JACF 1'Bronze to Iron Age Chronology in the Old
World: Time for a Reassessment?' by P. James, I. J. Thorpe, J. A. Frankish and N.
Kokkinos.
A major review of the bases of late 2nd and early 1st millennium
chronology,occupying most of the volume. The authors suggest that the conventional dating
of the Late Bronze Age may need to be radically revised.
JACF 2
'Apis and the Serapeum' by M. Ibrahim and D. Rohl.
On June 27th 1987 Mohamed Ibrahim delivered his ISIS Fellowship
Lecture entitled 'Excavations at the Serapeum - 1985' to an audience of ISIS members and
invited guests, following the Annual General Meeting of the Institute. The paper presented
here is an expanded version of that talk, written jointly by Ibrahim and Rohl, which takes
into consideration details and arguments excluded from the original lecture.
'Exodus and Conquest - Myth or Reality? Can Archaeology
Provide the Answer?' by J. J. Bimson.
The subject of this paper formed the basis of the second ISIS
Fellowship Lecture, delivered after the AGM on 3rd September, 1988. Since the 1930s, the
majority view has dated the Israelite Exodus and Conquest to the 13th century BC, at the
end of the Late Bronze Age. A re-examination of evidence suggests that the archaeology of
this period is incompatible with the biblical narrative and the campaign of conquest
related in the Book of Joshua. Dr Bimson's own research concludes that a date for these
events in the late 15th century would bring the narrative into accord with the archaeology
of the Middle Bronze Age and the traditional biblical date for the Exodus of 1450 BC.
'Tomb 39 and the Sacred Land' by W. P. Manley.
The Valley of the Kings still holds many mysteries, above all the
whereabouts of the earliest royal tombs of the New Kingdom. There are many hypogea dotted
around the cliffs of Western Thebes which Egyptologists have proposed for these 'horizons
of eternity'. But it remains a fruitless exercise simply to discuss the characteristics of
their design in order to place them in chronological order and so identify their original
occupants. In this paper, Bill Manley adopts a different approach by using the ancient
Egyptian concept of 'the sacred land' to plot the location of the early 18th Dynasty royal
cemetery. In doing so, he proposes that the enigmatic Tomb 39 be once more identified as
the tomb of Amenhotep I.
'Scientific Dating Methods and Absolute Chronology' by B.
Newgrosh.
In this paper Dr Newgrosh discusses the three principal
scientific dating methods currently employed in chronological studies. He evaluates each
in turn to see how, and indeed if, they are able to make any significant contribution, in
conjunction with traditional historical methods, towards the establishment of a sound
chronological framework for the ancient world. As a focus for this investigation, he has
chosen the question of the date for the catastrophic eruption of Thera, which occurred
some time in the middle centuries of the second millennium BC.
'How Many Parasangs to Babylon' by T. King.
One of the difficulties scholars encounter in assessing the
distances that military forces were able to travel in a day, over varying terrains, is
directly related to our understanding of the various linear measurements used in the
ancient world and how they relate to each other. Here the author proposes a solution to
the question of the length of Xenophon's parasang.
Preliminary Reports
'A Middle Kingdom Cemetery at Tarif' by I. el-Masry.
'West Bank Archaeological Report at Thebes during 1987/88' by
M. Nasr & I. el-Masry.
JACF 3
'Ancient Astronomical Observations and Near Eastern
Chronology' by W. A. Mitchell.
The establishment of an absolute chronology for the ancient Near
East depends essentially upon identifying the recorded observations of ancient
astronomers. In this paper, Wayne Mitchell undertakes a comprehensive review of these
records, starting with the ancient texts themselves. He concludes that astronomical data
can form the basis of an absolute Near Eastern chronology, but that there are other
solutions at least as acceptable as those previously proposed. These new solutions result
from a re-investigation of the observations, using a computer program capable of
accommodating various theories on the long term deceleration of the Earth's rate of
rotation. The date range of the computer run was extended to take in the radically low
chronology proposed in JACF 1. As a result, there emerges the strong possibility
of revising the accession of King Ammizaduga of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon down by 163
years to 1419 BC.
'The Early Third Intermediate Period: Some Chronological
Considerations' by D. M. Rohl.
This paper is a re-evaluation of the bases of Egyptian New
Kingdom and TIP chronology leading to an alternative model consistent with the lower dates
proposed in JACF 1. The conclusion reached is that Egyptian chronology should be
shortened by at least 140 years, greatly reducing the durations of the 'dark ages' of the
Bronze to Iron Age transition in the Near East.
'The el-Amarna Habiru and the Early Monarchy in Israel' by P.
van der Veen.
Research into synchronisms between Egypt and Israel within the
framework of the New Chronology has led to the proposal that the el-Amarna Period
coincided with the rise of the United Kingdom of Israel. The author analyses the terms habiru
and ibrim to see if both may have been used to describe the socio-political
grouping otherwise known as the Hebrews.
JACF 4
'Gold in a Time of Bronze and Iron' by J. M. Ogden.
Gold artefacts and their manufacturing techniques from before and
after the dark age period are compared. The evidence suggests that there is continuity in
both style and decoration. Dr Ogden concludes that the idea of an early 1st millennium
dark age is hard to reconcile with Egyptian and Western Asiatic goldsmiths' work.
'Dendrochronology and Thera: The Scientific Case' by M. G. L.
Baillie.
Dr Baillie addresses some of the issues raised by advocates of a
revised low chronology for Egypt. He offers examples of scenarios which might produce an
error in the 1st millennium tree-ring chronologies (and therefore the C-14 calibration).
He then goes on to deal with the date of the Theran eruption from a scientific standpoint
and concludes with a response to Dr Newgrosh's article in JACF 3.
'The Minoan Civilisation of Crete and the Volcano of Thera' by
P. M. Warren.
Professor Warren discusses new evidence from sites in Crete and
Rhodes which confirms a Late Minoan IA date for the eruption of Thera in terms of the
ceramic and stratigraphical sequences of Crete. This new evidence indicates that the
eruption should be placed before the end of Late Minoan IA and that the Theran volcanic
event cannot have been responsible for the great destruction of Cretan sites in Late
Minoan IB.
'The Philistines: Their Origins and Chronology Reassessed' by
J. J. Bimson.
Any chronology which places the Israelite Exodus from Egypt
before the 19th Dynasty must inevitably address the 'Philistine issue'. Dr Bimson assess
the biblical and archaeological evidence for an occupation of the southern coastal plain
of Palestine by Philistine groups prior to the 'Sea-Peoples' incursion during the early
reign of Ramesses III.
JACF 5
'From Chronos to Chronology: Egyptian Evidence for the Dating
the Aegean Bronze Age' by V. Hankey.
The discovery of the prehistoric cultures of the Aegean created
the need to place them in an orderly relative sequence. Pottery, with a short domestic
shelf life, proved to be the most sensitive marker of social change and of the passage of
time. Evidence for a reliable framework depends on well-dated Egyptian artefacts found in
good archaeological contexts in the Aegean and on Aegean pottery of good relative date
found in Egypt. This paper presents Egyptian chronological links from the point of view of
a worker in the Aegean field.
'A Test of Time: The New Chronology of Egypt and its
Implications for Biblical Archaeology and History' by D. M. Rohl.
Following the introductory publication of the proposed Early
Third Intermediate Period chronological revision in JACF 3, David Rohl now goes
on to discuss the New Chronology model for the 12th to 20th Dynasties - the period of
Egyptian history contemporary with the Middle and Late Bronze Ages in Palestine and Syria.
In particular, this second paper in the series deals with the consequent implications for
the archaeology of the Southern Levant where the New Chronology provides a series of fresh
insights into the often controversial disciplines of biblical history and archaeology.
'The Chronology of Israel Re-examined: The First Millennium
BC' by S. Robinson.
While the often ambiguous results of archaeology may help
to fill out the picture, the principal source of information for the history and
chronology of Israel is the Old Testament, in particular the books of Genesis, Exodus,
Joshua, Judges, Kings and Chronicles. At a few points it is possible to corroborate the
digestion of this material into dates BC by approximate synchronisms with the chronologies
of Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia. But these points are rare, either because the
corresponding chronology itself is not securely fixed or because the apparent synchronism
is open to question. The purpose of this article is to show that, while it requires
emendation in several places, the received chronology of Israel is basically secure, not
least because it does not depend on archaeology.
JACF 6
'Early Greek Visitors to Egypt and the Levant' by J. Nicolas Coldstream
Contact between Greeks and the Levant in the early Iron Age was a two-way process. Euboean
traders came to Syria while certain Phoenician traders and craftsmen settled in the
Aegean. However, as Professor Coldstream points out, Greek contact with Egypt is not
apparent until the 7th century BC.
'Shoshenk and Shishak: A Case of Mistaken Identity?' by
John J. Bimson
The currently accepted framework for Egyptian chronology during the Third Intermediate
Period is supported by a key synchronism with biblical history. The identification of the
biblical Shishak with Shoshenk I of the 22nd Dynasty is the only generally accepted
synchronism with western Asia from the beginning of the TIP until the late 8th century and
has been one of the major factors in determining Egypt's high chronology. This paper
questions the validity of the identification and proposes that it should no longer stand
as an obstacle to a radical revision of the chronology of the Third Intermediate Period.
'The el-Amarna Letters and Israelite History' by
Bernard Newgrosh, David M. Rohl and Peter van der Veen
Following on from David Rohl's New Chronology papers in JACFs 3 and 5, the detailed
arguments are presented here for the proposed synchronism between the early Israelite
Monarchy era and the el-Amarna period of the late 18th Dynasty. In the New Chronology,
Saul was a contemporary of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten (during their coregency), whilst
David reigned at the time when Tutankhamun and Haremheb were on the Egyptian throne.
JACF 7
'A New Comparative Chronology for the Predynastic-Early Dynastic Transition' by Toby A. H. Wilkinson
The Predynastic period, carbon-dated to c. 4500-3100 BC, has been the focus of intense
study in recent years, but its precise chronology is still beset with problems. One of
these is that, up to now, little account has been taken of regional and local variations
in cultural development. Another is the complex relationship between cultural and
political change towards the end of the Predynastic. Seriation analysis of cemeteries
helps to clarify this relationship and emphasises the importance of a regional
perspective.
'Jericho, Tell el-Daba and the End of the Middle Bronze Age' by
Steven J. Robinson
The archaeological period known as Middle Bronze II is associated with numerous,
apparently unrelated problems of chronology. These include the archaeological and
historical date of Israel's Exodus from Egypt and subsequent conquest of Palestine, the
correlation of Tell el-Daba's stratigraphy with the archaeology of Palestine, the
interpretation of Tell el-Ajjuls's stratigraphy, the end of the Middle Bronze Age in
relation to Egyptian history, and the chronology of Egypt's 'Second Intermediate Period'.
This paper suggests that these problems admit of a common solution compatible with the
revised chronologies which James, Rohl and others have proposed for the Third Intermediate
Period.
'Dating the Beth Shean Temple Sequence' by Robert M.
Porter
The chronology of Beth Shean, a large and important site in Palestine, has always been a
source of controversy. This article recounts the history of the various excavations and
subsequent publications, their conclusions and their points of difference. The problems
are explained and, within a conventional chronological framework, solutions proposed for
them. New dates are given for the various temple sequences; the faience cartouches bearing
the name 'Ramesses' are likely to be those of Ramesses IV; the Amenhotep III cartouches
were out-of-date objects used as votive offerings in foundation deposits; and evidence is
presented that the Iron Age at Beth Shean may require shortening.
'The Pattern of Venus Table Solutions' by John D.
Weir
Wayne A. Mitchell's study of the Venus Tablets of Ammisaduga, published in JACF 3,
suggested a radically low date for their observations and therefore for the Hammurabi
dynasty. This study looks at the various criteria which determine what is a valid solution
to the Venus Tablet date, assuming that the tablets preserve genuine astronomical
observations. Since it is not possible to reproduce Mitchell's data in the absence of his
revised lunar tables, assessment of his preferred solution has to be made in terms of
published material, and the nearest solution (Huber's -1426/-1405) is used for comparison
with other solutions.
Discussing the Chronology of the New Kingdom by
Wolfgang Helck
JACF 8
Iron Age Palestine: The Need for Chronological Revision by
John J. Bimson
As currently constructed, the chronology of the Iron Age in Palestine is dependent on the
chronology of Egypt. Any fundamental revision of Egyptian chronology will therefore
require a revision of the dates given to Iron Age strata. Conversely, anomalies in the
current Iron Age chronology may be indicators that all is not well with the conventional
chronology of Egypt. In fact a number of anomalies point consistently to the need for a
major chronological revision from which Egypt cannot escape.
The Iron Age and the New Chronology by Robert M.
Porter
Recent developments in Iron Age chronology are instigating fresh discussion and debate
over previously accepted synchronisms between the Divided Monarchy Period (as handed down
through biblical history) and the stratigraphy of ancient Palestine. In addition to
pointing out problems with the conventional dating scheme, Bob Porter attempts to place
the archaeological evidence into the framework of the New Chronology, suggesting revised
dates for the sub-periods of the Iron Age in Palestine.
The Chronology of Ancient Assyria Re-assessed: Parts 1 and 2 by Bernard Newgrosh
The modern reconstruction of the history of ancient Assyria is re-examined with particular
emphasis on the two major sources, the eponym canon and the king lists. A previously
unnoticed divergence is highlighted for the chronology of the crucial Middle Assyrian
Period. Here, although the eponym data is incomplete, it can be seen to have been
carefully copied from an older original, and its witness is to be preferred to that of the
king lists which are demonstrably inaccurate and of unknown provenance.
|