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The Fertile Crescent - The Cradle of civilisation |
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Mesopotamian chronology |
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GeneralAlthough humankind uses many calendars, it is easy to convert a non-western date to the common (originally Christian) era. This is facilitated by the system of Julian Dates, which was introduced by the great antiquarian J.J. Scaliger (1540-1609): every day has a number, starting with day #1 at 12 o' clock (GMT) on 1 January 4713 BCE.* To give an example, this line was written on JD #2,453,783, and it was 0.125 o'clock (or 16 February 2006, tea time). The study of ancient chronology essentially means adding the correct JD-number to the date that is mentioned (or implied) in our sources.This is easier said than done because the ancients had no
agreed-upon era. Even the dates of the ancient Romans, which
look a lot like our dates, can not be used at face value.
For example, the famous 15th of March on which
Julius Caesar was assassinated, corresponds to 13 March
44 BCE in the Gregorian calendar, and the day mentioned for
the
battle of
Pydna
(4 September) is "our" 22 June 168 BCE. Down to 911The chronology of the ancient Near East is no exception, but fortunately, the ancient Babylonians were careful astronomers, who designed an accurate lunar calendar with a regularly inserted intercalary month, which was introduced before 503 BCE. Even earlier, the process of intercalation had become standardized, and it possible to convert many dates in the Babylonian calendar to our own era. For example, the second day of the month Addaru in the seventh year of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar is more or less identical to JD #1,503,443 or, to express it in a more accessible form, 16 March 597.[1]In this example, the year is indicated as 'seventh of Nebuchadnezzar'. To convert a date in a Babylonian or Assyrian document to a date in our calendar, one must know the number of regnal years of all kings. Our most accurate source for this information is the Canon of Kings that has been preserved by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy of Alexandria. He mentions most rulers of Babylonia from Nabű-Nasir (747-734) until the capture of Babylon by Cyrus the Great in 539, continues with the Achaemenid kings to the conquest of the Near East by Alexander the Great, adds the Seleucid rulers and ends with the Roman emperors. Because Ptolemy uses this list only to date astronomical phenomena, kings who died during a certain year are usually allowed to give their name to the entire year, and the next ruler is supposed to have ascended to the Babylonian throne on the first day of the new year. (Kings who reigned less than one year are ignored.) The information on this list is confirmed by the Uruk King List, which mentions all kings from Aššurbanipal (668-631) to Seleucus II Callinicus (246-226), and the Astronomical Diaries, which record the names of kings in connection to celestial phenomena that can easily be dated. There is no need to doubt that the Canon offers a correct framework for the period down to 747. It is easy to go beyond this point because the Assyrians
had the custom to call every year after an eponymous
official called
limmu,
who was appointed by the king and had to preside the
celebration of the New Year festival. Several lists of
limmu's have survived, accounting together for every year
from 648 down to 892. Because the solar eclipse of 15 June
763 is mentioned, regnal years of Assyrian kings can be
dated with a precision of one year. It is possible to go
beyond this point, because 892 is known as the twentieth
regnal year of king Adad-nirari II. His reign must,
therefore, have started in 911. The second half of the second millenniumAfter this, the chronological framework depends on three important sources:
The situation in Babylonia is worse. The Canon starts in 747 and is preceded by twelve kings who are hardly more than names. Their regnal years have not been recorded, but it appears that the eldest of the twelve kings, Mar-biti-ahhe-iddina, started his reign in 942. The two centuries between his accession and the beginning of the Canon are sometimes called "Undetermined Dynasties", "Dynasty E", or "Mixed Dynasties", which are euphemisms for "we can not make sense of it". The age that precedes these dynasties is better understood. There are synchronisms with Assyria and there is a document that is called King List C. It describes the Second Dynasty of Isin, which ruled Babylonia between 1157 and 1026. This is preceded by the Kassite Dynasty, the kings of which can also be dated with some accuracy down to king Burnaburiaš II (1359-1333). So, the list of Babylonian kings can be reconstructed
down to 1359, and the Assyrian list down to 1420. In this
age, there are several synchronisms with Egypt that
corroborate the findings presented above. For example,
Burnaburiaš II exchanged letters with his Egyptian colleague
Akhenaten (1353-1336), who also wrote letters to
Aššur-uballit I of Assyria (1353-1318). High, middle, low, or ultra-low?The first half of the second millennium is well-documented. The Babylonian King List A can be supplemented by Babylonian king List B, which describes two dynasties, the First Dynasty of Babylon and the (partly contemporary) First Dynasty of the Sealand. The most famous king of the First Dynasty of Babylon is Hammurabi, who united Mesopotamia and in his thirteenth year put an end to the competing Dynasty of Larsa, where king Rim-Sin had reached his sixtieth regnal year.The Larsa King List mentions all kings of the Dynasty of Larsa, which is known to have been contemporary with another dynasty that was powerful before Hammurabi united Mesopotamia: the First Dynasty of Isin. Even better, there is an Ur-Isin King List, that mentions all kings of Isin and the kings of an earlier dynasty, which is called the Third Dynasty of Ur. So, in the first half of the second millennium, there is a continuous list that starts with the first king of the Third Dynasty of Ur and continues to the last king of the First Dynasty of Babylon, Samsuditana, who was forced to see how his city was sacked by the Hittites. Unfortunately, it is not know how much time passed between the fall of Babylon (and the end of the "block of kings" of the first half of the second millennium) and the beginning of the reigns of either Enlil-Nasir II (1420-1415) or Burnaburiaš II (1359-1333). To establish the width of the gap (the "dark age"),
everything depends on a set of observations of the planet
Venus during the reign of the penultimate ruler of the First
Dynasty of Babylon, king Ammisaduqa, and several eclipses.
Depending on the identifications of these events, scholars
and scientists agree that there are only four possible
chronologies, which are usually called "high", "middle",
"low", and "ultra-low".
The publication of the ultra-low chronology, as recently as 1998,[3] has resulted in a series of vehement polemics, from which ad hominem-arguments are not absent. Among the arguments for the ultra-low chronology is the identification of a set of eclipses; a counter-argument is that the Assyrian king list appears to be too long to fit in this framework. The debate still continues and for the time being, many scholars prefer to stick to the old, conventional Middle Chronology - not because it is better or worse than the others, but because it is conveniently in the middle. Assuming that the Middle Chronology is correct, the Third Dynasty of Ur should be dated to 2112-2004. However, it is possible that within a couple of years, the low or ultra-low chronology will become the new standard.  Mesopotamian Kings Unless otherwise indicated, all dates in this article are indicated in the Julian calendar. Note 1: Note 2: Note 3:
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