The Restoration of Ancient History – Part 12
The Restoration of Ancient History_ is a paper delivered in November 1994 by Gunnar Heinsohn, Professor Emeritus at the University of Bremen in Germany, at a symposium in Portland, Oregon. This paper questions the conventional chronology of ancient history and offers in its place a radical reconstruction—the so-called Short Chronology, of which Heinsohn is the principal architect. In this series of articles, we are taking a closer look at the evidence cited in this paper in favour of Heinsohn’s new chronology:
In the last article we saw that Roger Waite and P J Crowe’s identification of the kingdoms of Mitanni and Urartu ran into problems when we tried to reconcile the synchronisms between these two states and their neighbours. The Kings of Mitanni were contemporaries of the Egyptian Pharaohs of the 18th and 19th Dynasties, from Thutmose I to Ramesses II. The Kings of Urartu, on the other hand, were contemporaries of the Neo-Assyrian Emperors from Shalmaneser III to Ashurbanipal.
If Mitanni and Urartu were one and the same, then Ramesses II and Ashurbanipal must have been contemporaries. Ashurbanipal mentions Rusa III and Sarduri IV, two of the last three Kings of Urartu—or possibly Rusa II and Sarduri III, who reigned a few decades earlier than Rusa III and Sarduri IV. Ramesses II was a contemporary of Šattuara II, the last known king of Mitanni.
We suggest that the Mitanni kingdom ended ... in the first decade of 6C. Urartu ended at the same time, probably when it was annexed by the Medes. The last king of both was called Rusa. (Crowe 16)
In Crowe’s reconstruction, Ashurbanipal reigns from 669 to 627 BCE, while Ramesses II’s reign begins a generation later around 609 BCE. That gap of eighteen years could possibly be bridged. The dates of the Mitannian and Urartian kings are uncertain, and the succession of rulers is still a matter of scholarly debate, so Crowe has considerable wiggle room. It is not even clear whether Ashurbanipal’s records refer to Rusa II or Rusa III, or to Sarduri III or Sarduri IV.
Waite suggests that Sarduri III of Urartu (639-635) was the same as Shattiwaza of Mitanni, who reigned as the 18th Dynasty was coming to an end (Waite 1313-1314). But in Waite’s reconstruction, the 18th Dynasty fell in 822 BCE (Waite 481), which is much too early for Sarduri III. Waite also places Ramesses II in the late 7th century (Waite 940). This is much too late for him to be contemporary with Šattuara II, who reigned only a few decades after Shattiwaza.
Similar discrepancies plague the two competing models of the Short Chronology, proposed, on the one hand, by Emmet Sweeney and, on the other hand, by Lynn E Rose and Charles Ginenthal. Here, in fact, the discrepancies are even more egregious. In Sweeney’s model, Ramesses II died around 550 BCE, making him a contemporary of Cyrus the Great (559-530), while Ashurbanipal was the Assyrian title of Darius II (423-404), whose reign began more than a century after the death of Cyrus (Sweeney 2, 16, 138 ff). In the Rose-Ginenthal model, Ramesses II died around 564 BCE, while Ashurbanipal’s reign began around 395 (Ginenthal 655).
In this article, I wish to outline an alternative hypothesis—a third model of the Short Chronology—which recognizes that Mitanni, Media and Urartu were three distinct but closely related kingdoms.
I propose the following model as a working hypothesis:
1200: The Indus Valley Civilization is established by Sanskrit-speaking people—Indo-Aryans—who migrated from Central Asia.
750: Due to sudden climate change—Klimasturz—and the over-salinization of the agricultural land, the Indus Valley Civilization collapses. One group of its inhabitants migrates eastwards into India, where they establish the Vedic Civilization. Another group migrates westwards across Iran.
750: The latter group splits into two smaller groups. One of these, the Mitannians, crosses the Zagros Mountains and invades Upper Mesopotamia. The other group, the Medes, remain to the east of the Zagros and settle in northwestern Iran.
750-740: The Mitannians carve out a kingdom (Mitanni) for themselves in Upper Mesopotamia, in what is now northern Syria.
700: Deioces (700-647) establishes the Kingdom of Media to the east of the Zagros, with its capital at Ecbatana (Hamadan).
700-680: With the help of Scythian allies, the Mitannians and the Medes bring the [Old] Assyrian Empire to an end.
670-550: The Medes go on to conquer a large empire that embraces most of Upper Mesopotamia and parts of Iran.
600: The Medes conquer Mitanni, the kingdom of their Indo-Aryan relatives.
600: A remnant of the Mitannians flee to the northeast and conquer Nairi (modern Armenia) and subjugate the Hurrian-speaking natives, creating the Kingdom of Urartu (Ararat). The Urartian capital city of Rusakina is named for Wassukanni, the old capital of Mitanni.
550: The last Median Emperor Astyages is defeated by Cyrus the Great in the Battle of Pasargadae, bringing the Empire of the Medes to an end and inaugurating the Persian Empire.
550-440: Urartu survives under the Persian Empire as a semi-independent kingdom. It is repeatedly invaded and its forces defeated, but it always reasserts its independence.
440: Urartian independence is finally extinguished by Darius II (Ashurbanipal).
This is just a rough working model. A lot of research would be required before this model could be reconciled with the archaeology—especially the written records that have survived from this period. But it does promise to resolve some serious issues:
If Mitanni and Media were different states, but ruled by people of the same origin, speaking the same language, and perhaps even sharing the same name, this could resolve the discrepancies between the accounts of Median history in Ctesias and Herodotus.
If the Classical historians referred to both these kingdoms as Media, this would explain much of the confusion between them. It also means that the Classical historians were indeed aware of the existence of Mitanni—they just called it Media and confused it with another Media.
The discrepancies between the Mitannian and Urartian synchronisms disappear if these were two different kingdoms, one of which succeeded the other.
And that’s a good place to stop.
