Talk:Chronology of the ancient Near East

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I started this article before I found Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria and Chronological systems of Babylonia and Assyria (because they were uncategorized), but they are in a mess anyway. The articles:

should work together somehow. This should be the main article where the results are summarized, and were people can be sent to for quick information about "short" vs. "middle" chronology etc. The dates in Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria can be merged with the King lists. Chronological systems of Babylonia and Assyria can give background of the development of the understanding of these things, including the 1911 part now in Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria. I am working on it, but I need to get an overview first. Ulitmately, there will be a "series" Template of these (and other) articles. dab 09:25, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)


This project is both unwieldy and essential. I wish the title were Chronology of the Ancient Near East, a more modern designation, grounded in archaeology rather than Bible studies. (See Orient and Orientalism for modern connotations of "Orient". Compare Oriental.) --Wetman 12:40, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ancient Orient is a redirect to Ancient Near East already. It's just that I'm more familiar with the former, but I don't oppose a move for this article, even if I could not care less about claims that the term is "politically incorrect" (the Orient is just where the sun rises. So yeah, it's the Orient from a European perspective, but then it's an English word, so we wouldn't expect it to be from a Japanese perspective — and "Near" "East" is just as Euro-centric anyway ;) dab 13:11, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] WikiProject

see Wikipedia:WikiProject Ancient Near East dab 21:05, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why is the link Canon of Ptolemy a redirect to Ptolemaic dynasty? IIRC, the first refers to a series of dated observations preserved by Claudius Ptolemy, which is of importance for the chronology of ancient Mesopotamia; the second has no signifance importance for this article. -- llywrch 00:43, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

it's a 'redirect with possibilities' [1] dab 09:55, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ancient sources

Try a move to bottom - with a condensed version at top. See comment on changes. -=SV= 23:29, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Material dump-merged-redirected here from other 1911 articles. Needs work. -SV|t 15:18, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] So when according to long chronology Hammurabi ruled?

So when according to long chronology Hammurabi ruled?

From this article quote 1

  • 1857-1814 Hammurabi

quote 2

  • The long chronology is 120 years earlier than the short chronology (Hammurabi 1848 BC–1806 BC).

Ilya K 13:33, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Long Chronologish POV

This article seems to be full of POV for the Long Chronology. It gives Hammurabi as being in the 19th Century BC, when the Middle Chronology puts him in the first half of the 18th century, and the Short Chronology somewhat later. It doesn't explain that this is only one possible dating, but tries to claim that this chronology is correct based on astronomical evidence. Doesn't this need to be seriously overhauled? john k 07:31, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Short? Long?

Can someone add an explanation of why the chronologies are called "long", "short", etc? --P3d0 16:15, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

The Long Chronology puts the Old Babylonian period furthest back in the past. The Short Chronology puts it back closest to the present. Thus, Mesopotamian history as a whole is somewhat shorter under the short chronology, and somewhat longer under the long chronology. john k 18:28, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comprehensive explanation of all major chronologies

The article as it stands seems to support the long chronology. The claim at the beginning of the article however, states that dendochronological dating and "the consensus" supports the short chronology. And the dates used throughout Wikipedia are middle chronology. This is confusing, and in my opinion needs to be fixed.

Now I know very little about astronomy, so I can't do this myself, but it seems appropriate for this article to evaluate all the proposed identifications of each eclipse and explain how they fit in to each major chronology, and subsequently give a full kinglist for each chronology, taking the astronomical, synchronistic, dendochronological and radiocarbon evidence all into account.--Rob117 01:41, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree - the article at present is a mess. john k 04:52, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

all of Wikipedia is a mess, in that respect. Most of the articles seem to use Middle Chronology, without stating it explicitly. This is since people cite dates from books without being aware of the chronologies. In some cases this leads to mixed dates in a single article, or to contradictory dates across articles. We do not have to agree on a single system, but we must make sure that all Ancient History articles make clear which chronology they are using. If at all possible, use some "chronology" template, so the dates will be machine readable, and can be converted automatically. This article first and formost has the job to clearly explain the difference between the chronologies. The explanation of the details supporting them is important too, but not as urgent. how about we do a template, e.g. {{short chr|1866}} that renders as "1866 BC (short chronology)" or similar? We can then ultimately have stylesheets where the user can choose if s/he wants to see short, long or middle chronology. dab (ᛏ) 07:48, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be best to give short, middle, and long chronology dates throughout wikipedia's ancient history articles. I think this article also need sto stop being schizophrenic about which chronology is right. A long chronology enthusiast seems to have slipped in and filled the article with long chronology POV at one point, which directly contradicts the more balanced endorsement of the short chronology elsewhere in the article. john k 14:44, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

How about a reference page (pages?) with a single huge chart for all the major ANE civilizations and each chronology? Thus there could be columns for Babylonian High, Middle, and Low, and ditto for Assyrian, Egyptian, Levantine, and Greek chronologies, with notes as to which are used as Wikipedia conventions. It should include events and sychronisms used to tie the various regional chronologies together. The chart would provide a visual aid for presenting alternative or fringe chronological theories, and would make it easy for readers to see which dates reflect which chron. -- ES, 16 Aug 2005

That sounds great. are you volunteering? john k 16:58, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
I've got a large Excel spreadsheet with a start, but I'm not a specialist by any means. It's based on a variety of (reputable) internet and print sources, but I'm not familiar enough with Wikipedia to know if it's in a currently useful format, or how to use it - or where to put it so that others could use it or modify it. EthanS 18:06, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
Here's the start of the table at User:EthanS/Near East Regnal Table. It's in Wiki pipe table format. It covers every year from 600 to 2700 BCE in conventional chronologies. Much of the information is based on the same sources already used in Wikipedia for the related articles (e.g., Shaw for Egypt). It includes Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Hatti, Judah, and Israel. I haven't added Greece, Crete, or Sumeria yet. EthanS 15:16, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

On what precise points are contemporaneities between Egypt and Babylon based? Shilkanni 07:47, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Kadashman-Enlil I was a contemporary of Amenhotep III. His successor Burnaburiash II was a contemporary of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. Kadashman-Turgu and Kadashman-Enlil II were contemporaries of Ramesses II. There may be a few other correspondences in this period, I'm not sure. I think there are also some indirect synchronisms, via the Hittite Kings. john k 07:51, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

And no other precise ones than those? It seems they are dependent on whether dynasty of Burnaburiash is correctly linked with later ones. Shilkanni 09:09, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

My understanding is that the Synchronistic Timeline and other documents tie Burnaburiash, etc., relatively securely to the Assyrian kings of the same period. Burnaburiash's successor Kurigalzu II is tied into Assyrian chronology relatively securely, as I understand it. Tukulti-Ninurta I is known to have captured Babylon, and this is securely fastened to particular Kassite kings. Here's a good post on synchronisms from an anti-Rohl site: [2]. I would add that while you are free to believe Rohl, you are not free to insert Rohl POV into articles as though it is of comparable weight to the unanimous beliefs of mainstream scholars. Every mainstream scholar believes Ashur-uballit I wrote the Amarna letter from Ashur-uballit. Every mainstream scholar believes that Ramesses II reigned at some point in the 13th century BC. Every mainstream scholar believes that Shishak was Sheshonq I. Adding more detailed discussion of Rohl's arguments in the articles on Rohl and his views is fine, and perhaps adding a (very brief) section to this article about the views of Rohl and James, while noting that they are unanimously rejected by mainstream scholars, would be okay as well. But changing around articles which are not about chronology to represent the generally unsupported views of Rohl is not okay. john k 23:38, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

BTW, a good site with a full list of near eastern synchronisms: [3]. john k 23:48, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Another issue seems to be inaccurate attributions of things to the Canon of Ptolemy, especially in the Assyrian period for Babylon. Our knowledge of some of this stuff comes from sources other than Ptolemy. john k 00:19, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] confussing

I m a catalan unser, i was very happy when i saw this article because i thought it would help me with lots of articles. But it doesn't. Because it's all messed. A cronology should be a list of years, with * and a explanations of whan happened, who ruled etc after the explanations of sources etc

well, you see, this article is trying to explain why we cannot just give you a "list of years", as much as we would like to. Anybody who says things like "Hammurabi (1792 BC–1750 BC)" is being dishonest with you if they don't explain why exactly they think that these dates are right. That said, I hope you did see our Sumerian king list, Kings of Assyria, List of kings of Babylon and List of Pharaohs? dab (ᛏ) 20:19, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Clean Up

As later dates are better known than earlier ones, would it not be better to flip the whole table on its head and work backwards? Then the lists can be broken down into separate bits, like from Alexander down to Nabonassar, and for each bit show the sources and synchronisms that supports the dates. It would mean wholly redoing the article though. Oswax 23:49, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Can we destroy most of the text under 'Divergent chronological views'? I know it is a fair chunk of the article, but it adds nothing, is esoteric and out of date. Oswax 00:25, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
I would agree - it seems to act as though the basic presumption is that Naram-Sin lived around 3800 BC, which I don't think anybody agrees with anymore. Is it from the 1911 Britannica? Or some crazy POV warrior? At any rate, the whole article needs a wholesale rewrite, I think - much of the material that we have is weird POV, and then there's a lot of stuff that needs to be said that isn't. john k 00:54, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
John - could you takea look at User:Oswax/CANE, but only the intro, primary sources and first section? I have been working on redrafting the entire article, and want to know if others think I am on the right track. I think that for each time period we need a list of kings and reigns for a major kingdom (Babylon, Ashur, Sumer) and note the primary source from which it comes. Interpersed with these lists we ought to note any other sources that inform the period (astronomy or chronicles) and any synchronisms with minor kingdoms (and how we know them).
I will include the info behind long/middle/short chronology when I get to it, but I think we ought to settle on one and slowly propagate it throughout Wikipedia. As long as we are clear on this page how the chronology works, we oughtn't be too concerned over readers being 'uninformed' on dating systems. I will put in more work and finish the list if you can settle with what's being done. (Let's face it, anything will be better than what we already have. Oswax 16:47, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Note: I don't think that lists of kings are strictly needed, as long as we can point to the right sources for the information for the list. But, the article already lists some kings, and we ought to be consistent by listing kings everywhere, or nowhere. Oswax 11:14, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I like the basic idea. I do think that, as a Chronology of the Ancient Near East as a whole, we should bring in other than the main sequence of Persian/Mesopotamian kings. Egyptian chronology should mostly go in the Egyptian chronology article, but should at least be discussed to some extent - the surety of dates from 664 onwards, the Amarna period synchronisms, and so forth. The chronology of the Book of Kings might also fruitfully be mentioned at some point. We shouldn't use the High Chronology, which seems to be mostly discredited, for the Old Babylonian period. In terms of the Babylonian king lists, the only one that I'm specifically familiar with is the Uruk King List, which dates from Seleucid Kings, and (I think) lists kings from Nabonassar down to the Seleucid period. There are certainly other Babylonian king lists, though, since we have lists of Babylonian kings going back all the way to the first dynasty. In terms of types of sources, I think that one thing that needs to be added is attestations of monarchs' reigns in business documents. For the Neo-Babylonian period, for instance, there are thousands of commercial tablets, all of them dated in terms of the regnal years of kings. While such documents only intermittently allow the placing of kings in order (when they discuss events over several reigns, and what not), they can confirm reign lengths. For the Neo-Babylonian period, I know that there are tablets dated to every year in the period - 0-21 Nabopolassar, 0-43 Nebuchadnezzar, 0-2 Amel-Marduk, 0-4 Neriglissar, 0 Labashi-Marduk, 0-17 Nabonidus. I think the same can be said for the Persian period. I know that monumental attestations, also, are used as among the most important evidences for Egyptian chronology. While this kind of material isn't especially useful for giving absolute dates or putting monarchs in order, it is useful for determining how long different kings ruled for in the absence of other clear evidence, and for confirming king list totals. john k 23:38, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

BTW, here's a good site for king lists: [4]. john k 23:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Canon of Kings

As can be seen, I have created an article on the Canon of Kings. john k 18:28, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

That's some fine work. Do you know of an internet source for Ptolemy's original? I couldn't find one anywhere. Oswax 19:20, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
is this the first bit (747-539 BC) identical to what Babylonian Chronicle is referring to? dab (ᛏ) 19:20, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
No, see here [5]. These tablets are much older than Ptolemy, and much more fragmentary. Oswax 20:12, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I used this website as my source (I used the dates in the Age of Nabonassar as the basis for the dates, rather than the inconsistently used BC and AD dates that that webpage author has used. There is also an article in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies, available through JSTOR, if you have access to it, that is about the Canon, and that reproduces it in part (only up to Augustus, though). john k 20:23, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Assyrian Kings

Over at User:John Kenney/Kings of Assyria, see a revised list of Assyrian kings. It is derived from the list found here, and brings down the dates of the Middle Assyrian kings by a little more than a decade from the dates we have been using. Over at the Ancient Near East Chronology Forum, at which I've been lurking for some time, and emerged to ask a question about this topic, these dates seem to be accepted by most of the more mainstream contributors as more likely than the dates we give in our article. These dates tend to fit better with the 1279 BC date we give for the accession of Ramesses II, and, I think, with the Hittite dates that we give (e.g. Urhi-Teshup should be contemporary with Adad-nirari I, which he is not under the current dates we give.

I would suggest switching over to this date (whose rationale is discussed here in response to a question from me, except that the dates we currently use seem to still be the most commonly used, and I haven't yet found a published source that uses the revised date system. Anyway, any thoughts on this would be helpful. john k 03:31, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

We can use the new dates if we want to do so. They seem to be well discussed, supported and accepted by scholars. Though they are not yet widely used, it may be one of the benefits of Wikipedia that we can be an early adopter. However, sticking with the old dates would not be *wrong*.
Personally, I think we ought to take them up. Oswax 09:57, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Can we not adopt both? Or rather use one and explain the discrepancy in the sources? jguk 11:57, 21 September 2005 (UTC)


What I've gathered is that in recent years the Low chronologies have become accepted by most academics, but that general encyclopedias, textbooks, and popular overviews, being slow to adapt to change, still tend to use the Middle chronologies because they have been in use for the past few decades.--Rob117 19:22, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's my impression as well. I've changed over the articles on Babylonian and Assyrian kings to use a lower chronology for the Kassite/Middle Assyrian periods, and explained what I was doing. john k 23:16, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Near-Absolute Dates

There should be some mention of the absolute dates given us by astronomy and dendrochronology. I'm particularly impressed by its apparent success at nailing down the date of the LH IIIA/B transition to a VERY narrow 1310s or 1300s BC. I'd add this in myself but, as mentioned, the main page is a bit of a mess at the moment.

I am in particular thinking of Mursili's eclipse, 1312 BCE. This happened in the span of that king's annals, so we get absolute dates of events prior to and afterward, particularly the date of one of the sacks of Miletus.

As for dendrochronology, we're getting closer to an absolute date of the Uluburun shipwreck - which happened almost exactly when Miletus was sacked.

It's also helpful for dating construction projects, burning of trees which might be growing in the region, construction of coffins for dead kings, and of course the 1650 BC explosion of Thera. To keep abreast of this, every now and again do a web-search for "Krunholm" (or "Manning") and "dendrochronology". Zimriel 20:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Middle Chronology

I recently read A History of the Ancient near East by Marc Van de Mieroop, 2003, and this book still maintains that the Middle Chronology is the most commonly used one for Mesopotamia. The short chronology is almost universally used for the Egyptian New Kingdom (setting the accession of Ahmose I to 1550 BC), and apparently the three different Mesopotamian chronologies only apply for dates before the sack of Babylon by the Hittites (1595 by the Middle Chronology, 1531 by the Short), so the Egyptian and Mesopotamian chronologies are not identical- the arguments over the correct Mesopotamian chronology mostly revolve around how to correlate Mesopotamian pottery to very early New Kingdom Egyptian pottery via the intermediate region of the Levant (Mazar 1990). The Middle Chronology is also what you see in almost every television program and reference work, so I think we may need to reevaluate the statement that it is the Short Chronology that is most widely used with regards to Mesopotamia (but not Egypt).--Rob117 01:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

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