The previous post discussed the problem that researchers tend to start with: the premise that conventional views of chronology are correct and that any data analysis must conform to those ideas or vary only slightly. This post considers some examples.
The first example involves two missing regnal period figures on all extant Assyrian King List (AKL) copies. The Assyrian and Babylonian timelines in the second millennium BCE have close synchronizations during the reigns of contemporary kings Šamši-Adad I and Hammurabi and again a little over three centuries later during the Amarna Period. As previously discussed, two chronological models of the Venus Tablets of Babylonian Amorite King Ammi-şaduqa are essentially half correct.
Ammi-şaduqa’s absolute dates link with his great-great-grandfather Hammurabi through accurate king-list information. The Middle Chronology model correctly assigns the start of Ammi-şaduqa’s reign to 1646 BCE and Hammurabi’s to 1792. However, the Ultra-Low Chronology represents a better understanding of the relative timeline between Hammurabi and the Amarna Period King Burna-Buriaš II; they correctly interpret this interim as only about three centuries. Pundits of both models mistakenly believe the conventional assignment of the Amarna Period to the fourteenth century BCE is accurate; in reality, its absolute timeframe was more than a century earlier. Consequently, the Middle Chronology believers want to stretch the interim Assyrian timeline from three to four centuries.
King-list compilers did part of that elongating work for them. They confused the length of the reign of Šamši-Adad I’s son, Išme-Dagān I, adding decades to his ruling period. Contributing to this confusion, the AKL is missing the tenure figures of two interim kings, AKL #65 and #66. Nevertheless, Chapter 1 of The Six Pillars analyzes the dynasty’s familial relationships over nine generations, leading to a reasonably accurate estimate of these figures based on average generational periods; it concludes that the sum of their reign lengths probably did not exceed several years. Chapter 5 verifies the approximate precision of that evaluation using Assyrian distanzangabens (anciently recorded interim calculations).
The Wikipedia article “List of Assyrian Kings” reflects conventional thinking, and it lists the two missing ruling periods as 20 and 22 years, which are highly implausible. (Note that the familial relationships listed on the AKL are often incorrect.)
The second example concerns unusual astronomical events. The chart on the homepage of Synchronologies.com shows that two rare astronomical events are both datable in the Babylonian timeline. Each would likely occur only once in several centuries, and the interim king-list relative timeline between them precisely agrees with the difference in their absolute dates. However, those events happened over a century earlier than the conventional understanding. Consequently, traditionalists either alter the details of the astronomical records to suit their timeline or change the historical context.
The third example is the dogma of a single Egyptian calendar system in every region and throughout Egypt’s history despite abundant evidence to the contrary. A previous post has considered this problem.
The fourth example concerns the dogma that the Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty did not overlap the Second Intermediate Period dynasties. However, some believe that the final years of that dynasty were contemporary with the early part of the Thirteenth Dynasty. They also think the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties suddenly ended around 1650 BCE when the Fifteenth and Abydos Dynasties simultaneously appeared, and the Seventeenth Dynasty began when the Sixteenth Dynasty ended. These beliefs indirectly result from the dogma of the single Egyptian calendar system and their mistaken interpretations of Sothic dating.
Yet, the evidence shows that some of these pharaohs who supposedly were from non-overlapping dynasties were contemporaries. When confronted with this information, some Egyptologists pronounce these deductions as “unacceptable.” Others busily rearrange king lists to minimize the overlap between these dynasties and preserve their traditions as much as possible.
One final example of altering data to conform to tradition concerns the pre-Ptolemaic Egyptian view of the lunar cycle. Ancient funerary texts and festival dates show they understood the lunar cycle began with the full moon. Yet, researchers refuse to let the data speak for itself and steadfastly stick to conventions.
These five examples demonstrate that slavishly sticking to chronological conventions leads to wrong assumptions and conclusions. A far better approach is to consider traditions as fallible and follow the evidence to its logical conclusions.