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Recent Developments
March 2009. A fascinating article has been published by Dr Rupert Chapman (British Museum), entitled "Putting Shoshenq I in His Place" in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly 141:1 (2009), pp. 4-17. Chapman presents a fresh analysis of a question that has intrigued archaeologists since 1926, when a fragment of a victory-stlea of Shoshenq I (founder of the Egyptian 22nd Dynasty) was found at the site of ancient Megiddo in Israel – it was found in the ‘dump’ from earlier excavations, but which stratum did it originally belong to? While reattributing such a find a century after it was discovered is fraught with difficulty, Chapman deduces that it was orginally set up in Stratum V, which by cross-dating with his work on the pottery of Samaria must have been a 9th-century BC level. He concludes: “On the basis of the purely stratigraphic argument set out above, it becomes clear that Sheshonq I and his expedition should also be dated to the 9th century BC.” Chapman’s paper is the first study (outside Centuries of Darkness) to argue from archaeological grounds that the conventional dating of Shoshenq I to the late 10th century BC is incorrect (see FAQ # 6 and #7).
The fragment of Shoshenq I’s stela
from Megiddo
- June 2008. A highly successful colloquium, involving some 20 scholars was held in Cambridge to discuss the problems of ancient Near Eastern chronology raised by Centuries of Darkness. Scholars participated from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and the USA in a highly enjoyable and packed weekend of papers, discussion and brainstorming. The colloquium was a private, informal one, but because of its success it was decided to initiate a more formal umbrella term, with the acronym BICANE = “Bronze to Iron Age Chronology in the Near East”. The first aim of the group (begun at an earlier colloquium in Berlin in December 2006) is to publish a collection of essays on the questions of Bronze to Iron Age chronology in the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean world. The editors and conveners of BICANE are Dr John Bimson, Peter James, Dr Robert Morkot, Dr Peter van der Veen and Dr Uwe Zerbst. The group’s third colloquium, including an open conference day, is being planned for autumn 2009 in the UK – details will be posted here as soon as they are finalised.
- October 2007. We are more than pleased to note that a Ph.D thesis on a major revision of ancient Near Eastern chronology of the ancient Near East, inspired by Centuries of Darkness, has been accepted by the Centre for Classics and Archaeology, The University of Melbourne, Australia. The thesis, by Irish-born scholar Pierce Furlong, proposes a model very similar to that of the CoD authors and is particularly important for its analysis of Mesopotamian-Egyptian synchronisms during the Late Bronze Age. The abstract reads as follows:
The chronology of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Near East is currently a topic of intense scholarly debate. The conventional/orthodox chronology for this period has been assembled over the past one-two centuries using information from King-lists, royal annals and administrative documents, primarily those from the Great Kingdoms of Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia. This major enterprise has resulted in what can best be described as an extremely complex but little understood jigsaw puzzle composed of a multiplicity of loosely connected data. I argue in my thesis that this conventional chronology is fundamentally wrong, and that Egyptian New Kingdom (Memphite) dates should be lowered by 200 years to match historical actuality. This chronological adjustment is achieved in two stages: first, the removal of precisely 85 years of absolute Assyrian chronology from between the reigns of Shalmaneser II and Ashur-dan II; and second, the downward displacement of Egyptian Memphite dates relative to LBA Assyrian chronology by a further 115 years. Moreover, I rely upon Kuhnian epistemology to structure this alternate chronology so as to make it methodologically superior to the conventional chronology in terms of historical accuracy, precision, consistency and testability.A review is planned for this website (in the Internet Notes and Papers section). In the meantime, Pierce’s fascinating thesis is presently fully readable online
- 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.
Face of a kore, conventionally dated c. 500 BC
(Acropolis Museum, Athens).
- 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.
