Centuries of Darkness

Great book, objective research. I'm sorry for K. Kitchen but he seems to be out of the game.

As a student of history who is very interested in knowing more about the collapse of Late Bronze Age civilizations, I bought this book as a companion to several other books I have on the subject. Despite its controversial theme, it was a well written and interesting book to read which I found hard to put down. The basic theme, of course, is that throughout the ancient Mediterranean, Greece, Egypt, and the Near East, the dating of these civilizations is almost uniformly based upon the generally accepted chronology of Egypt; and that it is this dependency has created a 250 year gap - a Dark Age - between the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. Using the evidence provided by respected scholars, Peter James and his team have documented in 13 chapters, the details of some 100 or so dating disputes, which arise from detailed evidence of continuity in western and southern Europe, in Greece, Anatolia, Cyprus, Palestine, Nubia, and Mesopotamia; and which if considered alone without the synchronisms with Egypt, would make it hard to see how there could have been such a 250 year gap. The lengthy chapter on Egypt develops the position that the astronomical Sothic Dating premise from which the Egyptian chronology was originally developed, is so badly flawed that it must be rejected. Coupled with the fact that the accuracy of radiocarbon dating in this period is problematical, and has tended to be used in a selective manner, the authors argue for a reversion to the dating theories developed by the scholars of the earlier 20th century before the Sothic dating theory was first developed. At one stroke, this would remove most of the major dating inconsistencies which have occurred over the past 100 years or so, and also incidentally show that the biblical description of King Solomon's wealth would be reflected in the Late Bronze rather than the early Iron Age.,After my first read through, I decided to read the book a second time, and in doing so to avoid being distracted by the pervasive theme of the book. I found that the important thing to do was to concentrate, instead, on the descriptions of the archaeological evidence and the difference of opinions between the scholars, and to take the time to check out the detailed notes and extensive bibliography. I found that there were many sites on the Web where I could find out more about the various references and the scholars involved. I also looked at the Centuries of Darkness website itself which is also worth reading, and provides considerable detail of the reactions of the academic world since the book was first published in 1991. Naturally, there has been a lot of hostility towards the theory presented here, but also some very interesting and perceptive comments. My search for follow up reaction on the book came up with only meagre results, so it seems that the theory has either been rejected out of hand, or is simply being ignored in the hope it will go away. That would be a pity, because the

James does an excellent job of confronting the problem of chronology in archaeology and ancient history. Is our understanding of the ancient world hopelessly confused because of a confused chronology? James looks at research on the entire ancient Mediterranean, comparing building and pottery finds, writings, and artwork, and the dating techniques used to place them in context. As others--from Immanuel Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos, 1952) to David Rohl (Pharaohs and Kings, 1997)--have argued, James sees the source of the problem in Egyptology. The dates calculated for the reigns of certain pharaohs and dynasties have been used as the foundation on which to cross-date finds throughout the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean. If this foundation is rotten, it throws the chronology of the rest of the ancient world into chaos.This is a scholarly book, and its very thoroughness makes it a rather dry and seemingly repetitive read. This is mainly because the same kinds of errors have been made or borrowed in all the studies--Greek, Hittite, Egyptian, Israelite, etc.--that James critiques. Still, it is an excellent reference work for anyone trying to understand where our studies of ancient history went wrong and where they need to be corrected.

Centuries of Darkness is, to me, an unusual work, in that the authors seem to be serious historians, who are still willing to stand up and point out the emperor's got no clothes. In this case, the emperor is the convoluted house of cards made up of middle eastern chronology which has been developing, in good faith, for over a century, and the fact that there appear to be flaws in this structure. The descriptions of these flaws and their suggestions for ways to handle them are well presented, even if they are not all immeadiately compelling. In short, this work is truly nutritious food for thought, and well worth the time to read it.