The Parian Marble or Parian Chronicle is a Greek chronological table, covering the years from 1581BC to 264BC. It is currently broken into two fragments:

• The larger fragment was brought to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford in 1627, where it currently resides. It is considered one of the Arundel Marbles. It covers the history from 1581–354 B.C.

• The smaller fragment is in a museum on Páros. It covers the years from 356–299 B.C.

The phrase Parian Marble is also sometimes used to describe the type of marble used for the chronicle, and for many popular scultures (for example, the Praxiteles statue of Hermes, and the Venus de Milo. It derives its name from the island of Paros. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England is the worlds first university museum. ... Oxford is a city and local government district in Oxfordshire, England, with a population of 134,248 (2001 census). ... Praxiteles, of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus, the greatest of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC, who has left an imperishable mark on the history of art. ... Hermes bearing the infant Dionysus, by Praxiteles Hermēs (Greek: Έρμης: pile of marker stones), in Greek mythology, is the god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators, literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures and invention and commerce in general... The Venus de Milo is an ancient Greek statue and one of the most famous pieces of ancient Greek sculpture. ... Paros, or Paro, an island in the Aegean Sea, one of the largest of the group of the Cyclades. ...

External links

• page at the Ashmolean (http://www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/ash/faqs/q004/)
• Page describing the qualities of the marble itself (http://www.magicaljourneys.com/Paros/paros-interest-marble.html)
• Page at infoplease (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0837702.html)