There is a new article out on the order of Apis bulls published in the German journal Zeitschrift fur Agyptische Sprache by Robert Porter. It has the title ‘Mariette’s Newly Released Documents and the Chronology of the Apis Bulls’. It is basically an update on dynasty 22 to 26 Apis bulls dating from the Iron Age. The Louvre Museum recently placed online Mariette’s notebooks from his mid 19th century excavation of the Lesser Vaults of the Memphis Serapeum. The year 37 of Shoshenk V bull was buried in the same general area as the bulls of Bakenranef and Taharka. Porter’s suggestion is that dynasty 22 chronology overlapped with dynasty 25 – at the bottom end. This affects late 8th and early 7th century BC chronology as far as Egypt is concerned, an outcome that follows on the heels of a post last week that pointed out the adjustments to Assyrian chronology if the reigns of Sargon II and Sennacherib overlapped as a result of a co-regency situation, as claimed by Eric Aitchison. The one study would seem to complement the other study.
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