New Chronology of Egyptian Dynasties 1 through 5

With massive amounts of evidence pegging the 18th Dynasty to the 9th Century BC, our first attempt at a revised chronology for the ancient Dynasties of Egypt focused on the historical dates of the 12th Dynasty of Egypt to the 25th Dynasty of Egypt. This research puts the drought and famine after the 1159 BC climate catastrophe towards the end of the 14th Dynasty, and was the major factor that led to the disunity and the establishment of the concurrent 15th and 16th Dynasties.

Next we worked backward from there, pegging the famines after the 1628 BC climate cataclysm to the breakdown of the 6th Dynasty and the end of the Old Kingdom. According to this preliminary research, the historical dates of the 6th to 11th Dynasties of Egypt would then be from about 1740 BC to around 1386 BC.

Now we will try to ascertain the dates encompassing the era from the First Dynasty of Egypt to the Fifth Egyptian Dynasty, and this is the most difficult as these are the dynasties responsible for building the major pyramids, and most observers believe the pyramids are much older than this. As Mesopotamian society is said to have broken down circa 2200 BC, a time of global famine, we must search the first few dynasties to find a period of severe drought and famine, and tie that to around 2150 BC or thereabouts.

As little evidence remains of the first two dynasties, and human sacrifice and cannibalism appears to have ended then, the 3rd Dynasty of Egypt may have been the one who rebuilt the nation and the empire after the collapse of the earlier societies. Here is a very rough first draft:

Pre-Mesopotamian influence:

1st Dynasty - Circa 2550 BC to 2300 BC

2nd Dynasty - Circa 2300 BC to 2100 BC

Post-Mesopotamian influence:

3rd Dynasty - Circa 2100 BC to 2020 BC

4th Dynasty - Circa 2020 BC to 1900 BC

5th Dynasty - Circa 1900 BC to 1740 BC

I realize that much work needs to be done to refine these dates and eras, but I am quite comfortable doing this in the months ahead. One thing to be determined is the dates of the pre-dynastic ruling elites in Egypt, and these may actually be in the 2600-2400 BC era, pushing the 1st dynasty forward in history, closer to the cataclysmic events of the 2nd Dynasty.

Another project remaining is defining the dates of the 26th to 31st Egyptian Dynasties, but that's low-hanging fruit as those regimes are well documented and corroborated.

For those new to exploring relative dates of the revised chronology of Egyptian dynasties, pioneering work was done by people like David Rohl and Ahmed Osman, and carried forth by modern researchers such as Charles Pope of www.DomainOfMan.com . The main factor that contributed to the false chronologies and the impression that Egyptian history took place earlier than it actually did was chronology stacking. Most early attempts at dating dynasties stacked the length of each dynasty end-to-end, unaware that many of these dynasties were concurrent, with one ruling Upper Egypt including Thebes (the original Jerusalem - "To Teach Peace") and the other ruling Lower Egypt including the Nile Delta. The early teens dynasties and the early twenties dynasties were overlapping or concurrent, and when you take this into account, you have to remove about 500 to 600 years from the conventional chronology.

Peace 2 All,

Yuya Joe

12th to 25th Egyptian Dynasties; Developing Chronology

On January 6th I posted a first draft of an attempt to peg the 15th to 18th Egyptian dynasties into the era from around 1145 BC to about 850 BC. Here we will try to expand it forward and backwards, using 701 BC as the date for Twenty-Fifth Dynasty Pharaoh Shebitku's rescue of Jerusalem, and an estimate of 670 BC for Pharaoh Tarhaqa's (the last fully Black African Pharaoh) retreat southward into Nubia.

A rough estimate of the eras for each Dynasty, and probable birth dates for major figures in the 18th Dynasty ruling elite:

12th Dynasty - 1395 BC to 1235 BC

13th Dynasty - 1235 BC to 1175 BC

14th Dynasty - 1190 BC to 1130 BC

15th and 16th (concurrent) Dynasty - c1145 BC to 1065 BC

17th Dynasty - c 1075 BC to c 1020 BC

18th Dynasty - c 1020 BC to 830 BC

Second draft of estimated birth dates for Eighteenth Dynasty luminaries:

Ahmose - 1045 BC

Amenhotep I - 1025 BC

Thutmose I - 1015 BC

Thutmose II - 1000 BC

Thutmose III - 985 BC

Thutmose IV - 968 BC

Amenhotep II - 952 BC

Yuya - 930 BC

Tuya - 923 BC

Amenhotep III - 918 BC

Kiya - 905 BC

Tiye - 901 BC

Aye - 899 BC

Amenhotep IV - 897 BC

Tutankhamun - 870 BC

REVISED estimates Feb 2010:

Ahmose - 1030 BC

Amenhotep I - 1010 BC

Thutmose I - 995 BC

Thutmose II - 980 BC

Thutmose III - 955 BC

Thutmose IV - 935 BC

Amenhotep II - 909 BC

Yuya - 907 BC

Tuya - 902 BC

Aye - 888 BC

Tiye - 886 BC

Amenhotep III - 885 BC

Kiya - 870 BC

Amenhotep IV - 869 BC

Smenkhare - 851 BC

Tutankhamun - 848 BC

Next section dates updated Feb 2010.

19th Dynasty - 830 BC to 790 BC

20th Dynasty - 820 BC to 765 BC

21st Dynasty - 760 BC to 710 BC

22nd Dynasty - 760 BC to 705 BC

23rd Dynasty - 755 BC to 710 BC

24th Dynasty - 730 BC to 720 BC

25th Dynasty - 735 BC to 655 BC

Peace 2 All