Articles and guides

A practical route from question to evidence and from evidence to interpretation. You do not need to know every technical term to begin reading carefully.

4 min read, approximately

Five lime-plaster statues uncovered in 1985 at 'Ain Ghazal in Jordan and dated to around 6500 BCE. Two sources describe them in different detail, and that difference is the starting point for asking what the material allows us to say.

3 min read, approximately

In the Met's timeline, under the year 326 CE, Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, founds the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. What that sentence says about imperial building at the holy sites, and what it does not.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline gives En Gedi one sentence: an impressive temple on a stone terrace, with plastered and painted interior walls. How to separate the description of the building, its identification as a temple, and hypotheses about the people who used it.

2 min read, approximately

A 2021 Scientific Reports article calls the stone structures and 3,113 olive pits of Hishuley Carmel, a submerged mid-7th millennium BP site off the Carmel coast, the earliest evidence for large-scale table olive production. What the claim rests on, and its limits.

3 min read, approximately

A 2021 article in Scientific Reports describes at Kfar Samir, an inundated site on the Carmel coast, an olive-oil extraction assemblage radiocarbon dated to about 7,000 BP. What was found, how the authors interpret it, and why this page does not say who was first.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline lists Khirbat al-Mafjar among the Umayyad desert palaces of about 700-750 CE, which, in its words, testify to the wealth of their patrons and the creativity of the architects. What one sentence can teach, and what it does not say.

3 min read, approximately

The introduction to the Maresha terracottas volume describes a city that flourished under Ptolemaic and later Seleucid rule, with a Hasmonean occupation in 112-111 BCE and destruction by the Parthians in 40 BCE. How to keep the city's phases apart from the site's periods.

3 min read, approximately

According to Oded Lipschits, after Jerusalem's destruction Mizpah (Tell en-Nasbeh) served as the capital for 141 years, and the Benjamin region was not destroyed with Jerusalem. This page separates excavation data, a demographic model and an administrative interpretation.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline counts 442 copper objects in the Nahal Mishmar hoard, made by the lost-wax method, among them maceheads, crowns and standards. What the technique tells us about making, and what it does not tell us about use.

3 min read, approximately

At Sha'ar Hagolan in the upper Jordan Valley, a sequence 2 metres thick covers the whole 7th millennium cal. BC. A building uncovered in 2022 was dated by artefacts "typical of the Yarmukian culture": the name of a culture used as a dating tool.

3 min read, approximately

A wall more than 100 metres long, built of boulders of 200-1,000 kg, now lies 3 metres below sea level off the Carmel coast. The study's authors read it as the sea wall of a village of 7500-7000 BP; what here is fact and what is interpretation.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, excavations in 1952-1955 at Agios Georgios, Pegeia, uncovered three basilicas and a bath, all of the 6th century. What this tells about a settlement in the time of Justinian I, and what it does not.

2 min read, approximately

According to the tradition reported by the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, the church of Agios Lazaros at Larnaka was built at the beginning of the 10th century with the emperor's funds. What such a date is worth, and what lies beneath the church.

2 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, the church at Kakopetria was built in the 11th century, and its painting phases run from the 11th century to 1633. How one church accumulates layers, and what the sources used here record of them.

2 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, the dedicatory inscription of the church at Asinou gives a year, 1105/6, and a donor, the magistros Nikephoros Ischyrios. What such an inscription adds to dating by style, and what it does not say.

3 min read, approximately

The Department of Antiquities, Cyprus page on Hala Sultan Tekke mentions the raids on Cyprus in 649 and 650, but the mosque itself was built only shortly before 1787. It is a late memorial site, not a remnant of the period of the raids.

2 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus, the large building at Idalion was the seat of a Greek-speaking royal dynasty from about the 7th century to 450 BCE, and in the Classical period an administrative centre for territory annexed to Kition.

2 min read, approximately

The Department of Antiquities of Cyprus dates Kalavasos-Tenta to 7000-5200 BCE, a range that overlaps Khirokitia. What a second site shows about whether Khirokitia was a single case, and what remains open.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO describes Khirokitia as "the Aceramic Neolithic of Cyprus at its peak": round houses, walls, and the dead buried beneath the floors. The sources do not agree, however, on when the settlement began and how long it lasted.

3 min read, approximately

Per the Paphos museum page, the "Pithos House" at Kissonerga-Mosphilia attests social stratification, economic organisation and overseas contacts; its date, "the end of the Chalcolithic (end of the 3rd millennium)", conflicts with the Department's own table.

3 min read, approximately

The Department of Antiquities of Cyprus dates the wells at Kissonerga-Mylouthkia to the 9th millennium BCE and counts them among the oldest in the world; a 2003 survey lists their excavation in 1994-1996. What is known about the first settlers' water, and what is not.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Paphos museum page, finds from the settlement at Kissonerga-Skalia and from the cemeteries represent the Early and Middle Bronze Age together, 2500-1650 BCE. The source does not separate the two, so this article does not either.

2 min read, approximately

At Kathari in Kition five successive temples and copper-smelting workshops date from the end of the 13th to the end of the 11th century BCE; the Phoenicians built the temple of Astarte around 850 BCE, says the Department of Antiquities. What links the two is not stated.

3 min read, approximately

At the end of the French mission's 2022 season the number of ostraca from Kition-Pampoula reached 99, all dated to the 4th century BCE. What that number shows, and what cannot be known without the texts themselves.

2 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, the Hospitallers built Kolossi in 1210 as the seat of their commandery, in 1306 it passed briefly to the Templars, and in the Mamluk raids of 1425-1426 it was destroyed. What this tells about the military orders on the island.

2 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, the basilica at Kourion was built at the beginning of the 5th century and in the 6th underwent changes, receiving new mosaics and opus sectile floors. What two phases show when the source gives only their outline.

2 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus page on Kourion, the agora in its present state dates from the beginning of the 3rd century CE. What such a date can tell about a Roman public centre, and what it leaves open.

2 min read, approximately

The Department of Antiquities of Cyprus links Maa-Palaeokastro to the settlement of refugees from the Aegean around 1200 BCE. According to the Department, the site was destroyed around 1175, probably by pirates, rebuilt, and abandoned around 1150.

2 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, Nikokles, the last king of Palaipaphos, founded Nea Paphos at the end of the 4th century; early in the 3rd century BCE it became the Ptolemaic administrative centre. What is known of the move, and what stays open.

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, the Mycenaeans erected the temple of Aphrodite at Kouklia in the 12th century BC; it was used until the Roman period. The Department of Antiquities adds that it was western Cyprus's great religious centre and that activity ceased in the 4th century CE.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, the Church of the Transfiguration at Palaichori was built early in the 16th century as a single-aisled, timber-roofed church, painted throughout. UNESCO assigns its paintings to the 16th-century Cretan school.

2 min read, approximately

According to its dedicatory inscription, the church at Galata was built in 1502 with the donation of Demetre de Coron and his wife Helena. The UNESCO page counts it among the most sophisticated examples of the Italo-Byzantine school that developed under Venetian rule.

2 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, the Franks built the Paphos castle in the mid-13th century to replace Saranta Kolones, ruined in the 1222 earthquake; shortly before the Ottoman conquest, given as 1570, the Venetians blew up the remains of its two towers.

2 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, the House of Dionysos at Nea Paphos was probably built at the end of the 2nd century CE and abandoned after the 4th-century earthquakes. What UNESCO adds about the city's mosaics, and what it leaves unsaid about this house.

3 min read, approximately

The rock-hewn necropolis north of Nea Paphos is called the "Tombs of the Kings", but according to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus the name has nothing to do with royal burials: the tombs were built in the 3rd century BCE, after the monarchy had been abolished in 312 BCE.

3 min read, approximately

According to a lost inscription, the chapel at Pyrga was built and decorated in 1421/22, and at the foot of its Crucifixion kneel two crowned figures identified as King Janus and his wife Charlotte de Bourbon. What each of these details rests on.

2 min read, approximately

At Souskiou a Chalcolithic cemetery was excavated at Vathyrkakas, and a settlement and cemetery at Laona, where 115 Chalcolithic tombs had been counted by 2003. What the sources read show about burial away from the houses, and what is left for the final volume.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus, in the second half of the 4th century BCE Pasikypros, king of Tamassos, sold the city to Pumiathon, king of Kition. What the case shows about relations between kingdoms, and what it leaves open.

2 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline mentions Abu Mena twice: as a Christian pilgrimage destination in the early sixth century, and as a complex restored around 750, under Arab rule. What those two sentences show about continuity, and what they do not.

3 min read, approximately

The Austrian Archaeological Institute identifies Tell el-Dabʿa "with certainty" as Avaris, capital city of the Hyksos about 1640-1530 BCE. What the source describes - a port city between branches of the Nile - and what it lacks for a description of the capital itself.

3 min read, approximately

Most known sites of the Badarian Period (about 4500-3800 BCE) are cemeteries in the low desert. According to the Met's timeline they reveal a "formal burial program"; what the source does not infer from them matters as much.

3 min read, approximately

According to a page of Yale's Egyptology department, the present temple was begun in 237 BCE, inaugurated twice and officially finished in 57 BCE. How long does it take to build a temple, and what does "finished" mean?

3 min read, approximately

According to the Met's essay, in 525-404 BCE the Persians ruled Egypt through a resident governor, a satrap, helped by local native chiefs. What the source says about that rule, and why the period is hard to see in the material record.

3 min read, approximately

UCL's Digital Egypt calls the Fayum Neolithic "the earliest securely attested full Neolithic culture in Egypt" and dates its sites to about 5200-4000 BCE. What stands behind the label, and what the source does not say.

3 min read, approximately

Two sources place the pyramids of Giza in the Old Kingdom and see the Memphite necropolis as testimony to power and organization. What they say about the state that built them, and what they do not.

2 min read, approximately

In the First Intermediate Period two competing dynasties ruled Egypt, one of them from Heracleopolis in the north. What the sources checked say about the city, and why one tomb in its cemetery is already dated to the Middle Kingdom.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline presents Hierakonpolis, "far to the south", as the largest population center known in Naqada I (about 3800-3650 BCE). Three statements from the same source, and a question it leaves open: why the south.

3 min read, approximately

The University of Michigan's excavations at Kom Aushim, the site of ancient Karanis, uncovered houses from the Ptolemaic period to the fourth and fifth centuries CE. What textiles, glass and coins tell us about daily life, and what they do not.

3 min read, approximately

In 945 BCE, according to the Met's essay, the throne passed to a family of Libyan descent; by the end of the eighth century BCE Egypt had fragmented among local rulers. What the source lists, and what it does not explain.

3 min read, approximately

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre describes the necropolis of Memphis as evidence of the development of the royal tomb from the "mastaba" to the pyramid. Which stages the source dates, and which it leaves undated.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline states that a representation of a human face from Merimde Beni Salama in the Delta "is the earliest known example of sculpture from ancient Egypt". What the sentence tells us, and what it lacks for any discussion of the figure itself.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Met's essay, in the Saite period the Greek city-states were allowed to establish a trading settlement at Naukratis in the western Delta. What that sentence says about Greek trade inside Egypt, and what it does not.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Met's timeline, the panel-portrait genre associated with the Greco-Egyptian elite peaked in the mid-second century CE, and the last panel portraits probably date to the mid-third century. Who was portrayed, and what the source does not say.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO dates the monastery's foundation to the sixth century and describes it as the oldest Christian monastery still in use for its initial function. The Met's timeline adds a fortification under Justinian I and an earlier name: the Monastery of the Burning Bush.

3 min read, approximately

In Dynasty 21 Egypt was governed from two centers: pharaohs at Tanis in the eastern Delta and the High Priests of Amun at Thebes. What the Met's essay says about this division, and what it leaves open.

3 min read, approximately

A radiocarbon study of the royal cemetery at Abydos found that its dates agree with the archaeological order of the tombs but come out 100-150 years earlier than the historical chronology established until then. What that says about dating the First Dynasty, and what it does not.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO counts more than 1,000 Parthian-period burials at Ashur, and the Met's timeline credits its palace with the earliest example of four iwans around a courtyard. What the two sources show of Parthian Ashur, and where they disagree.

3 min read, approximately

Two pages of the Met's timeline describe merchants from the city of Ashur who set up trading colonies in Anatolia, and clay tablets that recorded their transactions. What survives of a transaction, and where the two sources differ.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO's World Heritage page dates the time of the city of Ashur as first capital of the Assyrian Empire from the 14th to the 9th centuries BC. What that range says, why it is not placed in a single period, and what remains of the city according to the same page.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Met's timeline, in 1258 the Mongols sacked Baghdad and killed the last Abbasid caliph to rule from the city, al-Musta'sim. What changed after that year, and what continued.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Smithsonian, the Taq-i Kisra is the best standing example of the Sasanian monumental arch and one of the largest arches in the world. What else remains of Sasanian architecture, and why so little.

3 min read, approximately

A clay cylinder in Babylonian script and language which, according to the British Museum, was deposited after Cyrus captured Babylon in 539 BC. What its text says about the conqueror, and what its Babylonian form shows.

4 min read, approximately

According to the Met's timeline, Sargon II built a new capital at Khorsabad, ancient Dur Sharrukin, which took seven years to build. The source does not say why; what it does say about the capital and about the script that spread in his time.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Met's timeline, a sequence of mud-brick temples, each more massive than the last, was built at Eridu during the Ubaid period. What such a sequence allows us to say, and how to separate the find at the site from the regional description around it.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline describes a pottery style of northern Mesopotamia, decorated with incised lines and lightly fired, named after Hassuna, the site where it was first identified. What the name says about the vessels, and what it does not.

2 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, Hatra grew from a small village in the first century BC into a large kingdom in the middle of the second century AD, and withstood Roman invasions in 116 and 198 AD. What the page says about its growth, walls and temples, and what it leaves out.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline places at Jarmo, about 8000-7000 BCE, the first evidence of domesticated grains and animals. One sentence with two separate claims: what it states, and what it leaves open.

2 min read, approximately

According to the Met's timeline, the palace of Zimri-Lim at Mari had wall paintings, stone statuary and a massive archive of cuneiform tablets until Hammurabi destroyed it. What can be connected between art and text, and what cannot.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Met's timeline, the funerary complex of the Jalayirid amir Mirjan includes the Mirjaniyya Madrasa of 1356 and a caravanserai of 1359. What the source tells us about Jalayirid building in Baghdad, and what it leaves open.

2 min read, approximately

A small clay tablet from Nippur: a contract for the supply of dates, written in Akkadian with a summary in Aramaic. What one document from a business house's archive can show, and what the record does not tell.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline dates the Mustansiriyya Madrasa in Baghdad 1228-33 and calls it the first college built for the four canonical schools of Sunni law. What that sentence tells us, and what it does not say about the building.

2 min read, approximately

A Harvard Art Museums gallery text reports more than 8,000 clay tablets and fragments with cuneiform texts from Nuzi, excavated in 1925-31, and dates the town's violent destruction to about 1350 BCE. What such an archive teaches, and what this short text says.

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, Samarra was a capital from 836 to 892, and the site stretches 41.5 km along both banks of the Tigris. What a capital that lasted about half a century can show, and what the sentence on the 80% that "remain to be excavated" means.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Kelsey Museum, the city "rose, flourished, and dwindled away between 307 BCE and 215 CE", and the excavations of 1927-1937 divided it into four levels. The levels show a city founded as a Seleucid capital that lived on under Parthian rule.

4 min read, approximately

A text of Tiglath-pileser I, dated about 1114-1076 BCE, is known from prisms from the city of Ashur, according to an online edition of Assyrian royal inscriptions. The edition page could not be opened in this round; what can still be said, and what cannot.

3 min read, approximately

A Met essay tells how Woolley uncovered some 1,800 graves at Ur, sixteen of them stone tombs he called the "Royal Tombs"; the same museum's timeline reads the grave finds as evidence of long-distance trade. This article keeps the two apart.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline describes several changes at Uruk and in the culture named after it: mass-produced pottery, cone mosaics on buildings, and a gradual shift from tokens to cuneiform writing. Why they are better read as separate changes than as one "invention".

3 min read, approximately

The two earliest entries in the Met's timeline for Iran: the domestication of sheep and goats at Ali Kosh about 8000 BCE, and clay vessels and terracotta figurines at Ganj Dareh in the 8th millennium. What they establish, and what they leave unsaid.

3 min read, approximately

In 1982 a bulldozer levelling the ground for a road to a dam on the Marun river, near Behbahan in southwestern Iran, cut through a stone-walled funerary chamber holding a bronze coffin. According to Encyclopaedia Iranica it is a late Neo-Elamite elite burial, ca. 630-550 BCE.

4 min read, approximately

On the ancient route between the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia, Darius I had a relief and a cuneiform inscription in three languages carved. According to UNESCO, it was the first cuneiform writing to be deciphered, in the 19th century.

3 min read, approximately

Below the inscription of Darius I, Bisotun has a reclining Heracles with a dated Greek inscription, 148 BCE, and Parthian reliefs, among them one of Mithridates II. Encyclopaedia Iranica describes them; UNESCO's page, which this site follows for Darius' inscription, does not mention them.

4 min read, approximately

UNESCO credits the founding of Chogha Zanbil to the Elamite king Untash-Napirisha and gives him the years 1275-1240 BCE; the Met's timeline dates the building of its ziggurat to about 1340-1300 BCE. What is known about the site, and what the gap means.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline lists the Darb-i Imam in Isfahan, of 1453-54, among the architectural commissions of Jahanshah's reign. Since the Qara Quyunlu capital was Tabriz, the sentence shows building beyond the capital in his reign.

2 min read, approximately

A brick tower 53 m high near the ruins of Jorjan, built according to UNESCO in 1006 for the Ziyarid ruler Qabus Ibn Voshmgir. What the sources say about its date and influence, and what they leave unexplained.

2 min read, approximately

A single sentence in the Met's timeline links Hajji Firuz, about 6000-5000 BCE, to sites in Mesopotamia. What the resemblance shows, and what it cannot prove.

2 min read, approximately

At Hasanlu, two periods of one culture were named Iron Age I and II in 1965; the first ended centuries before iron objects are known in Iran. What the labels mean, and how their dates sit against the Met's timeline.

3 min read, approximately

Encyclopaedia Iranica states that iron artifacts were unknown in Iran until the 9th century BCE, centuries after the start of the period called the Iron Age. What that date means for the timeline, and what the source does not say.

2 min read, approximately

The Friday mosque of Isfahan was built and rebuilt over twelve centuries. What the Seljuqs added according to UNESCO and the Met's timeline, and which claims of being "first" belong to the source, not to this site.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline lists Kharraqan, with two dates, among the particularly noteworthy surviving funerary monuments of the 11th century. What that list can show about the development of the tomb tower, and what it does not say.

2 min read, approximately

A Greek inscription found by chance in 1943 started the search for a temple at Nahavand in western Iran. What the finds from one spot show, and what they leave as a likelihood.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline dates the bronze weapons, standards, jewelry, horse ornaments and vessels of Luristan to about the 8th-7th centuries BCE. Why the region's earlier periods are labeled differently, and where its bronzes sit on the site's timeline.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline describes rich tombs at Marlik, near the Caspian Sea, and dates them broadly to the late 2nd-early 1st millennium BCE. A range wider than the period it is placed in, and a cemetery whose settlement is unrecorded.

2 min read, approximately

Encyclopaedia Iranica names four sites that flourished in Iron Age III and describes many local pottery assemblages in western Iran. Does pottery reveal political entities? The source's own answer is "perhaps".

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, Pasargadae was the first dynastic capital of the Achaemenid Empire, founded by Cyrus II the Great in Pars in the 6th century BC. What the page says about the site and its relation to Persepolis, and what it leaves undated.

3 min read, approximately

Eight sites in three areas of Fars, among them the capital of Ardashir Papakan and a city of Shapur I, are listed together as World Heritage. What UNESCO and a Smithsonian exhibition page say about the dynasty's first cities, and which end date each source gives.

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, Shahr-i Sokhta was founded about 3200 BCE at a junction of Bronze Age trade routes, was populated in four main periods up to 1800 BCE, and was abandoned in the early second millennium. What the page explains about the abandonment, and what it does not.

3 min read, approximately

A bronze statue 1.94 m high, found in 1935 north of Izeh in Khuzestan, is according to Encyclopaedia Iranica the only intact monumental cast bronze of the Parthian period. What the entry says about the statue, its date and its place.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Met's timeline, an Elamite dynasty from Shimashki overthrew the Third Dynasty of Ur about 2000-1900 BCE. Where Shimashki lay, how another source dates the dynasty, and why the event falls on the boundary between two pages.

3 min read, approximately

At Soltaniyeh, briefly the Ilkhanid capital, the tomb of the eighth Ilkhanid ruler stands beneath a dome 50 m high. UNESCO and the Met give different dates for its construction, and both are kept here.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline describes the Sukkalmah ("grand regent") dynasty as ruling the Zagros highlands and the Susiana plain about 1900-1500 BCE, and the Encyclopaedia Iranica describes the settlements of the same period. Where the two sources agree, and where they do not.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline lists the Blue Mosque in Tabriz, of 1465, among the architectural commissions of the reign of Jahanshah, the most famous Qara Quyunlu ruler. What that sentence shows about a ruler's patronage, and what it does not tell.

3 min read, approximately

On a remote plain among mountains in West Azerbaijan stand the remains of Sasanian royal architecture and a Zoroastrian sanctuary partly rebuilt in the Ilkhanid period. The sources date two phases; the centuries between them are not described.

2 min read, approximately

The publication page of an excavation report issued in 2006 describes Tall-e Bakun A, near Persepolis, as one of the precursors of the complex societies of the fourth millennium BCE. The page gives the site no date of its own, and this article does not invent one.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO's page on Aigai, the first capital of the Kingdom of Macedonia, joins burial mounds of which some date from the 11th century B.C. to a monumental palace of ca. 340 BC. What the page connects, what it leaves open, and the two tumulus counts it gives.

3 min read, approximately

The National Archaeological Museum in Athens describes the mechanism in one line: a scientific instrument of the 1st century BC for astronomical and calendar forecasts, among the finds from the Shipwreck of Antikythera. What that line establishes, and what it does not.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline dates the beginning of red-figure pottery to Athens about 525 BCE and defines it in one sentence, as the direct opposite of black-figure. What that definition says about the painter's work, and what it leaves open.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline records under 280 CE a new fortification wall in Athens, "the first since the time of Perikles", and presents it as a response to Gothic raids. What those two sentences say about the city in the 3rd century, and what they leave open.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO's page dates the decoration of three middle Byzantine monasteries to the 11th and 12th centuries: marble and mosaics on a gold background. What the page shows about the buildings, and what it does not say about the mosaics.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO's page on Delos dates the island's change in one clause: after 167 BC it was declared a free port, and, in the page's words, the commerce of the eastern Mediterranean was concentrated there. What that meant for the sanctuary of Apollo, and how quickly it ended.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO dates the beginning of the development of the sanctuary and oracle of Apollo at Delphi to the 8th century BC and the growth of their influence over all of Greece to the 6th. Two centuries, two of the site's periods, and what the page does not say about either.

3 min read, approximately

The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports dates the earliest settlement at Dimini to the end of the fifth millennium BC; the Met's timeline puts "the earliest evidence of fortifications in Greece" there at ca. 3400 B.C. Two dates and two readings of the same six stone enclosures.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO's page on the sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus describes a cult built in layers: healing practices in the 2nd millennium BCE, Apollo Maleatas in the 8th century, Asklepios in the 6th, buildings of the 4th. What each layer adds, and which claims are assessments.

3 min read, approximately

The Greek ministry's page on the Kerameikos in Athens describes a cemetery that expanded continuously from the sub-Mycenaean period (1100-1000 BC) and grew in the Geometric (1000-700 BC), a period the Met starts a century later. What the growth shows, and where its dates sit.

3 min read, approximately

In the unlooted southern deposit on Keros lay fragments of some 500 marble figurines and 2,500 marble vessels, broken elsewhere and deposited over five centuries, 2800-2300 BC. What the Cambridge report says, and how far its reading of a ritual goes.

3 min read, approximately

An Oxford Classical Dictionary entry, read here only in part, places Lefkandi's richest cemetery, Toumba, east of a monumental apsidal building of 50 by 13.8 m, dated to the mid-10th century BCE and earlier than any of its graves. What that allows, and what it does not.

3 min read, approximately

Two sources date the beginnings of Athos in different ways: the Met's timeline by a founding, the Great Lavra in 962, and UNESCO by a constitution, 972, and a status, 1054. Read together, they give steps rather than a single date.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO calls Mycenae the richest palatial centre of the Late Bronze Age in Greece and dates the walls of Tiryns, up to 8 m thick and 13 m high, to the end of the 13th century BC. What such walls show, and what the page leaves unsaid about why they were built.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO's page dates each step: a fortress built in 1249 by the prince of Achaia, surrendered by the Franks to the Byzantines in 1262, the seat of the Despotate of Morea from 1348, captured in 1460. A city that changed rulers and stayed in place.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO dates the beginning of the worship of Zeus at Olympia to the 10th century B.C. and the Olympic Games to 776 B.C.; the Met's timeline explains where 776 comes from. Two dates that fall on either side of the start of the Geometric period.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline records under 117 CE that Hadrian completed the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens and built a gymnasium and baths nearby. It gives no year for the completion: what can be dated, and what cannot.

2 min read, approximately

One entry of the Met's timeline, for 449-432 BCE, names who designed the temple of Athena Parthenos, what it is made of and what it housed. A close reading of that entry, and of what it leaves out.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO's page on Philippi answers the question of what made a Macedonian foundation a "small Rome" with a status and a set of buildings: a Roman colony, a forum and a terrace of temples, added to the city of Philip II.

3 min read, approximately

From 1309 the Knights of St John turned the capital of Rhodes into a stronghold, with an upper town walled off on its own. UNESCO's page shows how a military and hospital order lived in a city, and gives two years for the end: 1522 and 1523.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline names Sesklo twice: for pits, postholes and foundations of simple huts around 7000 B.C., and for what it calls the first "Megaron house", around 5700-5300 B.C. What the two entries say about the arrival of farming, and what they leave open.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline dates the eruption of the volcano on Thera to ca. 1500-1450 B.C. and links it, by date only, to the rise of Mycenae; the Dartmouth chronology reports a debate over its absolute date running since 1987. What changed after the eruption, by these sources.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline describes the Royal Tombs of Alaca Höyük, about 2350-2150 BCE, with their gold jewellery, vessels of precious metal and bronze stag and bull standards. What the source says about the people buried there, and what it leaves enigmatic.

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, Ani flourished in the 10th and 11th centuries as the capital of the Armenian kingdom of the Bagratides, and its decline began with the Mongol invasion and the earthquake of 1319. What the page lists as causes, and what it leaves undated.

3 min read, approximately

A temple of Aphrodite of the 3rd century BC, a city-state of the early 2nd century BC, and marble quarries that made it rich: how UNESCO describes the making of a city of sculptors, and what the page leaves undated.

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, the palace complex at Arslantepe, in the Malatya plain, bears witness to 3400-3100 BCE, when the site was a regional centre of governance. What the source says about the complex, the swords and the Royal Tomb, and where it disagrees with itself.

4 min read, approximately

The Barcın Höyük excavation project, in the Yenişehir Valley in Bursa, investigates the settlement remains of an early farming community of the seventh millennium BC. What the project page says, and how its broad date maps onto the timeline.

3 min read, approximately

The University of Liverpool describes Boncuklu Höyük, near Konya, as a 10,500-year-old village and dates its mud-brick houses to 8500 BC/BCE. What the project page tells us, and what it leaves unsaid about the site itself.

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, Bursa grew from five focal points where five sultans established public kulliyes, and the waqf village of Cumalıkızık shows how the capital was supplied with a rural hinterland. What the page dates, and what it leaves undated.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline dates the Great Mosque of Bursa to 1396-1400 and presents it as an example of the patronage of Bayezid I. What else can be learned from the sources, and why the question of what the mosque looked like stays open.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO dates the eighteen Neolithic levels of Çatalhöyük's East Mound to 7400-6200 BC, while the Met's timeline gives Çatalhöyük about 6900-6500 BCE. What each source says, and why the site does not choose between them.

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, excavations on Çatalhöyük's West Mound primarily revealed Chalcolithic levels of 6200-5200 BC, reflecting the continuation of cultural practices from the East Mound. What is said about that continuation, and what is left open.

3 min read, approximately

In 1228-29 Emir Ahmet Shah founded a mosque at Divriği, and his wife Turan Melek founded the hospital beside it. What the UNESCO page says about their shared building, and what it does not say about the couple.

3 min read, approximately

According to the Met's timeline, Justinian I rebuilt the cruciform basilica of Saint John at Ephesus in 548-565 and added six domes. What that sentence says about changing an existing holy place, and what it leaves open.

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, when Asia Minor was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 133 BCE, Ephesus was designated as the capital of the new province Asia. The page does not explain why Ephesus, and another UNESCO page gives the capital to Pergamon.

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, the megalithic structures of Göbekli Tepe were erected by hunter-gatherers between 9,600 and 8,200 BCE. What the source states about the builders and the T-shaped pillars, and what it offers only as a suggestion.

3 min read, approximately

At Gordion in central Türkiye, according to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, an Iron Age fortified gate complex, coloured floor mosaics and burial mounds survive. What is dated, by whom, and what remains open.

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, the first signs of monastic activity in Cappadocia date to the 4th century, monasticism was well established in the iconoclastic period, and after 842 many churches were dug and painted. What is dated, in two chronologies, and what is left unexplained.

3 min read, approximately

UNESCO describes a wall of more than 8 km around Hattusa and a Great Temple of the 13th century B.C.; the Met dates the city's violent destruction and the collapse of the Hittite empire to around 1200 B.C. What the sources say about the capital, and what they do not.

4 min read, approximately

According to the Met's timeline, the Anatolian Seljuqs established their new capital at Konya in 1116, and under 'Ala' al-Din Kai Qubad I (r. 1219-37) his palace and mosque were built there. What the source says, and what it does not describe.

3 min read, approximately

The Met's timeline credits the invention of coinage to a Lydian ruler, "possibly Croesus". The sentence is short, but its dates do not fully agree with one another, and that is what this article examines.

3 min read, approximately

"An elaborate, magnificent tomb built for a king": that is how the British Museum describes the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, dated about 350 BC. What the gallery page says about the building, its Lycian model and what can be seen today.

3 min read, approximately

Antiochos I of Commagene, who reigned 69-34 B.C., built at Nemrut Dağ a hierotheseion "as a monument to himself". What the temple-tomb of a small king can teach, and why the site places it in the Hellenistic period although its dates are later than 133 BCE.

3 min read, approximately

Pergamon was founded in the 3rd century BC as the capital of the Attalid dynasty and was built into the slopes at the top of Kale Hill, on manmade terraces. What UNESCO describes, what it dates and what is left undated.

3 min read, approximately

According to the ICOMOS evaluation of 1998, the first defensive wall of Troy's citadel was built around 3000 BC and reached a diameter of about 110 m at the end of Phase I, around 2500 BC. What is known of the citadel's growth, and how its dates sit on the timeline.

3 min read, approximately

According to UNESCO, the trilingual inscription of Xanthos-Letoon, dated 337 B.C., has a text in Lycian and Greek and a summary in Aramaic. What can be said on the strength of that description, and what it leaves out.

3 min read, approximately