The scarcity and possible unreliability of dates offered by literary sources for the earlier Archaic period mean that dates derived from archaeological evidence are of the utmost importance. In theory, material objects can be dated by a battery of scientific techniques, of which the best known is radiocarbon dating, pioneered by Willard Libby in 1949. Applied to organic materials, this technique measures the rate of decay of the radioactive Carbon14 isotope compared with the more stable Carbon12 and Carbon13 isotopes. By comparing the amount of Carbon14 that still remains in the object to the known half-life of the isotope, it is possible to calculate how many years have elapsed since the object ceased to exist and absorb carbon - in the case of timber, for example, this would be when the tree was felled. In practice, the results can be vitiated by a number of factors such as cross-contamination between samples or fluctuations across time in the level of cosmic radiation. The standard deviation, or margin of error, that accompanies radiocarbon dates used to be so wide that the technique was more useful in prehistory, where chronological precision is seldom as crucial, than for more historical periods where standard deviations of sixty or so years are not terribly helpful (similar criticisms hold with regard to thermoluminescence dating, which measures the build-up of electrons to determine when a ceramic vessel was fired). More recently, higher levels of chronological resolution have been obtained by “wiggle matching” floating sequences of tree-rings (dendrochronology) to the radiocarbon curve. Nevertheless, the application of radiocarbon dates to Archaic Greece is seriously compromised by what is known as the “Hallstatt Plateau” - the name given to a flattening of the radiocarbon calibration curve whereby radiocarbon dates of around 2450 bp (Before Present) always calibrate to 800-400 bce.
The basic foundation of Greek archaeological dating is therefore style and, in particular, the principle that the style of any given object changes over time (think of cars, cellular phones, or Coca Cola bottles). Although stylistic evolution occurs in all artifacts, painted ceramics have traditionally been privileged for three reasons. Firstly, unlike organic materials which decay or metal objects which may corrode, kiln-fired clay is practically indestructible. Secondly, the intrinsic low value of painted pottery meant that it was used widely in antiquity and discarded freely. Metal objects, on the other hand, would often be melted down and recycled. This, together with its indestructibility, means that ceramic material appears in vast quantities at every archaeological site in the Greek world. Thirdly, painted ceramic vessels generally offer far more variables for stylistic comparison - be it the shape of the vessel or the choice and placement of decorative design - than is the case with other classes of material.
Figure 2.2 shows the various stylistic phases of the two best-known pottery sequences - those of Attica and Corinth. The names given to the successive stylistic phases generally derive from the painted decoration applied to vases. “Geometric” designates a class of pottery on which bands and panels are decorated with
Figure 2.3 Argive Late Geometric pyxis. Source: Argos Museum C.209 EFA / E. Serafis
Wavy-lines, meanders, battlements, lozenges, squares, and triangles and - in its later phases - stylized representations of human and animal figures (Figure 2.3). “Protogeometric” owes its name to the fact that this class of pottery was identified only after the classification of the Geometric styles. In the Black Figure style, pioneered by Attic painters but influenced by earlier Corinthian fashions, silhouettes of figures were painted in black against the background of the red clay and details were rendered by incision, allowing the natural color of the clay to show through (Figure 2.4). The Red Figure style, instead, reverses the technique: here, it is the background that is painted black while the figures are depicted by reserving the red clay and then applying details in black paint with a fine brush.
Stylistic evolution does not proceed at the same pace in all areas of Greece. The sequences of Attica and Corinth follow a similar development, though Attica seems to move from Protogeometric to Geometric styles earlier than Corinth while it was some time before Protoattic pottery took its cue from the widely popular Protocorinthian style. In other regions, the pace of development could be quite different. Euboea and Laconia, for example, do not really produce pottery that can be classified as Early or Middle Geometric. Instead, a lingering Protogeometric tradition persists until the adoption of Late Geometric
Figure 2.4 Laconian black-figure hydria. Source: KB Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, Rhodes
Styles. The different tempos can be registered by cases in which pots from different regions are found in the same archaeological context - for instance, as grave goods in a tomb. So, the presence of Early Protocorinthian cups alongside local Late Geometric II pots in Argive tombs indicates that Corinthian potters had abandoned a properly Geometric style of decoration before their Argive counterparts.
The progression of these ceramic styles is not difficult to discern on a museum shelf but it can also be confirmed by excavation. Most settlements in the Greek world were situated with a view to defense, water sources, and access to agricultural land and harbors. For this reason, sites tended to be occupied over long periods of time and if a settlement was destroyed or abandoned it was normally rebuilt or reoccupied fairly swiftly afterwards. With each successive phase of occupation a habitation layer, or “stratum,” was deposited above the ruins of the previous settlement. At Troy, when excavations began in 1870, the ground level was as much as sixteen meters above the natural bedrock. Stratigraphy denotes the practice of identifying these various habitation levels in an excavation, and although there are exceptions, the general principle is that the deeper a layer is, the earlier it is. In such cases, the relative stylistic sequence
Of ceramic classes can be cross-checked against stratigraphy, the expectation being that Submycenaean pottery will be found in lower levels than Protogeometric pottery and Red Figure pottery in higher levels than Geometric wares.
Although painted ceramics offer the fullest and most continuous evidence, stylistic sequences can be identified for all classes of material. Bronze pins, for example, become ever more ornamental as time passes and the evolution of architectural styles can be charted by such techniques as measuring the ratio between the height and diameter of columns or examining the profile of column capitals. If such monumental buildings also supported sculpture, then the evolution of artistic styles can be correlated against the evolution of architectural forms. Again, these sequences can be “pegged” onto the ceramic series through cross-dating. A certain type of pin or fibula (brooch), for example, may be commonly found in graves containing Middle Geometric II pottery, in which case pins that appear, on stylistic grounds, to be just slightly later are probably contemporary with Late Geometric wares. Architectural structures can be dated by the pottery found beneath them: so, if Middle Protocorinthian sherds are found in the foundation trenches of a temple, the temple cannot predate the period in which Middle Protocorinthian styles were in vogue. All this, however, leaves us with a loosely connected series of floating relative sequences. We can be pretty certain as to which styles of pottery are earlier and which are later as well as to which ceramic phases other classes of material belong but we have no absolute dates nor - aside from educated intuition - can we establish how long each stylistic phase lasted. These floating relative sequences need to be pinned down to a precise chronological scheme and this is achieved by means of what are called “fixed points” (Figure 2.2).
The first set of fixed points comes from destruction levels at Near Eastern sites. Because the destructions of these cities are often recorded in Assyrian and Babylonian annals or in the Old Testament, burnt layers of debris should theoretically provide fairly precise dates for pottery found immediately above and below them. So, for example, Euboean Subprotogeometric skyphoi (cups with two horizontal handles) and an Attic Middle Geometric II krater (mixing-bowl) were found in the destruction horizon of Hama in Syria. According to Assyrian records, Sargon II sacked Hama ca. 720 and if it is this act that is signaled by the destruction level then we have a terminus ante quem for Euboean Subprotogeometric and Attic Middle Geometric II pottery. A destruction level at Tarsus in Turkey may reflect an attack on the city by another Assyrian king, Sennacherib, in 696; if so, this would provide a terminus ante quem for an Early Protocorinthian aryballos found among the destruction debris. Similarly, Babylonian records inform us that King Nebuchadnezzar sacked the southern Palestinian city of Ashkelon in 604; the latest pottery here included Transitional Corinthian pottery, implying that the transition from Protocorinthian to Ripe Corinthian styles occurred before the end of the seventh century.
The second set of fixed points comes from colonial foundations in the west. At the beginning of his account of the Sicilian Expedition of 415, Thucydides
Figure 2.5 Thucydides’ dates for the foundations in Sicily (6.1-5) describes the populations of Sicily, including the first permanent Greek settlers on the island (Figure 2.5). These colonial foundations are dated in relation to one another. So, Thucydides tells us that Syracuse was founded one year after Naxos; Leontini and Catana five years after Syracuse, with Megara Hyblaea following shortly afterwards; Gela forty-five years after Syracuse; Acragas 108 years after Gela; Acrae seventy years after Syracuse; Casmenae almost twenty years after Acrae; and Camarina 135 years after Syracuse. Since he also tells us that Megara Hyblaea was settled for 245 years before its destruction by Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, and since we know that this latter event occurred in 483, then we have an absolute date for Megara Hyblaea (728), allowing us to calculate dates for the other Greek cities on Sicily. This should mean that the Corinthian Late Geometric and Early Protocorinthian pottery found at Syracuse and Megara Hyblaea was in vogue in the last third of the eighth century. The apparent absence of Protocorinthian pottery from Selinus, on the other hand, should indicate that the transition from Protocorinthian to Ripe Corinthian styles took place around, or just before, 628.
Another fixed point derives from an imported Egyptian scarab, marked with the cartouche of the Pharaoh Bokkhoris, which was found in an infant burial at Pithecusae. On the assumption that the scarab was deposited in the burial soon after Bokkhoris’ short reign (718-712), the Early Protocorinthian aryballoi also found in the grave should date to the last quarter of the eighth century. Finally, a number of refuse pits found on the Athenian acropolis are probably to be connected with cleaning operations following the Persian sacks of Athens in 480 and 479, which has been taken to suggest that most of the debris found in the pits should predate 480. Shortly after the withdrawal of the Persians, the
Athenians hastily constructed a fortification circuit (the so-called “Themisto-clean walls”), incorporating fragments of funerary sculpture and inscriptions that had been damaged during the Persian invasion, thus providing an important terminus ante quem for Late Archaic sculpture and epigraphic letter-forms (see above).
World History
