Mesopotamian History

[enkur]

There is some apparent incongruity between the chronology in the historic literature I've used to read and that I come across as "Short chronology timeline" in Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_chronology

The introductory sentences read:

The short chronology is one chronology of the Near Eastern Bronze and Early Iron Age, which fixes the reign of Hammurabi to 1728 BC – 1686 BC and the sack of Babylon to 1531 BC.The absolute 2nd millennium BC dates resulting from this decision have very little support in academia, particularly after more recent research. The middle chronology (reign of Hammurabi 1792 BC – 1750 BC) is still commonly encountered in literature and the most recent work has essentially disproved this ultra-short chronology.[1]



What does it mean? The historic sources I've used to read in my language relate the reign of Hammurabi to 1792 BC – 1750 BC and I've trusted them till now since some serious Russian and German sources are quoted there. Is this so called "Short chronology timeline" really updated?

[sheshki]

There is some information about the topic at Enenuru.net
got to
www.enenuru.net
----> Sumerian History
----> A) Mesopotamian Chronologies/ Dating Objects

I hope that helps.

[enkur]

Thanks Sheshki, it helps

[us4-he2-gal2]

Yes that's something we've run in to over the years- an issue is that Mesopotamian history is not put together from any one source, but because sources are incomplete and unscientific to begin with, scholars must pick and choose between different texts and decide what is the strongest evidence.


To reconstruct Mesopotamian history, they refer to the type of texts called 'Mesopotamian chronicles' - the most important example of this type is the Sumerian King List. But this record was not meant to be scientific exactly and there are contradictions between the many tablets used to reconstuct the text. Scholars will also use year names and royal inscriptions - these may contain scape of history here and there, or more importently, they may record the actions of one king against another.. When two kings battle each other, scholars are able to align separate chronologies. Additionally, toward later Mesopotamian times, the ancients records and comments about the stars allow for near to certain dating. So the real confusion comes especially with earlier dates.


So there exists 4 different models of the chronology, high, middle, low and ultra low.. Most people choose one or another model to trust the most and overlook the other datings entirely I think. It's just a fact of this field of study and certainly reminds us that the science is not so exact for the time being hm.