Parian Chronicle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Parian Marble (or Parian Chronicle or Marmor Parium) is a Greek chronological table, covering the years from 1581 BC to 264 BC. Found on the island of Páros, this inscription was deciphered by John Selden. It is currently broken into two fragments:

The larger fragment, brought to London in 1627 and presented to Oxford University in 1667, contains entries for the years 1581–354 BC. It currently resides in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. It is considered one of the Arundel Marbles.

The smaller fragment, found in 1897, is in a museum on Páros. It contains entries for the years 356–299 BC.

The phrase Parian marble is also sometimes used to describe the type of marble used for the chronicle, and for many popular sculptures (for example, the Praxiteles statue of Hermes, and the Venus de Milo.