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A Note on the Absolute Chronology of the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

R. M. Cook
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Extract

For absolute dates down to the early sixth century B.C. students of Hellenic archaeology look to countries further east where reliable chronologies have been established. So far very few useful contexts have been discovered, and all or almost all of them are open at one end or the other. What has not been made clear enough is that occasionally two such open-ended contexts can be bracketed to give a more precise fix.

One pair is the end of Period V at Samaria and grave 102 at Pithecusae (Ischia). The deposit of Period V at Samaria contained a few fragments of Attic Geometric pottery, and most Palestinian experts are confident that by comparison with other sites in their region it was closed little if any later than 750. Grave 102 at Pithecusae, which was used only for the burial of one child, contained three Corinthian pots and a scarab with the cartouche of the Egyptian king Bocchoris, who came to the throne in or very near to 718; this scarab had had some wear and anyhow ought not to be appreciably later in date than the pottery, since it is unlikely that only old pots were chosen to be buried with a child. So from their contexts the interval between the Attic sherds from Samaria and the Corinthian pots of Pithecusae should not be less than thirty years or more probably, if one allows five years for the wear of the Bocchoris scarab, thirty-five years. Now the development of the relevant phases of Attic and Corinthian pottery is known in fair detail, thanks most recently to J. N. Coldstream's Greek Geometric Pottery; and if one accepts his classification, which seems to me convincing, the latest of the Samaria sherds belong to the end of Attic Middle Geometric II and the latest of the Corinthian pots of Pithecusae is of the middle of the Early Protocorinthian phase, that is distinctly earlier than the end of Attic Late Geometric IIb. To judge by the stylistic character of Attic Late Geometric (which succeeds Middle Geometric II) and the sequence of its workshops, the two finds should be separated by not more than sixty years and, if thirty-five of these years are fixed absolutely as 750–715, then—again absolutely—there is a play of only twenty-five years in the archaeological chronology of this period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 64 , November 1969 , pp. 13 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1969

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References

1 The Eastern contexts till the beginning of the seventh century have been collected and discussed carefully by Coldstream, J. N., Greek Geometric Pottery 302–21.Google Scholar

2 Op. cit. 304–9 and 316–17.

3 Op. cit. 304.

4 Op. cit. 317.

5 Op. cit. 331. Most of these workshops, as so far reconstituted, are improbably short-lived and some may need to be extended or amalgamated.

6 Op. cit. 330. There is also a possibility, if at present no more, that one painter has been detected who spanned the greater part of this interval; op. cit. 30, n. 5 (on no. 9) and 55–6 (on no. 11).

7 Cook, J. M., BSA liii/iv. 23–5.Google Scholar

8 Naveh, J., Israel Exploration Journal 1962, 89–113Google Scholar (for the site and pottery); 1960, 129–39 and 1962, 27–32 (for the inscriptions).

9 Alyattes reigned for fifty-seven years (i. 25) and Croesus for fourteen years (i. 86): I assume that Sardis fell in 547.

10 Kaletsch, C. H., Historia 1958, 1–47Google Scholar, for a detailed discussion.

11 Hdt. i. 18.

12 The relevant Corinthian pottery is published by Anderson, J. K., BSA liii/iv. 143–8Google Scholar: he dates the latest pieces ‘well before the end’ of the Early Ripe phase (ibid. 148; cf. J. M. Cook, ibid. 25).

13 Assigned palaeographically to the late seventh century (Naveh, , IEJ 1960, 137–9).Google Scholar

14 Naveh argues that there is enough Greek pottery to require the presence of Greek mercenaries and that these must have been in Egyptian service; so their pottery should have arrived in the time of Psammetichus I when he was attacking Ashdod, that is before 609 (IEJ 1962, 98–9). I agree about the probability of Greek mercenaries, but think it more likely that they were serving Josiah; there is no sign of the fortress changing hands and the location of Meṣad Ḥashavyahu, about a mile south of the harbour of Yavneh-Yam (Minet Rubin), suggests that one of its purposes was to protect that harbour from attack from the south, that is from the direction of Egypt.

15 Greek Painted Pottery (1966) 119–21.

16 See most recently Coldstream, op. cit. 322–7.

17 Vallet, G. and Villard, F., BCH 1958, 16–26.Google Scholar

18 Vallet, G. and Villard, F., BCH 1952, 328–46.Google Scholar For comments see Coldstream, op. cit. 324–5.