Prehistoric archaeology is a subfield of archaeology, which deals specifically with artefacts, civilisations and other materials from societies that existed before any form of writing system or historical record. Often the field focuses on ages such as the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age, although it also encompasses periods such as the Neolithic. The study of prehistoric archaeology reflects the cultural concerns of modern society by showing interpretations of time between economic growth and political stability. It is related to other disciplines such as geology, biology, anthropology, historiography and palaeontology, although there are noticeable differences between the subjects they all broadly study to understand; the past, either organic or inorganic or the lives of humans. Prehistoric archaeology is also sometimes termed as anthropological archaeology because of its indirect traces with complex patterns.
The Nicholson Museum was an archaeological museum at the University of Sydney home to the Nicholson Collection, the largest collection of antiquities in both Australia and the Southern Hemisphere. Founded in 1860, the collection spans the ancient world with primary collection areas including ancient Egypt, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, and the Near East. The museum closed permanently in February 2020, and the Nicholson Collection is now housed in the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney, open from November 2020. The museum was located in the main quadrangle of the University.
Idalion or Idalium was an ancient city in Cyprus, in modern Dali, Nicosia District. The city was founded on the copper trade in the 3rd millennium BC. Its name does not appear, however, on the renowned "Kition Stele", i.e., the Sargon Stele of 707 BC, but a little later on the Prism of Esarhaddon known as Niniveh A wherein the name is prefixed by the modifier URU (city) as URU.e-di-ʾi-il and in similar spellings in Ashurbanipal's annal while modified by KUR (land/kingdom).
Sir John Linton Myres was a British archaeologist and academic, who conducted excavations in Cyprus during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Having been a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford and then Christ Church, Oxford, he was briefly Gladstone Professor of Greek at the University of Liverpool (1907–1910). Having returned to the University of Oxford, he was the first Wykeham Professor of Ancient History from 1910 until 1939. During the First World War, he served with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Marion was one of the Ten city-kingdoms of Cyprus. It was situated in the north-west of the island in the Akamas region, close to or under the present town of Polis. Both Strabo and Pliny the Elder mention the city in their writings.
Tall al-Ajjul or Tell el-'Ajul is an archaeological mound or tell in the Gaza Strip. The fortified city excavated at the site dates as far back as ca. 2000-1800 BCE and was inhabited during the Bronze Age. It is located at the mouth of Wadi Ghazzah just south of the town of Gaza.
Joan Breton Connelly is an American classical archaeologist and Professor of Classics and Art History at New York University. She is Director of the Yeronisos Island Excavations and Field School in Cyprus. Connelly was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1996. She received the Archaeological Institute of America Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2007 and held the Lillian Vernon Chair for Teaching Excellence at New York University from 2002 to 2004. She is an Honorary Citizen of the Municipality of Peyia, Republic of Cyprus.
Tenta, also referred to as Kalavasos-Tenta or Tenda, is an Aceramic Neolithic settlement located in modern Kalavasos near the southern coast of Cyprus. The settlement is approximately 38 kilometres southwest of Larnaca and approximately 45 kilometres south of Nicosia. Tenta occupies a small natural hill on the west side of the Vasilikos valley, close to the Nicosia–Limassol highway.
Kition was an Ancient Greek city-kingdom on the southern coast of Cyprus, one of the Ten city-kingdoms of Cyprus. According to the text on the plaque closest to the excavation pit of the Kathari site, it was established in the 13th century BC by Greek (Achaean) settlers, after the Trojan War.
Winifred Lamb was a British archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator who specialised in Greek, Roman, and Anatolian cultures and artefacts. The bulk of her career was spent as the honorary keeper (curator) of Greek antiquities at the University of Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum from 1920 to 1958, and the Fitzwilliam Museum states that she was a "generous benefactor ... raising the profile of the collections through groundbreaking research, acquisitions and publications."
Ayios Andreas or Tophane is a Neighbourhood, Quarter, Mahalla or Parish of Nicosia, Cyprus. In September 1945, the Ottoman name of Tophane was changed to Ayios Andreas, but there is no parish church of that name.
The Department of Antiquities is a government department of the Republic of Cyprus with responsibility for archaeological research and cultural heritage management.
Vassos Karageorghis FBA was a Cypriot archaeologist and director of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.
The archaeology of Cyprus involves the analysis of human activity derived from Cypriot artefacts and architecture from the Neolithic through to the British period. The earliest archaeological discoveries in Cyprus are attributed to European amateur collectors or “treasure hunters” during the early 19th century. By the mid 19th century, systematic fieldwork and excavations were conducted on various sites involving studying the remains of Cypriot cemeteries and tombs, maritime artefacts, architecture, pottery as well as a range of other individual artefacts. Subsequent findings and analysis detail the social and physical landscapes of ancient Cyprus as well as their evolving culture, religious beliefs and technology throughout antiquity.
Leonard Halford Dudley Buxton, known as L. H. Dudley Buxton, was a British anthropologist. He was educated at Radley College and at Exeter College, Oxford, and he was Reader in Physical Anthropology at the University of Oxford between 1928 and 1939. He conducted field work in Sudan, India, Malta, the United States, China and Mesopotamia, and in 1913 he excavated Lapithos in Cyprus under the direction of professor John Myres and Cyprus Museum curator Menelaos Markides. During his extensive travels he documented his work through photography; the pictures are currently in the Pitt Rivers Museum. In the 1930s he carried research in Oxford with anthropologist Beatrice Blackwood. He collected textiles that are currently in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, the Bankfield Museum in Halifax and the British Museum. From 1914 to 1918 he served with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in France and in the Intelligence Corps. He died on 5 March 1939.
Porphyrios Dikaios FSA was a Cypriot archaeologist.
Claude Delaval Cobham was a British Colonial official in Cyprus from 1878 to 1908, from 1879 until 1907 he acted as the District Commissioner of Larnaca.
Max Ohnefalsch-Richter was a German archaeologist and antiquities seller. He was born in Saxony in 1850 and arrived in British occupied Cyprus in 1878 to work as a journalist, in the following year he worked for the British Colonial government and the British Museum in carrying out excavations on behalf of Sir Charles Newton as well as private individuals. The discovered material was later sold to various European museums as well as in public auctions. In 1910, he was caught smuggling antiquities outside of Cyprus and was banned from carrying out further excavations. He carried out a number of excavations in Cyprus, at the sites of Idalion, Politiko and Tamassos. Together with John Myres he published a catalogue of the Cyprus Museum in 1899. He was the editor of two journals, The Owl. Science, Literature and Art (1888-1889) and The Journal of Cypriote Studies, with only one issue in 1889.
Menelaos Markides was a Cypriot archaeologist and the first curator of the Cyprus Museum (1912-1931).
Theophilus Amin Halil Mogabgab or Moghabghab M.B.E. OStJ was a Cypriot government official, topographer, designer and scholar of Lebanese Christian descent.
