Accepted Egyptian chronology??
Ken Haubrock
somewhere - or do they all differ? The more I look around, the more I
get different time spans for the (for example) Old Kingdom or the
Middle Kingdom. Is it just that each person wants to pin it down to
their own liking? Or is it possible that out there somewhere there is
an "official" chronology that the majority of Egyptologists actually
accept?
thanks
kah
Ken Down
(Ken Haubrock) wrote:
The question of Egyptian chronology is a vexed one. Sir Flinders Petrie,
the father of Egyptology, firmly believed that Menes was somewhere
around 5,300 BC. This was because he took Manetho fairly literally and
added up the years of reign sequentially.
Today we know that some of the pharoahs and even some of the dynasties
were contemporary and Menes is usually put somewhere around 3,100 BC. We
are also aware of discrepancies between the reign lengths in Manetho and
those attested by the monuments. However there is no agreement on
exactly which pharaohs were contemporary (or had co-regencies or
whatever) or which reign lengths should be altered and by how much. As a
result there are variations in the exact chronology of any period in
Egypt's history.
Recently some have suggested that Egyptian chronology needs to be
further shortened by several hundred years. Peter James (Centuries of
Darkness) and David Rohl (various) are the loudest voices, but others
such as Courville agree with them. The suggestions range from 200 years
for Rohl to 600 for Courville.
Although some might dismiss Rohl and Courville as cranks, James is a
weightier figure and certainly there has been discussion in scholarly
circles of the question. My opinion, for what it is worth, is that some
adjustment is required, but how much and where I leave to others better
qualified to decide.
Ken Down
--
__ __ __ __ __
| \ | / __ / __ | |\ | / __ |__ All the latest archaeological news
|__/ | \__/ \__/ | | \| \__/ __| from the Middle East with David Down
================================= and "Digging Up The Past"
Web site: www.diggingsonline.com
e-mail: digg...@argonet.co.uk
Katherine Griffis-Greenberg
sci.archaeology.moderated, wrote the following:
The standard accepted Egyptian chronology for scholarly Egyptological
work is to be found in
Beckerath, Jürgen von. 1997. _Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten :
die Zeitbestimmung der ägyptischen Geschichte von der Vorzeit bis 332 v.
Chr._ Münchner ägyptologische Studien Bd. 46. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag
Philipp von Zabern.
It is available via Amazon.de (Germany) at
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3805323107/qid=1055138553/sr=1-21/r
ef=sr_1_2_21/028-0244947-1535755
or you may find the work via <www.bookfinder.com> under German
publications.
Hope this assists.
Regards -
Katherine Griffis-Greenberg, MA (Lon)
Member, International Association of Egyptologists
American Research Center in Egypt, ASOR, EES, SSEA
University of Alabama at Birmingham
UAB Options/Special Studies
http://www.griffis-consulting.com