Parian Marble Chronicle

Parian Marble Chronicle 

The Parian Chronicle or Parian Marble is an ancient Greek chronological inscription on a marble stele that dates the fall of Troy to 1209/1208 BCE 

The chronicle gives a very specific date for the fall of Troy: 1209/1208 BCE, making it the event with the highest resolution in the entire inscription. 

The precise dating of Troy highlights its importance as a chronological milestone in the Greek timeline

 

 

 

The Hellenes march against Troy
1218 BCE — 1217 BCE
ἀφ’ οὗ οἱ [Ἕλλη]νες εἰς Τροίαν ἐ[ξεστ]ράτευσ[αν], ἔτη 𐅅ΗΗΗΗ𐅄ΙΙΙΙ, βασιλεύοντος Ἀθη[νῶν] [Μεν]εσθέως τρεισκαιδεκάτου ἔτους (Kingship of Menestheus, 13th year)

 

 

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§ 24  From when the [Helle]nes marched against Troy, 954 years, in the 13th year that [Men]estheus was king of Athe[ns].

Event Date: -1217 GR
§ 25  From when Troy was taken, 945 years, in the {2}2nd year that [Menesthe]us was king of Athens, on the 7th day before the end of the month Th[argelio]n.

Event Date: -1208 GR
§ 26  From [the trial] on the Areopagus of Orestes, son of A[gamemnon, and Erigone, ] daughter of [Ae]gisthus, [on behalf of Ae]gisthus and Cly[taemnestra]; which case Orestes won, [since the votes were equal]; [9]44 years, when Demophon was king of Athens.

Event Date: -1207 GR

 

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Credit : Marmor Parium, Chronicle
Marmor Parium, translated by Gillian Newing (2001), copyright the Ashmolean Museum, used with their gracious permission. This text has 244 tagged references to 97 ancient places.
; Wikidata ID: Q547179; Trismegistos: authorwork/253     

 

F. Jacoby. Das Marmor Parium. Berlin 1904, Beilage I

 

The Parian Chronicle is a chronological table that lists mythical and historical events from 1582 BC to 299 BC.

The Parian Chronicle or Parian Marble (Latin: Marmor Parium, abbr. Mar. Par.) is a Greek chronology, covering the years from 1582 BC to 299 BC, inscribed on a stele. Found on the island of Paros in two sections, and sold in Smyrna in the early 17th century to an agent for Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, this inscription was deciphered by John Selden and published among the Arundel Marbles, Marmora Arundelliana (London 1628–9) nos. 1–14, 59–119.[1] The first of the sections published by Selden has subsequently disappeared. A further third fragment of this inscription, comprising the base of the stele and containing the end of the text, was found on Paros in 1897. It has entries from 336/35 to 299/98 BC.

The two known upper fragments, brought to London in 1627 and presented to Oxford University in 1667, include entries for the years 1582/81–355/54 BC.[2] The surviving upper chronicle fragment currently resides in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. It combines dates for events which modern readers would consider mythic, such as the Flood of Deucalion (equivalent to 1529/28 BC) with dates we would categorize as historic. For the Greeks, the events of their distant past, such as the Trojan War (dated from 1217 to 1208 BC in the Parian inscription) and the Voyage of the Argonauts were historic: their myths were understood as legends to the Greeks. In fact the Parian inscriptions spend more detail on the Heroic Age than on certifiably historic events closer to the date the stele was inscribed and erected, apparently during 264/263 BC. "The Parian Marble uses chronological specificity as a guarantee of truth," Peter Green observed in the introduction to his annotated translation of the Argonautica of Apollonios Rhodios:[3] "the mythic past was rooted in historical time, its legends treated as fact, its heroic protagonists seen as links between the 'age of origins' and the mortal, everyday world that succeeded it."[4]

The shorter fragment base of the stele, found in 1897, is in the Archaeological Museum of Paros. It contains chronicle entries for the years 336/35–299/98 BC. 

 

 

 

https://www.digitalmarmorparium.org/