Appendix
The chronological quandary
In this book I have employed an historical chronology, based on written records,
rather than the^14 C chronology favored by most archaeologists, especially those
working in temperate Europe. As is well known, the carbon chronology is about
a century higher (earlier) than the historical chronology. For temperate Europe
carbon dates are all that we have, and otherwise the chronology for the Bronze
Age in temperate Europe is heavily dependent on parallels with the Aegean. I am
not at all certain that the historical chronology is correct, but although it has
problems of its own it is conventional and relatively stable.^1 For the Aegean, the
historical chronology is based ultimately on synchronisms provided by Egyptian
artifacts—often a scarab bearing a royal cartouche—found together with
Mycenaean pottery. The^14 C chronology may be correct but is not yet conventional,
and is subject to change as more carbon tests are done, and as calibration curves
are revised.
The starting point for the historical chronology of the second millennium BC
must be in the Near East, and specifically in Egypt’s Amarna period. Assyrian
and Egyptian king-lists agree that Akhenaton’s reign falls in the middle of the
fourteenth century BC. Egyptologists date it either 1352–1334 or 1350–1332 BC.
Assyriologists, on the basis of limmu-lists and the three copies of the Assyrian
king-list, date the 35-year reign of Ashur-uballit I either 1353–1318 BC(short) or
1365–1330 BC(long). The Amarna tablets show that Akhenaton was a con -
temporary not only of Ashur-uballit I at Assur but also of Burnaburiash II at
Babylon, of Suppiluliuma II in Hatti, and of Tushratta in Mittani. In addition, the
considerable quantity of Mycenaean pottery found at Amarna shows that when
Akhenaton ruled Egypt the ceramic industry in Mycenaean Greece was producing
and decorating LH III A2 ware.^2
From the Amarna period and Akhenaton the Egyptian king-lists carry us back—
almost, but not quite, as securely—to Ahmose and the beginning of the Eighteenth
Dynasty. Most Egyptologists date the 25-year reign of Ahmose to 1550–1525 BC,
although Egyptologists who prefer a low chronology would date it to 1539–1514
BC.^3 A recent analysis of carbon-14 results puts the commencement of Ahmose’s
reign somewhere between 1570 and 1544 BC, and therefore slightly earlier than
the king-lists’ high chronology.^4 Beyond Ahmose lies the Fifteenth (“Hyksos”)
Dynasty and the rest of the poorly known Second Intermediate Period of Egyptian