How do we determine the approximate date of an event?
How do we determine the approximate date of an event?
Many source texts, mainly those from the time after the birth of Christ, give indications of the time of events, such as 'after the great volcanic eruption. With the help of such information, the historians can often find out when something happened.An archaeologist in Egypt studying
evidence from an ancient statue
Sometimes even the year is given in the text. One also compares the different sources and infers the actual sequence of events from this. Archaeologists combine the knowledge of different sources to draw inferences as well. They determine the age of the findings often with the help of materials which were used in a certain period of time. Modern methods like X-ray examination or radiocarbon dating provide additional information.