Copy of `Digital documents - Archaeology UK glossary`

The wordlist doesn't exist anymore, or, the website doesn't exist anymore. On this page you can find a copy of the original information. The information may have been taken offline because it is outdated.

Digital documents - Archaeology UK glossary Category: Sciences > Archaeology Date & country: 14/10/2007, UK Words: 217

abutment
masonry platform or earth embankment supporting the central structure of a bridge

agger
cambered embankment-mound carrying a Roman road

Aisle
Area of church separated by an arcade of columns or piers.

Aisle
A section of the church parallel to the choir or nave, and divided from it by an arcade.

ala
unit of cavalry in the Roman auxiliary army

Ambulatory
Semicircular or polygonal aisle which encloses an apse, often provided so that worshippers can walk round an altar or shrine.

ambulatory
covered portico surrounding the inner shrine of a temple

apodyterium
undressing room in a bath-suite

Apse
Semicircular or polygonal end of a chancel or a chapel.

Apse
A semicircular termination to the chancel, chapel or aisle.

Arcade
A row of arches on columns or piers; where attached to a wall instead of free-standing it is a blind arcade.

Arcade
A row of arches.

Architrave
The horizontal block between columns or piers that spans the area between them.

architrave
the horizontal member above two columns (piers, etc.), spanning the interval between them

Ashlar
Carefully dressed masonry.

Aumbrey
A recess in a wall which could serve as a cupboard.

bailey
fortified enclosure in a medieval castle

ballista
artillery- weapon discharging arrows and stone balls

Baluster
A small column or pillar, often, but not necessarily, wider in the centre than at the extremities. Also called a baluster shaft.

Barrow
A burial mound.

Basilica
Term originally used to describe a Roman town hall, but later to describe a rectangular hall-like building, normally with a roof supported by two or more arcades (ie aisled).

basilica
town hall

Bay
Section of a building between columns or buttresses.

Beehive corbelling
A technique of producing a dome-like vault by oversailing courses of masonry. Frequently used for Celtic monastic cells.

Bellcote
A turret, usually at the W end of a church, to carry bells.

berm
in military defences, the level space between two features (e.g. ditch and rampart)

bonding-course
bands of brickwork (or occasionally stone slabs) which alternate with wider sections of regular stonework; they normally run through the entire thickness of the wall, presumably to give cohesion and stability to the mortared rubble-core; they were also useful as levelling courses during construction

Boss
A stone projection or knob, often used to ornament the intersection of ribs in a vault.

breastwork
the vertical timber-work built on top of the earth rampart of a fort to provide screening for the sentry

Buttress
A mass of brickwork built against a wall to carry the thrust and provide strength.

Buttress
A projection from a wall to help support particular loads especially side thrusts from roofs.

Cable moulding
Moulding imitating twisted cord.

caldarium
hot room (moist heat) in a bath-suite

Capital
The head of a column.

Cell
A small chamber or room, often used of the small detached buildings that are found in Celtic monasteries.

Cell
A small room or hut for one person.

cella
inner shrine of a temple

centuria
unit of 80 legionary soldiers, commanded by a centurion

Chamfer
Surface produced by cutting across a square angle of a block at 45ø to the other surfaces.

Chancel
The area at the E end of the church in which the altar is usually located. Normally used to describe the area E of the crossing that continues the line of the nave. Often narrower than the nave. Chancel arch is the arch dividing the nave from the chancel.

Chancel
Eastern part of the church in which the altar stands.

Chapel
A small section of the church, or a small building having its own altar.

Chapter house
A building attached to the monastery in which the monks met to discuss the affairs of the monastery.

Chevron
Zig-zag pattern, normally on carved moulding.

chi- rho
Christian symbol composed of the first two letters of the Greek name for Christ (Xp-Cros); see

Choir
Structurally that part of the church in which singers have their place often inaccurately used for eastern arm.

civitas
tribal unit

Claustral buildings
Pertaining to the cloister.

clavicula
in a Roman camp, curved extension of rampart (and ditch) protecting a gateway

Clerestory
Upper storey of the nave walls of the church, lit by windows.

Clerestory
Part of the church wall above the triforium or arcade usually containing windows.

Cloister
A covered passage around a quadrangle at the side of the church.

cohort
unit of infantry soldiers, legionary or auxiliary

colonia
settlement of retired legionaries; for York a title of honour

Corbel
Block of stone projecting from a wall, usually to support a beam, or some other feature.

crop-mark
colour-differentiation in standing crops or vegetation (best seen from the air), indicating the presence of buried ancient features

cross-hall
covered assembly- area in the headquarters building of a fort

Crossing
Part of a church where the transepts cross the nave.

Crypt
Underground room, usually at E end of church.

Crypt
Area underneath a church.

culvert
drainage- channel

Curtain
A connecting wall between towers.

curtain
wall of fortification

dado
continuous border round the lower part of a wall decorated with painted plaster

Decorated
Term applied to style of English Gothic architecture c. 1275-1340, in which there was an increasing use of decoration.

Dorter
Monastic dormitory.

Drystone
Built without mortar.

Dyke
A bank, often used to describe a linear rampart. Early English Term used to describe a style of English Gothic architecture, roughly covering the period 1200-1300.

Early English
Term applied to the first part of the Gothic style of architecture which flourished c. 1180-1275.

field-system
regular pattern of rectangular fields attached to an ancient farming settlement

flue-arch
underfloor arch in a hypocaust allowing hot air to pass from furnace to room, or from one heated room to another

flue-tiles
open-ended, box-shaped tiles built in the thickness of the walls of a room heated by hypocaust

Frater
Monastic refectory or dining hall.

frieze
horizontal band above an architrave, sometimes carved with sculpture

frigidarium
cold room in a bath-suite

Garderobe
Individual lavatory or privy.

Gatehouse
A building at the entrance to the monastic grounds.

Gnomen
The metal (or wood) finger on a sun dial.

Gothic
A style of architecture which flourished in Western Europe between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. In England it included Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular styles.

graffito
writing scratched on tile, pottery, plaster, etc.

Graveslab
A tombstone intended for laying flat on a grave. Greek key Geometric pattern.

Grubenhaus
Sunken-floor hut popular in Britain and on the Continent in the pagan Saxon period, but continuing in use later.

Guesthouse
Buildings set aside for visitors to the monastery.

Guilloche
Geometric pattern.

guilloche
on mosaics, decorative feature consisting of two or more intertwining bands herringbone. descriptive of a style of construction in which stonework or tiles are set in zig-zag pattern

Herringbone
Type of masonry in which the stones are set in a zig-zag pattern.

Hogback
Type of tombstone in the form of the hipped roof of a shrine or church, which bears a superficial resemblance to a hog's back (the shingles looking like bristles).

Hood moulding
Projecting moulding above an arch or lintel, normally intended to throw off water (sometimes called dripstone)

hypocaust
Roman method of central heating: The floor was raised, usually on pilae, and flue-tiles acting as 'chimneys' were built in the thickness of the walls. The draught created by these flues enabled hot air to be drawn from the stoke-hole on the right in fig 4), where brushwood or other fuel was burnt, to circulate under the floor, and to escape up the wall-flues to the air outside. In the channelled type of hypocaust, the hot air circulated not around pilae but through narrow channels built under the floor

imbrex
semi-circular roofing-tile, linking two flat tiles (tegulae)

Impost
Bracket in a wall, often moulded, on which the end of an arch rests.

In situ
In its original position.

in situ
Latin expression meaning 'in its original position'

Inhabited vinescroll
Type of ornament popular in Northumbria, in which birds and beasts are disposed in a panel of stylized vine ornament, often pecking or biting the fruit.

Interlace
A pattern made by intertwining a ribbon in and out of itself. Zoomorphic interlace is created when the ribbon takes the form of an animal's body.

Jamb
The straight side of a door, arch or window.

jamb
side-post of a doorway or window

Lacertine
An animal with ribbon-like body used in zoomorphic interlace.

laconicum
hot room (dry heat) in a bath-suite

latrine
Lavatory