Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (88 page)

Roman politician born
c.
ad 480. He became senator and consul during the time of Theodoric the Great but was suspected of treason and imprisoned. During his time in prison he wrote his well-known work:
On the consolation of philosophy
. Executed in
c.
ad 524.

 
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A general term often used rather indiscriminately to describe permanent wetland in which communities of plants grow on generally rather acid waterlogged ground. See
BLANKET BOG
,
TOPOGENOUS BOG
, AND
OMBRODGENOUS BOG
. Compare
FEN
.

 
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A human corpse preserved in waterlogged conditions such that skin and hair often survive but most internal organs and bones decay. Clothing also sometimes survives in such circumstances. The best-known example is
TOLLUND MAN
from Denmark, but he is only one of many hundreds of bodies recovered in recent centuries from wetlands all over northwestern Europe.

 
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Capital of the
HITTITE
empire set in a loop of the Halys River in central Turkey. Excavations by Hugo Winkler in 1906–12, Kirk Bittel during the 1930s, and subsequent campaigns by German teams show that the site was occupied since the Copper Age, becoming the main city of the Hittites, known then as Hattusas, about 1500 bc. At this time the city covered 180ha and comprised two main elements. At Büyükkale was a walled inner town of 80ha, the citadel. Here were large administrative buildings, one of which contained over 10000 inscribed clay tablets, an audience hall, and temples. Upslope and to the south was a walled outer city of about 100ha. Three of the gates here were decorated in reliefs showing warriors, lions, and sphinxes. Four temples are known inside, each set around a porticoed courtyard, together with secular buildings and residential structures. Outside the walls are cemeteries, most of which contain cremation burials, and the rock sanctuary of Yazilikaya. After the collapse of the Hittite empire around 1200 bc the site was abandoned until the mid 1st millennium
bc
.
[Sum.: P. Neve , 1996, Housing in Hattu
a the capital of the Hitite Kingdom. In Y. Sey ,
Housing and settlement in Anatolia. A historical perspective.
Istambul: History Foundation Publications. 99–115]

 
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A fallen trunk tree, sometime killed by waterlogging, but subsequently preserved in peat which formed around it and enveloped it. The death of the trees and the development of the bog are often connected.

 
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