Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (625 page)

Two-part prehistoric hand-mill operated by moving an upper stone (rubber) backwards and forwards across the material to be ground which is spread across a rough-topped lower stone.

 
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In Old English a saex was a single-edged knife or cleaver; examples are commonly found in Saxon and Anglo-Saxon graves. Continental versions have a curving back while English types (late 6th century
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and later) are straight-backed with an angle near the point.

 
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Old Norse word meaning a story (originally in prose) of quasi-legendary events; colloquially, a long tale. Used chiefly to describe the historical stories current in Iceland in the Middle Ages.

 
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Large cylindrical fired ceramic vessels, with or without holes in the sides, used to contain unfired pots (especially glazed ware) or other kinds of ceramic products (e.g. clay pipes) to protect them during firing. Items were stacked in the sagger either on props or in a bed of sand. The filled saggers were then stacked up in the kiln, separating the items to be fired and thus guaranteeing less wastage.

 
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Palm (Metroxylon sagu) native to Indonesia and Samoa which stores large amounts of starch in its trunk prior to flowering. The starch can be washed out of the chopped pith of felled trees and then cooked as a kind of porridge or in cakes. The antiquity of its exploitation is unknown, but it was widely used in Indonesia and Melanesia.

 
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Type of pottery manufactured in the Saintes region of western France from the 13th century
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through to modern times. The best-known vessels in this ware are tall jugs with polychrome glazed decoration dating to the 14th century. They are found widely across northern Europe, especially in England, and were probably traded alongside French wine. The jugs were only one of the types of vessel manufactured at centres such as La Chapelle des Pots, where kilns and workshops have been excavated.

 
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