Archives: Tooltips

The matrix is the material (e.g. sediment or soil) in which the artefacts, ecofacts and features are embedded. The kind of matrix has a direct impact on the preservation of these archaeological remains.

Different features combined are identified as structures. This can be houses, palaces, temples, etc.

The term features is used for all the non-portable artefacts. This can be floors, walls, fireplaces, storage pits, post-holes, etc.

Ecofacts is a term used to denote the organic and environmental material retrieved on an archaeological site that are not artefacts. This can be animal bones, human skeletons, plant seeds, soils, sediments, etc. When for example an animal bone has been modified or used by humans then it is an artefact and not an ecofact. Ecofacts reveal important information on the climate, the vegetation or the human diet in the past.

An artefact is simply put any movable object that is modified, made or used by humans.

The method used in social sciences to study networks between individuals via graphs.

Provenance is the place or the history of origin of an object. In archaeology this term is used to denote the horizontal and vertical position of artefacts, features and ecofacts in the matrix.

Around the time of the 2nd year of Xerxes (484 BCE) most of the family archives from North-Babylonia ran out. This phenomenon is directly connected to the Babylonian revolts against Xerxes which took place in the summer months of that year and were centred around the rebel kings Šamaš-erība (Sippar) and Bēl-šimânni (Babylon). These events presumably led to the re-staffing of the temples and the sorting out and abandoning of the archives.