A New Ancient Middle Eastern Chronological Model

Abstract

In this paper, I argue for a new ancient Middle Eastern chronology in which the Mesopotamian “high” chronology is used in correlation with K. A. Kitchen’s “low” chronology for the Egyptian Twelfth Dynasty. Although my primary focus is on the Akkadian empire and the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties in Egypt, I also show that this chronological reconciliation obtains widespread consistency with data over the total period of Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisation throughout the third and second millennia B.C. I also discuss the Hebrew chronology in the framework of this new ME chronology.