Talk:Kenneth Kitchen

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The Wikipedia biography on Professor Kitchen has been improved by a much needed mention of the 250 plus books and articles which he has composed and a reference to his year of birth. Kitchen's work, The Third Intermediate Period (1100-650 BC), is indeed a masterpiece on this era but no one should accept accept that it is completely foolproof. David Aston's JEA 75 (1989) theory that the High Priest Osorkon B was indeed Osorkon III or that Takelot II did not succeeded Osorkon II at Tanis accords perfectly with the archaeological evidence. We even have one document which calls Osorkon III, a former High Priest of Amun. This reference can belong to no one but the High Priest oosrkon B himself. All the contemporary documents for Takelot II come from Upper Egypt while the monuments in Lower Egypt which were once thought to belong to him have now been assigned to Takelot I. Apart from von Beckerath in his 1997 book Chronologie des Aegyptischen Pharaonishchen, Aston's hypothesis has also been publicly accepted by Dr. M.A. Leahy in his 1990 book 'Libya and Egypt' on page 192, by Gerard Broekman in an important GM 205 (2005), pp.21-33 article, by Dr. Aidan Dodson in a GM 137(1993), pp.53-58 article and also by Karl Jansen Winkeln--the latter in his JEA 81 (1995) paper. They are all professional Egyptologists who have published articles in mainstream serials such as the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. So, this is not my POV; it rather reflects the growing consensus of the Egyptological community. These are now widely accepted theories that most Egyptologists accept...with the notable exception of KA Kitchen. --Leoboudv 10:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

As this article stands, it exhibits a rather puzzling POV. My knowledge of Kitchen is based entirely on his authorship of the book The Third Intermediate Period (1100-650 BC), which is considered by many as the authoritative work on this period -- althought here are people who have expressed the contrary opinion, such as David Rohl. And from how TIP is discussed in the secondary literature, his personal beliefs do not detract from the quality of his research.

The article seems to have got more POV rather than less, there's a lot of unsourced criticism of KK's views on the third intermediate period ("most Egyptologists") etc, and some stuff that appears to be transparently lifted from the Amazon.com review by a single reviewer. The whole TIP section looks like an argument intended to rubbish KK's views on Egypt and not very NPOV. I'm not an Egyptologist, although I have read TIP, but KK (who is a family friend) never seems any less than thorough in his approach. I would be surprised if his views were completely untenable, so I'd hope for more balance. Francis Davey 17:26, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with this. Most of this text is quite unbalanced, and appears to be about picking fights with Kitchen on points of particular interest to the author. A responsible discussion of Kitchen's work should be giving an overview of that work, discussing his methods and results and indicating its significance for the field. Although his TIP work is very important, it's his work on the Ramessids that really should be the centre of attention. Granted that there are many alternate views, this article could briefly point out what they are, and it might well be appropriate to say that the general consensus does not agree with him on some points, but an article like this should not be taking sides.

The reader of this article, for example, would get no idea that Kitchen's discussion of Shoshenq II -- which is about 20% of this article -- is only a page or two of a very dense book of several hundred pages covering some 400 years of one of the most complex periods of Egyptian history. It might be appropriate to go into such detail in the Wiki page on Shoshenq II, just as it might well be appropriate to discuss the Prince Osorkon/Osorkon III issue in the Wiki page on Osorkon III. It's completely inappropriate here. --Chris Bennett 00:53, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, many scholars of Near Eastern subjects were drawn to this subject due to their faith, such as Pritchard; & many authorities have been known to endorse oddball theories. But I feel it is a disservice to Kitchen's career to emphasize one atypical belief when his other work has been well respected. -- llywrch 21:50, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This article was created to offset an edit war in a seperate article (not involving Slrubenstein, b.t.w.), where the evidence of Kitchen is used to support the POV that the creation account(s) in genesis is by one author not many (the documentary hypothesis), since this is the POV of evangelical Christians, his position as one is clearly important to mention, as the use of his "evidence" is prevelant in this area, and it is important to point out that his evidence collecting is not lacking in bias. The other editor refused to allow Kitchen's religious allegiance to be mentioned, thus this article, and my removal of references to his professorship (to equalise the playing field again- on the agreed principle "all or nothing").CheeseDreams 22:02, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In fact he was always very proud of being just plain "Mr Kitchen" (like many archeologists at Liverpool he did not take a PhD) and the Professorship was something of a surprise. One could tease him by calling him "the Professor". I think he is better known for his Ramesside work, but he is generally very eclectic in his knowledge and background. I've always found him very modest and unassuming. Most of his theories are put forward as just that -- ideas and possibilities -- rather than dogmatically. If I get time (unlikely) I'll put some more information in about him: certainly his ideas deserve expansion.

TO: ALL

I moved the kitchen - evangelican Christian reference to a place where it is smoother on the page. It was in a ackward place before.

[edit] "absence of evidence..."

This phrase is usually attributed to Carl Sagan. Perhaps the attribution is mistaken, but I think we should have some evidence that Kitchen originated it, though of course the current absence of such evidence is not... Paul B 12:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)