Shishak and Shoshenq: A Disambiguation. (2024)

The absolute chronology of the ancient Near East during the firstmillennium BCE is principally determined by Ptolemy's (Royal) Canon(see Depuydt 1995a), whose Babylonian segment establishes the onset ofthe first regnal year of king Nabu-nasir on 26 February 747 as theearliest secure historical date directly linked to the Julian calendar.The absolute chronology of Assyria may be extended back to the firstregnal year of king Adad-nerari II in 911/0, as determined by theAssyrian Eponym (limu) Lists (Millard 1994), which may be cross-linkedwith the Canon by equating the solar eclipse noted during the eponymateof Bur-Saggile with that calculated to have been observable in 763, asfirst noted by H. C. Rawlinson (1867). On the basis of thisAssyro-Babylonian chronological backbone, the earliest secureJulian-year dates in neighboring states may be determined: for example,the reign of King Ahab of Israel ended in 853 (Thiele 1983: 94-95);similarly, year 1 of Egyptian King Psammetichus I, founder of DynastyXXVI, is 664 (Kitchen 2002: 5-6). All further proposed historical datesfor these states, and those of neighboring regions whose chronologiesare built upon them (e.g., the Aegean, Cyprus, Anatolia, Elam), prior tothese earliest secure historical dates must be understood to be modernconventions for which at present no further direct confirmation,scientific or otherwise, exists.

The conventional Egyptian chronology (whether high or low) rests onthe so-called Sothic hypothesis, wherein it is assumed that throughoutthe history of Dynastic Egypt the civil year was taken to be exactly 365days long, and that as a result it slipped forward continuously acrossthe seasons in a 1460-(Julian) year-long cycle (the period betweensuccessive heliacal risings of Sirius on the first day of the civilcalendar) without a single adjustment of any sort ever. Leo Depuydt(1995b: 45 n. 1), writing in support of this postulate, acknowledgesthat the conventional Egyptian Bronze Age chronology can only be correctin the complete absence of any calendrical tampering. Peter James, incollaboration with I. J. Thorpe, Nikos Kokkinos, Robert Morkot, and JohnFrankish, in a volume entitled Centuries of Darkness: A Challenge to theConventional Chronology of Old World Archaeology (London: Jonathan Cape,1991), argued that the Dark Age at the transition from the Late Bronzeto the Iron Age during the last two centuries of the second millenniumBCE is largely an artifact of the overly long conventionalreconstruction of the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period (DynastiesXXI-XXV)--the nearly five centuries prior to 664 in the conventionalchronology--and that this Dark Age presents itself in any and everychronology from western Europe to Iran that is directly or indirectlylinked to the Egyptian.

The central hypothesis of the Centuries of Darkness (CoD) modelproposes specifically that there are significant misalignments anddistortions present in the conventional chronology of the ancient NearEast at large specifically caused by the currently accepted model forthe reconstruction of the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period (TIP) andits relationship with the end of the New Kingdom's Dynasty XX. Itsdate, in turn, is ultimately dependent upon the Sothic hypothesis (Jameset al. 1991: 227-28). The standard model for this period is epitomizedby Kenneth A. Kitchen's The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt(1100-650 BC), first published in 1973, with two revised editionsfollowing in 1986 and 1996. Centuries of Darkness presents a radicalpoint-by-point summary and reappraisal of the transition from the LateBronze Age (LBA) to the Iron Age (IA) across the eastern Mediterraneanbasin, northeast Africa, and west Asia. The CoD model has generatedscores of widely divergent critical scholarly reviews, for a listing ofwhich see http://www.centuries.co.uk/reviews.htm. This is hardlyunexplored country, but the CoD's judicious removal of just overtwo centuries in total from the TIP--archaeologically, the equivalent ofthe LBA to IA transition in the Levant--achieved by overlapping portionsof the relevant Egyptian Dynasties traditionally seen as successive (cf.Manetho, Aegyptiaca), the removal of spurious pharaohs, the shorteningof others' ascribed reigns, and the necessarily concomitantshortening of the Iron IA-IIB Levantine archaeological periods, doesprovide an alternative footing upon which a testable framework might berebuilt, one where proposed new insights might be subject to rigoroustesting, without resorting to faith or authority for solutions.

To quote the editors of the volume under review, Peter James (alsothe principal author of Centuries of Darkness) and Peter G. van derVeen,

BICANE is the acronym for the study group formed to make a fundamentalreview of "Bronze to Iron Age Chronology of the Ancient Near East."While not a formally constituted body, it is an umbrella for acollaboration between an increasing number of scholars working togetheron the chronological interrelations between the archaeology and historyof the Aegean, north-east Africa (Libya, Egypt and Nubia) and WesternAsia... during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages, (p. ix)

The papers presented in Solomon and Shishak center around a singlebut central postulate of the CoD model: that the biblical Egyptian KingShishak (1 Kings 14:25-26; 2 Chron. 12:2-9), who raided Judah, seizingits fortified cities and besieging Jerusalem in Rehoboam's fifthregnal year, circa 925, is--despite the obvious similarities in thenames and the fact that both kings campaigned in the Levant--to beclearly distinguished from Hedjkheperre Sho-shenq I, the Libyan founderof the Egyptian Dynasty XXII, whose triumphal reliefs next to theBubastite Gate at Karnak describe his campaigns in Syria, Canaan, theNegev, and Trans-jordan. Based on the archaeological, art-historical,and philological evidence first presented in CoD, significantly updatedand expanded here, the historical Shoshenq I is rather to be sought inthe later ninth century, in an "Omride"--rather than"Solomonic"--Iron Age IIA period, as argued for in IsraelFinkelstein's (1995, 1996) "Low Chronology."(Finkelstein's Low Chronology has also generated dozens of widelydivergent critical reviews, for a listing of which seehttp://www.cjconroy.net/bib/chron-low.htm.) Further evidence ispresented in support of the identification of the biblical Shishak withEgyptian king Ramesses III, ruling at the onset of the Iron IA period inthe later tenth century. Finally, Davidic and Solomonic Israel isidentified in the terminal period of Late Bronze IIB, here re-dated tothe eleventh and tenth centuries.

The colloquium's three sessions were entitled: 1) Is theBiblical Shishak the Same as the Egyptian Pharaoh Shoshenq I? (tenpapers); 2) The Glorious Reign of Solomon, Fact or Fiction?Archaeological and Historical Reflections (six papers); and 3) TheEgyptians and Jerusalem (four papers). Some of these papers are criticalof the original model, while others offer refinements, additionalsupport, as well as improvements to it.

In the opening essay "Shishak and Shoshenq: A ChronologicalCornerstone or Stumbling-block?" John J. Bimson provides ahistorical overview of the central arguments for and against thisidentification, which was first proposed by Jean-Francois Champollion in1828, at the dawn of the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics(Champollion 1868: 81). The identification is held as confirmed byKenneth A. Kitchen (1996: 72-76) through his method of"dead-reckoning" back from a claimed fixed point in 716 BCE,despite the significant incongruities in the two kings' itinerariesand the absence of any mention of Jerusalem and of all but one ofRehoboam's fifteen fortified Judean towns, Aijalon (2 Chron.11:5-12), in the admittedly damaged Egyptian record. Bimson stresses(pp. 4-5) that, given the hostility of the Deuteronomist towardsJeroboam I and his perceived failings, the Bible's silence on thesupposed need of the Israelite king for Shishak's Egyptian army todeliver to him his claimed kingdom is not easily accounted for. This isnot argumentum ex silentio: the picture outlined by the events of 1Kings 12:1-32, where Jeroboam is summoned from Egypt to join theassembly at Shechem to voice objection to Rehoboam's continuationof Solomon's obnoxious policies, followed by Jeroboam'sdivinely sanctioned and militarily unopposed secession, is substantiallydifferent from and, in fact, irreconcilable with the conventional view.The fragment of a monumental commemorative stele of Shoshenq I found in1925 at Megiddo among unstratified debris in a spoil heap left by Germanarchaeologists excavating there between 1903 and 1905 (cf. Chapman 2009)is in conformity with that king's inscription at Karnak, but is ofno chronological value.

Aidan Dodson responds with "Shoshenq I: A Conventional(ish)View." Accepting the equation of Shishak and Shoshenq I, Dodsonacknowledges the absence of Jerusalem on the legible parts of theunfinished Bubastite Portal at Karnak. Reinterpreting the evidenceprovided by Stele 100 at the Gebel el-Silsila quarries, dated year 21Shoshenq I, Dodson proposes that Shoshenq may have campaigned more thanonce in the Levant, speculating that the campaign to Jerusalem occurredtoo close to the king's death to have been added to the soon to beabandoned construction. Dodson's appended chronological table (pp.12-16) represents only a slight modification of Kitchen'sconventional chronology. The addition here of the regnal dates of thekings of Assyria offers an unwarranted air of accuracy; the assignmentof the year 824, the last year of the reign of Shalmaneser III, to theusurper "Ashurdaninapal" (cf. RIMA 3 [BM 118892] i 39, 52:[.sup.md]as-sur-KAL-in-A) is an unnecessary interpolation of theAssyrian evidence.

Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, in "Shoshenq I and the Levant:Synchronizing Chronologies," argues, on the basis of severalaspects of what she terms "Early Iron Age IIA" materialculture, for a "lingering Egyptian influence" (p. 17) onancient Israel, specifically in the wake of Shoshenq I's campaign,noting in particular that the spatial distribution of Egyptian potteryand seals coincides with the areas claimed as subdued by Shoshenq.However, in the CoD model, where Iron Age I is argued to be anapproximately four-decade-long period spanning the last quarter-centuryof the tenth and first decade and a half or so of the ninth centuries,preceding a largely "Omride" ninth century Iron Age IIA, andwhere Shoshenq I's reign is argued to be in the latter half of theninth century, Ben-Dor Evian's observations can now be attributedinstead to the period's proximity to the declining years ofDynasties XX and XXI. The noted use by Israelites of Egyptian hieraticnumerals, in evidence through late pre-Exilic times, likely reflectsrather the derivation of the Canaanite alphabetic script (seeconveniently Hamilton 2006), probably including numerals, from Egyptianhieroglyphic and hieratic scripts during the Middle Kingdom/SecondIntermediate Period.

Robert Morkot, one of the original contributors to Centuries ofDarkness, and Peter James, in "Dead-reckoning the Start of the 22ndDynasty: From Shoshenq V back to Shoshenq I," re-examineKitchen's method of "dead-reckoning" backwards throughthe Third Intermediate Period by reconsidering both its verifiableduration and its historical anchor point. In at least five cases (pp.22-24) the authors demonstrate how the extant regnal data have beenmassaged upward, resulting in a potential fifty-year range of error inthe conventional chronology. Then, supported by "every availablegenealogy" for the TIP, they argue for the identification ofOsorkon III with Crown Prince/HPA Osorkon. son of Takeloth II (acceptedby Kitchen), and the removal of three generations of royal figures ofuncertain affinity from the later years of the Libyan genealogy.Further, Osorkon III is identified with the king of the same namementioned by Piye (ca. 730-ca. 715), with Shilkanni in the annals ofSargon II (716), and with So, to whom Hosea of Israel sent messengers(ca. 725), thereby obviating the need for an "Osorkon IV," theputative son of Shoshenq V, for whom the authors argue there is nocredible archaeological evidence (pp. 33-37). With Shoshenq V nowpostulated as a contemporary of Taharqo, Morkot and James,dead-reckoning backwards using minimal regal lengths and Apis bull data,suggest the onset of Shoshenq I's reign in 839 or 829 (cf. ca. 810as first offered in James et al. 1991: 257), implying that an earlierEgyptian king must be identified with the tenth-century Shishak.

Ad Thijs' contribution, "From the Lunar Eclipse ofTakeloth II back to Shoshenq I and Shishak," is the development ofan earlier publication (Thijs 2010). After providing a possibleastronomical explanation for an enigmatic reference to the moon in thedated (25/XII/15 Takeloth II) Chronicle of Crown Prince/HPAOsorkon--argued to most closely correspond with a penumbral lunareclipse (a phenomenon typically near the limit of naked-eye visibility)calculated to have occurred two days earlier on 15 February 756--Thijsconsiders the wider implications of the re-identification and re-datingof King Osorkon III to the later eighth century. He reexamines thedistribution and assignment of the Apis bull burials and theaccompanying dedicatory stelae in the Lesser Vaults of the MemphisSerapeum. Thijs finds that his model with seven original burials, ratherthan Kitchen's proposed nine, fits much better with his newastronomically based dates for Takeloth II (ca. 770-ca. 745). Utilizingadditional astronomical as well as historical data, Thijs proposes asequence of absolute dates (p. 56, fig. 11) for the main line of Libyankings, beginning with year 1 Shoshenq I in ca. 843, somewhat earlierthan the dates proposed in the previous paper. Far less compelling andmore speculative is his further brief discussion of the identity of thebiblical Shishak, likely a Ramesside, and of Zerah the Kush*te (2 Chron.14:8-14).

In the next two papers, the authors, Troy Leiland Sagrillo,"Shoshenq I and Biblical Sisaq: A Philological Defense of TheirTraditional Equation," and Peter van der Veen, "The NameShishaq: Sosenq or Sysu/q? Responding to the Critics and Assessing theEvidence," argue respectively against and for the etymology of thebiblical name Shishak (ssq) among the hypochoristica evidenced forRamesses II and III (ssysw, SSW, ss). Points of contention includeissues of comparative phonology, especially the realization of sibilantsin Hebrew, Egyptian, and cuneiform scripts; the possible paleographicconfusion of the early Iron Age Hebrew letters waw and qop; and/or theemployment of a Hebrew pun or other word play, the latter certainly inevidence elsewhere in the biblical text. Given the arguments andcounterarguments offered here, it seems clear that, although some of thepoints made favoring the equation Eg. ssw = Heb. sysq are suggestive,the philological arguments adduced to date do not appear in themselvesto be decisive on this issue.

In "Ramesses III as Biblical Shishak? Some Notes on theArchaeological Evidence," John Bimson seeks to test thisidentification by examining whether the archaeological and inscriptionalevidence can be harmonized at the LB IIB--Iron I transition during thereign of Ramesses III, when "the number of LBA cities dwindled andIron I villages proliferated in the central highlands" and in theGalilee (p. 98). The CoD model rejects Albright's identification ofthis transition as the mark of early Israelite settlement, identifyingit rather with the breakup of the United Monarchy during an era ofmarked economic and political decline, in part the result ofSolomon's unsustainable and unpopular policies. These Iron Isettlements are now seen as the visible manifestation of JeroboamI's secession and the flight of refugees from further oppression bySolomon's son Rehoboam from such cities as Megiddo and Hazor (cf.Zuckerman 2007), perhaps weakened by internal revolts, while sites suchas Shechem and Tirzah, early Israelite capitals, flourished. The finalabandonment or destruction of those Iron I settlements, after severaldecades of continued political instability in Israel, is now locatedearly in the "Omride" Iron IIA period, its onset re-dated tothe early ninth century. It might be added here that the apparentabsence of distinctive Iron I burials may now be explained by the factthat the period spans less than half a century rather than theconventional two centuries (or more than three in the Low Chronology)and that during this brief period the Iron I population in the centralhighlands continued to employ LBA burial practices (cf. Kletter 2002:39).

Bimson moves on to reassess the evidence for Ramesses III'scampaign(s) in western Asia, including Papyrus Harris I and the MedinetHabu reliefs and inscriptions, in the light of the recent acceptance byKitchen of an Egyptian attack on Amurru (p. 105) and thereinterpretation of the evidence by Robert Drews (2000), identifyingRamesses' attack on Djahi not as a defensive measure within orclose to Egypt's borders, but rather as a retaliatory raidsomewhere in the northern Levant (pp. 104-8). Finally, Bimson examinesthe Chronicler's account of Shishak's invasion, finding thatreferences to Libyans, Sukkim (= Tjukten/Tjeekten), and Kush*tes,difficult in the conventional chronology, would not be out of place inDynasty XX (pp. 108-9). He adds that of Rehoboam's fifteenfortified towns taken by Shishak, according to the Chronicler, only one(Marashah) of the eight sites for which there is archaeological evidencehas failed to produce evidence of LB II/Iron I occupation andabandonment, likely due to limitations of the excavation (pp. 109,111-12).

Peter van der Veen and Peter James, in "Zerah the Kush*te: ANew Proposal Regarding His Identity," seek to identify this invaderof southern Judah during the reign of King Asa in the earliest years ofthe ninth century (2 Chron. 14:9-15). Rejecting the conventionalidentification with Osorkon I, the authors propose that Zerah is moreplausibly to be identified, both historically and etymologically, withUserhau, "overseer of the (northern) foreign lands," thehighest-ranking Egyptian official in western Asia, who campaigned in theLevant in year 5 of Ramesses IV. (For the restoration of Sinai 297+300,see Dijkstra 2009.)

In the following paper, "When Did Shoshenq I Campaign inPalestine?" James and van der Veen locate Shoshenq I'sinvasion of Canaan in or shortly before his twenty-first regnal year andseek to equate it with the movements of the anonymous "savior"who rescued Samaria following the attacks by Hazael and his sonBen-Hadad "III" of Damascus throughout the reign of Jehoahaz(2 Kings 13:1-7) (r. 819-804/3 [Galil 1996]; 814/3-798 [Thiele 1983]),and continuing into the reign of his son Joash. However, if these eventsare to be squared with 2 Kings 7:6-7, where an unnamed king of Samariabesieged by a Ben-Hadad is saved by the Israelite king's hiring ofthe kings of the "Hittites" (Assyrians?) and the Egyptians,whose approach causes the besieging Aramaeans to withdraw, then ShoshenqI's first regnal year must have been closer to ca. 817, rather thanthe dates proposed above (Thijs: 843; James and van der Veen: 839/29;cf. James et al. 1991: ca. 810). Note further that Assyrian KingAdadnerari III, whose first regnal year was 810, is not thought to havecampaigned in the West prior to 796. Additionally, Jehoahaz's sonJoash (r. 805-790 [Galil 1996]; 798-782/1 [Thiele 1983]), who in factdid pay tribute to Adad-nerari III sometime between 805 and 796 (Galil1996: 53), is said only to have "recovered" (lqh) the townspreviously conquered by Hazael during the reign of the latter'sson, Ben-Hadad "III" (2 Kings 13:22-25).

In short, if in fact 2 Kings 7:6-7 in any way reflects the eventsof 2 Kings 13:1-7, then contra James and van der Veen, Ben-Hadad"III" must have abandoned the siege of Samaria circa 796 inorder to defend Damascus from the impending attack by Adad-nerari IIIand the threat posed by Shoshenq I's campaign to recover (on behalfof Joash?) the territory previously seized by Hazael. On the other hand,the authors' argument that Shoshenq I's reference to the landof "Mitanni" is merely an anachronistic reference toAssyrian-dominated northern Syria may be compared favorably with thecontemporary use by Adad-nerari III of the equally anachronistic term"Hatti" referring to the same general region (e.g., RIMA 3 207[BM 131124]: 3).

The papers from Session 2 begin with Rupert Chapman's"Samaria and Megiddo: Shishak and Solomon," a reexamination ofthe dating of Iron IIA pottery in the light of Ron Tappy'sreanalysis of Kathleen Kenyon's excavation archives for Samaria.Chapman finds that, indeed, the Iron IIA assemblages at Samaria, and byextension, at Megiddo, belong to the ninth century, and thus are"Omride" rather than "Solomonic," a position in linewith Finkelstein's Low Chronology, and as far as it goes, notincongruent with the CoD model. However, unlike the latter, Chapman doesnot propose any significant compensatory lowering of the dates of thepreceding periods, presuming that Megiddo Stratum VIIA (Iron IA) isstill correctly dated to the end of the twelfth century (ca. 1125) (p.146), forcing one to seek evidence for King David, whose existence he atleast accepts on the basis of the Tel Dan Stele, and for King Solomon,for whom he finds no verifiable extra-biblical evidence, in the"uniformly unimpressive" Iron IA-IB strata (p. 143), nowpresumably representing a more than three-century-long period.

Wolfgang Zwickel, "Solomon's Temple, Its CulticImplements and the Historicity of Solomon's Kingdom," examinesthe LBA and IA archaeological parallels for Solomon's Temple andits implements in an effort to date the relevant biblical text, 1 Kings6-7, which he retranslates in an appendix (pp. 152-54). Zwickel findsthat there is "enough circ*mstantial evidence" (p. 151) toconclude that the Temple and its implements were the products of a largesingle polity such as Solomon's rather than of the later DividedMonarchy.

The next paper, "Josephus and Greek Chronography: Troy,Solomon, Shishak and Ramesses III," is by Nikos Kokkinos, anotherof the original contributors to Centuries of Darkness. Kokkinosreconsiders Josephus as an ancient chronographer in the light of the forthe most part Hellenistic historians, foremost Manetho, upon whomJosephus drew in order to argue for the greater antiquity of the Jewsthan of the Greeks. Kokkinos dissects in great detail in an appendix(pp. 168-77) and series of tables (pp. 178-89) each of the sources inorder to demonstrate how Josephus came, on the one hand, to a"high" chronology, placing Joseph's arrival in Egyptnearly a thousand years before the Trojan War (ca. 1120) and thecommencement of Solomon's reign (ca. 1129), but, on the other hand,to a "low" chronology derived from the Tyrian Annals, placingthe building of the Temple about 957/6. Nonetheless, Kokkinos arguesthat at least implicit in Josephus' relative chronology (althoughunbeknownst to him) is the identification of the Queen of Sheba with thefemale Egyptian King Tausret ("Thuoris") and of Shishak withRamesses III ("Rhampsinitos").

Peter van der Veen, "Early Iron Age Epigraphy andChronological Revision: A Summary Article," offers an anecdotalsummary of epigraphic finds whose general provenience, if not specificstratigraphic context, is known, and that appear to support asignificantly lower chronology. These include the Shema' and'Asaph seals from Megiddo, the re-inscribed royal statues ofShoshenq I and Osorkon I from Byblos, post-Ramesside mass-producedstamp-seal amulets naming Siamun excavated in Dor, the Shoshenq I stelefragment from Megiddo, Iron Age I-IIA body sherds inscribed nms, theKefar Veradim fluted bowl, the Tell Fakhari-yeh statue with bilingualinscription, and the alphabetic inscribed bronze arrowheads. Mostnotably absent from this list is Ahiram's sarcophagus inscriptionfrom Byblos, despite the presence on the volume's front cover of afacsimile of a detail of the sarcophagus relief showing the enthroneddead king (see appendix below).

Uwe Zerbst and Peter van der Veen's "Does RadiocarbonProvide the Answer?" demonstrates that there remain significantconflicts between archaeological- and radiocarbon-based time scales notameliorated by the use of elaborate Bayesian statistical methods.Following a detailed summary of the Bayesian approach for improving theprecision, but not necessarily the accuracy, of the calibrated data, anda brief discussion of the "outliers" problem, the authors,after examining fifteen distinct archaeological periods, find there arestill significant conflicts between calibrated radiocarbon and(conventional) historically determined dates, the latter typically onthe order of from one to four centuries younger. Although briefly noted(e.g., p. 208, fig. 10), the lower yet astronomically determined datesfor the construction of several Old Kingdom pyramids as established soelegantly by Kate Spence (2000, 2001) deserve far more attention: Herdate for the start of construction of Khufu's pyramid in his secondregnal year is 2480[+ or -]5, providing a seemingly secure anchor pointfor Dynasty IV. Perhaps most telling is the two-century error introducedby calibration into the radiocarbon dating of the bones of those killedin the collapse of a city gate during the destruction of Nineveh,historically determined to be in 612. First noted by Taylor et al. 2010,the fact that the majority of the offsets in the radiocarbon dates couldnot be adequately accounted for suggests the possibility of a moredeeply rooted systematic error at play (cf. Porter and Dee 2013: 1374).

Robert M. Porter, "Recent Problems withDendrochronology," begins his review by focusing on the work of P.I. Kuniholm and the attendant dating of in particular the Late Bronzeand early Iron Ages in Anatolia. Porter clearly enunciates the inherentweaknesses and unwarranted assumptions behind Kuniholm's data andhis questionable methodology, concluding that the resulting solutionscannot always be trusted. Perhaps most significant is Porter'sinference that as a consequence the International Calibration Curve forradiocarbon dating, which is directly informed by dendrochronology--muchof whose primary data remains unpublished--may be similarly suspect,perhaps contributing to the possible systematic error in radiocarbondates noted above. Note further Steven W. Cole (2014: 5), who hassimilarly remarked on the difficulties resulting from the"unquestioned acceptance of the dendrochronological dating" ofthe Anatolian timbers used to determine the absolute dates of theearlier Old Assyrian chronology.

The papers from Session 3 begin with Peter James, "Kings ofJerusalem at the Late Bronze to Iron Age Transition--Forerunners orDoubles of David and Solomon?" After examining the nature of theEgyptian presence in the Levant during the Late Bronze Age, in which"control" of the region was largely mediated throughostensibly loyal local princes, James seeks to identify the activitiesof some of these rulers--rarely identified by name in the Egyptiansources, apart from the Amarna letters--in the archaeological record of,in particular, Jerusalem, Megiddo, and Lachish at the LBA/IA transition.Following a brief discussion of the likelihood of the continued use ofthe massive Middle Bronze Age walls at Jerusalem until the Iron Age IIperiod, which would account for the apparent absence of specifically LBAwalls, James reconsiders when and by whom the so-called Stepped StoneStructure, previously identified by Kenyon as the biblical"Millo," and the adjoining "Large Stone Structure,"excavated more recently by Eilat Mazar (cf. Finkelstein 2011), werebuilt in the City of David between what is conventionally the twelfthand ninth centuries. Given the resources, manpower, and organizationrequired for such massive undertakings in Jerusalem, and in the light ofthe Ramesside finds in the vicinity of the St. Etienne monastery, Jamespostulates the existence of a regional polity, "Dynasty J,"with which he also associates the Megiddo Stratum VIIA palace,especially its treasury (which "may have replaced a similar unit inthe modified part of the western wing" of the level VIIB palace,according to Ussishkin 1995: 240-46), including hundreds of imported andlocally made ivory carvings, the hieratic bowls from Lachish Level VImentioning a wr "foreign ruler," the wr "(Ir)su theKharu" of Papyrus Harris I, and evidence for large-scale bronzecasting in the Jordan Valley.

James concludes that, regardless of chronology, "DynastyJ" must have been at its pinnacle of power between year 5 Merneptahand year 8 Ramesses III, a span of no less than thirty-two years (in thelow Egyptian chronology), during which time there was no knownsignificant Egyptian military activity in the Levant. This remarkabledynasty, in the conventional chronology, might be successors ofAbdi-Heba, who himself appears to have enjoyed a special relationshipwith Egypt (Moran 1975), or rulers of a new dynasty, perhaps"Jebusites." In James' CoD model this would be expectedto be the period of Solomon, who, he suggests, perhaps functioned as theEgyptian viceroy at Jerusalem. Note, however, that when HansGoedicke's (1979: 13-14) singular translation and interpretation ofthe "Historical Section" of Papyrus Harris I (lxxv 1-9) istransposed onto the lower CoD timeframe, then Sw, instead of being thepossible "historical prototype of Saul," might have been thehistorical (prototype of) Solomon.

Simone Burger Robin, "Analysis, Interpretation and Dating of aProblematic Egyptian Statuary Fragment Discovered in Jerusalem,"discusses the fragment of a red granite Egyptian statue of a royalwoman, without inscription or controlled archaeological provenience,which is said to have been discovered by workmen in Jerusalem in the1920s. Rejecting a Middle Kingdom origin for the statue, Burger Robindates it rather on the basis of specific iconographic parallels to thereign of either Ramesses II or Merneptah.

In Peter van der Veen and David Ellis' "'He PlacedHis Name in Jerusalem': Ramesside Finds from Judah'sCapital," the authors survey a collection of "highstatus" Ramesside finds, including the previously noted statue of aroyal woman, all of which appear to have originated at points to thenorth and west of Jerusalem's Old City (and the City of David).These objects, many with funerary associations, according to van derVeen and Ellis, together suggest the presence of Egyptian officialsstationed, and buried, near Jerusalem during Dynasty XIX. When seenwithin the context of the CoD chronology, many of these objects,especially the queen's statue, would not be inconsistent with thepresence and perhaps residence of Solomon's royal Egyptian bride,Merneptah's daughter, who gave Gezer, previously sacked by herfather the pharaoh, as dowry. If true, this would be a most noteworthyturn of events in light of Dynasty XVIII's expressed distaste forsuch marriages (e.g., VAB 2 4).

Dan'el Kahn concludes the volume with "The Campaign ofRamesses III against Philistia," an abbreviated and amended versionof a previously published article (Kahn 2011) that argues that theassumed connection between the sea and land battles fought by RamessesIII against the so-called Sea Peoples should be rejected, a positionpreviously argued by Drews 2000, but ignored here. Kahn locates RamessesIII's campaign during his eighth regnal year against thePhilistines (plst) at Djahi not in southern Canaan or Egypt itself, butrather well to the north in the Amuq plain (see now Kahn 2016). Kahnbases his proposal on references in Iron Age Hieroglyphic Luwianinscriptions to the land of "Palastin" or the like, datedconventionally to circa the eleventh century (cf. Emanuel 2015). (Itwould indeed be ironic if any of the destructions of coastal sitescommonly attributed to the supposed movement southward of the "SeaPeoples," including the Philistines, were in fact the handiwork ofthe forces of Ramesses III on their way north to confront thePhilistines at Djahi.) But whether or not Djahi is to be located in theAmuq plain is not a chronology-dependent question and its confirmationmust come from elsewhere. But the identification of the biblicalPhilistines with their archaeological counterparts ischronology-dependent: In the CoD model, with the period of the UnitedMonarchy located in the latter half of LB IIB, so must be theIsraelites' Philistine adversaries. Hence archaeologically theseare not to be sought in the Iron I period--where in the conventionalchronology they are invariably tied to the distribution of PalestinianMycenaean IIIC:1b ("Philistine Monochrome") and PalestinianSub-Mycenaean wares ("Philistine Bichrome")--but rather withinthe Late Bronze Age strata of those sites within the sway of the rulersof the Pentapolis.

Each of the contributions is appropriately well illustrated withclear black-and-white photographs, plans, maps, and tables, andaccompanied with full bibliography. However, in the absence ofmuch-needed indices, internal cross-references of the sort, "see...elsewhere in this volume," are not particularly reader-friendly.The occasional typographical errors are generally not significant. Thevolume's thin plastic-coated paper covers are flimsy and thebinding weak; several pages have come loose in the well-thumbed reviewcopy.

This reviewer finds Solomon and Shishak, and the original Centuriesof Darkness model upon which it builds, to be potentially useful toolsfor any well-informed reader with a serious interest in the contentiousfield of ancient Near Eastern chronology in general and biblicalchronology in particular. These volumes provide a useful, if imperfect,alternative roadmap that may well yet lead to a more coherent andcomprehensive revised relative chronology of the greater ancient NearEast. Unfortunately the presently proposed model still lacks thenecessary fine-scale structure required by historiographers for anabsolute chronology of the period under review; this is best exemplifiedby the generally lower, more accurate, but still imprecise regnal datesproposed variously above for Shoshenq I. To be welcomed would be futurecolloquia like Solomon and Shishak, where interdisciplinary groups ofscholars might evaluate the suitability for and impact of this proposedrevised chronology on, in particular, the order and arrangement of theMiddle Assyrian and contemporary Kassite, Isin II, and Middle Elamitedynasties, and on the late Imperial Hittite and early"Neo-Hittite" states--all cultures for which there existextensive literary as well as archaeological sources, and, mostimportantly, well-noted Egyptian and Levantine synchronisms. Central toany such discussions must be the apparent conflicts between thegenerally higher dates proposed by the scientific methods, principallyradiocarbon and dendrochronology, and the significantly lowerarchaeologically and historically determined dates; these discrepanciesneed to be addressed seriously and openly and resolved by reason alone.

In conclusion, it seems more than likely to this reviewer that theDark Age at the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age inthe ancient Near East is largely, but certainly not entirely, anartifact of the conventionally reconstructed chronology, and, in theface of the supporting evidence presented in part by the contributorsabove, should be given further serious scholarly (re)consideration. Twoadditional studies bringing further insights to the discussion might benoted: Amos Nur and Eric H. Cline (2000) have amassed evidence tosuggest that an "earthquake storm," a series of relatedearthquakes that spread across southern Greece, western Anatolia, andcoastal northern Syria and the southern Levant over a fifty-year periodor so at the LB/IA interface, may have been a significant contributor tothe site destructions observed (cf. Drews 1993: 33-47); and DafnaLanggut et al. (2013) have presented evidence for a drought phase at theLBA/IA transition associated with a 3.2 kyr BP (ca. 1050[+ or -]150)aridification event that also appears to have had a brief butsignificant impact on the region. But while the exact shape of a revisedchronology of the period remains to be determined, the outlines of apotentially viable alternative shorter chronology would appear now to beavailable (see Figure 1).

APPENDIX

The sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos, with its relief carvingsand incised linear alphabetic inscription, is conventionally dated nolater than circa 1000 BCE and as early as the thirteenth century, buthas also been dated to the ninth through early eighth century by anentire suite of art-historical and archaeological considerationsenunciated quite clearly some forty years ago by Edith Porada (1973)and, a decade later, with additional philological and paleographicalevidence by this reviewer (1983) while still a student of the lateprofessor. This lower date is now substantially reinforced by therelief-carved ivory pyxis IM 79513 (height 6.4 cm) excavated in Well AJof the North West Palace at Nimrud. Of one of the narrative reliefs onthe pyxis, depicting a royal banquet, Georgina Herrmann noted:

It is remarkable just how closely the arrangements of figures and theform of the furniture, both the sphinx chair and the table, areparalleled on the scene illustrated on the famous sarcophagus of KingAhiram. (1989: 90)

Herrmann ended the above sentence with a footnote citing Porada1973, who in her turn had concluded that:

Ahiram's reliefs continue the iconographic traditions of Syria andPalestine as well as of New Kingdom Egypt, but they have assumed thesimplified, heavy forms found on the reliefs of Carchemish and ofAshurnasirpal II of the ninth century B.C. (Porada 1973: 364, emphasisadded)

Despite the continued misuse of a statement Porada made there (p.364) regarding the possible dating of the inscription on the tomb toabout 1000, a necessary acknowledgement of Albright's then-dominantposition--in which case the reliefs would be the only example of theplastic arts in the region for this period--Porada firmly believed thatthe Ahiram tomb reliefs were perfectly good examples of ninth- and earlyeighth-century North Syrian art. It is difficult to imagine otherwisehow two local artisans supposedly working several centuries apart, inmedia (limestone and ivory) of different hardness and on scalesdiffering by a full order of magnitude, could have produced essentiallyidentical representations of what is self-evidently the same type of atripod table with zoomorphic legs and a distinctive vertical propbetween the stretcher and the underside of the table's blade,otherwise firmly dated to the ninth through eighth centuries (see Gubel1987: 251-61, Type VIII-d).

Compare further the markedly similar tables depicted on afragmentary ivory plaque from late eighth-century Nimrud (Room SW 37),as noted by Herrmann et al. 2004: 138, SI890 (ND 9094), and on aPhoenician bronze bowl from Idalion, Cyprus, datable between the lasthalf of the ninth and the first half of the eighth centuries, as notedby Glenn Markoe (1990: 21-22, fig. 12). Within the same context, Markoeadds (p. 24, n. 15) that "the shape of the eye, nose, and short,rounded ear" of the lions on the Ahiram sarcophagus "findclose stylistic parallels in the felines depicted on the ninth-centurybronze bowl from the Athenian Kerameikos." The most parsimoniousexplanation for the noted similarities among these offering tables (aswell as numerous other previously noted iconographic details) is thatthe artisans producing them were more or less contemporaries renderingin their respective media and scales virtually identical pieces of elitefurniture of self-evidently great prestige. Since the ivory carving IM79513, stylistically an archetypal example of the "Flame andFrond" school (Hermann 1989; cf. Feldman 2012), is securely datedto the ninth through early eighth centuries, as is the Cypriot bowl,then the reliefs, and hence the inscription, carved on Ahiram'ssarcophagus must also be dated to the latter half of the ninth or firsthalf of the eighth centuries.

Finally, it may be noted that Benjamin Sass and IsraelFinkelstein's most recent treatment (2016) of the replacement ofthe LBA-early IA Old ("Proto-")Canaanite script during theninth century omits any discussion of the place of the so-called OldByblian royal inscriptions, including the Ahiram sarcophagusinscription. These inscriptions (KAI 1-2, 4-7), conventionally dated tothe tenth century but re-dated on internal paleographic grounds by thisreviewer (1983) to no earlier than the mid-ninth through eighthcenturies, a position previously accepted by Sass (2005: 16), are, infact, fully complementary with the picture presented now by Sass andFinkelstein 2016: The Old Byblian royal inscriptions represent, again aspreviously argued by this reviewer (1983), yet another"national" script typical of the region during the ninth andeighth centuries. (See now B. Sass, "The Emergence of MonumentalWest Semitic Alphabetic Writing, with an Emphasis on Byblos,"Semidea 59 [2017]: 109-41.)

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RONALD WALLENFELS

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Review article of Solomon and Shishak: Current Perspectives fromArchaeology. Epigraphy, History and Chronology. Proceedings of the ThirdBICANE Colloquium Held at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge 26-27 March,2011, ed. PETER JAMES and PETER G. VAN DER VEEN; asst. ed. Robert M.Poner. BAR International Series, vol. 2732. Oxford: ARCHAEOPRESS, 2015.Pp. xii + 281, illus. [pounds sterling]47.00 (paper).