Talk:Chronology of the ancient Near East/Archive 1

Scope

I started this article before I found Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria and Chronological systems of Babylonia and Assyria (because they were uncategorized), but they are in a mess anyway. The articles:

• Chronology of the Ancient Orient (this article)
• Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria
• Chronological systems of Babylonia and Assyria
• Sumerian king list
• Kings of Assyria
• Kings of Babylon
• List of Hittite kings
• History of Babylonia and Assyria
• Early princes of Babylonia and Assyria
• Lagash

should work together somehow. This should be the main article where the results are summarized, and were people can be sent to for quick information about "short" vs. "middle" chronology etc. The dates in Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria can be merged with the King lists. Chronological systems of Babylonia and Assyria can give background of the development of the understanding of these things, including the 1911 part now in Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria. I am working on it, but I need to get an overview first. Ulitmately, there will be a "series" Template of these (and other) articles. dab 09:25, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Title of article

This project is both unwieldy and essential. I wish the title were Chronology of the Ancient Near East, a more modern designation, grounded in archaeology rather than Bible studies. (See Orient and Orientalism for modern connotations of "Orient". Compare Oriental.) --Wetman 12:40, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ancient Orient is a redirect to Ancient Near East already. It's just that I'm more familiar with the former, but I don't oppose a move for this article, even if I could not care less about claims that the term is "politically incorrect" (the Orient is just where the sun rises. So yeah, it's the Orient from a European perspective, but then it's an English word, so we wouldn't expect it to be from a Japanese perspective — and "Near" "East" is just as Euro-centric anyway ;) dab 13:11, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject

see Wikipedia:WikiProject Ancient Near East dab 21:05, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Canon of Ptolemy

Why is the link Canon of Ptolemy a redirect to Ptolemaic dynasty? IIRC, the first refers to a series of dated observations preserved by Claudius Ptolemy, which is of importance for the chronology of ancient Mesopotamia; the second has no signifance importance for this article. -- llywrch 00:43, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

it's a 'redirect with possibilities' [1] dab 09:55, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ancient sources

Try a move to bottom - with a condensed version at top. See comment on changes. -=SV= 23:29, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Material dump-merged-redirected here from other 1911 articles. Needs work. -SV|t 15:18, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

So when according to long chronology Hammurabi ruled?

So when according to long chronology Hammurabi ruled?

From this article quote 1

• 1857-1814 Hammurabi

quote 2

• The long chronology is 120 years earlier than the short chronology (Hammurabi 1848 BC–1806 BC).

Ilya K 13:33, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Long Chronologish POV

This article seems to be full of POV for the Long Chronology. It gives Hammurabi as being in the 19th Century BC, when the Middle Chronology puts him in the first half of the 18th century, and the Short Chronology somewhat later. It doesn't explain that this is only one possible dating, but tries to claim that this chronology is correct based on astronomical evidence. Doesn't this need to be seriously overhauled? john k 07:31, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Problem solved?

According to this article: "S.W. Manning e.a., “Integrated Tree-Ring-Radiocarbon High-Resolution Timeframe to Resolve Earlier Second Millennium BCE Mesopotamian Chronology”, which was published on 13 July 2016 in PLoS One" the problem is finally solved: the low middle chronology is the only one that fits the data from Kanesh. So can we all read this and if we agree then stick to these dates? For he reign of Hammurabi this comes to 1784-1742. The lucky few who have acces to it, see also the excellent overview article by Jona Lendering on the solved chronology puzzle of the Mesopatian middle bronze age in Ancient History Magazine 6. I can send you a pdf if you contact me codiv.

Short? Long?

Can someone add an explanation of why the chronologies are called "long", "short", etc? --Doradus 16:15, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

The Long Chronology puts the Old Babylonian period furthest back in the past. The Short Chronology puts it back closest to the present. Thus, Mesopotamian history as a whole is somewhat shorter under the short chronology, and somewhat longer under the long chronology. john k 18:28, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Comprehensive explanation of all major chronologies

The article as it stands seems to support the long chronology. The claim at the beginning of the article however, states that dendochronological dating and "the consensus" supports the short chronology. And the dates used throughout Wikipedia are middle chronology. This is confusing, and in my opinion needs to be fixed.

Now I know very little about astronomy, so I can't do this myself, but it seems appropriate for this article to evaluate all the proposed identifications of each eclipse and explain how they fit in to each major chronology, and subsequently give a full kinglist for each chronology, taking the astronomical, synchronistic, dendochronological and radiocarbon evidence all into account.--Rob117 01:41, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree - the article at present is a mess. john k 04:52, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

all of Wikipedia is a mess, in that respect. Most of the articles seem to use Middle Chronology, without stating it explicitly. This is since people cite dates from books without being aware of the chronologies. In some cases this leads to mixed dates in a single article, or to contradictory dates across articles. We do not have to agree on a single system, but we must make sure that all Ancient History articles make clear which chronology they are using. If at all possible, use some "chronology" template, so the dates will be machine readable, and can be converted automatically. This article first and formost has the job to clearly explain the difference between the chronologies. The explanation of the details supporting them is important too, but not as urgent. how about we do a template, e.g. {{short chr|1866}} that renders as "1866 BC (short chronology)" or similar? We can then ultimately have stylesheets where the user can choose if s/he wants to see short, long or middle chronology. dab (ᛏ) 07:48, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be best to give short, middle, and long chronology dates throughout wikipedia's ancient history articles. I think this article also need sto stop being schizophrenic about which chronology is right. A long chronology enthusiast seems to have slipped in and filled the article with long chronology POV at one point, which directly contradicts the more balanced endorsement of the short chronology elsewhere in the article. john k 14:44, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

How about a reference page (pages?) with a single huge chart for all the major ANE civilizations and each chronology? Thus there could be columns for Babylonian High, Middle, and Low, and ditto for Assyrian, Egyptian, Levantine, and Greek chronologies, with notes as to which are used as Wikipedia conventions. It should include events and sychronisms used to tie the various regional chronologies together. The chart would provide a visual aid for presenting alternative or fringe chronological theories, and would make it easy for readers to see which dates reflect which chron. -- ES, 16 Aug 2005

That sounds great. are you volunteering? john k 16:58, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I've got a large Excel spreadsheet with a start, but I'm not a specialist by any means. It's based on a variety of (reputable) internet and print sources, but I'm not familiar enough with Wikipedia to know if it's in a currently useful format, or how to use it - or where to put it so that others could use it or modify it. EthanS 18:06, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Here's the start of the table at User:EthanS/Near East Regnal Table. It's in Wiki pipe table format. It covers every year from 600 to 2700 BCE in conventional chronologies. Much of the information is based on the same sources already used in Wikipedia for the related articles (e.g., Shaw for Egypt). It includes Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Hatti, Judah, and Israel. I haven't added Greece, Crete, or Sumeria yet. EthanS 15:16, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

On what precise points are contemporaneities between Egypt and Babylon based? Shilkanni 07:47, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Kadashman-Enlil I was a contemporary of Amenhotep III. His successor Burnaburiash II was a contemporary of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. Kadashman-Turgu and Kadashman-Enlil II were contemporaries of Ramesses II. There may be a few other correspondences in this period, I'm not sure. I think there are also some indirect synchronisms, via the Hittite Kings. john k 07:51, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

And no other precise ones than those? It seems they are dependent on whether dynasty of Burnaburiash is correctly linked with later ones. Shilkanni 09:09, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

My understanding is that the Synchronistic Timeline and other documents tie Burnaburiash, etc., relatively securely to the Assyrian kings of the same period. Burnaburiash's successor Kurigalzu II is tied into Assyrian chronology relatively securely, as I understand it. Tukulti-Ninurta I is known to have captured Babylon, and this is securely fastened to particular Kassite kings. Here's a good post on synchronisms from an anti-Rohl site: [2]. I would add that while you are free to believe Rohl, you are not free to insert Rohl POV into articles as though it is of comparable weight to the unanimous beliefs of mainstream scholars. Every mainstream scholar believes Ashur-uballit I wrote the Amarna letter from Ashur-uballit. Every mainstream scholar believes that Ramesses II reigned at some point in the 13th century BC. Every mainstream scholar believes that Shishak was Sheshonq I. Adding more detailed discussion of Rohl's arguments in the articles on Rohl and his views is fine, and perhaps adding a (very brief) section to this article about the views of Rohl and James, while noting that they are unanimously rejected by mainstream scholars, would be okay as well. But changing around articles which are not about chronology to represent the generally unsupported views of Rohl is not okay. john k 23:38, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

BTW, a good site with a full list of near eastern synchronisms: [3]. john k 23:48, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Another issue seems to be inaccurate attributions of things to the Canon of Ptolemy, especially in the Assyrian period for Babylon. Our knowledge of some of this stuff comes from sources other than Ptolemy. john k 00:19, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

confussing

I m a catalan unser, i was very happy when i saw this article because i thought it would help me with lots of articles. But it doesn't. Because it's all messed. A cronology should be a list of years, with * and a explanations of whan happened, who ruled etc after the explanations of sources etc

well, you see, this article is trying to explain why we cannot just give you a "list of years", as much as we would like to. Anybody who says things like "Hammurabi (1792 BC–1750 BC)" is being dishonest with you if they don't explain why exactly they think that these dates are right. That said, I hope you did see our Sumerian king list, Kings of Assyria, List of kings of Babylon and List of Pharaohs? dab (ᛏ) 20:19, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Clean Up

As later dates are better known than earlier ones, would it not be better to flip the whole table on its head and work backwards? Then the lists can be broken down into separate bits, like from Alexander down to Nabonassar, and for each bit show the sources and synchronisms that supports the dates. It would mean wholly redoing the article though. Oswax 23:49, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Can we destroy most of the text under 'Divergent chronological views'? I know it is a fair chunk of the article, but it adds nothing, is esoteric and out of date. Oswax 00:25, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I would agree - it seems to act as though the basic presumption is that Naram-Sin lived around 3800 BC, which I don't think anybody agrees with anymore. Is it from the 1911 Britannica? Or some crazy POV warrior? At any rate, the whole article needs a wholesale rewrite, I think - much of the material that we have is weird POV, and then there's a lot of stuff that needs to be said that isn't. john k 00:54, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

John - could you takea look at User:Oswax/CANE, but only the intro, primary sources and first section? I have been working on redrafting the entire article, and want to know if others think I am on the right track. I think that for each time period we need a list of kings and reigns for a major kingdom (Babylon, Ashur, Sumer) and note the primary source from which it comes. Interpersed with these lists we ought to note any other sources that inform the period (astronomy or chronicles) and any synchronisms with minor kingdoms (and how we know them).

I will include the info behind long/middle/short chronology when I get to it, but I think we ought to settle on one and slowly propagate it throughout Wikipedia. As long as we are clear on this page how the chronology works, we oughtn't be too concerned over readers being 'uninformed' on dating systems. I will put in more work and finish the list if you can settle with what's being done. (Let's face it, anything will be better than what we already have. Oswax 16:47, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Note: I don't think that lists of kings are strictly needed, as long as we can point to the right sources for the information for the list. But, the article already lists some kings, and we ought to be consistent by listing kings everywhere, or nowhere. Oswax 11:14, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I like the basic idea. I do think that, as a Chronology of the Ancient Near East as a whole, we should bring in other than the main sequence of Persian/Mesopotamian kings. Egyptian chronology should mostly go in the Egyptian chronology article, but should at least be discussed to some extent - the surety of dates from 664 onwards, the Amarna period synchronisms, and so forth. The chronology of the Book of Kings might also fruitfully be mentioned at some point. We shouldn't use the High Chronology, which seems to be mostly discredited, for the Old Babylonian period. In terms of the Babylonian king lists, the only one that I'm specifically familiar with is the Uruk King List, which dates from Seleucid Kings, and (I think) lists kings from Nabonassar down to the Seleucid period. There are certainly other Babylonian king lists, though, since we have lists of Babylonian kings going back all the way to the first dynasty. In terms of types of sources, I think that one thing that needs to be added is attestations of monarchs' reigns in business documents. For the Neo-Babylonian period, for instance, there are thousands of commercial tablets, all of them dated in terms of the regnal years of kings. While such documents only intermittently allow the placing of kings in order (when they discuss events over several reigns, and what not), they can confirm reign lengths. For the Neo-Babylonian period, I know that there are tablets dated to every year in the period - 0-21 Nabopolassar, 0-43 Nebuchadnezzar, 0-2 Amel-Marduk, 0-4 Neriglissar, 0 Labashi-Marduk, 0-17 Nabonidus. I think the same can be said for the Persian period. I know that monumental attestations, also, are used as among the most important evidences for Egyptian chronology. While this kind of material isn't especially useful for giving absolute dates or putting monarchs in order, it is useful for determining how long different kings ruled for in the absence of other clear evidence, and for confirming king list totals. john k 23:38, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

BTW, here's a good site for king lists: [4]. john k 23:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Canon of Kings

As can be seen, I have created an article on the Canon of Kings. john k 18:28, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

That's some fine work. Do you know of an internet source for Ptolemy's original? I couldn't find one anywhere. Oswax 19:20, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

is this the first bit (747-539 BC) identical to what Babylonian Chronicle is referring to? dab (ᛏ) 19:20, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

No, see here [5]. These tablets are much older than Ptolemy, and much more fragmentary. Oswax 20:12, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I used this website as my source (I used the dates in the Age of Nabonassar as the basis for the dates, rather than the inconsistently used BC and AD dates that that webpage author has used. There is also an article in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies, available through JSTOR, if you have access to it, that is about the Canon, and that reproduces it in part (only up to Augustus, though). john k 20:23, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Assyrian Kings

Over at User:John Kenney/Kings of Assyria, see a revised list of Assyrian kings. It is derived from the list found here, and brings down the dates of the Middle Assyrian kings by a little more than a decade from the dates we have been using. Over at the Ancient Near East Chronology Forum, at which I've been lurking for some time, and emerged to ask a question about this topic, these dates seem to be accepted by most of the more mainstream contributors as more likely than the dates we give in our article. These dates tend to fit better with the 1279 BC date we give for the accession of Ramesses II, and, I think, with the Hittite dates that we give (e.g. Urhi-Teshup should be contemporary with Adad-nirari I, which he is not under the current dates we give.

I would suggest switching over to this date (whose rationale is discussed here in response to a question from me, except that the dates we currently use seem to still be the most commonly used, and I haven't yet found a published source that uses the revised date system. Anyway, any thoughts on this would be helpful. john k 03:31, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

We can use the new dates if we want to do so. They seem to be well discussed, supported and accepted by scholars. Though they are not yet widely used, it may be one of the benefits of Wikipedia that we can be an early adopter. However, sticking with the old dates would not be *wrong*.

Personally, I think we ought to take them up. Oswax 09:57, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Can we not adopt both? Or rather use one and explain the discrepancy in the sources? jguk 11:57, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

What I've gathered is that in recent years the Low chronologies have become accepted by most academics, but that general encyclopedias, textbooks, and popular overviews, being slow to adapt to change, still tend to use the Middle chronologies because they have been in use for the past few decades.--Rob117 19:22, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's my impression as well. I've changed over the articles on Babylonian and Assyrian kings to use a lower chronology for the Kassite/Middle Assyrian periods, and explained what I was doing. john k 23:16, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Near-Absolute Dates

There should be some mention of the absolute dates given us by astronomy and dendrochronology. I'm particularly impressed by its apparent success at nailing down the date of the LH IIIA/B transition to a VERY narrow 1310s or 1300s BC. I'd add this in myself but, as mentioned, the main page is a bit of a mess at the moment.

I am in particular thinking of Mursili's eclipse, 1312 BCE. This happened in the span of that king's annals, so we get absolute dates of events prior to and afterward, particularly the date of one of the sacks of Miletus.

As for dendrochronology, we're getting closer to an absolute date of the Uluburun shipwreck - which happened almost exactly when Miletus was sacked.

It's also helpful for dating construction projects, burning of trees which might be growing in the region, construction of coffins for dead kings, and of course the 1650 BC explosion of Thera. To keep abreast of this, every now and again do a web-search for "Krunholm" (or "Manning") and "dendrochronology". Zimriel 20:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Middle Chronology

I recently read A History of the Ancient near East by Marc Van de Mieroop, 2003, and this book still maintains that the Middle Chronology is the most commonly used one for Mesopotamia. The short chronology is almost universally used for the Egyptian New Kingdom (setting the accession of Ahmose I to 1550 BC), and apparently the three different Mesopotamian chronologies only apply for dates before the sack of Babylon by the Hittites (1595 by the Middle Chronology, 1531 by the Short), so the Egyptian and Mesopotamian chronologies are not identical- the arguments over the correct Mesopotamian chronology mostly revolve around how to correlate Mesopotamian pottery to very early New Kingdom Egyptian pottery via the intermediate region of the Levant (Mazar 1990). The Middle Chronology is also what you see in almost every television program and reference work, so I think we may need to reevaluate the statement that it is the Short Chronology that is most widely used with regards to Mesopotamia (but not Egypt).--Rob117 01:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

New Chronology

[http://www.ouviroevento.hpg.ig.com.br/textos/arqueologiaehist/astronomiaearqueologia.htm Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669-627 BC) The Eclipse of Babylon I (EAE tablet 20) This new investigation has located one more during the same period, at 1362 BC (which matches VS 1419 BC), [50] and another, two centuries later, at 1178 BC (which matches VS 1208 BC). Quote: last king Samsuditana: "If an eclipse occurs on the 14th day of Shabatu (month XI), and the god, in his eclipse, becomes dark on the side south above, and clears on the side west below; the north wind (blows, and) in the last watch (the eclipse) begins, and he (the moon) is seen with the sun. His horns bend (toward) the sky. His entire shurinnu was not obscured, but disappeared. On the 28th you observe and an eclipse is close by; it begins and makes full (its time); it (the shurinnu) will show you the eclipse. Observe his eclipse, (that of) the god who in his eclipse was visible and disappeared, and bear in mind the north wind. The prediction is given for Babylon: the destruction of Babylon is near." Followed by Sealand Dynasties [49]

Destruction of Ugarith, palace of Nikmed II: Quote: Eclips 9th May 1012 BC which occurred at 6.17 pm, bearing in mind the telling comment by Assyriologist Walker: "At first sight the text refers to an event occurring at sunset." [60] Rashap.

Quote: hattusa(hittite) marching on the land of Azzi 13th March 1335 BC [63] or 24th June 1312 BC. [64]

Quote: The Eclipse of Egypt From the 15th year of the 22nd Dynasty Egyptian king, Takelot II, we have the following curious account, which might be interpreted as the only Egyptian record of a lunar eclipse: "Afterwards, in year 15, (month) IV of smw, day 25 under the majesty of his august father, the God who Rules in Thebes, the sky did not swallow the moon but a storm broke out in this land ..." [73]

An attempt has been made to date the eclipse to 16th March 851 BC. However, it has been noted that the date would be IV smw day 28, rather than day 25 as given in the account. It would, therefore, seem that this reference is of little value at this point, especially when there are various other problems about interpreting this Egyptian text. [74]

if the 18th dynasty must actually be renamed the 22th then forsure problems arise anyway. Enuma Anu Enlil eclipse records Quote: With the accession of Ur-Nammu at 1901 BC, the Du'uzu eclipse, marking the victory of Utu-hegal, would be the total eclipse on the 28th June 1908 BC (Table 3 - Eclipse of Gutium). Thus, in considering the Enuma Anu Enlil eclipse records for Agade, Guti/Uruk V, and Ur III (and the eclipse candidates ascertained), a satisfactory astronomical solution for all accounts may be obtained only if the accession of Ur-Nammu is placed at 1901 BC, which points once again to Venus solution* 1419 BC for Year 1 of Ammizaduga. - accession of Hammurabi may be set at 1565 -using the synchronism between Hammurabi and Neferhotep I (see Excursus: Yantin-Ammu, p. 1. This places the Egyptian king's accession sometime between 1550 and 1515 BC. -The reigns of Nikmed II of Ugarit and Mursili II of Hatti are historically tied to the late-18th and early-19th Dynasties in Egypt.

• introduction of venus rising dating.

9th May 1012 BC. This eclipse is also compatible, on historical grounds, with the date of 1362 BC for the end of Babylon I. Using the approximate date of 1012 BC for Nikmed II, and therefore Akhenaten, we can set the date of Mursili's Year 10 campaign at 984 BC by means of the solar eclipse which occurred on the 30th April of that year. Mernaptah Sealand communication?

Finally, it is interesting to note that the dates offered here in this study are entirely consistent with the New Chronology proposed by Rohl elsewhere in this volume.

The religion was restored to its traditional form under Tutankhamun (king Tut)(after the whole Aten worship thing under Akhenaten) There are hieroglyphics on the walls in Egypt the depict a vast number of people leaving Egypt and show writings of some of the miracles.They are saying that it might have been Anknatens father who was the Exodus pharaoh and not Ramses the second. They are thinking that is why Anknaten believed in one god, the Aten.

Quote: The King (God) seeks only that which corresponds to Him. Therefore, the Holy One, blessed he be, dwells in him who (like Him) is one. When man, in perfect holiness, realizes the One, He is in that one. And when is that man called one? When man and woman are joined together sexually..." (Zohar 111, 81a.)

Quote: 1353 BC =+/-1012 BC Amenhotep IV became Pharaoh of Egypt. Soon after ascending to the throne, he ended a 1,700 year tradition of worshipping many gods, and instituted a new era in which one universal God would replace them: the sun god Aten. He changed his name to Ankenaten, meaning "Servant of Aten", and proclaimed himself as a living manifestation of God on Earth, the Son of the Sun. He closed the temples at Egypt's religious center of Thebes, and shifted the nation's spiritual focus to the Temple of the Sun at Karnak. He and his Queen Nefertiti presided over outdoor sun worship at sunrise, noon, and sunset. By doing away with hundreds of gods (and the priests who presided over them), he cleared the way for a more direct experience of the one universal God whom he proclaimed. And in so doing, he also set the stage for the acceptance of his own role as the representative of that God, a living divinity on Earth.

The principle of Aten went beyond mere sun worship, such as the later manifestations of Sol Invictus and Mithras. For the Egyptians, and Ankenaten, Aten was the all-encompassing principle of creation itself, and was both masculine and feminine. As a result, this concept is reflected in statues of Ankenaten, and he is depicted as a hermaphrodite, sporting a beard, but with breasts and wide hips. This is interesting on two counts. First, and most obviously, this would appear to be the earliest known example in which a hermaphrodite is used to symbolize God as a union of masculine and feminine symbols. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, how is it that such an esoteric concept and symbol could survive Ankenaten's short reign to re-emerge repeatedly in diverse cultures across the globe? After all, Ankenaten only ruled for a mere 17 years, some 3,350 = 3000 years ago. After his reign, the Egyptians were anxious to return to the worship of their old gods, and were eager to forget about both he and Aten.

[[pr-o==, meaning Great House, o-pr (pharao) 22 dynasty word new kingdom term since 19th dynasty in use. 18: hyksos gone. Fighting the Hittite in Syria. Ahmose I, Hapshepsut, Thutmose III, Amenhotep III,Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. 19: Ramesses II ("the Great") of the 19th Dynasty, who sought to recover territories in the Levant that had been held by 18th Dynasty Egypt. His campaigns of reconquest culminated in the Battle of Kadesh, where he led Egyptian armies against those of the Hittite king Muwatalli II. ramesses III Seti I 970 BC thereabouts. constructor repairing history.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh#Pharaohs_in_the_Bible The Massoretic text (MT) gives 1125 years between Abraham's migration to Chanaan and the building of the temple, whereas the Septuagint allows 870 (see chronology) However, the Haggada holds that Pharaohs at the time of Abraham were Ashwerosh] and Rakayan, both nearly identical to Auserra Apopi and Khayan, two of the last Hyksos Pharaohs. The sacking of Thebes in 664 BC by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal as punishment for a revolt led by Pharaoh Taharka of the 25th Dynasty of kings in Egypt. Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian and other sources make this a very firm date, fixing the history of Egypt after this time. This date is beyond contention. Advanced puzzling. Madredsma 23:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC) madredsma 12.24 AM 16 januari 2007

Highly interpretive statement removed

Hello all, I have removed the following highly interpretive unsubstantiated statement (non-neutral point of view), which was apparently copied word for word without quotation marks from the source webpage cited:

1. Many scholars still prefer to stick to the old, conventional middle chronology - not because it is better or worse than the others, but because it is conveniently in the middle. However, it is possible that within a couple of years, the ultra-low chronology will become the new standard, see [6].

I believe the statement is inappropriate as it stands because it is copied word for word without quotation marks from a highly interpretive tertiary source without a balancing position, and as such it would tend to be offensive to scholars who think that the middle chronology is better or worse than the others or who don't believe that the ultra-low chronology will become the standard. CheerfulPaul 19:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

MINOR REFORMATING

It would make the article more readable and consistent to change the remaining three sections to use the "Proposed Reign - Dating Notes" format to match the rest of the article. The Short chronology appears to have been used for the rest, so that would be as good as any. Not to say that Short is the final word or anything. :-)

I will change one to trigger any comments before doing the others. 65.125.17.163 (talk) 18:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Ok, yeah, I did it. I deleted a number of old out of date paragraphs that where lying there disconnected (and refering to non-existant tables). They really needed to go. If anyone thinks I am out of control, then speak up, but I think it was clearly a cut that should have happened a long time ago. Now there is room for actual chronology type stuff and background. :-) Ploversegg (talk) 01:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Larsa Dynasty

Ploversegg, I converted the Larsa dynasty to short chronology, based on Hammurabi dates, if you would like to add that to this page.

Thank you for doing this.

Sumerophile (talk) 19:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Lets see, Gungunum defeats Lipi Ishtar of Isin - check. Rim Sin I defeated by Hammurabi - check. Looks good. I'll set it up. Thanks! :-) Ploversegg (talk) 21:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Placeholder Introduction

Don't Panic! :-) The article had no real into, so I wrote one from scratch. It's not pretty, but it will do the job so I can concentrate on doing a good job on a new Principle Sources section and we can get to doing away with the last of the 1911 Encyclopeda cargo culted material. Ploversegg (talk) 01:46, 2 March 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Elulu

I removed the Note that suggested that Elulu of Akkad might be a Gutian king because the only (one!) source for the idea is in a paper written in French, which I can't read i.e. Glassner, Jean-Jacques. 1986. La Chute d?Akkadé: L?événement at sa mémoire. Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient 5. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Ploversegg (talk) 01:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

The rest of the story

I put in a new text on the chronologic synchronisms in the ANE, taking out the old copied from an encyclopedia stuff. There might be an addition on internal synchronisms at some point. Am declaring the article to be competely encyclopedia free and have taken out the notice.

What happens now? In some order, I was thinking

1. Continue the process of doing a 2nd pass on the various dynasties
2. Do a second pass on the text portions, making it a coherent format in the process
3. Put the references (including any added in the 2nd passes) into a common format
4. Write a brief endpiece so the article doesn't just sort of End.
5. Rethink if any of the dynasties I left out because the data is really weak

(Mari, Mitanni, Middle Hittite, Old Assyrian, Sealand, Elamite) actually deserve to be included.

Thoughts? Ploversegg (talk) 00:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

A short lead statement would be good (The chronology of the ANE refers to...).

Also, if you have dynasty information for other cities/states, do put the info in those articles, even if there is not enough info to warrent putting them here. For instance, the Mari article doesn't have any king lists now. A note linking to these cities/states could then be put in this chronology as well.

Sumerophile (talk) 18:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

And someone might ask "what about later dynasties?" There is nothing really firm between 900BC and 1200BC ish. And I am pretty confident that past 600 BC (the fall of the the neo-assyrians) is no longer Ancient. That would leave the Assyrian New Kingdom (about a dozen kings if I remember correctly) and maybe some random Babylonians, I believe. It would be faily easy for me to throw in a 1st pass of those. The reason I didn't was that you are starting to get into time period that people start to "care" about and I didn't want to get into any controversy until the article was otherwise presentable. Ploversegg (talk) 15:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

See my comment above - if you have info, but not enough for this article, put the info in state's article, and possibly link to it from here.

And thank you, the work you've done here is awesome! - I find myself referring to it again and again. Sumerophile (talk) 18:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

First, good change on the Table of Contents. I was wondering how to do that! :-)

Second, I will review the remaining dynasties to see if it makes sense to add any or to put them in the subsidiary articles. One problem is that most of those articles are pretty bogus and it seems weird to drop good data into the middle of bad, but I'll take a look. I think I'm going to go ahead and add the Neo-assyrians to this article as that data is firm.

Last, am trying to decide what to do about Uruk, especially the 4th dynasty. There is like no attribution for it. Am considering either removing it, or adding it to the 3rd or 5th.

Ploversegg (talk) 15:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Please, please put good data in those articles!!

The 4th Uruk dynasty is given as such in the king list, so it should not be combined with 3rd or 5th. Are those valid short chronology dates? If not, I would remove it. (And perhaps put a note in its place).

Sumerophile (talk) 18:19, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so I added the Neo-Assyrians and after some reading and thinking, I had enough data and sychronisms to add Ugarit. Still pondering a few more (Middle Hittite for example) where this is definitely not enough data to add them to the chronology but I'll try and put some info into the actual relevant article. Still hopeful about a few of the dynasties.

Next to do (in some order): 1) Add the short article intro. 2) Scrub the references for correctness and formats 3) Want to fix up some of the underlying articles, like rescuing the Assyrian King List from Kings of Assyria for starters. 4) Continue to work on a few more synchronisms that I don't have enoughsupport for yet. 5) Either add remaining dynasties or put their info into their articles. 6) Think about whether I want to start making articles for some of the mentioned rulers who don't have one. 7) Take another look at the other astronomical events to see if I can be convinced any are legit to add (most are pretty lame). Ploversegg (talk) 18:43, 17 April 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Mittani

I'm not completely happy with adding this, since there are no absolute dates or regnal lengths (I would imagine because neither capital city of Mittanni has been found). But since, after shedding a couple early and late rulers, the order of kings is known, and there are some very solid synchronisms with other key players in the ANE, I decided it was no worse than Ugarit and that had passed.

Also, since there seems to be no direction on format for ruler pages, I have started slowly adding stub pages for kings who are missing on the chronology page, starting with Larsa.

Ploversegg (talk) 15:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Things to do

• Add minimal but legitimate articles for all rulers/sources referenced in the article that currently

don't have articles. So far I have done Larsa and am working on Guti. This is more of a long term project and technically isn't work for this article.

• Have checked the references for typos, but they need to be put into a more or less standard format
• Need to put in a few sentence intro at the beginning of the article
• Dynasties not included. Have decided that Old Assyrian, Middle Hititte, Sealand, Elamite, and the

post-kassite Babylonian dynasties don't have enough firm chrono data for inclusion. Still toying with Mari and the 6th dynasty of Uruk. Will see if I can add anything to the home articles for dynasties not included.

• Looking into adding popup maps for some of the dynasties for which good maps are in wikispace. There is

not enough room to the maps to be inline. What I am thinking is having a MAP button that brings up a map.

• Want to think about doing an article for the actual Assyrian King List somday
• Do any other articles make sense to add to the SEE ALSO section?
• Need to see if there are any more sychronisms with Egypt

Ploversegg (talk) 05:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

you're doing good work. But let me say that I do not think it makes sense to have standalone articles on each ruler: ruler names can also redirect to their respective dynasties. Thus, articles like Shulme or Imta should really just be redirects (in this case, to Gutian dynasty of Sumer#List_of_the_Gutian_kings. dab (𒁳) 12:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

First of all, clearly some ANE rulers, like Sargon of Akkad and Hammurabi clear have and need individual articles. Where do you draw the line of whether a given ruler should have his own page. And how does that decission change as more archaeological info appears? Second, if you try and put all the ruler information (which would be 36 rulers for the Kassite dynasty of Babylon, for example) into the dynasty articles those articles are going to be totaly swamped with ruler info. Lastly, I noticed early that dynasty articles seem to attract a lot of nationalistic and religious attention that makes them hard to manage. Everyone wants to be descended from ancient powerful people and have their religion validated. It's related to the reason that you don't want to have theory wars in Chronology of the ancient Near East. People people take it too personally. Ploversegg (talk) 16:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

scope

I am not sure if we are clear on this article's scope? It is supposed to address the problem of establishing a chronology, discussing the divergent absolute chronologies proposed, and the synchronisms they are based on. It was never intended to actually give a full timeline, there is Timeline of Middle Eastern history, History of Mesopotamia and Ancient Near East history for that. For lists of rulers, we have Kings of Assyria, List of Kings of Babylon, List of Hittite kings, Sumerian king list etc. dab (𒁳) 13:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, there can be an article on the various arguments about ANE chronology. I've even thought about starting one myself, though it would have to include a lot of POV and speculative content. The problem that needed to be addressed, though, was that there was no chronological coherence between all the various ANE articles. Some were long, some middle, some short, and many had dates picked out of thin air. A anchor was needed to try and bring the whole mess together. The original article was mostly copied from a century old enclycopedia and otherwise just plain lame. So I started from scratch. Think of it as a Portal for ANE rulers.Ploversegg (talk) 16:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

ahem, this is the "article on the various arguments about ANE chronology". Has been since its stubby inception in late 2004[7]. Your work is very much appreciated and very useful. We needed a clean short chronology timeline. I just suggest that perhaps the full timeline should be kept at a standalone "timeline" article. --dab (𒁳) 16:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

here's an idea: how about we do a synoptic table of rulers along the lines of Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures? It could span 2300 to 600 BC in decade steps (170 rows) and look something like (for the Amarna Period):

decade	Egypt	Levant	Anatolia	Assyria	Babylonia
1560s BC	Ahmose I		Mursili I
1550s BC	Khamose	Israelite Exodus
1540s BC				Shamshi-Adad III
1530s BC	Amenhotep I		Hantili I	Ashur-nirari I	(sack of Babylon)
1520s BC
1510s BC	Thutmose I	Kirta	Puzur-Ashur III
1500s BC	Thutmose II/III		Zidanta I
1490s BC

you get the idea. This would justify keeping all the information on a single page. If we just list the dynasties one after another, we are essentiall just duplicating the scope of kings of Assyria, kings of Babylonia etc. dab (𒁳) 16:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, if after 4 years the ANE category is in the mess it's in, maybe the original plan needs to be rethought. :-)

Let, me try and explain the concept I was working with here, then we will both known where we are coming from and can negotiate properly.

I started out by taking a good look at at the state of ANE articles. Despite a few bright spots, things were pretty shaky. There were only a couple articles above B class, lots of unsubstantiated nationalistic slants, furious edit wars etc. So, the question is "what part of that do I think I could help (without getting into the middle of controversy)."

• Dates for rulers and empires/city-states - ANE dates are ALL over the place
• Spellings for rulers - many rulers appear with a number of different spellings
• There was no central place where a viewer could see the entire scope of

ANE rulers and dynasties and have a jumpgate to explore them.

• Many ANE articles are just cribbed from encyclopedias and need to be

updated. We needed a central spot to start working through them one at a time a rewriting them

• Chrono-controversy - not to put too fine a point on it, but the extant

Chronology of the ANE article was basically worthless. It needed to be redone from scratch without 1911 encyclopedia stuff and without controversial scope on the phases of Venus. Even as a speculative article on ANE chronology it was woefully out of date.

So the article was designed to try and help work those problems.

As for creating individual pages for all ANE rulers, it makes a lot of sense. For example, the Gutian king Sarlagab. In the chronology, the only real thing you can say is the rough date. In a Sarlagab article, you can discuss how an inscription of Shar-kali-sharri of Akkad mentioned that he had captured a Gutian king named Sarlagab. This is a POSSIBLE sychronism as the translation is not the most solid and there is no coraboration.

Anwyay, I really do think you need the solid non-controverial backbone of a conservativly desgned full chronolgy to anchor the ANE. You have only to list the recent changed of the ANE category to see that it is needed. I certainly amy not going to try and sail against the wind of the WikiCabal, so if you feel strongly about this, I can certainly find something else to work on in the category. There's no lack of work to be done. :-)

Ploversegg (talk) 23:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

well, Ploversegg, I certainly agree with everything you just said, and I am not sure where you think I disagreed with your approach. You are doing excellent work with your timeline, and all I am saying is that it would be more at home at a separate "timeline" article, which would act as the backbone you describe. dab (𒁳) 07:08, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, works for me. How do we do that? Create a new article named "Timeline of the

ancient Near East", copy the contents of "Crhonology of the ancient Near

East" to it and then revert that article back to it's former state to reflect the planned scope? Or divide the current article into two articles somehow? I am a little unclear on the whole wikiprocess of splitting articles.

Also, what are we talking about for a scope for the timeline article. I have been working with the parameters

• Start time is around the Akkadian Empire, giving an intentional few hundred

years overlap with the article Sumeran King List which is a timeline of sorts as well

• End time is the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. After that is "classical"

period and a different topic entirely

• Non-speculative chronology. No fluffy synchronisms like "King X wrote to

a king of Babylon who is thought to possibly be Y".

• Short Chronology dates
• Limit to dynasties/rulers with some minimal archaeological or historical

attestation. Middle Hititte is an example of what that doesn't include.

• Geographic span of Anatolia in the north, Mediteranean in the west,

lower edge of Sinai and also end of persian gulf in the south and just over into Iran in the east (to include the Elamites) Ploversegg (talk) 00:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

"c" vs. "sh" spelling variants

Hi Ploversegg, I was going through the Gutian kings, and wanted to point out that the "c"-variants, as in "Culme", aren't really an alternate spellings, it was a way to transcribe "sh" in some software. (I'm not really sure why this would be done.)

Well, early linguistics is not my strong suite. :-)

In this case, I went with both spellings because I saw both cases used a lot, such as Culme in http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr211.htm so I went that way. Is there a "prefered" spelling? Also, the article pointed to is currently Guti (Mesopotamia) which redirects to Gutium. If Gutian Dynasty of Sumer is being fixed up, I think I'll change to that.

Ploversegg (talk) 23:30, 12 May 2008 (UTC)ploveresgg

ETCSL's Ascii coding used 'c' for 'sh' and 'j' for 'ng'. Their Unicode encoding uses the (more intuitive I think) diacritics š and ĝ.

I've done some things to Gutian dynasty of Sumer, but feel free to add your own edits.

Also, my sources have Zarlagab for Sarlagab, and Silulumesh for Elulmesh

144.92.234.59 (talk) 23:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I did some copyediting, and added Neo-Babylonia, Medes, Achaemenid empires at the end - my concept of the ANE is everything before Alexander, but you can remove them if you like.

Also, I think it's a good idea to redirect alternate names instead of creating pipes for them on the pages. Because if these alternate names are out there, somebody's going to want to look them up, and it'll be easier for them if there are redirect pages to link them to the main articles.

Hittite Old Kingdom king Telepinu?

Should a Telepinu be at the end of the Hittite Old Kingdom list? Categorystuff (talk) 22:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

That is where he is customarily placed. Publik (talk) 20:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'd say that some scholars place him in the old, some in the middle. The issues here are

• By his reign, the Hitites had been reduced to a minor power having lost all their teritory in Syria, Mesopotamia, and most of it in Anatolia
• The seperation of the Hitittes into old/middle/new is based on linguistist points. Their is a markedly different "old script" used in the old kingdom.
• We don't know how long Telepinu reigned or his manner of replacement or even for sure who replaced him (the middle Hititte period being a achaeologic wasteland)
• The guy he kicked out off the throne was a nobody

Having said all that, it's not a big deal and if the consensus is to add him to the old kingdom, that works for me. :-)

Ploversegg (talk) 23:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

I think that all kings that are traditionally grouped together in a dynasty or era should be included in the tables, for completeness' sake, even if certain individuals lack any other usable information. The lack of information might even be mentioned in the notes. Categorystuff (talk) 01:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Ploversegg, would you mind my adding the little-known rulers that are traditionally included in the dynasties, even though there is no chronology info for them? Categorystuff (talk) 17:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, would you like me format the tables like the Sumerian king list. And add pictures to the article? Categorystuff (talk) 17:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hm, first of all, the WikiCabal was making noises that they want to split this stuff onto a separate timeline type article and revert Chronology of the Ancient Near East its original purpose of dealing with short vs long etc. I'm fine either way, but it makes it hard to work on the Article. Today I'm going to see if I can get some sort of resolution on this.

As for adding little known rulers, this ok as long as there is some sort of attestation for them. Doesn't require much. Some of the tradionally accepted guys have like one fragment of pottery to their name. :-) Now in the case of the of people with old/middle/new type periods you have to be careful about creeping Too far to another period. And I might complain about additions in the 911-1150 BC area (or the old assyrian) as being way too soft, but I can be convinced for a good cause.

As for pix, that depends on whether the article is being split or not. As is it's pretty big already. I tried to use wikipedia at a friends who has a dial up line the other day and many articles with lots of pix were basically unusable. So its good to keep the images not too big. I was toying with adding MAP links to each dynasty to pop up a map if you mouse them. Anyway, thats my thoughts at the moment.

Off to ping on the WikiCabal. Ploversegg (talk) 18:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

I see where you're coming from - you don't want king list rulers that have no archaeological evidence. Some of the Sumerian/Akkadian rulers must be unattested, however (i.e. Irgigi-Ilulu). (Perhaps the unattested rulers could be put in parentheses and noted that they are "as-yet unattested" in the Notes column.)

Concerning the Hittite kings - Pusarruma is considered a pre-Hittite Hatti king - did you include him in the Hittite kings because he's attested? And Telepinu must be attested. (Perhaps you could take a look at the List of Hittite kings - it's actually looked after by someone who knows what he's doing.) Categorystuff (talk) 00:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Chronology of the Ancient Near East

There was some discussion that the Chronology of the ancient Near East needed to be returned to its planned purpose as dealing with the short vs long etc controversies of ANE chronology and splitting of the dynasty ruler stuff to some sort of timeline article. Can we come to some sort of resolution/decision on the future of the article so I can continue to work on it?

I'm fine with whatever but the uncertainty makes it difficult to know how to proceed. As I understand it the choices are

• Leave things the way they are
• Rename Chronology of the Ancient Near East to, say, Timeline of the

Ancient Near East and revert the CANE to what is was before I started working on it and start from there

• Split off part of CANE into a new article, say Timeline of the ANE

and leave part in the old article.

• Something Else

Am going to drop this note is several places, including my talk page Ploversegg (talk) 18:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Ok, so let me split the Timeline section to a new standalone article. dab (𒁳) 11:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I can work with that. Ploversegg (talk) 04:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)ploveresegg

Mitanni kings

Now, on to Mitanni kings!

Is Shuttarna I, son of Kirta, not included in the Chronology because he's unattested?

Also, should Shattuara I have the roman numeral, since the supposed Shattuara II is probably the same person?

Categorystuff (talk) 02:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

So, the article has been split into two parts. Give me a day or so to recover (i.e. copying over some refs and links that stayed with Chronology of the ancient Near east and etc). Then, now that the new article is like half the size it was, I think i feel a bit omore comfortable with adding some more dynasties and rulers ... with the appropriate caveats if they are of shaky foundation.

I will double check the Mitanni thing. My memory is that Kirta is not attested except in legend, but since he is the traditional founder of the empire it seemed tacky not to list him at the beginning. As for Shuttarna I, I seem to remember that there was there was something shaky about it like not saying King so you can be sure it wasn't some random Kirta or Shuttarna. They only had a few named available back then. :-) I will look at it though. As for Shattuara I, yeah, it can become just plain Shattuara. I put the "I" on at the time because I wasn't sure at the time if something on "II" would turn up. It didn't. Ploversegg (talk) 04:19, 2 June 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Middle vs Low chronology

Also posted this on the WP:ANE talkpage:

The project seems to have adopted the Low Chronology, but there does not seem to have been any discussion about this (I find the "citation needed" tag on 'The absolute 2nd millennium BC dates resulting from this decision currently have a majority (though not unanimous) support in academia, although the middle chronology (reign of Hammurabi 1792 BC – 1750 BC) is commonly encountered in older literature' and the fact that this statement: 'The current scholarly consensus is with the short chronology (sack of Babylon 1531 BC) used in this article.' is also unsourced rather telling).

To shed some light on middle vs low and their respective degree of acceptance, I have collected some quotes for that from recent handbooks of both historians and archaeologists, which are the kind of books that Wikipedia should follow.

• D.T.Potts 1999: The archaeology of Elam, p. xxix, 'Absolute dates when cited for individual Mesopotamian rulers conform to the so-called 'Middle Chronology' and follow Brinkman 1977.'
• P.M.M.G.Akkermans & G.M.Schwartz 2003: The archaeology of Syria, p. 13, 'For the late third and early second millennia BC, we retain the conventional use of the "middle" chronology, dating the fall of Babylon to the Hittites at 1595 BC. Although some scholars have recently called for the adoption of a "low" chronology, dating the fall of Babylon to c. 1500, we feel that there are still too many uncertainties to justify departing from conventional dates.'
• A.Sagona & P.Zimansky 2009: Ancient Turkey, p. 251 (n.10), 'Dates are to the "Middle Chronology" [...] as a convention.'
• A.Kuhrt 1997: Ancient Near East C. 3000-330 BC, p. 12, 'The so-called 'Middle Chronology', used by most standard works (e.g. CAH, rev. edn [0B], places Hammurabi in 1792-1750, but there are attractive arguments in favour of lower and higher chronologies. [...] On the whole, I have followed the middle chronology for the sake of convenience [...].'
• M.Van De Mieroop 2007: A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC, p. 4, 'Different systems are in use and the one called "Middle Chronology" has been the most popular, although it has often been justifiably attacked. It dates the reign of King Hammurabi of Babylon from 1792 to 1750. I have taken over this system without comment, or even a belief that it is superior to alternatives, because it is the most commonly used, which should make it easier for readers to consult other scholarship.'

Whatever the result of this discussion, it should at least be clear that the short chronology is not as widely accepted as some articles on wikipedia seem to suggest. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 21:19, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I've been using the short chronology so I suppose I should jump in here.

1) To me, by far the most important issue here is that there be a consistant dating scheme for ANE articles. For 99.999% of people who use Wikipedia, consistancy is what matters. People who are looking up Hamurabi shouldn't see his reign as being a different set of dates in 4 different places. The few people in the know can add or subtract 64 years. Which particular chronolgy is used is not a big deal to me.

2) On long versus short chronology, since I don't really believe the whole Venus table thing (or Assyrian records before the Neo-Assyrian period for that matter) to me the entire 64 year difference is a red herring. My sense is that the field is converging to a shorter chronology. A lot of the references that use the Middle chronology are just feeding off Brinkman, which is more than 30 years old. Much has happened since then. As I said, my feel for the situation is that in the Near East, Aegean, and Egyptian area, dates are drifting down. Having said that, I don't view it as important, for the reasons I mentioned above. Whatever the wiki-consensus turns out be is fine with me. Ploversegg (talk) 21:04, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

On point 1; I agree. No discussion there.

On point 2; I would like to see the sources for your observation that the "dates are drifting down" (which they in fact seem to do, but they are still closer to MC than LC, and I can provide sources for that as well). As I mentioned in the OP, exactly the statement claiming that they are, is unsourced. I have provided quotes which prove the opposite, so I would like to see the sources on which you base your choice. Your comment about feeding off Brinkman is besides the point; the reason that they are doing that, is because the MC (+/- a few years) is still better than the alternatives, and this is readily acknowledged by all sources I quoted. If the project decides to go with LC, that's fine with me as well. But there should be at least a discussion about it (and so far there hasn't been any), and there should be a really good argument for why the LC or MC was chosen. Just a feeling is not enough. The sources I quoted would be enough (at least, that's what I think). And they favour the MC.

On the other hand, this project seems pretty much dead for a long time now, given that recent activity consists of posts by you or me. In such a situation; any standardization would be welcome, whether it is supported by recent literature or not ;-) Zoeperkoe (talk) 22:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd say the dates have been drifting down for a number of reasons. Back in the day, it was thought that there was a long period of abandonment at Babylon from the sack to the Kassite occupation. That period has been shrunk by new data over time to the point where it looks like the Kassites rolled in shortly after the Hittite sack. Egyptian_chronology has also shrunk 50-ish years over time, mainly as people have figured out that some pharoahs reigns overlap and the Intermediate Periods compress a bit. The overlaping reign thing has crept in elsewhere in the Near East as well (like the Gutian Period).

As for references, I have read Dating the Fall of Babylon, A Reappraisal of Second-Millennium Chronology by H. Gasche which I would say is the baseline for the SC. A nice article on eclipses and chronology is http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0311114v1 btw.

So, I'm pretty sure that whatever chronology is picked is going to make somebody unhappy. How about we go with SC so I don't have to write a Middle Chronology Timeline article (having already written Short Chronology Timeline and Chronology of the ancient Near East) and keep the 2 timeline articles synced up instead of working on some other ANE stuff. To balance that, I'll change the Chronology of the ancient Near East article to be more balanced (and give the MC some love).

Reasonable? :-) Ploversegg (talk) 00:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

That seems like the best call to me. john k (talk) 05:33, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Still haven't seen any valid argument why Wikipedia should favour the SC (especially since all but one of the mentioned sources favouring the MC are newer than Gasche 1998, and because, as handbooks, they definitely better represent the majority view in the field). The pushing of the SC here seems a little bit like POV, to be honest, and I guess there is some OR in there as well, especially if originally MC dates are converted to SC.

In my view, the best way to go would be to create an article putting the SC and MC next to each other in a chart, and then let people decide for themselves per article whether they want to use SC or MC (in most cases this would be decided by which choice the sources they use made), in much the same way as UK vs US spelling (as long as it's consistent). For example, the few ANE articles that I intend to write somewhere in the future have MC dates in the literature; and I am not going to convert them to SC because that would be OR.

Anyway, since I am not the one who is going to write these chronology articles, and since I do not intend to do much ANE editing in the near future anyway, I am going to leave it as it is for now. But the issue has been raised before, with much the same arguments as I did, and will probably be raised in the future as well. The argument "it's a waste of the work that has been done so far" is understandable, but it simply isn't valid. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 16:13, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Converting dates is not OR. john k (talk) 00:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok. My point remains valid, though, as the majority of the sources so far still supports the MC (as a matter of fact; no support whatsoever has so far been offered for the SC). But as I said, I am not going to push this issue. I find the current emphasis on the SC just curious.

As a besides; why does this article only deal with the 3rd millennium upward? I would have expected this article to deal with the entire chronology from the Palaeolithic upward. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 01:14, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I can answer that last question. The issue being debated is highly specific year-by-year chunks of chronology known from Mesopotamian records, mainly between Sargon I, and the sack of Babylon. After the sack of Babylon, because of a supposed "dark ages", these records seem not to have been kept in such detail as to allow construction of a detailed chronology, until you get to the first millenium which is far more certain. This has everything to do with where to place certain specific historical events known from the written record, and nothing to do with estimations concerning prehistory, which are all unlike, and speculative, from one author's rough guesstimate to the next. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 01:23, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't have much in the way of specific sources to back this up, as I'm certainly not a specialist on the ancient Near East, but my sense is that general works not particularly interested in chronology tend to stick with the more traditional middle chronology, but works that are actually on chronology are increasingly supportive of the short chronology. If that's an accurate characterization, I'm not sure what that means we should use. john k (talk) 02:30, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I just found a fairly good and up to date discussion of the problems here. Cheers, Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 02:38, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Luckily, dating prehistory is far from "speculative" and certainly no "rough guestimate" ;-). And an article like this would be perfect to provide a link between historical and prehistorical periods. There are many articles on Mesopotamian prehistorical periods, but they seem almost completely separated from the historical stuff. A page like this could provide the framework to integrate those pages.

The point is, this article is supposed to be about Chronology of the ANE in general, and not only about Bronze Age chronology. If that is the case, it should be renamed to Chronology of the Bronze Age ANE or something similar. Furthermore, the Bronze Age is not the only period for which there exist chronological issues, so even if this article only deals with chronological problems, more periods should be included. Therefore, all periods, including all prehistoric periods, should be included; at least that's what I would expect to find if I came looking for an article like this. Furthermore, even if prehistoric dates would be speculative, this article is about relative chronology; otherwise it wouldn't link to the Short chronology timeline for absolute dates.

Anyway, as for the SC/MC debate; the observation that specialist works tend to use the SC is simply untrue. First of all, the only example cited so far is Gasche 1998, and that is not widely picked up, not even among Assyriologists. Furthermore, C14 dating favours something in between the SC and the MC, but a lot closer to the MC. If needed, I can give the references to that as well.

So, again, the fact remains that there are still no references in favour of the SC. The site found by Til Eulenspigel reflects that as well; everyone knows there are problems with each chronology (which is also acknowledged in the sources I cited), and the MC remains the most widely accepted. I have no problem with the SC per se, but at least there should be good arguments for why it was chosen, and those are lacking so far, to be honest. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 03:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not care which 2nd millennium chronology is used, because anyone in the know, knows well that these are only relative conventions that are used for fixing these relative 2nd millennium dates, with no conclusive proof as of yet. However with regards to "prehistory" please brush up on the basic difference between "prehistory" and "history". "Prehistory" means the time before there were any written records, no chronologies, no specific dates, and all those who assert that they can divine specific dates through non-historical means are taken as guessing, but no matter how authoritative they present themselves as stating specifically what happened in a specific year before there were any written records, there will be greater disagreement, not consensus. There is already enough disagreement about the details of the lists we do know. Another factor is that government A might have one agenda and pretend that one set of prehistoric dates is "authoritative" for proving its version of prehistory, and ridicule dissent, while government B might have a distinct agenda, set of dates, version of prehistory, and targets of ridicule. But ridicule is not compelling proof; history is history, and prehistory will always be prehistory. Serious historians who want to find the real truth, rather than prove or disprove an agenda, know well how many grains of salt are required for all "prehistoric dates". Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:45, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd be fine with switching to use Middle Chronology in articles, so long as the chronological debates are explained elsewhere. We should, however, try to be consistent about it between articles. john k (talk) 13:43, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I should have given the prehistory-history discussion its own discussion, but anyway. I am very much aware of the difference between prehistory and history. It seems though as if we have a different understanding of the word 'chronology'. To me, it is simply an ordering in time of whatever you want to order, be it (historical) events and/or archaeological periods. So therefore, logically, a chronology would include prehistoric as well as historic periods. However, you seem to limit a chronology to historical events only. Am I correct in this? As it would explain a lot of the discussion we are having here.

So, from my point of view, this article is about the entire Chronology of the ANE (simply because it is not called "Bronze Age chronology of the ANE", or "Historical chronology of the ANE"), and chronologies are not limited to historical periods or king-lists. The only thing that changes over the prehistory-history divide is that we get extra data to define our periods (namely texts), but otherwise nothing changes. Therefore, in my opinion, this article should present an overview of the entire chronology of the entire ANE (starting from the Palaeolithic and including the Levant, Mesopotamia, Turkey and Iran), and not just about the 3rd-2nd mill BC in Mesopotamia as it is now.

As for the use of non-historical dating methods to historians; you might check out the discussion on Iron Age chronology in the Levant. C14 dating is having a serious effect on the until recently primarily Biblically/historically-based chronologies. And contrary to historically based chronologies, C14 dates can be evaluated in a lab and on purely scientific grounds. You are absolutely correct in stating that historical chronologies are flawed because of ancient as well as modern politics, (hidden) agendas etc. C14 does not have that problem and can therefore provide the external evidence that is needed to decide for one of the historical models. The only reason this has not yet happened for Mesopotamia is that there are simply no modern C14 dates available. However, in northern Syria, the primarily historically-based Mesopotamian chronology of Akkad-Ur III-OB has already been abandoned for a chronology that is entirely based on ceramics, stratigraphy, and C14 dates (and with its own terminology), simply because the latter will eventually become, and in some cases already are, more reliable than the historical records for that period. I expect that the shift in dating that we see in N-Syria and Turkey will also occur in Iraq, once archaeological research resumes there.

I absolutely agree about consistency. As for the organization of this article; I would suggest the following: Chronology of the Ancient Near East presents a chronology of all periods in the entire Near East. Per subsection, there can be links to main articles for the periods and areas concerned. Where there are debates, such as in the 3rd/2nd mill BC in Mesopotamia, or the Iron Age in the Levant, we choose an option, provide that option here (ie SC or MC), and make a sub-page in which the debate is discussed, as well as the alternatives, so as not to swamp this page with highly technical discussions about the dating of reign XY vs reign XX. So, in my view, the 3rd/2nd mill. chronology debate would get its own separate page, as a lot of people don't want to know whether the sack of Babylon was ~1600 BC or ~1500 BC, they simply want to know, mid-2nd millennium BC. Furthermore, there should be a more general introductory section about chronology construction which deals with the problems of creating relative as well as absolute chronologies, and this can then link to further main articles (the whole issue of aligning king-lists is not limited to Mesopotamia). The problem at the moment is, that the Bronze Age discussion is now swamping the whole chronology page, even though it actually is only a small part of ANE chronology. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 16:20, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

"Where there are debates"... you say... LOL That could make the page very long indeed, considering the amount of speculation and disagreement there is about the grey areas! The fact is, the earliest of the cuneiform archive libraries with myriads of records to be found so far, is undeniably the one at Ebla. That gives an idea of the local geopolitical situation at ca. 2300 BC, but unfortunately even after many years, detailed info on most of the discoveries there remains difficult to access. Another important cuneiform library with tons of tablets, that would presumably shed light on the so-called "dark ages" is the Kassite archive from ca. 1300-1200 BC, that had been found at Nippur. But again, regrettably, very little of that material was ever translated, and it has been largely overlooked. So many of these archives from different centuries have been found, notably at places like Mari, Nuzi, Ugarit, and many others, that enables us to establish solid chains of events from contemporary documents, as opposed to accounts written centuries after the fact. Since later accounts are always suspected of being embellished, this is a crucial distinction. And its also a crucial distinction because there will always be debates and "points-of-view" about what happened before the record opens, and even enough debates about what happened after it opens! Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 01:44, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be missing the point. Exactly because there is so much possible debate, this page should try to avoid focussing on that debate and instead focus on the most widely accepted chronology, and that is, as I hope to have shown, still the MC (or the SC, if Wikipedia consensus is on that). All debates and alternative chronologies should then be relegated to subpages (for example: "Bronze Age chronology of Mesopotamia"). The fact that many archives are unpublished is irrelevant for Wikipedia; its aim is not to speculate on what could be, but to record what we know now. So, in order to get something constructive out of this discussion, what is your opinion on my suggestion on how this page should be organized? For example, do you agree that it should cover the entire ANE (and not only Mesopotamia, as is the case now), and that it should include prehistory as well? And if not, why? -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 02:00, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I am confused. You said "in my view, the 3rd/2nd mill. chronology debate would get its own separate page, as a lot of people don't want to know whether the sack of Babylon was ~1600 BC or ~1500 BC, they simply want to know, mid-2nd millennium BC." The whole idea of "Chronology" here involves determining (or trying to determine) exactly how long ago a given event occurred - to the very year, or even month and day. So I totally don't get where your reasoning "a lot of people don't want to know" is coming from. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 03:01, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a chronology is about determining when something happened. So that's what people want to know. They don't want to know about all the discussions behind it, and whether eclipse XY took place on 15 January 1401 BC or 16 February 1502 and how that affects the reign of king XZ. They just want 1 date that is approximately correct (hence, the "mid-2nd millennium BC"), and a link for those that want to know more. So, therefore I propose to choose either the MC or the SC (and I would opt for the MC because that remains the most widely used, but that's open for discussion, for which I started this section in the first place), use those dates here in a consistent way with a short explanation of the problems involved, and delegate the technical stuff and alternative chronologies to a subpage. So, how does that sound? -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 03:18, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

PS, you don't seriously want to define periods up to the month, do you? Given the problems involved, that would only create a false sense of precision that is just not justified by the available data. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 03:33, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not see how you can presume to speak for what people "want to know" and "don't want to know", but I would be wary of such presumptions. And yes, the cuneiform records we have are almost all dated to a specific month. That is the rule, not the exception. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 04:25, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I know that many clay tablets provide a month and a day. And many don't. I don't say that months should not be included in Wikipedia at all; however I do say that is a general article, so here the kind of precision that you seem to like is certainly out of place. This article should summarize the main regional chronologies, and provide links to the more detailed main articles for those that are more interested. At least, that's why I am trying to suggest here.

Anyway, can we get to the main point of this discussion please? That is (1) Which chronology are we going to use (and if you favour the SC, please provide an argumentation and, if necessary, refs for that), and (2) what do you think about the proposal I made to restructure this page? -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 04:34, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

So far I have not agreed with any of your rationale, insofar as I have been able to follow it. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 04:37, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. Please explain what exactly you don't understand or point out the sentences with which you have a problem. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 04:40, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, you are proposing a very different article from what we have now, one that sounds like it would largely imply that there is some sort of general agreement on ANE chronology, which is the opposite of the case - there are multiple views of history, and much contention, especially about the grey areas. You simultaneously said the article should be limited to what scholars agree to (which is virtually nothing), without explaining the debate, and also that it should explain where there is debate, but shuffle the debate off to another article. And the main rationale given seems to be "because people reading this article don't want to know, so therefore they don't need to know." Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 04:48, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I see. You indeed completely misunderstood my intentions and my rationale. No problem, I'll try again.

As you can read for yourself, the discussion started about whether Wikipedia should use the MC or the SC. The reason why a choice should be made for either of those, is because of consistency. This article uses the SC, because it says that the SC has scholarly consensus. However, no refs were provided to back up that claim. Therefore, I provided a number of refs to show that consensus is with the MC, and not the SC, even though everyone admits that there are problems with both. The reason why Wikipedia should make a choice in this matter is because of consistency. So, the argument is as follows:

1) There are problems with each chronology, as is readily admitted by every ANE scholar.

2) Despite the problems, most scholars still use the MC (as is proven by my refs), and the MC is therefore "mainstream".

3) Wikipedia should try to follow "mainstream science". In this case, "mainstream science" is the MC. Therefore, Wikipedia should follow the MC.

Your comment that I argue that people don't need to know about any chronology problems is simply untrue. In fact, what I said above was:

"Furthermore, there should be a more general introductory section about chronology construction which deals with the problems of creating relative as well as absolute chronologies, and this can then link to further main articles [...]. "

I also said:

"So, therefore I propose to choose either the MC or the SC [...], use those dates here in a consistent way with a short explanation of the problems involved, and delegate the technical stuff and alternative chronologies to a subpage."

Please explain where I say that people don't need to know. It almost seems like you haven't read my posts at all.

That was what this discussion was originally about. So, please state your opinion on whether Wikipedia should use a consistent chronology for the ANE, and if so, whether it should be the MC or the SC. If not, please describe why, and provide a viable alternative. As regards the reorganization of this article, I'll write something about that tomorrow. First I would like to hear your opinion on the use of a consistent chronology throughout ANE articles. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 05:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem I see in what you wrote above is failure to understand the basic definition of "consensus". Scholarly consensus is not determined by "whichever voice is shouting the loudest". What the word "consensus" actually implies is something about which there is NO shouting; something that is not a subject of any dispute or controversy, and that only one significant school of thought exists for a given aspect, one that everyone agrees on. It's often very tempting for many partisans to assert an artificial consensus, where there is none. But clearly what we have on this question is an absence of consensus, so therefore that's what we must report. So, rather than dismiss the schools of thought / POVs that we don't subscribe to, present what seems to us a majority POV and proclaim that "consensus" (which word implies no disagreement), all in the name of that hobgoblin called "consistency", WP:NPOV instead means we have to inform our readers what are all the various views of history, and who holds them, without playing "favorites" as far as possible. This should be the article that explains this, and the editors who wrote it have done a splendid job IMO. The major competing chronology systems should therefore all be equally acceptable in an article (a la British v. American spellings) , provided that when they are used, they link to this article which explains why there are competing systems. In short, the way it is already being handled right now is the best and most neutral.

I notice that we have an article called Short chronology timeline. It looks like the scope of that article is not discussing the chronology dispute, but presenting an actual timeline of one of the competing chronologies. The article you are describing that you want to see, might therefore be titled "Middle chronology timeline", and I can see a need for such an article. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

OK. I am going to take my hands off this. I get the feeling that you are not really willing to look into the points I am trying to make, given that it seems to me that you continue to slightly twist them around, even though I have tried to explain them as clearly as I can. If I have to do this much discussion in order to get to work on an article; I'll choose another one; I am not here to do this kind of discussion, I am here to write articles on topics I like. That's too bad, as I sincerely think that this article is completely off topic in many ways (it should be about "Chronology of the ANE", per the title of the page, and not about "Problems in chronology in 3rd-2nd millennium BC Mesopotamia", as it is now), and I was actually getting warmed up to do something about it (as you can read, I initially wasn't planning to do that). This article could - and should - be the backbone tying all ANE articles together, but that might have to wait a little longer. Another reason is that I noticecd that you have recently been involved in some edit warring, and given your somewhat heated responses here, I get the feeling that you are not really willing to compromise. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 14:33, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

PS, you say that this article does a splendid job in explaining all the POVs in the chronology debate. However, this article says that scholarly consensus is with the Short Chronology (and does not even provide sources for that claim). Please explain to me how that fits into your view of a "splendid job" and how that fits into your comments about what consensus means? -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 15:12, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this discussion seems to be getting less and less productive, I'm not going to come here to defend my recent edit history either, as that would be another fallacy of logic. We definitely need an article to explain what this article explains. Mesopotamia is not the entire Ancient Near East; it definitely ties in with the rest of the Levant. Tying the Ancient Near East with Egyptian chronology is a whole other kettle of fish, but tangentially related to this scope. So this article may as well continue to reside here, to link people to an explan ation of why there is a debate. It may need to be tweaked, I especially agree that any claim that one or another chronology enjoys "consensus" ought to be reliably sourced. But a timeline of the Middle Chronology on another page would be a good thing to have IMO, to balance Short chronology timeline. So why not just create the article you say you want, and simply call it Middle chronology timeline? Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 00:05, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Because that's not the article that I think Wikipedia needs (that is, you are right that it should exist, but it is not the one I had in mind, and the title would not fit the page I had in mind). The article that I have in mind is a chronological overview of all periods (including the Natufian, Zarzian, PPNA, EJ 0-V, ED I-III, LC 0-5, etc) of all areas of the Ancient Near East (ie Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Iran and the Arabic peninsula). Such an overview would start with the Palaeolithic and continue up to Alexanders conquest (or whenever you want the ANE to end) and provide the most widely used dates for every regional and chronological subperiod. Where necessary, you link to subpages that deal in more detail with specific periods and that discuss alternative chronologies and the problems involved in chronology construction. Such a page would truely be a Chronology of the Ancient Near East. The contents of the page as it is now, could then be moved to a page named (for example) Bronze Age chronology of Mesopotamia (because that is at the moment the only thing that this page discusses. And don't start on the terminology here, please; I know that Bronze Age isn't used in conjunction with Mesopotamia; I just use it here as a shortcut for 3rd-2nd millennium BC), and the main chronology article would provide a link to that page for those that are interested in the MC/SC debate in Mesopotamia (and another link to the Iron Age debate in the Levant, and so on). -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 01:10, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

While I agree that you are describing a very different article from this one, I would object to that renaming proposal. You are describing a timeline, and this is an article is not a timeline, but an article about the subject of determining ANE chronology (of specific dates in history, not vague dates in prehistory). The article you are proposing should at least have the word "timeline" in it to show the distinction. And since we already have a "timeline" article for the short, and you seem to favor the Middle, I just thought you could call it Middle Chronology Timeline. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 01:32, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

The Middle/Short chronology debate only affects the 3rd/2nd millennium. As I want to include all periods of the Near East, a page named Middle chronology timeline would not cover its contents. Apart from that, your distinction between chronology and time-line is forced. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a chronology is "1. The science of computing and adjusting time or periods of time, and of recording and arranging events in the order of time; computation of time, assignation of events to their correct dates. 2. A chronological table, list, or treatise." So, the word chronology would actually cover both the actual periods and their ordering, as well as the debate behind it. Therefore, I still think that my original proposal would better reflect the title of this page than the current contents.

Your comments about "vague prehistory" are besides the point. They may be less securely dated, but they can - and are - still absolutely dated and chronologically ordered. Therefore, they can be put in a chronology. And nothing in the definition of chronology says that it can only be applied to events for which we have a precise date (in which case we would have to discard the entire Mesopotamian 3rd-2nd millennium BC chronology as well, because the whole SC/MC debate is centers on the fact that we do not know the exact dates). Apart from that, some prehistoric periods are more precisely dated than the difference between the MC and the SC (and no, C14 has nothing to do with individual guesstimates, it's hard science; something you can't say about historical dates), so I don't understand why you think this supposed "vagueness" is a relevant point here.

So, in order to bring the contents of this page in agreement with the name of the page, I still think that this page should (1) provide an overview of all periods in the entire ANE (and not only the 3rd/2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamia, as it does now), (2) provide summary discussions of the problems, and (3) link to main articles for more details (which, in the case of Mesopotamia, could be the proposed Bronze Age chronology of Mesopotamia or something similar). -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 02:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, as regards my position toward the Middle Chronology, I don't favour it, I use it; as do most other scientists (as my refs have shown). There is a disctinction between the two. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 02:16, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm opposed to any such drastic change, because I don't see the need for it, but I'm not prepared to keep arguing it to the death. The minor problems are: uncited POV claims of consensus for one or another chronoplogy, and the need for another article such as the one you describe, which is a timeline, and should be called a timeline. Yes, "chronology" can have a variety of definitions according to the dictionary, including that of "timeline". But the nomenclature we use here on this wikipedia for that is definitely "timeline". This is, and I still think should remain, an article explaining the subject of ANE "chronology", and especially explaining why there is more than one version of it. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 02:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

References

New Chronology

We must adopt the new chronolgy based on Boris Banjevič: Ancient Eclipses an dating the fall of Babylon to year 1547 BC. http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2006POBeo..80..251B --Bynk33 (talk) 09:32, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

(== Elulu == I removed the Note that suggested that Elulu of Akkad might be a Gutian king because the only (one!) source for the idea is in a paper written in French, which I can't read i.e. Glassner, Jean-Jacques. 1986. La Chute d?Akkadé: L?événement at sa mémoire. Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient 5. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer)

I have found book: The SUMERIAN KING LIST 1939, by Thorkild Jacobsen, and Gutian king Elulumeš is posible the same as king Elulu from Akkad. But its wery old book and their datation is wery wery long, but interesting for datation Sumerian kings to Babylon Hamurapi. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.91.4.223 (talk) 19:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Criticism of radiocarbon dating comes from a theological source

A significant part of the criticism of radiocarbon dating is sourced from an article in the journal Origins, a theological journal that promotes young earth creationism.

http://grisda.org/resources/origins/

From their FAQ: "However, when scientists make claims that conflict with the Bible, Christians have good reason to doubt them. Refusal of scientists to even consider the possibility of supernatural processes eliminates the possibility of reaching correct explanations for events caused by supernatural activity. For this reason, those who accept divine activity in history do not feel compelled to accept materialistic explanations for historical events, regardless of the success of science in other areas."

The portion of the article derived from this source should be considered unreliable and removed. Acleverpseudonym (talk) 10:11, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

 Fixed --Zoeperkoe (talk) 08:54, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Chronology of the ancient Near East/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This article is fairly good, except that it lacks inline citations. ¿SFGiДnts! ¿Complain! ¿Analyze! ¿Review! 17:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 17:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 11:43, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Chronology?

Shouldn't a page titled Chronology of... include, you know, an actual chronology? Is this a jargon term of historians of the ancient Middle East? Right now the article reads like an instruction to chroniclers as to what source material to use etc. I suggest either changing the title to something less misleading or compiling the information given into a comprehensible list. In addition it is unclear as to what definition of antiquity is used, why do all cited dates not exceed 750 BCE?

Edit: I just checked the German page and the article immediately states that this chronology only applies to the 15th century BC. That is why it is confusing to non-historians. My suggestions stand and I want to ask someone with actual expertise to please include the disclaimer in the introduction, that this is not a "full" chronology in the defined sense. 134.100.155.7 (talk) 14:37, 31 January 2019 (UTC)