Chronology of the ancient Near East


The chronology of the ancient Near East is a framework of dates for various events, rulers and dynasties. Historical inscriptions and texts customarily record events in terms of a succession of officials or rulers: "in the year X of king Y". Comparing many records pieces together a relative chronology relating dates in cities over a wide area.
For the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, this correlation is less certain but the following periods can be distinguished:
  • Early Bronze Age: Following the rise of cuneiform writing in the preceding Uruk period and Jemdet Nasr periods came a series of rulers and dynasties whose existence is based mostly on scant contemporary sources, combined with archaeological cultures, some of which are considered problematic. The lack of dendrochronology, astronomical correlations, and sparsity of modern, well-stratified sequences of radiocarbon dates from Southern Mesopotamia makes it difficult to assign absolute dates to this floating chronology.
  • Middle Bronze Age: Beginning with the Akkadian Empire around 2300 BC, the chronological evidence becomes internally more consistent. A good picture can be drawn of who succeeded whom, and synchronisms between Mesopotamia, the Levant and the chronology of Ancient Egypt can be established. Unlike the previous period there are a variety of data points serving to help turn this floating chronology into a fixed one. These include astronomical events, dendrochronology, radiocarbon dating, and even a volcanic eruption. Despite this no agreement has been reached. The most commonly seen solution is to place the reign of Hammurabi from 1792 to 1750 BC, the "middle chronology", but there is far from a consensus.
  • Late Bronze Age: The fall of the First Babylonian Empire was followed by a period of chaos where "Late Old Babylonian royal inscriptions are few and the year names become less evocative of political events, early Kassite evidence is even scarcer, and until recently First Sealand dynasty sources were near to non-existent". Afterward came a period of stability with the Assyrian Middle Kingdom, Hittite New Kingdom, and the Third Babylon Dynasty.
  • The Bronze Age collapse: A "Dark Age" begins with the fall of Babylonian Dynasty III around 1200 BC, the invasions of the Sea Peoples and the collapse of the Hittite Empire.
  • Early Iron Age: Around 900 BC, written records once again become more numerous with the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, establishing relatively secure absolute dates. Classical sources such as the Canon of Ptolemy, the works of Berossus, and the Hebrew Bible provide chronological support and synchronisms. An inscription from the tenth year of Assyrian king Ashur-Dan III refers to an eclipse of the sun, and astronomical calculations among the range of plausible years date the eclipse to 15 June 763 BC. This can be corroborated by other mentions of astronomical events, and a secure absolute chronology established, tying the relative chronologies to the now-dominant Gregorian calendar.

    Variant Middle Bronze Age chronologies

Due to the sparsity of sources throughout the "Dark Age", the history of the Near Eastern Middle Bronze Age down to the end of the First Babylonian Dynasty is founded on a floating or relative chronology. There have been attempts to anchor the chronology using records of eclipses and other methods such as dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating, but none of those dates is widely supported.
Currently the major schools of thought on the absolute dating of this period are separated by 56 or 64 years. This is because the key source for this analysis are the omen observations in the Venus tablet of King Ammisaduqa and these are multiples of the eight-year cycle of Venus visibility from Earth. More recent work by Vahe Gurzadyan has suggested that the fundamental eight-year cycle of Venus is a better metric. Some scholars discount the validity of the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa entirely. The alternative major chronologies are defined by the date of the eighth year of the reign of Ammisaduqa, king of Babylon.
The most common Venus Tablet solutions
  • Long Chronology
  • Middle Chronology
  • Middle Low Chronology
  • Low Chronology
  • Ultra Low Chronology
The following table gives an overview of the different proposals, listing some key dates and their deviation relative to the middle chronology, omitting the Supershort Chronology :
ChronologyAmmisaduqa year 8Reign of HammurabiSack of Babylon±years
Ultra-Low1542 BC1696–1654 BC1499 BC−96
Short or Low1574 BC1728–1686 BC1531 BC−64
Middle Low1630 BC1784–1742 BC1587 BC−8
Middle1638 BC1792–1750 BC1595 BC+0
Long or High1694 BC1848–1806 BC1651 BC+56

Astronomical

Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa

In the series, the conjunction of the rise of Venus with the new moon provides a point of reference, or rather three points, for the conjunction is a periodic occurrence. Identifying a conjunction during the reign of king Ammisaduqa with one of these calculated conjunctions will therefore fix, for example, the accession of Hammurabi as either 1848, 1792, or 1736 BC, known as the "high", "middle", and "short chronology".
A record of the movements of Venus over roughly a 16-day period during the reign of a king, believed to be Ammisaduqa of the First Babylonian Dynasty, has been preserved on a tablet called Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa. Twenty copies and fragments have been recovered, all Neo-Assyrian and later. An example entry is
"In month XI, 15th day, Venus in the west disappeared, 3 days in the sky it stayed away, and in month XI, 18th day, Venus in the east became visible: springs will open, Adad his rain, Ea his floods will bring, king to king messages of reconciliation will send."
Using it, various scholars have proposed dates for the fall of Babylon based on the 56/64-year cycle of Venus. It has been suggested that the fundamental 8-year cycle of Venus is a better metric, leading to the proposal of an "ultra-low" chronology. Other researchers have declared the data to be too noisy for any use in fixing the chronology.

Eclipses

A number of lunar and solar eclipses have been suggested for use in dating the ancient Near East. Many suffer from the vagueness of the original tablets in showing that an actual eclipse occurred. At that point, it becomes a question of using computer models to show when a given eclipse would have been visible at a site, complicated by difficulties in modeling the slowing rotation of the Earth and uncertainty about the lengths of months.
Most calculations for dating using eclipses have assumed the Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa to be a legitimate source. The most notable omitted eclipses are the Mari Eponym Chronicle eclipse from the time of Shamshi-Adad I and the Sargon of Akkad eclipse.
Some important examples:
  • Nineveh eclipse – a short text found in an Assyrian list of royal officials which says the following: "Bur-Sagale of Guzana, revolt in the city of Ashur. In the month Simanu an eclipse of the sun took place." Bur-Sagale was the name of the royal official. The text was part of the Eponym dating system. This eclipse is considered to be solidly dated to 15 June 763 BC, corresponding to the ninth or eleventh year of the reign of king Ashur-dan III.
  • Mursili's eclipse – a text in the 10th year of the reign of Mursili II of the Hittite Empire, " I marched zzi, the Sungod gave a sign.", has been interpreted as an eclipse event. Proposed dates range between 1340 BC and 1308 BC.
  • Shulgi Eclipse – Based on a prophecy text called Enuma Anu Enlil 20 which states "If an eclipse occurs on the 14th day of Simānu... The king of Ur, his son will wrong him, and the son who wronged his father, Šamaš will catch him. He will die in the mourning place of his father" from the end of the reign of Shulgi of the Ur III dynasty. A date of 25 July 2093 BC has been proposed. These prophecies were written after the fact to help predict future events. A second prophecy, EAE 21, predicts the fall of Ur III in the reign of Ibbi-Sin stating "If an eclipse occurs on the 14th day of Addaru... The prediction is given for the king of the world: The destruction of Ur".
  • Babylon Eclipse – Another section in EAE 20 refers to the fall of Babylon i.e. "if an eclipse occurs on the 14th day of Shabattu, and the god, in his eclipse... The prediction is given for Babylon: the destruction of Babylon is near...". It refers to a solar eclipse followed by a lunar eclipse. The most likely solution, 1547 BC, does not match up with Venus Tablet solutions. There are textual problems with the prophecy and it has been suggested that Akkad is actually the city in question.
  • Tell Muhammad Eclipse – At Tell Muhammad several tablets, silver loan contracts, were found that were dated with two year names "Year 38 after Babylon was resettled" and "The year that the Moon was eclipsed". The former year name is of a format used by the Kassites, a change from the event format used through the Old Babylonian period. Attempts have been made to use this eclipse to date the sack of Babylon and its resettlement by the Kassites. A date of 1554 BC has been proposed for this.

    Egyptian lunar observations

There are thirteen Egyptian New Kingdom lunar observations which are used to pin the chronology in that period by locking down the accession year of Ramsesses II to 1279 BC. There are a number of issues with this including a) the regnal lengths for Neferneferuaten, Seti I, and Horemheb are actually not known with accuracy, b) where the observations occurred what day the observations were taken the Egyptian calendar for this period is not fully known, especially how intercalary months were handled. Since the Assyrian eponym list is accurate to one year only back to 1132 BC, ancient Near East chronology for the preceding century or so is anchored to Ramsesses II, based on synchronisms and the Egyptian lunar observations. It has been suggested that lunar dates place the accession of Thutmose III, pharaoh of the Battle of Megiddo, to 1490 BC or even 1505 BC versus the current 1470 BC. Ancient observations of the heliacal rise of the star Sirus have also been used to try and date the Egyptian chronology.