Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ancient Egypt/Temp

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[edit] Creating this List

My method for compiling this list of kings and regnal dates was simple. My first step was to take the chronological list (pp.479-83) from the back of Ian Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 2000) & use it as the backbone of this work. I use the word "backbone" because it only took a few minutes' reading to determine that there were some big holes: this chronology omits any record of the 7th & 8th dynasties, & offers an incomplete list for the 13th - 16th dynasties. My solution for this was simple: find primary sources & use them to fill these gaps.

Some research showed that K.S.B. Ryholt's work was the latest & most important study on the Turin King List -- which is our primary source for the 13th - 16th dynasties. Since Ryholt filled some holes in that manuscript based on his own, far more expert research, I tried to indicate where his list varies from the primary source. However the Turin King List is missing for the 7th & 8th dynasties, so I had to find another primary source. Fortunately, the Abydos King List of Sety I covers this period, & I used a copy I found online.

I am intentionally ignoring the Persian Emperors & the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt. My goal here is to offer a standardized set of names & dates. These 2 groups have already been standardized by useage.

In a few places, I was presented with some very different lists of rulers for dynasties. The most important of these divergant POVs concerned the 2nd & the 15th dynasties. Before I undertook this project, I knew that opinion was divided over the rulers of the 2nd dynasty, & so I tried to reflect what I wrote in that Wikipedia article. For the 15th dynasty, where Ryholt diverged from what was given in Shaw, I decided to follow Ryholt, with the intent of explaining the various POVs about this matter in the article on the 15th dynasty.

Further, there about half-a-dozen royal names that were omitted in Shaw, but can be found in other authorities. (Some of these I ssupect were omitted from our exemplar by accident.) I have added them at the proper spots, with a comment stating that some authorities add them here. My justification for that act was simple: people will consult Wikipedia for information on those people, & even if they are fictitious or an artifact of a now-discredited theory, we need to have information about them. I added them to make this standard more useful for our audience.

Once I had this composite list created, I made an effort to harmonize the transliterations as close to the forms in Shaw as I could, using the versions in both the text & the chronology (e.g., where Ryholt wrote the name Antef, I changed it to Intef). My one exception here was the spelling of Ramesses, which is spelled "Rameses" in Shaw: a consensus was formed before I had created this list, a consensus which I agreed with, to standardize on "Ramesses". I also summarized any names that were fragmentary, seeing that there is not much to be said about a ruler of whom all it can be said is "part of his name appears in the Turin King List -- assuming that this ruler is a he."

The predynastic kings -- those who ruled before the 1st dynasty -- I took from the list at Pharaoh. In Shaw, only 2 of these early rulers are mentioned; our list I used in Wikipedia was far more extensive, although I've seen some authorities talk about "Dynasty 0" & "Dynasty 00" -- undoubtedly, there is a need for standardization here, although I doubt any one authority agrees with another. In any case I'm leaving this part of the list to someone else to finish because it's a period of Egyptian History that doesn't interest me.

As an aside, the list at Conventional Egyptian chronology includes 2 non-Manethonian dynasties -- the High Priests of Amun at Thebes, & the Libu -- & Ryholt adds a third non-Manethonian dynasty, which he calls "the Abydos dynasty". Although I'm suspicious about the existence & importance of the Libu, I feel that they should be given equal treatment to the traditional 30 dynasties of Manetho; they should be given a "See also" link at the bottom of the Pharaoh article, as the native Egyptians did not treat them equal to the Manethonian dynasties.

My division of dynasties into periods -- Old Kingdom, First Intermediate, Middle Kingdom, etc. -- is where I excercised any subjective judgement. Shaw includes the 7th & 8th dynasties in the Old Kingdom, & the whole of the 11th & at least part of the 13th dynasties into the Middle Kingdom. I varied from this based on my own opinion of when the periods began & ended. This was more out of not thinking the issue thru than anything else: the only item here that I have a strong opinion about is that the 7th & 8th dynasties should be placed in the First Intermediate, rather than in the Old Kingdom.

My last step was to add what I considered were important variants of names. By "important", I mean where the various methods of transliteration resulted in forms that one could not intuitively assume represented the same Egyptian name. On one hand, I'm probably being elitist in assuming that a reader would not see "Amenophis", "Amenhotep", & "Amunhotpe" all represented the same name in Ancient Egyptian. Yet on the other, some variants are clearly not intuitive to the non-expert -- & perhaps even the expert; for example, some names are assembled differently like the Fifth dynasty king "Raneferef" who is also known as "Neferefre"; there are better known Greek versions (like "Cheops") & less known Egyptian ("Khufu"). And while in most cases there is no one right way to transliterate an Egyptian name into modern English, there are a few ways that are now considered obsolete (e.g. "Piy" is now preferred to "Piankhi"). We need to reference all of these.

Then there are differences of opinion whether a group of names represented one or several individuals. The only one I have not flagged concerns Ramesses XII -- which deserves an article if only to explain that such-&-such Egyptologist convincingly argued that he did not exist. I did not add him to the list simply because I don't know who convincingly argued that there was no Ramesses XII.

I also added the prenomina of 4 rulers as their names were written in cuneiform. While I did this mostly because I happened to have the information at hand & felt it was interesting, I feel it is important to this project as a reminder to readers of the fact that how we represent Ancient Egyptian is admittedly very different from how it actually was spoken.

Once this was all done, I cut-n-pasted the whole to Wikipedia, then spent my spare time over a week re-arranging the information into tables. I chose tables because I felt it presented the names, dates & any comments in a more readable format.

As I write this, I realise that I most likely left a fair number of mistakes & typos unfixed. I welcome all to fix them. However, please refrain from making any substantial changes to this document for a few weeks in order to give everyone interested a chance to see what I have done & form an opinion favorable or otherwise. I'd rather have this proposal be rejected because the method proved not to be what the group wanted, rather than because of indecisive bickering over minor points -- which can always be changed. -- llywrch 23:31, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

I think you have done a wonderful job. I understand why you have excluded the Persian and Ptolemaic rulers from this work, however they will be included in the final list. Also did you know Pharaoh was listed on Cleanup and has an effort under way to improve it Pharaoh/Temp?

Jay, I thought work on that page had gone into hiatus, but ALoan posted to the contrary a few days ago -- which note I saw right at the moment I was finishing my work on this. I see this compilation as a work in parallel with what he did there, & I hope Wikipedia can incorporate as much of my work into that page as possible. -- llywrch 21:26, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A couple of minor, specific, comments. First, I would deprecate "Amenophis", which is the Greek version of the name. In general I would really prefer not to use the Greek versions as the primary name (although I suppose we'd better keep Cheops as an alternate, because that one is so well known). Second, I think the latter years of the 18th dynasty (my area of expertise) are not anything like as clearly understood as this table seems to indicate. E.g. there was almost certainly a period of dual regency between Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. Egyptologists are still fighting tooth and nail over how long a co-regency (as of the latest Amarna Letters, #4, both sides are still bringing up evidence), but I think most would agree there was some overlap. And then there are all the arguments over whether Tutankaten was Akhenaten's immediate successor or not, and if not, who was in the middle. I don't know how to indicate all this in your table, but I would be concerned if we made it sound more definitive than it really is. Noel 04:10, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

1. Amenophis is not in this list. I'd only add it if someone could show that people are unable to intuit it is the same name as Amenhotep.

2. The dates are taken about as exactly as I could from Ian Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt -- no corrections. As I understood it, the idea was to offer one set of dates we could all agree to, & since this book is a common & accepted reference I took the years from that.

If the Oxford History is not acceptible, the only other reference I know of that is widely accepted would be the Cambridge Ancient History -- although I believe that's 20 years older. Or we decide just to offer dates no more precise than "first half of the 14th century BC" or "last half of the 16th century BC". Even if we accept the Oxford History dates, I believe it is only proper that editors discuss to some extent the problems of assigning dates within the dynasty or biography articles; there are a number of disagreements over precise dates from the beginning of ancient Egyptian history practically to its end. -- llywrch 04:46, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Status

Hey Llywrch, what's the status on this page? I still think it's superior to the List of Pharaohs or Conventional Egyptian chronology pages. What needs to be done before it can replace them? I'd be happy to do what I can to aid in this effort. If you don't mind, I was going to add some links. john k 15:08, 26 August 2005 (UTC)