Chronologies and the Materiality of Time in Ancient Egypt

Abstract

Since the earliest days of Egyptology, chronology has always been a key research topic. The past 200 years of chronological research have produced different approaches to assessing the progress of time in Ancient Egypt and how this reflects on the dating of places, monuments, and artefacts. This paper aims to draw attention to current issues with the dating of archaeological evidence in Egyptology, specifically to the problems with using historical chronology for dating material culture and archaeological evidence in the Nile Valley and Delta. It calls for the establishment of an independent relative chronology that is based on modern archaeological methods and archaeological science. In particular, the paper defines the concept of the ‘materiality of time’ for Egyptology and its potential for understanding material culture formation processes and for building a stronger chronological system that involves a combination of relative, historical, and absolute chronologies.