Ancient Kings Lists

[Forum Monk]

An interesting study somewhat directly related to archaeology is the study of ancient kings lists and their chronology. Some very interesting lists have been preserved in Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, India and others. Often, these lists show multiple dynasties of kings extending for 1000s of years.

I would like to discuss the validity of these lists.

For example, I have one such list of kings who are said to have ruled continuously for 4000+ years from Indraprastha. In total, 124 generations of kings beginning with Raja Yudhisthir (roughly dated to 2800bce(??) and ending with Yashpal from the dynasty of Prathviraj in 1193ce. Is it possible this is real, mythical, or were many dynasties concurrent?

[Minimalist]

http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/sumking.html

Sumeria shows similar absurd reigns in its earliest mythology.

[Minimalist]

Also the Palermo Stone from Egypt with "kings" going back to "Horus."

http://touregypt.net/featurestories/palermo.htm

BTW, I couldn't help but notice this!

It also documents a number of early gods, such as Min, a fertility god and symbol of male potency,

BWHAHAHA! Bow down, peasants!

[/url]

[War Arrow]

http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/sumking.html

Sumeria shows similar absurd reigns in its earliest mythology.

In case anyone missed it, said lists are here:
http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewtopic.php?t=948
This was one of Marduk's threads and he seems pretty knowledgable on the subject, note also his explanation for the seemingly inflated ages given for Sumerian Kings. I've just had a quick scan of the thread, didn't re-read far but I seem to remember arguments raging (unless that was another moment in the Arch Wars) so be warned.
There's plenty lists for Mexico, though the problem is that most of them contradict one another to a lesser or greater or even enormous extent. Even the traditionally well-known Tenochtitlan list running from Acamapichtli to Cuautemoc is open to some debate given that although its tail end was witnessed by Europeans and is often borne out by archaeology (names carved on sculptures and so on), it nevertheless bears a suspiciously similarly symbolic pattern (three groups of three rulers in succession, the last of each tending to be a bit of a hard man) to earlier presumably less reliable king lists such as those ascribed to the Toltecs. Short of using time travel, the best approach is probably to keep in mind that much Mexican history was used more as an explanation of the present (as of then) than as a strict record and as such take it with a pinch of salt. Believing it's entirely mythical of entirely factual aren't going to be much help, and attempts to distinguish one from the other are more or less doomed before they start. I suspect the same may also apply to the King lists of some other cultures.

[Ishtar]

I did these lists when I was colloborating with Marduk and Petros.
They are based on LA Waddell's work who found similarities
in the names of some of the Sumerian and Vedic kings. I went
through them and put notes where necessary, explaining
who they were in the Indian literature.

Here are the lists:

[Forum Monk]

Are the dates calibrated some how, Ishtar?

[Ishtar]

FM, I don't know how the dates were calibrated.
It comes from a piece of work by the late Sumerian/Indian archaeologist LA Waddell. I was just verifying the names and
putting notes
in where necessary. I can tell you that none of the Indian
names have dates. They were taken from geneaology lists from
the Puranas of which I have copies - but there are no dates on
them.

So I think Waddell took those lists and then tried to fit them against the Sumerian names. I've checked them against
the family trees, though, and they are in the right order.

[Forum Monk]

Ok, I would like to look at it for awhile. This list I mentioned in the opening post can be more-or-less calibrated if we assume the list is contiguous and ends in fairly recent times at 1103ce. I will upload the list when I can. I assume you simply uploaded cropped screen-shots of an excel file? Or are these scanned from a hardcopy?

[Ishtar]

Yes, they're screen shots.

[Cognito]

Ishtar, the lists appear in Egyptian Civilization, Its Sumerian Origin and Real Chronology, L. Austin Waddell, Kessinger Publishing reprint from the original, 1930. It's a little wild in its makeup with Waddell maintaining that Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Indian dynasties were all basically the same, so on and so forth. Regardless of that, the book is full of illustrations and information. Anyone interested in Waddell's works may see:

www.kessinger.net

[Beagle]

I need a little help. What is meant by trying to verify these kings lists, and what do you mean by such terms as "calibrated". IOW, what exactly are you/we trying to discern.

I watched with interest when the original "Sumerian Kings List" was posted. It started with great fanfare (an intro by Michelle). And then, he might as well have posted a link to Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_king_list

-which would have been more informative. After 8 pages, nothing worthwhile was ever said.

This sounds like it could be interesting, but as I said, I don't understand where it is going.

[Forum Monk]

I need a little help. What is meant by trying to verify these kings lists, and what do you mean by such terms as "calibrated". IOW, what exactly are you/we trying to discern.
...
This sounds like it could be interesting, but as I said, I don't understand where it is going.

Where this thread can go is anyone's guess, and its a pity Marduk's thread turned into a religious-political argument.

King's lists are very important topics and their calibration is vital to establishing the synchronisms and dating for events in history. By calibration, I am referring to the establishment of a synchronistic date from which the kings on the list may be dated forward and backward.

It is known for example that certain kings in egypt had relationships with certain kings in Babylon. If a list can be calibrated properly, it establishes the historical context for both Empires which of course then synchronizes with other countries and kingdoms which were contemporaneous with kings on the calibrated lists.

Its a very important topic which one can easily understand when one realizes there are high-middle-low chronologies for most of the empires. There are some who believe, for example, that conventional dating produces an approximate 300 year gap in the history of Greece when considering the various synchronisms which becomes cannon fodder for alternative history proposals ( http://home-3.tiscali.nl/~meester7/engdark.html )

Another example is the dating of Hammurabi, who's conventional dating has been adjusted by some 3-5 centuries ( http://www.varchive.org/ce/hammurabi.html ). This, of course, requires readjustment of all contemporaneous datings and has significant impact on how we interpret archaeological discoveries.

So - what about this thread? So far so good IMO.

[Beagle]

OK. Thanks a lot FM. I may have a list to contribute, if I can find it.

[Cognito]

Its a very important topic which one can easily understand when one realizes there are high-middle-low chronologies for most of the empires. There are some who believe, for example, that conventional dating produces an approximate 300 year gap in the history of Greece when considering the various synchronisms which becomes cannon fodder for alternative history proposals

Waddell's lists are 300 years plus older than most current chronologies that I have seen. He places Sargon of Agade from 2725bce to 2671bce. Further, he identifies Menes with Manis-Tusu (son of Sargon who usurped Egypt from his father) and Narmer with Narim-Sin. According to him the three kings' lists from Egypt, Mesopotamia and India match up quite well with the Aryans being those from India. His implication is that civilisation was established in the Aryan lands and diffused west.

[Forum Monk]

Snippets of Waddell's work can be found in Google books -

http://books.google.com/books?id=z-dYeO ... HbWi_r2vzo