Читать книгу A History of Ancient Egypt - Marc Van De Mieroop - Страница 33

Although the relative chronology of Egypt’s history is secure, the absolute dates are not and remain a subject of much research and debate. Theoretically, Manetho could have allowed us to build a secure timeline counting back from Alexander’s conquest of Egypt, but his disregard of overlapping dynasties, as well as the numerous variants in the lengths of reigns in the different excerpts of his work, make this impossible. The chronological information from the other king lists is too fragmentary to provide reliable figures. So, the absolute chronology needs to be reconstructed with other sources. From the mid‐2nd millennium BC on, it is sometimes possible to associate events in Egypt with neighboring cultures in the Near East (whose absolute chronology is firmer), especially in the 1st millennium when various Near Eastern powers invaded the country. In the second half of the 2nd millennium, dated evidence of diplomatic contacts with the Near East helps, but the occasions are few.

Another source for dating Egypt’s history in absolute term derives from ancient astronomical observations of when the Sothis (Sirius or Dog Star) re‐emerged on the eastern horizon just before sunrise after 70 days of invisibility, around July 19 in the modern calendar. Egypt’s administrative calendar counted only 365 days in a year – rather than the 365¼ days of a full astronomical year – and thus the moment Sothis appeared shifted over time. Scholars used to take the very few recorded observations as firm anchors for dating periods, but now they are more skeptical of their value. Also, the technique of measuring the decay of C14 in wooden and other objects can be of help, and very recently a major restudy of that evidence appeared. There are thus multiple systems in use in various publications appearing today; each one has its defenders but none is absolutely certain.⁴