The Conventional Egyptian chronology reflects the broad scholarly consensus about the outline and many details of the chronology of Ancient Egypt. It places the beginning of the Old Kingdom in the 27th century BC, the beginning of the Middle Kingdom in the 21st century BC and the beginning of the New Kingdom in the mid-16th century BC.
Disagreements remain within this consensus, and various chronologies diverge by about 300 years for the Early Dynastic Period, up to 30 years in the New Kingdom, and a few years in the Late Period.
In addition, there are a number of "alternative chronologies" outside scholarly consensus, such as the "New Chronology" proposed in the 1990s, which lowers New Kingdom dates by as much as 350 years, or the "Glasgow Chronology" (proposed 1978–1982), which lowers New Kingdom dates by as much as 500 years.
Overview
Scholarly consensus on the general outline of the conventional chronology current in Egyptology has not fluctuated much over the last 100 years. For the Old Kingdom, consensus fluctuates by as much as a few centuries, but for the Middle and New Kingdoms, it has been stable to within a few decades.
All dates in the table are BC and should be treated as only approximates.Breasted's dates are taken from his Ancient Records (first published in 1906), volume 1, sections 58–75; Shaw's are from his Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (published in 2000), pp. 479–483.
Periods Dynasty Breasted (1906) Shaw (2000)Hornung (2006)C14 dating Early Dynastic Period of Egypt First 3400–2980 3000–28902900–2730 (± 25)began ∿ 3100 (± 100) Second2890–26862730–2590 (± 25) Old Kingdom Third 2980–2900 2686–26132592–2544 (± 25)began ∿ 2650 (± 50) Fourth 2900–2750 2613–24942543–2436 (± 25)began ∿ 2610 (± 40) Fifth 2750–2625 2494–23452435–2306 (± 25)began ∿ 2510 (± 40) Sixth 2623–2475 2345–21812305–2118 (± 25)began ∿ 2480 (± 60) First Intermediate Period Seventh? 2475–2445 2181–21602150–2118 (± 25)no data Eighth Ninth 2445–2160 2160–21252118–1980 (± 25) Tenth? Middle Kingdom of Egypt Eleventh 2160–2000 2125–19851980–1940 (± 16)began ∿ 2050 (± 20) Twelfth 2000–1788 1985–17731939 (±16) –1760began ∿ 1980 (± 20) Second Intermediate Period Thirteenth? 1780–1580 began ∿ 17731759–1630began ∿ 1760 (± 30) Fourteenth?1773–1650no data Fifteenth1650–1550ended ∿ 1530 Sixteenth1650–1580ended ∿ 1540 Seventeenth1580–1550 New Kingdom of Egypt Eighteenth 1580–1350 1550–12951539–1292began ∿ 1550 (± 20) Nineteenth 1350–1205 1295–11861292–1191began ∿ 1300 (± 10) Twentieth 1200–1090 1186–10691190–1077began ∿ 1190 (± 10) Third Intermediate Period Twenty-first 1090–945 1069–9451076–944 Twenty-second 945–745 945–818943–746 Twenty-third 745–718 818–727uncertain Twenty-fourth 718–712 727–715736–723 Twenty-fifth 712–663 715–664722–655 Late Period of ancient Egypt Twenty-sixth 663–525 664–525664–525
The disparities between these sets of dates result from additional discoveries and refined understanding of the still very incomplete source evidence. For example, Breasted adds a ruler in the Twentieth dynasty that further research showed did not exist. Following Manetho, Breasted also believed all the dynasties were sequential, whereas it is now known that several existed at the same time. These revisions have resulted in a lowering of the conventional chronology by up to 400 years at the beginning of Dynasty I.
Regnal years
Forming the backbone of Egyptian chronology are the regnal years as recorded in Ancient Egyptian king lists. Surviving king lists are either comprehensive but have significant gaps in their text (for example, the Turin King List), or are textually complete but fail to provide a complete list of rulers (for example, the Abydos King List and the Palermo Stone), even for a short period of Egyptian history.Hsu, Shih-Wei. "The Palermo Stone: the Earliest Royal Inscription from Ancient Egypt" Altorientalische Forschungen, vol. 37, no. 1, 2010, pp. 68-89 The situation is further complicated by occasional conflicting information on the same regnal period from different versions of the same text; thus, the Egyptian historian Manetho's history of Egypt is only known by epitomes and references to it made by subsequent writers, such as Eusebius and Sextus Julius Africanus, and the length of reign for the same pharaoh often varies substantially depending on the intermediate source.
Regnal periods have to be pieced together from inscriptions, which will often give a date in the form of the regnal year of the ruling pharaoh. Yet this only provides a minimum length of that reign and may or may not include any coregencies with a predecessor or successor. In addition, some Egyptian dynasties probably overlapped, with different pharaohs ruling in different regions at the same time, rather than serially. Not knowing whether monarchies were simultaneous or sequential results in widely differing chronological interpretations.
Where the total number of regnal years for a given ruler is not known, Egyptologists have identified two indicators to deduce that total number: for the Old Kingdom, the number of cattle censuses; and for later periods, the celebration of a Sed festival. A number of Old Kingdom inscriptions allude to a periodic census of cattle, which experts at first believed took place every second year; thus records of as many as 24 cattle censuses indicate Sneferu had reigned 48 years. However, further research has shown that these censuses were sometimes taken in consecutive years, or after two or more years had passed.Miroslav Verner, "Contemporaneous Evidence for the relative chronology of DYNS. 4 and 5", Ancient Egyptian Chronology Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss, and David A. Warburton, editors (Leiden: Brill, 2006) pp. 124–8 The Sed festival was usually celebrated on the thirtieth anniversary of a pharaoh's ascension, and thus rulers who recorded celebrating one could be assumed to have ruled at least 30 years. However, once again, this may not have been standard practice in all cases.Hornung 2006, "Introduction", pp. 10f
In the early days of Egyptology, the compilation of regnal periods was also hampered by a profound biblical bias on the part of Egyptologists. This was most pervasive before the mid 19th century, when Manetho's figures were recognized as conflicting with biblical chronology, based on Old Testament references to Egypt (see Pharaohs in the Bible). In the 20th century, such biblical bias has mostly been confined to alternative chronologies outside the scholarly mainstream.
Synchronisms A useful way to work around these gaps in knowledge is to find chronological synchronisms, which can lead to a precise date. Over the past decades, a number of these have been found, although they are of varying degrees of usefulness and reliability. Seriation, i.e. archeological sequences. This does not fix a person or event to a specific year, but establishing a sequence of events can provide indirect evidence to provide or support a precise date. For example, some inscribed stone vessels of the rulers of the first two dynasties were collected and deposited in storage galleries beneath and sealed off when the Step Pyramid of Djoser, a Pharaoh of the Third Dynasty, was built. Another example are blocks from the Old Kingdom bearing the names of several kings, which were reused in the construction of Middle Kingdom pyramid-temples at Lisht in the structures of Amenemhat I. Likewise, the third pylon at Karnak, built by Amenhotep III contained as "fill" material from the kiosk of Sesostris I, along with various stelae of the Second Intermediate Period and the Eighteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom. Synchronisms with other chronologies, the most important of these being with the Assyrian and Babylonian chronologies, but synchronisms with the Hittites, ancient Palestine, and in the final period with ancient Greece, are also used. The earliest such synchronism is in the 18th century BC where a stela of the governor of Byblos Yantinu indicates that pharaoh Neferhotep I was contemporary with kings Zimri-Lim of Mari and Hammurabi of Babylon.William Stevenson Smith: Interconnections in the Ancient Near East: A Study of the Relationships Between the Arts of Egypt, the Aegean, and Western Asia, Yale University Press, 1965 Other early synchronisms date to the 15th century BC, during the Amarna Period, when we have a considerable quantity of diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian Kings Amenhotep III and Akhenaten (or possibly Smenkhkare), and various Near Eastern monarchs. (See Chronology of the Ancient Near East.) For the Third Intermediate Period, Shoshenq I has been ascribed a date relative to Rehoboam and the Eponym dating system by Kenneth Kitchen, based on biblical passages about Shishak's campaign. Shoshenq I's absolute date was calculated based on Edwin R. Thiele's theory.Kitchen's quotes on Synchronisms with memorials of Apis bull interments. These begin as early as the reign of Amenhotep III and continue into Ptolemaic times, but there is a significant gap in the record between Ramesses XI and the 23rd year of Osorkon II. The poor documentation of these finds by Auguste Mariette in the Serapeum of Saqqara has compounded the difficulties in using these records though Mariette's notebooks have now become available.Porter, Robert, "Mariette's Newly Released Documents and the Chronology of the Apis Bulls", Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, vol. 151, no. 2, pp. 278-283, 2024 Astronomical synchronisms. The best known of these is the Sothic cycle, and careful study of this led Richard A. Parker to argue that the dates of the Twelfth dynasty could be fixed with absolute precision.Set forth in "Excursus C: The Twelfth dynasty" in his The Calendars of ancient Egypt (Chicago: University Press, 1950). More recent research has eroded this confidence, questioning many of the assumptions used with the Sothic Cycle, and as a result experts have moved away from relying on this Cycle.One example is Patrick O'Mara, "Censorinus, the Sothic Cycle, and calendar year one in ancient Egypt: the Epistological problem", Journal of Near Eastern studies, 62 (2003), pp. 17–26. For example, Donald B. Redford, in attempting to fix the date of the end of the Eighteenth dynasty, almost completely ignores the Sothic evidence, relying on synchronicities between Egypt and Assyria (by way of the Hittites), and help from astronomical observations.Redford, "The Dates of the End of the 18th Dynasty", History and Chronology of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt: Seven studies (Toronto: University Press, 1967), pp. 183–215.Kate Spence, "Ancient Egyptian chronology and the astronomical orientation of pyramids", Nature, 408 (2000), pp. 320–324. She offers, based on orientation of the Great Pyramid of Giza with circumpolar stars, for a date of that structure precise within 5 years. Radiocarbon dating. This is useful especially for the Early Dynastic period, where Egyptological consensus has only been possible within a range of about three or four centuries. Radiocarbon dating is roughly consistent with Shaw's conventional chronology. A 2013 study found a First Dynasty start in the 32nd or 31st century, compatible with scholarly opinions placing it in between the 34th and 30th centuries.