Chronology of Ancient Egypt

Ancient records are frequently incomplete, containing errors or omissions, which can make their reliability questionable. Timekeeping was essential for anticipating the seasons and planning agricultural activities such as planting and harvesting. Additionally, specific times of the year were associated with religious ceremonies and festivals. Keeping track of when markets, fairs, and gatherings were planned helped to create a sense of community and shared understanding of time.

However, it often is unclear what type of calendar was used and whether the presented information is reliable. Historical dates that survive were often documented decades or even centuries after the event took place. It is also possible that such sources may have been corrupted, imagined, untrue, or may have been altered or added after the fact to fit a particular narrative.

The accuracy of dates decreases as we look further back in time. At most, approximations can be made because precise chronological standards did not exist in the past. No methods were available to record dates contemporaneously, and there was no understanding of historical time. Timekeeping was not as exact as it is nowadays, but astronomy was crucial for many ancient civilizations as it helped them keep track of time. Dating historical events accurately can be challenging for modern historians due to the absence of a unified system for numbering years in the ancient world. To create a comprehensive timeline of events, evidence is collected from various sources, such as historical records, inscriptions, and archaeological finds.

The Egyptian solar year was 365 days divided into 12 months of 30 days each, plus five added days at the end of the year. The discrepancy between their 365-day calendar and the actual solar year was well known to the ancient Egyptians. They did not attempt to synchronise their calendar perfectly with the solar year, but accepted this discrepancy as a natural phenomenon.

To adjust their calendar they used the Sothic cycle as a long-term framework to keep it aligned with the seasons. This cycle was based on the rising of Sirius (Greek: Σωθις, Sothis). Every 1460 years, Sirius would appear to rise above the eastern horizon on the same day according to their calendar, marking a cyclical ‘reset’ of their calendar year with the astronomical phenomena.

Chronology in the ancient world was not as straightforward as it is today, as there are several inherent problems that complicate things. To establish a chronology, several techinques are employed.

Ptolemy's Canon of Kings

Ptolemy of Alexandria, who flourished in the second century CE under Roman rule, compiled a list of kings noting the length of their reigns, most likely based on even older lists. This important list of Babylonian and Egyptian kings was used by ancient astronomers as a practical manner of dating astronomical events. Known as Ptolemy’s Canon,1 it has been preserved by multiple succeeding authors, who often supplemented it with up-to-date knowledge from their own times. Historians generally regard the Canon to be accurate, and it forms the foundation of ancient chronology from 747 BC forward, to which all other datings are synchronised.

The Canon is divided into four sections:
20 Babylonian Kings were followed by 10 Persian Kings (538–332 BC) that conquered Mesopotamia. The list was continued by astronomers in Alexandria, detailing first the Macedonian Kings (331–305 BC), followed by the 10 Ptolemies of Egypt (304–30 BC).

The Astronomical Tablet of Nebuchadnezzar II2 comprises a sequence of astronomical observations made during the king's 37th year. Modern astronomers studying this data have concluded that the only year within centuries that fits the data is 568/67 BC. Therefore, Nebuchadnezzar's first year of his reign was in 604/03 B.C., which corresponds perfectly with the Canon. There are several biblical references to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II that provide a link with Hebrew chronology, which together with other contemporary king lists further confirm the validity of Ptolemy's sequence of kings, providing reasonably accurate dates as going back to 747 BC.

The Julian calendar

When administering the rapidly expanding Roman Empire, it became clear that a calendar was needed to coordinate the many local calendars in use. This calendar would be used throughout the Empire. The Romans recognised the Julian calendar's greater accuracy compared to the old Egyptian calendar and adopted it as their primary calendar, which later became the standard for most of the Western world. The Julian calendar added an extra day every four years.

Like the Egyptians, the Romans did not number each year sequentially from a specific year, but instead differentated years by naming the two elected consuls in Rome serving a specific year. For example: in the Year of Braccus and Cassius, the Consuls were Cassius and Braccus, and if Cassius served multiple times, the second time his name would have an additional number, Braccus and Cassius II, the third time, Probus and Cassius III, and so on.

The lists of the elected consuls, the Fasti consulares,3 were originally engraved on marble tablets erected in the Roman forum, and survive in the writings of several historical accounts, along with fragments from various places throughout the Empire.

In the middle of the first century BC, the Roman scholar Terentius Varro established a system that place the traditional foundation of Rome as year 1 ab urbe condita (A.U.C.). The year of the founding of the Republic was available from the fasti, and Varro simply added seven generations before that, counting each generation as 35 years (7 × 35 = 245).4 From Cicero we learn that according to the annals of the Greeks, Rome was founded in the second year of the seventh Olympiad.5 Eratosthenes of Cyrene established the use of the Olympiad and the individually numbered years between them in the third century. Olympic dates survive in Eusebius' Chronicon, which attempted to reconcile the events of biblical history with classical historical material, and was only used for historical purposes, never for everyday use. The second part of Eusebius’ Universal History, the Canons, puts the historical material into a parallel timeline, listing the reigning rulers of each nation side-by-side, for every year. Although the original is lost, Jerome's Latin translation written around 380 in Constantinople preserve the chonological tables.

The Anno Domini (AD) system we still use today was developed by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in 525 AD (A.U.C. 1278), as a result of his work on calculating the date of Easter, but was not widely used until the 9th century. He produced tables with a 19-year cycle for calculating Easter but also years since the birth of Christ, which is the basis of the AD system:

Nineteen year cycle of Dionysius (Cyclus decemnovennalis Dionysii)
First Argumentum. On the years of Christ. If you want to find out which year it is since the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, compute fifteen times 34, yielding 510; to these always add the correction 12, yielding 522; also add the indiction of the year you want, say in the consulship of Probus Junior, a 3, yielding 525 years altogether. These are the years since the incarnation of the Lord.

Consulting Dionysius’ Easter table, which includes years in the era of the Roman emperor Diocletian, we see that Probus was consul in the year 241 of Diocletian. Subtracting 241 from 525 gives 284, the year in which Diocletian became emperor.

Although Moses was a first-hand witness to what he wrote, the Bible is not very helpful as it does not name the Pharaohs in the time of Moses and Joseph. However, a few Late Period pharaohs were named: Shishak (1 Kings 11:40), Tirhakah (2 Kings 19:9), Hophra (Jeremiah 44.30), and Neco (2 Kings 23:29).

Syncronizing events and calendars

So, with that out of the way, how do we go about to establish a chronological link between today and a pharaoh? We could simply look it up in a book on the subject, but that does not actually teach us anything. Instead, we will trace the path and then actually walk that path.

Chronology

• 2024
  

  The current year.

• 1582
  

  The Gregorian calendar adopted. All dates before this use the Julian calendar.

• 643
  

  Arabic-Greek Papyrus PERF 558 is dated by Islamic (1 Jumada al-Thani 22 AH) and Coptic (30 Baramudah I, 360 AM) dates, corresponding to 25 April 643.

• 525
  

  Dionysius developed Anno Domini in 525 = A.U.C. 1278 = 241 Anno Martyrum.

• 284
  

  The Alexandrian calendar used by the Coptic church start in 284 AD, and is year 1 Anno Martyrum – the year Diocletian became Roman Emperor.

• 27 BC
  

  Octavian becomes Augustus, the first Roman emperor.

• 30 BC
  

  The last pharaoh of Egypt, Cleopatra, is defeated by Octavian and commits suicide.

• 509 BC
  

  Rome becomes a republic = A.U.C. 245.

• 747 BC
  

  The first Babylonian king Nabonassaros of Ptolemy's Canon of Kings started his reign 696 years before Cleopatra started hers.

• 753 BC
  

  The traditional foundation of Rome = A.U.C. 1.

• 763 BC
  

  June 15 solar eclipse in Sicily is used to fix the chronology of the Ancient Near East. (Diod. 20.5.5)

• 776 BC
  

  First Olympiad.

Chronology becomes increasingly unreliable the further back in time you go, as records become scarce or sketchy. This is not to say that it is impossible – historians are some very clever people and they have managed to find very elusive evidence to form a coherent and working chronology for very ancient times. However, it is not always possible or necessary to establish exact dates.

Cleopatra, the last of the Pharaohs

We know from Plutarch’s Life of Antony that during Octavian's fifth consulship, which he shared with Antony, (Plut. Ant. 11; Plut. Ant. 30), Octavian defeated Cleopatra and Antony in Egypt. This was before he was given the title Augustus, which is clear as he was still known simply as (Imperator) Caesar.

The Fasti Capitolini have a gap for the years around the fifth consulship, but the The Chronograph of 354 records it in AUC 725, but with Appuleius, as do the Fasti of Hydatius, but with Pulchro (alt. Appuleius). This is typical of antiquity - conflicting and/or incomplete information.

The Chronicon Paschale tells us that Augustus (Octavian) landed in Egypt AUC 727 (Anno Mundi 5477) and halted the reign of the Ptolemies, which had lasted 296 years, which according to Ptolemy's Canon of Kings lasted 294 years.

As we have learned above, AUC 1278 = 525 AD. There are 553 years between AUC 725 and AUC 1278. Subtracting 525 AD from those 553 years yield -28. Since there was no year zero, we have to increase it by one, and thus we arrive at -29 = 29 BC ≈ 30 BC, the date commonly used by historians.

All Roman dates, if they are complete and reliable, can be directly expressed in Julian years. All the other datings of ancient chronology are linked to our reckoning by direct or indirect synchronisms with Roman dates.