Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (506 page)

Strongly arched stone bridge over streams and small rivers along routes used by packhorses for transporting goods and materials during medieval times in Britain and other parts of northern Europe.

 
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Fields for the intensive cultivation of rice, flooded naturally or by irrigation.

 
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A method of smoothing and finishing the walls of hand-made pottery vessels where a small stone or wooden ‘anvil’ is held against the inner wall of the vessel while a flat or curved wooden ‘paddle’ is used to beat the outer surface into shape.

 
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A flat slab of stone placed on the ground to provide a support for a wooden upright forming part of the structure of a timber-framed building. A group of padstones is often the only archaeological trace remaining of such buildings. Originally padstones served the twin purposes of spreading the weight of the structure taken to earth through the upright while also raising the timber off the ground a little to inhibit its decay.

 
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In Roman times a
pagus
was the smallest unit of land in a country district; pagans were those who followed the beliefs and religions of the countryside rather than the officially recognized cults. When Christianity was adopted as the official religion in the Roman empire, pagans were those who continued local traditions and were thus represented as heathens.

 
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Extensive city in northern Burma situated near the confluence of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin rivers adjacent to the irrigated rice-growing plain of Kyauskse, founded in ad 849 through the amalgamation of many small villages. Originally called Arimaddanapura, the city became the capital of the Burman kingdom. The rulers of the Pagan Dynasty in the period ad 1044 to 1287 built more than 5000 Buddhist temples in the area. Pagan was captured by the Mongols in ad 1287.
[Sum.: M. Aung Thwin , 1985,
Pagan: the origins of modern Burma
. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press]

 
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