One researcher wrote, ‘We should trust that ancient chronological record keepers were correct and accept the details in their documents without question.’ This naïve statement is undoubtedly the opinion of a novice student of historical chronology. The reality is that many ancient records contradict each other. This situation is analogous to data collected in scientific experiments. Some are inconsistent with most of the rest, and the scientists must consider them outliers. Similarly, we must test divergent historical sources to determine which are ‘outliers.’
People who lived millennia ago were very much like us. They made a lot of mistakes. When they copied data, sometimes they mistranscribed it. Moreover, ancient Middle Easterners made many attempts to reconstruct their chronological histories and often got it wrong. However, when two historical sources provide contradictory data, how can we determine which is accurate and which is erroneous?
It is the unfortunate habit of many conventional chronologists to embrace data that seems to conform to their traditional timeline models while rejecting sources that do not. However, a far better approach is to use two general methods to test both pieces or sets of data for their reliability: 1) Which of the two sources better conforms to common sense? 2) Which one has supporting data to prove its authenticity?
An example of contradictory historical information is divergent regnal period information from differing versions of the Assyrian King List (AKL). With the first of these approaches, common sense would dictate that the older copy of the AKL is likely to have the more accurate datum. The premise that “the oldest is the best” is not always true, but adopting this hypothesis is an excellent first step. Proving which one of two contradictory sources is correct is not always easy. Nevertheless, astronomical records, international synchronous king list information, and anciently recorded long-term interval calculations (distanzangabens) can help. In the case of AKL discrepancies, sometimes the number of eponyms (year names) associated with a king’s ruling period can determine if the longer or shorter of two recorded regnal periods is correct.
The Babylonians and Assyrians calculated many distanzangabens, often resulting in incorrect and misleading totals. They summed all the regnal periods between two monarchs on their king lists, and the latter was usually the then-current king. Comparisons of these interval summations from Babylonian and Assyrian sources suggest the AKL has one or more large gaps within the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods. Testing this idea with ancient astronomical records and other data types proves the Babylonian king list information, though imperfect, was far more reliable than the AKL.
Still, the Babylonian interim totals also had problems. Not long after the Kassite Dynasty‘s end, the Second Isin Dynasty’s leaders thought their earlier dynasties were sequential. In reality, they had significant overlapping periods. Thus, the early Kassite, First Sealand, and Amorite Dynasties were principally contemporary. Moreover, the Kassites had combined ‘king list’ information from three concurrent tribes, adding almost an extra century to their dynastic sum. Consequently, their distanzangabens from the late second millennium BCE onward that refer to kings from the First Sealand and Amorite dynasties have totals padded with extra centuries.
A much later example of discrepant chronological records comes from the Seleucid Era. Babylonian astrologers of that period had an advanced knowledge of mathematical astronomy, meaning they could retro-calculate historical celestial configurations. They aimed to match auspicious past events with concurrent astronomical arrangements for their astrological forecasting. However, their historical knowledge was partially flawed, and their calculations were sometimes inaccurate. Moreover, these late-date reconstructions, even when essentially correct, did not consider that documents stating “Seleucid Era Year #” had two methods that differed by one year. Consequently, even correct retro-calculations of astronomical configurations were occasionally offset a year from the historical events the astrologers assigned to them.
Mistaken chronological reconstructions and erroneous king list data from the ancient past still strongly influence scholars today. Just because the sources of information are genuinely ancient, it does not mean they are correct. Use common sense, contemporaneous celestial records, and other data types to test the veracity of those records.
Next week, we will consider a nineteenth-century-BCE example of discrepant records that have fooled virtually all modern scholars.
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