Talk:New Chronology (Rohl)/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

External links to yahoo group

I agree, in, most cases we should avoid links to Yahoo! Groups.

However, the title of WP:LINKSTOAVOID is "Links normally to be avoided" not "Links to always be avoided."

The preamble states: "Except for a link to a page that is the subject of the article or an official page of the article subject"

This is an official Yahoo! Group page, David Rohl has authorized it and makes regular contributions.

I think this is one of those exceptions.

TuckerResearch (talk) 22:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, then you'll need to raise the issue on the Reliable sources noticeboard. I know I raised it there or somewhere when David Rohl added it, and was told it wasn't acceptable, but I did nothing at the time for some reason and can't find where I raised it.--Doug Weller (talk) 05:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

My mistake, I thought we were discussing it before taking further action.--Doug Weller (talk) 05:35, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Is Reliable sources noticeboard the proper place to discuss this? I agree wholeheartedly that the Yahoo! Group shouldn't be used as a source, i.e. for footnotes and citations, but as an external link I think it is a justifiable exception to WP:LINKSTOAVOID. Is there a place to discuss proper or improper external links? Or would this talk page be the acceptable forum. I think that since the Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum (JACF) is now a defunct journal, the Yahoo! Groups are the place to turn to pursue further, external information about the New Chronology.

TuckerResearch (talk) 17:21, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Oops, apologies, I've taken it to the noticeboard, I meant to tell you. Rohl himself put his group up as a link to a statement by Kitchen backing him, but ignoring the conflict of interest, a mailing list which non-members can't read which has a transcript of a video of a conference... not quite good enough I think. But I'm glad we are clear that that isn't the issue, it's just the external link one. --Doug Weller (talk) 17:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Can we agree to keep the Yahoo Group link? WP:EL is a guideline (not policy), and it only says "normally to be avoided". It's a useful link and registration is free. And it's at least semi-official. Rd232 ^talk 14:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but registration is required, that is to get a Yahoo account AND register for the Yahoo Group. It is always somewhat sinister to link to sites that are not fully public. Of course the group has high quality content, but it feels a little secretive that not everybody can access the material without becoming a member (even if it's free). Cush (talk) 14:34, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

That line of argument seems downright weird. It is fully public; it takes about ten minutes and no money (there are no screening or selection criteria) for anyone to get access. Rd232 ^talk 15:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I raised the issue earlier today further down this page. There is another problem with Yahoo groups, many of them keep copyvio files in their databases and there is nothing to prevent them from doing so. As for registration, that is covered by WP:ELNO 6 which says "Links to sites that require payment or registration to view the relevant content, unless the site itself is the subject of the article, or the link is a convenience link to a citation.". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 15:18, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

That line of reasoning is not weird at all. The site requires one to have a Yahoo account already and to then apply for group membership which needs approval by one of the group admins. That is not what I call public and freely accessible. I am a member of that group and it took considerably longer than 10 minutes to get into it. Cush (talk) 16:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Would it help to solve this problem if I put the two statements by Kitchen, recorded at the reading University Exodus Conference, on my official web site which has no registration issues? Would that make everyone happy? If so, I will try to do it in the next few days when I find a bit of spare time.David Rohl (talk) 07:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

In general, statements on your website would be better than in the Yahoo group. Publication elsewhere would be even better. I forget now what the Kitchen statements were about - so much energy has been wasted on this page recently not talking about the substantive issues... Rd232 ^talk 10:03, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed! The two statements are (a) an apology for calling me 98% rubbish and (b) that he now accepts that the NC date for the Exodus in the MB is as strong as his own LB conventional date.David Rohl (talk) 19:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Back to Yahoo groups, another problem with them (and I am not talking about this specific one) is that they can be full of libel - someone sent me some stuff from one (registration required to read messages) where people were accusing me of various things including posting under other people's names. I don't think that happens on the NC group which is well regulated (well, it was under Cami and I presume is now, so far as I can tell -- I just joined out of vague interest, I doubt I will participate).

Remember our verifiability policy, if you post a quote, it has to be verifiable. Dougweller (talk) 20:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

David, if you post your own opinions, or other information about yourself, on your personal website, we might be able to use those as sources to verify that those are your opinions, etc. But if you post quotes of Kitchen, we would not be able to use those as sources to verify that Kitchen said those things. See WP:SELFPUB and WP:BLP#Self-published sources. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:58, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Horemheb

“Horemheb is identified with the Pharaoh who destroyed Gezer and later gave it to Solomon, together with one of his daughters as a wife. When Horemhab took Gezer he was not yet the ruler, but was acting under Tutankhamun. However, he became Pharaoh not long after, and Tutankhamun died too young to have left any marriageable daughters.”

Actually this does not contradict Rohl's theory. Tutankhamen did not have daughters but Akhenaten had plenty of them, we do not know about the fate of at least two of them, each had right to the title s3.t nsw which can be translated as Pharaoh's Daughter, and if an Egyptian princess indeed married a foreign ruler (which did not normally happen), the post-Amarna upheaval might have been a time when unusual things happened.

The most likely scenario is that Horemheb took Gezer and gave one of his daughters to Solomon as wife, and shortly afterwards became Pharaoh. Das Baz 22:48, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not an advocator of Rohl's theory, just wanted to add these facts. :) – Alensha ^talk 21:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Message from David Rohl:

I am personally disgusted by the way that Wikipedia can put out rubbish like this and then its so called guardians can refuse to allow the counter arguments to stay in the article. This is not an unbiased or neutral article and it seems that what is written about me and my work cannot be challenged by myself or anybody else. How ridiculous, dishonest and stupid is that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.41.235.163 (talk) 18:15, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

There are some shockingly biased and uninformed edits going on here which involve deleting facts and removing counter arguments to inaccurate and misleading statements. In addition references are being used to make negative points which are not references to the previous argument at all. Such references predate the argument and are based on material published in 1995. The new arguments and evidence has come to light since then and the evidence is quite clear that the sign for waw in the 12th century was identical to the sign for qoph in the 10th century and later. There is something very wrong with Wikipedia where complete amateurs can blacken a reputation and dismiss a theory with wrong references and misrepresentation. You need to get your act together.

Signed: David Rohl. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.41.235.163 (talk) 21:37, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this really from David Rohl? How do we know, either way? 22:48, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Be very careful! If every known fact has to be referenced in Wikipedia then it is presumably legitimate to delete everything that is not referenced. You Wikipedia folk have rules that are so up your own asses that you are in danger of running a mad house where facts and ruth are victims of stupid rules that permit lies and non-facts (dogma) to prevail. Find me one professional Hittitologist or Egyptologist who does not agree that Hittite chronology is dependent on Egyptian synchronisms for the dating of its New Kingdom rulers.

Signed: David Rohl. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.41.235.163 (talk) 21:50, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

If the above is truly written by David Rohl, would you verify this by emailling me? We've exchanged email before (a long time ago), & I can easily verify your identity by mentioning items we discussed. That would help make your case here. -- llywrch (talk) 01:39, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree we need to verify if this is David Rohl. If it isn't, I propose to delete all these comments and deal with the IP, who at the moment has a 24 hour block but can still email. I don't think it's Rohl. Dougweller (talk) 05:48, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you think it's Rohl? If I were him I'd be furious about the state of the article as well. It does not reflect what is Rohl's work and mixes it up with other stuff. It really does not matter whether Rohl wrote the comments, what matters is the point that this editor is making. And I agree with the criticism of WP rules. Maybe this article and the one about the New Chronology should be rewritten from scratch. Cush (talk) 06:08, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

He has his own account and in the past has not made personal attacks. But some of his edit summaries do look like the edit summaries of this IP [1]. And the IP is in Spain and Rohl lives in Spain. We still need to check. In any case this editor has been edit warring - and some of his edits also appear tendentious - and making personal attacks. If you or he disagree with the guidelines and policies, try to get them changed.

Having said that, this is a BLP and should be accurate as possible. I recently made an edit with the edit summary "Rohl's chronology is not the Glasgow Chronology, and this article makes it clear he rejects the Glasgow Chronology)" which I thought was trying to do that.

My point about a better source was that 'Legends' website [2] is inappropriate as it is a commercial website selling tours, records, etc. Do you disagree?

One of his edit summaries says "(This is fact and does not require references." Below where I'm editing there is a statement "Encyclopedic content must be WP:verifiable." Cush, do you really think that it's ok not to reference facts which might be challenged? Dougweller (talk) 06:43, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

A response from David Rohl:

Llywrch, yes it was a long time ago and I do not have your e-mail address any longer. Moreover, I have searched high and low for the e-mail addresses of the editors of this page but to no avail. Where can you access these e-mails?

As you can tell from above and the recent edit history, I am absolutely livid about the bias of this page. I have had enough of the negativity and lack of neutrality. Every time I try to balance that negativity in the article by adding the counter arguments to inaccurate and misleading statements and references, my additions immediately get removed. When I update the information to show that aspects of the thesis are becoming accepted (even in the case of Kitchen), you remove that info.

When I read your rules about contributions by the subject of the article, I see that I am entitled to make changes that qualify/correct statements or balance critical statements and that my own internet writings are a valid reference source. But the editors of this page do not accept Wikipedia's own rules. They put references in that come from Christian fundamentalists and evangelical publishers and authors who have no training or qualifications in Egyptology and Levantine archaeology. The references, when accessed, are just opinions from people who have no real knowledge of the subject. They are not verifiable. Let me give you two examples.

Van der Land is referenced in respect of a statement that Kitchen has criticised the Egyptian genealogies that I put up as evidence that the period between the 19th Dynasty and the Third Intermediate Period is currently too long. Van der Land is a Dutch Christian Fundamentalist bible scholar. He put his critique up on his own web site and invited responses. He received a devastating critique of his own article by Dr Bernard Newgrosh (a chronology expert specialising in Mesopotamia and Anatolia) which exposed van der Land's arguments for what they were - assumptions based on a poor knowledge of the subject matter. Van der Land refused to publish Newgrosh's response on his web site, even though he had invited counter arguments. So much for conservative evangelical scholarship.

In fact, the statement in this article that: "Kitchen has pointed out that the genealogy of Khnemibre, listing his Royal Architect ancestors, which Rohl references to date Ramesses II, omits one or more names known from other inscriptions.[1]" is completely bogus because the single individual that Kitchen argues is not in the genealogy and therefore undermines its accuracy is simply called 'Royal Architect'. There is no evidence whatsoever that he belongs to the Khnemibre ancestral family. So we dismiss a contemporary historical document (supported by two other genealogies of the same period) on the basis of an unidentified individual who happens to hold the same office but for whom we have no family relationships to show that he was a part of the Khnemibre line of Royal Architects. This is just silly. There is no historical evidence that the position of Royal Architect was like a Pope with only one in office at any one time. That didn't even happen with the Pope's, nor was it the case with the Egyptian Viziers. There were two Viziers governing Upper and Lower Egypt for logistical reasons. The idea that a Royal Architect could supervise building and quarry work across the entire land is just naive. There was almost certainly more than one Royal Architect in office at the same time. So Kitchen's evidence against the three contemporary genealogies is spurious and without foundation. Van der Land merely regurgitates a fallacious argument and then you at Wikipedia enshrine that fallacy in this non-neutral article about me and my scholarship. It is this sort of thing which does untold damage to a reputation and supports entrenched dogma over progressive reason.

The other more recent reference added to this page by Doug Weller regarding the Shoshenk/Shishak/Sysa argument is equally dubious. He added that "Others consider this unconvincing. [8]". The 'others' he references are two evangelical scholars, published by an evangelical publisher, who also have no training or qualifications in the subject area under discussion here. Their reasoning is circular. They do not challenge the evidence I presented beyond one completely mistaken point (see below) and opine that my evidence is unconvincing because the chronology is sound and therefore Shoshenk must be Shishak. This is a total circularity because the dating of Shoshenk I is based entirely on the identification of him as the biblical Shishak. If, as I argue, Shishak is not Shoshenk, then the chronology of Egypt collapses because no Egyptologist can work backwards from 664 BC for more than a few years before having to employ guesswork. The entire dating system relies on the Shishak/Shoshenk synchronism as Kitchen has made clear in his methodological approach published on so many occasions. These two American evangelists do not understand the issues and are a ridiculous reference to expert opinion on the matter.

Their one counter argument, made in the Weller reference addition, says that just because Jerusalem does not appear in the Shoshenk campaign list does not mean that Shoshenk did not plunder the city (as in the Shishak narrative). They say that Shoshenk need not have attacked the city and therefore it need not appear in the campaign list. This is a complete nonsense which exposes their lack of any sort of Egyptological knowledge. Pharaonic campaign lists do not constitute cities attacked, destroyed or plundered but merely those cities which surrender or accept vassalage to Egypt following a campaign. Jerusalem surrendered to Shishak and Egyptian forces entered the city and plundered it of its treasures. There is no way that the Egyptian campaign inscription of Shoshenk would have omitted this city on the grounds that it somehow did not constitute an attack upon Jerusalem.

Doug Weller says above that it is necessary to provide references to known facts - facts that are not contentious within the discipline concerned. This just makes a nonsense of everything that Wikipedia is supposed to be about. If every established fact is questionable, then I, or anyone, could legitimately wander around the Wiki pages deleting everything that does not have a reference. Things that are not in dispute surely do not need to be referenced? It is not my fault that some of the editors here are ignorant of the subject material they edit. Any undergraduate of ancient world studies will be well aware of the fact that Anatolian and Aegean chronology for the Bronze Age is dependent on Egypt for its absolute dating. That is basic stuff. If Doug Weller does not know this, perhaps he should read more?

As to Weller's remark above about the reference to my published articles and statements found on the Legend 'commercial' web site, that is rich! Every book sold is a commercial enterprise. Every web site is, in part, self-promotion. Wikipedia asks for money to support its work. Why the hell shouldn't I publish my thoughts and arguments on the web wherever I wish and expect those words to be taken seriously. The fact that Legend organises conferences and offers study tours in no way diminishes the content of my articles on that site. Why is the material churned out about me and my work here by non-experts more valid than words by the subject of this page? Why will you not allow this article to be balanced? Why are you so determined not to be neutral in my case? To be honest, I am fed up with the whole business and have asked your administrators to delete this page. You are not prepared to be fair or honourable, so let's remove the offending article.

David RohlDavid Rohl (talk) 13:03, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

David, you should be able to communicate with any Wikipedian by going to their user page & clicking on their "Email this user" link -- if they have enabled this link (& I think you need to also but I'm not sure) -- you can contact them that way. If you are concerned about giving strangers access to your personal email address, create an email address dedicated for Wikipedia communications with one of the free services (e.g. Yahoo, Gmail, etc.) & use that one.

As for the need to provide references, this actually helps Wikipedia users in many ways. First, it does provide readers a level of confidence that the sourced material is accurate (well, at least as far as verifying that "X said this" is actually what X said). Second, it also helps interested people to find material on the topic. This is especially valuable in providing access to the latest discussions in the secondary literature. (I found finding relevant discussions on Egyptian chronology an especial challenge, which is one reason I haven't added to the article Egyptian chronology since I uploaded the rough draft I wrote.) And third, having a source helps interested editors who are watching articles revert vandalism. (I'm amazed at how often individuals think try to get away with changing population statistics for Ethiopian articles: anyone can verify whether an edit corrects a typo or simply tries to affect the notability of a given ethnic group by changing the numbers. I have enough problems simply with the census results themselves.) -- llywrch (talk) 16:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Expand list of Pharaohs

Only 5 Pharaohs are listed in the section of the article giving the Rohl dates for Pharaohs. This part of the article needs to be expanded.Das Baz 22:48, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Doug Weller is certainly not an impartial editor. In any disagreement between traditional orthodoxy and any new ideas, he is powerfully prejudiced for the traditional orthodoxy. Das Baz 22:48, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Bull. I'm a skeptic, which yes, makes me question fringe ideas, but I definitely have nothing against new ideas. What's 'impartial mean'? Are you suggesting you are objective and I'm not? Everyone has a pov and they are entitled to one. Rohl's not impartial and there's no reason he should be. All this is is a personal attack because I've disagreed with your edits in the past. Read WP:AGF. Dougweller (talk) 05:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Calm down

David, you really need to calm down. Edit warring and insulting people is never the way to get things done. Nor is more or less saying you are don't care about our guidelines and policies. I'm very happy to make sure this article follows our WP:NPOV policy and is fair to you (and to those who disagree with you of course). For instance, you don't like the references for "Others consider this unconvincing. [8]". Fine, I have no problem with your comments there - but unless you are going to claim that Egyptologists agree, how about finding some references yourself and bringing them here. This is not a page for arguing about who is right, it's a page to discuss the article itself, which is a biographical article about you. Perhaps it should say less about your works, I don't know, that's one of the purposes of this page. But it is definitely not a place to argue your ideas. References, style, what the article should contain, etc, all belong here. Comments on other editors do not. Wikipedia articles are aimed at a variety of readers, most of whom will probably know very little about this subject - I mention this partially because no one has done anything about 'floruit', a great word but probably not one in everyone's vocabulary. But also because it relates to verification. I would never expect experts in the field to be very interested in this article, and we do not require expertise to edit. What we do require is the ability to verify what is written. Obviously not every fact, but verification is one of our basic policies. So if I, as someone not an expert or as someone dubious about a claimed fact ask for verification, then it should be possible to provide a reference and I can't understand why you have a problem with that. If anyone decided to go around randomly asking for refererences, WP:Point applies. If you feel that you are personally being damaged somehow, and can't solve your problems here, you can bring them up at our Biographies of Living people at WP:BLP/N. - in fact I've started a thread here [3]. I really suggest that you start assuming that others will work with you if you work with them. I certainly would have done so if you'd asked me to, and I didn't think it was possible the IP could be you at first. But meanwhile, you are blocked and you should not be using your regular account for editing to get around that block. Dougweller (talk) 14:48, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I never said I don't care about wiki's guidelines and policies. I said that you do not adhere to them. I also never said that Egyptologists agree with me. Some do, many don't. That is why I did not remove the un-referenced statement to that effect - a remark which cannot be verified (again a breach of Wiki rules). i did not argue my case here as you claim. What I did was point out, by supplying detailed information, why the references you used were dubious. To quote from your first reference - van der Land's website BGA: "The Bible is the true Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit. This holds equally for all historical accounts the Bible gives us. ... The BGA Foundation bases itself on the truthfulness of the Bible, including all its historical details, as the Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit." Well that says it all. I really reliable reference?

The reason why I have a problem in referencing every established fact is a point of principal. There are so many un-referenced and un-sourced comments/opinions in this article that I don't see why I need to reference known and established facts whilst you and others indulge yourself in wild statements and un-supported opinions without having to reference those statements. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. David Rohl (talk) 16:29, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I got the impression that you were dismissing Wikipedia's guidelines, etc - probably from your statement about the Legends website, your personal attacks, your edit-warring even when warned, etc. Your paragraph starting "In fact, the statement in this article that:" does appear to be arguing your case. Your comments on van der Land's reference, which is definitely not mine, I agree with, and if you'd made them sooner I would have done something about it. That reference was added in February 2007, a year before you and I discussed the Yahoo group link, so I'm surprised it's taken you such a long time to complain about it. I've removed it leaving a citation request. All you had to do was ask.

Of course you never said Egyptologists agree with you, that wasn't my point. My poiht was that if you didn't like my reference you probably had the resources to find your own.

If you want to discuss any of this on your talk page until you are unblocked, feel free. Dougweller (talk) 17:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Reboot

I'm surprised that there isn't a separate New Chronology (Rohl) article. Given the dissemination of this theory, I think it certainly bears that, regardless of how widely it is agreed with in Egyptology. That would be a start - and a chance to rewrite, better. Also, what's the relationship between Glasgow Chronology and Rohl's New? New Chronology says Glasgow is Rohl's theory, but the dates make that implausible. answered above, and fixed. Rd232 ^talk 15:05, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree that there must be a WP page for the New Chronology by Rohl, since it should indeed not be lumped together with other theories called the "New Chronology". I would be glad to contribute to such a page, I have read all the books. Also I can make charts and maps to illustrate what maybe would be hard to understand in just words. The New Chronology is an issue dear to me, simply because so far nothing else has ever made sense to me in terms of a possible historicity of the biblical narrative. Cush (talk) 16:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Sysq, Hittite chronology, and van der Land ref

DR: I have not been permitted to respond or contribute to the following discussion for some time because I was blocked. So I hope I am not breaching any rules if I insert my responses following each comment/suggestion, rather than having to paraphrase all this in a single reply at the end. David Rohl 18:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Re this edit: The reference is to a book by Gisanti and Howard which states that Rohl's theory about Shishak "has not met with wide acceptance among Egyptologists". This does appear to me to (approximately, at least) support the statement that others consider it unconvincing. There may be a better wording. It may be better to say that it is not widely accepted. "Others consider it unconvincing" could be interpreted to mean that all others consider it unconvincing, which I don't think we can verify.

DR: Two points here.

(a) the source for the statement is not reliable as the authors are not "authoritative in relation to the subject at hand" WP:RS. They are not trained or qualified to express an authoritative opinion. They are not a part of the Egyptological community and have not made a survey of opinion that entitles them to claim that the Shishak theory has not met with wide acceptance among Egyptologists. You need a source which can express such an opinion. Kenneth Kitchen is an authority and I am an authority because I contributed to the new theory on Shishak. Dr John Bimson is an authority because he wrote the definitive paper criticising the identification of Shoshenk I with Shishak [see Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum Volume VI (1993), pp. 19-32]. There are other authorities as well - but these guys are not.

(b) the wording is the problem here. 'Others consider it unconvincing' or 'Others consider this unconvincing' gives the impression that the 'it' or 'this' refers to the previous sentence on the new discovery that 12th century waw and 10th century qoph were identical signs. In fact the reference is referring to the theory as it was published in 1995. So, if you are unprepared to eliminate this statement on the grounds that it is a poor source, then you should at least make sure that the sentence reads something like 'The theory that Ramesses II (hypocoristicon 'Sysa'), rather than Shoshenk I, should be identified with the biblical Shishak is not currently widely accepted.' David Rohl 18:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Re Hittite chronology dependence on Egyptian: in this edit I changed it to "Given a dependence of Hittite chronology on Egyptian chronology", which avoids giving the impression that anyone disagrees with this (since we haven't seen, I don't think, a source disagrees) but also avoids asserting that everyone agrees, and I added a reference to support the statement.

DR: This is spot on and is precisely what I said. The Gurney reference is a bonifide authority so gives this statement verification. David Rohl 18:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Re this edit: while it would be preferable to find a better source, meanwhile I think we can use this web-page source to support a statement that Rohl's theory has been criticized, etc. I'll reword it to better reflect (in my opinion) what we can properly verify from the source. The wording "points out that" implies that something is true, which I don't think we can verify based on that type of source, so some other wording should be used, in my opinion. I skimmed over the reference and didn't find the part about a name missing from a genealogy; for example, a browser search doesn't find the letters "khn". Perhaps editors wishing to include this information could tell me which paragraph it's in. How about taking information from the conclusion of the article instead: "J.G. van der Land calls Rohl's proposition "an impossibility" due to inscriptions, astronomical data and synchronisms with other Near Eastern countries." (I'm editing in this change.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:26, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I reverted my edit re van der Land, as I'm not sure it's a reliable source. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: You are right, van der Land is not a proper source. He is not an authority, he is not trained in the discipline concerned and he is not the source of the criticism. That again is Kenneth Kitchen. So if you can't reference Kitchen on this, why are you even considering it as a valid addition to the article? Substituting this unreliable source with a generalised statement from that same unreliable source such as "an impossibility" due to inscriptions, astronomical data and synchronisms with other Near Eastern countries" is a travesty because it comes from a non-authority with no credentials to make such a broad-sweeping and unsubstantiated statement. David Rohl 18:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

From Llywrch:

In response to Coppertwig's points:

• I believe "has not met with wide acceptance among Egyptologists" is the best wording to handle this point. I've read his book & thought thru his arguments about Ramesses = Sheshanq, & the point which keeps me from accepting his argument is that there are two steps here: (1) proving the identity of the two personages (which I'll admit is a plausible argument), & (2) proving that the relevant passage in the Bible was placed in its proper context by the compiler of that section of the Bible. The second part is the one Rohl doesn't address, & if other experts accept his first argument, they are more likely to believe this passage is misplaced in his narrative than that the dates should be changed.

DR: Thank you for accepting that the theory is plausible. But I have a problem with your point (2). The leading authorities (especially Kitchen) do not question the placement of the Shishak passage in Chronicles which is explicitly dated to Year 5 of Rehoboam (OT chronology = 926 BC). So you go against consensus on this. Can you provide one single authority who has suggested that the passage is not in its proper context? The reason I don't address this is because there is no need to as it has never been in dispute. David Rohl 18:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Of course this falls under the Wikipedia rule of no original research. My point here is not that this should appear in the article; if someone did add it to the article, I'd be in a race with everyone else to remove it. As I mentioned below, this is my considered opinion on the matter. My point is that after having read some of the material supporting this equation (including the relevant section in Pharaohs and Kings), I can't help but suspect that there is a circular argument here in the conventional dating: Shishaq != Ramesses II because Shishaq clearly lived in Year 5 of Rehoboam, & Rehoboam didn't rule at the same time as Ramesses II because Shishaq != Ramesses II. You've made a plausible case for the first half of your argument; make a plausible case for the second half, then it is up to those who disagree with you to prove you aren't right about Rehoboam & Ramesses being contemporaries. (All of this is just my opinion as a non-specialist, which is arguably worth less than a used ticket to a free lecture on Egyptology. However, if you know the reasons why this passage is not misplaced, I'd appreciate a pointer to the article/monograph.) -- llywrch (talk) 06:18, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: To be honest, I don't think I can supply such a reference because, as I said, I do not believe that the issue of the reliability of the passage's context has been questioned. But haven't we got this the wrong way around? Shouldn't you be referencing authorities who do question the context? The reliability of a text - its veracity and context - is assessed by the examination of independent external archaeological and inscriptional evidence. I have questioned the reliability of that evidence in the case of Shoshenk I, but have found more promising evidence in the case of Ramesses II. That is how an historical theory works. To briefly deal with the circular argument, there is indeed one - but it isn't mine (I believe). In the orthodox scheme (held by Kitchen and others), Shoshenk I = Shishak because of the similarity of names and the fact that Shoshenk campaigned in Palestine. Kitchen then uses the biblical date of 926 BC (Year 5 Rehoboam) to date Shoshenk and all the Egyptian kings who precede and follow him. When internal Egyptian evidence contradicts this biblically-derived date, it is rejected in favour of the so-called biblical synchronism. This key date is then used to establish the dates for Ramesses II which, in turn, fixes the date of the biblical Exodus (even though the Bible places this event more than 200 years earlier). So the Bible establishes the date for one pharaoh and then that date fixes the dates of a predecessor which then establishes the date for another biblical event (the Exodus) which contradicts the Old Testament data. That is why it is so important to question the identity of Shoshenk I as the biblical Shishak. My dates for Ramesses II are not fixed by the biblical data but by the internal Egyptian evidence. That is not a circularity. This king then happens to coincide with the biblical date for Shishak. It then becomes significant that he did campaign against Israel (attested in contemporary documents) and that his popular name (attested in Palestine) was Sysa. So I do not use the Bible to date Egyptian history, but I do compare the two sources to draw parallels in the revised scheme (known as the New Chronology). I think this is a proper and sound methodology. I hope that helps. David Rohl 08:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

As wrote above, the circular argument is in the standard chronology; your book simply makes it easier to see it. Obviously, if you cinch your case Shoshenq = Shishak, then those who disagree with you would be expected to then raise the possibility that this passage was misdated by the composer of this book of the Bible. The date of the Biblical Shishak has never been questioned because there was no reason to do so -- unless one accepts your identification, & considers the implications; providing an argument that it is not misdated then makes your conclusions for the dates of the Undivided Kingdom all the more convincing. Is the point I'm making here clear? (This side discussion has long since led away from anything that can be added to this article. If you'd like to continue this discussion, perhaps we should take it to your Talk page.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

• Hittite & Egyptian chronologies: One problem with them is that they depend on each other -- as well as Mesopotamian chronologies. The other problem is that not one of them is free of possible errors due to incomplete texts & a heavy reliance on inference & deduction. Hundreds of experts have pounded on the reasoning behind the current chronologies, but in the end their reliability is based on trust -- trust that the other experts have done their jobs properly.

DR: This is not correct. Hittite chronology is dependent on Egypt, but Egyptian chronology is not dependent on Hatti. The rest of what you say is true. David Rohl 18:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not quite clear what Rohl's issue is with van der Land & his religion. Yes, evangelical Christians can be unreliable about the history of ancient Egypt -- but the same can be said about Catholics, Jews, & atheists. There's another review about Rohl's book linked from this page, published in KMT, which is a mainstream publication on this subject: why not use that one instead?

DR: I have explained my reasons why van der Land is unreliable as a source and the fact that he believes the principal text under discussion here is the infallible word of God goes, in my opinion, towards his unsuitability to address the material in a reasonable scholarly fashion. I agree that the KMT article is a much better source for this statement. David Rohl 18:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• While there is much of own opinion in my post above, which means it might not be usable in improving this article, I'd like to throw one thing out: what Rohl wants is some respect for his research & ideas on ancient Egyptian chronology, & despite everything I think he deserves some -- definitely more than he apparently gets from the Egyptological establishment. Further, few experts are 100% correct 100% of time: Newton may have founded modern physics & calculus, but he also dabbled in Numerology & advocated an undeniably crank version of chronology of general history. One thing I discovered as I researched my draft of this article was that there is no single source which explains just how the current model of ancient Egyptian chronology has been created: for some details I had to rely on Rohl's Pharaohs and Kings because it was the only place these details were explained. Rohl may be entirely wrong about his ideas, but I think he will be important for Egyptology for at least one reason: his books force the mainstream establishment to rethink their conclusions & reassess the arguments they used to reach them. And doing so will allow us to get closer to what actually happened. -- llywrch (talk) 04:37, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• I didn't think 'others' would imply everyone, but I really don't care as long as it reflects the source. I still think the Legends website is a commercial one, and to say that books are also commercial doesn't seem a good argument. Dougweller (talk) 05:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: Doug, 'others' isn't the problem. 'it' is the problem. As to the Legend web site. Can you please give us an example of something for sale on that site that you can purchase? David Rohl 18:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Potentially tours, right now, [4]. Dougweller (talk) 18:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: Universities and extramural education organisations advertise study tours and conferences. Legend Conferences does the same and has had top scholars (including Kitchen, Kent Weeks, Zahi Hawas, Manfred Bietak, et al.) attending. Would you regard educational establishment web sites as 'commercial'? Museum web sites sell things. Does that mean that the info about artefacts on their pages is not a legitimate source because of the 'Museum Shop' link on the site? And you say 'potential tours'. Are there any being advertised there at the moment? The answer is no. The articles written by me on a different link on the Legend home page (not the Legend Conferences page) are communications by the subject of the Wiki article. I understand that to be a legitimate source. Would you please respond to the suggestions I have made in the previous discussion and make the changes that you agree with? 83.41.235.163 (talk) 20:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I wrote "potentially tours". The link was to your store where, according to another page, ". If you like what you hear, then go to the Online Shop in the left menu column of this page where you can place an online order for the new BC - Ancestors CD." The whole website is promotional. Dougweller (talk) 20:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Problems with this article

This article seems to contain quite a lot of original research and synthesis of various sources. I'm not sure if it violates BLP policy or not, but certainly, the use of loaded -- and negative POV -- words to describe this man's research seems very problematic. I'm not certain I want to get involved just now, as I'm quite busy IRL, but I may take a look at this in a few days, and seriously trim down this article. UnitAnode 02:37, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: Thank you, that would be very helpful and much appreciated. If you need any info I would be happy to provide what I can. David Rohl 08:17, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

What 'loaded' and 'negative pov' words do you have in mind? Dougweller (talk) 08:27, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Forum link

This links seems to be against WP:EL. I can't see any reason for an exception here. Dougweller (talk) 12:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Structure of the article

A chart comparing the chronologies could be added to the article

I suggest to break apart the article in different sections dealing with different scopes of the New Chronology theory.

• Egypt: the initial revision of Egyptian chronology as proposed by Rohl. (A Test of Time)
• The Levant: the history from the Exodus to the Divided Monarchy. (A Test of Time, From Eden to Exile).
• Mesopotamia, Iran, and Eden: the history of the very ancient period (Legend, From Eden To Exile)
• Anatolia: the synchronisms between the Hittites and their Egyptian and Levantine contemporaries (From Eden to Exile, The Lords of Avaris)
• Greece and Egypt: the Pelasgians and the Hyksos (The Lords of Avaris)
• Italy: the history behind the mythical origins of Rome (The Lords of Avaris)

By now the theory is too complex to be condensed into one single section of prose text. Cush (talk) 13:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems reasonable, although with an overall introduction to the headline points. Are you up for doing the donkey work assuming everyone agrees. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 13:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: I am not sure if this division of the original biographic article on David Rohl into a straightforward biography and a separate New Chronology page solves the problem of COI. Can someone advise me if I may contribute material and edit incorrect statements in order to ensure that the theory is not misrepresented? For instance, am I permitted to add limited visual material such as a comparison between the 10th century proto-hebrew writing of Sysa and the 7th century early-hebrew writing of Shysak? This would make complicated and lengthy explanations redundant as the image speaks for itself. Your advice would be appreciated. David Rohl 14:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, first of all, the split is necessary. The person is not the same as his work. The presentation of the New Chronology theory should be based on the material, not on its originator. We wouldn't want to merge the articles on Einstein and Relativity either.

Of course images can illustrate an article and function as explanatory material. All one has to consider are copyright questions. As I had said, I would love to contribute maps and chronological charts to avoid lengthy explanations. Cush (talk) 14:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR is right that the split doesn't solve COI. In general, sticking to the talk page is an excellent strategy, and introducing new sources is often helpful. Images may well be helpful, but copyright issues may be a problem for anything published previously if you didn't retain copyright and/or don't want to allow free re-use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags; you can ask questions at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. PS Can you point to any public bio sources - apart from your websites - to improve the David Rohl article? Rd232 ^talk 14:44, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

And even though it was only a minor edit correcting a book title, I think it was a really bad idea to do that using an IP address just now. Dougweller (talk) 16:39, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: That was a mistake. I thought I was logged in. 17:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

@Dougweller: please dismount your high horse.

@Rd232: I find it somewhat ridiculous that every Jew and Christian can edit articles that are related to the ancient history of the Middle East without being accused with COI, although we all know that especially the editors from the US are often driven by religious fundamentalism, which is evident form many many articles. I even discard Kenneth Kitchen as a reliable source because he is an evangelical christian and therefore in a COI when it comes to accuracy in articles about biblical/historical issues. Subsequently I would discard any other religionists as trustful editors. AGF is not so easy when dealing with articles that are of significance in a belief system.

Clearly there might be a COI if Mr Rohl were to himself change the article to remove or even reword criticism, but he has every right to correct inaccurate presentations of his work. He would of course have to source his edits, but that's the same for everyone else. Of course secondary sources that refer to and present his work (accurately) are preferable. Cush (talk) 17:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I take you point, Cush, that on some topics most people have a COI of some sort. However it's different when the page is about you or you work - extra care is called for. Of course Rohl can edit as well, it's just in my experience that often turns out badly; sticking to the talk page is a safer option. Rd232 ^talk 18:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: Just in case you missed it amongst all this wordage. I am prevented from editing my bio page or this NC page by administrator William M. Connolley (talk). I disagree with his interpretation of the COI rules, but he remains adamant that I cannot edit anything. David Rohl 18:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Rohl (talk • contribs)

Well let's be clear - WMC hasn't banned you from editing these pages, and policy permits it but strongly discourages it. Because of the importance of sticking to WP policy on sourcing and neutrality and original research etc etc, which I believe you're relatively unfamiliar with (it's a bit of a sticky wicket, especially if you're learning on pages about yourself and your work), sticking to the talk page for anything except obviously non-controversial edits and removal of WP:vandalism (check the definition) is excellent advice and in your own interests. Remember there is no deadline, and I think we're starting to get somewhere with collaboration. Remember too that you can do some drafting at a WP:Usersubpage (copy-pasting the current article, or starting anew), which would be one way to provide more comprehensive input; just don't be miffed if it isn't taken on board wholesale. If things go wrong down the line, follow dispute resolution. cheers, Rd232 ^talk 23:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Well said, Rd232. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:08, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: I was referring to this on the DR mytalk page: "Does editing my own article breach COI or not? David Rohl 16:19, 4 August 2009 (UTC). Yes it does. William M. Connolley (talk) 16:41, 4 August 2009 (UTC)." Seems pretty clear to me what WMC's view is.David Rohl (talk) 08:13, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

DR:@Rd232 (I presume this code means addressed to Rd232?): I will try to find some biographical material for you, but I am not that famous to have reached the attention of biographers. Even my own web site does not have a biography. If you take a look at my CV there though, you will find plenty of info on academic career, independent newspaper and magazine articles about me and my research, TV series presented and public lectures I have given. There are also review quotes concerning my books. This CV source may not be independent but it is accurate and verifiable in public records. Hope that helps a little. 17:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Rohl (talk • contribs)

I am not going to give David Rohl special treatment. I have tried my best to help him, making sure his concerns were reflected on the BLP noticeboard, adding a block notice to his talk page so that he knew how to request an unblock, etc. And I will now add a warning to his talk page about personal attacks and AGF (see his edit at the very top of this page). Dougweller (talk) 17:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: @Rd232: You might try looking at (a) http://www.egyptology-uk.com/archive_rohl.htm, (b) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article1168986.ece?token=null&offset=0, (c) http://www.bjharvest.co.uk/rohl.htm (for the music career), and there is some useful comments from academics, archaeologists and TV producers at http://www.davidrohl.com/testimonials_7.html. David Rohl 17:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll have a look at those when I have a minute. cheers, Rd232 ^talk 18:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: Doug, what edit at the top of the page? David Rohl 17:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm guessing it's the "anti-Rohl" remark addressed at a fellow editor (llywrch), which has been there a while though. Rd232 ^talk 18:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: But I did not write that! That was written years ago by somebody else. That's why I am confused. I have no idea what hair shirt Doug Weller is wearing. He is in a huff about something. Maybe it is the fact that people here are finally realising or noticing that this article (which he has been minding) ain't that hot. David Rohl 18:21, 5 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Rohl (talk • contribs)

DR: I don't know what is going on here. I am signing with four tildes and I am seeing my signature in edit mode, but not on the page. David Rohl 18:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Rohl (talk • contribs)

I don't know the answer to that one. Post a question over at Wikipedia:New contributors' help page, & see if someone there knows. -- llywrch (talk) 19:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

That edit? Oh Gawd, it's not something David Rohl ever wrote, but another editor I had a disagreement with years ago. (Doug left a note on my talk page about that & I've been spending the last hour looking at all of DR's edits -- nothing I could see as incivil, let alone a personal attack.) That disagreement was because I included biographical information from DR's website that he was once in a rock band & a sound engineer. At the time -- & now -- I honestly don't think there's anything derogatory or embarrassing about those details (it shows that he's done more than attend a lot of college classes), although if DR wants them out, by the rules of WP:BLP we can remove them. -- llywrch (talk) 18:18, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: I have no problem with my musical past being in the biography article. It would be nice if it was a bit more accurate. And it would be nice if it was updated to say that I am back recording again and bringing out two new albums in the next year. ... Just for completeness ;-) David Rohl 18:26, 5 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Rohl (talk • contribs)

Is the information on your webpage? If so, then it'll find its way into Wikipedia. -- llywrch (talk) 19:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: You could take a look at the Mandalaband Myspace page where all the info, blogs and music are represented. May not be a suitable reference source but the background is all there to work from. There is a blog there from Keith Domone which constitutes a music bio of David Rohl. http://www.myspace.com/mandalaband3 David Rohl 22:54, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately Myspace is not usually considered a reliable source around here. (I'm not the one who came up with that, so don't blame me!) But looking at the names in previous line-ups -- members went on to form Sad Café, Justin Haywood guested on one track on an album -- IMHO Mandalaband is notable. Did the usual music publications (e.g. Rolling Stone or NME) do any write-ups? -- llywrch (talk) 16:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: It was a looooong time agoooooo! I was young then. Don't think I could come up with reviews now, even if I wanted to. ;-) David Rohl (talk) 08:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

@Dougweller: You know how bad these articles have been. We have had discussions about them. Mr Rohl's fury is understandable, since the inaccurate and even somewhat dismissive presentation could be viewed as amounting to slander. And I whish you would give all the religionist editors around here the same non-special treatment. Cush (talk) 18:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: Doug, do you mind if I ask you ... do you regard yourself as a Christian Fundamentalist? It would be useful to know where you are coming from with your editing of this article. If you prefer not to say, then that's fine. Closet fundamentalism is all the rage these days. David Rohl 18:39, 5 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Rohl (talk • contribs)

Sorry, I'm way off on that edit at the top of the page. I'll clear it up on David's talk page. David, I'm an atheist. Cush, reliable sources are explained at WP:RS as you know. I have to accept many sources I really would not like to accept, and I try very hard to treat everyone the same. I thought you knew that, Cush, and you know you can call on me for help and you have before. A David, we need sources about your music, and we normally wouldn't mention things that are going to happen unless they are major and well documented - publications don't always happen on time, etc. I have only been 'minding' this article in the sense that it, like literally thousands of others, are on my watch list. I did try to straighten out some confusion between David's ideas and New Chronology as David's ideas were being described very incorrectly. Here's the diff [5] - David, did I get that right? Dougweller (talk) 20:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: Not sure Doug if I understand the red 'Glasgow Chronology' that you have added to the link. I do not follow the Glasgow Chronology. I was the one who exposed its weaknesses and offered the New Chronology to replace it. But I do appreciate your cooperation. Things seem finally to be getting civil and sensible here with an attitude that says 'let's get things right'. That is all I ever wanted. As a result, I am no longer 'livid'. David Rohl 22:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Rohl (talk • contribs)

Ok, I'll surround the link with 'nowiki' markup so you can see it: the old edit read "Rohl bases his revised chronology (the [[Glasgow Chronology|New Chronology]]". This is a WP:Piped link, a way of having one word or phrase lead to an article with a different title. Without the 'nowiki', it reads "Rohl bases his revised chronology (the New Chronology)" so when you click on 'New Chronology' to find out more about it, you go to Glasgow Chronology - making it look as though 'New Chronology' was another name for Glasgow Chronology. Very glad to hear you are no longer livid. Dougweller (talk) 05:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Kitchen refs

Not sure if you already have these, but I found these refs:

• Mentions Rohl as "maverick" in a footnote on p. 45 [6]
• p. 122 here: "Clancy would date Shoshenq I to approximately 800 B.C.E. simply on the say-so of a recent "crank chronologist," Rohl (1995), whose attempts to down-date Egyptian and ancient Near-Eastern chronology by 250/300 years are 100% nonsense, considering the full array of evidence we are privileged to have these days." [7] Symbiosis, symbolism, and the power of the past: Canaan, ancient Israel, and their neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palaestina ... William G. Dever, Seymour Gitin, eds. EISENBRAUNS, 2003 1575060817, 9781575060811 in chapter "Egyptian Intervetions in the Levant in Iron Age II" p. 113-132; this chapter is by Kitchen.

☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: Now you know what I am up against and therefore why it is so important not to proliferate the negative view that these sought of libelous comments from Kitchen generates. This retired professor despises anyone who does not toe his line and dares to question the chronology he has established. How does one defend oneself from this sort of smear campaign? Well, perhaps by standing it against comments from other people. Such as: "David Rohl’s books have convinced me that he is one of the most brilliant and original minds now engaged in writing ancient history." By Colin Wilson, Archaeology Correspondent for the Daily Mail. Or: "A consummate communicator, Rohl writes and lectures brilliantly and is one of that rare breed of scholars who can talk to a lay public without condescension and with real passion. Reading Rohl, watching his television programmes or listening to his lectures, one is impressed by a wide-ranging mind completely at home in a familiar landscape. His obvious mastery of the subject, the clarity with which he lays bare the disturbing inconsistencies he is challenging, his impressive marshalling of facts and the lucidity of his arguments mark him out as an important voice in archaeology." By Anthony van der Elst, Chairman of the Institute for the Study of Interdisciplinary Sciences. Or: "I have known David Rohl for at least twenty years, as an undergraduate and research student at University College London; as a member of my excavation team at Tell Nebi Mend (ancient Qadesh-on-the-Orontes) in Syria; as a colleague and travelling companion; and as a personal friend. He was outstanding as a student, with an exceptionally profound knowledge of the archaeology of Egypt, the Near East, and the Mediterranean region. Most impressive was his ability to keep up-to-date with current research, and to assimilate new discoveries and ideas into his own work. He already had a highly developed critical faculty and never hesitated to challenge the currently accepted wisdom, ever seeking new answers to old questions, as well as formulating new questions which he believed archaeology should address." By Peter Parr, Head of Levantine Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology London. I could go on ... but I won't as you can read many more comments like this at http://www.davidrohl.com/testimonials_7.html

The problem here is that everything on 'Rohl is a crank' or 'Rohl's theories are rubbish' traces back to Kitchen, who has an aggressive and unsympathetic view of all those who dare to tweek his dates - even by a few years. Unfortunately he sees me as the leader of this movement, so I get the juiciest insults. He is used to getting his own way by bullying and smear. Hardly surprising I suppose if you live with your mother for more than sixty years and never get married. I believe he has not visited Egypt in decades and never re-examines the original sources of his arguments that he makes against me and others. When I do just that, I usually find that he is working from inaccurate readings of texts and that most of his criticisms are not substantive or fatal to the New Chronology as he claims. A huge scholarly volume (unfortunately written in German) entitled Biblische Archäologie am Scheideweg? (Biblical Archaeology at the Crossroads?), was published in 2002. It brought together a dozen scholars from all over Europe to examine Kitchen's criticisms of the NC and the criticisms of others who took Kitchen's lead (such as van der Land). The conclusion of the book was that many of the criticisms were invalid (either because of misunderstandings as to how the New Chronology hypothesis worked or because the original data employed in the criticism had been misread). Those criticisms which were more substantive were balanced by counter arguments which were just as strong academically and evidencially. None were fatal to the New Chronology. ... How's your German?

But I must just add that I am not the only one who suffers from Kitchen's diatribes. David Ash has been mentioned here. He dared to suggest that Egyptian dates have a margin of error of +/- 50 years. Kitchen refers to this proposal as "incompetent nonsense that can be dismissed from further notice." Some of the world's most senior academics and archaeologists get lambasted by him also. For example, a team of Israeli archaeologists, led by Professor Israel Finkelstein of Tell Aviv University, undertook a thorough survey of the hill country of Palestine in order to find evidence for the Israelite Conquest of the Promised Land at the end of the Late Bronze Age (as per Kitchen's conventional chronology). After years of intensive work, they declared that there was cultural continuity during that period with no sign of an invasion or wholesale destruction of sites such as described in the book of Joshua. These eminent scholars then agreed that the biblical Conquest was not supported by the archaeological evidence. Professor Bill Dever, one of the USA's best-known archaeologists, pronounced that as far as Late Bronze Age Jericho was concerned 'Joshua destroyed a city that wasn't even there." Israeli Professor Ze'ev Herzog famously described the Exodus story as 'a history that never happened' based on the lack of archaeological evidence in the time of Ramesses II and his successors. This is what Kitchen wrote about his Israeli and American colleagues in his most recent 2003 book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (remember he is a biblical fundamentalist):

"So those who squawk intermittently, 'No trace of the Hebrews has ever been found' (so, of course; no exodus!), are wasting their breath. The mud hovels of brickfield slaves and humble cultivators have long since gone back to their mud origins, never to be seen again. ... On these matters, once and for all, biblicists must shed their native attitudes and cease demanding 'evidence' that cannot exist. Only radically different approaches can yield anything whatsoever. 'Archaeology' that limits its blinkered evidence solely to what comes out of modest holes dug in the ground can have no final say in the matter." (p. 246) So we don't require evidence just radically different approaches. I thought that this was precisely what I was offering - but with evidence? So which do you prefer - Ken Kitchen not needing archaeological evidence to support his claims or me only accepting an historical position if there is evidence to support it?

And more wisdom from Kitchen:

"Modern complaints about lack of evidence are often heard. But they usually come from folk who have not done their homework or thought things through with sufficient rigour." (p. 310) This, then, is what he thinks of his otherwise highly respected colleagues.

And his attitude to those who question the historicity of the Bible? The same dismissive slander: "Such matters can only be be assessed by expert examination of the available facts, and not by the ignorant pronouncement of some species of neo-Nazi 'thought police'. ... And so, we must firmly say to philosophical cranks (politically correct, postmodernist, or whatever else) - "Your fantasy agendas are irrelevant in and to the real world, both for today and of all preceding time back into remotest antiquity. Get real or (alas!) gel lost!" (p. xiv).

Please don't allow this nasty little man's attacks to win the day by taking the view that he is a consensus. He is not. The reason why I am a 'crank chronologist' and a 'maverick' is not because I am but because Ken Kitchen says so - and we all know how balanced and normal he is, don't we?David Rohl 16:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Rohl (talk • contribs)

I take your points, but please remain civil about Kitchen. Some sources for your deconstruction of Kitchen's criticisms would be great. I don't suppose there's any chance of doing a similar, updated volume in English? I'll try and find a copy of the German book (I'm a native speaker), but it's from 2002 - there must be developments since then. Rd232 ^talk 17:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: I will try to be civil about Kitchen, but civility has to be earned, not by slander and libel but by proper measured debate. Some of the responses to the critics were originally written in English (not all but a few) and these were originally published in the Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum. Fortunately, this material is archived on the net and accessible for free (I believe), though downloads are charged for. You have a link to this site on the New Chronology page: ISIS - Journal of the Ancient Chronology ForumDavid Rohl (talk) 17:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Especially Volume 8.David Rohl (talk) 17:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: For your info Rd232, things move very slowly in this field ... but:

in 2004 there was an academic debate at Reading University on the Exodus attended by 400 delegates. In the UK that is a big conference! There were five academics debating the subject of the historicity of the Exodus tradition - including me and Kitchen. At the end of the day, in the final open forum, Kitchen publicly apologised for his statements that I was '100 per cent rubbish' and then admitted that the New Chronology placement of Exodus towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age was as strong as his own position that the event took place at the end of the Late Bronze Age. I tried to include here in Wikipedia David Rohl a report on this seminal change in the debate over the NC - after all the leading critic was actually coming around to accepting the possibility that some aspects of it may have validity. However, the edit I made was removed by (I believe) Doug Weller on the grounds that it was not sourced beyond giving the specific date, title and address of the conference and the direct quote from Kitchen (which had been recorded). After the conference, I had dinner with one of the other academics in the debate who is a personal friend of Kitchen. He admitted that I had wiped the floor with him (his words not mine). Another professor was so impressed with my arguments (having not heard me lecture before) that he invited me to his college at Cambridge in order to have an extended lunch with himself and one of the professors in the Egyptology department. These are the sorts of things that go on behind the headlines but don't get reported on. So you see that the statement 'While Rohl's theories have been rejected by many Egyptologists ...' is not only impossible to verify, as no survey has been undertaken on the issue, but also hearsay without knowing the inside story of what people really think. The fact is that, just like medicine, Egyptology is a discipline with many aspects of expertise. Most Egyptologists are not chronologists (in fact there are only three in the UK that I would think qualify for that label - Kitchen, myself and Dr Aidan Dodson). Throughout the world I doubt if the figure would rise above fifty. When you actually ask Egyptologists directly about the chronology debate, what they tend to say is 'not my field' so they can't comment with any degree of competence. So when you have a statement like 'most Egyptologists' it is in fact misleading and no more than an opinion. It may be correct, but it is unverifiable and does nothing for the neutrality of the article.David Rohl (talk) 18:34, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. Perhaps you could highlight some academic journal articles or even particular arguments sourced to particular articles? Rd232 ^talk 19:00, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: For Shoshenk I not equal to Shishak try SHOSHENK AND SHISHAK - A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY? by John Bimson at http://www.newchronology.org/cgi-bin/somsid.cgi?session=1249629493&page=html/volumes/06.

For the Amarna Letters try THE EL-AMARNA LETTERS AND ISRAELITE HISTORY by Newgrosh, Rohl & van der Veen at http://www.newchronology.org/cgi-bin/somsid.cgi?session=1249629493&page=html/volumes/06.

For the Philistines try THE PHILISTINES - THEIR ORIGINS AND CHRONOLOGY REASSESSED by John Bimson at http://www.newchronology.org/cgi-bin/somsid.cgi?session=1249629493&page=html/volumes/04.

For astronomical dating try THE DECLINE AND FALL OF SOTHIC DATING: EL-LAHUN LUNAR TEXTS AND EGYPTIAN ASTRONOMICAL DATES by David Lappin at http://www.newchronology.org/cgi-bin/somsid.cgi?session=1249633838&page=html/volumes/09.

Unfortunately very little has been published in mainstream journals precisely for the reasons stated above, i.e. few Egyptologists are familiar with the material and the rest do not feel competent to write about it, plus the fear factor - most who are sympathetic not wanting to pop their heads above the parapet for fear of a blast from Kitchen's shotgun. Few anti NC papers either for similar reasons (minus the last point). For those you have to rely on Kitchen, Brissaud and, to a lesser extent, Dodson. All the latter deal with specific and detailed points. No-one has tackled the bigger picture.David Rohl (talk) 07:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I was about to say what Rd232 wrote about Kitchen. BLP applies here as well. I have no time for Kitchen myself, but words like 'libel' and 'smear' might be seen as, well, libellous? You can't accuse him of libel here any more than you could in his article, please strike that.

Colin Wilson is archaeology correspondent for the Daily Mail? Are you sure? I can't find any evidence for that, he certainly is no archaeologist and I don't know any archaeologists myself who would take him seriously. You'd have to source the quote directly from the Daily Mail, by the way. His endorsement, like that of Anthony van der Elst (who? also not an archaeologist or Egyptologist, is he a lawyer?), will appeal to an entirely different audience then Peter Parr will. Dougweller (talk) 18:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: He is not Colin Wilson the book writer who writes on biblical matters. Why do you keep jumping to conclusions and making these mistakes? Thank god his name wasn't John Smith! He is/was the bonifide 'Archaeology Correspondent' of the Daily Mail just as I was the bonifide (salaried) 'Archaeology Correspondent' for the Daily Express. The astonishing thing I find with you Doug is how the standards for your own editing do not come up to the standards you expect of others. Maybe it is not libelous to call someone a 'maverick' or 'crank chronologist' in an academic journal. I could not afford the lawyer's fees to find out. But you doubt that these terms are smears? Funny sense of what's right or wrong you have Doug I must say.David Rohl (talk) 18:34, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It would never occur to me to describe the author as someone who writes on biblical matters, his interests are very far-ranging. The only Colin Wilson I could find was the one I mentioned. If I were going to add it to an article I would have made sure I knew what I was doing. Maybe you can find a source saying there is another Colin Wilson who is the archaeology correspondent but is not the Colin Wilson in this link [8] who writes or at least used to write for the Daily Mail. Articles like this [9] which I found when helping Robert Sarmast correct something in his article - he was quite happy to have me do it for him. Seriously, I would like to know who your Colin Wilson is if he isn't the well known author. I'm quite happy to be shown I'm wrong. Dougweller (talk) 19:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: I will go and check it out. You have got me wondering when you say that the bio of your Colin Wilson says he wrote for the Daily Mail. Maybe he is the same bloke after all. Is your CW not the one who wrote the book Out of Egypt (about the Exodus)? I have just looked at the Wiki bio for your Colin Wilson and I can't find the point where it says something on the lines that he 'writes or at least used to write for the Daily Mail'? Can you point it out for me or quote it here please?David Rohl (talk) 19:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: Looks like you are right. Your Colin Wilson did/does write for the Daily Mail according to his own web sites. I got the review quote and his 'title' from the Reviews Department of Random House, my publisher (which, as far as I know, is actually the biggest publisher in the world now that it is owned by Bertelsmann) . I assumed that the info they gave me was correct given that they deal with newspaper reviewers 24/7. Apologies. It just goes to show that you can get taken in by what people write - even non Egyptologists who pontificate about stuff they no very little about who then get referenced by people who think they are authorities. ;-) David Rohl (talk) 20:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: Sorry, wrong again. The writer who covers biblical topics is Ian Wilson. I am not familiar with your Colin Wilson as I don't read that sort of stuff. If he is the same bloke who made the quote about me, no matter how flattering (and accurate), I shall remove it from my web site and wherever else it occurs.David Rohl (talk) 20:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for checking it out, and I'm pleased and impressed that you may remove it. Maybe I'm not as bad as you think I am. :-). I'm not going to comment on what I think of Kitchen here other than what I've already said, that I don't have time for him. I'm quite happy with my sense of right and wrong and I try to make sure that my standards exceed those I expect of others. Sure, sometimes I don't meet my expectations of myself, sometimes I'm too hasty or make assumptions and get taken in, but hopefully not that often. Dougweller (talk) 20:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: Sounds like we are getting on again. :-) David Rohl (talk) 21:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Currently the article says of Kitchen "who called Rohl's thesis '98% rubbish'". I suggest we change this to "who called Rohl's thesis '100% nonsense'", and use as a source the Symbiosis book I give as the second ref in the first post in this thread. Reasons: (1) It's in a chapter actually written by Kitchen, so it's more clear that Kitchen is being quoted correctly. (2) It's in a book by an academic publisher, which I think is a more reliable source for this type of article than a newspaper article. (See WP:RS.) (3) David Rohl has stated that Kitchen is being misquoted and that Kitchen has apologized for the "rubbish" remark. [10] ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:59, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. Rd232 ^talk 22:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Article Rewrite and Expansion

DR: Rd232 can I please request a modification to the New Chronology section? It currently starts with "David Rohl's published works A Test of Time and Legend set forth Rohl's theories for dating Egyptian kings of the 19th through 25th Dynasties, ...". The problem is that Legend deals with the prehistoric period in Iran, Mesopotamia and Egypt. It has nothing to do with New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period Egypt. Since that original text for the David Rohl article was written, two new books in the series have been published which cover the wider historical region within the New Chronology thesis.

I think it would be better to say something like:

'David Rohl's published works A Test of Time, Legend, The Lost Testament, and The Lords of Avaris set forth Rohl's theories for redating the major civilisations of the ancient world. A Test of Time proposes a down-dating, by several centuries, of the Egyptian New Kingdom, thus requiring a major revision of the conventional chronology of ancient Egypt. Rohl asserts that this would permit scholars to identify some of the major events in the Old Testament with events in the archaeological record, and identify some of the well-known biblical characters with historical figures who appear in contemporary ancient texts. Lowering the Egyptian dates also dramatically effects the dating of dependent chronologies, such as that currently employed for the Greek 'Heroic Age' of the Late Bronze Age, removing the Greek Dark Age and lowering the dates of the Trojan War to within a couple of generations of a 9th-century-BC Homer and his most famous composition - The Iliad.'

You can probably write this much better, but the contents are more up to date and will give you an opportunity to add links to other Wiki articles (Ancient World, Egyptian New Kingdom, Heroic Age, Trojan War, Homer, Greek Dark Age. etc). Let me know what you think. I hope you don't mind the two minor edits I did to the intro para which avoids accusations that I am claiming I came up with the whole theory on my own. I did not.

Thanks for all the work you are putting in.David Rohl (talk) 21:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Done - seems fine for now. I need to find some time/energy to follow up those academic refs above. Rd232 ^talk 09:29, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

By the way, the text mentions three of the four foundations of the conventional chronology; what's the fourth? For completeness it should be mentioned, even if you don't dispute it. Rd232 ^talk 09:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The fourth is the invasion of Egypt and sacking of Thebes by Ashurbanipal in 664 BCE during the reign of Taharqa, which is a generally accepted date and uncontested by Rohl.

If I find time over the weekend I will expand the whole article (following the points I have mentioned above), since there is much more contained in Rohl's theory than what is in "A Test of Time" and "Legend". Cush (talk) 10:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Please do - I've clearly forgotten 99% of this material... :( Rd232 ^talk 11:46, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I have all in my database, I only need to bring it into a legible prose shape. I have been interested in the NC since 2005. My trouble is that my job is pretty time-demanding. Cush (talk) 11:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

DR: You're doing fine. No need to rush it. Better to get it right.David Rohl (talk) 12:55, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Rd232, with respect to the unreferenced criticism by Kitchen regarding the Khnemibre genealogy, am I permitted to give you here in the discussion the counter? This statement currently stands in isolation as a criticism (as I say unsourced) without a response of any kind. In the case of the rest of the article there are pros and cons balancing each other throughout, but not in this instance. I would like to point out that the individuals Kitchen claims are missing from the genealogy are nowhere attested as part of that ancestral family of Khnemibre. They just hold the same office. Royal Architects were not a single hereditary line but could come from different families. Royal Architects could also be responsible for work in one part of Egypt only (Upper or Lower) just like the two lines of Viziers. Khnemibre merely gives the line from which he is descended. And, just like the only other two genealogies covering this period with links to kings, there are seven missing generations - if the conventional chronology is to be accepted. If the New Chronology is accepted then there are no missing generations. Kitchen's claim is misleading because the one or two Royal Architects he mentions from this period are not linked to Khnemibre's family by contemporary records. Kitchen's claim is like saying that, just because somebody has a title or holds an office, he must belong to one family of holders of that office. This is patent nonsense. It does not even happen with royalty by descent, where brothers become kings and therefore their predecessor (the elder brother) would not appear in a father-to-son genealogy of the younger brother's descendants. If Prince Charles recorded his genealogy it would not include Edward VII even though he held the 'office' of king.David Rohl (talk) 20:18, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Well that sounds a reasonable argument, but it needs to be sourced (JACF?). For that matter, Kitchen's criticism needs sourcing as well. Rd232 ^talk 20:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

From memory I believe that the counter to Kitchen's argument has only been made in public lectures. With regard to Kitchen's unreferenced criticism, I am not sure where it originated. One of two possibilities come to mind. Either he made the claim in the Preface to the second edition of his book The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt which I don't have to hand (as I have the first edition), or it could have been made in a lecture which he toured the UK with entitled "Rohl Over David, the Games Up the Party's Over" (subtle eh!). I may be able to find the script to that lecture as one of Kitchen's professorial colleagues at Liverpool University was so dismayed by his friend's actions that he sent a copy (which Kitchen had asked him to read) to a New Chronology academic who passed it on to me.

Regarding the wording of the edit you made summarising John Bimson's paper, I don't think you should be using the term 'Israeli' as in "while Israeli towns do appear, but are not associated with the Biblical Shishaq". This is a modern political term used to describe Israeli nationals living in modern Israel (including the old tribal territory of Judah and Jerusalem itself). The correct phrase would be something like "while towns in the territory of the Northern Kingdom of Israel do appear in Shoshenk's campaign list, even though the Northern Kingdom (under Jeroboam) was an ally of Egypt". The main point that Bimson is making is that the criticism of the Shishak/Shoshenk identification does not just depend on the obvious fact that Jerusalem is missing from the list, but that the two campaigns do not correspond in their entirety. Shishak invaded the Southern Kingdom of Judah and plundered Jerusalem, having attacked Rehoboam's fortified strongholds. Whereas Shoshenk campaigned in the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Negeb region, whilst avoiding the the territory of Judah.David Rohl (talk) 08:02, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've fixed my bad editing on the basis of your remarks; thanks. Kitchen's TIP book isn't in Google Books, so I guess it'll have to wait. Looks like you'll have to publish some more then :) one way or another, because public lectures aren't really sources (unless they get published afterwards, obviously). If you have transcripts and permission to put them online, that would help. Rd232 ^talk 08:53, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as you may read in reviews of my lectures, I never use a script or written notes. And besides, strictly speaking, it is frowned upon for a member of an academic audience to record public lectures. So there is nothing 'on record' regarding my reply to Kitchen. I therefore accept that the info I provided above should not go in the article. I only provided it here for background. So what do you do in this situation? You have an unsourced criticism and an unsourced response. Sounds to me like both should not be in this article until the sources are provided. Is that not the Wiki principle that should apply here?David Rohl (talk) 16:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. Moved from the page: "One of Kitchen's major objections to Rohls' arguments concerns his alleged omission of evidence that conflicts with his theories. Kitchen has pointed out that the genealogy of Khnemibre, listing his Royal Architect ancestors, which Rohl references to date Ramesses II, omits one or more names known from other inscriptions.". You know, if you don't have records of lectures, you'll just have to publish more, one way or another, sooner or later! Rd232 ^talk 17:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

A new revised edition of A Test of Time is long overdue as there is so much new info and evidence to include and some stuff that needs to come out or get banished to the footnotes, but getting a publisher for it, now that's another matter!David Rohl (talk) 18:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

There are other ways to make refined information about the NC available to the public than a new book that would soon be outdated again. If the message is more important than the revenues a good website will be the best place to present the theory as well as the evidence in a public-friendly manner. :-) Cush (talk) 18:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

article issues

this artice is quite clearly dominated by adherents of this minority (one-man?) hypothesis. Why, a user self-identifying as David Rohl (talk · contribs) is giving lengthy advise on how to deal with his "libelous" critics. This is unacceptable. Mr. Rohl needs to stand down and let uninvolved editors cover this thing based on third-party reviews. --dab (𒁳) 14:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of this article is to get the basic contents of the theory out once and for all, without all the distortions stemming from confusions with other chronological models. Of course there has to be a criticism section, but first of all it must be portrayed what Rohl's model in fact says and what the implications are. And that has nothing to do with the person as such, but with the body of work including Roh'ls own work but also that of other sources. The value of a hypothesis/theory does not depend on the number of people developing it. It does not matter what the majority view is or whether the theory is a "one-man-show". And Rohl often only uses or refers to what others have proposed. I personally do not care what advice I am given, because I base my judgment solely on the presented material and I am not likely to bow to any assumed authority figure, even if it is the originator of the NC theory. I have had the same discussions about evolution and Darwin. I have read Rohl's books and I do not agree with everything and some interpretations I reject completely, but the model he suggests is a lot more coherent than what I have seen elsewhere (especially from Kitchen where just nothing adds up). Cush (talk) 13:57, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Current practice and our MoS actually discourage criticism sections, and emphasize criticism should be worked into the prose of the article. --M^ask? 09:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge

• Keep - Clearly the theory has developed a life of it's own and although based in the work of Rohl it is worked on and developed by others. However it is still characterised by this basis (i.e. Rohl) and can be distinguished from the work of those like Peter James et al. Also the theory is a work of a man/group rather than the life of a single man which is more suited to being treat in a bio. article. Also the bio. is more than the theory, in that he has done numbers of other things some themselves could be considered somewhat notable. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 14:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - The theory is too complex and supported by many other contributors to just be a section in a biography article. And the discussions of the past few days have led to the split, so there is no need to revert that decision. There is sufficient media coverage of the model proposed by Rohl to constitute notability. Cush (talk) 15:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - If there are seperate articles for Immanuel Velikovsky and his ideas at Ages in Chaos, there should be seperate articles for David Rohl and his New Chronology (Rohl). I'm for Wikipedia having sourced articles on so-called "fringe theories." If this article is nixed because it isn't "notable" because most Egyptologists will have nothing to do with it, then you best start nixing articles about UFOs and the Roswell Incident, which most scientists consider "fringe" and won't touch with a ten-foot pole. TuckerResearch (talk) 20:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

why are you "voting" about this? It is immaterial whether the theory is "complex", the burden is on you to show that it is notable. If you cannot do that, no amount of voting "keep" is going to justify this split. People interested in the theory can just go and read Rohl's books, Wikipedia is not obliged to carry it in any detail, and will not if it doesn't clearly pass our criteria for inclusion.

If you would bother to read the relevant guideline, you would realize that notability must be established based on third party sources. A handful of newspaper articles is not sufficient. This article has literally not a single reference to any scholar who has anything to say for the theory. Scholars looked at it and called it "rubbish". Case closed. If we are missing any endorsements, the burden would lie on you to bring them up. --dab (𒁳) 15:20, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

? Notability is quite distinct from academic acceptance. The dissemination of NC to the general public via bestselling books (A Test of Time reached no 2 on the Sunday Times bestseller list; Legend reached no 6.) as well as popular TV documentaries in multiple countries and multiple languages certainly is enough to justify a standalone article. Also there is a substantial element of a WP:SUMMARY-style mother/daughter article structure. PS Did you miss the entire German scholarly book on the New Chronology, mentioned above somewhere? Rd232 ^talk 16:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

You could have discussed that before the split. Cush (talk) 15:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

um, I didn't split anything. If you are going to create new articles, you will need to live with their being challenged. Wikipedia has rules. If you cannot defend an article, you shouldn't create it, or you should accept its being merged back. --dab (𒁳) 15:26, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I have no objections to you deleting both articles. Please get your facts right. One scholar looked at it (and he was the man who's work it challenges) and called it rubbish. The issue for me is not that there should be 'promotional' articles about me and my work on Wikipedia. My concern, from the start, has been that, if you are going to have these articles on Wiki, they need to be neutral, balanced, accurate and not biased. If you have an issue with that then please do remove the articles to avoid further problems.David Rohl (talk) 16:01, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I do not pretend to be informed on this. If there is any acceptance, present the literature. So far, we just have the "rubbish" quote, so that's what we have to report.

If it is true that "one man looked at it" (as opposed to, like, several people in the field), it is clear that notability isn't met.

You don't seem to remember what you wrote. You were the one who said "Scholars [plural] looked at it and called it "rubbish". I was pointing out that it was only one scholar who looked at it and called it rubbish. I did not say one scholar looked at it. As to what the rest who looked at it thought, it is not reported that they called it rubbish. You really need to read and understand what people write and not invent something entirely different to satisfy your own prejudices. Not very clever for an admin.David Rohl (talk) 19:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

rd232, you want to stop removing the tags I place. Can it be that you have an opinion on this in any way? Perhaps you are an adherent of this hypothesis? Then you want to be very careful about WP:COI.

Mr. Rohl, I appreciate that you want factual coverage. If a scholar has looked at the theory and called it "rubbish", that is a relevant fact. If another scholar has looked at it and called it "great" or "insightful", that would certainly also be a fact worth noting, only we need to be told who said this and in what context. You must understand WP:TRUTH: We are not going to pass judgement on this hypothesis, we are simply going to report how, if at all, mainstream scholarship reacted to it.

If, as rd232 suggests, this isn't a point of debate in Egyptology but rather a pop culture phenomenon, the article will need to make this clear unambiguously. --dab (𒁳) 19:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Please stop adding notability tags. You're the only one disputing notability of a theory that has widespread public dissemination in bestselling books and TV documentaries in multiple languages and countries - press coverage and academic coverage aside. To quote your own words, "Can it be that you have an opinion on this in any way? Perhaps you are an adherent[opponent] of this hypothesis? Then you want to be very careful about WP:COI." Also please stop adding COI tags. Rohl is not making major edits, and the article is undergoing development - there is no need for it. Finally, please do not add such negative (but uninformative) comments into the lede from Kitchen and Thompson - the summary on non-acceptance is in the lede and their comments in the body, and given the close association in the article and in the public eye with Rohl, it's a WP:BLP issue; and the article is in any case undergoing development and hopefully expansion. You're an admin - please act like one. Rd232 ^talk 19:28, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

@dougweller: I just don't understand where you are coming from. What is your problem with anyone (including me) making minor corrections to inadvertent factual errors. You don't seem to be interested in truth - just censorship. The Thomson quote added by Rd232 was from a 1992 reference. A Test of Time was written in 1995. The quote was not about me and my work but, as the full quote actually says, 'any historical project'. I or anyone is 100% entitled to make this correction. I also added an illustration to help the understanding of a complicated sentence. It took me three further edits to get its positioning right so that the relevant text was opposite the image (I am learning how to doe this sort of thing). I corrected a statement by replacing the word 'forced' with 'asked'. Big deal. Highly controversial. Obviously a major conflict of interest. You then get freaked out and complain that I made one third of today's edits. There is something very wrong with your approach. Why do you do this traffic warden stuff here. Ease off will you and give me a break. I am doing nothing prejudicial to the article and nothing that does not conform to the guidelines. You do seem to have an agenda, despite your protestations.David Rohl (talk) 22:13, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Uh, Dougweller hasn't editted the article -- nor posted to this talk page -- for at least 24 hours, according to the signature tags article history. (He wrote elsewhere that he is stepping away from this article.) DR, whose comments are you addressing above? If they are dab's, I can attest that they are two entirely different people (IIRC, dab lives in Europe, Switzerland I believe.) Are you now confusing people, too? -- llywrch (talk) 04:23, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I did. I restored the COI tag which was removed as 'unnecessary'. Given the number of edits Rohl made, I didn't agree with the rationale for removing it. Maybe this should be taken to Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard to be clarified? I'll do that and take the coi tag off. And give Rohl a warning, he continues to make personal attacks and this really must stop, it doesn't help in any way. Dougweller (talk) 05:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the coi tag and have decided to AGF and assume Rohl will be restrained in his editing. I have however warned him on his talk page (not a template, a referral to our AGF and NPA guidelines). Dougweller (talk) 05:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

David, Doug Weller is one of the wiki angels who puts in a an immense amount of work in vandal prevention without which the whole thing falls apart. Because of his volume of edits he quite freely acknowledges his humanity when he gets it wrong on the run - that's my own personal experience with him, so please don't think he is "fundy" of any stripe.

Now it's not often I get to ask questions to the originator of new theories, may I test your patience? I read your book "Test of Time" when it first came out but since I knew nothing of Egyptology at the time I don't remember your basic arguements other than a comment from Ian Wilson several years later which seemed to indicate that an artifact found on a sunken ship seemed to directly refute the proposed new chronology. Have you published any refutation of this ? Taam (talk) 14:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a reference to the Ulu Burun shipwreck off the southern coast of Turkey in which was found a solid gold scarab inscribed with the name of Queen Nefertiti (wife of Akhenaten). Since Wilson wrote that, the samples taken from the ship for radio-carbon testing have been shown to be contaminated by the 'old carbon effect' resulting from long-term immersion in water (for more than 3,000 years). The dendrochronology used to date the wreck has also been criticised because Kuniholm's tree-ring sequence is floating and not fixed to the present day (as with the Bristlecone Pines). This results in city gates, thought to have been destroyed when the Hittite empire collapsed, being dated to several centuries earlier with no obvious cause for their destruction. If I recall correctly, other researchers have taken this up and written about it, but I don't have time right now to dig out the reference (somewhere in several dozen journals). Hope this at least helps.David Rohl (talk) 15:11, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Taam, thanks for the kind comments. We have an article on the shipwreck Uluburun shipwreck Dougweller (talk) 15:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

rd232, I have no opinion on this theory and I am indeed here to protect Wikipedia's integrity, and not because I care about Rohl's view either way. If you present references that establish that this is notable within academia, and has been favourably reviewed, I will immediately support inclusion of such evidence. As it happens, you do not appear to be in a position to do anything of the kind, and instead resort to revert-warring, and insist on the ludicrous position that "notability" of this is due to TV documentaries.

If you want to argue that Rohl's theories are notable because they were on TV, we will immediately need to drop any pretense that this is about Egyptology, and make this an article about TV shows instead.

The blatant misconduct on the part of Rd232 in an obviously fraudulent attempt to present this theory as having credibility which it does not in fact have forces me to insist on a merger after all. This entire article is a misrepresentation of the situation. It has no business discussing general issues of chronology, we have the chronology of the Ancient Near East and chronology of Ancient Egypt articles for that. These articles are to be based on academic mainstream, not David Rohl's account of academic mainstream. This article here is supposed to present Rohl's hypothesis as it appears in third party reviews. I don't care if it is notable as a TV show, in which case we will categorize it as a TV show and cite TV critics, or if it is notable within Egyptology, in which case we will base our account on scholarly opinions. What we cannot do is make this article about "Egyptology as seen by David Rohl" and then claim it is notable because it was on TV. For all the size of this talkpage, we do not have anything to show in the "reception" section other than Kitchen, who thinks this is all "rubbish". There is no reaction in Egyptology other than an off-handed dismissal. We have people like Rd232 edit-warring over this article in the classic WP:FRINGE manner of dodging the issue of WP:RS, hilariously insisting that we should dedicate a standalone article to a "theory" that by their own implicit admission lives in TV shows and popular books.

David Rohl himself claims that . I did not say one scholar looked at it. As to what the rest who looked at it thought, it is not reported that they called it rubbish -- well, then why the hell is the only academic we can cite on the matter the very man who called it "rubbish"? "It is not reportedthat they called it rubbish" is a non-starter. Do you, or do you not, have scholarly reviews of this thing that reflect more favourably on it than Kitchen? If you do, why do you not point us to them already? I do not know if there are favourable reviews, but your consistent refusal to produce any make me very suspicious that there may not, in fact, be any.

I am not an Egyptologist. I will not waste my time with fringe theories trying to identify popular characters from the Hebrew Bible with historical individuals in Ancient Egypt until there is at least some evidence from Egyptologists (you know, the professionals who actually spend a career learning all about this field) telling me it's worth looking into. I am not going to take anyone's word that they have found that The Bible Is All True, The Amazing Proof!! without some sort of recommendation from academic reviews. Revising chronology based on the Hebrew Bible is about as sensible as revising general relativity based on Star Trek. Star Trek is certainly popular and notable, but we won't place it in "physics" categories or pretend it is about valid suggestions for faster-than-light travel just because we can prove it appealed to TV audiences.

Now if you think you can fix this article and show that my assessment is wrong, you are welcome indeed to do that. But do NOT remove the cleanup tags before you have done that. Either fix it, or stand down and admit that you have no case. --dab (𒁳) 09:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Regardless of your claim that you have no opinion on the theory, it is quite clear that you do; which is fine, but your militaristic "stand down" remark in combination with your tone among other things (such as accusing me of edit warring without evidence or justification) suggests a battleground mentality which is not.
2. You write that for you notability in this case requires the theory be "notable within academia" (what part of WP:N says that?) "and has been favourably reviewed" (or that?).
3. "The blatant misconduct on the part of Rd232 in an obviously fraudulent attempt to present this theory as having credibility which it does not in fact have forces me to insist on a merger after all." This is such a blatant failure of WP:AGF that I'm almost falling off my chair. No further comments.
4. The article is a daughter article of David Rohl, permitting a better examination of his theory. This is certainly acceptable within WP:SUMMARY, so merger is not on the table. Nor, for the same reason, should an WP:AFD be on the table, but if you insist notability is an issue, then start one.
5. Your insistence on a WP:COI tag when the editor it refers to has professed a willingness not to make any controversial edits, and given no reason for anyone to doubt that, is a violation of WP:AGF. Furthermore {{COI}}, according to WP:COI, is "for tagging articles affected by conflict of interest that may be candidates for deletion." This isn't a candidate for deletion for reasons stated (if you insist it is, get on and nominate it, instead of re-adding the tag).
6. Your comparison of a serious Egyptological theory (whatever its status) with fiction (Star Trek) is hyperbole of the worst sort. It is seemingly deliberately insulting to the fellow editor associated with it.
7. Your tone and failure to understand or to correctly apply policy makes me wonder how you ever got to be an admin. I understand things can get heated - but they haven't really here, you've just come along and unloaded two shotgun barrels at me and the article; and the failings on the policy front are fairly egregious. It's seems ludicrous to give you advice normally given to newbies, but evidently it's necessary: please take the time to read through those policies referred to.

Rd232 ^talk 16:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Onto the more substantial points.

1. You insist on a dichotomy: it's either an accepted Egyptological theory, or it's TV show populist junk (not quite your words, but that's the gist). Obviously this is a false dichotomy; in any field, such a substantial challenge to the foundations of the field is not going to be easily accepted. In one as small as Egyptian chronology (a small subset of Egyptology, most of which just uses the conventional chronology), that's even more true. In fact parts of the evidence are accepted, parts criticised, and other Egyptologists have also suggested substantial revisions. This should be made clearer; it's a work in progress (like all of Wikipedia).
2. "has no business discussing general issues of chronology". Really? A substantial revision of chronology shouldn't be discussing the chronology being revised? You want to rethink that claim?
3. I take your point (as others have made, and as is obvious) that we need to be careful not to present Rohl's view of the conventional chronology as "the conventional chronology". It's not beyond the wit of Wikipedians to achieve that, and I believe we all are agreed on that. (It would be easier if the chronology articles you referred to were better quality.)
4. WP:DEADLINE. You seem to be acting a little bit on the basis that this is not a work in progress, despite comments on the talk page.

Rd232 ^talk 16:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Tags. For reasons stated above, I'm removing both tags as inappropriate. If you insist on pressing the notability issue, please take it to WP:AFD. If you see a COI problem with Rohl others here don't, please take it to WP:COIN. Thanks. Rd232 ^talk 16:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

as long as you keep up the edit-warring over the tags, there certainly won't be any progress in other respects. WP:IMPERFECT or WP:DEADLINE are not excuses for purposedly distorting an article to fit your personal perferences or opinions. The COI tag concerns your edits, as you are obviously here as a party, not as an encyclopedist. --dab (𒁳) 16:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, so we can add abuse of Wikipedia:Rollback feature [11] to the list, and an unwillingness to assume good faith, and randomly labelling me a WP:COI editor because of... what exactly? There is far more evidence that you have a WP:COI. Rd232 ^talk 16:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

4 pillars?

There are four main pieces of evidence - chronlogical synchronisms - on which the conventional Egyptian chronology rests.

So says the article. And so says Rohl. But is this really true? One thing it completely ignores is any Mesopotamian synchronisms prior to 664 BC. My understanding is that Mesopotamian chronology is in far more solidly grounded than Egyptian chronology, and there are a number of widely accepted synchronisms prior to 664 BC. In particular, the dates of Assyrian monarchs going back to the thirteenth century BC are pretty widely agreed upon, with only a few minor disagreements, amounting to less than 20 years or so, for monarchs before 1180 BC. And there are a wide variety of synchronisms between these Assyrian rulers and Egyptian rulers, or between them and Hittite or Babylonian rulers who have known synchronisms with Egyptian rulers. Thus, for instance, Ashur-uballit I appears in the Amarna correspondence. So does his contemporary, Burnaburiash II. Tudhaliya IV of the Hittites was a contemporary of both Ramesses II in Egypt and of Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I in Assyria. These Mesopotamian synchronisms are surely more important anchors of the conventional chronology than whether or not the Biblical Shishak is the same person as Shoshenq I.

This is not to say that these synchronisms are unassailable - I really have no idea, although they seem pretty strong to me. But it is misleading to ignore them when describing the basis for the conventional chronology. john k (talk) 00:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, this is a very important point you have raised John. My response is as follows.

The four pillars described in A Test of Time were historical. That is to say they were a summary of the methods used by Egyptologists to establish and fine tune the Egyptian chronology. The Assyrian synchronisms - of which there is in fact only one direct example - were introduced later to support the dating arrived at using the Shishak/Shoshenk identification and Sothic dating. Today the Ebers papyrus Sothic date has been abandoned by most Egyptologists, however they continue to use the Year 7 Middle Kingdom Sothic date to determine dates for that period.

Now to deal with the so-called Assyrian synchronisms. An Assyrian ruler called Ashuruballit did correspond with Akhenaten. However, in the Amarna Letters he gives his father's name as Ashurnadinahhe, whereas Ashuruballit I, in his royal genealogy, gives his father's name as Eriba-Adad, whilst Ashurnadinahhe is not mentioned at all. Bernard Newgrosh, in his book Chronology at the Crossroads, argues that there is sufficient doubt here to suggest that we are dealing with two Ashuruballits and not one. He also shows that the Ashurubalit of the Amarna Letters claimed victory over Hanigalbat, whereas neither the earlier Ashuruballit I nor his descendants recorded a victory for this king over Hanigalbat. The other synchronisms you mention between 19th Dynasty pharaohs and Hittite kings (no problem there) and then between those Hittite kings and Assyrian rulers is more problematical. In the correspondence between Hatti and Assyria the royal names do not have identifiers such as 'I' or 'II' - just the names Shalmaneser and Tukulti-Ninurta. In the New Chronology the Egyptian and Hittite dates coincide, not with Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I but with Shalmaneser II and Tukulti-Ninurta II. As for Burnaburiash of Babylon, he is not independently datable but tied to Assyrian chronology. Therefore, if Assyrian chronology is revised - as Newgrosh has proposed on independent grounds to the issues I raised over Egyptian chronology - then Kassite and post-Kassite chronologies would move with any lowering of Assyrian chronology prior to 911 BC. It might be useful to take a look at Newgrosh's book to get all the arguments. It is very comprehensive and I can't do his arguments justice here. If you can't do this, then his much shorter paper in JACF IX is available on-line at ISIS - Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum. My final comment would be, given the copious amounts of data available to Egyptologists from within their own discipline, do you not think that they should be able to construct a chronology of the pharaohs without recourse to outside chronologies whose synchronisms can be questioned?David Rohl (talk) 08:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

A couple of comments. First, the article can say that Rohl asserts (or whatever) that there are four pillars. Or it can cite Egyptologists who say there are four pillars. However it does it, it needs a reference for there being "four pillars". If only Rohl can be found arguing for these being the four main pieces of evidence, then I think the article needs to point out that there is other evidence that is used (being careful here about possible OR or synthesis, as I doubt that we can find a source that also mentions Rohl).

The other comment is about this page. It's a talk page to discuss the article, but is drifting into forum type discussion with David, and that shouldn't happen. Dougweller (talk) 09:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Let me say, in case it wasn't clear that I was not attempting to have a forum type discussion with Rohl, but to take issue with a specific point in the article as it stands. My point was to take issue with the formulation of the "four pillars" described in the article - my understanding is that the Amarna and Hittite synchronisms are generally considered very important in establishing or confirming the standard chronology, whether or not the Assyrian chronology is interpreted correctly. The article as it stands simply repeats Rohl's assertions without so much as mentioning Assyria. Rohl's published writings are a reliable source on his own views. I do not believe that they qualify as a reliable source on the standard chronology of near eastern history. Even David himself admits here that others use the Assyrian synchronisms as one of the main supports for Egyptian chronology. To describe the conventional model without mentioning those synchronisms at all is problematic. john k (talk) 14:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

indeed. WP:FORUM. The only way forward is producing independent, third party assessments of this theory and present them in a honest and above-the-board manner for what they are worth: We need to distinguish

• notability in Egyptology (anything? or was it ignored completely except for a short-tempered professor emeritus who went on record calling it "rubbish"?)
• notability to creationism and Biblical literalism (here, primary sources written by Biblical literalists need to be distinguished from scholarly discussions of the topic of Christian fundamentalism, creationism and Biblical litearlism). Obviously, Biblical literalists already "know" the OT is historically accurate, but they usually have a hard time choosing between the various, mutually incompatible, brands of fringe revisionism explaining how it is accurate.
• pop culture notability. Place the Channel 4 and Sunday times coverage under that

Any further discussion needs to be unambiguously informed by specified sources discussing Rohl. --dab (𒁳) 11:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi John, no, it was just something I was afraid might develop. I noted that you were taking issue with the formulation of the "four pillars" and I agree with you. Any description of the conventional model should be as complete and accurate (and of course well sourced) as possible, and if we are going to have the article include Rohl's description of the conventional model then it needs a balance 'filling in the gaps' so to speak. Dougweller (talk) 14:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well Dbachmann (dab) has reverted me. I had tried to introduce the following changes:

• Change first section title to "Conventional Egyptian chronology";
• Add a qualifier that the "4 pillars" are "according to David Rohl" (in the absence of a RS that looking at it this way is conventional);
• Note Assyrian chronology synchronism (without detail for lack of WP:RS to hand) "Other evidence includes synchronisms with Assyrian chronology established through identifying Assyrian rulers in the Amarna Letters."
• Move Finkelstein para (on his low chronology in early Israel) to Reception; which was admittedly unhappy, but then it doesn't belong in Conventional Chronology either. Perhaps a separate section or subsection for this sort of "partial fit" (for want of a better term) not directly addressing Rohl's NC (AFAIK), but fitting with it.
• Change lede from "The New Chronology has not been accepted by any Egyptologist. Rohl's theory has instead been disseminated in popular books and television documentaries." to "The New Chronology has not been accepted by most Egyptologists, who continue to work with the conventional chronology or small variations of it, but has been widely disseminated to the public since the 1990s via Rohl's best-selling books and popular television documentaries."

Anyone have an opinion on the value of these changes, some of them not visible in edit history due to edit conflict? Rd232 ^talk 16:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

There are also indirect Assyrian synchronisms via the Hittites. I'm sure reliable sources on the matter could be found. john k (talk) 18:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Berthoud

@dab: You say:"Berthoud furthermore surmises that Rohl is refusing to acknowledge the attempts at revising Egyptian chronology that predate his own, in particular Donovan Courville, Peter James and Immanuel Velikovsky, in an attempt to appear more original.[15]" Previous attempts at revising chronology (including Newton, Leiblein, Torr, Velikovsky, James et al.) are all mentioned and their work described on pages 400 to 404 of A Test of Time. Berthoud's statement is completely untrue. You are propogating false and inaccurate statements in your editing. Please try to be fair. And please define the term Egyptologist so that we can understand where you are coming from.David Rohl (talk) 15:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

For your information, the Wikipedia definition of an Egyptologist is as follows: "An Egyptologist is any archaeologist, historian, linguist, or art historian who specializes in Egyptology, the scientific study of Ancient Egypt and its antiquities".David Rohl (talk) 16:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

David Rohl, I did not claim your book ignored anyone, I have never even looked at any of your books. I have cited an author (Berthoud) as making a claim. I have no intention of verifying any of this. You have no business attacking me as "propagating false statements" if you disagree with the content some source I have cited. All I am doing is trying to collect more material for the "reception" section since you seem to be unable to produce any citation of reviews of any of your work.

If there is literally no one who has commented favourably on your books it is hardly appropriate to shoot the messenger.

I am here because some editors have been trying to create the impression that the "New Chronology" has academic credibility as an Egyptological hypothesis without even a scrap of evidence that anything has ever been said about it in Egyptological literature. If the "New Chronology" was a respectable minority view in Egyptology, that would be fine with me, simply because I have no opinion on the matter. But if there was any half decent source that would allow for this conclusion, I am sure it would have been brought forward by now, so I suggest we regard it as established that the "New Chronology" has literally a notability of zero in an academic sense. Once we do that, we can then proceed to discuss it for whatever it is worth as a meme in popular culture, along with the Christ myth, the Charlemagne myth and similar items that have been "popularly disseminated" without having any shadow of credibility in scholarship. --dab (𒁳) 16:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Citing a statement from Creationist literature which is demonstrably untrue qualifies as an edit using a poor source. It is also prejudicial to a living person as it implies a motive of plagiarism and a failure to acknowledge earlier research - neither of which are true. Please remove the sentence which claims that I have not acknowledged previous chronological revisions. I have given the reference in A Test of Time where full acknowledgements are given.David Rohl (talk) 17:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

For your information, the book The Seventy Great Mysteries of Ancient Egypt, edited by Egyptologist Bill Manley for Thames & Hudson, has amongst its contributors: Professor Manfred Bietak, Dr John J. Bimson, Dr Mark Collier, Dr Aidan Dodson, Dr Elizabeth Goring, Dr Dominic Montserrat, Dr Ludwig D. Morenz, Dr Robert Morkot, Dr Paul Nicholson, Professor David O'Connor, Dr Jose-Ramon Perez-Accino, Professor Ian Shaw, Dr Steven Snape, Dr Kate Spence, Dr Louise Steel and Dr Toby Wilkinson. These are either Egyptologists or Middle East/Aegean archaeologists. There are seventy articles of which seven are concerned with or mention David Rohl and/or aspects of his New Chronology thesis. None of these articles are critical of that work. They are neither for or against. They simply say that the debate is ongoing. Morkot, Dodson and Bimson support a revised chronology for Ancient Egypt. The others do not state that they are against a revision of the chronology. Bietak invited Rohl to give a paper on the revised chronology at the High, Middle or Low? conference on chronology at Schloss Haindorf. That paper was published in the proceedings. Bietak, one of the world's most respected Egyptologists, also invited Rohl to give two lectures on his New Chronology to the Austrian Institute for Egyptology and the University of Vienna. Wilkinson has worked with Rohl on the Eastern Desert Survey with full accreditation and permits from the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt. Rohl was the Director of the Survey and editor of the Eastern Desert Survey Report. You can decide if all this goes to academic credibility or not, and it also puts the lie to the statement that the New Chronology exists 'without even a scrap of evidence that anything has ever been said about it in Egyptological literature'.David Rohl (talk) 18:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

This goes too far

OK, I think this is getting a little out of hand. This article exists to render a comprehensive summary of the theory called the New Chronology plus its criticisms, based on what has been published. This is not a discussion board to ponder the pros and cons of the model or to explore every minor detail. This article should contain a complete timeline for all the regions that the theory applies to, and the synchronisms/identifications among the chronologies and genealogies of those regions must be described. Since "A Test of Time" a number of books have been published by Rohl and much material has been put out by others in favor and in rejection of the model. The NC covers the entire period from the Neolithic Revolution to the rise of Rome, and is not limited to Egypt. The evidence section should be limited to the essential material Whoever wants to know more can read the various publications. And of course the discrepancies with the conventional chronologies must be described in a summarizing manner (not artifact by artifact and the interpretations thereof). My regards, Cush (talk) 16:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Okay, I've stayed out of this discussion because my books on ancient Egyptian history/chronology are all in storage (I'm in the process of moving -- which also has taken up much of my time I would otherwise spend on Wikipedia) & I didn't want to rely on my fallible memory because getting the details right here are important. But I'd like to point out some points:

• First, the "four pillars" are DR's own words. I see nothing wrong with attributing this to him, based on what has been said so far, although I may be biassed here since I originally wrote those words (based on a passage in his book).
• Second, there do exist several attempts to establish dates -- either relative or absolute -- for ancient Egyptian chronology which do not rely on any of these four points. (One example is Donald B. Redford's paper referred to in Egyptian chronology, where Redford instead uses synchronisms between Egyptian, Hittite, and Mesopotamian chronologies to date the end of the 18th dynasty & the reign of Ramesses I.)
• Third, one of the problems of the standard chronology is that there is no one authority (or group of authorities) for explaining how it was determined, nor even a bibliography of the crucial discussions. For example, I found Redford's paper mentioned above entirely by accident, & beyond the fact he is a professor of Egyptology I have no idea whether his paper is considered credible by mainstream thought. (But his arguments are plausible to me.)
• Fourth, there are some serious -- but acknowledged -- problems with the standard chronology of the New Kingdom. The principal one being the date of the volcanic eruption on Thera. Just how problems like this one will be worked out is still not clear. (It could be that the problematic ash falls actually belong to an earlier eruption than the cataclysmic final eruption, just to throw out a possibility.)
• Fifth, maybe we should consider limiting discussing Rohl's revisions of Egyptian chronology to the 18th dynasty alone. One of the important facts of Egyptian chronology is that before the New Kingdom there are no checks on the accuracy of the proposed dates for any ruler's reign: it exists in a vacuum, without connection to events in Mesopotamia or elsewhere. As long as the order is kept intact, one can move the dates back & forth without breaking anything.
• Sixth & last, there has been a lot of unnecessary name-calling & assumption of bad faith on both sides here. It really doesn't matter what one's religious affiliations are, & Rohl is not a crank in the league of, say Graham Hancock (who insists that the monolithic rock churches of Lalibela are the work of the Knights Templar): we need to assume more good faith on both sides, & focus on accuracy of the statements of this article -- not whether Rohl's ideas are true or not. (I think the opinions about that point are clear by now.) -- llywrch (talk) 16:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I disagree about point 5. It has an enormous impact on the chronology if reign dates are not just summed up, but co-regencies are taken into consideration. This changes everything from the FIP to the TIP. Limiting the chronology to Egypt in the 18th Dynasty is not sufficient. Cush (talk) 16:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Llywrch, this was at no point a matter of a pro-Rohl camp vs. an anti-Rohl one. This isn't a symmetrical dispute. There are some pro-Rohl accounts editing here, plus an actual "Rohl" account, and on the other hand there is the "Wikipedia" camp insisting on strict adherence to WP:DUE. If there are problems with Egyptian chronology, I completely fail to see why Wikipedia should not discuss them at the Egyptian chronology article, based on references taken from peer reviewed literature. I fail to see what Channel 4 shows and other non-academic publications are supposed to have to do with Wikipedia's coverage of Ancient Egypt. This article is about Rohl's publications and their reception in Egyptology and in popular media, period. If we cannot show there has been any reception, I frankly fail to see how this article can be justified as split off its parent David Rohl article. --dab (𒁳) 17:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I have to disagree, dab. With all sincere respect (because I believe you do a lot of hard, unappreciated work), I sense that you have been fighting tendentious editors & cranks for so long that you see them in many different exchanges. You came to this discussion stating that his ideas were "98% rubbish", any analysis of his ideas as material from "Channel 4 shows and other non-academic publications", or even "home-grown {{synthesis}}". Sweeping comments like those make it clear you made up your mind before you even came to this discussion: you'd like to give Rohl the bum's rush from Wikipedia. I have seen little discussion here about the content of this article -- "Rohl's publications and their reception in Egyptology and in popular media" -- just arguments over whether this subject is notable. Or whether this article should stand on its own -- which are better debated over at Wikipedia:Requested moves or Wikipedia:Proposed mergers. And my interest in this matter is (1) to properly handled any WP:BLP concerns, & (2) get the details on Rohl's theories correct because his books are well enough known that people will want an overview of them. The sooner this discussion gets back to resolving those 2 points, the sooner I can spend my very limited time working on articles like this and that. Which is where my skills & research would best help Wikipedia at this time. -- llywrch (talk) 20:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Of course the issues with Egyptian chronology should be discussed at the main article. But Rohl's thesis is based on criticising something and it requires that something to be described in the article. Of course the description, based initially on Rohl's work, is a work in progress (I believe I may have mentioned this before...) and it needs sorting out to match the main article and using as many sources as possible, ultimately in the WP:SUMMARY style.
2. Is there a reason WP:SUMMARY cannot be applied to the two Rohl/NC (Rohl) articles? Rd232 ^talk 19:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

NB I've nominated this article for deletion to settle the notability issue: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Chronology (Rohl). Rd232 ^talk 20:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

And that's been rejected as WP:POINTy, which it wasn't. Perhaps we can either drop the notability tag or have the article nominated by someone who thinks it doesn't warrant its own article. Rd232 ^talk 08:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that you have been a Wikipedia admin for four years rd232, as you do not seem to have a clear picture of Wikipedia policy, how to handle editing disputes, or what AfD is for. Nobody is suggesting that Rohl's theory aren't notable enough for coverage on Wikipedia. Hell, there has been a TV documentary about them, and we basically cover any TV show on the planet. The question is (a) does this NC have any notability in Egyptology or should it be considered a TV fad? and (b) does it have any notability separate from Rohl himself justifying a split of New Chronology (Rohl) as an article separate from the David Rohl bio article. Hence the merge tag, which is not equivalent to an AfD request. --dab (𒁳) 11:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to put my record on this page against yours; frankly if you weren't an admin I'd have reported you to WP:ANI and I'm confident you'd have been blocked. (As for having a clear picture of policy - that's funny; I'm substantially active at times in policy debates, but I've never come across your name.) The AFD was an error, but your insistence on the notability tag despite no-one else agreeing with you, and your refusal to nominate it yourself, led me to try and resolve the issue that way. Even now you're not covering yourself in glory by ignoring the series of points I made above under the Merge section, including the argument you really should address but repeatedly haven't: why are these two articles (Rohl/NC (Rohl)) exempt from WP:SUMMARY-style approach? That was what I was doing when I spun out the NC section from Rohl, as is fairly obvious. Why is this inappropriate? Furthermore, your position that this must be treated as either an accepted Egyptological theory or a TV show on a par with Star Trek is simply wrong, and cannot be sustained if, for example, you consider the two scholarly books covering the subject, one in English and one in German. Rd232 ^talk 14:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

@dab: It is your definition that notability is restricted to 'Egyptology' not Wiki's. You actually have no idea what 'Egyptology' thinks because you have no verifiable census or opinion pole. You are making sweeping statements without sources to back up those statements. When you do supply a source, you reference creationist writers and publications. In addition, though Bennett is a credible scholar, he is not an Egyptologist either. The only Egyptologist that is cited in this article who has criticised the New Chronology in writing is Kenneth Kitchen, yet, even then, there is no reference to the work in which his criticism is to be found. Do I need to stress that notability is not limited to a single discipline such as 'Egyptology'? Besides, even in this you are completely wrong. The New Chronology theory was notable enough for Kitchen to devote part of the Preface to the second edition of his major work on chronology to putting his arguments against the theory. In addition, there is the German book covering the New Chronology with numerous contributions from several Egyptologists. Then there is the Egyptology book I mentioned earlier with seven articles dealing New Chronology arguments. Then there are Brissaud's articles in Cahiers de Tanis. Then there is the paper on the Third Intermediate Period anomalies published in Ägypten und Levant III. Then there are all the papers published in the Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum. Then there are three Sunday Times articles, plus a cover article in the Jerusalem Post, plus another in Der Spiegel. Then there are four best-selling books translated into twelve languages. Then there are three TV series watched by millions of viewers all over the world. Then there are the dozens of radio interviews I have done, including several for the BBC. Then there are lectures all over the world to universities, conferences and archaeological societies.

You have also removed my 'Egyptologist' credential which I not only find offensive but also wholly arbitrary on your part. I supplied you with the Wiki definition of the term 'Egyptologist' for which I qualify on several points. I have a degree in the subject, plus I study the subject, plus I am the Director of an archaeological survey in Egypt, plus I have excavated with the Institute of Archaeology mission at Kadesh-on-the-Orontes (one of the most important sites related to New Kingdom warfare), plus I lecture on the subject at universities and to Egyptology societies, plus I write books on the subject, plus I write articles on Egyptological topics in academic journals, plus I attend and am invited to speak at Egyptological conferences, plus, if that is not enough for you, several national newspapers in the UK state that 'David Rohl is Britain's highest profile Egyptologist'. At least these sources have more credibility than the creationist literature you are familiar with. Please reinstate the 'Egyptologist' label and remove any unverifiable statements which generalise on my credibility, and stick to informing the Wiki readership of the theory, its arguments, its criticisms and any counter arguments to those criticisms. I am surprised that a Wiki admin of your experience is displaying such aggression and bias, whilst, at the same time, employing arbitrary, poorly sourced comments in respect of your editing contributions to this article.David Rohl (talk) 13:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Bennett (1996)

If "much material has been put out by others in favor and in rejection of the model" why do we not cut to the chase already and begin citing them. I would be especially interested in the "in favor" part, but more on "in rejection" would be illuminating too.

The only scholarly reference discussing Rohl the article is aware of is Bennett (1996). Consequently, the article should essentially be basedon Bennett's review, and not on some home-grown {{synthesis}} on Egyptian chronology. I note that Bennett gives Rohl the benefit of doubt and goes out of his way to present a fair and charitable review:

Simply put, I think Rohl is wrong. Dead wrong. Magnificently wrong. The characteristics of his analysis are apparent from the last section. He has detailed and plausible arguments to support his case, which frequently show great ingenuity in their reinterpretation of the evidence. Nevertheless, these arguments are usually not followed through to their logical conclusion because not all the evidence is considered. ... Nevertheless, Rohl deserves attention and respect. All in all, this is a book which should be read by anyone interested in the subject of Egyptian chronology. Those familiar with the subject will find an informed challenge to conventional analysis, one which forces a review of the basic material. Those unversed in the subject should plan on reading deeply and carefully in the scholarly literature before accepting its conclusions. Caveat lector!

Bennett also makes clear the unhappy circumstances of publication that makes Rohl completely unpalatable for academic Egyptology.

While some of [Rohl's] proposals for a revised chronology are very similar to those of [James'] Centuries of Darkness (which is not surprising, since Rohl and James were initially collaborators) ... Sensational claims such as these drive professional Egyptologists crazy. And with good reason. ... Simply by launching their theories through the popular media, Rohl and James have made themselves and their theories appear to be no different from any of these others. Moreover, neither James nor Rohl have helped themselves by their associations with the disciples of that arch-heresiarch of yesteryear Immanual Velikovsky.

so, seeing that this does come from a scholarly review, we can still conclude that nobody is willing to accept any of Rohl's ideas, but that at least this reviewer was willing to admit that he does raise some interesting points. --dab (𒁳) 17:03, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

It is simply not true that the "only" scholarly reference to the New Chronology in this Wiki article is the Bennett piece you added. The book by German scholars, with major contributions from at least a dozen UK academics, is a very comprehensive and detailed discussion of the New Chronology. Please get your statements right.David Rohl (talk) 12:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

the "book by German scholars" is presumably the 2004 Biblische Archäologie Am Scheideweg. So far it is only sitting there in the bibliography. If there is anyting relating to the NC you would like to add then please be my guest and cite it.

at this point, however, I do not think we need any further references describing the NC as untenable. We have Kitchen ("rubbish"), Bennett ("magnificenly wrong"), van der Land ("untenable"). I suppose we could extend this list and still simply come to the conclusion that the NC is universally rejected in Egyptology.

now, while I continue to maintain that the split off David Rohl was ill-advised, I am going to yield on that point and retract my WP:NOTE concerns, as a gesture of good faith. We have articles on sillier topics to be sure. Removing the merge tag, I continue to insist at the same time that this article needs to remain unequivocally clear that the NC is rejected not just "by some" Egyptologists, but that it, according to what we have established so far, is forcefully rejected as untenable by anyone who has bothered to review it. --dab (𒁳) 13:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

You have established nothing here, because, of the three references to the theory's untenability and universal rejection, the first was in a private letter to a biblical fundamentalist colleague in the USA. Since then, in a conference held at Reading University, Professor Kitchen publicly apologised for his remark and withdrew it. The other two quotes you used come from (a) a creationist who believes in the infallibility of the biblical text (he is not an Egyptologist) and (b) an amateur chronologist who is also not an Egyptologist (though his paper is well written and balanced). So you have no sources to verify your statement that the New Chronology 'is universally rejected in Egyptology'. A basic requirement of Wiki editors, as I understand it, is verifiability of statements. You don't have it here.David Rohl (talk) 14:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

And to expose the selective nature of dab's quoting, where he chooses to leave out the crucial comment from Bennett which shortly follows:

Simply by launching their theories through the popular media, Rohl and James have made themselves and their theories appear to be no different from any of these others. Moreover, neither James nor Rohl have helped themselves by their associations with the disciples of that arch-heresiarch of yesteryear Immanual Velikovsky. ... It is not surprising, then, that Kitchen, in a savage review in the Times Literary Supplement, condemned the authors of Centuries of Darkness as "sons of Velikovsky" and consigned them to the same oblivion as their accursed master. No doubt the authorities at the British Museum, who have banned this book from the BM Bookstore, feel much the same way about David Rohl. Such a reaction is misguided. The message may be sensational, and Rohl may even be completely wrong in his theories, but there is a world of difference between his intellectual standing and that of Velikovsky, or even Peter James. Rohl is a trained Egyptologist, with a degree in the subject ...

Selective quoting, misleading the reader on people's views? I see no neutrality here, no good faith, and little sensitivity to BLP. What are you doing here dab?David Rohl (talk) 13:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I hope I have rectified that "selective quotation" to your satisfaction. I am perfectly happy to present Bennett's views in their entirety, especially because there seems little else go on from. At least, by "selective quoting" we are at last in the realm of "quoting". Perhaps you would now consider to begin quoting, selectively or not, references that make whatever point it is you wish to make. You imply that the NC has not been universally rejected. Well, even Bennett, who is bemoaning the hostility in Kitchen's reactions, and who is going out of his way to grant that Rohl knows what he is talking about, is very clear that the NC is untenable. If anything else has been published that will reflect positively on Rohl's NC, assuming that you are, after all, here to portray the NC in as positive a light as you possibly can (as opposed to Wikipedia's policy of WP:NPOV), now would be a good time to begin pointing out your references instead of trying to attack my bona fide efforts at presenting a detached picture of the situation. I am sorry if scholars have rejected your NC, Mr. Rohl, but it is futile to complain to Wikipedia about this. --dab (𒁳) 14:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Again

I see that arguments for and against the Shishak-Shoshenq identification are added to the article. But this is not a forum. The NC holds that this identification is invalid. Period. The article may elaborate a little on this but not draw undue focus on this single issue. Can't we just have the article expanded to present the entire theory in a generally understandable manner before losing ourselves in minutiae? This petty bickering makes me sick. Cush (talk) 07:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

How is it undue? According to Rohl it's one of the 4 pillars of the conventional chronology. There's been mention on this talk page of other foundations (eg Assyrian chronology synchronisms) and also Redford's attempt to avoid all 4 - but that's Rohl's view, so it's hardly undue to give a small section to it in the article. The problem here, as with much of this, is that conventional chronology isn't well enough described on WP - and I gather that's partly a function of it not being that well described in academia, but we can and should try and find more non-Rohl sources to expand both this and related articles. Rd232 ^talk 08:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, if the conventional chronology is not well enough described, and especially its genesis, then feel free to discribe it in the respective article. This article only needs to mention the differences. And my point is that there is a lot more material that needs to go into this article than just what has been published in "A Test of Time". There needs to be a section about the origin of Mesopotamian culture according to NC, a section about the origin of pharaonic civilization (you know with Meskiagkasher/Cush and all), a section about the Hyksos period according to NC, a section about Greece. As I have suggested somewhere above already. The NC is not about a singular discrepancy in Egyptian history, it is a model for all of ancient history. That needs to be reflected in the article. I wish I had more time to finally create a new framework for the article. Cush (talk) 09:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Cush is right. Rd232 needs to begin accepting that this is the article on Rohl's theory and not the place for general discussion of topics like Egyptian chronology or Shoshenq. --dab (𒁳) 11:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Please clarify how you intend to develop an article on a theory based on critiquing an existing chronology and developing an alternative one without first explaining something of the existing one. I've already said several times (if it isn't obvious even without a helping of WP:AGF) that the general Egyptian and related chronology articles need improvement. There is no obvious reason why that improvement can't start here, focussed on Rohl's NC, and merged later. The other way round would be better, but given the lack of clear existing sources, it's perfectly reasonable to present Rohl's view of the conventional chronology here (and even in the other articles), as long we're clear about that attribution. Where others' views of the conventional chronology differs, it gets more complicated, eg Redford's article alluded to above avoiding the 4 pillars entirely; maybe a subsection of the conventional chronology can mention that sort of thing here, I don't know. I'd welcome constructive suggestions on this or indeed any other points. Rd232 ^talk 13:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

simple. By sticking to WP:RS. The best we have at present is Bennett (1996). The background of this thing is cast in an entirely different light by Bennett than by this article, which is unsurprising seeing the WP:COI effort that has gone into compiling it. The actual story is that Rohl's revisionism grows out of Velikovskian revisionism, via the stage of James' (1991). It appears to be correct that among these "phantom time"/"dark age" revisionists, Rohl appears to be special inasmuch he does actually have academic training in the field. It is nevertheless a complete no-go for Wikipedia to try and cover a topic "focussed on" fringe views. It is thus completely inadmissible to "start improvement of Egyptian chronology here, focussed on Rohl's NC, to be merged later" for obvious reasons of WP:DUE. Please. I am prepared to AGF, but you will need to help me by keeping this a little more reasonable. rd232, how much have you read about Egyptian chronology other than revisionist literature? It is correct that it would be helpful for you to get a solid grasp of the academic mainstream before tackling fringe topics, but this doesn't mean that we need to discuss the mainstream topic at the fringe article and vice versa. You would do well to at least read Bennett's review, and his postscript, attentively, and take to heart his suggestion that:

Those familiar with the subject will find an informed challenge to conventional analysis, one which forces a review of the basic material. Those unversed in the subject should plan on reading deeply and carefully in the scholarly literature before accepting its conclusions. Caveat lector!

in order to understand what is going on here on Wikipedia, it will be useful to note that, according to Bennett's postscript,

the tone of discussion between Rohl and his opponents, particularly Kitchen and Brissaud, has become highly acrimonious. The diatribe is often quite unpleasant to read, on both sides. ... Because this debate is rapidly becoming a dialogue of the deaf, it is becoming increasingly unlikely that these productive features will continue to be realised.

Believe me, this isn't the first time that I see "real life" disputes of this nature spill over to Wikipedia. Off the top of my head, compare Talk:Viktor_Rydberg and Talk:Bogdanov Affair. If I am to assume good faith for your involvement in covering a theory you once read about and rather liked, you should also be expected to assume good faith for my involvement in containing attempts to push fringe theories on Wikipedia. This case has all the hallmarks and WP:REDFLAGs that make it a textbook case, and "good faith" here means a healthy dose of wary skepticism and insistence on strict adherence to WP:SYNTH and WP:DUE. --dab (𒁳) 14:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't have online access to Bennett 1996; CAJ access is post-2000 only for my institution (which has one of the best electronic collections in the UK). How did you get access? Rd232 ^talk 15:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia and it's on the web, so placing links to other articles in the article is not a problem. The NC theory is not just a critique of the conventional model, it's a new model from scratch. If you were to write an Article on Relativity you would not necessarily just point out the differences with Newtonian physics and instead just say what Einstein's theory holds on its own. Btw which of Rohl's books have you read. I am getting a little pissed with the way this article and the discussion is progressing. Before the theory is not presented in its entirety I see no merit in bitching over any pieces of it. Cush (talk) 14:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we could have got where we are by paths a little more wikilike and a little less antagonistic, but I think the article is on a good way now. This is what happens when people edit articles on topics they "want" to be a certain way, never mind reality, or references. --dab (𒁳) 14:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

@dab: Please withdraw the remark "unsurprising seeing the WP:COI effort that has gone into compiling it". None of the edits I have done have been anything other than balanced and neutral. None have been removed by other editors because the reality is that they do not exhibit WP:COI. I have corrected errors and asked for unverified statements to be removed. I have advised you on the non-Egyptological sources you are using. The conflict of interest here is not with what I have done but what appears to be an anti-Rohl bias on your part.David Rohl (talk) 14:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

fine, I accept that you show an acceptable level of self-restraint. But your involvement is still obviously biased. Sure, you have "asked for unverified statements to be removed", but these were, of course, exclusively unreferenced statements you took as reflecting unfavourably on your theory. It wouldn't, for example, have occurred to you to ask for verification of the completely unreference claim that Rohl's books are "best-selling". You see where this is going. We cannot write a neutral article in this way. There is a reason why it is recommended that people should not be involved in articles on which they have a strong opinion, especially if that opinion is in conflict with mainstream opinion. If people do still insist in editing, it is recommended that they Wikipedia:Write for the enemy. That is, try to give a charitable portrayal of the view opposing their own. I frankly cannot spot a lot of that art in your edits. You need to understand that WP:NPOV does not translate to "the article needs to be exactly between the pro-Rohl and the anti-Rohl point of view". Much to the contrary, it means that the article should give weight to each view in proportion to its notability. If we find that the NC is universally or near-universally rejected, Wikipedia by the very policy of WP:NPOV is obliged to take the "anti-Rohl" position exclusively or near-exclusively. This is what I am doing, simply in adherence to Wikipedia policy and not because I have any personal opinion on any of this. I would be grateful if everyone could familiarize themselves with this aspect a little more. Read WP:FRING, ideally all of it, but since people rarely do follow the policy links thrown at them I take the liberty of quoting,

Conjectures that have not received critical review from the scientific community or that have been rejected should be excluded from articles about scientific subjects. However, if the idea is notable in some other way such as coverage in the media, the idea may still be included in articles devoted to the idea itself or in non-scientific contexts. The same holds true for conjectures and theories in other academic disciplines.

this is exactly what I am trying to do here. The NC has been rejected, but it has notability because it was on TV. We should therefore make this article "devoted to the idea itself or in non-scientific contexts", i.e. in the "non-scientific context" of "chronological revisionism in popular culture". --dab (𒁳) 14:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The remark "The actual story is that Rohl's revisionism grows out of Velikovskian revisionism, via the stage of James' (1991)" is completely untrue. The New Chronology was independent of both. I never supported Velikovsky's revision and wrote articles against it. As for James, he originally supported the Glasgow Chronology, which developed out of the need to accommodate problems with the Velikovskian revision. That was then abandoned in favour of the New Chronology by James in around 1981, before he developed a less radical revision in the 1990s (Centuries of Darkness). The New Chronology did not therefore 'grow out of' either, but rather developed from a 1970s analysis of Kitchen's TIPE. Please do not try to give a summary history of something you are unfamiliar with. You are getting things badly wrong and prejudicing the historical reality.David Rohl (talk) 14:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Jesus, you are doing it again. This is about representing Bennett (1996) fairly and adequately, not about "go and get Mr. Rohl's feedback on talk before daring to quote from any review on his stuff". If you feel I have misrepresented Bennett, do suggest an alternative phrasing. Hell, we can even go for a verbatim quote to be on the safe side. But stop cherry-picking the sources we use. You don't get to have Bennett's "Rohl has a considerable mastery of his material" without Bennett's "Rohl has found a congenial home in Velikovskian groups". Bennett makes a clear connection between the 1991 book and your 1995 book. In his own words, The first salvo was fired in 1991, with the publication of Centuries of Darkness. .. [Now, in 1995] David Rohl has returned to the charge. I was attempting to tone down the military metaphor a bit, but I am certainly happy to present Bennett's take on the situation in exactly these terms. --dab (𒁳) 15:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Based on what you say above, and what you wrote originally, it sounds like you interpolated something into Bennett which wasn't there. Since you have access, perhaps you could provide the full quote here. Rd232 ^talk 15:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Verifiability of 'bestselling' is the appearance of my books in the Sunday Time Bestseller List. No Egyptology or ancient history book has ever reached number two in that bestseller list (never mind staying there for eight weeks) to compete with A Test of Time. That constitutes bestselling status in anybody's book I think. This is a truth not an opinion.David Rohl (talk) 15:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

well, excellent. then why isn't this fact in the article? How difficult can it be to understand the difference between saying a claim is unsubstantiated and saying a claim is untrue? Unlike what you seem to imply, I would be delighted with a definite statement that Test of Time was a bestseller, because this would take the notability concerns out of the equation, and we could focus on making this article about a bestselling book. --dab (𒁳) 15:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It is now, I've already added it. Rd232 ^talk 15:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

@dab: Please do not bring Jesus into it. He not an Egyptologist and is not notable in Egyptology. Nor is he a verifiable source. ;-)David Rohl (talk) 15:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

And please don't be silly dabs by bringing Amazon sales rankings into the discussion (history page) as a side swipe. A Test of Time hardback is 'out of print' which is why it is circa 230,000 in the Amazon sales rank. After being published 14 years ago now, the paperback stats are as follows:

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 144,046 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Popular in these categories:

1. 12 in Books > History > Archaeology > By Period > Biblical
2. 46 in Books > History > Ancient History & Civilisation > Middle East
3. 84 in Books > History > Religious History > Judaism

The paperback often moves into the number one slot in the 'Biblical' category. Not bad after 14 years! Barnes & Noble have had the Pharaohs & Kings USA hardback edition of A Test of Time on sale for $230 in recent years. Your claims need to be based on sound arguments, not cheap shots about sales rankings of out of print books. That just ain't neutral or reasonable. What rank is Kitchen's Third Intermediate Period in Egypt? Currently ranked at 744,191. Does that make his book less notable than mine? No, it is a work of major importance. Current sales ranks for books over ten years old are pointless to throw into the discussion. Play the game by all means, but play it fairly.David Rohl (talk) 20:30, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This is fairly reasonable, but where did anyone bring sales rankings into the discussion? john k (talk) 21:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

See the history page of this article: 13:41, 11 August 2009 Dbachmann (talk | contribs) (23,067 bytes) (checked amazon sales rank, #230,139 in Books. I frankly have no idea whether this qualifies as best-selling by our standards, please look into it.). I looked into it as requested and responded above.David Rohl (talk) 07:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

look, thre was the unsubstantiated claim of "best-seller". In a bona fide effort to verify this (as opposed to just blanking it as unreferenced), I checked the sales ranks. If there are better ways of showing the book was best-selling, that's fine with me. It is rather disappointing to have David Rohl describe this as a "cheap shot". I appreciate the book was a best-seller. I have no problem with it being a bestseller. I do have a problem with the book's author exhibiting this kind of hyper-activity on Wikipedia talkpages trying to tout his work. Sheesh, so the man wrote a popular bestseller. Why does he spend his time patrolling Wikipedia trying to further inflate the credibility of his stuff? I think I would focus on dealing with the eminently reasonable criticism based on which the theory was soundly rejected by experts and try to see if I can modify the theory to salvage it, or whether I have to abandon it at long last. Or then I would just drop it on grounds of hey, I may have been completely wrong, but at least I got some screen time and money out of being wrong, while most scholars spend their careers toiling in obscurity even if they are right all the time. Playing silly games on Wikipedia trying to scrape at least some semblance of credibility out of it is probably not what I would do. --dab (𒁳) 09:22, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Most of that is a violation of WP:SOAP, insofar as it isn't a violation of WP:NPA. And for the record, I was the one who added "best-selling", and the alternative to adding 2009 Amazon sales rank data (??) is not blanking but a fact tag. Rd232 ^talk 09:46, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

oh yes? I get attacked for actually trying to find some sort of substantiation for an unreferenced claim you happened to insert, and when I react to this I am suddenly violating SOAP and NPA? Look, rd232. You are not interested in building a neutral and unbiased article here. You are just pushing Rohl's theory and begin throwing around references to policy when the article's content is challenged.

this must be one of the worse cases of COI I have come across in five years, and yet you saw fit to edit-war over the COI tag. I yet have to catch you showing some sort of appreciation that this article may have a problem. This isn't bona fide discussion, and I am tired of it. If you cannot collaborate reasonably as could be expected of a veteran editor, this article will just remain plastered with dispute tags indefinitely and I will try to get more attention from the relevant noticeboards, as I do think I have better things to do than babysit this article all alone being outnumbered by fringe theorists trying to abuse Wikipedia as a platform for their views. So please spare me the lecture on policy. If you do not or will not discuss this reasonably, I am done trying to assume good faith here. --dab (𒁳) 16:05, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

You have shown no good faith from the start dab. All you have done is attack and try to discredit, which is not the role of an admin.David Rohl (talk) 21:17, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Quite. And frankly if you (dab) haven't noticed me commenting on problems the article has, your case of WP:IDIDN'THEARTHATitis must be worse than I thought. As is your response to my most recent remarks above. I appreciate you trying, but what on earth possessed you to think that Amazon sales data at a single point in time constitute a WP:RS for a book's selling record? Hence the double question marks. A fact tag would have been the appropriate response. And the SOAP/NPA comment would obvious to someone who hadn't long ago (seemingly immediately - recalling that comment of Mark Twain's, "I take an instant dislike to people. It saves time..." - decided to dismiss a number of editors as bad faith fringe theory pushers, a position have you shown zero willingness to re-evaluate in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary. I really thought you'd come around a bit to collaboration, and then you launch that unnecessary diatribe at Rohl above, compounded by a diatribe at me when I responded to it. Rd232 ^talk 22:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

NC and Religious references

I would like to raise another issue about dab's editing of this article. He added "Rohl's theories bcause of their compatiblity with Biblical literalism have also been noted in creationist literature. Thus, Berthoud (2008) contrasts the "near-unanimous" rejection of Rohl's theories in Egyptology with the "sensational effect" his books combined with the television series had on the general public.[25]" I see no connection between the first and second sentences. Does anyone else here think that the majority of 'the general public' are 'creationists'? If not, then the two points he is trying to make here are not related in any way. The opinion of a creationist's (with no Egyptological background) has no merit or value in respect of why the general public became enthusiastic about the NC theory. Moreover in what way is the NC theory 'compatible' with 'biblical literalism'. Biblical literalism, as I understand it, is the belief that the Bible, in its entirety, is true and accurate. That is not even remotely what the NC either proves or argues. The New Chronology is a theory about chronology, not about the verifiability of the Old Testament. In fact, the policy of NC is to treat the Old Testament narratives just like any other ancient literary source. I think the problem here is that dab actually hasn't read any of the NC literature and is only consulting other people's (often uninformed) writing about it. I do not believe that this is a responsible approach to editing here - especially when he accuses those editors who have read some NC literature of bias.David Rohl (talk) 13:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Logically, I think you're correct about that individual passage. It's a bit strange. This being said, I don't think anybody is arguing that your new chronology is based on creationist principles, or that it uses creationism in any particular way to make its arguments. But I think there are two important points worth making in this respect. The first is that chronological revisionism, in general, has often been supported by creationist, because they feel that it provides corroboration for stories in the Bible. Velikovsky, too, was not a creationist, but his theories on chronology (if probably not on catastrophism) were also embraced by certain strands of creationists - again, because they seemed to provide corroboration for stories in the Bible. The second point is that your theories, in particular, provide some of the same comfort to creationists. "Look, the Bible is true, we an find evidence of the Exodus and the United Kingdom period in Egyptian sources!" That being said, this kind of material needs to be better sourced, and more clearly stated. john k (talk) 14:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Spot on John. Your wording and way of expressing the Christian fundamentalist interest in the NC is exactly right. The one thing I would say though is that it is not my fault or concern if certain groups 'get comfort' from my research. The facts lead me to where they lead me. It is not up to me to dictate how people use them to support their own views and ideologies. And it is equally unreasonable to use that interest from fringe groups as a form of perjorative in order to belittle or cast doubt on the NC research. Books are books and people get all sorts of different messages from the written word. A relevant example is the Bible itself. There are numerous ways that that contentious book has been used to vindicate actions and positions. We can't blame the author's of that work for the wars and ethnic cleansing which has gone on over the centuries in its name. In my case, findings are findings and it would be dishonest not to compare the new revised dating with the Old Testament narratives to see what arises. That is a standard methodology for any ancient text.David Rohl (talk) 14:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I was not suggesting otherwise. But I think it's a notable point, and worth mentioning in the article, that the theories have given rise to interest among fundamentalists. john k (talk) 16:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I had thought that religionists reject the NC... because although it opens a possibility for a certain historicity of the biblical account, it also removes the divine involvement and replaces it with ordinary human endeavors. However, I am not sure that this should be in the article, because it has nothing to do with real archaeology or history. Cush (talk) 15:22, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how Rohl's work does this any more than conventional correspondences between Biblical and other Ancient Near Eastern events does. How is discovering Saul and David being involvement in the Amarna letters any different in this respect than discovering that Jehu and Menahem are mentioned in Assyrian records? Which part of the New Chronology does anything which specifically removes divine involvement? The great enemy of a literal interpretation of the Bible from Exodus to 1 Kings is "minimalism" - the basic idea that because of the lack of any corroboration from the archaeological evidence, none of this material represents any kind of useful historical information at all, that the Exodus never happened, that Joshua's conquest was a myth, that the United Kingdom was, at best, some poor, middling hill kingdom with little real power, and that it's only with Ahab and Jehoshaphat or thereabouts that we come into the light of real history. And even there we can't take the narrative of 2 Kings to be a legitimate historical source, and can only accept it when it corresponds with Mesopotamian and other archaeological sources. You can argue against that using the standard chronology, but it's tough going. Through a sort of jujitsu, Rohl's new chronology cuts through the problem - no, it's not that the archaeology doesn't support the Biblical story, it's that the archaeology has been interpreted completely incorrectly. When it is looked at in the right way, it actually supports the historical accuracy of the Biblical narrative. That Rohl himself is not a fundamentalist only helps make the case - this guy isn't even committed to finding the Biblical story true, and even he sees that the standard model is fundamentally flawed! Of course Rohl isn't going to say that things are caused by divine intervention, but once you restore the greatness of the United Kingdom period, and the historicity of the Exodus, then you can fit the miracles back in as well, if you're so inclined. john k (talk) 16:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

That is also true Cush. It is perhaps noteworthy that all the religious/creationist/fundamentalist references/sources here are anti New Chronology. I haven't see a pro New chronology religious source here so far.;-)David Rohl (talk) 16:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Again, your last points are well made John. And I agree with them. The irony of all this is that many theologians and evangelical scholars would prefer to keep the miraculous without having to contend with what might turn out to be the embarrassing reality of an historical framework. To quote Dutch theologian Professor H. M. Kuitert, commenting on me and my work in an interview for Dutch TV: "It is totally uninteresting what this man says. The value of the biblical stories is not based on them being historically true". So there you have it, finding potential connections between events and characters in the OT from within the archaeological record is irrelevant and uninteresting. Much better just to stick with the fairy-tale as an illustrative method of morale teaching. By the way, I'm thinking of starting a new faith based on Aesop's Fables. Any potential disciples out there?David Rohl (talk) 17:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, naming a book "From Eden To Exile" does not exactly keep the religionists and pseudo-scientists away. Of course such a title makes books sell, but after all caution should be take to not make the fundamentalists too happy. Of course I see that the book is just the summary out of "A Test of Time" and "Legend". I hope the NC was not developed to create historicity for the Bible, but that the biblical material just happened to fall neatly into the new chronological framework that you have developed. To be honest, the readiness to fill the not so certain parts of the NC with biblical doctrine has always made me a little nervous and I have always feared applause from the wrong side.

Since I am a complete atheist I am solely interested in finally seeing a comprehensive chronology for the Middle East as all other model have terribly failed so far (IMO). My personal interest lies in the origins of pharaonic civilization through mesopotamian influences (I chose "Cush" exactly because of that epic voyage of Meskiagkasher that you describe in your books), and also what you describe in "Lords of Avaris". (Ok maybe this belongs on a user talk page...) Cush (talk) 17:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

We're getting rather far from our purported topic. Can anyone find any good sources for fundamentalist interest in the new chronology? I have some anecdotal experience with this phenomenon, but not much in the way of reliable sources. john k (talk) 17:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Can we not present the NC theory first, before we think about a Reception section?

And I really do not see why fundamentalist interest should be included at all. Cush (talk) 18:03, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

why, do you think, could Rohl's book have turned out a best-seller? Or, put differently, who, do you suppose, is most likely to buy a book that promises "sensational confirmation of the historicity of the Bible! historical David identified! Historical pharaoh of the Exodus identified! Ham identified! It's all true!" I appreciate that Rohl is neither a Bible-thumper nor a crackpot. But he is most definitely catering to these demographics. --dab (𒁳) 09:12, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Most interesting quote you have there dab. Could you please reference it so that we can see who made that statement? Or perhaps it was you? Nowhere in my books or in the publisher's sales literature were those specific claims made. In the UK the book sold out of the first print run of 20,000 copies in two days, immediately following the first episode of Pharaohs and Kings - the episode which deals almost entirely with the Third Intermediate Period anomalies. So you are wrong again and jumping to your own conclusions without knowing the facts. And I think it is a bit insulting to the UK population to imply that they are all fundamentalist Christians. The people who bought the book were interested in the intellectual challenge, not simply and exclusively any 'proof' of biblical history. You do not need to be a creationist to be interested in whether the Bible is based on real events. It is an interesting book and worthy of debate and discussion, especially if you take God out of it.David Rohl (talk) 12:40, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

it stands to reason, doesn't it? I am not going to put it in the article without a source, of course. But one minute's googling is enough to establish that I am hardly the first to note the symbiosis between "New Chronologists", cranks and religionists. [12] People interested in the intellectual challenge would do well to start out with reading an account of the mainstream position and its foundation. People diving into fringe theories with no prior knowledge of the subject are not "interested in the intellectual challenge", they are interested in cheap sensationalism. --dab (𒁳) 15:57, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

What makes you think that the "mainstream position" is coherent? Or that its foundation is sound? The more I read the more doubts I have. And of course there is always the trouble that the bible causes. Why is there a book that creates an alternative history? Why was it all made up to explain the emergence of the "Chosen People" ? In the conventional chronology the historicity of the bible is exactly zero. So why would anyone in that book come up with dates, reign lengths, even names?

Of course the NC draws religionists, although the most prominent of them in Egyptology, namely Kitchen, rejects the NC. But the NC was not developed to please the ideologically impaired but to correct the conventional chronology, which is full of holes and gaps. Labeling something as fringe does not in fact make the mainstream position any better. A chronology stands on the evidence. What religionists think of it is not relevant. Cush (talk) 16:48, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

In the conventional chronology the historicity of the Bible is not exactly zero. That is simply a falsehood. I've never heard of any scholars who do not believe that there is not any legitimate contemporary historical information in Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and many of the minor prophets. Many also believe that Samuel is largely historical, and some at least believe that real historical material can be carefully gleaned from earlier books. And all of this can certainly be done without any serious modification to the conventional chronology. The Conventional Chronology validates synchronisms between various Kings of Israel and Judah and various Assyrian monarchs, as well as between Rehoboam and Shoshenq I and probably some others, as well. As you yourself admit, one of the foremost advocates of the conventional chronology, Kitchen, is an evangelical Christian, who obviously believes that the conventional chronology is compatible with the Bible. At any rate, if evangelicals have a distinct view of the new chronology, this is worth discussing in our discussion of the reception of the theory - but only if we can find a good source. john k (talk) 23:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

In the conventional chronology the historicity of the Bible in respect to the important pieces that define what Judaism is built on today (and subsequently Christianity) is ZERO. The entire era from Noah down to the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan and the Judges period and the United Monarchy period have no standing in the conventional chronology, just ask Mr Finkelstein. Of course Kitchen as an evangelical Christian has a personal interest in making the Bible true, that is why he is not a reliable source. And his stuff doesn't add up anyways. Cush (talk) 05:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

That's not what I remember, Cush. For Old Testament events, the modern conventional chronology (in contrast to the venerable Ussher chronology) is based on the work of either William F. Albright or E. R. Thiele; Finklestein, last I read, is considered something of a "Young Turk" in the subject. (I know just enough about OT chronology to know that beyond stating expert names & their conclusions I would be more of a hazard than a help -- which is why I've stayed mostly away from that topic.) In any case if one where to provide a conventional chronology, they would need to qualify it as whose conventional chronology -- Albright, Thiele, or Finkelstein. -- llywrch (talk) 20:38, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

There's also Galil's more recent version of the divided kingdom chronology. Beyond that, I don't see how on the one hand Kitchen can be dismissed because he's an Evangelical Christian who wants the Bible to be true, but on the other hand the traditional chronology which Kitchen supports is probably invalid because it shows that the Bible is false. Beyond that, the conventional chronology sees no external evidence for the truth of Biblical events in the period before Rehoboam or so, but it also finds no external evidence that those events are wholly a historical. The current reading of the archaeology, for instance, suggests that the United Kingdom period was apparently not so prosperous as the Bible would lead us to believe, but it does not prove that Saul and David and Solomon were not real people - it does not even prove that Moses was not a real person. Things for which the "historicity is 0" would be, in my view, things that we know are ahistorical - things like the Matter of France which is all stuff and nonsense because we have contemporary accounts that demonstrate that almost nothing about them is true. The conventional chronology instead actually tends to confirm the historicity of the divided kingdom period, and it really has little bearing one way or the other about the historicity of earlier periods - it does not disprove them as Einhard's life of Charlemagne disproves the historicity of events depicted in the Song of Roland. And certainly Finkelstein's minimalism is widely disputed, even if Rohl tends to agree with it. (and there are probably just as many problems connecting the Bible with the New Chronology, as, for instance, the fate of the Philistines). john k (talk) 23:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Steering things which are getting a bit general back to the article, should we follow up Llywrch's remark "whose conventional chronology -- Albright, Thiele, or Finkelstein"? My understanding is that the variation in the conventional chronology today is relatively small between different versions, and given how substantially Rohl's unconventional chronology differs, the minor differences between versions of the conventional may not be that important. On the other hand they may be highly relevant. Perhaps Rohl to point to some sources on how Kitchen's chronology (which seems to be his starting point) fits into the picture. Perhaps it would also be a good idea to expand on these general issues at Egyptian chronology, which currently has little detail on the subject. Any good sources for that? Comments? Rd232 ^talk 23:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that the article has always missed the bigger picture between the OC (orthodox chronology), whichever you choose because they are indeed not very different, and the NC (New Chronology). What I mean by this is the big differences which are:

(a) Exodus: NC in the late MBA; OC at the end of the LBA.

(b) Conquest: NC = the MB IIB (late) city destructions in the southern Levant; OC = the less impressive destructions at the end of LB.

(c) Sojourn: NC in the 13th Dynasty; OC in the 18th & 19th Dynasties.

(d) Greek dark age disappears in the NC; OC has a 300-year dark age.

(e) Anatolian dark age disappears in NC; OC has a 200-year dark age.

(f) In NC Trojan War takes place in the 9th century; in OC it takes place in the 12th century.

These are the major implications of the NC revision. All the stuff about Papyrus Ebers and 19th Dynasty lunar dates are, quite frankly, the minutiae of the thesis and have been way overly stressed in this article. The major chronological critiques of the OC are (1) Kitchen's reconstruction of the TIP in Egypt based on his assumption that Shoshenk I is the biblical Shishak (that is crucial) and (2) the identification of Ramesses II as Pharaoh of the Exodus based on the first chapter of Exodus.

As to the OC and the OT, John is right that it can only confirm, to a degree, links between Egypt (with the exception of the Shishak question) and Assyria as far back as the Ahab/Omri period (9th century). Before that is where the OC fails to correspond with the OT narrative, and where the OT fails to correspond to the archaeology of the southern Levant and Egypt. This is also where the NC implications kick in, even though the chronological revision is primarily in the subsequent period of the TIP (OC = 11th to 7th centuries).

These are the areas which I believe need to be addressed in the article, giving both sides of the arguments.David Rohl (talk) 08:15, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

On one hand, I think this is a useful, NPOV presentation of the implications of Rohl's New Chronology. (Okay, he is familiar with the subject, but still...) However, I feel that the Eber papyrus & the 19th dynasty lunar dates are given proper attention: both are simply mentioned as evidence supporting the conventional chronology, & why Rohl discards them. I also feel that they are important because they remind the reader just how little material exists to establish the chronology of ancient Egypt, either in absolute terms (the primary sources would probably fit comfortably on a single book shelf) or relatively (consider just how many dated documents there are for European history in the sixth or seventh centuries AD, a period otherwise known as the European Dark Ages). Yes, this should probably be covered in the Egyptian chronology article, but I don't understand why these points can't appear in both places. If there is anything that needs to be cut out or rewritten, it is that paragraph starting "Although Professor Heinrich Otten...", which, IMHO, is a non sequitor that sticks out like a sore thumb & adds nothing useful to the article. -- llywrch (talk) 17:26, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I really did not say these points should be removed, I said they have been overly stressed, simply because the main points of the NC have not been in the article to date, so the so-called Pillars (which is explanatory background material, as you say on how the Egyptian chronology WAS constructed) received undue attention. In the context of an article with the other material I listed above included, then the Papyrus Ebers and lunar date would not stand out as an apparent major/crucial part of the thesis.David Rohl (talk) 21:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Egyptological Sources

"Most Egyptologists accept Shishaq as an alternative name for Shoshenq I.[4][5][6]" and "Rohl's theories have not been accepted by Egyptologists[14]". I don't disagree with either of these statements, but could someone at least provide sources/references from Egyptologists because the statements are specifically about them. I personally am not aware of any. Sources from non-Egyptologists who are stating an opinion based on no verifiable Egyptological sources relating to consensus is hearsay and surely aren't reliable sources, are they?

Coppertwig kindly pointed me to interesting Wiki guidelines at [[13]] which I believe are relevant here. The above statements are given as facts not the opinion of the sources. This appears to me to go against "Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements of fact". And I believe the above statements imply 'consensus' amongst Egyptologists which contravenes "The statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing. Without a reliable source that claims a consensus exists, individual opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources. ... The reliable source needs to claim there is a consensus, rather than the Wikipedia editor. For example, even if every scholarly reliable source located states that the sky is blue, it would be improper synthesis to write that there is a scientific consensus that the sky is blue". I do not believe that the four references used to support these statements of fact are reliable sources as at least three of them are not Egyptologists and none of them have an opinion pole of Egyptologists to back up their individual opinions. Please could I have your opinions on this.David Rohl (talk) 08:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

As a general point that is certainly correct. I think the former statement is an improper (unsupported by sources) generalisation; the latter is slightly less problematic as long as the qualifier "most" is added; I think that can be supported by sources, even if [14] isn't enough. Rd232 08:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Good, then let's have the Egyptological sources please. Anyone like to volunteer to find some?David Rohl (talk) 08:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The Shishak section has some decent refs now, but it's getting a bit long in relation to the rest of the article. Perhaps not the priority right now of this work in progress (finding more sources is), but it should be trimmed and perhaps some details moved to the Shoshenk page? Rd232 ^talk 10:19, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely agree.David Rohl (talk) 13:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Shiahaq section

I do not understand what the last paragraph of teh Shishaq section (the Kitchen reference) has to do with the issue of the section. It does not address what Rohl is in fact saying. I suggest it be removed. Cush (talk) 05:29, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Cush, the reason why the Kitchen statement is in there is because somebody added Wilson saying that the Shoshenk campaign may not correspond to the Shishak attack on Judah but it doesn't matter because it is not a reliable and accurate campaign list. So Shoshenk can be Shishak even if the two campaigns are not the same. This brings the debate down to a single issue - the name. The Wilson view is completely wrong because the relief is not a bog standard relief which is a copy of others as he claims. Every Egyptologist and scholar who has studied this Shoshenk campaign list considers it to be unique and of great historical importance. That is why the Kitchen reference is in there - to counter the red herring of Wilson. I personally think the addition of Wilson is a mistake because it is not what the conventional scheme believes. But then it is not my job as an editor with 'obvious COI' to remove what others have added which supports the conventional position on Shoshenk = Shishak. However, it is a strange thing to find someone who agrees that the two campaigns are different (though many Egyptologists do agree with that but keep quiet about it) and then to say that it doesn't matter because the Shoshenk campaign is fiction anyway. Shoshenk stays as Shishak even though the contemporary inscription doesn't agree. No problem, just say its a fake! Kitchen and the other scholars in the references, on the other hand, say that such a claim is 100% rubbish (to coin a phrase).David Rohl (talk) 08:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

All quiet on the western front! Nobody lobbing missiles any more? Time for you to add all the stuff you promised Cush.David Rohl (talk) 08:27, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Here we go again!

The edit by Maunus in the intro to this page is inaccurate and false. He has obviously not read the discussion here before editing. The Thomson quote predates the publication of A Test of Time by a number of years and therefore does not refer to the New Chronology thesis at all. In fact it is a criticism of people like Kitchen. Second, it is quite wrong to state that chronological problems are solved in Egypt but any changes there cause greater problems in areas outside Egypt. Which referenced expert is supporting this view in the sentence? An Egyptoologist like Kitchen, who has no archaeological background in Syro/Palestine, is not an authority on this issue. So who is? Where is the reference to an expert in archaeological matters outside Egypt? The implication of connecting Kitchen's 'rubbish' remark to the previous part of the sentence is misleading. Thomson is a theologian, not a Levantine archaeologist. Kitchen is an Egyptologist, not a Levantine archaeologist. Please will someone find a proper authoritative source as a reference or remove this inaccurate edit from the page.David Rohl (talk) 08:19, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Removed. The non-acceptance by Egyptology is mentioned, and per the points you mention. Mentioning just Kitchen's quote in the lede would be less problematic, but doesn't seem to meet NPOV on its own. It might be OK in a carefully worded sentence about reception in Egyptology, and Kitchen being the most prominent interlocutor from Egyptology, or something, but I suspect it would be very difficult to do that, because the partial acceptance of some aspects of / evidence for the NC can't be simply ignored. Someone could have a crack at that, but generally farting around with the lede when the article needs major work seems a waste of time. Rd232 ^talk 09:30, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I assume that by 'Thomson' David Rohl means Thomas L. Thompson, who can't be dismissed as a just a theologian, that's a somewhat worrying mischaracterization of Thompson's recognised expertise in the relationship between the Bible and archaeology. Dougweller (talk) 11:17, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

"Thomson is a theologian, not a Levantine archaeologist." spelling aside, what part of that isn't true? In any case Thompson hasn't (AFAIK) directly addressed the NC (certainly the quote pre-dates Test of Time). (PS I know I've got one of his books, but I've never got round to reading it... Partly because it's a German edition and the translation doesn't do the readability any favours!) Rd232 ^talk 11:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you really think in this context that the difference "Thomson is a theologian, not a Levantine archaeologist" and "Thompson is a recognised expert in the relationship between the Bible and archaeology" isn't important? In this context, the first wording is in any respect that matters misleading at best, and taking into account the impression it would leave on anyone who doesn't know Thompson, I'd say untrue. Dougweller (talk) 12:29, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Doug, I think you need to edit the lede on the Thompson WP page which clearly states: "Thomas L. Thompson (born January 7, 1939 in Detroit Michigan) is a biblical theologian associated with the movement known as biblical minimalism. He was professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1993 - 2009, lives in Denmark and is now a Danish citizen". According to you that must be wrong.David Rohl (talk) 11:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say it should be ignored that Thompson is an expert on that - just it does matter that he's neither Egyptologist nor archaeologist, but theologian. In any case he's quoted in the appropriate section even though it's just a generality and not specifically about the article topic. If he has something specific to say about the NC, so much the better. Rd232 ^talk 14:37, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Thompson is relevant because he is a specialist in the relative chronology of biblical narratives and levantine archaeology. I realise that choosing those quotes was provocative, but something drastic has to be done for this article to live up to NPOV, FRINGE and UNDUE. As it stands now the article is hardly more than advertising of Rohls hypothesis.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:00, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Let's take the policies you mention in reverse order. WP:SPAM? ("hardly more than advertising")? Er, OK - you want to expand on that or is it just hyperbole? WP:UNDUE? That says "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each." If you can point to significant viewpoints about the NC that have not been included, please do. WP:FRINGE - I'm not really familiar with as a policy in detail, so perhaps you could clarify how it violates that and what can be done about it. WP:NPOV? What part of the article is not neutral? Or how does it otherwise violate NPOV? Really, please, be constructive - we don't need another person who can only see a big red flashing FRINGE THEORY sign (cf dab above). It's not like we're talking about introducing this theory into other articles inappropriately, or leaving out criticism of it, or pushing wads of unsourced or ludicrously sourced information. There's a lengthy discussion above about sourcing, which is difficult for this topic, and time spent arguing about whether a quote should be in the lede or not is time not spent dealing with those sources and looking for more. The article needs expansion and improvement, not fisking as if it were a finished product. Rd232 ^talk 14:34, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE states that "Coverage on Wikipedia should not make a fringe theory appear more notable than it actually is.[1] Since Wikipedia describes significant opinions in its articles, with representation in proportion to their prominence,[2] it is important that Wikipedia itself does not become the validating source for non-significant subjects. Other well-known, reliable, and verifiable sources that discuss an idea are required so that Wikipedia does not become the primary source for fringe theories." This means that when a scientific theory has not been embraced by the general academic environment the article about that theory should make that completely clear to the reader and not try to give the appearance that it has a greater following or better arguments in its favour than it actually has. In this case we have a theory espoused by one scholar and ignored or vehemently rejected by everyone else, yet the article presents the theory in a light to suggest that this is merely a matter of time and the scholarly community not being sufficiently knowledgeable. This is a problem. Thompsons preemptive critique is spot on even though he made it before the book was written: the bible is not history and any archaeological theory pretending to understand archaeology through the bible (or in this case attempting to rewrite archaeology to make it fit the bible) is ludicrous and misguided. I didn't mention WP:Spam but the obvious Conflict of Interest and the much too positive light this article sheds on a theory that has been all but positively received by the scholarly establishment does lead one's thoughts in the direction of an advertisement (Although scientific theories are of course not "products"). WP:UNDUE is the companion of WP Fringe - the article should strive to include the commonly accepted chronology and the arguments in its favou alongside the new chronology and give prominence to the theory that is most widely excepted i.e. not Dr. Rohl's.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:46, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

"Presents the theory in a light to suggest that this is merely a matter of time and the scholarly community not being sufficiently knowledgeable." I don't think that's fair - but at least it is something concretely fixable. Can you point to specific things? Also, do you have some other comparable "fringe theory" articles which you would consider models to follow? Rd232 ^talk 16:06, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Good point, Maunus. Ideally, whenever the article says something about the NC, it will also in the same paragraph give a comment about that point, written by one of Rohl's critics. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

A bit of praise is also due: I think it was a very good decision to include the section on conventional egyptian chronology first in the article. Both because it is necesarry for understanding Rohls proposed changes and because it is the mainstream view. The section on Shishaq is also very well written with arguments for and against side by side.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I see some problems with the argument of sysw being a hypocoristic (why use the word hypocoristic instead of nickname or short form btw?) form of Ramesses. Where is this short name attested? Are there no critics who have questioned this correlation? Also some of the counterarguments are missing for example the argument that there may be no reason to expect a mention of Jerusalem in Shoshenks conquest list and the fact that since the list is missing fragments it may actually have been mentioned.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Some of those points (notably "no reason to expect" and "missing fragments") have been discussed previously and added to the article - though maybe not clear enough. On the use of the hypocoristicon, I don't know. Rd232 ^talk 16:06, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the Sysw hypocoristicon, this is well know in Egyptology. There are several examples of its use, but the two major ones are Papyrus Anastasi I where the name is used three times (translation in Pritchard's ANET), and a chalice from Serabit el-Khadim in Sinai with the name painted on the outside (Petrie Museum).David Rohl (talk) 18:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, then I think the article should make that clearer.·Maunus·ƛ· 18:45, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Thompson

Maybe this material that I deleted should be restored. [14] I deleted it per WP:SYN; however, there is a secondary source relating Thompson's statement to Rohl: How Myth Became History, already given as a ref for something else in the article. The quote of Thompson saying "ludicrous" on page 1 is presented as if Thompson said this after the publication of "A Test of Time". Even if Thompson said it earlier than the publication, the quoting of it here removes the WP:SYN problem. However, the wording we would use may depend on whether Thompson actually said that after the publication of ATOT (and commenting on it). Anybody know? ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the article mentions a general discussion of the problems inherent in using the bible as a historic source and putting its testimony above other archaeological sources. The article as it is now doesn't seem to mention that the motivation for the revision is apparently a wish to make the biblical narrative consistent with the archaeological sequence. (which makes it quite akin to a religious rather than historical project). In such a section Thompsons claims could be presented as a general rejection of any attempt to interpret archaeology through the bible.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:47, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether I understand your comment. I take it you don't know when Thompson made the remark. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't, but my point is that it doesn't matter. He is criticizing all attempts past and future to use the bible as a source through which to understand actual history - which is what Rohl is doing.

I think if you come mere with a misunderstanding that fundamental you should take a step back and read the article properly. The conventional chronology - according to Rohl - has traditionally been based on some biblical elements (notably Shoshenq = Shishak) which he criticises and changes, using a wide variety of non-biblical sources. It turns out that in this NC the bible seems more historically plausible than in the conventional, but that's a by-product, not a source or a goal (Rohl is an atheist). Rd232 ^talk 16:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

If that is a misunderstanding then this article is what has given me the wrong idea. Any attempt at correlating Shishaq with an actual Egyptian ruler whether it be Ramesses, Shoshenk or Tut-Ankhamen is an attempt to find a corelation between the bible and the historical record. This is what Thompson criticises. The article as it stands now states that Rohl's main argument on which his chronology hinges is that Shishaq is Ramesses not Shoshenk - this is a biblical argument. The reinterpretation of the Leiden papyrus as poiting to a date 300 years later only makes sense if the Shishaq-Ramesses correlation is already established on other grounds. This makes it all come down to the Sysw/Ramesses argument for which there is currently no explanation (i.e. where is sysw documented to be a short form of Ramesses?). The way the article describes it he then adduces more circumstantial evidence of non-biblical origin in favour of this biblical correlation. Maybe Rohl is an atheist - but thats no guarantee for not making the mistake of believing the bible is history instead of myth.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

"Any attempt at correlating Shishaq with an actual Egyptian ruler ... is an attempt to find a corelation between the bible and the historical record." You're missing the point - this is not finding a new correlation. It's re-dating a correlation which the conventional chronology was founded on! Isn't this clear enough from the "conventional chronology" section? Feel free to tweak or suggest clarifying changes. Rd232 ^talk 17:15, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The list of correlations between archaeological and biblical characters doesn't do much to suggest that the point is not to vindicate the bible as history.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

That's hardly fair. Once a re-dating makes these things fit a lot better, it's only natural to go see just how much does fit. Rd232 ^talk 17:15, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that including the Thompson quote is problematic because it is a part of a completely different debate, that only indirectly connects to debates over the new chronology. Thompson is a minimalist - he believes that the Bible should not be treated as having any historical validity. His argument is with the traditional school of Biblical archaeology and scholarship which sees considerable portions of the Bible as having considerable use as history. Presenting the Thompson quote implies that Thompson's view is universal, or predominant, among supporters of the conventional chronology. It is not; it is rather the subject of heated debate and disagreement, and Thompson's viewpoint probably remains a minority one. A one sentence quotation of a remark that wasn't even about the new chronology cannot really explain that, which means that we are taking the quote out of context and probably giving undue weight to a minority viewpoint. Furthermore, I think it verges on OR - Thompson is not talking about Rohl's theories. To put it here with the implication that it does is pretty clearly original research, I think - the only reason to put it here is to imply that he is commenting on the New Chronology, which he is not. john k (talk) 17:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not arguing for Thompson to be included. What I am arguing for is that the 'conventional chronology' be represented correctly with sources. In The Oxford history of Ancient Egypt Ian Shaw's "Two Egyptian textual records of Sothic risings (dating to the reigns of Senusret III and Amenhotep I) form the basis of the conventional chronology of Egypt, which, in turn, influences that of the whole Mediterranean region. These two documents are a 12th Dynasty letter from tne site of Lahun, written on day 16. month 4, of the second season in year 7 of the reign of Senusret III, and an 18th Dynasty Theban medical papyrus (Papyrus Ebers), written on day 9, month 3, of the third season of year 9 in the reign of Amenhotep 1. By assigning absolute dates to each of these documents (1872 bc for the Lahun rising in year 7 of Senusret III, and 1541 bc for the Ebers rising in regnal year 9 of Amenhotep I), Egyptologists have been able to extrapolate a set of absolute dates for the whole of the pharaonic period, on the basts of records of the lengths of reign of the other kings of the Middle and New kingdoms." Shaw then goes on to describe some of the problems (where the observations may have taken place, etc). The OHAE also mentions 3 perspectives on Egyptian chronology that I refer to above I believe. The Ebers papyrus is mentioned in the article. At the moment, that part of the article is either sourced from Rohl (which it shouldn't be) and not cited, or is original research. By the way, Otten isn't cited properly, that's one of the problems with copy and paste from other articles. I can find no evidence that he said that, I've searched his Festschrift, he isn't an Egyptologist so why are we using him so prominently in any case? He seems to be "the Altmeister of Hittitology". I'm removing the bit using him. Dougweller (talk) 18:20, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Too often a Wikipedia article is a bit like a 'Chinese letter'. See here, the first edit of Egyptian chronology which says " Reliable absolute dates, astronomical or other, are lacking, as Professor Heinrich Otten had noted. It is a "rubber chronology" that you can stretch or shrink anywhere, by arbitrarily established lengths of co-regencies between rulers and even overlapping dynasties." Here the two sentences are combined, still with no source. Finally at [15] an IP adds a source, but to what? Dougweller (talk) 18:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

This all seems reasonable, but what does it have to do with the earlier discussion in this section of the talk page? It is hardly helpful to join in a discussion by changing the subject. john k (talk) 18:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I am also not adamant about including Thompson, however I think it would be pertinent to include a segment about general the problems of correlating archaeology with the bible (as discussed by the minimalists). And as I have stated I moved it to the lead to make the problem of the lack of criticism in the lead explicit.·Maunus·ƛ· 18:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how a general discussion of biblical veracity is going to be helpful; there are other WP articles for that and unless there are specifics feeding into orthodox or new chronology, it could easily be off-topic. On the other hand more detailed discussion of particular identifications arising from the NC might be useful. What did you have in mind? Rd232 ^talk 20:06, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Sources

I can't get a hold of them myself at the moment but I have a feeling it would be beneficial to include some of these sources:

• Wood, B.G. One thousand years missing from Biblical history? A review of a new theory, Bible and Spade 6:97–114, 1993.
• Wood, B.G. David Rohl’s revised Egyptian chronology: a view from Palestine. Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin 45:41–47, 2000.
• Kitchen, K.A. The historical chronology of ancient Egypt: a current assessment, Acta Archaeologica 67:1–13, 1996.

I have also looked for academic reviews of Rohl's books and they are curiously absent. This could be a sign that the academic environment has not thought it merited attention. Maybe mr. Rohl himself has access to some reviews of his works that he might supply to the discussion?·Maunus·ƛ· 17:24, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Maunus, jere is Bryant Wood's article on Rohl, published also in the Creationist journal Bible and Spade. It might lead to some reliable sources, but I don't think it should be used directly. Dougweller (talk) 17:53, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

It could be used to show how the theory has been received by creationists. The lack of reliable academic reviews is really strange in my opinion.·Maunus·ƛ· 18:05, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Your quite right Maunus, there are no reviews. Which is very pertinent to the point I have been making over the last few weeks here. There are no critiques of the NC in Egyptological circles except Kitchen. That's pretty much it. Yes, you get lots of creationist reviews (mostly negative but not written by specialists in the fields of chronology or Egyptology), who say that Egyptology has rejected the theory. But what they mean is that Kitchen has rejected it because no other Egyptologist has criticised it in print (with the exception of Brissaud who dealt specifically with the Tanis tombs). So my contention is that, whatever the consensus opinion in Egyptology is, it is not in print anywhere - only Kitchen. Therefore there is no verifiability of the statement 'Egyptologists reject Rohl's theory' or anything similar.David Rohl (talk) 18:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Am I right in thinking, though, that whilst there's little engagement with NC as a whole theory (beyond Kitchen), there's a bit more engagement with particular parts of it (not necessarily qua parts, but nonetheless engagement with parts used to build it). There's the Shishak discussion, at least. Is there equivalent discussion on other parts? For instance on the Ebers papyrus issue? Rd232 ^talk 18:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem with this is that lack of reviews suggest that it is not seen as an actual scholarly work byt he academic community. Lack of reviews in this case amounts to more than rejection of the theory: namely rejection of the notion that it is even deserving of argument. It puts us in a weird spot when trying t assess notability because the theory is clearly notable in popular media, but it has been ignored by academic venues - suggesting that it is more in the realm of popular science than actual science. This would also need to be apparent form the article.·Maunus·ƛ· 18:44, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I found an online review: [16]·Maunus·ƛ· 19:29, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I did find an interesting mention of Rohl in a review by Sturt W. Manning in Classical Studies (Vol. 47, No. 2 (1997), pp. 438-439) on JSTOR, which also has some interesting things to say about ancient chronology more broadly:

Chronology and dating in academic archaeology and ancient history are subjects avidly practised by a few, regarded as a necessary but comprehensively boring evil by the majority. As with public transport, we all need the timetable in order to travel, but we have no desire to learn about the workings of the necessary trains, buses, tracks, roads, stations, connections, and so on. Moreover, the study of chronology is unpleasant, detailed, and difficult, and lacks intellectual status and élan. It is like engineering, or surgery. Thus, where possible, the academic establihment likes to find some study on chronology to be effectively definitive, and the agreed 'text': other, higher, work can then be attended to. E. Meyer's study of 1892 on Herodotos' chronology thus remains a basis for current study for Greek history; J. A. Brinkman's work on Kassite chronology (article 1970, book 1976) remains effectively definitive; and so on. It is only when some iconoclast, or outsider, challenges the whole structure, tries to 'beat the boffins', that general academic attention returns to chronology (e.g. Peter James et al., Centuries of Darkness, 1991, David Rohl, A Test of Time, 1995).

He then goes on to review a book which tries to date destructions of Tarsus and Samaria, and challenges the conventional dating of them. Of course, and unfortunately, pace Manning there seems little evidence that general academic attention has, in fact, returned to chronology as a result of Rohl's challenge - at least, given that this is virtually the only reference to Rohl in all of JSTOR, there's not so much evidence of this. john k (talk) 19:58, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The subject hasn't been abandoned, there is Ancient Egyptian Chronology by Hornung, Krauss &Warburton, Brill Academic Publishers, 2006 with half a sentence mentioning Rohl "There remain uncertainties in the TIP [Third Intermediate Period], as critics such as David Rohl have rightly maintained..." In other words, no serious discussion of Rohl in this 517 page volume. Dougweller (talk) 21:21, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

This is great stuff John and Doug and I think it should go into the article. Manning's quote, or a boiled down version of it, is very good for the conventional chronology section, and Hornung, et al. is a bonifide chomment on the problems of the TIP which does show that not all scholars in the field treat the NC as Kitchen does. There are so few reactions to the NC in print that when you find one, it should be included. Both also go to the very important point as to why there are so few critiques amongst Egyptologists of the NC and helps with Maunus' concerns. The simple fact is that chronology is so specialist that most Egyptologists stay away from it. Let me put it as simply as I can by asking a common sense question based on real world experience. When Joe Bloggs (that's me) comes up with a major challenge to establishment thinking in a highly specialised aspect of a discipline (Egyptology), do you really expect the vast majority of Egyptological colleagues to jump ship and join him overnight? They will all wait for conclusive proof of the theory before committing themselves, keeping quiet in print or saying something like "There have been recent challenges to the timeline of Egyptian history which call into question the currently held chronology, however, in this book I will be retaining the standard chronology". That is what people do. And there is no conclusive proof to confirm the NC theory as yet, so the establishment view will prevail until that happens or doesn't happen. Remember plate tectonics theory and its 20-year sojourn in the wilderness of academia and science? Anyway, two good finds. Please add them.David Rohl (talk) 08:26, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be that simple, though. Certainly chronology is a specialized sub-field, but it's not a completely unpracticed one. Furthermore, as I understand it there are published peer reviewed reworkings of chronology all the time which do attract attention; they simply aren't as radical as what you propose. In biblical archaeology, for instance, the minimalist views, which have pretty striking implications on chronology, do get considerable attention in scholarly literature. The new chronology, for whatever reason, does not. Being ignored by the vast majority of Egyptologists and having them use the traditional dates is, indeed, to be expected. But what is notable is that there is a much broader blackout on the new chronology, which doesn't even receive reviews or any discussion in scholarly journals. This, I'm sure, has something to do with the fact that it's largely been expounded in television programs and glossy mass-market books and has never gone through peer review. Are there, BTW, any peer-reviewed works on the new chronology? That might be useful. john k (talk) 13:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Obviously the biblical minimalism approach of the Copenhagen school is not an issue of chronology. I assume that is not what you meant? As to peer review, all I can offer is several years of academic debate at University College, London, the Institute of Archaeology, London, the Institut für Ägyptologie in Vienna (seminars, lectures and debates), and the academic book edited by van der Veen and Zerbst entitled 'Biblische Archäologie am Scheidweg' which is entirely devoted to crticisms and defenses of the New Chronology. There is also the debate between myself and Kitchen at Reading University, plus Kitchen's lecture tour of the UK which dealt entirely with the New Chronology. He obviously took it seriously enough to tour with a critical paper. Sir Mortimer Wheeler once famously said that "Archaeology is not a science - it is a vendetta". And we might want to recall that Max Planck also said "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up which is familiar with it."David Rohl (talk) 16:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I've just ordered Biblische Archäologie am Scheideweg. No promises about when I can introduce anything from it here, though - it's going to be hard work and probably time consuming, and I've got a tough few months of work ahead. It'll be on my list of things to do though. Rd232 ^talk 10:47, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Well done Rd232! Best of luck with the archaeological terminology. Just took another look at the Manning quote provided above by John. We have to be careful about statements like "It is only when some iconoclast, or outsider, challenges the whole structure, tries to 'beat the boffins', that general academic attention returns to chronology (e.g. Peter James et al., Centuries of Darkness, 1991, David Rohl, A Test of Time, 1995)". James and his team of authors were not outsiders (they were all post-graduate students of Egyptology or archaeology based at UCL or the Institute of Archaeology when they wrote Centuries of Darkness. I was a post-graduate student and ancient history tutor at UCL when I wrote A Test of Time. All were/are experts in their fields of archaeology and/or aspects of Egyptology (for example Morkot is a recognised expert Nubiologist). On the other hand, Manning, though an undoubted scholar and academic, is a Professor of Classics, therefore he is an 'outsider' himself when it comes to Egyptology and Bronze Age archaeology. Having familiarised himself with chronological and archaeological material and therefore a bonifide authority, he then tried to 'beat the boffins' by challenging the Egyptological consensus, arguing that the 18th Dynasty must be pushed backwards in time to accommodate the radio-carbon evidence from Thera. So he himself was an 'iconoclast' and 'outsider'. In that respect he is indeed different from James, Rohl, Morkot, et al. in terms of their genuine insider status. The reality is that we are all outsiders until we get drawn into a particular subject. However James and Rohl were not outsiders when they wrote their seminal works and Manning was. Strange how things work in the academic world!David Rohl (talk) 11:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Well that's a terminological question - does "outsider" mean outside the discipline, or outside the mainstream of the discipline, or something else? Since he also says "iconoclast", it seems more like the first one. Maybe he's referring partly to himself? Rd232 ^talk 20:13, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it is more about the use of the word 'outsider' as a pejorative (as in the term 'habiru' with the same sense). It implies a lack of knowledge and skills of the discipline. My point is that none of the revisionists of CoD and ToT can be classed as 'habiru'.David Rohl (talk) 09:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I have added a quote to the article (in Reception) which qualifies in respect of every issue raised here - authority, reliability, academic response/consensus, and credibility - which appears in one of the standard reference works for students of Ancient History and which is written by one of the most respected Ancient Near Eastern historians in the UK. It directly counters the amateur, mostly creationist hearsay, which says that the revised chronologies are rejected wholesale and ignored by academia - as dabachman continuously claims here in the discussion. Please accept it as a bonifide example of the academic/scholarly reaction to the NC from someone who is in a position to know the reality.David Rohl (talk) 17:09, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

"I have added a quote to the article"? I added it! (It's the Manning quote john k found and noted above.) It certainly helps explain why the NC isn't much discussed in academia - because chronological issues in general are "boring". (On top of which NC is complex and "big", so to take it seriously would be a big task, and being so radical, it's easy to understand why the few chronology specialists don't want to put the time in - it probably seems like a waste of time and is certainly unlikely to be good for their careers.) Rd232 ^talk 17:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Read again. You were too quick off the mark ;-). It's the quote from Professor Amelie Kuhrt which is way more authoritative than anything else we have found so far regarding the academic view in general about the NC and CoD.David Rohl (talk) 17:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Well this is what happens when you use the past tense about future events! You hadn't added it yet. [17] Good stuff though. Rd232 ^talk 17:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Chicken or Egg theory - not mainstream I know but popular amongst the general public - except creationists!David Rohl (talk) 18:34, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The difference between facts and arguments

Coppertwig has asked me to discuss this issue here on the talk page. He reverted my edit "Rohl points out that there are no genealogies that confirm the high conventional dates for Ramesses II in the 13th century BC." Replacing it with "He also argues that there are no genealogies that confirm the high conventional dates for Ramesses II in the 13th century BC." My point here is that it is not an argument from me that can be challenged but rather a simple historical fact. The fact is that no such genealogies have been found to date. I would contend that, unless somebody can provide a genealogy that has royal connections/links (at both ends) which confirms the conventional length of the interval between the 19th Dynasty and the 22nd Dynasty, then you should accept that this is a fact and not an argument.David Rohl (talk) 08:06, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Looking at it again, my position on that phrase is now neutral. I ask that you wait to allow time for discussion by others on that point, though. I didn't write the wording "he argues" myself; I simply reverted to the wording that had been there previously.

I'm also unsure about the change from "sensationalist" to "sensational"; possibly neither word is appropriate. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I am dubious of this - my understanding is that there are genealogies which many people take to establishing that, but that you dispute them. I would suggest that the genealogy of the Assyrian kings, as typically understood, is pretty clearly understood to confirm the conventional dates for Ramesses II in the 13th century BC (i.e., we know Adad-Nirari I and Shalmaneser I were contemporaries of Ramesses II, and the genealogy given in the Assyrian king-list, along with various other Assyriological data, confirms that they ought to be in the 13th century). I'm not especially familiar with Egyptian genealogies, but my understanding is that there are genealogies which have been interpreted to confirm the dating of Ramesses II in the 13th century. Rohl may dispute the relevance of them, but that's just the point - it becomes an issue of judgment and debate, not a factual point. Certainly, I don't think that we can accept Rohl's word that there are no such genealogies. Because Rohl's theories have received no recognition in the mainstream scholarly community, Rohl is not a reliable source on Egyptology - he is only a reliable source on his own views. And we should be particularly careful about adopting Rohl's assessment of the basis of the conventional chronology as fact. As such, we cannot use Rohl as a source for saying that Rohl "points out" something - we have to find a reliable mainstream source which says that, and I doubt there are any. Until then, we should say that he "argues" it.

I also don't think we should call this the "high conventional dates." As I understand it, there is some debate in the mainstream chronological circles as to whether the beginning of Ramesses II's reign should be dated to 1304, 1290, or 1279 BC (IIRC, I've also come across an "ultra-low" date of 1265 or 1264). For the most part, the most recent work I've seen tends to go with the "low date" of 1279. To refer to that dating scheme as the "high conventional date" is misleading and confusing. The "high conventional date" starts Ramesses II's reign in 1304, and is rarely used anymore. We should just say "conventional date." john k (talk) 15:15, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I understand your last point and agree. As to the previous point on the genealogies, I was, of course, referring only to the Egyptian data and not data from Mesopotamia which is a whole different subject covered in Bernard Newgrosh's book 'Chronology at the Crossroads'. The problem here with the Egyptian genealogies is that I know there are none other than the three I have raised, and you have an 'understanding' that there are others. All I ask is that someone produces one (just one) - which must have direct connections to kings at both ends (that is the point) and which is seven or more generations longer than the three I have produced. Simple.David Rohl (talk) 16:10, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

David, I was remembering material from this website, no longer with us but archived by the Wayback Machine, which was devoted to debunking your theories (largely by amateurs, I think). There's a couple of genealogical bits which, at least, seem to contradict your chronology, even if they do not directly serve as genealogies that cover the whole period from the 19th to 22nd dynasty. Here, for instance, is some genealogies covering from Merenptah to Ramesses XI, which are claimed to make problems for your theories. Another one, which contends to show that Siamun must have been one generation before Shoshenq I, and that the 21st and 22nd dynasties cannot have overlapped. Here are more lists arguing that the 21st and 22nd dynasties not overlapping. So you seem to be right about no chronologies clearly establishing a succession from the 22nd Dynasty back to Ramesses II, but there is also a lot of implication that the current chronology of the Third Intermediate Period is basically correct - otherwise there's a ton of doubling going on, and multiple generations apparently coexisting at the same time. At any rate, I stand by my main point that we should not state Rohl's contention as fact unless we have a reliable source which says that Rohl's contention is fact. BTW, the archive also provides a useful postscript by Bennett to his original article, apparently published in the same journal, which has a good review of work published after his original article which addresses Rohl's theories, all of it negative. It includes references to work by Kitchen, Philippe Brissaud, Carl Jansen-Winkeln, Sturt Manning, and others, which Bennett takes to cast even more doubt on the validity of the new chronology than existed at the time of his original review. john k (talk) 16:59, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

John, if you could do me a favour and take a look at the following article by Robert Porter (Institute of Archaeology, London) in JACF 8, I think you will see that the genealogy references you quote are not what they are claimed to be. They are, in fact, inconclusive as they are constructed from different statue genealogies and the connections between those genealogies are speculation on the part of Kitchen. In fact the Neseramun genealogy has a parallel genealogy which is several generations shorter. The paper is THE NEW CHRONOLOGY DEBATE - THE GENERATION GAME - BOB PORTER REPLIES TO SCHOLARS' CRITICISMS CONCERNING TIP GENEALOGIES at http://www.newchronology.org/cgi-bin/somsid.cgi?session=1251055316&page=html/volumes/08.David Rohl (talk) 19:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

On the workmen from Deir el-Medina that you quote from the web site, if you take a careful look, you will see that there are three generations of Chief Workmen of the Left and Right spanning the entire 20th Dynasty. These are people who worked all day in the carving of the royal tombs and were prime candidates for silicosis and other lung diseases. In this period there are 10 kings of the 20th Dynasty which in the conventional chronology spans 117 years. Three generations of this sort of die-young workmen would probably span at most 60 to 70 years. The length of the 20th Dynasty in the NC on the other hand is 64 years. So which chronology do these three generations of quarrymen support, the CC or the NC?David Rohl (talk) 19:51, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I was not suggesting those genealogies should be used, since the arguments about them in relation to new chronology seem to derive from a self-published website, which is not a reliable source. My point was simply that the question of what genealogy shows about the length of the Third Intermediate Period seems (to say the least) to be a matter of debate. This isn't the place to debate the merits of New Chronology (much as I'd be interested in debating that), but rather to debate what should be in the article. I think this article ought to serve the following purposes: a) to provide context about the assumptions and provenance of the standard chronology; b) to explain the arguments made by you and any other notable NC proponents about why you think such a chronological revision is needed; c) to explain the implications of that revision on the broader history of the ancient near east and Mediterranean worlds; d) to explain what the reception to the New Chronology has been, especially among mainstream scholars. Speaking of the latter, at the page you linked me to there are a number of articles, apparently published in JACF, that are critical of the New Chronology. Should we view such articles as reliable sources for criticisms? Obviously, JACF isn't a mainstream publication, but it seems like critical articles published within it would still be good sources, especially since (for rather obvious reasons) there is just a lot more discussion of the New Chronology in JACF than in normal mainstream sources, and such criticisms aren't self-published. john k (talk) 19:59, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with pretty much everything you say John (especially with your points a to d), with the exception of the comments on JACF about it not being mainstream. It is a specialist journal for sure, but it is held in major national and university libraries, and the contributors form an impressive list of respected academics in the field. So it is a legitimate source for NC debate. In which light, I agree that there is much to utilise there for this article. But I also wish someone would take a look at the German book which is more recent and covers so many more aspects of both criticism and response. But to get back to the subject of this section of the discussion, we still need to establish who is right here. I have contended that it is a 'fact' that there are no other continuous genealogies that link kings of the 19th Dynasty to kings of the 22nd Dynasty. I think you have accepted that you were unable to produced evidence that any others supporting the CC exist, but rather put up constructed genealogies (made up of different and insecure connections) which span much smaller periods. I gave you a JACF 8 source which shows that these other genealogies are insecure and, anyway, do not deal with the overall length of time between Ramesses II and say Shoshenk I. That is the whole point. There are three genealogies which in a CC context have seven missing generations (all three), and there are no genealogies covering the same interval which have these extra generations. This is a fact, not an argument. If it is not true, then please produce the genealogies that contradict it. Otherwise I believe the phrase 'He points out that ...' is accurate and does not breach NPOV or COI. Facts are facts.David Rohl (talk) 06:43, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't really know enough about JACF to judge whether it qualifies as a reliable source or not. Having read a bit more, its usual contents are clearly far outside the mainstream consensus on chronology, as for the most part those publishing in it tend to be advocates of considerable chronological revisions. It might be appropriate to cite other writers published in JACF as reliable sources for descriptions of the new chronology itself, but I'm not sure - not all of them seem to fully agree with your thesis. Graham Hagens, for instance, seems to be arguing for a revision of only one century or so. As far as the genealogy issues, I will point out the Basa genealogy that Jansen-Winkeln argues for in his article in JACF as being a potential alternative. Its own date is not given, but Jansen-Winkeln argues that stylistic criteria demonstrate that it must be from prior to the 25th Dynasty, and that the number of generations shown going back to Ramesses II make it difficult to fit within the new chronology. I'm sure you have an answer to that, but it's kind of beside the point. Really the point here is verifiability, reliable sources, and original research. Your work is a reliable source for what your theories are, but because of issues with fringe theories, it cannot be considered a reliable source for general Egyptological subjects. Which means that any statement by you about Egyptology in general has to be presented as something you argue, rather than a fact, unless there is another source which says the same thing. So: are there any other sources for this claim about genealogies? If it is as clearly true as you say, there should be mainstream sources which say the same thing. john k (talk) 14:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC).

You would expect a journal dedicated to chronology to have papers by chronologists who try to re-analyse and propose chronological revisions wouldn't you? Otherwise what is the point in it? Even so, there are chronology related articles by the dendro-chronologist Professor Mike Baillie, the leading Aegeanist Professor Peter Warren, pottery specialist Vronwy Hankey, one of the authorities on Geometric Greece Professor Nicholas Coldstream, leading predynastic Egyptologist Dr Toby Wilkinson, Egyptological grandee Professor Wolfgang Helck, leading Palestine pottery expert Professor Margreet Steiner, Egyptologist Dr Carl Jansen-Winkeln and several others. If they chose to publish in JACF, why should you question whether it is a reliable source? All the above are mainstream scholars, so your second point is answered. It was not the objective of JACF to only publish articles in favour of my thesis. How crass do you think I am? As editor for many of the volumes, I took all articles on chronology that were on offer, including those that disagreed with me. I am not a van der Land who refuses to include rebuttles of his critiques of the NC. For some reason you seem to see that openness and willingness to accept criticism as a failing. I don't.

As to the Basa genealogy and very quickly because it is a complex subject. The type of block statue on which the genealogy is recorded is attested down into the 26th Dynasty. The NC has the late 22nd Dynasty parallel with the Nubian 25th Dynasty. So this genealogy proves nothing. It is attached at its beginning to the 19th Dynasty, but it's end is floating in a time period from the 22nd Dynasty to the 26th Dynasty. It therefore does not qualify as a genealogy which contradicts the NC; nor does it confirm the CC. I will try to look for 'mainstream sources' to contradict or support my statement of 'fact' but I am not hopeful as we are talking about a very specialist area and fairly recent research. Mainstream scholars tend not to look for cracks in their established framework and, when they do, find it politic to assign such problems to the bottom draw labelled 'anomalies'. Such anomalies rarely get published.David Rohl (talk) 14:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, obviously people interested in chronology are going to propose revisions. But there are revisions and there are revisions. As I understand it, it is perfectly respectable to suggest modifications of up to 50 or 60 years or so, and certainly to argue over decades. And there's plenty of issues with synching up archaeology with the written narratives. This is all chronological debate, but is quite different in nature from a project to strip 350 years from the established chronology. Anyway, I wasn't trying to suggest that you only take articles that support your thesis, but certainly a preponderance of articles in the journal come from those who support a radical revision of the chronology. And I certainly don't think that willingness to accept criticism is a failing - it's a sign of intellectual honesty, and it seems clear that your intentions for JACF is for it to publish a wide variety of chronological material. I'm just not sure that it qualifies as a mainstream academic publication. Perhaps others might weigh in On the Basa genealogy, as I said, I expected you would have an argument for why it doesn't apply. Jansen-Winkeln, on the other hand, appears to think that it does apply. I have no expertise on the subject of the dating of Egyptian statuary, which appears to be the key point here, to have an opinion on which of you is right about that. I do think that Jansen-Winkeln's estimate of 25 years per generation, rather than 20 years, is a lot more sensible, but that's just my opinion, and I obviously have no standing to make a judgment on which of you is right about that, either. But we clearly have a disagreement on the subject, and we clearly have one source who is arguing that the Basa genealogy is a genealogy that demonstrates the validity of the conventional chronology. I think it's wrong to reject that simply because you have a counterargument. Because, as you can see, what you are doing then is, er, arguing. Which is what the current text says you are doing. I don't think to say that you "argue" something implies that it is not true. It seems like a fairly clear statement of what is going on here. The genealogies you work with are, in your view, the only ones that cover the period in question, and they all prove, in your view, that the conventional chronology is 350 years too long. Jansen-Winkeln disagrees, says that your genealogies are unreliable and that, anyway, there's another genealogy which is better, and which doesn't support the view that the chronology needs to be adjusted. You then argue in return that Jansen-Winkeln's genealogy doesn't prove anything, because we don't know when it's from, and you hold to a wider variety of possible dates than he does. This is, again, an argument. As such, I think the current language is fine. It doesn't say that there are other genealogies, but it doesn't say that there aren't, either. What's wrong with leaving it at that? john k (talk) 16:31, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

You are right in the context of a non-specific sentence such as "He also argues that there are no genealogies that confirm the conventional dates for Ramesses II in the 13th century BC". What I was arguing was something more specific - that there are no other examples of genealogies which link 19th Dynasty kings with specific 22nd Dynasty kings, which, I admit, is more than the current statement says. So, okay, I concede the point based on the generality of the sentence ... or we can be more specific in the sentence and you can then concede my point. ;-) On the matter of generation length, Kitchen uses 20 years in his TIPE, Bierbrier used 20 years as his base for calculations in his work 'The New kingdom in Egypt'. Life expectancy in Egypt (based on a number of anthropological studies) was around 35 years. Under those circumstances, I hardly think surviving first-born children get planned at 25 years of age for the father. Do you?David Rohl (talk) 17:59, 24 August 2009 (UTC)