Egyptian chronology
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2008-05-20T12:55:25Z
Keilana
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Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/65.82.205.184|65.82.205.184]] ([[User talk:65.82.205.184|talk]]) to last version by James086
The creation of a reliable '''Chronology of Ancient Egypt''' is a task fraught with problems. While the overwhelming majority of [[Egyptologist]]s agree on the outline and many of the details of a common [[chronology]], disagreements either individually or in groups have resulted in a variety of dates offered for rulers and events. This variation begins with only a few years in the [[Late Period of Ancient Egypt|Late Period]], gradually growing to a decade at the beginning of the [[New Kingdom]], and eventually to as much as a century by the start of the [[Old Kingdom]]. The reader is advised to include this factor of uncertainty with any date offered either in Wikipedia or any history of [[Ancient Egypt]]. A "[[Conventional Egyptian chronology]]" is available, which centralizes the several possible dates or whole possibilities of various schemes.
==Counting regnal years==
The first problem the student of Egyptian chronology faces is that the ancient Egyptians used no single system of dating, or consistent system of [[regnal year]]s. They had no concept of an [[Era]] similar to [[Anno Domini]], [[Islamic calendar|Anno Hajirae]], or even the concept of named years like [[limmu]] used in [[Mesopotamia]]. As a result, the chronologer is forced to compile a list of [[pharaoh]]s, determine the length of their reigns, and adjust for any [[interregnum]]s or coregencies. This leads to other problems:
* All [[:Category:Ancient Egyptian King lists|ancient Egyptian king lists]] are either comprehensive but have significant gaps in their text (for example, the [[Turin King List]]), or textually complete but fail to provide a complete list of rulers, even for a short period of Egyptian history.
* There is conflicting information on the same regnal period from different versions of the same text; the Egyptian historian [[Manetho]]'s history of Egypt is only known by extensive references to it made by subsequent writers, such as [[Eusebius of Caesarea|Eusebius]] and [[Sextus Julius Africanus]]. Unfortunately the dates for the same pharaoh often vary substantially depending on the intermediate source.
* For almost all kings of Egypt, we lack an accurate count for the length of their reigns.
* Religious bias due to the [[Bible]]. This was most pervasive before the 1850s, when the figures preserved in Manetho conflicted with:
:# The age of the Earth as believed at the time, and
:# The date of the [[Noah's Ark|Biblical Flood]].
== Synchronisms ==
A useful way to work around these gaps in knowledge is to find [[chronological synchronism]]s. Over the past decades a number of these have been found, of varying degrees of usefulness and reliability.
* '''Synchronisms with other chronologies'''. The most important of these is with the [[Assyria]]n and [[Babylonia]]n chronologies, although synchronisms with the [[Hittites]], ancient Palestine, and in the final period with [[ancient Greece]] are also used. The earliest such synchronisms appear in the 15th century BC, during the [[Amarna Period]], when we have a considerable quantity of diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian Kings [[Amenhotep III]] and [[Akhenaten]], and various Near Eastern monarchs. (See [[Chronology of the Ancient Near East]].)
* Synchronisms with inscriptions relating to the burial of [[Apis]] bulls begin as early as the reign of [[Amenhotep III]] and continue into [[Ptolemaic dynasty|Ptolemaic times]], but there is a significant gap in the record between [[Ramesses XI]] and the 23rd year of [[Osorkon II]]. The poor documentation of these finds in the [[Serapeum]] also compounds the difficulties in using these records.
* '''Astronomical synchronisms'''. The best known of these is the [[Sothic cycle]], and careful study of this led [[Richard Anthony Parker|Richard A. Parker]] to argue that the dates of the [[Twelfth dynasty of Egypt|Twelfth dynasty]] could be fixed with absolute precision.<ref>Set forth in "Excursus C: The Twelfth dynasty" in his ''The Calendars of ancient Egypt'' (Chicago: University Press, 1950).</ref> More recent research has eroded this confidence, questioning many of the assumptions used with the Sothic Cycle, and as a result experts have moved away from relying on this Cycle.<ref>One example is Patrick O'Mara, "Censorinus, the Sothic Cycle, and calendar year one in ancient Egypt: the Epistological problem", ''Journal of Near Eastern studies'', '''62''' (2003), pp. 17-26.</ref> For example, [[Donald B. Redford]], in attempting to fix the date of the end of [[Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt|Eighteenth dynasty]], almost completely ignores the Sothic evidence, relying on synchronicities between Egypt and Assyria (by way of the Hittites), and help from astronomical observations.<ref>Redford, "The Dates of the End of the 18th Dynasty", ''History and Chronology of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt: Seven studies'' (Toronto: University Press, 1967), pp. 183-215.</ref>
:* Kate Spence, "Ancient Egyptian chronology and the astronomical orientation of pyramids", ''Nature'', '''408''' (2000), pp. 320-324. She offers, based on orientation of the [[Great Pyramid]] with circumpolar stars, for a date of that structure precise within 5 years.
<!-- * Calculated dates of eclipses, and possible mentions in Egyptian inscriptions that may fix the beginning of [[Akhenaten]]'s new religion. (URL for pdf mislaid.) -->
* '''[[Radiocarbon dating]]''' (also called '''Carbon-14''' or '''C-14 dating'''). In archeological excavations, the remains of once-living things contain decreasing percentages of Carbon-14 relative to the how long ago they died (thus ceasing to take in fresh Carbon-14). These radioactive [[Carbon-14]] atoms decay, becoming [[Nitrogen-14]]. The less C-14 there is, the older it is. To determine dates, this method recalibrates the results due to demonstrated uneven absorption of carbon in organic matter.<ref>One discussion of recalibrating radiocarbon dates is [[Colin Renfrew]], ''Before Civilization'' (Cambridge: University Press, 1979), pp. 69-83. ISBN 0-521-29643-9</ref>
<!-- * '''[[Minoan eruption|Volcanic eruption of Thera]]'''. In the Bronze Age, the massive volcanic eruption of the island of [[Thera]] ([[Santorini]]) deposited pumice and ash across the Eastern Mediterranean. This archeological layer of debris provides a fixed date that can synchronize all the chronologies of the region, including Egyptian, Minoan, Mycenean, Canaanite, and so on. The radiocarbon date of this eruption is well-attested, around 1613 ±13 BCE<ref>[http://www.nat.au.dk/default.asp?id=11296&la=UK Aarhus Universitet: Date of the largest volcanic eruption in the Bronze Age finally pinpointed]</ref>, corroborated by numerous other carbon samples, plus other dating methods. Unfortunately, this date contradicts the [[conventional Egyptian chronology]] that starts the 18th Dynasty around 1550 BCE, thus yielding a date for the eruption somewhere around 1530 BCE based on archeological remains such as ceramic ware<ref>[http://www.therafoundation.org/articles/chronololy/summaryofevidencefortheabsolutechronologyoftheearlypartoftheaegeanlatebronzeagederivedfromhistoricalegyptiansources Thera Foundatiopn: Summary of Evidence for the Absolute Chronology of the Early Part of the Aegean Late Bronze Age Derived from Historical Egyptian Sources]</ref>. The conflict between 1613 and 1530 suggests that the chronology of early 18th Dynasty may be off by almost a century, or that all the radiocarbon dates are wrong by that much. As of now, it seems as if the eruption occurred during the reign of Ahmose I based on pottery and scarabs, but that he really reigned about 80 years earlier than previously thought. This contradiction has not yet been satisfactorily resolved. "The date of this [volcanic] event is of critical importance to the synchronisations of the civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean. The solution of this matter is the key to most of our synchronisation problems"<ref>[http://www.informath.org/BiOr04i.pdf Bibliotheca Orientalis 61, #1-2 January-April 2004: Book review of W. Manning's "A Test of Time", 1999, Oxbow Books]</ref>. -->
== The attraction of alternative chronologies ==
Although Professor Heinrich Otten has called the current scholarly consensus a "rubber chronology" that could be stretched or shrunk, by arbitrarily established lengths of co-regencies between rulers and even overlapping dynasties, the outlines and dates have not fluctuated very much in the last 100 years.<ref>Otten, Heinrich. ''Festschrift Heinrich Otten'', [[Germany]]: Harrassowitz, 1973 (ISBN 3447015365).</ref> This can be seen by comparing the dates when Egypt's 30 dynasties began and ended from two different Egyptologists: the first writing in 1906, the second in 2000. (All dates are in BC).<ref>Breasted's dates are taken from his ''[[Ancient Records of Egypt|Ancient Records]]'' (first published in 1906), volume 1, sections 58-75; Shaw's are from his ''Oxford History of Ancient Egypt'' (published in 2000), pp. 479-483.</ref>
{| align="center" class="wikitable" style="width: 90%;"
|-
|'''Egyptian dynasty'''
|| [[James Henry Breasted|J. H. Breasted]]'s dates
|| [[Ian Shaw (Egyptologist)|Ian Shaw]]'s dates
|-
| 1st & 2nd dynasties || 3400{{ndash}} 2980 || c.3000{{ndash}} 2686
|-
| 3rd dynasty || 2980{{ndash}} 2900 || 2686{{ndash}} 2613
|-
| 4th dynasty || 2900{{ndash}} 2750 || 2613{{ndash}} 2494
|-
| 5th dynasty || 2750{{ndash}} 2625 || 2494{{ndash}} 2345
|-
| 6th dynasty || 2623{{ndash}} 2475 || 2345{{ndash}} 2181
|-
| 7th & 8th dynasties || 2475{{ndash}} 2445 || 2181{{ndash}} 2160
|-
| 9th & 10th dynasties || 2445{{ndash}} 2160 || 2160{{ndash}} 2025
|-
| 11th dynasty || 2160{{ndash}} 2000 || 2125{{ndash}} 1985
|-
| 12th dynasty || 2000{{ndash}} 1788 || 1985{{ndash}} 1773
|-
| 13th to 17th dynasties || 1780{{ndash}} 1580 || 1773{{ndash}} 1550
|-
| 18th dynasty || 1580{{ndash}} 1350 || 1550{{ndash}} 1295
|-
| 19th dynasty || 1350{{ndash}} 1205 || 1295{{ndash}} 1186
|-
| 20th dynasty || 1200{{ndash}} 1090 || 1186{{ndash}} 1069
|-
| 21st dynasty || 1090{{ndash}} 945 || 1069{{ndash}} 945
|-
| 22nd dynasty || 945{{ndash}} 745 || 945{{ndash}} 715
|-
| 23rd dynasty || 745{{ndash}} 718 || 818{{ndash}} 715
|-
| 24th dynasty || 718{{ndash}} 712 || 727{{ndash}} 715
|-
| 25th dynasty || 712{{ndash}} 663 || 747{{ndash}} 656
|-
| 26th dynasty || 663{{ndash}} 525 || 664{{ndash}} 525
|-
|}
All of the differences can be explained as the result of increased knowledge and refined understanding of the material. For example, Breasted adds a ruler in the Twentieth dynasty that further research showed did not exist. Breasted also believed all the dynasties were sequential, whereas it is now known that several existed at the same time. And of these revisions, the most important difference is that dates in the Old Kingdom are now placed 300 years later.
== Notes ==
{{reflist}}
==See also==
* [[Ancient Egypt]]
* [[Biblical chronology]]
* [[Chronology]]
* [[Chronology of the Ancient Near East]]
* [[Dating methodology (archaeology)]]
* [[History of ancient Egypt]]
* [[List of Egypt-related topics]]
* [[List of Pharaohs]]
==External links==
* [http://aegyptologie.online-resourcen.de Scientific tool for converting calendar dates mentioned in Greek and Demotic Papyri from Egypt into Julian dates]
{{Ancient Egypt topics}}
{{Chronology}}
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