New ¹⁴C Dating of the Archaic Royal Necropolis Umm El-Qaab at Abydos (Egypt)

Abstract

Since 1977, the German Institute of Archaeology in Cairo has been reexamining the archaic Royal necropolis Umm el-Qaab at Abydos (ca. 500 km south of Cairo). The necropolis consists of the tomb complexes of six kings and one queen of Dynasty I as well as two kings of Dynasty II in the southern part, the cemetery with royal tombs from Dynasty 0 and early Dynasty I in the middle and the predynastic cemetery in the northern part. Although partly destroyed and deprived of most of their contents, the tombs and the remaining artifacts are a major source for the early dynastic period and are of utmost importance for the understanding of predynastic development during Naqada I–III and the chronology of the formation of Egyptian culture. Sixteen newly 14C-dated samples were mainly taken from remains of wooden roofs and coffins, or in the case of the earliest tombs from mattings. The dating results in general are in good accordance with the relative archaeological dating of the tombs, but 100–150 yr earlier than the so far established historical chronology.

Why Early-Historical Radiocarbon Dates Downwind from the Mediterranean are Too Early

“…Many archaeologists studying the Ancient Near East have claimed (or complained) that radiocarbon dates are earlier than archaeo-historical dates for the early historical period: for Egypt (Görsdorf et al 1998;Bonani et al 2001), Sumer (Crawford 1991), Israel-Palestine (Bruins and van der Plicht 2001;Mazar 1992), Italy (Guidi and Whitehouse 1996), and the Aegean (Dickinson 1994), among others. Indeed, in a 2001 issue of Radiocarbon that was devoted to Ancient Near Eastern chronology, the introductory survey paper concluded that the "Collective evidence … clearly indicates … major chronological" disparities between 14 C and archaeo-history for the early historical period (Bruins 2001).…”

“It Is Written”?: Making, remaking and unmaking early ‘writing’ in the lower Nile Valley

“…Of some 370 published examples from Abydos, almost 200 come from a Predynastic / Later Predynastic cemetery (U) at this site, most being found in and around the large multi-chambered tomb U-j (Dreyer 1998). These have been dated to the Naqada IIIA1 cultural phase (c.3300 / 3100 bce; Boehmer et al 1993;Görsdorf et al 1998). The remainder date from the Naqada IIICearly D cultural phases (c.3100-2770 bce), or the entire 1 st Dynasty.…”

Writing as Material Practice: Substance, surface and medium

“…Of some 370 published examples from Abydos, almost 200 come from a Predynastic / Later Predynastic cemetery (U) at this site, most being found in and around the large multi-chambered tomb U-j . These have been dated to the Naqada IIIA1 cultural phase (c.3300 / 3100 bce; Boehmer et al 1993;Görsdorf et al 1998). The remainder date from the Naqada IIICearly D cultural phases (c.3100-2770 bce), or the entire 1 st Dynasty.…”