Welcome to the Official Website of Centuries of Darkness
Centuries of Darkness Centuries of Darkness A Challenge to the Conventional Chronology of Old World Archaeology
A book by Peter James in collaboration with I. J. Thorpe, Nikos Kokkinos, Robert Morkot & John Frankish
The only book to provide a serious alternative to the accepted dating of ancient Egypt and the Near East (Bronze to Iron Age). This highly controversial study rocked the foundations of ancient chronology. As a result, Mediterranean and biblical archaeology are now in turmoil.
Showing posts with label Chronology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chronology. Show all posts
Friday, May 24, 2019
Centuries of Darkness
Centuries of Darkness
Friday, May 3, 2019
PeriodO: A gazetteer of period definitions for linking and visualizing data
[First listed in AWOL 6 June 2016, updated 3 May, 2019]
PeriodO: A gazetteer of period assertions for linking and visualizing data
PeriodO: A gazetteer of period assertions for linking and visualizing data
PeriodO is a public domain gazetteer of scholarly definitions of historical, art-historical, and archaeological periods. It eases the task of linking among datasets that define periods differently. It also helps scholars and students see where period definitions overlap or diverge.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
GODOT: Graph of Dated Objects and Texts
GODOT: Graph of Dated Objects and Texts
The aim of this graph database system is to create and maintain a gazetteer of calendar dates in different calendar systems used in the Greek and Roman antiquity all across the mediterranean sea. Like geographical gazetteers this authority list can be used to provide stable, unique identifiers (URIs) for each date in any of the calendar systems that has been used to refer to an astronomical day in any ancient source, be it papyri, ostraca or inscriptions. It will serve as a means to search and browse ancient texts by their precise temporal footprint using these URIs in digital editions and database or TEI/EpiDoc XML driven projects.
Where a clear system of conversions between different calendar systems has been established, dates will be converted algorithmically into (proleptic) Julian calendar and Julian Day Numbers. As more and more dates from antiquity are linked to the GODOT infrastructure, a complex knowledge graph of ancient dated objects and texts evolves. More...
Sunday, October 23, 2016
ARCANE Project: Synchronizing Cultures and Civilizations of the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean in the Third Millennium BC
[First posted in AWOL 10 July 2013, updated 23 October 2016]
ARCANE Project: Synchronizing Cultures and Civilizations of the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean in the Third Millennium BC
ARCANE Project: Synchronizing Cultures and Civilizations of the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean in the Third Millennium BC
The ARCANE project aims at synchronising the third millennium BC regional assemblages of archaeological material in the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean, with the goal to produce a reliable relative and absolute chronology.
To reach this aim, it was decided to review the complete material culture, but to examine it under the specific point of view of chronological variation, leaving aside other historical and archaeological problems. A common methodology will be used by all regional groups, and participants will try to develop, in the course of the project, a common terminology in order to define both periods and different types of material.
The proposed methodology is based on three main points: 1) to concentrate on stratigraphically safe contexts and sealed assemblages (e.g. in situ material on floors, material inside a room sealed by the collapse of the roof, undisturbed, not reused graves) and on complete objects; 2) to analyse complete assemblages (combinations of co-occurring artefacts): these have to be studied together, in order to establish the co-occurrence of different types of objects in the different phases; and 3) not to limit the study to already published material, but to include as much as possible unpublished material, provided by the directors of excavations and their collaborators, which will be involved to different degrees in the project Work will proceed in successive steps: first at a regional level, by establishing regional periodizations, then at a supra-regional level, by synchronising the different regional periodizations. Finally, a general synchronisation will be attempted at...
Friday, February 26, 2016
PPND: Platform for the publication of Neolithic Radiocarbon Dates
: Platform for the publication of Neolithic Radiocarbon Dates
The radiocarbon dates of Epipalaeolithic and early Neolithic sites in the Near East are here compiled and analysed in order to compare the sites in chronological context and check if differences between sites are due to chronological differences alone. This compilation does not intend to be complete but only comprises sites analysed within the frame of the SIGN Project (www.vorderasien.uni-freiburg.de/sign_benz).The preliminary results provided here are intended as a working platform for all those who are interested in the comparison of cultural and environmental developments during the important transitional phase from foraging to farming. References to all radiocarbon dates are given in the descriptions of the sites: the references in the text are only to discussions and archaeological data. All authors and readers are welcomed to help complete and correct the files. The more researchers who offer us their cooperation, the better a basis for archaeological interpretation this compilation will be. Consequently, it has seemed useful to publish all the compiled files (OxCal) ready for calibration analyses, which will facilitate chronological analyses without the need to retype dates.
Information Sites Summary References
Monday, December 1, 2014
The Reconstructed Chronology of the Egyptian Kings
The Reconstructed Chronology of the Egyptian Kings
M. Christine Tetley
Vol. 1: ISBN 978-0-473-29338-3
Vol. 2: ISBN 978-0-473-29463-2
M. Christine Tetley
Vol. 1: ISBN 978-0-473-29338-3
Vol. 2: ISBN 978-0-473-29463-2
Dr Christine Tetley died on 19 July 2013. She was the first female graduate of New Zealand’s Laidlaw College to be awarded a Doctorate in Theology. It was awarded by the Australian College of Theology, again the first awarded to a woman by thesis (others had been honoris causa). Her thesis was published in 2005 by Eisenbrauns entitled The Reconstructed Chronology of the Divided Kingdom. She completed this present work two weeks before her death. Her husband, Rev. Barry Tetley (M.Div. Hons.) has been in Christian ministry for 45 years, including 12 years as a lecturer at NZ's Laidlaw College. He was responsible for the final editing of the text.
The central chronological thesis of this presentation is established by the concordance of inscriptional and astronomical evidence available to Dr Tetley at the time of compilation. It radically differs from most chronological estimates in current Egyptological publications.
It establishes the early use of a civil Calendar in Upper Egypt with Wep Renpet as the first month, with a changing four-year link to the annual heliacal rising of Sothis, referred to in inscriptions. A great number of events reported in historical materials link to new or full moon events, that are pin-pointed by secure astronomical evidence. This evidence establishes the date of Neferefre's reign as the earliest secure date in Egyptian history. From this date, together with analysis of the Turin Canon, the reconstructed Royal Annals, and other ancient king-lists, Dr Tetley establishes new dates for the first five dynasties. Later dynastic records contain numerous sothic or lunar references, which enable the reconstruction of a chronology that conforms to astronomical evidence. Such evidence is not susceptible to the vagaries of guess-work and estimation from a flawed starting date, as is currently relied upon in much of the present information available to the public.
Dr Tetley's methodology must be examined on its merits. The study of Ancient Egypt is ongoing, and Dr Tetley hoped that her contribution to its chronology would provide answers with a confidence that has so far eluded the Egyptology community.
New information can fill “knowledge gaps” and further refine her endeavour. The editor invites readers who recognize such gaps, or errors in the compiled material, to communicate directly with him. Any material of chronological significance that could improve and refine The Reconstructed Chronology of the Egyptian Kings would be exactly within the intentions of Dr Tetley, and would be considered for inclusion and recognition within the existing narrative.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
An absolute chronology for early Egypt using radiocarbon dating and Bayesian statistical modelling
Michael Dee, David Wengrow, Andrew Shortland, Alice Stevenson, Fiona Brock, Linus Girdland Flink, and Christopher Bronk Ramsey,
An absolute chronology for early Egypt using radiocarbon dating and Bayesian statistical modelling
Abstract:
An absolute chronology for early Egypt using radiocarbon dating and Bayesian statistical modelling
Abstract:
The Egyptian state was formed prior to the existence of verifiable historical records. Conventional dates for its formation are based on the relative ordering of artefacts. This approach is no longer considered sufficient for cogent historical analysis. Here, we produce an absolute chronology for Early Egypt by combining radiocarbon and archaeological evidence within a Bayesian paradigm. Our data cover the full trajectory of Egyptian state formation and indicate that the process occurred more rapidly than previously thought. We provide a timeline for the First Dynasty of Egypt of generational-scale resolution that concurs with prevailing archaeological analysis and produce a chronometric date for the foundation of Egypt that distinguishes between historical estimates.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
Stumble It!
