Glossary Archaeological method and 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.
A horizon ties sites together. When the same new pottery, the same kind of metalwork or a burst of destruction appears at many places within a short time, archaeologists treat it as a single horizon and use it to line up the sequences of different sites. The term implies near-contemporaneity, and much debate is about whether the events really happened at the same time.
The best-known Cypriot example is the horizon of destruction and abandonment around 1200 BCE, at the transition from LC IIC to LC IIIA, which Cyprus shares with Ugarit and other coastal cities (Late Bronze Age Cyprus). Other horizons in the compendium include the Philia horizon at the start of the Bronze Age and the pottery horizons defined by Gjerstad's Iron Age Types.
Related terms
- Facies
A distinctive set of material culture found together in one region or period, a more neutral label than 'culture' or 'people'.
- 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.
- Stratum
A single layer of deposit on an archaeological site, usually numbered by the excavator; the plural is strata.
- Terminus ante quem
Latin for 'limit before which': the latest possible date for an object or deposit, set by a dated event that sealed or followed it.
Where it appears
- Bichrome Red Ware
- Cypro-Classical Cyprus
- Egypt
- White Painted Wheelmade Ware
- Achaemenid Persia
- Copper Metallurgy in Ancient Cyprus
- Cypro-Geometric Cyprus
- Early Bronze Age Cyprus
- Late Bronze Age Cyprus
- Middle Bronze Age Cyprus
- Proto-White Painted Ware
- Red Polished Zoomorphic Vessels and Animal Figurines
and 7 more compendium pages