Integrated Tree-Ring-Radiocarbon High-Resolution Timeframe to Resolve Earlier Second Millennium BCE Mesopotamian Chronology.

Xiaoyan Yang,Bernd Kromer,Eva Maria Wild,Gojko Barjamovic,Christopher Bronk Ramsey,Brita Lorentzen,Sturt W Manning,Carol B Griggs

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0157144

Abstract

500 years of ancient Near Eastern history from the earlier second millennium BCE, including such pivotal figures as Hammurabi of Babylon, Šamši-Adad I (who conquered Aššur) and Zimrilim of Mari, has long floated in calendar time subject to rival chronological schemes up to 150+ years apart. Texts preserved on clay tablets provide much information, including some astronomical references, but despite 100+ years of scholarly effort, chronological resolution has proved impossible. Documents linked with specific Assyrian officials and rulers have been found and associated with archaeological wood samples at Kültepe and Acemhöyük in Turkey, and offer the potential to resolve this long-running problem. Here we show that previous work using tree-ring dating to place these timbers in absolute time has fundamental problems with key dendrochronological crossdates due to small sample numbers in overlapping years and insufficient critical assessment. To address, we have integrated secure dendrochronological sequences directly with radiocarbon (14C) measurements to achieve tightly resolved absolute (calendar) chronological associations and identify the secure links of this tree-ring chronology with the archaeological-historical evidence. The revised tree-ring-sequenced 14C time-series for Kültepe and Acemhöyük is compatible only with the so-called Middle Chronology and not with the rival High, Low or New Chronologies. This finding provides a robust resolution to a century of uncertainty in Mesopotamian chronology and scholarship, and a secure basis for construction of a coherent timeframe and history across the Near East and East Mediterranean in the earlier second millennium BCE. Our re-dating also affects an unusual tree-ring growth anomaly in wood from Porsuk, Turkey, previously tentatively associated with the Minoan eruption of the Santorini volcano. This tree-ring growth anomaly is now directly dated ~1681–1673 BCE (68.2% highest posterior density range), ~20 years earlier than previous assessments, indicating that it likely has no association with the subsequent Santorini volcanic eruption.

Highlights

Mesopotamian Chronology and HistoryA dense textual record preserved on clay tablets from the Ur III through Old Babylonian periods (~2070–1750 BCE) provides an extraordinary wealth of information on rulers, their families and connections, officials, wider society, warfare, trade, literature, religion, science and many other aspects of the history of this world which stretched from Mesopotamia into central Anatolia (e.g. [1,2,3,4,5]) (Fig 1)
Basic biographies of key figures such as Hammurabi of Babylon and Šamši-Adad I can be extracted [6]. This record provides a detailed relative chronology linking named individuals and places, in particular through texts dated by annually appointed officials, or ‘eponyms’, in the city of Aššur [7], such that an annual timescale available from lists of these officials and the partly overlapping Mari Eponym Chronicles can be combined into a Revised Eponym List (REL) [5]. (Note: a short glossary of some terms and places is provided in Table 1.) There are complications
We demonstrate that our revised dating scheme for Porsuk and the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) chronology is compatible only with the so-called Middle or Low-Middle Mesopotamian Chronologies

Summary

Introduction

Mesopotamian Chronology and HistoryA dense textual record preserved on clay tablets from the Ur III through Old Babylonian periods (~2070–1750 BCE) provides an extraordinary wealth of information on rulers, their families and connections, officials, wider society, warfare, trade, literature, religion, science and many other aspects of the history of this world which stretched from Mesopotamia into central Anatolia (e.g. [1,2,3,4,5]) (Fig 1). Basic biographies of key figures such as Hammurabi of Babylon and Šamši-Adad I can be extracted [6] This record provides a detailed relative chronology linking named individuals and places, in particular through texts dated by annually appointed officials, or ‘eponyms’, in the city of Aššur [7], such that an annual timescale available from lists of these officials and the partly overlapping Mari Eponym Chronicles can be combined into a Revised Eponym List (REL) [5]. Alongside our knowledge of the Babylonian dynastic succession and the well-established synchronism of Šamši-Adad I’s death in Hammurabi’s 18th regnal year, this allows us to establish a relative chronological sequence of some 380 years between the ascent of the Assyrian ruler Erišum I and the destruction of Babylon during the Hittite invasion of Muršili I This richly documented historical period floats unanchored in calendar time This alone is problematic, and prevents secure synchronization with contemporary civilizations in surrounding areas (such as Egypt)

Methods

Results

Conclusion