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Med Past > Chronology > Flashcards

Chronology Flashcards

1
Q

‘The Spine’

A
  • 2500 BC - 945 BC = Unverified Assyrian King List - only floating chronologies, possibly mythological kings or propagandistic underpinnings, particularly the idea of an unbroken succession of kingship
  • 945 BC - 722 BC = Verified Assyrian King List - allows checking of other chronologies via synchronisms
  • 700 BC - Present = ‘History’ - based on written sources and verified documents
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2
Q

Bronze Age Pottery Sequences

A
  • Danger of typologies - could be the wrong way round
  • Could be verified by stratigraphy
  • Bedrock of Neolithic onward Aegean archaeology
  • Divided into Early, Middle and Late, then subdivided further
    Greek Mainland = Helladic
    -EH I-III, MH I-III, LH I-III
    Crete = Minoan
    -EM I-III, MM I-III, LM I-III
    Cycades = Cycladic
    -EC I-III, MC, LC I-III
    Levant = Bronze Age
    -EBA I-IV, MBA I-III, LBA I-II
  • Material provides a cultural sequence but not a political sequence
  • Pottery found in conjunction with burials/other artefacts doesn’t provide a concrete date as some styles may persist longer in certain areas
  • E/M/Ls don’t necessarily match up across cultures
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3
Q

Sethy/Seti I King List (Abydos King List)

A
  • Relative chronology
  • On the wall of the Temple of Seti I, Abydos
  • 76 Kings
  • 1st - 19th dynasties
  • From Menes (probably Narmer) - Seti I.
  • 3050 BC - 1279 BC
  • Name only list, with cartouches
  • Some earlier kings are referred to by names that they are not called on other/ contemporary monuments
  • Quite a few kings missed out in order to fit it on the walls - obscure kings removed
  • Some ‘illegitimate’ kings not included for political reasons
  • Depiction of the king and crown prince, the latter is reading from a scroll, honouring all the previous kings in chronological order
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4
Q

‘Hooks’ of Egyptian Chronology

A 
2478 - Khufu begins Great Pyramid (?)
1872/1830 - Year 7 Senwosret III
1537/1517 - Year 9 Amenhotep I (?)
925 - Latest accession date of Shoshenq
706 - Shabataka on the throne
690 - Year 1 Taharqa
525 - Overthrow of Psamtik III
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5
Q

Turin King List

A
  • Floating chronology
  • Heiratic papyrus
  • From the reign of Ramesses II
  • Most extensive Egyptian king list
  • Originally complete list of kings from the creation of the earth, along with their exact reign length down to the day, to around 1300 BC
  • Incomplete, thought to span 1st - 19th dynasties including Hyksos rulers of the 15th dynasty - attempts to piece it back together like a jigsaw via fibres that stretch across the whole thing, and via the text on both sides
  • 3050 BC- 1213 BC (?)
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6
Q

Sumerian King List

A
  • Floating chronology
  • Goes back to prehistory and covers a large period of time
  • There are periods in Mesopotamia where is kingship is not continuous, and there are contemporary, distinct rulers/dynasties - this is not represented on the king list - typically only covers individual lineages
  • Stone tablet in Sumerian
  • Lists kings, reign lengths and location of Royal seats
  • Contains many mythological kings, and all reign lengths before Ur-Nungal (son of Gilgamesh, 26th c BC, 1st dyn of Uruk) are too long to be humanly possible
  • First independently confirmed ruler 2600 BC, last around 1750 BC.
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7
Q

Babylonian Dynastic Chronicle

A
  • Floating chronology
  • Fragmentary Mesopotamian Text in four known extant copies
  • Bilingual
  • Continuation of the Sumerian King List to 8th century BC.
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8
Q

Palermo Stone

A
  • Floating chronology, produced in around 2200 BC, Fifth Dynasty
  • Incomplete - around 90% missing
  • One of seven surviving fragments of a stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt.
  • First Dynasty (3150 BC) - Fifth Dynasty (2283 BC)
  • Information includes key events in each year of the reign of a king, the kings name, the kings mothers name, measurements of the height of the annual Nile flood, the Inundation, details of festivals, taxation, sculpture, buildings, and warfare.
  • Includes predynastic (pre-unification, pre-Menes/Narmer, pre-3000 BC) names, but these are controversial/ yet to be assigned to historical figures.
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9
Q

Manetho

A
  • Wrote a history of Egypt in the 3rd century BC
  • His original work doesn’t survive but extracts quoted in other works do
  • Only account of Egyptian history that runs all the way from the unification of Egypt to the time of writing
  • Believed to have written Aegyptiaca (History of Egypt) at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus
  • Important chronology of Kings
  • Separated Egyptian history and pharaohs into the 32 dynasties that we use today - historical accuracy debatable - some dynasties have been shuffled around by modern Egyptologists
  • Dynasties equivalent to ‘Houses’ e.g. Windsor, Lannister
  • Pharoahs in each Dynasty are related to each other
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10
Q

Relative Chronologies

A
  • What happened before or after what - the order in which events/people/reigns occurred
    • Stratigraphy
    • Typologies
    – Architectural
    – Art History
    – Pottery
    – Assemblages
    • Seriation
    • Non-dated King lists
    • Some Synchronisms - material from one culture which links to or is contemporary with material from another culture
    (Bronze Age Pottery sequences, Seti I King List)
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11
Q

Floating Chronologies

A
  • May provide a small chronology e.g. a lineage of kings, but this doesn’t fit into a larger chronology - it is floating in time
    • King lists
    • Chronicles
    • Histories based on contemporary records
    • Some Synchronisms
    (Turin King List, Sumerian King List, Assyrian King List, Manetho, Palermo Stone, Assyrian Synchronic Chronicle, Old Testament, Amarna Letters, Karnak Treaty)
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12
Q

Absolute Chronologies

A
  • Not necessarily correct, just means it is being expressed in a BC or AD date
    • Science
    • Astronomy
    • Some Synchronisms
    (Radiocarbon, Dendrochronology, Sothic Dating, Observations of Venus, Lunar Dating, Pyramid Alignment)
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13
Q

Santorini (Thera)

A
  • Pottery – LM IA – 16th–early 15th C BC
  • LC I / White Slip I – early 15th C BC
  • C14 – late 17th C BC
  • Context of pumice found in Egypt &c – early 15th C BC
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14
Q

Sothic Dating

A

• Egypt
• Relies on:
– Astronomical year = 365.2425 days
– Egyptian year = 365 days (no leap years)
– Egyptian New Year’s Day supposed to be marked by rising of Sothis
– Owing to ‘year drift’ actually happened only once in 1,461 years
– Known to have occurred in AD 139
• Therefore:
– Any dated report of rising of Sirius (Sothis) can be placed within a 1,461 year cycle
– Cycle identified by dead-reckoning

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15
Q

Observations of Venus

A

• Mesopotamia - babylonians well into astronomy and omens
• Omen-text, including a set of 21 years’ observations of Venus, beginning in:
-1702 BC or
-1646 BC or
-1582 BC or
-1550 BC (unsure as astronomical phenomena repeat)
• 8th year = Year 8 of Ammisaduqa of Babylon - depending on which starting date is chosen, this can fix this kings 8th year - produces a floating chronology

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16
Q

Pyramid Alignment

A

• Egyptians used stars to line up pyramids North-South
Basis of theory:
• circumpolar stars Kochab and Mizar used for alignment of all pyramids to true north.
• Kate Spence proposed 2478 BC for alignment of Great Pyramid using position of stars through time
• A century later than date derived from dead reckoning - debatable?

17
Q

Lunar Dating

A
  • Egypt
  • New moon (psdntyw) recurs on the same day of the civil year once every 25 years with a 1- day ‘near miss’ every 12 years
  • New moon dates can be calculated and used to give a range of options for a given newmoon report
  • However, choice the preferred option(s) depends on the the decade(s) being pinpointed by other means - not useful to determine an absolute date unless you can pin point a reign to a smaller period e.g. half century from other sources - then relying on accuracy of secondary sources
18
Q

Issues with Sothic Dating

A
  • Assumes no ‘re-setting’ of Egyptian calendar due to New Year starting half way through the year, seasons not matching up with their associated weather (cf. Julian > Gregorian)
  • Location of observation of Sothic Rising - where you are in Egypt determines what day it rises in - not evidence of where the observation usually took place
  • Accuracy of observation - not evidence of whether it was done properly - did they really see it when they thought they did?
  • Interpretation of written record- could have just been a religious festival?
19
Q

Example of Sothic Dating

A

• Senwosret III
– papyrus states that sun rose in his Year [7] IV prt 16
= 1872 or 1830 BC (North vs. South) - assume Northern date is the one that works - crucial for much of Egyptian chronology

20
Q

Amarna Letters

A
  • Synchronism, mid 14th century BC, late 18th Dynasty
  • An archive, written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom
  • Mostly written in Akkadian cuneiform, the regional language of diplomacy for this period
  • The known tablets total 382, sent over 30 years
  • Gives information about cultures, kingdoms, events and individuals from Akhenaten’s and Amenhotep III’s reign
  • 300 diplomatic letters, 82 miscellaneous literary and educational materials
  • Letters to/ from Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Canaan, and Alashiya (Cyprus), Mitanni, and Hittites
21
Q

Egyptian–Hittite peace treaty

A
  • Synchronism
  • Also called Treaty of Kadesh (Qadesh), Eternal Treaty or Silver Treaty
  • Treaty between Rameses II and Hattushilish III of Hatti
  • The only ancient Near Eastern treaty for which both sides’ versions have survived
  • The Egyptian version of the peace treaty was engraved in hieroglyphics on the walls of two temples belonging to Pharaoh Ramesses II in Thebes: the Ramesseum and the Precinct of Amun-Re at the Temple of Karnak
  • The Hittite version was found in Hattusa, preserved on baked clay tablets uncovered among the Hittite royal palace’s sizable archives
22
Q

Relative Chronologies: Synchoronism (Lahun/MMII)

A
  • Lahun/Kahun, Egypt - reigns of Senwosret II & III, Dyn XII
  • Village occupied by builders of nearby pyramid
  • Petrie found first prehistoric Greek pottery found in Egypt in 1889 -Cretan MMII sherds.
  • Indicated than Dynasty XII in Egypt was contemporary with the Middle Minoan II in Crete.
23
Q

Relative Chronologies: Synchoronism (Tell el-Amarna/LH IIIA)

A
  • Tell el-Amarna, Egypt - reign of Akhenaten, Dyn XVIII
  • Petrie found Mycenean LH IIIA2, indicating that Dynasty XVIII in Egypt was contemporary with Late Helladic IIIA2 in Greece
24
Q

Assyrian King List

A
  • Backbone of Mediterranean chronology
  • A combination of a number of documents representing a single tradition
  • Issues - back to the mid 10th c is fine but beyond that there is damage to copies, and copies which contradict eachother
  • Unverifiable before 954 BC
  • Verifiable parts are verifiable as every year is given the name of an official - limmu/eponymic tradition e.g. Year of X
  • Assyrian limmu lists give run down of these - with king list, these give solid chronology back to 954 BC
  • Some earlier parts are better than others - floating chronologies
25
Q

Old Testament

A
  • While a theological work, there are chunks which are likely legitimate histories of sections of the history of Judah, Israel and Palestine, including rulers, location and political history
  • Originate from floating chronologies which editors have tried to tie together but haven’t quite made it
  • Incorporates some history from Assyria and Egypt
  • Battle of Jericho - dating of event an issue as evidence of major destruction doesn’t tie in with evidence from bible - OT says Late Bronze Age, archaeology says Middle Bronze Age
26
Q

Assyrian Synchronisms

A

Assyrian chronology underpins virtually all Iron Age absolute chronology in the Middle East.

  • Absolutely solid & verified back to AShur-dan II (934-912)
  • King List tradition & limmu lists back into 3rd millenium
  • Only some parts externally verifiable
  • Concerns that parts may reflect overlapping kings presented as consecutive
  • Parts may only be usable as ‘floating’ chronologies.

Med Past (11 decks)

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