A Synchronized Early Middle Bronze Age Chronology for Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia
Felix Höflmayer and Sturt Manning, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 81, No. 1, 2022.
(Höflmayer and Manning 2022, Fig. 1).
Introduction
Recent years have seen considerable progress in Middle Bronze Age chronological research throughout the eastern Mediterranean and ancient Near East. New radiocarbon dating initiatives have cast doubts on some long-held synchronisms and especially on the dating of the key-site of Tell el-Dabʿa (ancient Avaris) in the eastern Nile Delta. The excavator’s dating of this site was used to argue for the New (ultra-low) or Mebert Chronology of Mesopotamia, but recent radiocarbon data from Tell el-Dabʿa, the southern Levant, and Anatolia challenge the low Middle Bronze Age chronology for the Levant and endorse the Middle Chronology for Mesopotamia, as we demonstrate in what follows.