(Redirected from Short chronology)
The '
chronology of the
ancient Near East' is a framework of dates for various events, rulers and dynasties of the
3rd and
2nd millennia BC.
There are several competing models, including:
★ The 'ultra-low' 'chronology' sets the fall of Babylon at the year
1499 BC and the reign of king Hammurabi
1696 BC–
1654 BC.
★ The 'low' or 'short chronology' sets the eighth year of Ammisaduqa at the year
1531 BC as the end of the first dynasty (with a reign of king Hammurabi
1728 BC–
1686 BC).
★ The 'middle chronology', which was the most commonly used chronology until recently, is 64 years (one period between identical conjunctions of
Venus,
Sun and
Moon) earlier than the short chronology (Hammurabi
1792 BC–
1750 BC).
★ The 'long chronology' is 120 years earlier than the short chronology (Hammurabi
1848 BC–
1806 BC).
Primary sources
The chronology of this region is based on five sets of primary materials. They are, from the most recent to the earliest:
1. The
Canon of Ptolemy. This is a list of the kings of Babylon and the
Persian Empire, from
Nabonassar down to
Alexander the Great, which
Claudius Ptolemy added to one of his books because of the astronomical observations connected with this information.
2. An unbroken series of Neo-
Assyrian eponym lists from the time of
Ashurbanipal (r.
669-c.
627 BC) back to
Adad-nirari II (ascended in
911). These lists assign to each year an eponymous official known as a
limmu, and some bearing an important event for the previous year, are fixed with the precision of a year due to the mention of the
solar eclipse of
June 16,
763 BC (it must be noted, however, that opting for 763 BC date instead of 791 BC raises a problem of inconsistency with the
Babylonian calendar - see
Assyrian eclipse and
Assyrian new year). These two sets overlap for over a hundred years, and help to supplement each other.
3. For the centuries between the previous two groups and the ones following, we depend upon a group of interrelated, yet incomplete, documents:
Babylonian King Lists A and
B, the
Synchronistic Chronicle, the
Assyrian King List, and a number of shorter lists of year names recovered from Babylon and Assyria.
4. The
First Dynasty of Babylon. Not only have all of the year names for
Hammurabi and his descendants survived more or less intact, but a
record of astronomical observations made during the eighth
regnal year of
Ammisaduqa, offer another opportunity to reliably fix these floating dates. Unfortunately, due to ambiguities in the text, as well as disagreements over the interpretation of these observations, there are three possible dates for these observations, which have led to the three chronologies mentioned above.
5. The
Sumerian King List. The beginning of the
third dynasty of
Ur (
Ur-Nammu;
2047 BC short ch.) is the earliest date that may be directly calculated from dates of Assyrian or Babylonian sources. Preceding this date is the
Gutian period, variously estimated to have lasted between 45 and 120 years. The preceding
Akkadian period is again well-documented, leading to a year of ca.
2235 BC for the ascension of
Sargon of Akkad. Yet earlier dates are subjected to increasing uncertainty.
Synchronisms
Assur and Babylon
The chronology of
Babylon and
Assur can be aligned by the list of wars and treaties between the two cities from the time of king
Ashurbanipal.
Hittite chronology is dependent on Assyria and Egypt. For times earlier than
1500 BC, various systems based on the
Venus tablets of Ammisaduqa have been proposed. The death of
Shamshi-Adad I of Assur in the 17th year of the reign of Hammurabi (
1712 BC short ch.) is another synchronism which is helpful. The Palace at Acemhöyük burned to the ground, allowing for Dendochronological dating of the seal impression of Shamshi-Adad I found in the ruins. While the stratigraphy of the connection between the burnt beams and the seal impression is not 100% clear, it does support the short chronology.
The entries of the Synchronistic Chronicle, mentioned above, record which Assyrian king was ruling during which Babylonian king's reign, and vice versa.
Mesopotamia and Egypt
Main articles: Egyptian chronology,
Conventional Egyptian chronology
It is possible that mutual influences existed between the
Nile Valley and Mesopotamia since very early times. Some authorities believed that Mesopotamian influence affected predynastic
Upper Egypt (also known as the
Mesopotamian Stimulation) between
34th–
31st centuries BC. As of this date, the evidence is not conclusive. On the other hand
Iron age Hama (
Hamath) shows strong Egyptian influence.
The
Amarna letters provide the earliest known synchronisms between
ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. They provide clear evidence that the
New Kingdom kings
Amenhotep III and
Akhenaten were contemporaries of
Kadashman-Enlil I and
Burnaburiash II of Babylon,
Ashur-uballit I of Assyria, and
Suppiluliumas I of the
Hittite empire.
Other synchronisms between Mesopotamia and Egypt are indirect, depending on synchronisms between Egypt and the Hittite empire. For example, because
Ramesses II signed a peace treaty with
Hattusili III in Ramesses' 21st regnal year, and letters from Hattusili III to
Kadashman-Turgu and
Adad-nirari I of Assyria exist, one can argue that the reign of Ramesses overlapped the reigns of Kadashman-Turgu and Adad-nirari I.
Direct synchronisms between Egypt and Assyria return in the
Third Intermediate Period of Egypt (
Dynasty 25), when Assyrian armies attacked and conquered Egypt.
Mesopotamia and the Hittite Empire
Main articles: List of Hittite kings
The
sack of Babylon by the Hittite king
Mursilis I, which ended the reign of
Samsu-Ditana, provides an anchor for the earliest dates in Hittite history.
The
Battle of Nihriya links
Tudhaliya IV and Adad-nirari I as contemporaries.
The correspondence of the Hittite kings
Hattusili III and Tudhaliya IV with the Assyrian chancellor
Babu-ahu-iddina conclusively proves that they were the contemporaries of Adad-nirari I,
Shalmaneser I and
Tukulti-Ninurta I, not their later namesakes.
Babylon and Assyria
Main articles: Babylonia and Assyria
The
Chaldean king
Nabonidus (reigned from
556 BC), who was more of an
antiquarian than a politician, and spent his time in excavating the older temples of his country and ascertaining the names of their builders, tells us that
Naram-Sin, the son of
Sargon of Akkad, lived 3200 years before himself, i.e. around
3750 BC. It is generally accepted by the archaeological consensus this date is much too early. As the reign of King
Nabonidus ended by the accession of Cyrus in Babylonia around
539 or
538 BC, the "years" may have been given by actual modern ''
half years.'' The
Jewish chronology and the
Old Testament has the same situation with the same dilemma. Their "years" may have been commenced both by the first day of
Nisanu (
Nisan) and that of
Tashritu (
Tishri) in their remote histories. Therefore, it is likely that the correct interval is not 3200 but 1600. It is probably a rounded figure. One must be careful with the several intervals between rulers and events cited by the above mentioned unearthed documents. We cannot prove that a totally reliable chronological list was available for all the scribes, and they may not have been versed historians. They may have been pressed to give a figure but not enough time for a thorough research. Many of the figures contradict to each other, etc.
Chronology
Third Dynasty of Uruk
Main articles: Uruk
Dynasty of Akkad
Main articles: Akkad
Akkadian ruler; possibly Sargon or Naram-sim.
Kish
Main articles: Kish (Sumer)
Lagash
Main articles: Lagash
Medians-Elamites
According to
Berossus, eight
Median-
Elamite usurper tyrants ruled for 224 years.
| Ruler | proposed reign | Dating notes |
|---|
| Ur-utu(k) | 2195-2189 | |
| Utu-khegal or Utu-khengal | 2189-2179 | contemporary of Tirigan, the last king of the Guti |
Gutian Kings
Main articles: Guti (Mesopotamia)
Fifth Dynasty of Uruk
| Ruler | low | conventional | Dating notes |
|---|
| Utu-hegal | 2055-2048 | 2119-2113 | |
Third Dynasty of Ur (Sumerian Renaissance)
Main articles: Third Dynasty of Ur
Dynasty of Isin
Main articles: Isin
First Babylonian Dynasty (Dynasty I)
Main articles: First Babylonian Dynasty
Code of Hammurabi..
Divergent chronological views
Eclipses
There is no disagreement over the dates of the Persian and later Babylonian and Assyrian kings. The Canon of Ptolemy lists the kings who ruled in Babylon with the number of years they reigned, from
Nabonassar in
747 BC to the conquest of Babylon by
Alexander the Great in
331 BC. The Canon's accuracy is confirmed by the larger king lists, the principal Babylonian Chronicle and the Assyrian Eponym Lists (or limmu lists), by which Assyrian chronology is fixed from
911 BC to
666 BC. The solar eclipse of
June 15 763 BC, which is recorded in the eponymy of Pur-Sagale or Bur-Sagale, fixes the reckoning for these later periods (however, it must be noted that there is a problem of inconsistency with the
Babylonian calendar here and only an earlier eclipse, that of
June 24 791 BC, matches the description and the calendar rules - see
Assyrian eclipse).
For the years before these dates, historians put forward different chronologies, with the discrepancy between them growing further back in time. The various opinions stem from some of the available data being either ambiguous or conflicting.
Dynasties IV and VIII
Since its publication in 1884 the Babylonian List of Kings has furnished the framework for every chronological system that has been proposed. In its original form this document gave a list, arranged in dynasties, of the Babylonian kings, from the First Dynasty of Babylon down to the Neo-Babylonian period. If the text were complete we should probably be in possession of the system of Babylonian chronology current in the NeoBabylonian period from which our principal classical authorities derived their information. The principal points of uncertainty, due to gaps in the text, concern the length of Dynasties IV and VIII; for the reading of the figure giving the length of the former is disputed, and the summary at the close of the latter omits to state its length. This omission is much to be regretted, since Nabonassar was the last king but two of this dynasty, and, had we known its duration, we could have combined the information on the earlier periods furnished by the Kings' List with the evidence of the Ptolemaic Canon. In addition to the Kings' List, other important chronological data consist of references in the classical authorities to the chronological system of
Berossus; chronological references to earlier kings occurring in the later native inscriptions, such as Nabonidus's estimate of the period of
Hammurabi; synchronisms, also furnished by the inscriptions, between kings of Babylon and of Assyria; and the early Babylonian date-lists.
Dynasties I, II, and III
In view of the uncertainty regarding the length of Dynasties IV and VIII of the Kings' List, attempts have been made to ascertain the dates of the earlier dynasties by independent means. The majority of writers, after fixing the date at which Dynasty III closed by means of the synchronisms and certain of the later chronological references, have accepted the figures of the Kings' List for the earlier dynasties, ignoring their apparent inconsistencies with the system of Berossus and with the chronology of
Nabonidus. Others have attempted to reconcile the conflicting data by amendations of the figures and other ingenious devices. This will explain the fact that while the difference between the earliest and latest dates suggested for the close of Dynasty III is only 144 years, the difference between the earliest and latest dates suggested for the beginning of Dynasty I is no less than 622 years.
A comparison of the principal schemes of chronology that have been propounded may be made by means of the preceding table. The first column gives the names of the writers and the dates at which their schemes were published, while the remaining columns give the dates they have suggested for Dynasties I, II and III of the Kings' List (These three dynasties are usually known as the First Dynasty of Babylon, the Dynasty of Sisku or Uruku, and the Kassite Dynasty). The systems with the highest dates are placed first in the list; where a writer has produced more than one system, these are grouped together, the highest dates proposed by him determining his place in the series.
Omitting that of
Oppert, which to some extent stands in a category by itself, the systems fall into three groups. The first group, comprising the second to the sixth names, obtains its results by selecting the data on which it relies and ignoring others. The second group, comprising the next four names, attempts to reconcile the conflicting data by amending the figures. The third group, consisting of the last two names, is differentiated by its proposals with regard to Dynasty II. It will be noted that the first group has obtained higher dates than the second, and the second group higher dates on the whole than the third.
Selective sources
Oppert's system represents the earliest dates that have been suggested. He accepted the figures of the Kings' List and claimed that he reconciled them with the figures of Berossus; though he ignored the later chronological notices. But there is no evidence for his "cyclic date" of
2517 BC, on which his system depended, and there is little doubt that the beginning of the historical period of Berossus is to be set, not in 2506 BC, but in 2232 BC. The two systems of
Archibald Sayce, that of Rogers, the three systems of Winckler, both those of Delitzsch, and that of Maspero, may be grouped together, for they are based on the same principle. Having first fixed the date of the close of Dynasty III, they employed the figures of the Kings', List unemended for defining the earlier periods, and did not attempt to reconcile their results with other conflicting data. The difference of eighteen years in Sayce's two dates for the rise of Dynasty was due to his employing in 1902 the figures assigned to the first seven kings of the dynasty upon the larger of the two contemporary date-lists, which had meanwhile been published, in place of those given by the List of Kings. It should be noted that Winckler (1905) and Delitzsch (1907) gives the dates only in round numbers.
Reconcilliation
A second group of systems may be said to consist of those proposed by Lehmann-Haupt,
Marquart, Peiser, and Rost, for these writers attempted to get over the discrepancies in the data by amending some of the figures furnished by the inscriptions. In 1891, with the object of getting the total duration of the dynasties to agree with the chronological system of Berossus and with the statement of Nabonidus concerning Khammurabi's date, Peiser proposed to emend the figure given by the Kings' List for the length of Dynasty III. The reading of "9 soss and 36 years," which gives the total 576 years, he suggested was a scribal error for "6 soss and 39 years"; he thus reduced the length of Dynasty III. by 177 years and effected a corresponding reduction in the dates assigned to Dynasties I and II. In 1897 Rost followed up Peiser's suggestion by reducing the figure still further, but he counteracted to some extent the effects of this additional reduction by emending Sennacherib's date for Mardukriadin-akhe's defeat of
Tiglath-Pileser I as engraved on the rock at Bavian, holding that the figure 418, as engraved upon the rock, was a mistake for "478." Lehmann-Haupt's first system ~1898 resembled those of Oppert, Sayce, Rogers, Winckler, Delitzsch and Maspero in that he accepted the figures of the Kings' List, and did not attempt to amend them. But he obtained his low date for the close of Dynasty III by amending Sennacherib's figure in the Bavian inscription; this he reduced by a hundred years, instead of increasing it by sixty as Rost had suggested. Lehmann-Haupt's influence is visible in Marquart's system published in the following year; it may be noted that his slightly reduced figure for the beginning of Dynasty I. was arrived at by incorporating the new information supplied by the first date-list to be published. When revising his scheme of chronology in 1900, Rost abandoned his suggested emendation of Sennacherib's figure, but by decreasing his reduction of the length of Dynasty III, he only altered his date for the beginning of Dynasty I by one year. In his revised scheme of chronology, published in 1903, Lehmann-Haupt retained his emendation of Sennacherib's figure, and was in his turn influenced by Marquart's method of reconciling the dynasties of Berossus with the Kings' List. He continued to accept the figure of the Kings' List for Dynasty III, but he reduced the length of Dynasty II by fifty years, arguing that the figures assigned to some of the reigns were improbably high. His slight reduction in the length of Dynasty I was obtained from the recently published date-lists, though his proposed reduction of Ammizaduga's reign to ten years has since been disproved.
Dynasty II rearrangements
A third group of systems comprises those proposed by
Hommel and Niebuhr, for their reductions in the date assigned to Dynasty I were effected chiefly by their treatment of Dynasty II. In his first system, published in 1886, Hommel, mainly with the object of reducing Khammurabi's date, reversed the order of the first two dynasties of the Kings' List, placing Dynasty II before Dynasty I. In his second and third systems (1895 and 1898), and in his second alternative scheme of 1901 (see below), he abandoned this proposal and adopted a suggestion of Halévy that Dynasty III followed immediately after Dynasty I; Dynasty II, he suggested, had either synchronized with Dynasty I, or was mainly apocryphal (''eine spätere Geschichtskonstruction'') Niebuhr's system was a modification of Hommel's second theory, for, instead of entirely ignoring Dynasty II, he reduced its independent existence to 143 years, making it overlap Dynasty I by 225 years. The extremely low dates proposed by Hommel in 1898 were due to his adoption of Peiser's emendation for the length of Dynasty III, in addition to his own elimination of Dynasty II. In 1901 Hommel abandoned Peiser's emendation and suggested two alternative schemes. According to one of these he attempted to reconcile Berossus with the Kings' List by assigning to Dynasty II an independent existence of some 171 years, while as a possible alternative he put forward what was practically his theory of 1895.
Current status
Such are the principles underlying the various chronological schemes which had, until recently, been propounded. The balance of opinion was in favour of those of the first group of writers, who avoided amendations of the figures and were content to follow the Kings' List and to ignore its apparent discrepancies with other chronological data; but it is now admitted that the general principle underlying the third group of theories was actually nearer the truth. The publication of fresh chronological material in 1906 and 1907 placed a new complexion on the problems at issue, and enabled us to correct several preconceptions, and to reconcile or explain the apparently conflicting data.
From a Babylonian chronicle in the
British Museum we now know that Dynasty II. of the Kings' List never occupied the throne of Babylon, but ruled only in the extreme south of Babylonia on the shores of the Persian Gulf; that its kings were contemporaneous with the later kings of Dynasty I. and with the earlier kings of Dynasty III. of the Kings' List; that in the reign of Samsu-ditana, the last king of Dynasty I,
Hittites from
Cappadocia raided and captured Babylon, which in her weakened state soon fell a prey to the
Kassites (Dynasty III); and that later on southern Babylonia, till then held by Dynasty II. of the Kings', List, was in its turn captured by the Kassites, who from that time onward occupied the whole of the Babylonian plain. The same chronicle informs us that Ilu-shuma, an early Assyrian patesi, was the contemporary of Su-abu, the founder of Dynasty I. of the Kings' List, thus enabling us to trace the history of Assyria back beyond the rise of Babylon.
Without going into details, the more important results of this new information may be summarized: the elimination of Dynasty II. from the throne of Babylon points to a date not much 'earlier than 2000 or 2050 B.C. for the rise of Dynasty I., a date which harmonizes with the chronological notices of
Shalmaneser I; Nabonidus's estimate of the period of Khammurabi, so far from being centuries too low, is now seen to have been exaggerated, as the context of the passage in his inscription suggests; and finally the beginning of the historical period of Berossus is not to be synchronized with Dynasty I of the Kings' List, but, assuming that his figures had an historical basis and that they have come down to us in their original form, with some earlier dynasty which may possibly have had its capital in one of the other great cities of Babylonia (such as the Dynasty of Isin).
New data have also been discovered bearing upon the period before the rise of Babylon. A fragment of an early dynastic chronicle from Nippur gives a list of the kings of the dynasties of Ur and Isin. From this text we learn that the Dynasty of Ur consisted of five kings and lasted for 117 years, and was succeeded by the Dynasty of Isin, which consisted of sixteen kings and lasted for 2251/2 years. Now the capture of the city of Isin. by Rim-Sin, which took place in the seventeenth year of Sin-muballit, the father of Khammurabi, formed an epoch for dating tablets in certain parts of Bahylonian and it is probable that we may identify the fall of the Dynasty of Isin with this capture of the city. In that case the later rulers of the Dynasty of Isin would have been contemporaneous with the earlier rulers of Dynasty I of the Kings' List, and we obtain. for the rise of the Dynasty of Ur a date not much earlier than 2300 BC.
Notes
★
1. livius.org - Mesopotamian Chronology
★ See
Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria/1911 for the partly obsolete article of the
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. This version of that article removes some of the conflicting numbers and includes much more absolute dates, based mainly on solar and lunar eclipse records.
External links
★
KingsCalendar - Study of the Chronological Narratives of Judah and Israel in the mid-Eighth Century BC
★
Ancient Near Eastern Chronologies
★
On the Astronomical Records and Babylonian Chronology V. G. Gurzadyan
★
An Assyrian chancellor's archive
★
Reilly, Jim (2000) Chapter 3: Assyrian & Hittite Synchronisms" ''The Genealogy of Ashakhet''
★ http://www.bartleby.com/67/84.html
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