Talk:Chronology of the ancient Near East

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[edit] Scope

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)

[edit] Title of article

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)

[edit] WikiProject

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

[edit] Canon of Ptolemy

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)

[edit] New Chronology

[http://www.ouviroevento.hpg.ig.com.br/textos/arqueologiaehist/astronomiaearqueologia.htm Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669-627 BC) The Eclipse of Babylon I (EAE tablet 20) This new investigation has located one more during the same period, at 1362 BC (which matches VS 1419 BC), [50] and another, two centuries later, at 1178 BC (which matches VS 1208 BC). Quote: last king Samsuditana: "If an eclipse occurs on the 14th day of Shabatu (month XI), and the god, in his eclipse, becomes dark on the side south above, and clears on the side west below; the north wind (blows, and) in the last watch (the eclipse) begins, and he (the moon) is seen with the sun. His horns bend (toward) the sky. His entire shurinnu was not obscured, but disappeared. On the 28th you observe and an eclipse is close by; it begins and makes full (its time); it (the shurinnu) will show you the eclipse. Observe his eclipse, (that of) the god who in his eclipse was visible and disappeared, and bear in mind the north wind. The prediction is given for Babylon: the destruction of Babylon is near." Followed by Sealand Dynasties [49]


Destruction of Ugarith, palace of Nikmed II: Quote: Eclips 9th May 1012 BC which occurred at 6.17 pm, bearing in mind the telling comment by Assyriologist Walker: "At first sight the text refers to an event occurring at sunset." [60] Rashap.


Quote: hattusa(hittite) marching on the land of Azzi 13th March 1335 BC [63] or 24th June 1312 BC. [64]

Quote: The Eclipse of Egypt From the 15th year of the 22nd Dynasty Egyptian king, Takelot II, we have the following curious account, which might be interpreted as the only Egyptian record of a lunar eclipse: "Afterwards, in year 15, (month) IV of smw, day 25 under the majesty of his august father, the God who Rules in Thebes, the sky did not swallow the moon but a storm broke out in this land ..." [73]

An attempt has been made to date the eclipse to 16th March 851 BC. However, it has been noted that the date would be IV smw day 28, rather than day 25 as given in the account. It would, therefore, seem that this reference is of little value at this point, especially when there are various other problems about interpreting this Egyptian text. [74]

if the 18th dynasty must actually be renamed the 22th then forsure problems arise anyway. Enuma Anu Enlil eclipse records Quote: With the accession of Ur-Nammu at 1901 BC, the Du'uzu eclipse, marking the victory of Utu-hegal, would be the total eclipse on the 28th June 1908 BC (Table 3 - Eclipse of Gutium). Thus, in considering the Enuma Anu Enlil eclipse records for Agade, Guti/Uruk V, and Ur III (and the eclipse candidates ascertained), a satisfactory astronomical solution for all accounts may be obtained only if the accession of Ur-Nammu is placed at 1901 BC, which points once again to Venus solution* 1419 BC for Year 1 of Ammizaduga. - accession of Hammurabi may be set at 1565 -using the synchronism between Hammurabi and Neferhotep I (see Excursus: Yantin-Ammu, p. 1. This places the Egyptian king's accession sometime between 1550 and 1515 BC. -The reigns of Nikmed II of Ugarit and Mursili II of Hatti are historically tied to the late-18th and early-19th Dynasties in Egypt.

  • introduction of venus rising dating.

9th May 1012 BC. This eclipse is also compatible, on historical grounds, with the date of 1362 BC for the end of Babylon I. Using the approximate date of 1012 BC for Nikmed II, and therefore Akhenaten, we can set the date of Mursili's Year 10 campaign at 984 BC by means of the solar eclipse which occurred on the 30th April of that year. Mernaptah Sealand communication?

Finally, it is interesting to note that the dates offered here in this study are entirely consistent with the New Chronology proposed by Rohl elsewhere in this volume.

The religion was restored to its traditional form under Tutankhamun (king Tut)(after the whole Aten worship thing under Akhenaten) There are hieroglyphics on the walls in Egypt the depict a vast number of people leaving Egypt and show writings of some of the miracles.They are saying that it might have been Anknatens father who was the Exodus pharaoh and not Ramses the second. They are thinking that is why Anknaten believed in one god, the Aten.

Quote: The King (God) seeks only that which corresponds to Him. Therefore, the Holy One, blessed he be, dwells in him who (like Him) is one. When man, in perfect holiness, realizes the One, He is in that one. And when is that man called one? When man and woman are joined together sexually..." (Zohar 111, 81a.)

Quote: 1353 BC =+/-1012 BC Amenhotep IV became Pharaoh of Egypt. Soon after ascending to the throne, he ended a 1,700 year tradition of worshipping many gods, and instituted a new era in which one universal God would replace them: the sun god Aten. He changed his name to Ankenaten, meaning "Servant of Aten", and proclaimed himself as a living manifestation of God on Earth, the Son of the Sun. He closed the temples at Egypt's religious center of Thebes, and shifted the nation's spiritual focus to the Temple of the Sun at Karnak. He and his Queen Nefertiti presided over outdoor sun worship at sunrise, noon, and sunset. By doing away with hundreds of gods (and the priests who presided over them), he cleared the way for a more direct experience of the one universal God whom he proclaimed. And in so doing, he also set the stage for the acceptance of his own role as the representative of that God, a living divinity on Earth.

The principle of Aten went beyond mere sun worship, such as the later manifestations of Sol Invictus and Mithras. For the Egyptians, and Ankenaten, Aten was the all-encompassing principle of creation itself, and was both masculine and feminine. As a result, this concept is reflected in statues of Ankenaten, and he is depicted as a hermaphrodite, sporting a beard, but with breasts and wide hips. This is interesting on two counts. First, and most obviously, this would appear to be the earliest known example in which a hermaphrodite is used to symbolize God as a union of masculine and feminine symbols. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, how is it that such an esoteric concept and symbol could survive Ankenaten's short reign to re-emerge repeatedly in diverse cultures across the globe? After all, Ankenaten only ruled for a mere 17 years, some 3,350 = 3000 years ago. After his reign, the Egyptians were anxious to return to the worship of their old gods, and were eager to forget about both he and Aten.


[[pr-o==, meaning Great House, o-pr (pharao) 22 dynasty word new kingdom term since 19th dynasty in use. 18: hyksos gone. Fighting the Hittite in Syria. Ahmose I, Hapshepsut, Thutmose III, Amenhotep III, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. 19: Ramesses II ("the Great") of the 19th Dynasty, who sought to recover territories in the Levant that had been held by 18th Dynasty Egypt. His campaigns of reconquest culminated in the Battle of Kadesh, where he led Egyptian armies against those of the Hittite king Muwatalli II. ramesses III Seti I 970 BC thereabouts. constructor repairing history.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh#Pharaohs_in_the_Bible The Massoretic text (MT) gives 1125 years between Abraham's migration to Chanaan and the building of the temple, whereas the Septuagint allows 870 (see chronology) However, the Haggada holds that Pharaohs at the time of Abraham were Ashwerosh] and Rakayan, both nearly identical to Auserra Apopi and Khayan, two of the last Hyksos Pharaohs. The sacking of Thebes in 664 BC by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal as punishment for a revolt led by Pharaoh Taharka of the 25th Dynasty of kings in Egypt. Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian and other sources make this a very firm date, fixing the history of Egypt after this time. This date is beyond contention. Advanced puzzling. Madredsma 23:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC) madredsma 12.24 AM 16 januari 2007

[edit] Highly interpretive statement removed

Hello all, I have removed the following highly interpretive unsubstantiated statement (non-neutral point of view), which was apparently copied word for word without quotation marks from the source webpage cited:

  1. Many scholars still prefer to stick to the old, conventional middle chronology - not because it is better or worse than the others, but because it is conveniently in the middle. However, it is possible that within a couple of years, the ultra-low chronology will become the new standard, see [6].

I believe the statement is inappropriate as it stands because it is copied word for word without quotation marks from a highly interpretive tertiary source without a balancing position, and as such it would tend to be offensive to scholars who think that the middle chronology is better or worse than the others or who don't believe that the ultra-low chronology will become the standard. CheerfulPaul 19:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

MINOR REFORMATING

It would make the article more readable and consistent to change the remaining three sections to use the "Proposed Reign - Dating Notes" format to match the rest of the article. The Short chronology appears to have been used for the rest, so that would be as good as any. Not to say that Short is the final word or anything. :-)

I will change one to trigger any comments before doing the others. 65.125.17.163 (talk) 18:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Ok, yeah, I did it. I deleted a number of old out of date paragraphs that where lying there disconnected (and refering to non-existant tables). They really needed to go. If anyone thinks I am out of control, then speak up, but I think it was clearly a cut that should have happened a long time ago. Now there is room for actual chronology type stuff and background. :-) Ploversegg (talk) 01:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

[edit] Larsa Dynasty

Ploversegg, I converted the Larsa dynasty to short chronology, based on Hammurabi dates, if you would like to add that to this page.

Thank you for doing this.

Sumerophile (talk) 19:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


Lets see, Gungunum defeats Lipi Ishtar of Isin - check. Rim Sin I defeated by Hammurabi - check. Looks good. I'll set it up. Thanks! :-) Ploversegg (talk) 21:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

[edit] Placeholder Introduction

Don't Panic! :-) The article had no real into, so I wrote one from scratch. It's not pretty, but it will do the job so I can concentrate on doing a good job on a new Principle Sources section and we can get to doing away with the last of the 1911 Encyclopeda cargo culted material. Ploversegg (talk) 01:46, 2 March 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

[edit] Elulu

I removed the Note that suggested that Elulu of Akkad might be a Gutian king because the only (one!) source for the idea is in a paper written in French, which I can't read i.e. Glassner, Jean-Jacques. 1986. La Chute d?Akkadé: L?événement at sa mémoire. Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient 5. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Ploversegg (talk) 01:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

[edit] The rest of the story

I put in a new text on the chronologic synchronisms in the ANE, taking out the old copied from an encyclopedia stuff. There might be an addition on internal synchronisms at some point. Am declaring the article to be competely encyclopedia free and have taken out the notice.

What happens now? In some order, I was thinking

  1. Continue the process of doing a 2nd pass on the various dynasties
  2. Do a second pass on the text portions, making it a coherent format in the process
  3. Put the references (including any added in the 2nd passes) into a common format
  4. Write a brief endpiece so the article doesn't just sort of End.
  5. Rethink if any of the dynasties I left out because the data is really weak

(Mari, Mitanni, Middle Hittite, Old Assyrian, Sealand, Elamite) actually deserve to be included.

Thoughts? Ploversegg (talk) 00:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

A short lead statement would be good (The chronology of the ANE refers to...).
Also, if you have dynasty information for other cities/states, do put the info in those articles, even if there is not enough info to warrent putting them here. For instance, the Mari article doesn't have any king lists now. A note linking to these cities/states could then be put in this chronology as well.
Sumerophile (talk) 18:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

And someone might ask "what about later dynasties?" There is nothing really firm between 900BC and 1200BC ish. And I am pretty confident that past 600 BC (the fall of the the neo-assyrians) is no longer Ancient. That would leave the Assyrian New Kingdom (about a dozen kings if I remember correctly) and maybe some random Babylonians, I believe. It would be faily easy for me to throw in a 1st pass of those. The reason I didn't was that you are starting to get into time period that people start to "care" about and I didn't want to get into any controversy until the article was otherwise presentable. Ploversegg (talk) 15:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

See my comment above - if you have info, but not enough for this article, put the info in state's article, and possibly link to it from here.
And thank you, the work you've done here is awesome! - I find myself referring to it again and again. Sumerophile (talk) 18:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

First, good change on the Table of Contents. I was wondering how to do that! :-)

Second, I will review the remaining dynasties to see if it makes sense to add any or to put them in the subsidiary articles. One problem is that most of those articles are pretty bogus and it seems weird to drop good data into the middle of bad, but I'll take a look. I think I'm going to go ahead and add the Neo-assyrians to this article as that data is firm.

Last, am trying to decide what to do about Uruk, especially the 4th dynasty. There is like no attribution for it. Am considering either removing it, or adding it to the 3rd or 5th.

Ploversegg (talk) 15:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Please, please put good data in those articles!!
The 4th Uruk dynasty is given as such in the king list, so it should not be combined with 3rd or 5th. Are those valid short chronology dates? If not, I would remove it. (And perhaps put a note in its place).
Sumerophile (talk) 18:19, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so I added the Neo-Assyrians and after some reading and thinking, I had enough data and sychronisms to add Ugarit. Still pondering a few more (Middle Hittite for example) where this is definitely not enough data to add them to the chronology but I'll try and put some info into the actual relevant article. Still hopeful about a few of the dynasties.

Next to do (in some order): 1) Add the short article intro. 2) Scrub the references for correctness and formats 3) Want to fix up some of the underlying articles, like rescuing the Assyrian King List from Kings of Assyria for starters. 4) Continue to work on a few more synchronisms that I don't have enoughsupport for yet. 5) Either add remaining dynasties or put their info into their articles. 6) Think about whether I want to start making articles for some of the mentioned rulers who don't have one. 7) Take another look at the other astronomical events to see if I can be convinced any are legit to add (most are pretty lame). Ploversegg (talk) 18:43, 17 April 2008 (UTC)ploversegg


[edit] Mittani

I'm not completely happy with adding this, since there are no absolute dates or regnal lengths (I would imagine because neither capital city of Mittanni has been found). But since, after shedding a couple early and late rulers, the order of kings is known, and there are some very solid synchronisms with other key players in the ANE, I decided it was no worse than Ugarit and that had passed.

Also, since there seems to be no direction on format for ruler pages, I have started slowly adding stub pages for kings who are missing on the chronology page, starting with Larsa.

Ploversegg (talk) 15:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

[edit] Things to do

  • Add minimal but legitimate articles for all rulers/sources referenced in the article that currently

don't have articles. So far I have done Larsa and am working on Guti. This is more of a long term project and technically isn't work for this article.

  • Have checked the references for typos, but they need to be put into a more or less standard format
  • Need to put in a few sentence intro at the beginning of the article
  • Dynasties not included. Have decided that Old Assyrian, Middle Hititte, Sealand, Elamite, and the

post-kassite Babylonian dynasties don't have enough firm chrono data for inclusion. Still toying with Mari and the 6th dynasty of Uruk. Will see if I can add anything to the home articles for dynasties not included.

  • Looking into adding popup maps for some of the dynasties for which good maps are in wikispace. There is

not enough room to the maps to be inline. What I am thinking is having a MAP button that brings up a map.

  • Want to think about doing an article for the actual Assyrian King List somday
  • Do any other articles make sense to add to the SEE ALSO section?
  • Need to see if there are any more sychronisms with Egypt

Ploversegg (talk) 05:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

you're doing good work. But let me say that I do not think it makes sense to have standalone articles on each ruler: ruler names can also redirect to their respective dynasties. Thus, articles like Shulme or Imta should really just be redirects (in this case, to Gutian dynasty of Sumer#List_of_the_Gutian_kings. dab (𒁳) 12:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


First of all, clearly some ANE rulers, like Sargon of Akkad and Hammurabi clear have and need individual articles. Where do you draw the line of whether a given ruler should have his own page. And how does that decission change as more archaeological info appears? Second, if you try and put all the ruler information (which would be 36 rulers for the Kassite dynasty of Babylon, for example) into the dynasty articles those articles are going to be totaly swamped with ruler info. Lastly, I noticed early that dynasty articles seem to attract a lot of nationalistic and religious attention that makes them hard to manage. Everyone wants to be descended from ancient powerful people and have their religion validated. It's related to the reason that you don't want to have theory wars in Chronology of the ancient Near East. People people take it too personally. Ploversegg (talk) 16:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

[edit] scope

I am not sure if we are clear on this article's scope? It is supposed to address the problem of establishing a chronology, discussing the divergent absolute chronologies proposed, and the synchronisms they are based on. It was never intended to actually give a full timeline, there is Timeline of Middle Eastern history, History of Mesopotamia and Ancient Near East history for that. For lists of rulers, we have Kings of Assyria, List of Kings of Babylon, List of Hittite kings, Sumerian king list etc. dab (𒁳) 13:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, there can be an article on the various arguments about ANE chronology. I've even thought about starting one myself, though it would have to include a lot of POV and speculative content. The problem that needed to be addressed, though, was that there was no chronological coherence between all the various ANE articles. Some were long, some middle, some short, and many had dates picked out of thin air. A anchor was needed to try and bring the whole mess together. The original article was mostly copied from a century old enclycopedia and otherwise just plain lame. So I started from scratch. Think of it as a Portal for ANE rulers.Ploversegg (talk) 16:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

ahem, this is the "article on the various arguments about ANE chronology". Has been since its stubby inception in late 2004[7]. Your work is very much appreciated and very useful. We needed a clean short chronology timeline. I just suggest that perhaps the full timeline should be kept at a standalone "timeline" article. --dab (𒁳) 16:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

here's an idea: how about we do a synoptic table of rulers along the lines of Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures? It could span 2300 to 600 BC in decade steps (170 rows) and look something like (for the Amarna period):

decade Egypt Levant Anatolia Assyria Babylonia
1550s BC Ahmose I Mursili I
1540s BC Shamshi-Adad III
1530s BC (sack of Babylon)
1520s BC Amenhotep I Hantili I Ashur-nirari I
1510s BC
1500s BC Thutmose I Kirta Puzur-Ashur III
1490s BC Thutmose II Zidanta I

you get the idea. This would justify keeping all the information on a single page. If we just list the dynasties one after another, we are essentiall just duplicating the scope of kings of Assyria, kings of Babylonia etc. dab (𒁳) 16:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


Well, if after 4 years the ANE category is in the mess it's in, maybe the original plan needs to be rethought. :-)

Let, me try and explain the concept I was working with here, then we will both known where we are coming from and can negotiate properly.

I started out by taking a good look at at the state of ANE articles. Despite a few bright spots, things were pretty shaky. There were only a couple articles above B class, lots of unsubstantiated nationalistic slants, furious edit wars etc. So, the question is "what part of that do I think I could help (without getting into the middle of controversy)."

  • Dates for rulers and empires/city-states - ANE dates are ALL over the place
  • Spellings for rulers - many rulers appear with a number of different spellings
  • There was no central place where a viewer could see the entire scope of

ANE rulers and dynasties and have a jumpgate to explore them.

  • Many ANE articles are just cribbed from encyclopedias and need to be

updated. We needed a central spot to start working through them one at a time a rewriting them

  • Chrono-controversy - not to put too fine a point on it, but the extant

Chronology of the ANE article was basically worthless. It needed to be redone from scratch without 1911 encyclopedia stuff and without controversial scope on the phases of Venus. Even as a speculative article on ANE chronology it was woefully out of date.

So the article was designed to try and help work those problems.

As for creating individual pages for all ANE rulers, it makes a lot of sense. For example, the Gutian king Sarlagab. In the chronology, the only real thing you can say is the rough date. In a Sarlagab article, you can discuss how an inscription of Shar-kali-sharri of Akkad mentioned that he had captured a Gutian king named Sarlagab. This is a POSSIBLE sychronism as the translation is not the most solid and there is no coraboration.

Anwyay, I really do think you need the solid non-controverial backbone of a conservativly desgned full chronolgy to anchor the ANE. You have only to list the recent changed of the ANE category to see that it is needed. I certainly amy not going to try and sail against the wind of the WikiCabal, so if you feel strongly about this, I can certainly find something else to work on in the category. There's no lack of work to be done. :-)

Ploversegg (talk) 23:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

well, Ploversegg, I certainly agree with everything you just said, and I am not sure where you think I disagreed with your approach. You are doing excellent work with your timeline, and all I am saying is that it would be more at home at a separate "timeline" article, which would act as the backbone you describe. dab (𒁳) 07:08, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, works for me. How do we do that? Create a new article named "Timeline of the

ancient Near East", copy the contents of "Crhonology of the ancient Near

East" to it and then revert that article back to it's former state to reflect the planned scope? Or divide the current article into two articles somehow? I am a little unclear on the whole wikiprocess of splitting articles.

Also, what are we talking about for a scope for the timeline article. I have been working with the parameters

  • Start time is around the Akkadian Empire, giving an intentional few hundred

years overlap with the article Sumeran King List which is a timeline of sorts as well

  • End time is the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. After that is "classical"

period and a different topic entirely

  • Non-speculative chronology. No fluffy synchronisms like "King X wrote to

a king of Babylon who is thought to possibly be Y".

  • Short Chronology dates
  • Limit to dynasties/rulers with some minimal archaeological or historical

attestation. Middle Hititte is an example of what that doesn't include.

  • Geographic span of Anatolia in the north, Mediteranean in the west,

lower edge of Sinai and also end of persian gulf in the south and just over into Iran in the east (to include the Elamites) Ploversegg (talk) 00:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

[edit] "c" vs. "sh" spelling variants

Hi Ploversegg, I was going through the Gutian kings, and wanted to point out that the "c"-variants, as in "Culme", aren't really an alternate spellings, it was a way to transcribe "sh" in some software. (I'm not really sure why this would be done.)


Well, early linguistics is not my strong suite. :-)
In this case, I went with both spellings because I saw both cases used a lot, such as Culme in http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr211.htm so I went that way. Is there a "prefered" spelling? Also, the article pointed to is currently Guti (Mesopotamia) which redirects to Gutium. If Gutian Dynasty of Sumer is being fixed up, I think I'll change to that.
Ploversegg (talk) 23:30, 12 May 2008 (UTC)ploveresgg
ETCSL's Ascii coding used 'c' for 'sh' and 'j' for 'ng'. Their Unicode encoding uses the (more intuitive I think) diacritics š and ĝ.
I've done some things to Gutian dynasty of Sumer, but feel free to add your own edits.
Also, my sources have Zarlagab for Sarlagab, and Silulumesh for Elulmesh
144.92.234.59 (talk) 23:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I did some copyediting, and added Neo-Babylonia, Medes, Achaemenid empires at the end - my concept of the ANE is everything before Alexander, but you can remove them if you like.
Also, I think it's a good idea to redirect alternate names instead of creating pipes for them on the pages. Because if these alternate names are out there, somebody's going to want to look them up, and it'll be easier for them if there are redirect pages to link them to the main articles.

[edit] Hittite Old Kingdom king Telepinu?

Should a Telepinu be at the end of the Hittite Old Kingdom list? Categorystuff (talk) 22:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

That is where he is customarily placed. Publik (talk) 20:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'd say that some scholars place him in the old, some in the middle. The issues here are

  • By his reign, the Hitites had been reduced to a minor power having lost all their teritory in Syria, Mesopotamia, and most of it in Anatolia
  • The seperation of the Hitittes into old/middle/new is based on linguistist points. Their is a markedly different "old script" used in the old kingdom.
  • We don't know how long Telepinu reigned or his manner of replacement or even for sure who replaced him (the middle Hititte period being a achaeologic wasteland)
  • The guy he kicked out off the throne was a nobody

Having said all that, it's not a big deal and if the consensus is to add him to the old kingdom, that works for me. :-)

Ploversegg (talk) 23:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

I think that all kings that are traditionally grouped together in a dynasty or era should be included in the tables, for completeness' sake, even if certain individuals lack any other usable information. The lack of information might even be mentioned in the notes. Categorystuff (talk) 01:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


Ploversegg, would you mind my adding the little-known rulers that are traditionally included in the dynasties, even though there is no chronology info for them? Categorystuff (talk) 17:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, would you like me format the tables like the Sumerian king list. And add pictures to the article? Categorystuff (talk) 17:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


Hm, first of all, the WikiCabal was making noises that they want to split this stuff onto a separate timeline type article and revert Chronology of the Ancient Near East its original purpose of dealing with short vs long etc. I'm fine either way, but it makes it hard to work on the Article. Today I'm going to see if I can get some sort of resolution on this.

As for adding little known rulers, this ok as long as there is some sort of attestation for them. Doesn't require much. Some of the tradionally accepted guys have like one fragment of pottery to their name. :-) Now in the case of the of people with old/middle/new type periods you have to be careful about creeping Too far to another period. And I might complain about additions in the 911-1150 BC area (or the old assyrian) as being way too soft, but I can be convinced for a good cause.

As for pix, that depends on whether the article is being split or not. As is it's pretty big already. I tried to use wikipedia at a friends who has a dial up line the other day and many articles with lots of pix were basically unusable. So its good to keep the images not too big. I was toying with adding MAP links to each dynasty to pop up a map if you mouse them. Anyway, thats my thoughts at the moment.

Off to ping on the WikiCabal. Ploversegg (talk) 18:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

I see where you're coming from - you don't want king list rulers that have no archaeological evidence. Some of the Sumerian/Akkadian rulers must be unattested, however (i.e. Irgigi-Ilulu). (Perhaps the unattested rulers could be put in parentheses and noted that they are "as-yet unattested" in the Notes column.)
Concerning the Hittite kings - Pusarruma is considered a pre-Hittite Hatti king - did you include him in the Hittite kings because he's attested? And Telepinu must be attested. (Perhaps you could take a look at the List of Hittite kings - it's actually looked after by someone who knows what he's doing.) Categorystuff (talk) 00:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chronology of the Ancient Near East

There was some discussion that the Chronology of the ancient Near East needed to be returned to its planned purpose as dealing with the short vs long etc controversies of ANE chronology and splitting of the dynasty ruler stuff to some sort of timeline article. Can we come to some sort of resolution/decision on the future of the article so I can continue to work on it?

I'm fine with whatever but the uncertainty makes it difficult to know how to proceed. As I understand it the choices are

  • Leave things the way they are
  • Rename Chronology of the Ancient Near East to, say, Timeline of the

Ancient Near East and revert the CANE to what is was before I started working on it and start from there

  • Split off part of CANE into a new article, say Timeline of the ANE

and leave part in the old article.

  • Something Else

Am going to drop this note is several places, including my talk page Ploversegg (talk) 18:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Ok, so let me split the Timeline section to a new standalone article. dab (𒁳) 11:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I can work with that. Ploversegg (talk) 04:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)ploveresegg

[edit] Mitanni kings

Now, on to Mitanni kings!

Is Shuttarna I, son of Kirta, not included in the Chronology because he's unattested?

Also, should Shattuara I have the roman numeral, since the supposed Shattuara II is probably the same person?

Categorystuff (talk) 02:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)


So, the article has been split into two parts. Give me a day or so to recover (i.e. copying over some refs and links that stayed with Chronology of the ancient Near east and etc). Then, now that the new article is like half the size it was, I think i feel a bit omore comfortable with adding some more dynasties and rulers ... with the appropriate caveats if they are of shaky foundation.

I will double check the Mitanni thing. My memory is that Kirta is not attested except in legend, but since he is the traditional founder of the empire it seemed tacky not to list him at the beginning. As for Shuttarna I, I seem to remember that there was there was something shaky about it like not saying King so you can be sure it wasn't some random Kirta or Shuttarna. They only had a few named available back then. :-) I will look at it though. As for Shattuara I, yeah, it can become just plain Shattuara. I put the "I" on at the time because I wasn't sure at the time if something on "II" would turn up. It didn't. Ploversegg (talk) 04:19, 2 June 2008 (UTC)ploversegg