By Andrew Grant
One of the world’s most successful ancient civilizations didn’t take long to form. A new study assigns precise dates to ancient Egypt’s earliest years and finds that the transition from widely dispersed, small communities to a centralized state with powerful rulers took centuries less than previously thought.
“This is the first comprehensive study of this period that’s ever been accomplished,” says Sturt Manning, an archaeologist at Cornell University who was not involved in the research. “It’s dramatically changing views over how states form.”
Ancient Egypt has captivated scientists for centuries because of its advanced technology, sophisticated writing system and intricate bureaucracy. Researchers know of monarchs’ identities and the society they ruled thanks to the recovery of many artifacts. But the dates of these rulers’ reigns and other major events are fuzzy prior to the construction of the first pyramids around 2700 B.C. To chart the civilization’s rise, scientists have relied on a relative sequence developed in 1899 that is based on the artistic styles of ceramics uncovered from tombs.
The new study, published in the Sept. 4 Proceedings of the Royal Society A, assigns precise dates to that chronology based on statistical analysis of data collected from about 150 artifacts. First, chronologist Michael Dee of the University of Oxford in England and colleagues called up museums and acquired dozens of reeds, textiles, hairs and bones found in burial sites predating the pyramids. They broke off small pieces, dating each using radiocarbon methods. The researchers also gathered previously published radiocarbon dating data on nearly 100 other artifacts.