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Additional Sothic dates
This absolute chronology of Meyer’s was in turn filled in with a relative chronology based on the data provided by a handful of Sothic documents combined with calculations of the reign lengths of the various kings as given in the dynastic sequences and the monuments. For instance, with respect to the 12th dynasty, there was the Illahûn (or Kahun) Papyrus, which mentioned a Sothic rising in year 7 of an un-named king whom scholars identify, on purely epigraphical [the study of ancient inscriptions] grounds, as Sesostris III of the 12th dynasty. With the end of the 12th dynasty fixed at 1786 bc by a combination of such Sothic dating and regnal calculation, and the beginning of the New Kingdom (18th dynasty) similarly fixed at 1580 bc, there remains a mere two centuries for the intervening Second Intermediate Period of Egyptian history.
Of the various major Egyptian Sothic documents, such as the Illahûn Papyrus, the Elephantine Stele, and the Ebers Papyrus, the latter—famous for its information about medical practices in Egypt—also contains reference to a Sothic rising in the 9th year of another un-named king, who has been identified as Amenhotep I of the 18th dynasty.12
Theon had also left a much-discussed statement informing us that 1,605 years had elapsed since the ‘Era of Menophres’ until the end of the Era of Augustus, or the beginning of the Era of Diocletian—c. 285 bc, it was not difficult for chronologists to determine when this supposed ‘Era of Menophres’ occurred. Thus R. Long wrote: ‘From [Theon’s] quotation we gather that the era of Menophres (apo Menophreos) lasted from circa 1321–1316 bc to ad 285 or the duration of 1,605 years, i.e. from Emperor Diocletian back to someone or something designated “Menophreõs”.’13 Unfortunately Theon did not tell us who or what ‘Menophres’ was.
Meyer opted for ‘who’ rather than ‘what’, and chose to identify him as Rameses I Menpehtire.14 Rameses I Menpehtire, founder of the 19th dynasty, conveniently reigned for only about a year. However, his throne name, Menpehtire, is not a perfect linguistic equivalent of Menophres.
Biot preferred the interpretation that ‘Menophres’ instead represented the important city of Memphis, in its ancient pronunciation of Men-nofir;15 a suggestion that would later impress M. Rowton, who added his own refinement, following Olympiodorus, that the Sothic cycle was based upon observations actually made at Memphis.16
Name-ring No. 29
A further sighter for all these dates—though established well before Meyer—was what had become, since François Champollion’s decipherment of the hieroglyphs, an unshakable pillar of Egyptian chronology, seemingly tied to the Bible. This was Champollion’s identification of pharaoh Shoshenq I of the 22nd (Libyan) dynasty as the biblical Shishak who despoiled the Temple of Yahweh in the 5th year of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:25). Champollion thought he had read in Shoshenq’s Palestinian conquests from the Bubasite Portal inscription at Karnak of an actual conquest of Jerusalem. He interpreted name-ring No. 29 as ‘Ioudahamelek’, which he took to be the name ‘Judah’ followed by ‘the kingdom’, yadhamelek, as ‘the kingdom of the Jews’.17 Champollion’s reading of name No. 29 was subsequently challenged by H. Brugsch, who made a new and detailed study of the list. Brugsch identified names both before and after No. 29 as belonging to Israel as well as to Judah, and therefore felt that its position in the list contradicted Champollion’s reading.18 The now generally accepted view is that proposed by M. Muller: namely, that No. 29 stands for a place, Yad-ha(m)melek.19 Whilst this place has not been successfully identified, its position in the list suggests that it refers to a location in the northwest coastal plain of the kingdom of Israel, not Judah.
From the above one can see that Egyptian chronology and its associated Sothic theory have been built upon a host of assumptions.
Earlier rejection of the Sothic system
Some of the early Egyptologists, like Maspero and von Bissing, rejected Meyer’s mathematical system out of hand. So did Jéquier, who wrote as early as 1913:
‘The Sothic periods, far from simplifying the chronological calculations for us, have no other effect than to introduce a new element of uncertainty and perhaps a new opportunity for error.’20
But most historians were not chronologists, and they demurred to the Sothic calculations of the experts from the Berlin School. Mathematics can however be a hard master. The great Egyptologist, Sir Flinders Petrie, who was strongly attracted to the Sothic idea, nevertheless thought that the mere 100 years assigned by this scheme to the Hyksos occupation of Egypt was far too short to accord with the monumental data. So he took the liberty of interspersing an extra Sothic period of 1,460 years. Eventually common sense prevailed and Petrie dropped this wild idea altogether.21
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