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Recent Developments
- April 2006. We initiated a new section on the website, "Internet Notes and Papers”. Here we will add a series of documents, sometimes work in progress, sometimes informal reports on recent developments in chronology, sometimes research tools. The first two concern the Aegean (the “dendrochronological” dating of the Ulu Burun shipwreck and the Francis and Vickers’ revision of Archaic chronology). See The Continuing Debate, Section 2, for these and further documents as they are added.
- April 2006. The long-awaited Greek translation of Centuries of Darkness has been published by Ekdoseis Aiolos of Athens. In a handsomely produced and weighty volume (526 pages), the original text (with minimal corrections) is augmented by preliminary material for Greek readers and an appendix (giving a translation of the FAQ from this website). For full details, publisher’s address, etc., see the entry in Publication Details.
We are delighted that Centuries of Darkness will now be available to a wider audience in Greece. As readers of the English-language edition will know, two chapters are specifically devoted to Greece (with another on Cyprus), while one of the starting points in our argument was the great 19th-century debate over the dating of the Mycenaeans. The chronological riddles raised by the lengthy Greek ‘Dark Age’ resonate throughout the Mediterranean, and likewise the book – from the origins of the alphabet, through anomalous findspots of Greek pottery in the Levant to the date of the Trojan War and the unresolved ‘Homeric problem’ (on which we have much more to write). The volume is presently available in bookshops throughout Greece and there has already been interest in the national press (e.g. Pontiki, Art section, 1 June 2006). While the basic theory of CoD has long been mentioned in Greek academic publications, we now look forward to more detailed reviews, feedback and criticism from Aegean archaeologists.
- February 2005. Work has begun on the revision and expansion of the Centuries of Darkness website, one aim being to make more papers we have written readable online. See What's New on This Site for listings of changes and additions.
- Sept. 2003. John Bimson has written a short booklet on the implications of revising ancient Near Eastern chronology for Old Testament history. Entitled (When) Did it Happen? New Contexts for Old Testament History, it is published in the Grove Booklet series (no. B 29) aimed at a Christian readership. Bimson, Lecturer in Old Testament at Trinity College, Bristol, is a veteran of chronology, perhaps best known for his work on the relationship between the Hebrew Conquest traditions and archaeology. Reviewing attempts at a revised chronology, Bimson elects (p. 24) for the Centuries of Darkness model as the most promising: “In my view, the authors of CD have made a convincing case for shortening the chronology of the ancient Near East. It so happens that their alternative has considerable fall-out for biblical archaeology. But that is not my main reason for favouring it. It is because of its problem-solving power in so many other areas that I find it compelling and worth investigating.” (For supplementary information to the printed booklet see Further Resources.)
- 2003 onwards, CoD Archaic Review. The Centuries of Darkness model has followed the maxim of reconstructing chronology “from the known to the unknown”. Holding to that, we have concentrated much of our research over recent years towards re-examining the archaeological links at the more “known” end of the scale, working back from the time of the Persian Wars into the “Archaic Period” (c. 480-700 BC), to use Aegean terminology. Archaic Greek pottery, through its distinctive styles provides vital chronological benchmarks throughout the Mediterranean world, but the bases for its dating need thorough re-examination. In 2003 we began publishing the results of our research into Archaic pottery chronology in various journals, assessing the parameters suggested by both Greek history (Thucydides, Herodotus, etc.) and Near Eastern and North African, as well as Mediterranean archaeological findspots. Details of several articles, discussing key sites such as Naukratis, Old Smyrna, Cyrene, Tocra, Selinus, Ekron and Ashkelon, can be seen in The Continuing Debate. These argue for a lowering of Corinthian and East Greek pottery by some three to four decades at the horizon presently dated c. 600 BC. (Adjustments for earlier and later horizons will vary.) Further articles are forthcoming/in preparation which explore in detail the ramifications of the CoD Archaic model for both the Aegean and Levant. For more info on the Archaic debate, see Internet Notes and Papers B: “The Francis and Vickers’ Chronology: A Bibliography”, in The Continuing Debate.
- March 2000. Robert Morkot’s long-awaited study of the 25th Dynasty, The Black Pharaohs has now been published. To commemorate the launch of this beautifully produced volume, a party was held on 1st March, 2000 at the Museum Bookshop opposite the British Museum.
Robert Morkot at the book-signing of The Black Pharaohs, Museum Bookshop, London.The Black Pharaohs is the first in-depth study of the Nubian (Kushite) kings who established a powerful state in Sudan during the 9th century BC. They succeeded in conquering Egypt in the late 8th century, ruling it as the 25th Dynasty and acting as protectors of Palestine against the encroachment of the Assyrian Empire. Eventually Egypt fell to Assurbanipal in a series of campaigns between 667 and 663 BC and, with the help of local Libyan princes, the Nubians were rapidly expelled.
The Nubian Dynasty is of interest not only for its cultural significance (as a link between Egypt and Africa further south) but also for its pivotal role in dating - as it provides us with our earliest fixed points in Egyptian history. In The Black Pharaohs Robert consolidates and refines the low 25th-dynasty chronology developed in CoD, laying a firm foundation for the reconstruction of Egypt’s "Third Intermediate Period". He pays particular attention to the chronological enigmas surrounding the origins of the Dynasty. These are inextricably tangled with the question of the "Dark Age" believed to have descended on Nubia between the removal of Egyptian control in the "12th" century and the rise of Napata in the 9th.
