Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (358 page)

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Keller , Ferdinand
(1800–81)
[Bi].

Swiss archaeologist and prehistorian who was ordained as a priest but subsequently became Director of the Zurich Museum and pioneered the investigation of the Swiss ‘lake-dwellings’. With other researchers he recognized that these settlements were not of one period, but showed a progression from Stone Age to Iron Age, providing further corroboration of the
THREE AGE SYSTEM
.
[Obit.:
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London
, 9 (1881–3), 122]

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

A monastery was founded at Kells in
c.
ad 804 as a refuge for Columban monks from Iona which had been attacked by the Vikings two years earlier. They brought with them a lavishly ornamented book which later become known as the
Book of Kells
. It is one of the earliest surviving illuminated manuscripts in Europe and contains gospels, prefaces, summaries, and concordances, and a large portion relating to 11th-century legal documents relating to the abbey of Kells. It is written on vellum. In ad 1152 the monastery was made a bishopric, but the community did not survive the Middle Ages and all that remains of the monastery is a
ROUND TOWER
more than 30m high. The Book of Kells is now in Trinity College, Dublin.
[Sum.: L. Judge , 1993,
The story of Kells
. Kells: Kells Publishing Company]

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Neolithic communities occupying the area east of the Caspian Sea through to the upper Tobal River catchment in southern Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan in the 4th and 3rd millennia
bc
. In the early stages these communities relied on hunting and gathering for their subsistence base, but later they became involved with stock-breeding and animal husbandry. The flint industry was essentially of Mesolithic derivation, microlith-based. Pottery consists of large bag-shaped vessels with pointed bases, the outer surfaces being decorated with short incisions arranged in rows and sometimes forming patterns. Succeeded by the
AFANASIEVO CULTURE
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Kemble , John Mitchell
(1807–57)
[Bi].

British philologist and historian whose studies concentrated attention on Anglo-Saxon language and history. His publications included a major edition of the poem
Beowulf
(1833) and a significant paper in 1856 in which he drew attention to the similarities in material from England and from Hanover.
[Bio.: R. A. Wiley , 1979, Anglo-Saxon Kemble: the life and works of John Mitchell Kemble , 1807–1857.
Anglo-Saxon studies in archaeology and history
(Oxford: British Archaeological Reports British Series 72), 165–273]

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Kendrick , Sir Thomas Downing
(1895–1979)
[Bi].

British archaeologist who became Director of the British Museum. Born in Birmingham he was educated at Charterhouse and Oriel College, Oxford. In WW1 he served in the Warwickshire Regiment and was severely wounded while fighting in France. He returned to Oriel in 1919 and read anthropology. He began a study of the archaeology of the Channel Islands, but in 1922 joined the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities in the British Museum, becoming Assistant Keeper in 1928, Keeper in 1938, and in 1950 was appointed Director and Principal Librarian, a post he held until his retirement in 1959. Kendrick had infectious enthusiasm, as shown by his numerous publications that include:
The Axe Age
(1925, London: Methuen) and
Late Saxon and Viking art
(1949, London: Methuen). He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1941 and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1934. In 1951 he was knighted.
[Obit.:
The Times
, 23 November 1979]