Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (421 page)

An ancient Indian state dating to the later 1st millennium
bc
, centred on Pataliputra (modern Patna) near the junction of the Son and Ganges rivers. After Alexander the Great's death in 323 bc, Candra Gupta founded a dynasty that encompassed most of the subcontinent except for the Tamil south, driving the Greeks out of India and establishing the Mauryan empire as an efficient and highly organized autocracy. The empire was characterized by a differentiated economy based on food-gathering tribes, pastoralists, various kinds of peasant cultivators, and traders. There was a standing army and a kind of civil service. The Buddhist Mauryan emperor Ashoka who reigned between
c.
265 and 238 bc is known for the stones erected throughout his realm bearing edicts; these are among the oldest deciphered original texts known in India. The Mauryan empire subsequently declined and was deposed by Sunga in 187 bc.

 
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An above-ground storage structure for the dead which often comprised large and impressive sepulchral monuments. The original mausoleum was the gigantic tomb of Mausolus, ruler of Caria in southwest Asia Minor, built at Halicarnassus
c.
353–350 bc. It was considered one of the
SEVEN WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
. The term later came to be used for any tomb built on a monumental scale.

 
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A group of early Han Dynasty tombs near Chang-Sha (Changsha City) in Hunan Province. Excavated in 1972–4, the three tombs each take the form of a massive compartmented timber box at the bottom of a deep stepped shaft. The shaft was filled in with rammed earth, and a mound was raised over it. Tomb 2 is probably the earliest and belonged to the first marquis of Dai who died in 186 bc, a high official of the Han administration.
Tomb 3 is probably the burial place of the marquis's son who died in 168 bc. Its contents were better preserved than those in Tomb 2, comprising silk paintings, three rare musical instruments, and an extraordinary collection of manuscripts, some on silk and some on bamboo slips. The writings deal with such subjects as contemporary philosophical themes, early historical events, military information, astronomical and calendrical matters, geography, and medicine.
Tomb 1 is that of the marquis's wife who died shortly after 168 bc. The earthen mound was 16m in height. The contents of this tomb were very well preserved. The body and internal organs of its occupant showed it to have been a 50-year-old female of short stature. Details from the autopsy of the cadaver showed a variety of ills leading up to her death, including coronary arteriosclerosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, and gallstones. The body had been wrapped in silk and laid inside four richly decorated nested coffins. More than 180 dishes, toilet boxes, and other lacquered articles, silk clothing, offerings of food, musical instruments, small wooden figures of servants and musicians, and a complete inventory of the grave goods written on bamboo slips serve to depict extreme wealth.
In construction and contents these three tombs are rather different from other Han princely burials in northern China and reflect the lingering traditions and material culture of the Chu kingdom, which had fallen to the Qin less than a century earlier.
[Sum.: Q. Hao , 1981, The Han tombs at Mawangdui, Changsha: underground home of an aristocratic family. In Q. Hao (ed.),
Out of China's earth
. London: Muller. 87–125]

 
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Co-emperor of the Roman empire, ad 286–305.

 
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A regionally distinct cultural grouping, united by material culture and language, occupying eastern Mesoamerica from the Formative Stage down to the present day. During the Classic Stage from about ad 300 to ad 900 the Maya emerged as the most sophisticated civilization in pre-Columbian America.
The origin of the Maya is a matter that has attracted much research but little clarification. The ancestral lands were probably the Guatemalan–Chiapas highlands where, during the Early Formative, maize farming became widespread before communities began moving westwards into the adjacent lowland areas of Yucatán. Among the earliest villages known in the lowlands is Cuello, Belize, established about 1200 bc. Within three or four centuries, a network of small chiefdoms established itself across what is now Guatemala, Belize, southeastern Mexico, and the western parts of Honduras and El Salvador. Various models of what happened next, and how these chiefdoms became states, have been advanced. A common theme to many of these models is the problem of population pressure. Some areas, for example the Usumacinta and Belize River basins, were rich agricultural areas and here the population rose, with the result that agricultural land became scarce and warfare between local chiefdoms increased. The need for military leaders and for authoritative individuals to allocate land led to the emergence of an elite. Trade was also important, and there is some evidence for contact with the Olmec to the north.
After ad 800, Maya villages seem to have become more closely connected with one another through internal trade and exchange systems, most clearly seen in the distribution of Mamóm style pottery. At the same time, ceremonial centres begin to develop, leading to a two-tier settlement hierarchy. At Nakbe, Guatemala, a ceremonial centre seems to have developed on the site of a former village, perhaps indicating the centralization of local power. By 400 bc there were several ceremonial centres in both the lowlands and the highlands, each site including pyramids, temples, platforms, and stelae.
Population continued to grow during the late Formative (late Pre-Classic), and the transition from chiefdom to state seems to have happened around ad 250 in lowland areas. The two-level settlement hierarchy developed into a four-level system comprising villages, small ceremonial centres, large ceremonial centres, and regional centres. Large and small ceremonial centres were regularly spaced at intervals of 13–26km.
An elaborate calendrical system was evolved, not least to identify appropriate days for holding ritual and ceremonial events. The
LONG COUNT
calendar provides a valuable tool for dating Maya sites and objects.
Although irrigation was known it was not extensively used, and the economic basis of the Maya state was intensive but broadly based agriculture. In particular it focused on utilizing raised fields to grow maize, beans, squash, chilli peppers, and root crops. Settlement was mainly dispersed, with small hamlets of up to five houses arranged around a courtyard. Some of the large and regional ceremonial centres also acted as settlements and recent investigations around Tikal, for example, show that the ceremonial centre was the religious and administrative core of a city of perhaps 70000 inhabitants.
The Maya elite was engaged in exchange practices, building on the networks established during late Formative times. The commodities acquired included salt and grinding stones as well as raw materials such as obsidian, shell, and chert for the production of fine objects. Jade was the most precious material known to the Maya and was widely traded from its restricted sources in the Motagua Valley.
The ceremonial centres included temples, pyramids, ball-courts, palaces, and plazas, usually linked by causeways or wide paved roads. The massive monumental structures were intricately carved and decorated with scenes showing how the hereditary dynasties of the kings united with the gods.
After about ad 800, many of the Classic Maya centres fall into decline and population decreases: the so-called Classic Maya Collapse. Many causes for this have been put forward, including epidemic disease, earthquakes, drought, agricultural collapse, the severing of trade routes, a peasant revolution, and invasion. No one single cause adequately accounts for the process, and social and political factors may in fact have been the most important, especially the fall of Teotihuacán in Mexico before ad 750, and the power struggles and political unrest that must have ensued. Maya culture remained, albeit in slightly different form, flourishing in northern parts of Yucatán down to ad 1000 when Toltec invasions caused further changes. The Maya remained the indigenous people of Mesoamerica at the time of Spanish conquest, and there are about 6 million Maya living today.