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Mesopotamian Chronology and the 'Era of Menophres'

1946; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 8; Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/4199528

2053-4744

M. B. Rowton,

Families in Therapy and Culture

The Mesopotamian evidence discussed in this article indicates 1356 for the accession of Ashur-uballiṭ I, who from the Amarnah correspondence is known to have been a contemporary of Akhenaten. Egyptologists believe that the lowest possible date for the death of Akhenaten is 1358. We are dealing here with a comparatively remote period, and a discrepancy of only 2 years may not seem very significant. But closer examination reveals that the discrepancy is considerably greater. Several years must be allowed for the overlap between the reigns of Akhenaten and Ashur-uballit; moreover, if the Menophres theory is accepted—that a Sothic cycle began in the first year of Seti I—the date 1358 for the death of Akhenaten does not allow for a sufficient interval between Akhenaten and Seti. The Mesa inscription proves that 59 years elapsed between the accession of Akhenaten and an unknown year in the reign of Horemhab. It has hitherto generally been assumed that the year in question was the last of Horemhab's long reign, but in the absence of any evidence to this effect such an assumption is absolutely inadmissible if we intend to abide by probabilities. Consequently, the discrepancy we are confronted with here must be increased by the number of years between this unknown regnal year of Horemhab and his death.