Egyptian chronology

Egyptian chronology is in the state of a transition, in oerder to avoid using the word "mess." Professor E.J. Bickerman, Chronology of the ancient world (1980: 83-84 and 106) has properly called it "the rather fluid chronology of the Pharaohs and the Hittites," addind that Ramesses II's accession is dated by various Egyptologists to 1304, 1290-92, or 1279 BC. Reliable absolute dates, astronomical or other, are lacking, as Professor Heinrich Otten had noted. It is a "rubber chronology" that you can stretch or shrink anywhere, by arbitrarily established lengths of co-regencies between rulers and even overlapping dynasties. The possibility of a calendar reform called Menophres Era may radically modify the prevailing modern Egyptian chronology, so the previous "firm" dates cannot be supported astronomically.

This Menophres Era can be tied to at least four Egyptian rulers, although there were absolutely no doubt for Egyptologists that Ramesses I reigned in 1322 BCE. Theon's text has lond been interpreted that a 1460 year long Sothic period has ended in A.D. 139. Therefore, the Menophres Era may have started in 1321 BCE. However, John F. Brug (Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary) in his detailed and important article has observed that Theon explicitly stated, and Al-Biruni supported him, that the beginning of the next Sothic cycle took place in 26 BC, instead of A.D. 139.

In 1974, Ronald D. Long was making the same point as Rowton: "Mesopotamian chronology... does not coordinate with the eighteenth dynasty chronology which is dependent on the era of Menophreos dating. Assuruballit I and Akhenaton were contemporaries, yet if the era's dating is maintained, their contemporaneity is non-existent." Dr. Lappin, Decline and Fall of Sothis Dating states that all the plausible second millenium placements require that a major calendrical readjustment occurred at least once in Egyptian History. An article signed by the Perseus Research Team, is about Syncellus and his Book of Sothis. They confirm John Brug's observation that 26 BC was the beginning of a cycle, not A.D. 139. If such calendrical reform has taken place in Egypt, then the claim that a heliacal rising of Sirius took place in the seventh year of Sesostris III of the twelfth dynasty in 1872 is useless. Please also refer to William F. Edgerton's old study, Chronology of the twelfth dynasty in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies (around 1941 or later, page 307). Edgerton points out that the fragment of the el-Lahun temple register that foretells a heliacal rising of the Sothis, does not name any Egyptian king. He is not certain if Borchardt had used the photographic facsimiles of the originals or not.

All these may may that our encyclopaedias should consider shifting the orthodox dates of Akhenaton or Tutankhamun up by 164 years.

Thanks to several radiocarbon (C-14) dates, the approximate dates for the first Egyptian dynasty have been established (cf. Fekri A. Hassan, Radio-Carbon Chronology of Archaic Egypt, JNES, 1980, 39, 203-207). However, there are no reliable absolute dates for Egypt for its first 3000 years. Not a single eclipse record has been utilized from that period so far. Pharaoh Sahure or Sephres was a king of the fifth dynasty that had begun with Userkaf and has been concluded with Unas. A wooden cartouche of sahu-re (c.2487-2473 BCE) has been found in a tomb of Dorak, near Constantinople, tells E. Bacon, Archaeology; Discoveries in the 1960s). It has been dated by radiocarbon test. In another case Libby, using the 5720 half-life of the carbon-14, dated that the boat of Pharaoh Sesostris III about 3,621 years before c. A.D. 1950.

An absoulute date comes from a record of a total eclipse of the moon in the 15th regnal year of Takelot or Takeloth II, apparently three days away from a breakout of a dated, disastrous mutiny, "even though the sky did not swallow the moon" (Kitchen, 1973: 331). This eclipse has not been utilized by historians so far, regardless if it had taken place on March 16, 851 or several years earlier. Kitchen (1973: 181) demonstrated that this event cannot be placed in 822 BCE, for there is an irreducible total of the 106 years from the 15th year of Takelot II to the 38th year and death of Shoshenq V reckoned from 822 BC runs down to 716 BCE, far too late.

Finally, Eusebius placed the eclipse of Thales (May 585 BCE) in the eighth or twelfth year of Waphres (Apries) Egyptian ruler who is Hophra in Jeremiah 44: 30.