A Dictionary of Archaeology

material civilization and modified the environment in which they live (Raistrick 1972), but the allembracing nature of this definition is impossible to put into practice.

The discipline originated in the 1950s in Britain, after the post-war preoccupation with renewal had led to the destruction of much of the landscape associated with industrialization. Industrial archaeology was born out of an attempt to preserve selected relics of the period when Britain was the world leader in the process of industrialization – a process which probably had a more rapid and fundamental effect on material culture than any that had gone before.

Industrial archaeology, then, grew from concern about the future of standing structures rather than as an academic study concerned with deriving information from the tangible evidence of a period of the past. It was a spontaneous growth, resulting in volunteer activity on an immense scale in both preservation and recording. The CBA (Council for British Archeology) tried to give some shape to the latter by the introduction of record cards, which eventually grew into the NRIM (National Record of Industrial Monuments). The latter was based first at the University of Bath under R.A. Buchanan and later subsumed into the NMR (National Monuments Record) of the RCHME (Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England). The RCHME has come to play an important role in industrial archaeology, undertaking specific surveys and spearheading an attempt to ensure that sites and structures dating up to 1945 are included on both the NMR and Sites and Monuments Records. English Heritage has also taken due account of industrial archaeology in its Monuments Protection Programme by commissioning the first comprehensive surveys of a range of industries so that priorities can be assessed and more industrial monuments included in the Schedules.

The Association for Industrial Archaeology, which was set up in 1973 to represent the interests of industrial archaeology, attempts to hold a balance between the volunteers who have dominated industrial archaeology in the past and the professionals, as well as publishing the major British journal in the field, Industrial Archaeology Review (IAR). Industrial archaeology is no longer solely the province of Britain, and The International Committee for the Conversation of the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH) was set up in 1978. Many of its members have contributed to the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Industrial Archaeology, which sets the discipline in its world context

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY 305

(Trinder 1992). The volunteer preservation movement is responsible for hundreds of sites in Britain as well as overseas, and local and state authorities have also become aware of the heritage value of industrial archaeological sites. The most important of these in Great Britain is the IRONBRIDGE GORGE in Shropshire, which was designated in 1986 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In the 1980s and early 1990s serious attempts were made to move beyond the early preoccupation with recording and preserving the monuments of the industrial period and to consider how the study of these can contribute to the understanding of society within that period. The dynamic force of industry has shaped human development and changed the landscape during the 19th and 20th centuries, and the monuments of industry must be considered in their cultural context.

It is possible to argue that the ample documentary evidence for the past two centuries renders any study of the monuments unnecessary, but until the 20th century the written word was the province of a minority, and the special value of industrial archaeology lies in illuminating the living and working conditions of the majority of people. Documentary evidence also gives a misleading impression of the pace and scope of change by concentrating on the innovative and spectacular, whereas the archaeological evidence of the industrial period illuminates the extent of technological inertia both in certain industries, such as textiles, leather and small metal wares, and also between regions in Britain and Europe. Industrial archaeology has played a major role in the interpretation of social and economic aspects of the industrial period under-represented in the documentary record such as workers’ housing, pre-locomotive railways, food processing, mineral extraction and processing, and lime-burning.

However, the availability of documentary evidence for the industrial period means that many of the techniques of archaeology need to be reexamined to accommodate a wider range of evidence than is usual for other periods of archaeology. The use of documentary evidence in conjunction with field evidence can enable the sequence of development of both structures and sites to be determined by methods other than excavation. Anomalies in structural evidence can often be solved by reference to maps, drawings, photographic or even oral evidence. For example, the beam engine on the Glyn Pits colliery site near Pontypool, South Wales, ended its working life as a pumping engine in the 1920s, but it can be shown to have been first built as a pumping and winding

306 INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY

engine in 1845 by relating site anomalies (such as redundant pits and the external gearing of the engine) with the surviving documentary evidence.

On the other hand, industrial archaeologists could make better use of other techniques of archaeology for the industrial period. Excavation has been little practised except on sites of non-ferrous mining and iron furnaces, especially those of the charcoal era. Environmental archaeology could illuminate vanished landscapes as well as patterns of consumption, while artefacts could be used to reveal patterns of distribution in relation to the transport networks which have hitherto only been considered on an historical basis. Post-excavation work lags sadly behind that for other periods of archaeology, partly because there are few reference collections of artefacts for the period.

Industrial archaeology has also tended to be particularly site specific, and there have been few national or international attempts to compare structures or even artefacts in such a way that they can be arranged into typological sequences that might illuminate technological development, with the exception of prime movers such as wind and water mills or steam engines. Structures concerned with non-ferrous metal mining and ore-dressing have been considered in the British context, while the surveys of textile mills undertaken by the RCHME provide the most comprehensive typological surveys of industrial buildings to date. A report, Mills in the 80s, commissioned by the county councils of Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire in 1984, quantified the decline of the traditional textile industries of these areas and drew attention to the large numbers of redundant textile mills. Since the demolition of many mills was inevitable, the RCHME undertook a pilot survey in a small area of West Yorkshire and followed this with an initial survey, using early 20th century, 25 inch Ordnance Survey maps as a basis. A standard report form was used on brief site visits to over 1800 sites, enabling comparisons to be made between mills which could be in the woollen, worsted, linen, silk, cotton, carpet, shoddy and mungo branches of the industry.

The sites for more detailed study were chosen to demonstrate the development of the factory system, the structural evolution of textile mills and the effect of mills on the landscape: this resulted in surveys of about a 10% sample. The Greater Manchester survey followed a similar methodology, but unlike West Yorkshire, the mills were mainly for cotton and comparisons were simpler, resulting in a chronologically-based typology in which size and layout, external details, methods of construc-

tion, internal organisation and power systems were considered for each period of mill building. Publication included detailed studies of the selected sites and gazetteers of all mill sites visited which can be followed up in the publicly accessible archive. Together with the forthcoming survey of East Cheshire, which has concentrated on the housing and factories associated with both silk and cotton mills, these surveys provide a model for other largescale surveys of industrial structures (Giles and Goodall 1992; Williams and Farnie 1992; Calladine and Fricker 1993).

The impact of industrial activity on the landscape as a whole is little understood (see LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY), but landscape surveys are vital in elucidating the context of structures such as, for example, the relationship of transport and power systems to mines, quarries and ironworks as has been shown by Stephen Hughes of the RCAHMW (Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales). He has illuminated the relationship between the linear features of the Montgomeryshire and the Swansea Canal, together with a system of tramways which eventually extended the hinterland of the latter into the Brecon Beacons, and the trading patterns and settlements which they both served and generated. The canals and their feeders were also used as sources of power and both details and drawings are provided of the iron furnaces and foundries using water-wheels to drive bellows as well as a range of mills for corngrinding, saw-milling and fulling.

Limestone was an important commodity and detailed investigation has been carried out on the limekilns to be found along the routes. The canals and tramways influenced settlement patterns, ranging from the isolated but complex depots at Sennybridge and Cnewr on the Brecon Forest Tramroad through the large warehouses at Newtown and Welshpool on the Montgomeryshire Canal to the many isolated houses at locks and wharves also to be found on the latter, many in a distinctive black and white patterned style. Detailed archaeological investigation has also been carried out on the engineering features of all the transport systems. Hughes demonstrates the importance of context, in its sense as the cultural environment of artefacts, in industrial archaeology.

Generally, PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY has had

little impact on industrial archaeology, largely because the availability of evidence has led to fact replacing hypothesis in interpretations. Functionalism has dominated the study of structures and artefacts, and there has been little attention paid to their symbolic value within the

material culture of the period, except where structures are regarded as ‘flagships’ in new technological developments. The use of CONTEXTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY might help to explain the often non-functional elaboration of both structures and artefacts of the industrial period.

A. Raistrick: Industrial archaeology: an historical survey

(London, 1972); S.R. Hughes, ‘The Swansea Canal: navigation and power supplier’, IAR 4 (1979–80), 51–69; R.A. Buchanan: Industrial archaeology in Britain, 3rd edn (London, 1980); C. Giles and I.H. Goodall: ‘Framing a survey of textile mills: RCHME’s West Riding experience’, IAR 9 (1986), 71–81; S.R. Hughes: The archaeology of the Montgomeryshire Canal (Aberystwyth, 1988); IAR 10 (1988): Textile mills special issue; S.R. Hughes: The Brecon Forest tramroads (London, 1990); M. Palmer: ‘Industrial archaeology: working for the future’, IAR 14 (1991), 17–32; C. Giles and I.H. Goodall:

Yorkshire textile mills, 1770–1930 (London, 1992); M. Williams and D.A. Farnie: Cotton mills in Greater Manchester (London, 1992); B. Trinder, ed.: The Blackwell Encyclopedia of industrial archaeology (Oxford, 1992); A. Calladine and J. Fricker: East Cheshire textile mills (London, 1993); N. Cossons: The BP Book of industrial archaeology, 3rd edn (Devon, 1993).

MP

industry Set of artefacts characterized by a particular technology, technological style or morphology, and drawn from a number of different, but contextually related, ASSEMBLAGES. The evolutionary history of an industry, or a related set of industries, is often referred to as a TRADITION.

RJA

information flow see SYSTEMS THEORY

infrastructure see MARXIST ARCHAEOLOGY

Ingombe Ilede Iron Age site near Churundu in Zambia which is famous for its rich burials and evidence for long-distance trade. Two cemeteries were found by the Zambian Water Department in the 1960s. A cemetery on the southern edge of the site yielded 31 burials, mostly consisting of infants, children and young adults with few grave goods. In contrast, the central cemetery contained adults richly adorned with gold beads, copper, bangles, sea shells, glass beads and, in some cases, cloth. Four burials were associated with metalworking implements such as iron tongs, wire-drawing plates, hammerheads and, in two of them, iron gongs. These links between wealth, status and metalworking are characteristic of Western Bantu speakers, and the ceramic style is related to the Naviundu

complex (see DIVUYU and LUANGWA).

INVENTORIES OF TOMB FURNISHINGS (CHINA) 307

Later excavations by David Phillipson (1969) dated the burial zone to the 13th and 14th centuries AD. Other contemporaneous Ingombe Ilede sites are known near copper deposits in the Urungwe district of Zimbabwe, and Peter Garlake (1970) has identified them with the VaMbara mentioned in the 16th-century Portuguese documents.

B.M. Fagan et al.: Iron Age cultures in Zambia II (London, 1969); D.W. Phillipson and B.M. Fagan: ‘The date of the Ingombe Ilede burials’, JAH 10 (1969), 199–204; P.S. Garlake: ‘Iron Age sites in the Urungwe district of Rhodesia’, SAAB 25 (1970), 25–44.

TH

Ingharra, Tell see KISH

interval estimate see PARAMETER

ESTIMATION

Inuit Term used to describe the Arctic-adapted populations (formerly described as Eskimos) who live in the region from eastern Siberia to Greenland. These communities are, and were, quite diverse, but they all follow a way of life that contrasts sharply with that of the Indian populations to the south of the tree line.

Perhaps the most characteristic Inuit settlement pattern (one found in the Canadian Arctic) involved spending winter, spring and summer in three different ecological niches. Thus, the winter was spent in temporary snowhouse communities out on the sea ice while hunting seals at their breathing holes; the spring was spent at the coast, hunting basking seals; and the late summer was spent further inland, hunting caribou. Biological, linguistic and archaeological evidence indicates that the Inuit (and the Aleuts of the Aleutian Islands) are distinct from all the other aboriginal populations of the Americas, and probably derive from a more recent population movement out of Asia. See also AMERICA 1 for discussion of the archaeology of Arctic North America.

D. Damas, ed.: Handbook of North American Indians, V:

Arctic (Washington, D.C., 1984).

RP

inventories of tomb furnishings (China)

Chinese custom of incorporating lists of artefacts that were placed alongside the occupants of burials. The use of such inventories seems to have begun in late Ch’un-ch’iu times (c.570–481 BC) but is principally characteristic of the CH’U culture. Although there is already a large corpus of inventories (the systematic survey of which would lead to the compilation of a very useful vocabulary of con-

308 INVENTORIES OF TOMB FURNISHINGS (CHINA)

temporary terms for an extensive variety of artefacts), only a small number of short individual studies have been made. Among the factors inhibiting such research are the occasionally poor quality of reproduction of the original brushwritten tablets, the often incomplete presentation of individual inventories (in archaeological publications) and the difficulties encountered in gaining access to the original materials.

N. Barnard: ‘The nature of the Ch’in “reform of the script” as reflected in archaeological documents excavated under conditions of control’, Ancient China: studies in early civilization, ed. D.T. Roy and Tsuen-hsuin Tsien (Hong Kong, 1978), 181–213.

NB

Inyanga culture Located in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe, the remains of the Inyanga culture include agricultural terraces, water furrows, pit structures (so-called ‘slave pits’) and hilltop forts. European settlers once thought that this area was the ‘grain basket’ for Great Zimbabwe, but radiocarbon dates have placed the Inyanga occupation in the 17th to 19th centuries, proving that the two cultures were independent of one another. Although extensive, the terraces are best explained by small-scale shifting agriculture. The pit structures comprise huts and grain-bins on a raised platform around a stone-lined pit, whose depth depends on the angle of slope. Cattle pens have been found outside these homesteads in large complexes, as exemplified by Ziwa (formerly Van Niekerk). The forts contain various European military features such as internal banquettes and loopholes for guns. The ceramic style and the oral traditions suggest that this culture was the product of BarweHwesa people (Sena linguistic division of Bantu) who had been in close contact with the Portuguese in the Sena district of Mozambique. Barwe-Hwesa descendants living to the north today keep pigs, and the ancient pits may well have been pens for these animals.

R. Summers: Inyanga prehistoric settlements in Southern Rhodesia (Cambridge 1958); T.N. Huffman: ‘Radiocarbon date from Zimbiti Ruin, Inyanga’, SAJS 71 (1975), 247–8.

TH

Ipiutak culture Alaskan culture of the NORTON TRADITION, dating from the first through the ninth centuries AD. It takes its name from a site near Point Hope that contained over 60 semi-subterranean houses and a cemetery. Some of the elaborate ivory carvings from the graves suggest links to the Scytho-Siberian art style of Asia.

H. Larsen and F. Rainey: ‘Ipiutak and the Arctic whale

hunting culture’, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, 42 (1948), 1–276.

RP

Ipswich Major Anglo-Saxon town in England, the origins of which lie in the 7th century AD. Its significance in terms of the archaeology of medieval Europe was indicated by rescue excavations in the 1950s. As with many other urban sites, the opportunity to investigate the town’s origins was restricted by the vagaries of renewal of the present city. Conscious of this, Keith Wade devised a stratified sampling scheme in order to deploy rescue excavations to reconstruct the topography of the Anglo-Saxon town (Wade 1978). Small developments and watching-briefs were used in the 1970s to plot the extent of the settlement. Following this, as large developments occurred, middle-sized excavations were undertaken to chart the stratigraphic and detailed topographic characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon town.

Finally, in the 1980s, two large areas of the modern town were redeveloped, providing the means to test historical hypotheses devised from the preceding investigations. Excavations from 1974–90 show that Ipswich was founded as a small riverside trading site in the early 7th century. Its expansion to cover an area as large as 50 hectares occurred in the later 8th century, when a grid of gravelled streets was laid out. Parts of the town at this time were given over to industrial activities; at least one other part was occupied by a royal palace. Ipswich was thereafter developed in the Anglo-Scandinavian and Norman periods on this original grid. Only about 2% of the town has been fully excavated, but the innovative sampling programme permits a discussion of the site as a whole as opposed to its topographic elements.

K. Wade: ‘Sampling at Ipswich: the origins and growth of the Anglo-Saxon town’, Sampling in contemporary British archaeology, ed. J. Cherry et al. (Oxford, 1978), 279–84;

––––: ‘Ipswich’, The rebirth of towns in the West

AD 700–1050, ed. R. Hodges and B. Hobley (London, 1988), 93–100.

RH

Ironbridge Gorge Industrial archaeological site in Shropshire, England, which was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986. A recognizable landscape of industries spanning more than two centuries grew up at a point where the River Severn cuts through the Coalbrookdale coalfield. By 1700 there were coal mines, potteries, saltworks, glasshouses and limeworks in the area. In 1709, Abraham Darby I (1678–1717) rebuilt a derelict

charcoal blast furnace and was the first ironmaster to smelt iron successfully using coke. The world’s first major iron bridge was built across the Severn between 1777 and 1781: a network of tub-boat canals with six inclined planes linked the coalfield and brickworks with the river; factories manufacturing porcelain and decorative tiles were established. New iron furnaces were built at Blists Hill in the mid-19th century, and the coal and iron companies constructed a variety of housing for their workforce, together with schools, churches and chapels.

Because later industrial development took place on more major coalfields, much of the early landscape, including the unique Darby Furnace and Iron Bridge, survived. In 1967, the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust was set up to preserve the area at a time when development was imminent with the construction of Telford New Town. A number of museums subsequently opened within the Gorge and the Ironbridge Institute is a centre for postgraduate work in INDUSTRIAL

ARCHAEOLOGY.

N. Cossons and B.S. Trinder: The Iron Bridge: symbol of the Industrial Revolution (Bradford-on-Avon, 1979); C. Clark: The Ironbridge Gorge (London, 1993).

MP

Isanapura (Banteay Prei Nokor) see ZHENLA

CULTURE

Isernia la Piretta see HOMO ERECTUS

Isfahan see MASJID AL-JAMIð

Ishango Midden site located on the Zaire side of Lake Edward in the Western Rift Valley, Ishango is of exceptional archaeological and palaeoenvironmental importance for the study of the Upper Pleistocene and Holocene of equatorial Africa, including among its finds probably the earliest bone harpoons in Africa, comprising a sequence from biserial to uniserial.

A.S. Brooks and C.C. Smith: ‘Ishango revisited’, AAR 5 (1987), 65–86.

JS

Ishchali (anc. Neribtum) see DIYALA REGION

Isimila Erosion gully in the southern highlands of Tanzania, containing one of the world’s finest and densest collections of handaxes, cleavers and other tools of ACHEULEAN type. The artefacts have eroded from lake-beds, dated very approximately at 0.25–0.5 million years old. It appears that the lake-

ISKANWAYA 309

side situation recommended itself to bands of late HOMO ERECTUS hunter-gatherers. Acheulean deposits of roughly similar date have been excavated at KALAMBO FALLS, about 300 km to the west of Isimila, and somewhat earlier Acheulean remains were discovered at OLORGESAILIE in the Kenyan Rift Valley.

F.C. Howell et al.: ‘Isimila, an Acheulean occupation site in the Iringa highlands, Tanganyika’, Actes du IVe congrès panafricain de préhistoire, Section III, ed. G. Mortelmans and J. Nenquin (Tervuren, 1962), 43–111; C.L. Hansen and C.M. Keller: ‘Environment and activity patterning at Isimila korongo, Tanzania’, American Anthropologist 73 (1971), 1201–11.

JS

Isin-Larsa period After the fall of Ibbi-Sin, the last king of the Ur III dynasty in Mesopotamia, in c.2000 BC, there ensued a period of more than 200 years in which the regions of SUMER and AKKAD were fragmented into numerous city-states, with no single dynasty dominating the country as the rulers of Ur had done. Since the rival towns of Isin and Larsa were paramount among these states, the term ‘Isin-Larsa’ is usually applied to the period from c.2025 to 1763 BC. By the reign of Ishmedagan (c.1950 BC), the city of Isin was exacting tribute from many of the towns of southern Mesopotamia, including Ur and Nippur. The site of Isin (modern Ishan Bahriyat), located in southern Iraq 25 km south of NIPPUR, was excavated by a German expedition in the 1970s (Hrouda 1977–81). Even at its peak Isin was unable to control the cities of LAGASH and Larsa, and it was the latter that eventually supplanted Isin, gaining control of the holy city of Nippur. The site of Larsa, located at Senkera, about 48 km north of modern Nasriya, was excavated by French archaeologists from 1968 until the early 1980s (Huot 1983).

B. Hrouda: Isin-Ishan Bahriyat, 2 vols (Munich, 1977–81); J.-L. Huot, ed.: Larsa et ðOueili, travaux de 1978–1981 (Paris, 1983); J. Oates: Babylon, 2nd edn (London, 1986).

IS

Iskanwaya The largest site of the Mollo culture, situated in Bolivia and dating from c.AD 1000 to 1500. The material culture at Iskanwaya is essentially a local style of the southern highlands, comprising a planned town of stone masonry with rectangular houses grouped around patios, east–west streets, and running water available to the agglutinated house groups. Infants were buried in the houses, while adults were placed in chullpas (burial houses or towers).

H. Boero Rojo: La incredible ciudad prehispanica de

310 ISKANWAYA

Iskanwaya (La Paz, 1977) [photographic documentation]; A.J. Arellano: Mollo: investigaciones arqueológicas (La Paz, 1985).

KB

Islamic archaeology Study of the material remains of the Islamic period and the excavation of Islamic sites, both of which have, until recently, been a relatively neglected field. This situation arises partly from the sheer quantity of standing Islamic monuments and material in museums, archives and libraries which have provided researchers with much to study without the need to embark on excavation. Furthermore, archaeological interest in the Near East has tended to stress the ancient, Biblical and classical pre-Islamic past. In the worst cases, the emphasis on periods predating Islam has led to the loss of Islamic occupation levels or they have been treated in a cursory manner. However, in recent years greater attention has been given to Islamic archaeology, and researchers have particularly studied the transition from the late antique to the early Islamic periods.

Islamic archaeology first received encouragement with the emergence of independent Arab states after the First World War, which led to growing interest in Islamic sites in Iraq and Egypt. In recent years, this concern with indigenous heritage has spread to other Arab and Islamic countries.

The continuing emphasis on monumental buildings in Islamic archaeology is partly a result of the importance of Islamic architecture within the art of the period, but it also reflects the influence of K.A.C. Creswell (1932–40; 1952–59), who virtually created the study of Islamic architecture. Creswell’s legacy extends to Islamic archaeology where excavations have tended to concentrate on key monumental structures such as mosques or palaces. Only more recently has Islamic archaeology become concerned with issues of settlement and environment. This concern with the study of monuments rather than the use of excavation has contributed to the neglect of such areas as the Red Sea, central Arabia and Libya (where traditions of building in coral and clay have ensured relatively rapid collapse and disintegration of Islamic-period architecture), and has also discouraged research in areas where the remains are retrievable principally by excavation. It is only very recently that archaeologists have turned their attention to more ephemeral remains of occupation, such as ceramic scatters and shell middens (the latter marking the long tradition of pearling on the shores of the Arabian Gulf).

It is also only very recently that environmental issues have achieved any prominence in Islamic archaeology, and far less palaeobotanical material has been gathered from Islamic-period sites in the Near and Middle East than from sites of earlier date. In the past, bones, molluscs or material recovered by flotation have generally been neglected in Islamic-period excavations and much remains to be done in this area. The excavation at SIRAF was distinguished by the concern shown with flotation to recover environmental material and the effort made to study human remains. Particular issues in the history of cultivation are related to the Islamic period such as the introduction of coffee, and the mild narcotic qat. The study of palaeobotanical material from future fieldwork in Yemen will be a useful means to determine the antiquity of the use of these commodities.

The paucity of well-excavated and well-reported Islamic sites with reliable stratigraphy has affected the study of Islamic ceramics. A plethora of unstratified objects on the art market and in museums has contributed to a chronology that is sometimes based on stylistic analysis, while aesthetic interest in Islamic glazed ceramics contributed to the fact that unglazed wares were once virtually ignored. Only in the past 20 years or so have early Islamic and Ayyubid/Mamluk unglazed ceramics started to be understood on the basis of work in Jordan (see HISBAN), but the relevance of this work to the surrounding countries has still to be assessed. In Iraq and the Arabian Gulf, the glazed and unglazed ceramic traditions of the 4th–8th century AD are only now beginning to be distinguished, to allow the old but all-embracing label ‘SASANIAN-Early Islamic’ to be abandoned.

Islam has been an urban religion from its inception in the 7th century AD and the study of its archaeology has therefore necessarily often been concerned with sites which are still located in thriving cities. There are relatively few abandoned major urban sites, which is a reflection of the success of the key centres and newly founded towns of the early centuries of Islam. The excavation of settled Islamic towns presents problems of retrieval that are common to all urban archaeology. These have been exacerbated in many places by the fragility of building materials such as coral, seastone, sandbrick and clay, by the intensity of modern development and also sometimes by inadequately applied antiquities protection legislation.

There are certain problems that are peculiar to the Islamic context, such as the absolute religious embargo on the disturbance of Muslims’ graves.

The study of human bones to assess age of death or disease is therefore unlikely to make much progress in Islamic archaeology, although the excavations at Siraf were remarkable in that they produced rare material concerning burial practices in the early Islamic period. Other factors of a religious nature also have an effect on archaeological retrieval. The Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina have never been accessible to archaeologists and their rebuilding in recent years has been so comprehensive that much

– if not all – of their record is irremediably lost. Excavation in mosques is either difficult or impossible, and they are usually under the jurisdiction of the religious foundations (Awqaf), rather than antiquities authorities. The Awqaf naturally give priority to the maintenance of places of prayer as they stand, or to their renewal, rather than to the excavation of the past.

Early Baghdad, the Round City founded in AD 762 by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur, is lost under the modern city and the only extant buildings are associated with the 13th century AD or later. Understanding of Baghdad’s urban plan has therefore largely been a matter of literary research correlated with topographical observations, rather than excavation (see Massignon 1912; Le Strange 1924; Adams 1965; Lassner 1970). By contrast, Damascus is more accessible, with its classical and Islamic city plan extant and well-recorded in the early years of this century (Watzinger and Wulzinger 1921–4; Sauvaget 1949). For archaeological retrieval, the problems that Damascus represents are those of any similar currently settled city with as much as four metres of later deposit covering the antique and early Islamic site. The eventual clarification of key archaeological issues (such as the location of the palace of Muðwiya, the Qubbat al-Khadrað) can only be solved when and if access to possible sites within the city becomes available, a standard problem of urban archaeology. The evolution of Damascus from a Roman and Byzantine city into an Islamic city is parallel to the process at the excavated sites of Jarash (Zayadine 1986), Pella (Smith 1973; Smith and Day 1989; Walmsley 1991, 1992), AMMAN, SCYTHOPOLIS or Tiberias (Stacey 1995) where flourishing Roman/Byzantine cities continued with an active life into the Umayyad period and beyond.

With so much urban archaeology from the early periods lost or inaccessible, the sites of al-FUSTAT, Caesaraea (Lenzen 1983), AMMAN, SAMARRA,

NISHAPUR, AL-RAQQA and SUSA in Iran (Rosen-

Ayalon 1974) provide the most important archaeological evidence available for the nature of early Islamic urban sites as well as for the develop-

ISLAMIC ARCHAEOLOGY 311

ment of ceramics and glass production. The excavations at Siraf give a detailed picture of the transition from the town’s pre-Islamic origins through to its decline after the 12th century, and these are now complemented by the results from JULFAR on the Arabian coast of the Gulf which thrived from the 14th century through to Portuguese and late Islamic times. Less work has been undertaken on Islamic sites of the Saudi coast and Oman although important studies of ceramics have been accomplished (Whitcomb 1975, 1978). The later Islamic period is generally less well studied through archaeology.

Some areas that are likely to be important in terms of Islamic archaeology are relatively little known either because of their inaccessibility and insecurity or because of the language of publication. Thus, for instance, parts of northern Africa and Afghanistan or Kurdistan have received only limited attention in recent years, because of political instability, while the excavations at sites in the Islamic territories of the old Soviet Union are relatively little known because they have been published in Russian or central Asian languages. While such factors are not directly archaeological their practical consequences cannot be ignored.

The increasing costs of excavation in the Near East have been partly responsible for a growth in the use of cheaper forms of research instead, such as regional surveys, and a great deal of Islamic occupation has therefore been noted along with that of earlier periods. Surveys have been especially intensive in Jordan and this has contributed to our understanding of the settlement pattern in the Islamic period. Although surveys have taken place in the neighbouring countries they have not been conducted with the same intensity. Fieldwork on Islamic sites has only recently begun in Yemen, where the Islamic period has generally been neglected, and the same is true in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at Abu Dhabi (see King et al. 1995). The surveys that were undertaken in the northern UAE by Beatrice de Cardi laid the foundations for the growing body of archaeology that has emerged there in recent years (de Cardi and Doe 1971; de Cardi 1972), while at Suhar in Oman, survey results remain the main information available on this major Indian Ocean site (Costa and Wilkinson 1987). In Saudi Arabia, apart from ALRABADHA, the main body of information for Islamic archaeology is based on field survey.

The building of dams in northern Iraq led to intensive archaeological survey in an area where little work had previously been done on Islamic sites (Ball et al. 1989). However, many areas have still not

312 ISLAMIC ARCHAEOLOGY

been examined from the point of view of Islamicperiod settlement patterns. The process of survey also breaks the tendency in earlier Islamic archaeological studies to concentrate on particular buildings rather than the entire site. Interpretations based on studies earlier in this century have often entered the literature and become authoritative. However, the reinvestigation of Samarra, like recent work in Jordan, has offered a very much more complex picture, arising from survey over large areas as much as excavation of specific sites. The methodology of the work carried out at Samarra is a model for future research on large sites, combining current approaches to ceramic retrieval and interpretation, and the use of AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY. It is likely to prove especially useful when a large tract of land is involved and when rapid development, especially for agriculture, threatens site integrity.

L. Massignon: Mission en Mésopotamie II (Cairo, 1912); K. Watzinger and C. Wulzinger: Damaskus, 2 vols (Berlin, 1921–4); G. Le Strange: Bagdad during the Abbasid Caliphate (Oxford, 1924); J. Sauvaget: ‘Le plan antique de Damas’, Syria 26 (1949), 314–58; A.A. Duri: ‘ðAbbâsids’, Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn (Leiden, 1960); R.McC. Adams: The land behind Baghdad: a history of settlement on the Diyala plains (Chicago, 1965); J. Lassner: The topography of Baghdad in the early Middle Ages (Detroit, 1970); B. de Cardi and B. Doe: ‘Archaeological survey in the northern Trucial states’, East and West 21/3–4 (1971), 225–76; ––––: ‘Archaeological survey in Northern Oman, 1972’, East and West 25 (1972), 9–75 [with sections by C. Vita-Finzi and A. Coles]; R.H. Smith: Pella of the Decapolis I (Wooster, 1973); M. Rosen-Ayalon: La poterie Islamique (Paris, 1974); D.S. Whitcomb: ‘The archaeology of Oman: a preliminary discussion of the Islamic periods’, JOS 1 (1975), 123–57; O. Grabar et al.: City in the Desert: Qasr al-Hayr East, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1978); D.S. Whitcomb: ‘The archaeology of al-Hasâ’ oasis in the Islamic period’, ATLAL 2 (1978), 95–113; K.A.C. Creswell: Early Muslim architecture (Oxford, 1932–40; 1969; New York, 1979); ––––: The Muslim architecture of Egypt (Oxford, 1952–9; New York, 1979); J.-P. Sodini and G. Tate et al.: ‘Déhès (Syrie du Nord): campagnes I–III (1976–1978): recherches sur l’habitat rural’, Syria 57 (1980), 1–304; D.L. Kennedy: Archaeological explorations on the Roman frontier in north-east Jordan (Oxford, 1982); G.W. Bowersock: Roman Arabia (Cambridge, MA, 1983); C.J. Lenzen: The Byzantine/Islamic occupation at Caesaraea Maritima as evidenced through the pottery

(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Drew University, 1983); J.-M. Dentzer: Hauran I: recherches archéologiques sur la Syrie du sud à lépoque hellénistique et romaine, 2 vols (Paris, 1985–6); H. Kennedy: ‘From Polis to Madina: urban change in Late Antiquity and early Islamic Syria’, Past and present

106 (1985), 3–27; M. Sartre: Bostra des origines à l’islam

(Paris, 1985); S. Thomas Parker: Romans and Saracens: a history of the Arabian frontier (Winona Lake, 1986);

F. Zayadine, ed.: Jerash archaeological project I (1981–1983) (Amman, 1986); P.M. Costa and T.J. Wilkinson: ‘The hinterland of Sohar: archaeological surveys and excavations within the region of an Omani seafaring city’, JOS 9 (1987), 1–238; S. Thomas Parker:

The Roman frontier in central Jordan: interim report of the Limes Arabicus Project, 1980–85 (Oxford, 1987); W. Ball, D. Tucker and T.J. Wilkinson: ‘The Tell al-Hawa project: archaeological investigations in the north Jazira, 1986–87’, Iraq 51 (1989), 1–66; R.H. Smith and L.P. Day: Pella of the Decapolis II (Wooster, 1989); T.J. Wilkinson: ‘Extensive sherd scatters and land use intensity: some recent results’, JFA 16 (1989), 31–46; F. Zayadine, ed.:

Jerash archaeological project II: 1984–1988 (Paris, 1989); A. Walmsley: ‘Architecture and artefacts from Abbasid Fihl: implications for the cultural history of Jordan’, The fifth conference on the history of Bilâd al-Shâm during the Abbasid period II, ed. M.A. Bakhit and R. Schick (Amman, 1991), 135–59; ––––: ‘Fihl (Pella) and the cities of North Jordan during the Umayyad and Abbasid periods’, Studies on the History and Archeology of Jordan IV (Amman, 1992), 377–84; P.-L. Gatier: ‘Villages du Proche-Orient protobyzantin (4ème–7ème siècles): étude régionale’, Land use and settlement patterns, ed. G.R.D. King and A. Cameron (Princeton, 1994), 17–48 [for an overview of the literature]; H.I. Innes: ‘Settlements and settlement patterns and central Transjordania, c.550–750’, Land use and settlement patterns, ed. G.R.D. King and A. Cameron (Princeton, 1994), 49–93 [another overview]; M.G. Moroney: ‘Late Sasanian and early Islamic Iraq’, Land use and settlement patterns, ed. G.R.D. King and A. Cameron (Princeton, 1994), 221–9; G.R.D. King, D. Dunlop, J. Elders, S. Garfi, A. Stephenson and C. Tonghini: ‘A report on the Abu Dhabi Islands archaeological survey (1993–4)’, PSAS 25 (1995), 63–74; D. Stacey: The archaeology of Early Islamic Tiberias (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1995).

GK

isochron Method, usually graphical, used in a number of scientific dating techniques to determine the age of an archaeological level when not all necessary data are available. It requires a series of samples with different characteristics, but all of the same age and having the missing data in common. In ARGON-ARGON dating, for example, knowledge of the initial 40Ar value is essential to the accuracy of the technique. It may be atmospheric in origin, in which case the 40Ar/36Ar ratio can be used to provide a correction, but it may also have a component from outgassing of nearby rocks during solidification. Using samples of different mineralogy, and therefore different 40K content, an isochron plot of 40Ar/36/Ar vs.39Ar/36Ar has a slope related by known constants to the age of the samples and the intercept gives their initial 40Ar/36Ar value. In

THERMOLUMINESCENCE (TL) dating, if the

environmental dose-rate is unknown, TL measure-

ments and radioactivity analysis of different types and size of grain can be used to produce an isochron and determine age.

The term may also be used to denote regions or markers of the same age, e.g. tephra layers from the same eruption found in different localities (see

TEPHROCHRONOLOGY).

SB

Israel, Israelites The archaeological and historical definitions of the terms Hebrew and Israel have been obfuscated by the political struggles between modern Israelis and Arabs in the Middle East. The Biblical account of the origins of the people of Israel (principally recounted in Numbers, Joshua and Judges) often conflicts both with non-Biblical textual sources and with the archaeological evidence for the settlement of CANAAN in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

Israel is first textually attested as a political entity in Egyptian texts of the late 13th century BC and the Egyptologist Donald Redford argues that the Israelites must have been emerging as a distinct group within the Canaanite culture during the century or so prior to this. It has been suggested that the early Israelites were an oppressed rural group of Canaanites who rebelled against the more urbanized coastal Canaanites (Gottwald 1979). Alternatively, it has been argued that the Israelites were survivors of the decline in the fortunes of Canaan who established themselves in the highlands at the end of the late Bronze Age (Ahlström 1986: 27). Redford, however, makes a good case for equating the very earliest Israelites with a semi-nomadic people in the highlands of central Palestine whom the Egyptians called Shasu (Redford 1992: 269–80; although see Stager 1985 for strong arguments against the identification with the Shasu). These Shasu were a persistent thorn in the side of the Ramessid pharaohs’ empire in Syria-Palestine, well-attested in Egyptian texts, but their pastoral lifestyle has left scant traces in the archaeological record. By the end of the 13th century BC, however, the Shasu/Israelites were beginning to establish small settlements in the uplands, the architecture of which closely resembles contemporary Canaanite villages.

In the 10th century BC Solomon ruled over an Israelite kingdom that had overcome both Canaanites and PHILISTINES, emerging as the preeminent polity in the Levant. At Solomon’s capital, JERUSALEM, only the bare foundations of his fabled temple and palace have survived. After his reign, the territory was split between the kingdoms of Israel (capital: Samaria) and Judah (capital: Jerusalem),

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which survived until attacks by the Assyrians in 722BC (Israel) and Babylonians in 587BC (Judah).

N.K. Gottwald: The tribes of Yahweh (New York, 1979); L.E. Stager: ‘Merenptah, Israel and Sea Peoples: new light on an old relief’, Eretz-Israel 18 (1985), 56–64; G.W. Ahlström: Who were the Israelites? (Winona Lake, 1986); I. Finkelstein: The archaeology of the Israelite settlement

(Jerusalem, 1988); D.B. Redford: Egypt, Canaan and Israel in ancient times (Princeton, 1992), 257–82; K.W. Whitelam: The invention of ancient Israel: the silencing of Palestinian history (London, 1996).

IS

Isturitz Palaeolithic cave c.35 km south of Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) which contains a fine group of low-relief carvings. The carvings, which were probably also painted originally, include a fine reindeer, a horse, a rough cave bear, and part of a mammoth. Excavations by Emmanuel Passemard (1913–22) and by Réne and Suzanne de Saint-Périer (1928–47) revealed evidence from the Mousterian, Aurignacian, Upper Périgordian, Solutrean, Magdalenian and Azilian; the carvings were sealed in Magdalenian levels and probably date from this phase. The mobiliary art recovered from Isturitz is spectacularly rich, including bâtons deeply carved with curvilinear designs, some engravings of bison wounded with arrows, and a rare ‘scene’ showing two human figures.

R. and S. de Saint-Périer: La Grotte d’Isturitz, Archives de L’institut de Paléontologie Humaine 7/17/25 (Paris, 1930, 1936, 1954); H. Delporte: L’image de la femme dans l’art préhistorique (Paris, 1979).

RJA

Itazuke Early Yayoi site (c.300–100 BC) in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan with an extensive paddy field system. Remains of fields, canals and embankments provided important evidence for the organisation of wet rice agriculture, and waterlogged conditions preserved many wooden tools, as at Toro. Palaeobotanical remains have proved that rice was grown in the preceding final Jomon period (c.1000–300 BC).

T. Mori and T. Okazaki: ‘Fukuoka-ken Itatsuke iseki’ [Itatsuke site, Fukuoka prefecture] Nihon noko bunka no seisei, ed. Nihon Kokogaku Kyokai (Tokyo, 1961); C.M. Aikens and T. Higuchi: The prehistory of Japan (London, 1982), 199–204.

SK

Itj-tawy see FAIYUM REGION; EL-LISHT

Iwajuku Late Palaeolithic site in Gunma prefecture, Japan which produced the first conclusive evidence for the Japanese Palaeolithic. During

314 IWAJUKU

excavations in 1949 definite artefacts, including handaxes, scrapers and flakes, were recovered from the middle layers of the Kanto loam, dated to 20,000–14,000 BP.

S. Sugihara: ‘The stone age remains found at Iwajuku, Gunma prefecture, Japan’, Meiji Daigaku Bungakubu kenkyu hokoku 1 (Tokyo, 1956); C.M. Aikens and T. Higuchi: The prehistory of Japan (London, 1982), 42-6.

SK

Iwo Eleru Rockshelter situated 24 km northwest of Akure, southwest Nigeria, which was excavated by Thurstan Shaw and Steve Daniels over a fourmonth period in 1965. Located 25 km from the present northern boundary of the rain forest, it was deliberately chosen for investigation in order to test the conflicting hypotheses either that the forest could not have been occupied before the introduction of iron tools or that the occurrence of ground stone axes in presently forested areas implied that it had been so occupied. Excavations to a maximum depth of 1.5 m over an area of about 90 m2 on the southward facing platform and talus produced an abundant Late Stone Age sequence with > 500,000 artefacts and a consistent block of radiocarbon dates, which allowed the excavators (despite the homogeneity of the deposits) to propose its division into four distinct periods (corresponding to eight ‘time vector plane’ groups according to Daniels on the basis of his analysis of the stone industry).

The Late Stone Age sequence at Iwo Eleru has been radiocarbon-dated to c.11,200–2000 BP. There is a surface layer of ash (whence the name of the site in Yoruba) and some recent and Iron Age potsherds. With regard to the original hypotheses, the stratigraphic sequence demonstrates that there was a Late Stone Age occupation in what is now a forested area, and tentative correlations can be made between its likely environmental history and the progression of material culture at the site. Iwo Eleru is the most extensively excavated, exhaustively

analysed, and fully published site of its type in Nigeria to date.

D.R. Brothwell and T. Shaw: ‘A late Upper Pleistocene Proto-West African negro from Nigeria’, Man 6/2 (1971), 221–7; T. Shaw and S.G.H. Daniels: ‘Excavations at Iwo Eleru, Ondo State, Nigeria’, WAJA 14 (1984) [monograph comprising entire issue].

PA-J

Iximché Capital of the Cakchiquel Maya in the western highlands of Guatemala, established in the late 15th century after the Cakchiquels rebelled against their former allies, the Quiché. After the Spanish conquest of UTATLÁN, Cakchiquels of Iximché first allied with the Spaniards against the Quiché, then drove the Spaniards out and fought against them before falling in defeat.

J.F. Guillemin: ‘The ancient Cakchiquel capital of Iximche’, Expedition 9 (1967), 22–35; ––––: ‘Urbanism and hierarchy at Iximche’, Social process in Maya prehistory, ed. N. Hammond (London, 1977), 227–64.

PRI

Izapa Located on the rich, CACAO-producing Pacific coastal plain of Chiapas, Mexico, Izapa is best known for its Middle and Late Preclassic (c.800 BC–AD 300) monumental art and architecture, which comprise some 80 structures arranged around plazas and roughly 250 sculptured stone monuments. The Late Preclassic Izapan art style on stelae (see STELE) and altars presents narrative and allegorical scenes showing elaborately clad humans together with birds, animals and vegetation. Long regarded as a direct stylistic link between earlier OLMEC art and later MAYA iconography, the Izapan style – which is also found at the highland site of KAMINALJUYÚ – is now viewed as a unique development.

V.G. Smith, ‘Izapa relief carving’, Studies in PreColumbian art and archaeology 27 (Washington, D.C., 1984).

PRI