Evidence for Middle Bronze Age Chronology and Synchronisms in the Levant: A Response to Höflmayer et al. 2016

Abstract

In a recent article published in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 375, Felix Höflmayer and his colleagues present a set of radiocarbon data from Tell el-Burak on the Lebanese coast and claim that these data argue for dating the early phase of the Middle Bronze Age in the Levant (Middle Bronze Age IIA/I) between ca. 2000 and the early 18th century b.c. Considering these radiocarbon dates, the authors assert that the low chronology for this period suggested by Manfred Bietak, based on archaeological evidence from Tell el-Dabʿa, should be raised by roughly 120 years. The aim of this article is to show that ceramic and glyptic evidence from Egypt and the Levant firmly support the low chronology and historical synchronisms proposed by Bietak.