 Chronology
Donovan Courville - Problems in Defining a Chronology
Problems comparing ages in different regions.
In examining the basis for the traditional chronology Courville points out that while the chronology of Egypt is based on the Egyptian king lists, the archaeological ages (stone age, bronze age, iron age, etc) are based on work done in Palestine.
Early this century, Sir Flinders Petrie attempted to put the scheme of the Archaeological Ages on a sounder basis by tying it to the various epochs as marked by changes in the characteristic pottery types of the age.
Relating local pottery sequences to the Archaeological Ages is acceptable, and drawing conclusions from similar mounds in the same general area is also acceptable, but a sequence is not a chronology unless it can be firmly correlated with a system of measuring time by years, such as the B.C. time scale.
In Palestine, no written inscriptions have been found in any mound site which permit dating of a stratum in terms of Bible chronology for the Hebrew kings. The dates given to the pottery of Palestine depend on a presumed established chronology of Egypt.
Courville argues quite strongly that there is no such established link. He says it cannot be argued, say, that Middle Bronze in Egypt corresponds in time with Middle Bronze in Palestine. So Egyptian kings placed in a particular age cannot be shown to have lived at the time of a similar age in Palestine.
Therefore the Archaeological Ages cannot be used to compare Bible chronology and Egyptian chronology.
The chronological problem in the Old Kingdom.
Early historians assigned dates to the Egyptian dynasties which make the placing of the sojourn in the XIIth Dynasty impossible. They gave the early dynasties an extreme antiquity, impossibly out of line with any dates reasonably acceptable for the time of the patriarchs.
Budge, writing at the turn of the century, placed Mena, the first Pharaoh, 2,000 - 2,500 years earlier than modern historians do, so there has clearly been room for downward revision of the length of Egyptian rule. Baines and Malek, in their Atlas of Ancient Egypt, assign 2920 - 2770 BC to the first dynasty. As the time of the XIIth Dynasty has been regarded as astronomically fixed to the era 2000 - 1788 BC, this leaves a maximum of 920 years for the first eleven dynasties. Some writers allow even less.
Summation of the data provided by Manetho's king list gives a figure of about 1500 years for these eleven dynasties. It is not possible to maintain a sequential arrangement of the dynasties and stay within the time constraint of 920 years or less.
The only sources which assign these kings to specific dynasties are the transcribers of Manetho (Africanus and Eusebius). Because of damage, the Turin list provides only limited information, and the Karnak list does not give the kings in order, so is of little value for chronological purposes. The Palermo Stone inscription and the list of kings of Thebes by Appolodorus through Syncellus require recognition as sources.
Current views on early Egyptian chronology rest heavily on deductions from the Palermo Stone inscription and yet it is one of the most difficult to interpret in terms of certainty of deduction and should be regarded with caution when standing against other more readily interpretable material.
On the other hand, popular evaluation has tossed aside the Sothis list and the list of Appolodorus as of no chronological value because of their incompleteness. Yet all ancient sources are incomplete in some way, and none, standing alone, provides a basis for a certain chronology. The sources in total have value only because the nature of their limitations have come to be recognised.
When the limitations of the Sothis list and the list of Appolodorus are similarly recognised, they also provide significant information.
The list of Appolodorus is incomplete. It is stated to include only the kings from Thebes. Not all these kings necessarily ruled from Thebes. The early names in the list are those of the Ist Dynasty whic ruled from Thinis.
The Sothis list is incomplete in that it does not contain the names of kings whose reigns were included within the reigns of other kings, and it omits dynasties which ruled contemporaneously with another dynasty. This interpretations can be shown to hold explicitly through Dynasty XII and into the Hyksos era. By Courville's altered chronology, this means that the Sothis list does not contain any kings of Dynasties II, III, VI to XI and XIII, as well as kings within any other dynasties whose period of rule was encompassed by that of another king.
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