ABSTRACT
Chronology may be absolute or relative. Absolute chronology is tied accu rately to calendar years. Relative chronology states more or less loosely the relation in time between one event and another, which may or may not itself be absolutely dated. But for convenience, if nothing worse, it is usual to express relative dates in absolute terms. For example, the pots illustrated on Plates 2B, 3A and 3B are in the captions dated to the tenth, the second quarter of the ninth, and the middle or later ninth centuries BC but it would be truer to say that the first was of the beginning of the Greek Iron Age, the second appreciably later than the first and the third rather later than the second. In studies concerned with Greek pottery it is often important to remember which dates are absolute and which relative, and also how secure those dates are.
