Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Bronze Age Center. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Pierce Furlong Thesis
Topic Started: Mar 19 2013, 12:05 AM (954 Views)
George Nicolaides
Member
[ * ]
Hi everyone,

Pierce Furlong wrote his Phd thesis in 2007 relating to Near Eastern Chronology 1600-700BC. It's a fascinating read and attempts to synchronise the chronologies of Assyria, Egypt, Hatti, Mitanni and Babylon.

Highly recommened. You can view and download the thesis at the following site -

http://dtl.unimelb.edu.au/R/CTEULT4QXEK5M6...ds_handle=GUEST

Enjoy.

Regards

George

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Dan Howard
Member Avatar
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
Agreed. His argument for lowering the chronology is even more convincing than James et al.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Matthew Amt
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
Yeah, but the wuss only wants to chop 200 years! I say 400. But I haven't done the intense research and will probably change my mind tomorrow anyway, ha! (It's all part of being a proper frothing radical!)

Only just started reading it, but I love the way he starts by dismantling Kitchen's objections to Centuries of Darkness. This should be VERY interesting.

Matthew
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Brock H
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
I haven't started it yet, but probably will in a couple days. I'm not sure about 400 years, Matt. 200 or 300 for sure.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Matthew Amt
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
Oh, I'm not sure about 400, either! That mostly comes from things like charts of helmet styles that show identical forms in 1200 BC and 800, with nothing in between but a few stray finds. So even if the major problems are solved with a reduction of 2 or 3 centuries, clearly some more work needs to be done with how artifacts are dated!

My favorite story is the archeologist merrily digging up graves, one of which he dated by some proto-sub-Mycenaean-3-c pottery. I'm not certain of the actual designation given, but I'm not kidding about the progression of prefixes and suffixes! Then he discovered that another grave cut into this first one and had proto-sub-Mycenaean-3-B pottery in it--since the second grave was obviously later, he decided that the pottery in the first grave had to be proto-sub-Mycenaean-3-A instead of -3-C. To top it all off, he stated that all that stuff looks the same anyway!!

It still amazes me how many people fight so strongly to hold on to all these problems that have been created, frantically trampling all the basic tenets of archeology and history to shore up a rotten system.

Froth froth froth! I should just read the dissertation, eh?

Matthew
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Brock H
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
Matt, you have to remember that careers and academic reputations have been built based upon the old chronology. It's not surprising that some would fight tooth-and-nail to defend the old chronology despite all its problems and new evidence supporting the new chronology. They're seeing so much of their life's work getting discredited at least in part.

While it seems to be gaining more adherents all the time, I don't see the new chronology being generally accepted as the standard one until all the old chronology adherents (and a number of their students) are retired or dead. Don't despair--time is on the side of the new chronology and to those of us interested in the Bronze Age another 30-40 years should be no more than the blink of an eye.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Matthew Amt
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
Oh, I realize that! It would just be nice if more academics were actually devoted to learning and knowledge rather than office politics. Plus, aren't they passing up their big chance to publish exciting and radical new ideas? Nothing stops archeologists from spouting bizarred "new theories" and "rewriting the history books" over an old stick or something, but the historians just close the dining room door and carry on with supper as if the kitchen were not on fire.

No, it's fully understandable--they all went through the same indoctrination with little encouragement to challenge the establishment, and most are too focused on their specialty to step back and look at the big picture. Heck, generalists seem to be held in some contempt!

It's just a little sad.

We will bury them.

Matthew
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Dan Howard
Member Avatar
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Todd Feinman
Member Avatar
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
“Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.”
¯ Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary

Still, our wretched species makes some cool armour eh? :D
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Matthew Amt
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
Quote:
 
Still, our wretched species makes some cool armour eh?


Yes, but they were rarely considerate enough to bury complete sets of it in properly datable contexts! See, us modern folks with our huge junkyards and landfills have a MUCH higher regard for the future, leaving all that great stuff for future generations of archeologists to dig up.

Matthew
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Brock H
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
Matthew Amt,Mar 22 2013
09:21 PM
See, us modern folks with our huge junkyards and landfills have a MUCH higher regard for the future, leaving all that great stuff for future generations of archeologists to dig up.

Matthew

I don't know about that, Matt. Imagine future archaeologists digging in a junkyard and they find a '54 Ford next to a '78 Chevy. They'll probably think they were contemporaries and maybe even made by the same people!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Matthew Amt
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
Yeah, and it doesn't help that nowadays the "model year" is almost a full year off from the calendar year! And both are different from the fiscal year...

Matthew
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Brock H
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
And let's look at it the other way. Future archaeologists do realize they are not contemporary, but they don't realize how quickly models changed. So they think they're two or three hundred years apart. And since they don't have any intervening material they come up with--Centuries of Darkness!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Edwin Deady
Member Avatar
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
Not having studied the period or the arguments at all may I ask when changes of style and governance happened and how close these were to the Greeks we see as parochial citizens? Presumably at some time citadel dwelling kings went and cities came in or am I being naive? If no long dark age then the period must be shorter which normally meansa more violent change. Were there revolutions of the middle class plebs to wrest power from monarchs?

Was the introduction of iron weapons gradual or were they brought in by nasty Dorians?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Todd Feinman
Member Avatar
Patron
[ *  *  * ]
Edwin Deady,Mar 26 2013
08:43 AM
Not having studied the period or the arguments at all may I ask when changes of style and governance happened and how close these were to the Greeks we see as parochial citizens? Presumably at some time citadel dwelling kings went and cities came in or am I being naive? If no long dark age then the period must be shorter which normally meansa more violent change. Were there revolutions of the middle class plebs to wrest power from monarchs?

Was the introduction of iron weapons gradual or were they brought in by nasty Dorians?

Some sort of catastrophe apparently occurred--perhaps as the result of movements of peoples due to natural catastrophes or famine or disease or some combination with warfare. Perhaps the ruling classes were killed and the societies disrupted. I would imagine things were then run by warlords. The "Dark Age" is a construct based on an incorrect timeline.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
« Previous Topic · Near Eastern Studies · Next Topic »
Add Reply