Babylon's Chronology Revised

Four scholars, H. Gasche, J. A. Armstrong, S. W. Cole and V. G. Gurzadyan have worked together to write a book entitled Dating the Fall of Babylon: A Reappraisal of the Second Millennium Chronology. Based on pottery evidence, they argue for the elimination of a century of history in the middle of the second millennium BC.

They examine the 400 years between the fall of Ur under King Ibbi-Sin and the fall of Babylon under Samsuditana and discuss how to accurately date pottery sequences. They then go on to discuss the textual evidence such as the Assyrian kinglists and propose how they can be harmonised with a shorter chronology.

Finally they turn to the astronomical data that has heretofore been thought to fix the traditional chronology. This includes records of lunar eclipses from Ur and the "Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa". The book concludes by pointing out the implications of a shorter chronology for other periods and other regions.

Mario Liverani, in his review of the book, remarks,

"Not long ago a team of British scholars suggested the elimination of the 'dark age' at the end of the second millennium, which, in effect, eradicated the twelfth and eleventh centuries of the traditional chronology." (He refers to the book, Centuries of Darkness edited by Peter James.) "Now a Belgian-American team of scholars has suggested eradicating the 'dark age' from the middle of the second millennium by dating the fall of Babylon to 1499 BC, thus eliminating the sixteenth century of the traditional chronology." Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 06/05, p. 214

The tone of the review is a positive one, even though Liverani cannot wholeheartedly endorse the chronological reduction. He writes,

"The elimination of the sixteenth century is welcomed from an archaeological point of view and is acceptable from the standpoint of the written evidence, (not to elaborate on the astronomical). I cannot say whether the short chronology suggested here is right or wrong." ibid. p. 215

Liverani is somewhat nostalgic about the old chronology, though for a curious reason - he likes the idea of "dark ages" popping up here and there. Whether they existed or not, he says,

"they provide us with the feeling that history is made up of alternating phases of change and rest, of growth and crisis, and they suggest that our archival sources are the occasional remnants of a lost continuity." ibid. p. 215

All very romantic, but too much depends on a correct chronology for it to be determined by how we would like history to be written. If anyone imagines that dates of ancient history are inviolate they need to think again. In some areas it is breath-taking just how flimsy is the source material for dates that are supposed to be fixed. The important aspect of the proposed redating of Babylon's fall is that it dares to touch traditional chronology that is regarded as astronomically fixed.

"Dark ages" are simply periods of time for which we have no archaeological records. It is assumed that during these periods people migrated elsewhere or lost the art of writing or disappeared for some other hypothetical reason, but in reality it more likely means that the "dark age" did not exist and the years involved should be dropped out of chronological reckoning.

Let me give a slightly improbable illustration. Suppose that at some time in the future an historian were to discover a document that referred to the Third Reich and mentioned that it lasted for a thousand years. On this basis our historian concludes that Nazi Germany ruled from 1936 to 2936, after which there was a revolution and Conrad Adenaur took power. He then looks at France and discovers that Marshall Petain was contemporary with Hitler and Marshall de Gaul contemporary with Adenaur, but there are no records describing the thousand years he believes lay between the two. He therefore suggests that World War II was so devastating that a "dark age" fell on France which lasted for a thousand years!

A number of scholars have concluded that something similar has happened with ancient history and that the chronological confusion will not be sorted out until these spurious "dark ages" have been identified and eliminated. The importance of this latest book does not depend on whether or not their hypothesis is correct. Its significance lies in the fact that once again serious scholars are challenging the traditional chronology, this time where it has been thought to be strongest - where it is backed by astronomical data.

© David K. Down 2005