1200 Glossary smaller diameter until the stones meet at the apex and can lean against one another for support cordage Twisted fibers that form thread, string, or yarn cordillera Parallel chains of mountains core forming Forming of glass by placing vegetal matter or animal dung mixed with clay and sand at the end of a wooden handle and either dipping it into molten glass or drizzling molten glass onto it, after which the core is rolled on flat stone or metal to even and smooth the surface core tools Tools that are shaped by striking off flakes from the central portion of a large pebble or cobble core–periphery model Economic and political relationship between well-developed centers and less-advanced ones that are in contact with them Corinthian One of the three orders, or styles, of Greek architecture, distinguished by long, slim columns and elaborate and detailed carvings on the capital cornice A molding at the corner between the ceiling and the top of a wall corroboree Australian Aboriginal festivity with singing and dancing, usually at night, to celebrate important occasions corvée Unpaid labor exacted in place of taxes by a governmental authority, usually for public works cosmogony The study of the origin of the cosmos or universe cosmology A system of beliefs used to describe the origin of the universe cosmopolitan At home with many different cultures of the world; having a worldwide scope or composed of influences or peoples from many parts of the world coulter A blade placed in front of the plowshare in order to cut a vertical slice through the soil course A horizontal layer of brick or stone; courses are laid on top of one another in building walls courtesan A prostitute who associates with socially elite people cowrie shells The shells of a sea mollusk from the family Cypraeidae, having shiny, colorful shells that are still used as money in parts of the South Pacific cranial deformation The practice of using boards, mats, or vices to shape the cranium or skull of an infant before the bone has fused together and hardened crannog Found in prehistoric Ireland and Scotland, a fortified island in inland waters or marshes built to protect a settlement crucible A heat-resistant container in which ores or metals are melted or heated cruciform Shaped like a cross cubicula Bedrooms opening from the atrium of a Roman house cubit A unit of length that is equal to the distance between a person’s elbow and his outstretched middle finger cuirass Body armor that covers the neck and chest cult statue A statue of a god, believed to contain the god’s essence and housed in a temple or sacred site to be used as the focus of worship and ritual actions cultic calendar The schedule of interaction between a community and its deity cultigen A cultivated or domestic organism which has diverged enough from its closest wild relatives to be classified as a species, subspecies, or major variety cuneiform A form of writing invented in Mesopotamia around 3400 b.c.e that used a reed pen called a stylus to make triangular marks on clay tablets cupellation A process used to purify silver by heating it to remove lead and other impurities curia A building where the Roman Senate met cursive A form of writing Chinese characters in which brushstrokes for one character flow into the brushstrokes for the next character curule aedile In ancient Rome, patrician officials in charge of various of Rome’s public works and functions, among them, streets, traffic, water supply, and markets and the organization of religious festivals and cult observances and also for public games cyfarwyddiaid Professional bards of ancient Wales cylinder seal A small object made of stone or other hard material in which a scene or symbol is carved away from the surrounding material; the seal is rolled across wet clay or papyrus to leave a permanent impression dactyl A poetic foot that has one long syllable followed by two short ones dais A raised platform that may be used for a table damask Thick, heavy cloth with a pattern woven into it; the weave is named after the city of Damascus, where silks were woven in this pattern after the first century c.e daub Mud or clay mixed with water as a kind of plaster daughter language Descendent languages from a protolanguage, or “original language.” dead reckoning A method for estimating a ship’s position through its speed, the distance that it has covered, and the direction of its travel deben Egyptian unit of weight for measuring metals, mostly copper, the equivalent to about 3.5 ounces debt bondage A condition in which one who owes another money or goods is forced to work until the obligation is paid off decimal A system of representing numbers by assigning values to different places, such as 10s, 100s, 1,000s, and so on in the base-10 system declamatio In Roman rhetoric, practice speeches given to fellow students declension An inflection of a noun or an adjective—a change in its form to indicate a change in its grammatical function decumanus An east-to-west road that formed part of the central axis of a Roman city, crossing the cardo (a road running north to south) at the city’s center