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Page last updated 2/24/05
The long-standing traditional dates for the Bronze Age in most of the
Mediterranean world and beyond have lately been found to be in need of
serious revision. The root of the problem is the mysterious "Dark
Age" which supposedly followed the collapse of the great Mycenaean
civilization (and others) around 1200 BC. That there was a
collapse and subsequent cultural decline is not in question. The
difficulty is that the centuries between 1200 and c. 950 appear to be a
cultural vacuum, lacking in population centers, pottery or other
artifacts, and everything else. And yet the culture of 950 is
strikingly similar to that of 1200, with artifacts, architecture, and
other cultural features that are all too often clearly derived from
their earlier counterparts. In fact, on most excavated sites,
occupation appears to be continuous, with artifacts and archeological
layers from 300 years apart being close together or even
intermingled. Nearly identical objects from two different areas
will be given implausibly different dates.
Much
the same sort of confusion and
mysterious gap in time can be found in Mesopotamia, North Africa,
Nubia, Sardinia,
Judea and its neighbors, Italy, Cyprus, Crete, and other lands as far
as the Persian Gulf. See the problem? It looks like the
entire population of this end of the planet simply went on vacation in
1200 BC, then came back 250 years later and picked up where they left
off!
The key is Egypt. ALL of the
absolute dates (nice round numbers or not) applied to much of Europe,
western Asia, and North Africa are derived from association with
Egyptian artifacts, which are in turn dated according to the
traditional Egyptian King List. For example, if an excavation in
Cyprus turns up a distinct style of Mycenaean pottery in the same
archeological context as a distinct style of Egyptian pottery, we can
be reasonably sure they were made and used at the same time. (And
since potsherds occur in the THOUSANDS on virtually any site, the
stylistic relationships are established with reasonable
confidence.) The King List has been built up over the centuries
from writings originating around the 4th century BC, and establishes
absolute dates for a number of Pharaohs and ruling Dynasties of
Egypt. However, the remaining records are often very fragmentary
and ambiguous, and a crucial factor is that dynasties sometimes ruled
simultaneously rather than consecutively. Modern historians have
often filled in data such as the lengths of a reigns of little-known
pharaohs with guesswork, inflated to fit pre-conceived notions.
It appears that the era known as the Third Intermediate
Period has been incorrectly stretched to cover at least two centuries
more in time than it should. The result is that every absolute
date for the rest of the world before 950 BC has been artificially
inflated. If the Third Intermediate Period is shortened (and a
few other dicey gaps closed up), the year 1200 suddenly is reduced to
950, and the mysterious and unlikely "Dark Ages" become a much more
believeable and shorter period--one that is firmly documentable according to the archeological
record. This is the "Low Chronology", which I am using on this
website.
This is all very clearly and
exhaustively laid out in a book by Peter James, et al., Centuries of Darkness (London:
Jonathan Cape, 1991. ISBN 0-224-02647-X). I can't hope to
summarize their discussions and theories in any cogent detail, so I
strongly urge you to read their book if you are at all interested in
the subject. If nothing else, take a look at their website,
http://www.centuries.co.uk/
There you will find a list of Frequently Asked Questions, reviews of
their book both positive and negative (and some responses to them),
discussions of Carbon-14 dating, dendrochronology, volcanic sulfur
traces in the Greenland ice cap, and more. They invite and
welcome scholarly attempts to disprove their theories--apparently no
such attempts have been successful so far, and the academic community
is steadily lining up in agreement with this new Low Chronology.
For a rather lively discussion of
the whole chronology issue, see the "Palace Discussions" section of the
Bronze Age Center board,
http://s8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_Center/index.php?
Direct link,
http://s8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_Center/index.php?showtopic=48
Though it may be quicker, and would certainly be less confusing, just
to read the book!
Applying the Revised Chronology,
by Edwin M. Schorr--An older article, and not really the best look at
the situation, but it does show very well how long the debate has been
going on, and how fluid the dating system has always been.
http://www.varchive.org/schorr/
I hope to be adding a nice timeline chart to
this page when I get a chance. There are
also other books and papers on the chronology subject which I have not
seen, such as S. Manning's The Absolute Chronology of the
Aegean Bronze Age,
1995 (ISBN 1850753369). No idea which ones are good or bad, nor
whether they support the Low Chronology or not. In the meantime,
books and articles on ancient history are still pouring out with the
old High Chronology dates blithely repeated as if they were engraved in
stone, as it were. Beware of them, if only to keep in mind that
they might be wrong.