HistoryBuilding a Chronology

How Sure Are the Dates?

Dates are fixed from 664 BC on; before that they are approximate, uncertain by decades in the New Kingdom and by a century or more in the Old Kingdom.

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You have now seen the tools: king lists, regnal years, astronomy and radiocarbon. Put together, how good are the dates? The answer depends on the period.

Key idea

Egyptian dates are fixed to the year from 664 BC on, when Psamtek I became king; links to Assyrian, Babylonian and Greek records tie the reigns to our calendar. Before that, dates are approximate: uncertain by a decade or two in the New Kingdom, a few decades in the Middle Kingdom, and a century or more in the Old Kingdom and earlier.
The rough uncertainty in the model this course uses (after Shaw, 2000).
PeriodThis course's datesUncertainty (about)
Early Dynasticc. 3000–2686 BC± 150 years
Old Kingdomc. 2686–2160 BC± 100 years
Middle Kingdomc. 2055–1650 BC± 30 years
New Kingdomc. 1550–1069 BC± 20 years
Third Intermediatec. 1069–664 BC± 10 years
Late Period and afterfrom 664 BCfixed
The whiskers above the periods show the uncertainty: wide at the start, shrinking toward 664 BC.

Why it works

Every date before 664 BC hangs on a chain of reign lengths reaching back from a fixed point. Each missing or uncertain reign adds to the error, so the error grows the farther back you go. Astronomy and radiocarbon pin the chain in a few places, but with uncertainties of their own.

Different books, different numbers

You will see different dates in different books. Khufu's reign begins c. 2589 BC in Shaw's Oxford History; other respected chronologies place it a few decades earlier or later. They are all best estimates from the same evidence, weighed a little differently. That is why historians write "c." and why this course uses one chronology, Shaw (2000), consistently.

Worked example: Can we tell?

A tomb is dated "c. 2165 BC" in one book. Can we be sure whether it belongs to the Old Kingdom or the First Intermediate Period?
  1. The boundary is placed at c. 2160 BC.
  2. c. 2165 BC is only 5 years before that boundary.
  3. The uncertainty in this part of the chronology is many decades, so a 5-year difference cannot decide it.

Answer: No. A date that close to a boundary cannot settle the question; other evidence (style, titles, inscriptions) must.

Worked example: Counting across BC and AD

How many years passed from 30 BC, when Egypt became Roman, to AD 641?
  1. There is no year 0: 1 BC is followed by AD 1.
  2. From 30 BC to 1 BC is 29 years; from 1 BC to AD 1 is 1 year; from AD 1 to AD 641 is 640 years.
  3. 29 + 1 + 640 = 670.

Answer: 670 years. Shortcut: add the two numbers and subtract 1.

Common mistake

Quoting early dates as exact years. "Khufu began to reign in 2589 BC" sounds precise, but it is a best estimate. Write c. 2589 BC, and remember another book may give a different number.

Practice

Pass with 3 right answers, the last 2 in a row. Each right answer earns 2 XP.

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Builds on

Leads to

This is one of the top rungs of History of Ancient Egypt.

Sources and further reading

  • Ian Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 2000), Chronology
  • Wikipedia, "Egyptian chronology"
  • Wikipedia, "Psamtik I"
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