New Ancient Middle Eastern Chronology Unlocks Hidden History Of Egypt and Mesopotamia
In the academic study of the ancient world, chronology or timeline is of the utmost importance. This is especially true for the ancient Middle East. When events in Egypt are to be correlated with events in Mesopotamia, the single most important factor is the selection of the right chronology among all the possibilities, for if this chronology is the wrong one, the subsequent historical review of the ancient Middle East will be skewed. Confusing chronologies is still one of the biggest problems plaguing ancient Middle Eastern studies. After centuries of archaeological endeavours in the Middle East there is still no consensus about the dating of the early Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations—both in absolute terms as well as in relation to each other—especially for the third and early second millennium BC.
Obverse of tablet A of Mesopotamian Chronicle of Early Kings (Public Domain)
In a paper published in the Journal for Semitic Studies (2019/2), the current author proposed a new chronology for the ancient Middle East and with it a totally new picture of history emerged insofar as relations between Egypt and Mesopotamia are concerned. What made this publication so significant is that a new cuneiform text of the royal epic of the Sealand king, Gulkišar, recently discovered in the Hilprecht collection in Jena, Germany (of which the first English translation appeared in 2019), strongly supports the said chronology. This confirmation of the chronological model was published as a research note in the same journal, the Journal for Semitic Studies, in the very next issue (2020/1). It does not often happen that a theoretical model receives strong and explicit support from new discoveries.
