Talk:New Chronology (Rohl)

This page is not a forum for general discussion about discussion of David Rohl's ideas. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about discussion of David Rohl's ideas at the Reference desk.

New Chronology (Rohl) was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 1, 2005	Peer review	Reviewed
January 19, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed
June 9, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed

Current status: Former good article nominee

Ancient Egypt Low‑importance

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WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list:

Needed articles.

We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.

Cleanup.

To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates?

Standardize the Chronology.

A boring task, but the benefit of doing it is that you can set the dates !(e.g., why say Khufu lived 2589-2566? As long as you keep the length of his reign correct, or cite a respected source, you can date it 2590-2567 or 2585-2563)

Stub sorting

Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .

Data sorting.

This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Wikipedia than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library.

History of Science Low‑importance

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David Rohl (talk · contribs)

This article was nominated for merging with David Rohl - geographical theories on ca. November 21, 2009. The result of the discussion was Merge.

Archives

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Discussion

Since an editor has seen fit to tag this article, I'll get the (pointless) ball rolling. I disagree with the contention that this article lends undue weight to a subject and I am against merging it with Rohl's biographical article. Reasons? It's a theory that has seen some publicity, users might want to know more about it from Wikipedia, the article is sourced, and the article contains a whole section of criticism. I'm a Wikipedia inclusionist, and I see no reason to remove well-written articles because most experts disagree with the subject matter. I mean, I think ancient astronaut theories are a load of crap, but I'm not about to remove it because it gives undue weight to a crackpot theory, or put it all on Zecharia Sitchin's page. TuckerResearch (talk) 20:15, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I am called the Rohl fanboy around here, but I have to say I have my troubles with Mr Rohl. He has not published anything to further substantiate the theory that he has put forward in "A Test of Time". He has published a number of books and expanded his revised chronology, but he has not presented comprehensive evidence to solidify his initial claims. He had said his reluctance to publish his material had to do with his pending PhD, but nothing has happened about that in the last 15 years. Also, if his theory had any merit, more egyptologists would be "defecting" to his side. I very much appreciate Mr Rohl for forcefully pointing out the essential (and I had thought obvious) flaws in the conventional chronology, but I have indeed become cautious about the New Chronology. Heck, I have written software to create a website and charts and tables, but Mr Rohl does not make it easy to take him seriously. Personally I find his attitude and temper rather irritating. ♆ CUSH ♆ 21:40, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As a non-Egyptologist the most farcical aspect of discussions about Rohl's chronology is how vehemently it is attacked by those who are quite happy maintaining at least three (High, Middle, and Low) sets of dates for much of their own sacred chronologies. While mainstream Egyptian chronology is in such a shambolic state you could equally argue for its removal on the grounds of disagreement by experts.TheMathemagician (talk) 15:15, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rohl has of course been silenced in academia and published papers alike. imagine how many scholars would have to rewrite their books… His information went into the universities and is slowly leaking out with the next generation… It is hard for him to get information out except for in books, But look again at the city of avaris and Jericho and archaeological things that I’ve happened lately in these places… and then please never leave this chronology or I won’t be able to trust Wikipedia …. Thank you Tellmeallthethings (talk) 19:39, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"I’ve happened lately" You have happened? It is unclear what you mean. Dimadick (talk) 04:46, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

radiocarbon dating

I'm not expert on radiocarbon dating nor the new chronology so I'm not updating the main article.

But my understanding is the radiocarbon dating section in the main article is highly misleading. It states that the traditional chronology has been confirmed via radiocarbon dating.

That is highly misleading as radiocarbon dating is calibrated against key dates from the traditional Egyptian chronology. Thus radiocarbon dating can be used to confirm relative dates in the traditional Egyptian chronology, but in the absolute sense of saying an artifact is from 3000BC, that can't be done.

In fact the raw radiocarbon date of Egyptian artifacts understood to be from 3000 BC is roughly 4500 years ago. A 12% calibration curve is applied to adjust that to 5000 years ago (3000 BC). The calibration curve was developed specifically to cause that perfect alignment between radiocarbon dating and the traditional Egyptian chronology.

If the new chronology is correct, then the radiocarbon calibration curves will simply need to be updated to show the new dates. In the case of the above 4500 year old artifact, that would mean a smaller adjustment would be needed if it actually from 2600 BC (as an example).

Thus unadjusted (raw) radiocarbon dates actually agree far better with the new chronology than with old.

COI tag

Mainly because there's a lot of material he wrote still in the article.[1][2][3][4] Doug Weller talk 16:03, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, be bold and rewrite/replace the sections in question. I had thought this work had already been done years ago. ♆ CUSH ♆ 18:57, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Too busy. Maybe after I'm off the Arbitration Commmittee, but this just isn't a high priority. Doug Weller talk 18:55, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Circularity

Apparently the following reference was deemed worthy of stating that Rohl's assertions about Shishak = Ramesses II are not "widely accepted".

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=stMd0QV97IYC&pg=PA193&dq=Shishak+and+Sysw+David+Rohl&num=100&ei=KOd1SvaKKI_-ygTSzuz-Ag&client=firefox-a&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

To quote:

"Rohl's theory, however, founders on the rather firm and well-accepted Egyptian chronology, and, therefore, has not met with wide acceptance amongst Egyptologists. In addition, his attempt to account for the biblical spelling of Shishak [...] is scarcely convincing, [...]"

With *no* references to any other-authored works ("See my note" indeed!).

So we have an assertion with a reference of the same assertion with no corroborating material. Rohl may well be wrong, but at least he doesn't leave dangling circular assertions as references in order to support his claims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.30.38.78 (talk) 05:07, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Poor merger decision, poor merge action

By any measure the result of the malicious attempt to delete a person's article at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Rohl was KEEP. Keep by MAJORITY and policy. But TWO PEOPLE chose redirect, so a person's article was deleted and merged to this article. It's a poor decision. Rohl met all notability guidelines and his article referenced other parts of his biography outside the New Chronology, like a band (Mandalaband). Yet, here we are. The administrator who took it upon himself to make the merge decision and perform the merger did no actual merging of the two distinct articles, just slapped a redirect on David Rohl and went on his merry way. A poor merge. Poor, poor, poor. TuckerResearch (talk) 16:19, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion review

I have opened a deletion review: Wikipedia:Deletion_review#David_Rohl. Please comment if you'd like. TuckerResearch (talk) 16:26, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Improve the David Rohl article

I agree that the David Rohl article needs to be improved and added to to make it more notable and differentiate it from the New Chronology article. Here is a start:

Here is a reference to David Rohl and his band Mandalaband in a history of prog rock: Romano, W. (2010). Mountains Come Out of the Sky: The Illustrated History of Prog Rock. Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-1-61713-375-6. Retrieved 2022-05-02. Here in Italian book on "opera rock" and the concept album: Follero, D.; Zoppo, D. (2018). Opera Rock: La storia del concept album (in Italian). Hoepli. ISBN 978-88-203-8492-0. Retrieved 2022-05-02. That's just two real quick, outside his work on the New Chronology. On the subject of ancient history, biblical history, biblical chronology, and Egyptology, he is referenced in many books. Yes, often to bash his views on the New Chronology, but nevertheless, to discuss him. Here is a bit about his theory on the location of the Garden of Eden, which is a theory that does not rest on his alternative New Chronology: Weir, J. (2007). In Search of Eden: The Course of an Obsession. Armchair Traveller Series. Haus. ISBN 978-1-905791-07-1. Retrieved 2022-05-02. Outside his work on the New Chronology, which the DELETE voters and REDIRECT voters mistakenly claim is his only claim to notability, his work on pre-dynastic rock art in the Eastern Desert (east of the Nile) in Egypt (Rohl, David M., ed. The Followers of Horus: Eastern Desert Survey Report. Basingstoke, UK: Institute for the Study of Interdisciplinary Sciences, 2000.) is well-cited by other, mainstream scholars, which contributes to his notability. See the Google Scholar citations here: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=6604976640384538213&as_sdt=5,44&sciodt=0,44&hl=en. How is that for a start?

Thanks, TuckerResearch (talk) 17:54, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dead topic?

The "Radiocarbon dating" section only mentions research done in 2010, which contradicted Rohl's fringe theory, and ends there. I can't believe research producung absolute dates stopped 14-15 years ago. Other than the listing of Rohl's own 2015 book, there's not a single item on the page, including refs, more recent than 2010. Looks like a dead & buried topic, but to which the tombstone was forgotten. If I'm right, a closing word based on RS should be added. Arminden (talk) 19:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know whether mainstream scholars just kind of tired of Rohl, but something similar did happen with Immanuel Velikovsky and Barry Fell previously. AnonMoos (talk) 19:51, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]