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A Scottish antiquary, the secretary of the society of antiquaries of scotland, and its president from 1913 to 1918, Abercromby is most famous for his typological analyses published in Bronze Age Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland (1912).
In 1904 Abercromby used the term beaker to describe the decorated, handleless pottery drinking vessels used all over Europe between 4000 and 2000 b.c. He argued that the appearance of beakers in northern and western Europe could only be understood in relation to changes in similar assemblages from southeast and central Europe. While Abercromby’s beaker typology remained unchanged until quite recently, his explanation of their uniform spread has been disproved. Abercromby argued for a putative “Beaker folk” who migrated all over Europe with their pottery. It is now thought that it was the pottery style that migrated alone—that the beakers were an interregional and even international style of artifact that were traded over long distances and were widely recognized male status objects used in drinking rituals. Abercromby argued that cultural uniformity meant social and ethnic uniformity—an argument that was later used by some archaeologists to support Nazi ideology in Germany. Nonetheless Abercromby’s “new” approach to archaeological evidence (one that still finds support among some archaeologists) was more international than most approaches to the same evidence in England during this time.
Abercromby’s influence was virtually confined to Scotland. His bequest to the University of Edinburgh in 1916 endowed the chair of archaeology that still carries his name. vere gordon childe was the first appointment to the Abercromby Chair in 1927, and stuart piggott succeeded him.
See also
Britain, Prehistoric Archaeology
See Dating
Situated in Lower Nubia (Egypt), the site of abu simbel comprises two temples cut from living rock during the reign of the pharaoh Ramses II, thirteenth century b.c. The temples feature major works of sculpture, in particular seated figures of Ramses II and standing figures of Ramses and his queen, Nefertari.
The integrity of the temples was threatened by rising waters of the Nile River because of the construction of the a new Aswan High Dam and the creation of Lake Nasser in the 1960s. In a model of international cooperation, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) made possible a large-scale survey and excavation of sites that were to be inundated by Lake Nasser and, perhaps more spectacularly, the dismantling and reassembly of the temples at a new site created above the water line. The rescue project lasted from 1960 to 1980.
See also
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