Title Highlight: Archaeology Dictionaries

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology, Terms used in Archaeology: A short dictionary, and Illustrated Dictionary of Art and Archaeology

These three dictionaries of archaeology are all useful in different ways to someone seeking short summaries of information on the topic of archeology. The first one is an online dictionary found in the Oxford Reference Online collection. This dictionary would best be used to look up a specific term, location, person or concept. All of the definitions are short with some cross-references to other entries. A nice feature of this dictionary is the “Links for this book” link found under the “browse this book” link on the main page of the book. This list gives useful web links to various archaeological magazines, databases and professional organizations. The list is fairly up to date; all links except one worked when clicked on 10-20-2011. The preface link takes you to the beginning of the book which explains its scope and gives suggestions for further reading in encyclopedias or specialist dictionaries on topics not covered by this book such as industrial archaeology. The “abbreviations” link defines the abbreviations encountered in the text. The abbreviations found in square brackets after the word and before the definition are part of a classification scheme that places all the terms into a series of main groupings.

For a more in-depth definition of a term, check out the Hewes library’s reference book “Terms used in Archaeology.” The terms found in this book are described in greater detail than in the online book, although the number of terms defined is much smaller. Neither this nor the previous book has any illustrations.

For illustrations of some archaeological terms and concepts refer to the third title, also found in the reference section. This book covers both art and architecture and has many illustrations of things like Cyclopean masonry, temple antae and a pheon. On another note, this book also has many illustrations of the heraldic elements found on medieval banners and European family coats-of-arms such as a barry, gimmel rings and an impale.