Bronze Age Destructions in the Near East GEOFFREY GAMMON Geoffrey Gammon has an Honours B.A. in History from London University and is currently studying for a Diploma in Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, London. He is a Council member of the Society and convener of its Ancient History Study Group. The extensive work of the eminent French archaeologist Claude Schaeffer, correlating the chronology and stratigraphy of Bronze Age sites in the Near East, led him to conclude that many of the phases of Bronze Age civilisation were ended by catastrophes "not caused by the action of man". This paper summarises Schaeffer's conclusions and their implications for both Worlds in Collision and the revised chronology. The distinguished French archaeologist Claude Schaeffer is best known as the excavator of the Bronze Age site of Ras Shamra, which he correctly identified as the ancient city of Ugarit referred to in the Amarna letters. A detailed record of Schaeffer's discoveries at Ras Shamra during his excavations there between 1929 and the outbreak of World War II is contained in a series of publications known as Ugaritica [1]. However, during the enforced break in field work in the Near East caused by the war, Schaeffer wrote a major, albeit sadly neglected, work entitled Stratigraphie comparée et chronologie de l'Asie occidentale {III^e et II^e millenaires) [2]. This compared the stratigraphy of numerous Bronze Age sites in the Near East and sought to construct a comparative chronology for them. In doing so, he reached what most archaeologists and ancient historians must have regarded as novel, even startling, conclusions which even today, in spite of a wealth of evidence laboriously gathered and ably marshalled by Schaeffer, do not appear to have gained general acceptance in the academic world. The Stratigraphy of Ugarit Schaeffer's starting point was the stratigraphy of Ras Shamra itself, which is a tell on the north Syrian coast almost opposite the eastern tip of Cyprus. He identified three main strata - which he labelled Ugarit Récent, Moyen and Ancien - corresponding roughly to the archaeological periods known respectively as the Late, Middle and Early Bronze Ages. Each main stratum was subdivided into three layers numbered III, II and I from top to bottom. For convenience they will be referred to in this paper as Late Ugarit III-I, Middle Ugarit III-I and early Ugarit III-I. Schaeffer found that ancient Ugarit was finally destroyed and then abandoned at the end of the Late Bronze Age. The last occupation level (Late Ugarit III), which had been covered by a layer of debris, contained Late Helladic (Mycenaean), Cypriote and Egyptian XIXth-Dynasty artifacts associated with the end of the Late Bronze Age at other sites. Immediately below Late Ugarit III was another destruction level. The buildings uncovered in the stratum underneath - Late Ugarit II - bore traces of fire and destruction, while many of their walls had crumbled and cracked. Schaeffer established that the damage had been caused by an earthquake. Since Late Cypriote and Late Helladic III pottery, known to be contemporary with the late XVIIIth Dynasty, was found in this layer, he concluded that this earthquake probably corresponded with the disaster referred to in the Amarna letter addressed to the Pharaoh by Abimilki, ruler of Tyre, in the following terms: "And fire has consumed Ugarit, the city [bît? - house],of the king; half if it has been consumed and its [other] half is not, and the people of the army of Hatti are not [there]." [3]. The next level down, Late Ugarit I, is firmly linked to the early XVIIIth Dynasty by the discovery of Cypriote, Canaanite and Syrian pottery of that period and of evidence of cremation, which Schaeffer also noted in contemporary strata at other sites in Syro-Palestine, such as Atchana, Hama, Jericho and Beit Mirsim; he believed that this practice was introduced into the area by a new population, which had also brought it into Anatolia, for example at Troy and Boghazköy [4]. He associates the transition from Late Ugarit I to II with a revolt against Egyptian rule, which was crushed by Amenhotep II. However, the present consensus of scholarly opinion is that Ugarit was probably not the rebellious city referred to by Amenhotep II in his inscription recording this campaign [5]. Below Late Ugarit I Schaeffer discerned a hiatus or break in occupation, which he estimated to be of the order of 100 to 150 years. He not only noted major differences between the artifacts (pottery, personal adornment and weapons) of Late Ugarit I and earlier levels but also an extreme poverty of material remains - no buildings and very few artifacts of poor quality - in the barren level which he designated Middle Ugarit III [6]. By contrast, the preceding stratum - Middle Ugarit II - was a period of great prosperity for the city, when Egyptian cultural and mercantile influence was exercised throughout the Levant by the strong XIIth Dynasty. Much Egyptian material from the period between the reigns of Senwosret I and Amenemhet III has come to light, as well as Syrian and Middle Minoan pottery and both jewellery and weapons recognised as being characteristic of the Middle Bronze Age [7]. In the next occupation level - Middle Ugarit I - which preceded the period of Egyptian influence, the ruins of Early Ugarit III had been levelled to build temples to Baal and Dagon on a yellow clay soil. Below this was a sterile layer of some one to one and a half metres' thickness - a destruction level in which a thick layer of ash was covered by a blackish soil mingled with bricks or fragments of bricks hardened by the fire which had destroyed the city. Early Ugarit III contained imported pottery, known in Palestine as Khirbet Kerak ware. The population was apparently not very numerous and Schaeffer surmised that there may have been an influx of a new population. In any event it was built on the ruins of the preceding city - Early Ugarit II - which had been destroyed by fire and partially abandoned. A summary of the stratigraphy of Ugarit, with Schaeffer's dates for the various periods, is given in the table [8]. BC 1200 ------------------------------------ Destruction level LATE UGARIT III XIXth Dynasty 1365 ------------------------------------ Destruction level LATE UGARIT II Late XVIIIth Dynasty 1450 ------------------------------------------------------ LATE UGARIT I Early XVIIIth Dynasty 1600 ------------------------------------------------------ MIDDLE UGARIT III Hiatus (2nd Intermediate Period) 1750 ------------------------------------------------------ MIDDLE UGARIT II XIIth Dynasty l900 ------------------------------------- MIDDLE UGARIT I Ruins of Early U.III levelled 2100 ------------------------------------- Destruction level EARLY UGARIT III 2300 ------------------------------------- Destruction level EARLY UGARIT II ------------------------------------------------------ It is the stratigraphy of this important site which provided the key to Schaeffer's massive and comprehensive study of the comparative stratigraphy and chronology of numerous Bronze Age sites throughout Western Asia which archaeologists had shown to be contemporary with the eight strata from Early Ugarit II to Late Ugarit III inclusive. This study produced a wealth of evidence to show that Ugarit was not the only site in this region to have suffered numerous destructions and breaks in occupation and that in several cases these appear to have been coincidental with those which had affected Ugarit. Early Bronze Age Destructions Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet The original of the Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet, from Ugarit LB IIa. See Ages in Chaos v: "Hebrew Elements: Two cities and Two Epochs Compared". (Courtesy of Professor Claude Schaeffer) Strata at the other Syrian sites, such as Byblos and Qalaat er-Rouss, in which were found objects similar to those discovered at Early Ugarit III and almost certainly contemporary with it, had also been destroyed by fire. In fact, the end of the archaeological period which Schaeffer designated Early Bronze II was accompanied by major upheavals which affected the whole of Western Asia. In Egypt, after the long reign of Pepi II, the Old Kingdom collapsed in chaos and there is some evidence that the country suffered an Asiatic invasion (although this depends largely on whether the lamentations of Ipuwer in the Leiden papyrus refer to events in the 1st or 2nd Intermediate Period [9]. In Syria, the temple and town of Byblos and the city of Hama were destroyed; in Palestine, Beth Shan was destroyed while Beit Mirsim, Tell el-Ajjûl, Beth Shemesh, Gezer, Tell Hesi and Ashkelon were founded. Cultural changes took place in Cyprus; there were breaks in occupation at Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak and Tepe Gawra in northern Mesopotamia and at Tepe Hissar and Giyan in Persia. Similar breaks appear at sites in the Caucasus and also between the Early Dynastic (contemporary with the "royal tombs" of Ur) and Agade periods in southern Mesopotamia. In Anatolia thick layers of ash at Alaça Hüyük, Alishar, Tarsos and the second city of Troy bear witness to destruction by fire of flourishing Early Bronze Age communities [10]. Schaeffer asked himself what was the nature of the event or events which had caused these severe destructions in Anatolia, Syria and Palestine. The evidence from Anatolia appeared to be clear. At Alaça Hüyük skeletons of men, women and children lay in disorder under walls which had collapsed because of an earthquake. At Troy II, where repeated attempts had been made to rebuild the city walls, there was also evidence of destruction by earthquake. However, as Alfred de Grazia has argued in a highly original and challenging article published in Kronos a few years ago, the severity of the conflagration which destroyed Troy II, to which the thickness of the layer of calcined debris or burnt ash bore eloquent witness, indicated that whatever natural disaster overwhelmed the city must have been of massive, even catastrophic, proportions [11]. Schaeffer himself was less concerned with the exact causes of these shattering events than with establishing that they had occurred and noting their probable consequences in the affected regions and on their populations. However, he was satisfied that it was primarily due to natural causes, in the form of the earthquakes which had stricken Anatolia, that a major movement of populations from the northern part of Western Asia into the southern regions had taken place and caused the upheavals there [12]. The next period - Early Bronze III - was one of vivid contrast between the fortunes of north and south. Notwithstanding the severe destructions which the previous cities had suffered, Troy III and the contemporary city of Alaça Hüyük enjoyed a period of very great prosperity. Similar conditions prevailed at Maikop, Astrabad and Tepe Hissar in the Caucasus and Caspian regions. At Byblos and further south, however, it was an unsettled period, for excavated strata reveal a general poverty of remains and settlements with smaller populations than in the prosperous Early Bronze II [13]. The end of Early Bronze III, however, was marked by destructions in all regions of Western Asia. In Anatolia there was a sudden end to the rich civilisation of Alaça Hüyük, while at Tarsos excavations have unearthed ruined buildings whose cracked walls lean at an angle of 45 degrees to the vertical. According to Schaeffer Troy III was covered by a layer of ash 16 metres thick. Abandoned vases and other objects bore witness to the sudden nature of the catastrophe which had overwhelmed the city. It was apparently an earthquake, while construction of the more modest settlement known as Troy IV was repeatedly disturbed by seismic activity. However, the publication in the 1950's of the results of Carl Blegen's pre-war excavations at Hissarlik have modified our view of Schaeffer's chronology of the early cities of Troy. In particular it is now generally accepted that no break occurred in the sequence Troy III-IV-V. The thick layer of ash attributed by Schaeffer to Troy III should therefore probably be assigned instead to Troy II. Moreover, whereas Mellink makes EB II in Anatolia contemporary with Troy I, EB IIIa with Troy II, and EB IIIb with Troy III-V, Mellaart and Blegen link the destruction of Troy II to the general catastrophe which afflicted Anatolia at the end of EB II, and Troy III-V with EB III as a whole [14]. In Mesopotamia, at Tell Brak, the palace of Naram Sin, grandson of Sargon of Agade, was destroyed. In Palestine, there were destructions at Tell Beit Mirsim, Jericho and Tell el-Ajjûl. There is also evidence for an influx of new populations at Beit Mirsim,Jericho, Gaza, Lachish, Beth Shan and Tell Hesi, at all of which there is a general poverty of remains. Middle Bronze Age Destructions Schaeffer argued that a series of violent earthquakes in Anatolia gave rise to a Völkerwanderung or movement of peoples from north to south. After an initial unsettled period throughout the whole of Western Asia, Anatolia and the north underwent a prolonged decline while Syria and Palestine enjoyed a period of great prosperity during the Middle Bronze Age. The primary cause was a technological revolution in which not only did minerals and precious metals mined in the Caucasus, Anatolia, Persia and Armenia reach the Fertile Crescent but a massive emigration from Anatolia also brought to the south the knowledge of metalworking which had previously been confined to the north. This movement in technology has more recently been painstakingly and convincingly substantiated by John Dayton, although the radical chronological conclusions he has drawn from this evidence have tended to detract from the acclaim which his achievement in the field of the history of technology richly deserves [15]. The Middle Bronze Age saw the widespread use in Syria and Palestine of gold, silver and tin bronzes, although iron remained scarce outside Anatolia throughout the Bronze Age. It was also characterised by Egyptian cultural, political and mercantile dominance during the Middle Kingdom (XIIth and XIIIth Dynasties) and extensive trade with Crete and Cyprus. The end of the Middle Bronze Age was marked by violent destructions at many sites. Alaça Hüyük, Alishar and Boghazköy in Anatolia; Tepe Gawra in Mesopotamia; Jericho, Bethel, Hazor, Beit Mirsim and Lachish in Palestine were all destroyed by fire. Moreover, at every site examined by Schaeffer in his study, even where there is no evidence of physical destruction, there is a long hiatus or break in occupation of varying duration but estimated by him to have lasted between 100 and 200 years. These events are associated with ethnic movements similar to those which marked the end of the Early Bronze Age. Egypt was invaded by the Hyksos; in southern Mesopotamia the incursion of the Hittite king Mursilis I was followed by the fall of the First Dynasty of Babylon and the Kassite conquest; in Anatolia the Hittite Old Kingdom came to an end. Schaeffer points out that there is evidence for epidemics and famines as far afield as Palestine, Asia Minor and Cyprus [16]. MESOPOTAMIA, ANATOKIA, PERSIA, LEVANT, EGYPT, SYRIA Late Bronze Age Destructions Recovery was faster in some areas than in others but the archaeological period known as Late Bronze I (generally considered to have been contemporary with the early Egyptian XVIIIth Dynasty) [17] was on the whole less prosperous than the flourishing Middle Bronze II B - C which preceded it. Schaeffer places the transition from LB I to LB II early in the reign of Amenhotep II. It is marked by the introduction of cremation into Anatolia and Syro-Palestine and of Late Helladic (Mycenaean) pottery into the Levant. The next general upheaval noted by Schaeffer occurred during the Amarna period, during the reign of Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV). Destructions are in evidence at Boghazköy, Tarsos and Troy VI in Anatolia; Alalakh (Tell Atchana) in Syria; and at Beit Mirsim, Beth Shan, Megiddo, Tell Hesi, Beth Shemesh, Lachish and Ashkelon in Palestine [18]. Schaeffer synchronised these events with the earthquake which destroyed Late Ugarit II. Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak in northern Mesopotamia appear to have been abandoned at about the same time. Finally, the last Bronze Age city of Ugarit was destroyed at about the same time as numerous other cities throughout Western Asia. There were destructions at Boghazköy, Tarsos and Troy VIIa in Anatolia; at Byblos in Syria; and at Beit Mirsim, Beth Shan, Megiddo and Tell Hesi in Palestine [19]. Schaeffer found no evidence for attributing these final destructions to natural causes, as in the case of earlier events. His inclination was to accept that they were probably the handiwork of men rather than of nature, the agents being the mysterious "Sea Peoples" whom both Merenptah and Ramesses III claimed to have repulsed at the borders of Egypt, and who have been credited, on very slender evidence, with responsibility for the collapse of the Mycenaean civilisation, the Hittite Empire and the Late Bronze Age city states of Syria and Palestine [20]. Schaeffer summarises his general conclusions in the following terms:- "Our enquiry has shown that these successive crises which opened and closed the principal periods of the 3rd and 2nd millennia were not caused by the action of man. On the contrary, compared with the magnitude of these general crises and their profound effects, the exploits of conquerors and the schemes of political leaders seem very insignificant." [21] Schaeffer and Velikovsky's Catastrophes The important question which now arises is the extent to which Professor Schaeffer's findings support Dr Velikovsky's contention that repeated catastrophes on a global scale have taken place within historic times. In Worlds in Collision, Velikovsky argued that the most recent of a series of catastrophic events took place between 776 and 687 BC and was associated with activity by the planet Mars. Some seven hundred years earlier, in the 15th century BC, the planet Venus, which was then on a cometary orbit, came close enough to Earth to cause the biblical events known to us as the plagues which preceded the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and the so-called "long day of Joshua", when it was recorded that the sun "stood still" in the valley of Beth Horon. In this book, Velikovsky synchronised the Exodus with the end of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom during Manetho's XIIIth Dynasty and the conquest of Canaan with the end of the Middle Bronze Age (MB II C) in Palestine. He has also claimed that the events described in Worlds in Collision were merely the last of a series of catastrophes due to extraterrestrial causes which had profoundly affected and were deeply embedded in the collective memory of mankind, often in the form of folklore and myth [22]. It seems fairly clear from the references which Velikovsky makes to Schaeffer's work in Earth in Upheaval that he regards its evidence of catastrophic events in Western Asia at the close of the Early Bronze Age as support for his view that the Earth had been affected by other extraterrestrial events before the Venus and Mars catastrophes [23]. In any attempt to assess the evidence, the first point to make is that both Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and the Levant have suffered very badly from earthquakes in more recent times. Major earthquakes were recorded in Syro-Palestine in 1114, 1170, 1759, 1903, 1924, and 1927. The last, whose epicentre was in Nablus, on the west bank of the Jordan, shook the whole Near East, from Egypt to Iraq, Turkey, Cyprus and Rhodes [24]. However, as Schaeffer points out, although earthquakes in this region are frequent, it is rare for their effects to be so far-reaching as those which he claims struck Anatolia at the end of Early Bronze II and III, and later destroyed both Late Ugarit II and Troy VI. I have already referred to Professor de Grazia's article on destruction by fire in ancient times, with particular reference to Schliemann's and Blegen's excavation of the "burnt city" of Troy, since designated Troy IIg, and to his conclusion that the disaster that had produced a layer of ash which he estimated to have been 15 to 20 feet thick initially must have been of catastrophic dimensions. Later in the same article, he makes a powerful plea for the development of a new interdisciplinary science, which he calls "palaeo-calcinology" - in other words the investigation of destructions by fire in ancient times, with a view to determining their cause and thereby validate the case for and against catastrophism [25]. This would indeed be a most worthwhile endeavour, although one fraught with difficulty and requiring a true interdisciplinary approach. In the present state of our knowledge, however, I suggest that we are entitled to claim that Schaeffer's evidence is at least consistent with Velikovsky's catastrophic thesis, even that it provides strong prima facie support. At present, however, it does not, indeed cannot, prove or disprove the claim that these undoubted natural disasters were due to extraterrestrial causes. The next point which needs to be emphasised is that the pattern of destruction and/or abandonment is not uniform at every site included in the survey. This is not so significant as it may appear at first glance. It is well known that some excavations are more thoroughly and efficiently carried out than others and that even well-conducted ones are not always adequately reported, often through lack of funds. Valuable evidence may well have been overlooked or gone unrecorded (particularly in earlier excavations). Moreover, what an archaeologist finds is often determined by what he is looking for or expects to find. What might appear significant to a catastrophist could well seem unworthy of special notice to someone predisposed to discount any possibility of a catastrophic event occurring in proto-historic or historic times. Altogether, Schaeffer found five periods marked by widespread destructions, breaks in occupation or movements of population (and sometimes all three together) throughout Western Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Each ended a major archaeological period - in chronological order Early Bronze II and III, Middle Bronze IIC, and Late Bronze IIA and IIB. Of these events, the three which were undoubtedly accompanied by the action of nature rather than of man were the two Early Bronze Age disasters and the one which took place during the Amarna period. Dr Donovan Courville has argued in his challenging and controversial reconstruction of ancient history that the major catastrophe which accompanied the Exodus and the fall of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom was that which Schaeffer places at the end of Early Bronze II, while the conquest of Canaan (and Joshua's "long day") was synchronous with the end of Early Bronze III (EB IV in his terminology) [26]. However, as John Bimson has shown conclusively, this proposal is inconsistent with the weight of archaeological evidence in favour of placing the Israelite conquest of Canaan at the end of the Middle Bronze Age [27]. At the end of the Middle Bronze Age, Schaeffer noted a long hiatus, or break in occupation, at every site considered in his study, even where there was no evidence of actual destruction. Some were completely abandoned - in some cases Schaeffer estimated the break to be of the order of 100 to 200 years - while at others life continued but at much lower levels of population, prosperity and material culture. There were movements of population, as at the end of the Early and Late Bronze Ages. There was also evidence of famine and epidemics, for example at Jericho and in Cyprus, which is consistent with Velikovsky's view that the plagues of Egypt were by-products of the close passage of the tail of the comet Venus. On the other hand, the destruction by fire of numerous sites in Palestine may reasonably be attributed to the Israelite invaders rather than to some natural cause, whether extraterrestrial in origin or not [28]. The Amarna destructions, however, do not appear to tie in with Velikovsky's timescale of catastrophes, since his revised date for Akhenaten of ca. 840 BC is some 60 years too early for the beginning of his series of "Mars disasters", which he synchronises with the first Olympiad, generally dated 776 BC. However, the unequivocal evidence produced by Schaeffer for widespread destructions throughout Western Asia at about the same time as the earthquake at Ugarit whose dire effects were reported by Abimilki suggests that the catastrophic events which Velikovsky attributed to the activity of Mars may have begun as early as the 9th century. As Velikovsky pointed out in Ages in Chaos, the Palestine portrayed both in the Amarna letters and in I Kings 17 to II Kings 8 was plagued by famine and pestilence as well as endemic warfare. Moreover the biblical account of Elijah's ascension has clear catastrophic associations [29]. Moreover, since this period would have been contemporary with the reign of Akhenaten in Egypt, it was at least possible that the abhorrence which he aroused almost from the moment of his death as "the criminal of Akhetaten" could be attributed in some way to the association drawn by his subjects between his impious attacks on Amun and the rest of the ancient Egyptian pantheon and the wrath of the gods which appeared to be manifested in the disasters which afflicted them. Courville identifies the catastrophe which Schaeffer synchronised with the Amarna period with the raash of Uzziah, which Velikovsky dated to 747 BC. This identification depends, however, on the not very convincing hypothesis that El Amarna (Akhetaten) remained occupied up to 100 years after Tutankhamun's return to Thebes, and that the pottery styles which have formed the basis for dating Mycenaean and other contemporary ware and even some of the Amarna letters themselves may therefore also be much later than is generally believed [30]. In the circumstances the alternative suggestion made above therefore seems preferable. Catastrophism and the "Glasgow Chronology" Finally, we have the destructions which ended the Late Bronze Age. Here it must be admitted that the evidence that these may have been due to natural causes rather than the agency of man remains scanty. However, while Velikovsky's chronological revision places the Egyptian XIXth and XXth Dynasties after the final catastrophe, which he dates to 687 BC [31], the alternative dating which John Bimson, Peter James and I have proposed in an earlier issue of this Review would place the reigns of Merenptah and Ramesses III, the fall of the Hittite Empire and hence the final Bronze Age destructions in the second half of the 8th century [32]. The events which accompanied the end of the Late Bronze Age would on that basis have been contemporary with the 8th century catastrophes described in the second part of Worlds in Collision. This consideration should counter the charge, made in recent correspondence published in the Review [33], that the so-called "Glasgow Chronology" (i.e. the alternative revision favoured by John Bimson, Peter James and myself) is an attempt to remove the historical basis for supporting the thesis of Mars catastrophes in the 8th century. The reverse is in fact true. Archaeologically speaking, the alternative chronology provides possible evidence for such catastrophes in terms of the destruction of many cities at the close of the Bronze Age [34]. Velikovsky's revision requires the removal of these destructions to a later date, leaving no comparable archaeological evidence for the 8th and early 7th centuries as a time of widespread natural disasters. Notes and References 1. C. F. A. Schaeffer: Ugaritica (Paris, 1939-1949). 2. Oxford, 1948. 3. S. A. B. Mercer (ed.): The Tell el Amarna Tablets (Toronto, 1939), Vol. II, p. 497. EA 151: 55-58. 4. Schaeffer, Stratigraphie comparée ..., pp. 10 and 559. 5. M. Aharoni, Land of the Bible, p. 155, is unsure, whereas Margaret S. Drower, Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. II, Part 1, pp. 460-461 rejects the identification entirely. 6. Schaeffer, pp. 27-28. 7. Schaeffer, pp. 28-33. 8. Schaeffer's dates conform with generally accepted views of the chronology of the ancient Near East. Under the modified version of Velikovsky's revision proposed by John Bimson, Peter James and myself (becoming known as the "Glasgow Chronology"), Late Ugarit III would end in the late 8th century, Late Ugarit II ca. 840, Late Ugarit I ca. 900 and Middle Ugarit II ca. 1400 BC. All the earlier dates would also need to be lowered, probably by some 300 years, but it is difficult to be too precise about this. 9. See Malcom Lowery: "Dating the 'Admonitions' - Advance Report", SISR II:3, pp.54-56. 10. Schaeffer, pp. 534-537. 11. Alfred de Grazia: "Paleo-Calcinology: Destruction by Fire in Prehistoric and Ancient Times", Kronos I:4 and II:1. 12. Schaeffer, pp. 534-537. 13. Schaeffer, pp. 537-539. 14. Machteld J. Mellink: "Anatolian Chronology", in: R. W. Ehrich (ed.) Chronologies in Old World Archaeology (Chicago, 1965), pp. 110-117. The opposing view is set out in contributions by James Mellaart and Carl Blegen in Cambridge Ancient History, Vol I, Part 2, pp. 363-416. 15. John Dayton: Minerals, Metals, Glazing and Man (London, 1978): reviewed by Peter James SISR III:4, pp 81-83. 16. Schaeffer, pp. 550-556. 17. John Bimson, "The Hyksos and the Archaeology of Palestine", SISR II:3, pp. 58-64, argues that LB I A in Palestine was contemporary with the Hyksos period in Egypt as well as with the early XVIIIth Dynasty. 18. Schaeffer includes Jericho and Taanach in this list, but the results of more recent excavations suggest that these sites should be omitted. See Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (Jerusalem/London, 1975-1978), Vol. II, p. 564 and Vol. IV, p. 1146. 19. Schaeffer includes Jericho, which had been abandoned a century earlier. See note 18 above. 20. Schaeffer, pp. 565-566. 21. Schaeffer, p. 565. 22. Immanuel Velikovsky: Worlds in Collision (New York/London, 1950). 23. Velikovsky: Earth in Upheaval (New York, 1955; London, 1956), pp. 169-175 and 239-241. 24. Schaeffer, pp. 3-5. 25. De Grazia, Kronos II:1, pp. 63-70. 26. Donovan Courville: The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications (Loma Linda, Ca., 1971), Vol. I, pp. 77-99. 27. John Bimson: Redating the Exodus and Conquest (Sheffield, 1978); also idem: "The Conquest of Canaan and the Revised Chronology", SISR I:3, pp. 2-7. 28. Ibid. 29. Velikovsky: Ages in Chaos (New York/London, 1952), pp. 223-331; also II Kings 2:1-14. 30. Courville, op. cit., pp. 120-139. 31. Velikovsky: Ramses II and His Time (New York/London, 1978) and Peoples of the Sea (New York/London, 1977). 32. Peter James: "A Critique of 'Ramses II and his time' "; Geoffrey Gammon: "The Place of Horemheb in Egypt History"; John Bimson: "An Eighth-Century Date for Merenptah", all of which appeared in SISR III:2, pp. 48-59. 33. SISR III:2, pp. 34-35. 34. Op. cit. note 18, Vol. II, p. 439 and Vol. III, pp. 847-851. _________________________________________________________________ \cdrom\pubs\journals\review\v0404\104age.htm