Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (602 page)

As a result of the 19th- and early 20th-century propensity to collect ancient objects from all over the world and take them into established collections in Europe and America there is a great deal of material which has become detached from its cultural context, and there is now increasing pressure to return it to its country or culture of origin. Human remains taken for scientific study are amongst the most sensitive, and significant collections such as those held by the University of Nebraska in America and Edinburgh University in Scotland have already been returned to the indigenous communities from whom they were taken. The British Museum has returned to the Egyptian authorities a fragment of the beard of the great Sphinx of Giza. In 1980 France returned to Iraq fragments of Babylonian codes, and in 1978 Holland returned Hindu and Buddhist sculptures to Indonesia. Great controversy, however, surrounds claims for the repatriation of some objects, most notably the Elgin Marbles, originally from the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens, but since 1816 displayed in the British Museum in London.

 
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The act of repeating an experiment or set of observations to determine if the same result or pattern occurs.

 
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Type of decoration used on cold sheet bronze or gold produced by hammering from the back surface against a pattern mould to create a relief effect. See also
CHASING TOOL
.

 
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The latrines of a monastic establishment.

 
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A pressure group and membership organization representing a Trust for British Archaeology formed in 1971 by amateur and professional archaeologists as an expression of their concern at the massive erosion of Britain's archaeological heritage. The aim was to increase public awareness of the accelerating destruction of the archaeological heritage and campaign for better funding and infrastructure for archaeological investigations. In these matters the organization achieved considerable success and by 1973/4 the government had increased four-fold the budget available for rescue archaeology in England.

 
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A term coined in the 1960s in Britain for field archaeology carried out on sites under threat of destruction; synonymous with the American
SALVAGE ARCHAEOLOGY
. In Britain the term is closely associated with the large increase in the loss of archaeological sites as a result of increased development in the 1960s and 1970s, especially the motorway construction programme and urban regeneration.

 
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