Erdil, Pınar;
Webster, Lyndelle;
Kuitems, Margot;
Knoblauch, Christian;
Bestock, Laurel;
Höflmayer, Felix;
Beeckman, Hans;
... Dee, Michael W; + view all
(2025)
Resolution of the High versus Low debate for Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt.
PLoS One
, 20
(5)
, Article e0314612. 10.1371/journal.pone.0314612.
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Abstract
The unrivaled millennia-long historical chronology of ancient Egypt forms the backbone for archaeological synchronization across the entire Eastern Mediterranean region c. 3000-1000 BCE. However, for more than a century, scholars have wrangled over the correct calendrical positioning of this record, with older scenarios being referred to as ‘High’, and younger ones, ‘Low’ chronologies. Offsets between the two can be as great as a century, substantially confusing connections with other civilizations of the time. Here, we settle this debate for two major periods of political unity in ancient Egypt, the Old Kingdom (the Pyramid Age), and the Middle Kingdom. We introduce 48 high-precision radiocarbon dates obtained through rare access to museum collections as well as freshly excavated samples. By combining these new results with legacy radiocarbon data and with text records for reign lengths of kings within a Bayesian statistical framework, we show that the Low Chronology is no longer empirically supported for the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and resolve a long-standing historical schism.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Resolution of the High versus Low debate for Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0314612 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314612 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2025 Erdil et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of Archaeology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of Archaeology > Institute of Archaeology Gordon Square |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10209216 |
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