Whether at Panhellenic sanctuaries — Olympia, Delphi, Delos — or at city and ethnos sanctuaries — Lindos, Perachora, Isthmia, the Argive and Samian Heraea, the Athenian Acropolis, Pherae — there is a very marked preponderance in the number of small dedications of geometric and archaic date, by comparison with those of later times. This profligacy of dedication was not a practice of time-honoured antiquity: in most cases, it had itself only come into being in the course of the eighth century BC. We are thus dealing initially with an episode that is roughly co-terminous with the archaic period...

Whether at Panhellenic sanctuaries — Olympia, Delphi, Delos — or at city and ethnos sanctuaries — Lindos, Perachora, Isthmia, the Argive and Samian Heraea, the Athenian Acropolis, Pherae — there is a very marked preponderance in the number of small dedications of geometric and archaic date, by comparison with those of later times. This profligacy of dedication was not a practice of time-honoured antiquity: in most cases, it had itself only come into being in the course of the eighth century BC. We are thus dealing initially with an episode that is roughly co-terminous with the archaic period of Greece. We must immediately concede that it is a phenomenon which relates entirely to preserved dedications. Parallel patterns of dedication, with a climax in the seventh and sixth centuries BC and a decline thereafter, can be observed in other categories of dedication, such as metal armour and weapons. At Olympia, for example, we have also a rich series of helmets which have been well studied.