Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Glossary Archaeological method and dating

Stratigraphy

The study of the layers in which archaeological remains were deposited, used to work out which came first and what belongs together.

Soil, rubble and debris build up on a site in layers, and under normal conditions a lower layer was laid down before the one above it. Excavators record each layer and the features cut into it (pits, graves, wall foundations) so that the order of events can be reconstructed. Objects from the same undisturbed layer are treated as roughly contemporary, and those from lower layers as earlier.

In Cyprus, stratigraphy is the check on dates built from tomb pottery. Excavation at Marki-Alonia showed that Philia material lay beneath the main Early Cypriot sequence, confirming it as an earlier horizon (Early Bronze Age Cyprus). At Kourion the first face-mould for small terracotta horsemen is fixed by stratigraphy at about 510 BC. Much early Cypriot fieldwork was tomb excavation, and reused chambers make the order of deposits hard to read.

Related terms

  • Stratum

    A single layer of deposit on an archaeological site, usually numbered by the excavator; the plural is strata.

  • Archaeological context

    The exact place and circumstances in which an object was found, including its layer and associated finds, which give it most of its value as evidence.

  • Relative chronology

    An ordering of sites, layers or objects as earlier or later than one another, without fixing them to calendar years.

  • Seriation

    A relative dating method that arranges groups of finds in sequence according to how the popularity of their types rises and falls.

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