Talk:Chronology of the ancient Near East

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Early dates (and musings on the scope of this article)[edit]

Radiocarbon dating is not the well oiled machine the public views it as, especially in early times. Consider this result from Kish. The C-14 date is +/- 27 years but the actual date range is 2471–2299. Without a connected dendrochronology sequence to calibrate things it is hard to have an absolute date. At least that is MHO.Ploversegg (talk) 14:42, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289504251_A_Radiocarbon_Date_from_Early_Dynastic_Kishand_the_Stratigraphy_and_Chronology_of_the_YWN_sounding_at_Tell_Ingharra

Which is exactly one of the points adressed by the article I cited: one single C14 date is really not that important. It's only when you have a whole sequence that it actually becomes possible to achieve a much higher resolution. Also, local (Anatolian) dendrochronology sequences exist for quite some time now, although I'm not sure how far back they extend. So I would still argue that a blanket statement of "no more specific dates possible than within 100 years" is not really true. Zoeperkoe (talk) 14:59, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fair. What would you consider a reasonable thing to say then. The half life of c-14 is +/- 40 years, so is 80 years better? Or are you thinking something much tighter. Btw, I guess my real point is that yes one can relative date much closer ie a date in ED Kish vs a date in ED Uruk, but the whole "floating chronology" problem has not gone away (unless I slept thru that). So absolute dating is hard. Really, its not all beer and skittles for the MB either. A couple epigraphic things from the Egyptian Chronology like the fall of Ugarit are about all that anchor it. Anyway, feel free to change it to something that you feel more comfortable with and rm the cite req. Ploversegg (talk) 17:03, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's good enough for now. This issue just highlights (again) that there are some fundamental problems with this article in terms of the discrepancy between what this article is actually about (mainly a convoluted discussion about sources that can be used to reconstruct chronology) versus what the title says it is about (chronology of the ancient near east). This article has not aged well (please don't take that personally, that's just the way many of these kind of articles go) and I think it could be interesting to have a new discussion with the current team of active ANE editors about how this and related articles could be restructured to better represent the current state of research, and to better represent the discussions about High/Low to the readers. Zoeperkoe (talk) 08:22, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thats funny because I was thinking the same thing. The article was state of the art like 10, maybe 15 years ago when I wrote it but as I read it thru yesterday I could see that it has frayed in places. Partly, wikipedia has changed around it with new articles appearing on some of the points. And the science has changed a bit. Some things haven't changed, with there being very little coming out in the epigraphic area as instability in the area put a big crimp on excavation and publications. That will change now with new digs at Sealand sites like Tell Khaiber and the return of work to ED sites like Nippur and Kish happening. I guess the biggest change is that back then the main issue was variant chronologies splitting off from the Venus Tablets. People are pretty much over the VT now and the chronology is more thought of as a continuum, though you still have to talk about short/long a bit because many papers mention it and some people still argue about it even now. So it that should be covered but not be the focus. One thing that hasn't changed is that we still have floating chronologies. Those fuzzy disconnects after things collapsed around 1200BC, and between the fall of babylon and what comes after etc are still there. Just look at how the dates for the thera eruption are all over the map. Really, even within the "stable" sections its not 100%. And the Egyptian Chronology, which we use for synchronisms, has it own smaller problems, with the Intermediate Periods and regnal overlaps etc. When I do wiki articles I always assume two readers, one that is doing a quick look because they saw "Kish" on television and one that wants detail and refs because they want to learn all about it. So no I would not be in any way opposed to a redo of the article.Ploversegg (talk) 14:31, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good - why don't you have a go? Part of the problem may be that the article hasn't been consistently maintained for long stretches. You two are the main editors in recent years. Johnbod (talk) 15:24, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I was thinking about that as well. One thing that I did was looking at some other articles that have "chronology of..." in the title and see what they are about. Some of them are pure (descriptive) timelines, others are, like this one, descriptions of how certain events are ordered. A lot of them are redirects to articles like "timeline of...". So anyway, there's no clear answer to what this article should be about on Wikipedia. And if we keep it as it is currently, i.e. a discussion about how absolute dates in ANE are established, we also need a companion article that actually has the dates. That could be Ancient Near East, although that is not in optimal state either. But we also need to think about the chronological cover of this article: ideally the definition of ANE in this article is the same as the definition of ANE elsewhere, which gets us to the question: is prehistory part of ANE? And if yes, should this article deal with chronological issues in prehistory (i.e. the Halaf-Ubaid transition, the existence of Early Dynastic II as a period, things like that). Expending this article to include these kinds of discussions could create really a backbone to a lot of other articles as well.
And as a final note: I have been thinking about asking devoted ANE editors (both those working on Mesopotamia, the Levant, history and prehistory) what they think this article should be about: "What do you expect to read when you open the article Chronology of the ancient Near East"? This could really help a lot to get a better grip of what role this article plays in the wider web of articles. And who knows, it could even be that the article is perfectly fine... ;) Zoeperkoe (talk) 15:32, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, thats actually a good idea, to read the other articles on this topic. I guess I'll start a tour. There do appear to be a number that touch on this. Think I'll start with those pointed to by this one like Middle Chronology (time to bring that back home?), Short Chronology (actually a list), List of Mesopotamian dynasties, Babylonian Chronicles and so on. I'm up for whatever results from people thinking about this. There are some land mines of course. Like we can't even get a consensus for what "ancient" means in List of cities of the ancient Near East. :-) And those history type articles always seem to carry political, religious, etc, tensions. Worth a try though.Ploversegg (talk) 17:37, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PS Darn it. Knew this would happen ie falling down rat holes like seeing this paper to read. :-)

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/absolute-treering-dates-for-the-late-bronze-age-eruptions-of-aniakchak-and-thera-in-light-of-a-proposed-revision-of-icecore-chronologies/0E06053BFD90C1EA58ED8822814DC6F8 Ploversegg (talk) 17:49, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

While "musing" I took the time to read thru the List of Mesopotamian Dynasties. Nicely done. The issue becomes what to do with Short Chronology. Almost all the rulers in that are in the LMD (just 64 years later) except Ebla. Apparently, btw, there are a slew of Eblan kings List of kings of Ebla. And a slew of Mari kings List of kings of Mari. Never heard of them. Seriously. I bring this up because SC was originally PART of this article, being separated off after some sort of wiki-pedantry which I don't remember after all this time. Maybe its time to delete the SC article. Would need to create something for all the places that have Short Chronology wikilinks, maybe clone Middle Chronology? Thoughts?Ploversegg (talk) 23:06, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah that list turned out really nicely, and I've been going through Wikipedia to change links from the SKL to the List of... article where appropriate so that it should get some more traffic as well. As for the Lists of Mari and Ebla kings, just leave them in. Mari and Ebla are GA, if not even FA, so these lists deserve to be there as supporting material. It just means that there's no need elsewhere to list every king, but just highlight the important ones, or summarize them as dynasties (with a see main article link).
So I read some good ideas in your reply, and I have some as well. I am currently working on a rewrite of Ubaid period, and only after that can I pick up this one (but if you want to start, feel free of course). In the mean time, it might be good to have a place where we list our wishes, important things to keep in mind, articles that must be included. And preferably in such a way that it is a little bit structured. Are we going to that here? Maybe introduce some subheadings such as: Literature, Related Wikipedia articles that must also be looked at, a subheading for ideas on the structure of the Chr. of ANE article? What do you think? Zoeperkoe (talk) 07:30, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
(Everyone, feel free to add to the lists below!) Zoeperkoe (talk) 07:53, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Articles to be looked at[edit]

Oh, I forgot to mention how amused I was that the editor of the Mari and Ebla king list put them in Category:Lists_of_Asian_rulers. We have enough trouble just deciding whats in the aNE without merging it into Asia. :-)Ploversegg (talk) 21:49, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, geographically, ANE is Asia, so it's not incorrect. I think we can solve this by including a short introduction of what the article covers geographically and chronologically. I wrote something similar for History of Mesopotamia and some of the other language versions have intros like this as well. I've seen this in other chronology/timeline/history of... articles as well. Personally, I think that we shouldn't make it too broad. So let's not include the Caucasus or Afghanistan, and let's leave out Egypt as much as possible, except where synchronisms need to be mentioned. Zoeperkoe (talk) 09:02, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This article on other language versions[edit]

  • German: this version is just a short article on specifically the Long/Short debate (i.e. second millennium BC). The articles on MC and SC are redirects to the Chronology article. It links to the German version of Ancient Near East for the actual timeline/historical description.
  • French: a long article that looks like a copy of the English (or vice versa? French WP on ANE is pretty good in general). It does not have separate articles on Middle/Short chronology.
  • Dutch: short article on 1st/2nd millennium. Seems to have the same problem as the EN article (potential scope of article does not match actual contents). MC/SC articles are redirects.
  • Italian: long article with a very short section on chronological problems. The rest is a timeline/descriptive article of ANE history starting with prehistory. The IT version of Ancient Near East is descriptive of the region and does not have a history section. It does have articles on SH/MC/LC, these are either descriptive (what is the short chronology) and/or they are a timeline.

Options to rewrite CotaNe[edit]

1. Merge SC/MC into CotaNE: My initial thinking on this is to start with 1) merge MC into CotaNE. There is maybe 90% overlap except for a really nice table they did showing dates for different rules. Add a short chronology column (heck, a long chronology one too) as part of the merge. So MC links in articles could be changed to point to the appropriate place in CotaNE. 2) Merge SC (formerly Short Chronology Timeline)into CotaNE. What I am Really saying is to delete the article but it is apparently a PITA to remove even trivial pages on wikipedia now so what I am saying is to merge it in and then mostly edit it out of existence. Unless someone is smarter than me about deleting. Then SC links in articles would also point into CotaNE. I also have no idea how people do the mass changing of links thing. Just my bold proposal.Ploversegg (talk) 21:16, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agree on merging SC and MC into CotaNE. I would not bother with changing all the links, just turn them into redirects and through time they will eventually be changed to the correct links by other editors. (Zoeperkoe)

2. Option 1, plus merge CotaNE into Ancient Near East: (just to play devil's advocate) why not go one step further and merge CotaNE into Ancient Near East? It could be a section on Chronological difficulties, just as in the Italian WP? It would solve the problem that the current contents of the article (1st/2nd millennium) does not match with the title.

3. Option 1, plus rename CotaNE: rename CotaNE to something that actually reflects that the article is only about the 1st/2nd millennium, and not about chronological issues in the 3rd millennium or about the chronology of eastern Iran. I don't know what that title should be, but it could be worth thinking about this. Zoeperkoe (talk) 08:09, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I will think about this. I will say that a quick look at aNE give the impression of a fixer upper special that would need a lot of work, at least if one is doing things right, as part of the merge. Kinda long to already. It also seems to attract a number of what I call "issue editors" ie people who care about BC vs BCE etc. I'll read aNE thru again more slowly and see if that impression sticks. I'm interested in the idea that chronology issues in eastern Iran are different that WI or mesopotamia. There were forever occupying each other and intermarrying etc. I've worked on a number of Iran site articles but I may have missed the whole East being different. And chronology issues in the 3rd Millennium, that would be an interesting discussion. I've always thought of it as just 1) Uruk runs everything, then 2) a succession of other cites run thing with the overlaps and gaps between them unclear, then 3) Akkad runs everything, then 4) Ur runs everything. Maybe I've been oversimplifying. :-)Ploversegg (talk) 18:25, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. Merge into ANE is maybe not a good idea. Let's leave the edit warriors sleeping ;) As for chronological issues, for NE Syria they devised the Early Jezirah framework exactly because the Mesopotamian labels (Ur III/Akkadian etc) are so hard to match with what's happening there. The Akkadian activity in Syria is still ambiguous, despite what we know from sites like Brak and Leilan. And E Iran was just an example; I don't really know anything about it, but you get the point; the whole SC/MC debate is not as relevant there as it is in Mesopotamia. Zoeperkoe (talk) 18:52, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good points. I guess I had forgotten that, for example. Chalcolithic means differnt things chronologically in the Levant than in points north and east. How about I be bold and put a merge proposal on the Middle Chronology article and let it cook, see if anyone has major heartburn with the concept?Ploversegg (talk) 20:44, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good! And if that goes well, we can do the same for SC. Might be good to mention that Long chronology is already a redirect to CotaNE. Zoeperkoe (talk) 08:55, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Middle Chronology merge[edit]

There is a significant overlap in article content and refs. Long Chronology already points here. There is no equivalent Short Chronology article, Short Chronology being a timeline or list or whatever we are calling it now. The plan would be to add a couple of columns to the nice table from Middle Chronology as part of the merge. A merge in of Short Chronology will likely follow.Ploversegg (talk) 18:21, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I'm not as certain about the whole VT being a great value for fixing the piece of floating chronology from the fall of Bablylon back to whatever you are comfortable with as I was back in the day. The fact that many reasoned professionals have put a lot of sweat into studying these maybe 16 days of Venus observations and are still divided into at least 4 camps after all this time shows, to me, how soggy the data is. That all said, people use middle or whatever so it has to be taken as it is. Baring objection, my thinking is that as soon as the Variant Bronze Age chronologies section of the main chronology article is rewritten (I've been putting that off because its a hairball) the plan is for LOC, MC, MLC, and SC to all point there eventually.Ploversegg (talk) 00:53, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hearing no objections, given that the target article is now ready (though not fully touched up) I'm going to go ahead with the move. At least as soon as I finish staring at this fancy new wiki merge process. Last time I did it was back in the simpler days.Ploversegg (talk) 17:36, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It might be best to ask someone else - User:Anthony Appleyard is always super-helpful. Johnbod (talk) 18:20, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I should be ready to also merge in Short Chronology soon so I can do them both at the same time.Ploversegg (talk) 19:53, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Article Update[edit]

I've done some of the decade plus update of this article. Besides the usually freshening up thing I've tried to make it more solidly ANE centric. It did get a bit generic as originally written. I've also gone completely Chronology Agnostic. I'm not saying there should not be any discussion of that, just no Double Extra Low Chronology is certainly right because X, Y, and Z. I also didn't mention some of the outlying chronologies like the one where Babylon falls in 1547. You have to draw the line somewhere. Some sections still need work such as:

  • dendrochronolgy and radiocarbon dating - not much is new here in Mesopotamia but some data has emerged from the Levant and Anatolia which need to be looked at to see if they bear on ANE chronology
  • thera eruption - yes, new data has come out and some of the old data (like ice cores) has been corrected. I don't doubt they are getting closer to a firm date for the eruption. The real question is linking it to ANE chronology. Yeah, some pumice floated to Egypt, a few fluffy omen tablet links etc. Don't remember seeing anything really solid.
  • Venus Tablet - Needs a bit more, especially since I pulled some out of the alternative chronolgy section to make it cleaner. And maybe explain the 56/64/8 thing a bit better.

Ploversegg (talk) 20:07, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside for those interested in radiocarbon dating. A nice paper I am reading.[1]Ploversegg (talk) 23:06, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Short Chronology merge[edit]

I think this is not controversial but we will do it by the book.Ploversegg (talk) 19:55, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support by the book. Zoeperkoe (talk) 09:13, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Having heard no objections.Ploversegg (talk) 04:14, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Salted[edit]

@Ploversegg: Gérard Gertoux has been salted for a reason. Fideism (religious dogma) makes him inept to be a mainstream historian.

Gertoux plagiarises Wikipedia for his articles, he's not reliable. As for the argument itself, try to find it stated by a mainstream source.PiCo (talk) 21:53, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

There's no doubt whatsoever that he plagiarises Wikipedia - I wrote the passages he stole.PiCo (talk) 01:13, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 18:59, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gérard Gertoux (3rd nomination). Doug Weller talk 19:06, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. I looked thru the discussion for deleting the authors wiki article. I would say that it was was hardly a tsunami of support for deletion. And does that automatically imply a mandate to delete all his refs? If we are getting rid of fideists are we salting Pascal and James too? Anyway, its too small a point for me to argue over but sometimes seeing stuff that happens under the hood on Wikipedia is like watching sausage being made.Ploversegg (talk) 19:20, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If he declares under oath that he did not plagiarize, that would be good enough for me. He will have to take the oath upon the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:21, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
He was studying for a PhD in Bible scholarship at a reputable French university, and when his professors saw what he really means to write, they jettisoned him from the university. It simply wasn't their task to produce all-out fundamentalist research. It wasn't their job to accommodate WP:FRINGE POV-pushers and pseudohistorians, and it certainly isn't ours. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:22, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Middle chronologies![edit]

Some recent changes have made this an article that is very unreliable and painful to read. The higher and lower chronologies are no longer viable candidates: they have been ruled out by the 14C-dendro dates from Anatolian sites https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-69287-2.pdf . This is some serious hard science that cannot be brushed aside and the tone of the article must reflect this: the two middle chronologies are now the only serious options. 2001:982:9F60:1:4553:49A7:5D07:5801 (talk) 06:57, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, thanks! We pretty much prefer systematic literature reviews, primary studies are by default not reliable enough for such claims. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:18, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, this is really mind-boggling. Primary studies are by default not reliable? In what universe? We have here hard science (and not in some fringe pseudo-scientific publication) that puts an archaeological context within a narrow time range. Unless there are serious arguments to discredit the methods by Manning et al. their findings should be given priority. Talking about the higher and lower chronologies as if they are solutions as plausible as the middle chronologies is misleading to say the least. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:982:9F60:1:4553:49A7:5D07:5801 (talk) 08:31, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
According to WP:SCIRS, Cite reviews, don't write them. As prof. Martijn B. Katan has put it, "one paper means no papers". tgeorgescu (talk) 08:42, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Without wanting to get involved in this discussion, I do want to point out that archaeological handbooks have never really considered either high or low a valid replacement for the middle chronology. See the list here, from a very similar discussion already from 2010: Talk:Chronology of the ancient Near East#Middle vs Low chronology. Also, I think that the number of papers that have put the low and high chronologies to rest is certainly a lot more than one, by now, so that's not really a valid argument.Zoeperkoe (talk) 08:45, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Then WP:CITE those WP:RS. Manning et al. have won the 100 meters sprint, but Wikipedia is a marathon. tgeorgescu (talk) 08:51, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, did I accidentally tune into the Sumerian King List talk channel? :-) My sense is that you get the middle chronology the most in general science articles because it minimizes the maximum error. If you say middle and are wrong worst case you are off by a few years. Say long and you could be way off. PS The denro and radiocarbon sections are next to be updated so I shall certainly read the above dendro paper first, along with the other available dendro stuff.Ploversegg (talk) 15:50, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This article should be read before the one from Nature https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0157144&type=printable (And did you really change the content of this article without reading up first? Wow, just wow!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:982:9F60:1:963:205D:4FE3:1A58 (talk) 16:18, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I read all the online articles reffed in the article (and a few more not used in it), modulo the dendro and radiocarbon ones, before updating it. I may not be the best wiki editor in history but I am thorough. PS I read that Manning article 5 years ago when it came out but will certainly reread it.Ploversegg (talk) 18:57, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Should a page be linked?[edit]

New to editing on talk page, so be gentle! :-) In the section "King Lists", there is a heading (bullet point) for Assyrian Kings, but it is not hyperlinked. A page exists called "List of Assyrian kings" which seems appropriate for a link. Should the heading be edited to point to this page? Ian Cargill 09:46, 15 February 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Icargill (talk • contribs)

Wikilinking is a good thing in general but probably not in this case. The Assyrian King List is not the same thing as the List of Assyrian Kings. The former is an actual document (in clay or stone) that purports to name all the Assyrian kings. Its partly history and partly propaganda (which is the way people did stuff back then). The List of Assyrian Kings is the result of historians and archaeologists reading the tea leaves and figuring out who most likely the Assyrian kings were, and how and when they reigned. Plus, the List of Mesopotamian dynasties link down there in the See also section has the Assyrian kings in it. Good thinking though!Ploversegg (talk) 16:34, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thera and Eastern Mediterranean[edit]

"The exact date of the volcanic eruption has been the subject of strong debate, with dates ranging between 1628 and 1520 BC. Radiocarbon dating has placed it at between 1627 BC and 1600 BC with a 95% degree of probability.[74][75][76] Archaeologist Kevin Walsh, accepting the radiocarbon dating, suggests a possible date of 1628 and believes this to be the most debated event in Mediterranean archaeology.[77] For the ANE chronology a key problem is the lack of a linkage between the eruption and some point on the relative chronology."

-- We have a newer radio carbon calibration which makes this eruption 50 years later. The Ahmose Tempest Stela in Egypt is one historical link. Another link is the Atrahasis flood, attributed to Ammisaduqa in Babylon. We have another synchronization point between the Hyksos king Khyan in Egypt and Hammurabi, 4 generations before Ammisaduqa, confirming that the Ahmose flood is the same as the Ammisaduqa flood; this also confirms the low chronology for Babylon.

Hammurabi Seals linked to Khyan: https://www.dnaindia.com/technology/report-remains-of-hammurabi-seal-discovered-in-cairo-1314883

Certainly the seal is interesting and I will check it out. A new dendro/ice core result has narrowed down the Thera eruption and eliminated 1628 in particular. Khyan appears to have ruled for about 40 years which is a bit broad a period be fully helpful. The Atra-Hasis flood is a myth, and in the myth dates way back to the Early Dynastic, not Old Babylonian, period. The linkage of the Tempest Stele to Thera is fluffy indeed.Ploversegg (talk) 16:18, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac048/6575909?login=false
On Atrahasis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atra-Hasis
"The oldest known copy of the epic tradition concerning Atrahasis[i] can be dated by colophon (scribal identification) to the reign of Hammurabi’s great-grandson, Ammi-Saduqa (1646–1626 BC)."
Newer Radio Carbon Calibration - IntCal20: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32807792/
Off-topic: There was a 2nd or later flood of similar time, the Greek flood or Deucalion, which dates to the reign of Hatshepsut(1479-1458BC), as stated by Manetho. And in the Speos Artemidos, Hatshepsut mentions a sunken temple with children dancing on it and Nun(Primeval Water Deity) wiping away the footsteps of the foreigners(which seems to confirm Manetho's writing). The radiocarbon dates for Santorini have 2 date ranges, as do the archaeological ranges of either ~1600 or ~1500BC. A second flood is the cause of this hundred year gap/anomaly; the 2 flood theory explains away the previous radiocarbon anomalies, and archaeological anomolies, and adds a new synchronization date. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.115.254.217 (talk) 17:51, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Magnetic field[edit]

This is a reminder to me to add something on using earths magnetic field reversals

Ploversegg (talk) 15:53, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Weird sentence[edit]

In the section on "Variant Middle Bronze Age chronologies" there's a sentence that doesn't make sense.

"Currently the major schools of thought on the absolute dating of this period are separated by 56 to 64 years. This is because the key source for this analysis are the omen observations in the Venus tablet [...]. More recent work by Vahe Gurzadyan has suggested that the fundamental eight-year cycle of Venus is a better metric". Does it make sense to remove the last sentence and keep the references? If this isn't the right place to ask, please let me know! FirstMateHadvar (talk) 16:54, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seems ok. The EAE63 tablet records observations of Venus. Venus has cycles of observability from Mesopotamia. Traditionally people trying to use the tablet for chronology used the 64 or 55 year observation cycles. Most recently it has been contended that the data is somewhat sketchy and that it is more accurate for use the shorter 8 year cycle ie "What can, therefore, be extracted from the Venus Tablet with a high degree of confidence ? In Gasche et al. (1998), we advocated the use of the least noisy signature, namely, the use of the basic 8-year cycle to the exclusion of all others, i.e., any trace of the 584 day Venus synodic period (roughly 5 synodic Venus periods = 8 sidereal years minus 4 days)." Certainly, though, any wiki article can be improved.Ploversegg (talk) 18:27, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Chronology_of_the_ancient_Near_East&oldid=1216391100"