I have a copy of Wisdom of the Egyptians (1940) by Petrie, and it is an excellent book. On the page facing the beginning of the forward, Petrie gives his chronology of Ancient Egypt. These are all listed as beginning dates:
Badarian-9000 bc, Amratian - 7471 bc, Gerzean - 6000 bc, Semainean - 4800 bc, first dynasty - 4326 bc.
Petrie does not particularly address the basis for these dates in Wisdom, and these dates, particularly the beginning date of the first dynasty, had been long regarded as discredited by Egyptology by the time this book was written. The reason for this thread is I came across a copy of Historical Studies (1911). The link below will open a pdf copy of the entire book, and I recommend downloading it and reading it.
[dlib.nyu.edu]
The first article, by Petrie, is about the annual Nile festivals, and includes more numerology than you normally get from Petrie, including some long tables at the back of the book showing the numbers that he gleaned from various excavations. He also mentions the description of Herodotus about the length of Egypt in this article, and sadly, he says that he thinks some of Herodotus' measures of Egypt proper were corrupted because Herodotus' measure of the dodecaschoinos, which Petrie takes as Elephantine to Maharraqa, shows that he was using a long schoinos. Of course I completely disagree with this opinion, as I described at length in my remen article.
The more interesting articles in this book are the next two. The first one explains how the helical rising of Sirius, in relation to the other aspects of the Egyptian calendar, and noted in the textual historical record, and linked to particular reigns and particular monuments, shows that there are really only two options for the AE chronology, one is the currently accepted one, which he rejects, and the other one is about 1400 years earlier for the early period.
The next article by Petrie is a long (and convincing) defense of the older chronology. He cites archeological and textual evidence, and he also gives the clearest explanation of Manetho's king list that I have seen. Modern reference to Manetho is generally that it is corrupted and unreliable, especially concerning the Hyskos occupation of Egypt, which Petrie believes was much longer than is currently accepted. Going forward from the latter part of the Hyskos occupation, Petrie's chronology is the same as currently accepted, but going back, he believes the Hyskos occupation was much longer than currently accepted. I recommend reading this article even if you think this is a dead issue due to carbon dating.
It has been noted by many that carbon dating has been challenged (or ignored) when it has not matched dates that have been established by Egyptology (although these days the radiocarbon dates are for the most part nearly the same as the accepted dates from Egyptology, and thus for the most part, embraced by Egyptology), but it has also been noted that "Egyptology stood at the very beginning of radiocarbon dating, because it was the historical chronology of Egypt that was used to prove the method and its applicability. -Nevertheless, Egyptologists and archaeologists working in Egypt were, and many still are, very reluctant to acknowledge the value of the radiocarbon dating method for testing and refining the historical chronology of Egypt, and radiocarbon's potential for setting out a scientific chronological framework not only for the Nile Valley itself, but also for Egypt's neighboring civilizations." Radiocarbon Dating and Egyptian Chronology - From the Curve of Knowns to Bayesian Modeling, Felix Hoflmayer, July 2016, Oxford Handbooks Online, Scholarly Research Reviews. In other words, it is not just the Egyptologists that have skin in the game. So does radiocarbon dating.
Badarian-9000 bc, Amratian - 7471 bc, Gerzean - 6000 bc, Semainean - 4800 bc, first dynasty - 4326 bc.
Petrie does not particularly address the basis for these dates in Wisdom, and these dates, particularly the beginning date of the first dynasty, had been long regarded as discredited by Egyptology by the time this book was written. The reason for this thread is I came across a copy of Historical Studies (1911). The link below will open a pdf copy of the entire book, and I recommend downloading it and reading it.
[dlib.nyu.edu]
The first article, by Petrie, is about the annual Nile festivals, and includes more numerology than you normally get from Petrie, including some long tables at the back of the book showing the numbers that he gleaned from various excavations. He also mentions the description of Herodotus about the length of Egypt in this article, and sadly, he says that he thinks some of Herodotus' measures of Egypt proper were corrupted because Herodotus' measure of the dodecaschoinos, which Petrie takes as Elephantine to Maharraqa, shows that he was using a long schoinos. Of course I completely disagree with this opinion, as I described at length in my remen article.
The more interesting articles in this book are the next two. The first one explains how the helical rising of Sirius, in relation to the other aspects of the Egyptian calendar, and noted in the textual historical record, and linked to particular reigns and particular monuments, shows that there are really only two options for the AE chronology, one is the currently accepted one, which he rejects, and the other one is about 1400 years earlier for the early period.
The next article by Petrie is a long (and convincing) defense of the older chronology. He cites archeological and textual evidence, and he also gives the clearest explanation of Manetho's king list that I have seen. Modern reference to Manetho is generally that it is corrupted and unreliable, especially concerning the Hyskos occupation of Egypt, which Petrie believes was much longer than is currently accepted. Going forward from the latter part of the Hyskos occupation, Petrie's chronology is the same as currently accepted, but going back, he believes the Hyskos occupation was much longer than currently accepted. I recommend reading this article even if you think this is a dead issue due to carbon dating.
It has been noted by many that carbon dating has been challenged (or ignored) when it has not matched dates that have been established by Egyptology (although these days the radiocarbon dates are for the most part nearly the same as the accepted dates from Egyptology, and thus for the most part, embraced by Egyptology), but it has also been noted that "Egyptology stood at the very beginning of radiocarbon dating, because it was the historical chronology of Egypt that was used to prove the method and its applicability. -Nevertheless, Egyptologists and archaeologists working in Egypt were, and many still are, very reluctant to acknowledge the value of the radiocarbon dating method for testing and refining the historical chronology of Egypt, and radiocarbon's potential for setting out a scientific chronological framework not only for the Nile Valley itself, but also for Egypt's neighboring civilizations." Radiocarbon Dating and Egyptian Chronology - From the Curve of Knowns to Bayesian Modeling, Felix Hoflmayer, July 2016, Oxford Handbooks Online, Scholarly Research Reviews. In other words, it is not just the Egyptologists that have skin in the game. So does radiocarbon dating.
