Recent Developments

The conventional history of the ancient Near East at large, including Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean basin, contains several “Dark Ages”, poorly documented transitional periods of uncertain length. James et al. 1991 have argued that the most significant of these Dark Ages—the transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age during the last two centuries of the second millennium bce—is largely an artefact of an overly long reconstruction of the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period, and that this Dark Age presents itself in every chronology linked to the Egyptian. A wide variety of often seemingly contradictory scientific, archaeological, art-historical, and philological evidence has been adduced to argue for the status quo, or to lengthen or to shorten by up to several centuries the relative chronology for this period. This review article comments on the papers presented at the Third BICANE Colloquium held at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (2011), summarizing a variety of recent positions taken in the ongoing evaluation of James et al. 1991, testing the specific proposition that the tenth century bce biblical Egyptian King Shishak is to be distinguished from the historical Egyptian King Shoshenq I, who is now to be situated about a century later in the latter half of the ninth century bce. The wider historical implications of this proposed distinction are examined in new detail.

Ramesses III gives Asiatic prisoners a good smiting. Registers of toponym lists below his feet. From the first pylon at Medinet Habu. © Aidan Dodson 2018

The invited papers reflected a wide range of viewpoints, and were delivered by scholars from the UK, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Israel. The speakers were: John Bimson (Trinity College, Bristol): ”Shishak and Shoshenq”; Troy Sagrillo (Swansea University): “Shoshenq I and biblical Shishak: a defence of their traditional equation”; Shirley Ben-Dor Evian (Tel Aviv University): “Shoshenq I and the Levant – synchronizing chronologies”; Rupert Chapman (British Museum): “Samaria and Megiddo, Shishak and Solomon”; Peter van der Veen (Mainz University): “Solomon and Shoshenq I in the Light of Epigraphy: dating the Early Iron Age with the help of palaeography”; Aidan Dodson (Bristol University): “Shoshenq I: a conventional(ish) view”; Robert Morkot (Exeter University) and Peter James: “From Shoshenq V back to Shoshenq I: dead-reckoning the Start of the 22nd Dynasty”; Ad Thijs: “Dating Shoshenq I: an alternative view”; Jonathan Tubb (British Museum): “Omri and Ahab and the Literary Invention of the United Monarchy”; Wolfgang Zwickel (Mainz University): “Solomon’s Cultic Implements and the Historicity of Solomon’s Kingdom”; Uwe Zerbst (Magdeburg University): “Iron Age Chronology: does radiocarbon provide the answer?”; Robert Porter: “Recent Problems with Iron Age Dendrochronology”; Peter van der Veen (University of Mainz): “Fresh Light on Egyptian Finds from Jerusalem – some preliminary conclusions”; Peter James: “The Rulers of Jerusalem at the Late Bronze to Iron Age Transition – forerunners of David and Solomon?”; Simone Burger Robin: “Analysis, Interpretation and Dating of a Problematic Egyptian Statuary Head Discovered in Jerusalem”; Dan’el Kahn (Haifa University): “The Campaign of Ramesses III Against Philistia”.

The meeting exceeded our expectations, both in terms of the quality of the papers and the lively and good-humoured debate and we were also honoured by a visit from Professor Anthony Snodgrass. We have now found a publisher for the proceedings and work is in progress on their editing.

Herihor, High Priest of Amun, wearing the royal uraeus. (From the Book of the Dead prepared for his queen Nodjmet, now in the British Museum).

Now some four years in progress, our review offers a radical approach to this particularly complex period of Egyptian history. While there are an extraordinary number of royal and priestly burials from this Dynasty there is a conspicuous lack of other archaeological remains, from Apis bulls and statuary to more mundane finds such as donation stelae, administrative documents and ostraca, and alleged “gaps” in genealogies (in the sense of “missing” generations) – as we have pointed out repeatedly. Many years ago Andrzej Niwinski posited a modest reduction of the 21st Dynasty by about a decade in his studies of its coffin styles. His attempt was rebuffed by Jürgen von Beckerath and Kenneth Kitchen on the grounds that shortening the 21st Dynasty conflicted with the known dates for the New Kingdom. (See A. Niwinski: “Problems in the Chronology and Genealogy of the XXIst Dynasty: New Proposals for their Interpretation”¸ Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 16 (1979), 49-68; p. 61 for pers. comms. from von Beckerath and Kitchen). These, of course, are largely based on the Sothic theory, refined with lunar dates – readers of CoD will be aware of the fragile nature of such dating. Otherwise standard reconstructions of the 21st Dynasty are all based on the kinglist and regnal years given by the Hellenistic author Manetho. We eschew the use of Manetho, preferring to work from primary (contemporary) evidence only – the resulting picture for the 21st Dynasty is very different. While our article on Herihor offers only a 5-year reduction in its length, future articles will develop the model and show how much greater cuts in 21st-dynasty chronology are possible.

The length of the 21st Dynasty, presently occupying some 125 years (c.1080-945 BC), is not only important for Egyptian history. We do not see it as a coincidence that the “Dark Ages” (Early Iron) of the Levant and other Eastern Mediterranean regions are equivalent in time to the 21st and late 20th Dynasties. (On a proposed reduction in the length of the 20th Dynasty see previous December entry.)

First, in January, was Robert Porter's study "A Network of 22nd-26th Dynasty Genealogies", Journal of the American Research Centre in Egypt 4 (2008), pp.153-157. It proposes a shorter genealogy for the 22nd Dynasty and hence a significant reduction in its length, in step with that proposed in CoD.

Further to Egyptian Third Intermediate Period chronology, February saw the appearance of a substantial and detailed study by Robert Morkot and Peter James, "Peftjauawybast, King of Nen-nesut: Genealogy, Art History, and the Chronology of Late Libyan Egypt", Antiguo Oriente 7 (2009), pp. 13-55. Focussing on the rather obscure king Peftjauawybast, the paper argues for a major compression of Late Libyan chronology, the elimination of Kenneth Kitchen's "Osorkon IV" and a new alignment of Shoshenq III-Pimay-Shoshenq V and Osorkon III-Takeloth III with the rulers of the 25th Nubian Dynasty.

Egyptian rock relief from Timna in southern Palestine, depicting Ramesses III making offerings to the goddess Hathor.

This article studies the chronology of the New Kingdom Egyptian copper mining in the southern Arabah valley, and particularly Timna, traditionally dated in the 13th-12th centuries BCE. A reassessment is made of the local archaeological evidence and especially of the findings of the Hejazi Qurayya pottery in archaeological assemblages of the southern Levant. It is argued that the chronology of the New Kingdom activities at Timna needs a revision towards lower dates.

After applying the CoD chronology to Timna, Bimson and Tebes conclude (p. 106):

An experiment with the revised chronology of James et al. showed that the conflicting data is brought into a remarkable degree of harmony by that revision. This does not, of course, prove the correctness of that model, and it is not the only revision to have been proposed in recent years; on the other hand, less radical revisions would not resolve the chronological tensions to the same degree.

March saw the publication of a review by Peter James of the first volume of the reports of the new Beth-Shean excavations, in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly 142 (2010), pp. 69-71. It highlights the chronological problems at the site and briefly suggesting how the CoD model could considerably reduce the period of time when the site was allegedly abandoned in late Iron Age times.

The earliest known depiction of the Trojan Horse: detail from the neck of a Cycladic relief-amphora found on Mykonos (conventional date ca. mid-7th century BC).

Very fittingly this volume of Ancient West and East is dedicated to Anthony Snodgrass, Laurence Professor (Emeritus) of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, on his 75th birthday. Anthony has always been one of the more 'neutral' and even-handed commentators on CoD, with the two reviews that he wrote and with the help and personal encouragement he has given to the authors over the years. Another article in the volume is by Professor Nicolas Coldstream, who sadly passed away in March 2008. It is fair to say that he was uneased by the proposals in CoD, and quite dismayed when the excavator of Tell Abu Hawam (Jacqueline Balensi) agreed with us that the site was certainly no support for the conventional dates of Greek Middle Geometric pottery (see FAQ13. Still, gentleman scholar as he was, Nicolas kindly chaired a seminar on CoD at University College London in October 1991, and we will always remember him for a wistful remark made when the authors were discussing their revised date for Late Helladic IIIC pottery and the Trojan War. When he realised that our date was in the mid-10th century BC, Nicolas sighed and expressed joking regret: he was a great fan of opera, but even our lowering of the Trojan War by some 250 years would not have allowed Aeneas to meet Dido, Queen of Carthage, whose city was traditionally founded in 814 BC.

Details and abstracts of the new papers by CoD authors will be found on The Continuing Debate page. We hope, in due course, to make them readable online.

Feb 2010. We are pleased to announce that Pierce Furlong’s doctoral thesis on ancient Near Eastern chronology (see October 2007 entry below) has now been published as a book by Gorgias Press: Aspects of Ancient Near Eastern Chronology (c. 1600–700 BC). The volume is a large format hardback. ISBN:978-1-60724-127-0 – for further details (contents, price etc) see Gorgias Press. From the cover: "There can be no more important topic in historical studies than chronology, for it is chronology which gives meaning to history by placing individuals, events and material remains within their true sequence. If this sequence does not match historical actuality, then the historical narrative drawn from the available evidence may appear confused, incomplete or even contradictory".

The fragment of Shoshenq I’s stela from Megiddo

The chronology of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Near East is currently a topic of intense scholarly debate. The conventional/orthodox chronology for this period has been assembled over the past one-two centuries using information from King-lists, royal annals and administrative documents, primarily those from the Great Kingdoms of Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia. This major enterprise has resulted in what can best be described as an extremely complex but little understood jigsaw puzzle composed of a multiplicity of loosely connected data. I argue in my thesis that this conventional chronology is fundamentally wrong, and that Egyptian New Kingdom (Memphite) dates should be lowered by 200 years to match historical actuality. This chronological adjustment is achieved in two stages: first, the removal of precisely 85 years of absolute Assyrian chronology from between the reigns of Shalmaneser II and Ashur-dan II; and second, the downward displacement of Egyptian Memphite dates relative to LBA Assyrian chronology by a further 115 years. Moreover, I rely upon Kuhnian epistemology to structure this alternate chronology so as to make it methodologically superior to the conventional chronology in terms of historical accuracy, precision, consistency and testability.

We are delighted that Centuries of Darkness will now be available to a wider audience in Greece. As readers of the English-language edition will know, two chapters are specifically devoted to Greece (with another on Cyprus), while one of the starting points in our argument was the great 19th-century debate over the dating of the Mycenaeans. The chronological riddles raised by the lengthy Greek ‘Dark Age’ resonate throughout the Mediterranean, and likewise the book – from the origins of the alphabet, through anomalous findspots of Greek pottery in the Levant to the date of the Trojan War and the unresolved ‘Homeric problem’ (on which we have much more to write). The volume is presently available in bookshops throughout Greece and there has already been interest in the national press (e.g. Pontiki, Art section, 1 June 2006). While the basic theory of CoD has long been mentioned in Greek academic publications, we now look forward to more detailed reviews, feedback and criticism from Aegean archaeologists.

Robert Morkot at the book-signing of The Black Pharaohs, Museum Bookshop, London.

The Black Pharaohs is the first in-depth study of the Nubian (Kushite) kings who established a powerful state in Sudan during the 9th century BC. They succeeded in conquering Egypt in the late 8th century, ruling it as the 25th Dynasty and acting as protectors of Palestine against the encroachment of the Assyrian Empire. Eventually Egypt fell to Assurbanipal in a series of campaigns between 667 and 663 BC and, with the help of local Libyan princes, the Nubians were rapidly expelled.

The Nubian Dynasty is of interest not only for its cultural significance (as a link between Egypt and Africa further south) but also for its pivotal role in dating - as it provides us with our earliest fixed points in Egyptian history. In The Black Pharaohs Robert consolidates and refines the low 25th-dynasty chronology developed in CoD, laying a firm foundation for the reconstruction of Egypt’s "Third Intermediate Period". He pays particular attention to the chronological enigmas surrounding the origins of the Dynasty. These are inextricably tangled with the question of the "Dark Age" believed to have descended on Nubia between the removal of Egyptian control in the "12th" century and the rise of Napata in the 9th.