Absolute Chronology of the Ancient World from 1533 BCE to 140 CE

Book excerpt: "Chronology is the backbone of history" is usually taught in schools but in the same time the first fall of Babylon is fixed today (2016) either in 1595 BCE or in 1651, 1531, 1499 depending on historians! In Egyptology the situation is still worse because each Egyptologist has his own chronology (gap of 20 years)! Such a difference in timeline prevents one from reaching the historical truth. It is for this reason that from Herodotus, the "father of history", Greek historians established a system of scientific dating in order to write a universal history. Many astronomical phenomena, which are well identified such as eclipses, enable us today to synchronize these ancient dating systems and anchor them on absolute dates. As incredible as it may seem this is still not done. The purpose of the present brochure is to give the chronologies of the main ancient civilizations (Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite, Israelite, etc.) with their synchronisms as well as all absolute dating based on astronomical events.