Glossary Archaeological method and dating
Floruit
Also called: fl.
Latin for 'it flourished': the period when a person, workshop, style or object type was most active or most common.
Floruit is used when exact start and end dates are unknown or unimportant and what matters is the peak. For a person it marks the years of known activity; for an object type it marks when examples were made in the greatest numbers, even if a few appear earlier or later.
In the compendium the word is mostly applied to types and styles. Picrolite cruciform figures have their floruit in the Middle Chalcolithic, in the later fourth millennium BCE (Cruciform Figurines); the amphoriskos of Proto-White Painted ware has its floruit in LC IIIB; and the pictorial amphoroid krater has a second floruit in late Cypro-Geometric I.
Related terms
- Typology
A system for sorting objects into classes and types by shape, fabric and decoration, so that like can be compared with like and dated.
- Period subphases
Codes such as MC III, LC IIC or CA II that divide each Cypriot period into numbered phases and lettered subphases for finer dating.
- Horizon
A level or span of time marked by the same event or type of material across many sites, such as a destruction horizon or a pottery horizon.