High-precision radiocarbon chronometry of ancient Egypt, and comparisons with Nubia, Palestine and Mesopotamia

Abstract

Radiocarbon dating began in archaeology with ancient Egypt, for it was to the securely dated materials from Egypt that Willard Libby naturally turned when his new radiocarbon method needed verification from reliable historical sources. With this paper the reverse process begins: verifying and correcting the conventional chronology for Egypt and neighbouring regions by calibrated radiocarbon.This paper compares calibrated radiocarbon dates against historical dates in a manner not well covered by ANTIQUITY's usual convention. So in this paper only uncalibrated radiocarbon dates are denoted by ‘b.p.’, historical dates are denoted by ‘BC’, and calibrated radiocarbon dates by ‘Cal BC’ or simply ‘BC’ when the meaning is clear from the context.