Egyptian New Chronology
Or Could the Biblical
history be True?
Page 6
Well, I now want to get back to the "forgotten" dynasty 7
of Africanus:
dynasty 7, Africanus: "The 7th dynasty consisted of 70
kings of Memphis, who reigned for 70 days."
Ok... Looks incredible... 70 kings, one day each...
Many commentors explains this as Manetho's way of saying in how much anarchy
the kingdom had fallen in with the FIP. Clever. But what if
it was more than a symbol? After all, 70 days is the time needed
for an ancient Egyptian to be buried properly. And the dead king,
considered the god Osiris had to be buried by his successors, the new god
Horus. So, if, as in our hypothesis that Queen Nitocris died after
all Pepy's successors had themselves all died... There would have
been no successors to bury properly the last king/queen of the Memphite
Line! In that scope, a "college" of all the important persons of
the memphite kingdom, taking care of the burials seems a plausible idea.
The burial completed, this "assembly" would have chosen a new King, perhaps
a young child from a high ranking familly (the follower of Nitocris in
Turin, specified as being a child, to be identified to the "Neferkare Pi-Seneb"
of the Abydos list)
But, there were only 11 dynasties in Manetho's 1st book...
If we add this "familly" in Eusebius, we get 12... ('cause 10 and
11 are distinc famillies for sure, and, as we will see, for Eusebius total
to work, we'll need those 70 kings, anyway)... So one of the 2 last
ones is superfluous... Or, more precisely, a more complete picture
of a dynasty already included:
dynasty 10, Africanus: "The 10th dynasty consisted of
19 kings of Heracleopolis, who reigned for 185 years."
dynasty 10, Eusebius: "The 10th dynasty consisted of
19 kings of Heracleopolis, who reigned for 185 years."
In Africanus, we can easely accept this as a phase of Egyptian
history, that of the kings of Heracleopolis... But in Eusebius, this
would be the non-family, comming from cross contamination from Africanus
(After all, it has been showed that these two list are actually anterior
to either christian chronographer under whose name they are knowed to us).
From archeological data, it seems now clear that there was only one line
of kings in Heracleopolis... So, these 19 kings would actually include
the 4 precedingly knowned kings of Eusebius's 9th dynasty. Would
those 4 be the firsts, lasts (or somewhere else) of the complete line?
Let's first look at Turin. For this specific group, it names 18 kings...
pretty close, isn't it? But, as we have already noted, their "6th
dynasty" included a king not in Manetho... If we make this king 'Ouserkare',
who indeed doesn't seem to fit in the knowned 6th dynasty familly, the
1st of the Heracleopolitan line, we bring Achtoes and his 3 successors,
who were contemporaries of the FIP, an extra-short period in Mike's chronology,
to be the last 4 kings of the 9th/10th dynasty.
So... we've only got one last dynasty to explore: identical
in all 3 lists:
dynasty 11: "The 11th dynasty consisted of 16 kings
of [Thebes], who reigned for 43 years. In succession
to these, Ammenemes ruled for 16 years."
With that dynasty, we get back into more solid historical ground...
As wierd as it may seem though, both Turin and the knowned archeological
data corrects Manetho's figure as "6 kings in 143 years"... quite
unusual for an inversion ;-) Anyway, we'll look more attentively
about this dynasty's chronology in the next section.
Before that, let's investigate the end of all three lists for Manetho's
first book:
"Here ends the First Book of Manetho. Total for the reigns
of 192 kings, 2300 years 70 days."
So in Africanus, Sincellus' Eusebius as "79 days" and the armenian
version, no days specified. Anyway, as said earlier, these figures
are not to be taken without archeological backing, and concern the total
of all kings.
What is of great interest, though is to see how one gets to this
total of 192 kings:
| Dynasty |
in Africanus |
in Eusebius |
|
|
|
| 1 |
8 |
8 |
| 2 |
9 |
9 |
| 3 |
9 |
8 |
| 4 |
8 |
17 (or 18?) |
| 5 |
8 |
31 |
| king Onnus |
1 |
0 (the 18th above) |
| 6 |
6 |
1 |
| 7 A |
70 |
-- (70)
|
| 7 E |
--
|
5 |
| 8 |
27 (26, 1 repeated) |
5 |
| 9 |
19 (actually 14) |
4 |
| 10 |
19 (15, 4 repeated) |
19 (15, 4 repeated) |
| 11 |
16 (actually 6) |
16 (actually 6) |
| king Ammenemes |
1 |
1 |
| GRAND TOTAL |
201 (181) |
124 (180 or 181) |
If we assume that the 11th dynasty's "16" kings error was from
Manetho himself while the 9th/10th comes from a later duplication, as explained
above, than the total would be 191 kings, only one from the disired total.
Do the other lists (Turin, Monumentals) identified one king that is defenitely
not in Manetho?
From the Turin Papyrus, entry 2.13 seems to mention a second king
Teti (Athothis) who ruled very briefly according to the Palermo stone(?).
For the second dynasty, both Turin and the Saqqarah list have 9 kings,
like Manetho, but, since there respective 6th king seem to be different
individuals, the dynastic line might have included as much as 10 kings.
On the hand, it could be Manetho's 6th and 7th kings that are one and the
same. For the 4th dynasty, the Saqqarah list, in a now lost segment,
appearentely had an additional king. A document from the era also
names "king" a prince who appears to have never actually ruled by himself
who but might really fill in the hole of the Saqqarah list. But the
title being posthumous, it is doubtful Manetho ever included him.
Then comes 'Oserkare' of the 6th dynasty, which we already identified as
the Heracleopolitan dynasty's ancestor. So, we'd have at least one
more king (Athothis II) which would bring our total to 182 kings for the
period, or up to two more, but less likely.
So, here is a table showing how these dynasties overlap, as derived
from de dates developped in my last summer paper:
Proposed chronoloy for Egypt's first 10 dynasties:
Dynasty 1: from 2256±15 (unification of Egypt)
to 2062±16
Dynasty 2: from 2062±16 to 1888±19,
in Upper Egypt
Dynasty 3: from 2233±18 (separation) to 2164±18,
in Lower Egypt
Dynasty 4: from 2164±18 to 2073±16, in Lower
Egypt
Dynasty 5: from 2073±16 to 1907±17,
in Lower Egypt
Dynasty 6 (including dynasty 8A ): from 1907±17
to 1741±20
Dynasty 7A: in 1741±20
Dynasty 7E: from 1741±20 to 1732±22 (using
Manetho' 75 days for the 1st king, then Turin's numbers)
Dynasty 8E: from 1732±22 to ?? (to be discussed with
dynasty 11 chronology)
Dynasty 10: from the early 6th dynasty years, the 16th king
ruling in 1741±20, end to be discussed)
Now let's try to identify all these kings!
The identifications are as follow:
"listed name" (Manetho#dynasty.th king of the Dyn.; Turin Papyrus#column.line;
Abydos#; Saqqarah#)
= "Archeological Name"
Where the listed name, unless stated otherwise, is the name in
Africanus, and where the archeological name is the one curently employed
by Egyptologists, with the following color code:
Horus Name, Throne
Name, Birth Name (all
Egyptian kings had 5 distinc names...).
Go to the table!
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