Tell

Tell, William, legendary Swiss patriot. According to legend, Tell was a native of Uri, one of the Swiss forest cantons. Gessler, the canton's Austrian bailiff, decreed that Swiss citizens must remove their hats before his hat, which he had posted on a stake in the canton's largest town. Tell refused and as punishment was ordered to shoot an apple off his small son's head. Although he succeeded, he was held prisoner by Gessler when he revealed that had he failed, he planned to kill Gessler with an arrow he had hidden on his person. Tell escaped and eventually shot Gessler from ambush at Küssnacht, thus setting off the revolt that ousted the bailiff on Jan. 1, 1308. While there is no valid proof of Tell's existence, the legend represents a distorted account of events that resulted (1291) in the formation of the Everlasting League between the cantons of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden. Schiller's popular drama Wilhelm Tell is based on the legend; Rossini's opera William Tell is based on Schiller's drama.

German Wilhelm Tell.

Swiss national hero whose historical existence is disputed. According to tradition, in the 13th or early 14th century he defied Austrian authority and was forced to shoot an apple from his son's head with a crossbow at a distance of 80 paces by the hated Austrian governor. He subsequently ambushed and killed the governor, an event that supposedly led to rebellion against Austrian rule. He is first mentioned in a chronicle from 1470. The marksman's test is widely found in folklore, and the story has resemblances to the founding myths of other nations.

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German Wilhelm Tell.

Swiss national hero whose historical existence is disputed. According to tradition, in the 13th or early 14th century he defied Austrian authority and was forced to shoot an apple from his son's head with a crossbow at a distance of 80 paces by the hated Austrian governor. He subsequently ambushed and killed the governor, an event that supposedly led to rebellion against Austrian rule. He is first mentioned in a chronicle from 1470. The marksman's test is widely found in folklore, and the story has resemblances to the founding myths of other nations.

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Ancient city, Egypt. Located midway between Thebes and Memphis on the Nile River, it was built in the 14th century BC by the Egyptian king (pharaoh) Akhenaton, who moved his subjects there in order to found a new monotheistic religion. Artifacts discovered there in the 19th century included hundreds of cuneiform tablets. Archaeological finds of the late 20th century included sculptures and paintings.

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Ancient city, Egypt. Located midway between Thebes and Memphis on the Nile River, it was built in the 14th century BC by the Egyptian king (pharaoh) Akhenaton, who moved his subjects there in order to found a new monotheistic religion. Artifacts discovered there in the 19th century included hundreds of cuneiform tablets. Archaeological finds of the late 20th century included sculptures and paintings.

Learn more about Amarna, Tell el- with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Tell, tel or tall (تلّ, tall, and , tel), meaning "hill" or "mound", is a type of archaeological site in the form of an earthen mound that results from the accumulation and subsequent erosion of material deposited by long human occupation. A tell mostly consists of architectural building materials containing a high proportion of stone, mudbrick, or loam as well as (to a minor extent) domestic refuse. The distribution of this phenomenon spans from the Indus valley in the east to Central Europe in the west. There are about 50,000 visible tells in the Middle East, a testament to the long settlement of the area.

The word is commonly used as a general term in archeology, particularly in Near Eastern archaeology. It is also sometimes used in a toponym, that is, as part of a town or city name, the best known example being the city of Tel Aviv (Hebrew, "Hill of [the season] Spring"), although Tel Aviv doesn't actually rest on a tell. A modern city is often located next to an ancient mound with a similar tell name, for example the city of Arad, Israel, is a few kilometers away from an ancient mound called Tel Arad. A proper use is in the case of the Tell of Akka, a hillock on which the actual city of Akka is situated.

Occasionally the word "tell" is misapplied to a site whose form does not warrant the designation. The site of Amarna in middle Egypt, frequently misnamed "Tell el-Amarna", is the best example of such an error; or the Tell Atlas (الاطلس التلي) mountains in the Maghreb, whose naming is unrelated to the word "Tell".

The Turkish word for tell is höyük, as in Çatalhöyük, or tepe. Toponyms indicating settlement mounds in the Balkans are often translated as "grave": magoula or toumba (because small tells can be confused with burial mounds) in Thessaly and Macedonia. The word mogila is used in Bulgaria, gomila in Slovenia, and magura in Romania.

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