequence Shanga was occupied by people from the African mainland and by Muslims with Persian Gulf connections. The latter are attested by a series of wooden mosques, the first built about 800 AD or slightly before. In the 10th century the mosque was rebuilt in stone, and the extant ruin is that of the 11th century reconstruction. The houses were mostly constructed of wood until c.1300 when, as became the fashion in many Swahili settlements, richer townsmen had houses

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built of coral-rag. In the 15th century Shanga was sacked and deserted, most of the population moving to nearby towns.

H.N. Chittick: Kilwa: an Islamic trading city on the East African coast (Nairobi, 1974); ––––: Manda; excavations at an island port on the Kenya coast (Nairobi, 1984); M.C. Horton: ‘Early Muslim trading settlements on the East African coast: new evidence from Shanga’, AJ 67 (1987), 290–323; ––––: Shanga BIEA 13 (Nairobi, 1996).

JS

Shang-ts’un-ling (Shancunling) Cemetery of the Chinese state of Northern Kuo, which was in use for a period of 120 years between 771 BC, when the state was founded, and 655 BC, when it was annexed by the state of CH’IN. It was at Shang- ts’un-ling, 4.7 km from the city of San-men-hsia, in the province of Ho-nan, that the first major excavations relating to the state of Kuo were conducted, in 1956–7. The cemetery consisted of three chariot pit-burials and 234 tombs. The largest pit-burial held 10 chariots and 20 horses; structural details of the vehicles were well preserved and allowed reliable reconstructions. Several bronze vessels and weapons from the site bore inscriptions referring to scions of the state of Kuo.

Anon.: Shang-ts’un-ling Kuo-kuo mu-ti [The state of Kuo cemetery at Shang-ts’un-ling] (Peking, 1959); Kuo Mo-jo: ‘San-men-hsia ch’u-t’u t’ung-ch’i erh-san-ssu’ [Two or three bronze vessels unearthed at San-men-hsia], WW 1 (1959), 13–15.

NB

Shanidar Cave in Iraq where the excavations of Ralph Solecki in 1953 and 1960 uncovered the stratified remains of nine NEANDERTHAL skeletons dated by radiocarbon to the MOUSTERIAN period and the early Upper Palaeolithic (c.49,600 BP and c.32,300 BP respectively; BarYosef 1989). This is the largest number of Neanderthal skeletons discovered at a single Middle Eastern site, and some were apparently deliberately buried rather than simply abandoned on the surface. One of the graves – Shanidar 4 – also contained a scattering of pollen grains around the body, which was interpreted by Solecki (1971) as a wreath of flowers laid over the body, implying that the Neanderthals were capable of cultural behaviour similar to that of early ‘modern humans’. It has subsequently been suggested, however, that the pollen may have been brought