Glossary Archaeological method and dating
Synchronism
Also called: cross-dating
A link showing that two cultures' sequences overlap in time, such as a dated Egyptian object in a Cypriot tomb or a Cypriot pot in a dated foreign layer.
Synchronisms let a culture without written records borrow dates from one that has them. Cypriot pottery found in Egyptian or Levantine layers dated by king lists shows that the Cypriot type was in use at that time; an Egyptian scarab naming a pharaoh in a Cypriot tomb shows that the tomb is no earlier than his reign. The practice is also called cross-dating.
For the Middle and Late Bronze Age this was long the main source of dates: Cypriot wares at Tell el-Dab'a and Megiddo, and scarabs of Queen Tiy and other royal names on the island, are discussed in Egypt. The weakness is circulation. Heirlooms and long-lived imports may be buried decades after they were made, so a single object only shows the earliest date at which a burial could have been made.
Related terms
- Terminus post quem
Latin for 'limit after which': the earliest possible date for a deposit, set by the latest datable object found in it.
- Absolute chronology
A chronology expressed in calendar years (BCE, CE or years before present), fixed by scientific dating or by links to written history.
- Relative chronology
An ordering of sites, layers or objects as earlier or later than one another, without fixing them to calendar years.