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Egyptian radiocarbon dating: a reply to James Mellaart

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Barry Kemp
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Abstract

Mellaart is not the first, even in recent times, to query the Egyptian astronomical data, and in particular the reliability of the source for the Sothic date in Senusret 111’s reign which seems to offer the earliest independently fixed date in the Near East. In 1974, R. D. Long published an attack in the journal Orientalia, xLrIr, 261-74. This provoked a lengthy and careful response from the scholar whose name is most closely associated with the mathematical aspects of Egyptian calendars and chronology, R. A. Parker. This response provides a ready-made answer to Mellaart’s criticisms, and readers are referred to Parker’s paper for more detail (Parker, 1977). Mellaart makes two main points on this issue: the Egyptians may have made a mistake in the observation; the papyrus fragment in question is dated by indirect means and does not bear the name of the king in whose reign scholars have placed it.

Type
Articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 54 , Issue 210 , March 1980 , pp. 25 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1980

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