Troy or Amarna? The Oldest Recorded Solar Eclipse
Paul Dunbavin
Summary: A 2012 study by Göran Henriksson raised the possibility that a solar eclipse was described
in the Iliad of Homer. If so then it would be one of the earliest dateable eclipses and of value to
astronomers and geophysicists to determine the stability of the Earth’s rotation back to the second
millennium BC; and thereby confirm circumstances of other ancient eclipses. In 2005-6 I published my
own research on the subject of eclipses visible from Amarna, Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty and
from Anatolia, to investigate whether there was a non-linear change (a wobble or nutation) of the
Earth’s rotation ongoing at that era, residual from an earlier astronomical event. The possibility of
another dateable eclipse observation allows an opportunity to revisit those concepts; together with its
potential value in tying early-historical and legendary events to the Julian calendar.
To begin, it may help to summarise some of the consensus theories, ancient and modern, about the
date of the Trojan War. It was used by the Greeks as an epoch from which they would establish the
date of other historical and legendary events both before and after the war. The date for the
foundation of Rome also depends on it; and even the migration of the legendary eponymous Brutus
to Britain is referred back to the Trojan War! We may therefore see how important an identification
of its true calendar date could be for historians and archaeologists. This uncertainty is not modern;
Various classical historians tried to back-calculate dates for the Trojan War with results ranging
between 1135 BC and 1334 BC. Earlier Greek history from the Mycenaean era was lost during the so
called Late Bronze Age collapse around 1200 BC; it is rather as if we could only date modern events by
years before or since the Napoleonic War. However, the debate about the date of the Trojan war is
an old minefield upon which I shall trespass no further. The focus here lies rather in the potential
identification of a dateable eclipse report to verify the stability of the Earth’s rotation as far back as
possible.
Homer’s Trojan war is now regarded as at least partly historical, since Schliemann’s identification of
Troy with the mound at Hissarlik near the Dardanelles. We may discard the interventions of the Greek
gods and their influence on the participants; but our difficulty lies in where we should draw the line
between the fiction and the reality upon which the story is based. The date of Homer’s composition
of the Iliad also remains vague but is typically placed around 850 BC; and so we can be confident that
it was based on oral tradition in circulation for at least 300 years.
Archaeologists identify nine levels of occupation at Hissarlik. The oldest hill fort (Troy I) dates from
3000 BC or perhaps earlier. The level usually associated with Homer’s Troy is the late bronze age layer
of Troy VI; this shows clear evidence of burning and warfare that archaeologists date to c.1250 BC.
However, even should we accept this destruction as the most likely date, we still cannot rule-out that
events and characters of earlier or later conflicts have been conflated and woven into a fictional
recreation. Such is the fate of oral history once its true chronology is lost.
Göran Henriksson draws our attention to a possible reference to an eclipse within Homer’s description
of the final battle of the Trojan war:
…and you would have said that the sun and moon were no longer fixed in the sky, since a fog covered
over all that part of the battle where the leading men had made their stand…But the rest… fought in
the ease of a bright sky, with the sunlight spreading clear and sharp and no cloud to be seen…but those
in the centre were suffering cruelly in the fog and the fighting…
[Iliad, 17, Martin Hammond Translation] [1]
You must decide for yourself whether you think this could be a reference to a solar eclipse.
Henriksson therefore posits that a solar eclipse of 1312 BC took place during the final battle of Troy,
which can then be tied to events in the Hittite archives. The Hittite chronology is in turn dateable
(according to Henriksen’s summation) via another eclipse that occurred in 1335 BC, the tenth year of
King Mursili II. [3] Dating of the Hittite chronology is itself dependent upon links back to Egyptian
chronology via the Amarna letters; these would make Mursili II a contemporary of Akhenaten,
Tutankhamun and the late Amarna period. However, as one might expect, there are many opinions as
to the correct identification and others would prefer that the 1312 BC eclipse was itself the one
referred-to in the Hittite text [4] As a proposed date for the Trojan War this is somewhat earlier than
the 1250 BC consensus of the archaeologists and the median of the historical dates.
Following Henriksson, Papamarinopoulos and co-researchers preferred to date the battle much later
via a partial annular eclipse of 1218 BC June 6 based on other potential astronomical references in the
Iliad and Odyssey. [2] They would demolish Henriksen’s links to the Egyptian chronology via the Hittite
archives as too tenuous and prefer their own interpretation of Homer’s epics. However, I shall not
pursue their (primarily linguistic) arguments in detail here.
The circumstances of historical eclipses are now much easier for historians to study than when
Henriksson first considered the matter in 1985, or even for myself 2000-6, due to the availability of
retro-calculation software and various websites. The circumstances of these two eclipses according to
the NASA website (2022) are slightly different from those originally cited by Henriksson:
1312 BC June 24 2 mins 48 seconds, total over Anatolia, partial over Egypt (Cat No: 01634)
1335 BC Mar 13 6 mins 36 seconds, annular/partial over Egypt and over Anatolia (Cat No: 01579)
The date and magnitude of an ancient eclipse can be retro calculated with confidence, however where
the shadow fell on the Earth’s surface is less easy to determine. This depends upon tidal slowing of
the diurnal rotation (TDT - UT = ∆T) due to the pull of the Moon on the Earth’s equatorial bulge. The
discrepancy (Delta-T) between clock and calendar due to this tidal slowing amounts to about half a
day since 1500 BC. [5] The fall of the shadow can be estimated within an uncertainty that would shift
the path slightly east or west of expectation.
However the present author, being a catastrophist, could not trust any retro calculated eclipse tracks
prior to mid-first millennium BC due to the possibility that non-linear ‘events’ could have changed the
rotation in ancient times. Before the most recent of such events it would become impossible to
determine historical dates in the absence of a contemporary historical chronology dateable by some
other means. Such events would include ‘glitches’ in the length of day, due to variations in the figure
and balance of the planet, causing the shadow of an eclipse to fall east or west of the retro calculated
path; in addition, nutations of the axis and pole-shifts could also cause a north-south variation. These
would arise if the axis of rotation were wobbling slightly, triggered by internal changes to the shape
of the Earth (i.e. instances of the Chandler wobble of a magnitude greater than are experienced today)
or even external astronomical forces that might trigger the core wobble.
To summarise my own earlier work as published in Under Ancient Skies in 2005; [6] and in a follow-up
article, one such reset may have occurred during the Greek Dark Age that followed the Trojan War;
[7] this being one of a series of such events coincident with earlier dark ages and climate-events.
Coincidence is one thing – proving them empirically is quite another.
In order to verify ∆T for a particular date some precise information is needed and ancient reports are
seldom so helpful. For accuracy, the specific time of day and the start or end point of the shadow on
the ground are needed, together with a precise location where it was observed. [8] Professor F.
Richard Stephenson, perhaps the foremost authority on these subjects, found no report of an eclipse
that he was prepared to trust prior to that seen at ancient Ugarit (Syrian coast). [9] Originally, he had
suggested that this was the eclipse of 3 May 1375 BC, later revised to 1223 BC, but the circumstances
of the Ugarit text are better reproduced by the eclipse of 9 May 1012 BC. [8] The key aspect of this
particular report is that it occurred just before sunset – a very conspicuous omen – thus offering both
a precise location and time of day to confirm the path of the Moon’s shadow. *Note 1
Stephenson also rejected a divination from a Shang Chinese oracle bone dated at 1302 BC because it
appeared (inexplicably) to be a whole day out from the Chinese sexagenary cycle. [9] However,
astronomers constantly update their calculations and this can be embarrassing for historical
researchers who cite them! The NASA webpage no longer confidently suggests values for ∆T prior to
500 BC in the abbreviated table. [10] I should also mention at this point that Henriksson, in his 2012
paper, disputes some of the methods used by Stephenson to determine the path of ancient eclipses,
declaring them: “completely useless for epochs before 700 BC”. The earliest eclipse report currently
suggested by historians would be that of 5 March 1223 BC. [11] However, for the reasons given herein,
I would still prefer the 1012 BC eclipse as the earliest observation that can be reproduced.
The ancient historians, In their various opinions of the date for the final battle at Troy, cannot even
agree upon the year or season of the year that it occurred, let alone give a precise time of day. At best
it gives us a window of about six to eight hours of daylight. Set this alongside the vague location of the
final battle and we may see that the circumstances of the ‘Troy eclipse’ would not provide the precise
information needed by astronomers. Here and in the 2006 paper, I am attempting not so much to
identify a historical report via retro-calculation, rather to find an independently dateable event that
cannot be reproduced by uniformitarian retro-calculation methods alone.
In 2005 in Under Ancient Skies I proposed that the Atenist heresy of pharaoh Akhenaten was inspired
by a statistically rare sequence of eclipses across Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty. [12] In parallel
around the same time William McMurray independently published theories regarding the Amarna
eclipses. [13] In a more recent paper Emil Khalisi [14] preferred to model earlier eclipses. As with
Henriksson, these researchers follow uniformitarian assumptions that tidal slowing can be retro
calculated indefinitely to estimate the eclipse paths.
My own proposal in 2005-6 was that the construction of Amarna by Akhenaten was inspired by the
observation of a dawn eclipse from the site of the Aten temple on 30 December 1332 BC, which would
fix year 5 of Akhenaten’s reign according to inscriptions on one of the boundary stelae. The eclipse
would have been observed from the Amarna temple site as the sun rose in in a cleft in the eastern
mountains known as the Royal Wadi. [15] Such an identification (an eclipse occurring at dawn) would
be of value not just for historical chronology, but could fix both the location and time-of-day to a
precision that would be more useful for astronomers. In 2005-6 I experimented with various values
for ∆T to find one that would allow the start of the eclipse shadow to fall at Amarna; for this to be
valid would require a non-linear step-change to ∆T of about 1500 seconds over a period of 300 years,
since the 1012 BC observation. Such a change to the rate of rotation and the inevitable wobble that
must follow it would have occurred during the Greek Dark Age (the Egyptian Third Intermediate
Period) and therefore shortly after the Trojan War. It should also be coincident with other evidence
of climate and sea-level changes worldwide consequent upon the wobble of the axis.
The ‘evil reports’ that inspired Akhenaten to build his new city were recorded on the boundary stelae.
These give dates to the precise day within the kings reign – but unfortunately this does not help
without a true calendar date for his accession.
The king declared that he would build the city in the place chosen by the Aten himself and that once
established there he would never again leave its boundaries. In a proclamation of year 8 of his reign,
the king records that he came to Amarna in his year 5 to formally celebrate the foundation of the city.
The fragmented inscription was summarised by Egyptologist Cyril Aldred, citing the Amarna Boundary
Stelae Project:
…as Father Aten lived, something had been said which was more evil than that which the king had
heard in his Year 4…more evil than what he had heard in his year 1…more evil than what King
(Amenhotep III?) had heard…more evil than what king Tuthmosis IV had heard… [16]
To reappraise my own conclusions of 2005-6 the identification of the ‘evil omens’ as eclipses were
based on an experimental ∆T very loosely set at 33000 seconds rather than the 31593 seconds used
for the ‘standard’ retro calculation of the 1332 BC eclipse. This would allow the dawn eclipse to
commence at Amarna, giving the following evaluation:
• The evil of year 5 was a report of the 1332 BC ‘dawn’ eclipse
• The evil of year 4 was a report of the 1335 BC eclipse
• The evil of year 1 was a report of the 1338 BC eclipse
• The evil seen by Amenhotep III was the 1352 BC eclipse
• The evil seen by Tuthmosis IV was the 1375 BC eclipse (viewed from Syria)
Note that these are dates when the king received reports of the phenomena, rather than their true
date of occurrence. It is not essential that the king actually saw the eclipses himself, but he may have
experienced at least one of them, or their partial shadow as they crossed the Nile.
The author’s crude drawing of a dawn eclipse as viewed from the temple at Tel-el-Amarna (click for a photo link)
It seems likely that the annular eclipse of 1335 BC would also have been reported to Akhenaten and
could also have been one of the evil omens – yet another ambiguity to add to the problem of pinningdown the precise dates for the reigns. Other possible reconstructions might perhaps prefer that the
eclipse observed from the city of Akhetaten (Amarna) was one of the other dates: 1335 BC or 1338 BC
– but only the 1332 BC eclipse could correspond as the last-of-three reports in the king’s
proclamation. So why should this third report be considered more evil than the others?
Some astronomical uncertainty must remain; the 1332 BC eclipse may have begun just before or just
after dawn; the track would not have fallen precisely at the Amarna alignment at mid-winter, but to
the south of it; or perhaps only a large partial eclipse was observed from the city itself? Nevertheless
the spectacle must have been sufficiently inspiring that Akhenaten took it to indicate that Aten wished
him to build his new capital precisely at that place, which he called ‘Akhetaten’: “horizon of the Aten”.
The ‘evils’, as surviving on the boundary stelae, cannot be positively associated with eclipses. [17] We
might wish for a more precise hieroglyph that Egyptologists would recognise as an eclipse rather than
as a general reference to the sun-god. Unfortunately, the historical record is seldom so helpful. When
Horemheb demolished the city to obliterate all memory of the Aten, he had the ‘omens’ on the stelae
chiselled-out, so that we can no longer determine what Akhenaten actually saw.
When considering Egyptian king-lists, not only must we be sceptical of the precise start and end dates
of the reigns, but also of their lengths, since overlapping co-reigns and regencies must complicate such
estimates. In addition to the short reign of Smenkhkare (Nefertiti?) between Akhenaten and
Tutankhamen, there was a co-regency of uncertain duration at the start of his reign, between
Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten and his father Amenhotep III.
If 1332 BC were indeed year 5 of Akhenaten then it would refine the Egyptian chronology just 15 or
16 years later than current consensus, with knock-on effects for any other floating chronology that
depends on it. Year 1 of Akhenaten would therefore fall somewhere around 1335 BC or 1336 BC. There
is no point in trying to be more precise when there are so many uncertainties in the Egyptology as to
the duration of the co-regnum with his father.
The current consensus historical dates for the Eighteenth Dynasty would place Akhenaten between
1352 BC and 1334 BC and for Tutankhamun between 1332 BC and 1323 BC. Between these reigns was
a short reign of Smenkhkare or Nefertiti, about which Egyptologists hold disputed theories.
Radiocarbon dates cannot help to pinpoint the dates either, as there remains a statistical uncertainty
for all radiocarbon dates in the order of 100-200 years. Recent ‘fine-tuning’ attempts based on seeds
from the tomb of Tutankhamun would tend to place his reign slightly later, between about 1320 BC
and 1310 BC, adjusting Akhenaten’s reign accordingly. [18]. However, a similar radiocarbon study of
2010 had indicated an earlier date. [19] So what are we to believe?
Again, the present author being a catastrophist, could never entirely trust radiocarbon dating either.
The reasons for the ambiguity of carbon-14 at certain eras has never been convincingly explained by
the specialists. It should be apparent that any abnormality of the Earth’s rotation must also cause
fluctuations in the magnetic field and the cosmic ray flux, thus destroying the assumptions upon which
the rate of carbon-14 production in the atmosphere is based.
The proposed revision would then imply that, rather than the 1332 BC eclipse occurring (unrecorded)
during the reign of Tutankhamun, it could have been the last in a series of total eclipses across Egypt
that occurred during the lifetime of Akhenaten: 1352 BC, 1338 BC and 1332 BC. He may also have seen
or heard reports of the annular “ring of fire” eclipse on 13 March 1335 BC. The circumstances of these
eclipses according to NASA (Espinak 2021) were as follows:
1375 BC 03 May
2 mins 6 secs; a dawn eclipse at Syria & eastern Anatolia
1352 BC 15 August
3 mins 16 secs; total across southern Egypt, partial across Anatolia
1338 BC 14 May
6 mins 51 secs; total across Egypt, partial across Anatolia
1335 BC 13 March
6 mins 36 secs; annular across Egypt, partial over Anatolia
1332 BC 30 December 4 mins; a dawn eclipse commencing in western Egypt
The eclipse maps in the links above give the astronomical date number rather than the equivalent
Gregorian date BC (or BCE) and have been refined slightly from those that I employed 2000-2006.
As for co-ordination with the Hittite chronology, we may well accept the conclusion of specialist Gary
Beckman that the absolute dates for the Hittite chronology may never be known. [20] The “omen of
the sun” mentioned in the Hittite text, if the omen were indeed an eclipse, could be that of 1335 BC or
1312 BC or perhaps one of the other eclipses above, which were partial over Anatolia. The dates for
King Mursili II form a floating-chronology that depends crucially on links to Egypt via the Amarna
letters (tablets in Akkadian cuneiform discovered at the Amarna site) together with archives from the
Hittite capital Boğazköy.
Two letters are from a widowed Egyptian queen, begging King Suppiluliuma of Hatti, to send one of
his sons to become her new husband. We may wonder whether this widowed-queen was
Ankhesenamun, the sister-wife of Tutankhamun; or could the letter have been sent by Nefertiti upon
the death of Akhenaten? Conventional Egyptology prefers that the letter was written by
Ankhesenamun. However, little is known about Nefertiti; she also had no sons of her own and she too,
rapidly disappears from the historical record. The identification depends crucially upon the linguists’
preferred identification of Bibhuria or Nibphuria as the Babylonian rendering of Tutankhamun’s birthname rather than that of Akhenaten: Naphurria; yet another uncertainly to add to the list. Egyptology
researcher Russell Jacquet-Acea has re-analysed this issue and suggested a revised chronology that
favours Nefertiti as the widowed queen; and that it was the long eclipse of 1338 BC that inspired the
building of Amarna. [21] However, such identification would neglect the two later eclipses; it would
not explain the three evil omens, or why the city had to be built at that precise location.
It should be stressed for the benefit of non-astronomers that the fixed-points in time provided by
astronomical events remain invariable. An adjustment of the regnal dates in the king lists by 15 or 16
years would relocate the eclipse of 1335 BC within the Hittite chronology, with knock-on effects for
other reigns – and therefore for synchronisms to the Trojan War. This becomes a chain of too many
‘ifs’ that makes it fruitless to project eclipse correspondences with any validity. The debate is another
minefield. Hence I shall not pursue the Hittite chronology further here; with so many uncertainties it
is perhaps best to keep the arguments simple.
From the motivation of my own investigations into possible catastrophic events during the Bronze Age
and in earlier millennia, my previous conclusions would stand with only slight adjustment due to the
refinement of the eclipse data since 2006. If we could once prove that a glitch or nutation has occurred
at some point in the past then all retro calculation and historical date assumptions prior to that event
become unreliable. We can no longer estimate where the eclipse shadows fell. However, acceptance
of such an event would open minds to discussion that might prove the validity of other catastrophes
earlier in Earth history.
One cannot expect specialist Egyptologists and other academics to cite or even read the work of nonspecialist authors such as myself; or to cite catastrophist theories that are published in books aimed
at the popular mass-market. Over the years there has been so much nonsense put out by followers of
the 1950s pseudohistory of Velikovsky, that it became almost impossible to publish sensible research
on the subject of catastrophism in prehistory. Even the more-restrained authors such as Graham
Phillips - who sought to link the ‘omens’ of Akhenaten with the Thera eruption, or the revised
chronology of Egyptologist David Rohl that would place Akhenaten’s reign 300 years later – both well
argued – do not help to establish credibility. [22] [23] So muddied has the water become! *Note 2
***************
Conclusions
The statistically rare concentration of eclipses crossing Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty would fit
well with the ‘evils’ reported to Akhenaten, which inspired him to establish his new solar religion.
However, to adopt the dates proposed here would require Egyptologists to abandon the
uniformitarian Delta-T constraints and accept a step-change event that affected the diurnal rotation
at some point between the 1012 BC and 1302 BC eclipses. The actual change is likely to have been
quite modest amounting to less than half-an-hour over 300 years, shifting the fall of the shadow to
the west. It should then be possible to apply standard formulae to extrapolate the most likely paths
of eclipses before and after the new fixed point. However, this still tells us nothing about any northsouth variation due to wobble or pole-shift resulting from the same event.
This brings us back to the possible identification of an eclipse during the final battle of the Trojan War.
I recall my own experience of the 1999 eclipse viewed beneath thin cloud as it passed over Cornwall.
The sky darkened rapidly; sea gulls flew towards the light and then a few minutes later, as the shadow
passed over, the screeching birds flew back the other way. The darkening of the sky through cloud
was only significant during the few minutes of actual totality and quite unremarkable during the thin
crescent of partial sunlight. This convinces me that the description given in the Iliad was not an eclipse
under cloud; and an eclipse certainly would not produce fog at ground level over half the battlefield,
with bright sunlight (not eclipsed) over the rest of the plain.
The eclipse of 1312 BC (on any retro calculation) was total for just over two-and-a-half minutes but,
as Henriksson accepted, only partial at Troy. Appreciable darkening – such as would be so conspicuous
as to be noticed in the heat of battle – could only have lasted for a few minutes. It could not explain a
darkening that persisted throughout a long battle, even allowing for the fact that the poet was
recording a degraded oral memory. Overall it seems more likely that the mist, in the very centre of the
battle, was a local weather phenomenon. Regrettably, the description in the Iliad is not sufficiently
concise to be trusted as a report of an ancient eclipse, much as a historical researcher might dearly
wish it were so.
Homer’s description of the fighting would however fulfil my own definition of a ‘mythological fossil’
as the poet or his source had no need to include a weather reference within a fictional account of a
battle. It gives us confidence that he based his poetry on oral recollections of a real historical conflict.
The date of the battle, however, remains uncertain. Hopefully, the discussion and references here will
serve to assist future researchers who can approach the subject with an open mind.
Note 1 The retro calculation by Mitchell of the 1012 BC eclipse, as cited by Egyptologist David Rohl in his book:
A Test of Time could no longer be found in 2021 to re-assess for this article. However I did reproduce this eclipse
as Figure 6.1 of my 2005 book. While I did not and do not accept the revised chronology, the circumstances of
the Ugarit sunset eclipse can indeed be reproduced in retro-calculation software and via the NASA website much
better than for 1223 BC. It is an interesting aside that close to the eclipsed sun would have been – as Rohl
remarked – a first-magnitude red giant star that exploded to form the Crab Nebula in AD 1054.
Note 2 Muddy Waters! In 2006 I did attempt to publish an article on these eclipses in a specialist journal to
complete the research of my earlier book, but the mere mention of ‘catastrophism’ led to a dismissive rejection
by that journal’s referee who assumed that it was inspired by Velikovsky’s ideas; and another journal that
supposedly publishes alternative chronology suppressed a revised version because it would not support
Velikovsky’s chronology! The revised article was therefore left in abeyance until I included it in Prehistory Papers
in 2020. However, it was made available on request as unpublished to a small number of interested researchers
who commented on the earlier book.
Relevant Hyperlinks
https://www.history.com/news/bronze-age-collapse-causes
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44963755_Hittite_Chronology
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/letters.htm
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/deltat2004.html
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/uncertainty2004.html
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/deltaT.html
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEcat5/SE-1399--1300.html
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1301-06-05.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1311-06-24.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1331-12-30.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1334-03-13.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1337-05-14.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1351-08-15.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhistory/SEplot/SE-1374May03T.pdf
http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/polarmotion/plots/chandler_wobble_plots.htm
https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-018-0971-9
https://eos.org/science-updates/earths-wobbly-path-gives-clues-to-its-core
https://www.third-millennium.co.uk/under-ancient-skies
https://f7e94415-3a55-48d9-ba14ed235f05a65f.filesusr.com/ugd/e5604c_b2b136af2b8f4a05b72ea1c0b6bf9797.pdf?index=true
http://www.egyptologyforum.org/EMP/DAPE.pdf
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amarna.htm
https://www.archaeometry.org/helios.htm
https://pharaoh.se/dynasty-XVIII
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180605112057.htm
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/29044#:~:text=Since%20Amenhotep%20ruled%20for%20approximately,for%20a
t%20least%20eight%20years.
https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/aegyptisches-museum-und-papyrussammlung/collectionresearch/bust-of-nefertiti/the-queen/
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Akhet-hieroglyph-Cf-Frischers-zone-3-figure-6_fig19_317647684/download
https://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1227757509
References
1) Hammond, Martin (1987) The Iliad, A New Prose Translation, Penguin, Harmondsworth, London
2) Papamarinopoulos, S. et al (2013) A new astronomical dating of the Trojan war’s end, Mediterranean
Archaeology and Archaeometry, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 93-102
https://www.academia.edu/7806255/A_NEW_ASTRONOMICAL_DATING_OF_THE_TROJAN_WARS_END
3) Henrikkson, G. (2012) The Trojan War Dated By Two Solar Eclipses, Mediterranean Archaeology and
Archaeometry, Vol. 12, No 1, pp. 63-76
4) Jacquet-Acea, Russell (2020) The Solar Eclipses of Mursili II, independent.academia.edu
https://www.academia.edu/15591950/The_Solar_Eclipses_of_Mursili_II
5) Morrison, S.L. & Stephenson, F.R. (2004) Historical values of the Earth's clock error ΔT and the calculation of
eclipses, JHA, Vol. 35, Part 3, No. 120, p. 327 – 336 (ISSN 0021-8286)
6) Dunbavin, P. (2005) Under Ancient Skies: Ancient Astronomy and Terrestrial Catastrophism, Third Millennium
Publishing, Nottingham; ISBN:0-9525029-2-5
7) Dunbavin, Paul (2020) Akhenaten and Eclipses, in Prehistory Papers, pp 85-97, Third Millennium Publishing,
Beverley, ISBN: 978-0-9525029-4-4
https://www.academia.edu/62458309/Akhenaten_Eclipses_and_the_Chronology_of_the_Egyptian_XVIII_Dynasty
8) Mitchell 1990 as cited by Rohl ( see ref 23 below and Note 1)
9) Stephenson, F.R. (2008) How Reliable Are Archaic Records of Large Solar Eclipses? JHA, 39, 2, No. 135, p. 229
– 250 (ISSN 0021-8286) - see pp241-2
10) NASA - Delta T https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/deltat2004.html
11) Pardee, D & Swerdlow, N. (1993) Not the Earliest Solar Eclipse, Nature, 363, p 406
12) See Ref 6 above, chapter 6
13) Mc Murray, W. (2003) Dating the Amarna Period in Egypt: Did a Solar Eclipse Inspire Akhenaten?
www.egyptologyforum.org/EMP/DAPE.pdf
14) Khalisi, Emil (2004) The Solar Eclipses of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, arXiv: 2004.12952 [physics.hist-ph]
15) Aldred, C., (1988) Akhenaten, King of Egypt, Thames & Hudson, London ISBN: 0-500-27621-8, (chapter 3 pp
27-43)
16) ibid, chapter 4 (pp 47-51 summarising the Amarna Boundary Stelae Project)
17) Murnane, W.J. & van Siclen III, C.C. (1993). The Boundary Stelae of Akhenaten, Kegan Paul International,
London and New York:
18) Manning et al., (2010) Mediterranean radiocarbon offsets and calendar dates for prehistory, Sci. Adv. 2020;
6 : eaaz1096, 18 March 2020
19) Ramsey, C.B. et al. (2010) Radiocarbon-Based Chronology for Dynastic Egypt, Science 328, 1554
20) Beckman, G. (2000) Hittite Chronology, Akkadica, pp 19-32
21) Jacquet-Acea, Russell (2019) The True Length of Reign of Pharaoh Horemheb, independent.academia.edu
https://www.academia.edu/15119537/The_True_Length_of_Reign_of_Pharaoh_Horemheb
22) Philips, Graham. (1998) Act of God, Sidgewick & Jackson, London, ISBN: 0-283-06314-9
23) Rohl, D. (1995), A Test of Time, Century, London; ISBN: 0-7126-5913-7
Other References
Walker, C. (1989) Eclipse seen at Ancient Ugarit, Nature, 338, pp 204-5
De Jong, T. & Van Soldt, W.H. (1989) The earliest known solar eclipse redated, Nature, 338, pp 238-9
Stephenson FR. The earliest known record of a solar eclipse. Nature. 1970 Nov 14;228(5272):651-2. DOI:
10.1038/228651a0. PMID: 16058640.
Stephenson F.R. and Holden M.A. (1986) Atlas of Historical Eclipse maps, Cambridge University Press
Bryan, Betsy M. (1991) The Reign of Thutmose IV, John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, ISBN 0-8018-4202-6
Tags: Troy, Amarna, eclipse, ancient eclipse, dawn eclipse, Akhenaten, Akhet, Delta-T, earliest eclipse, Hittite
archive, Mursili II, Troy eclipse, Tuthmosis IV, Ugarit eclipse, 1332 BC.
Citation:
Dunbavin, P. (2022) Troy or Amarna? The Oldest Recorded Solar Eclipse, Prehistory Papers Volume II , ThirdMillennium Publishing, Beverley, ISBN: 978-0-9525029-5-1
https://www.academia.edu/68529520/Troy_or_Amarna_The_Oldest_Recorded_Solar_Eclipse
Copyright: Paul Dunbavin & Third Millennium Publishing, December 2021, V 1.4
www.third-millennium.co.uk
The 2006 paper follows below:
Akhenaten, Eclipses and the Chronology of the Egyptian XVIII Dynasty
Paul Dunbavin (2006)
Summary: According to the conventional chronology for the Egyptian VXIII Dynasty, this period coincides with
a statistically rare concentration of total eclipses visible from Egypt. In addition, a boundary stela from Amarna
links the building of the city to a series of ‘evil omens’. This paper considers whether these omens could have
been the eclipses; and discusses the consequences both for the conventional chronology of this period and the
evidence for changes to the Earth’s rotation.
Many would view the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten as a great religious reformer, the first monotheist;
others might prefer to see him as a tyrant. It is known that in the first year of his reign, Amenhotep IV, as he then
was, abandoned the old Egyptian gods and declared that henceforth he would worship solely the Aten: an aspect
of the sun-disk. In the fourth year of his reign, he renamed himself Akhenaten, or ‘Spirit of the Aten’ and
proclaimed Atenism as the official state religion, shunning Amun and the all the old gods. What is most surprising
is that the Egyptian people went along with this heresy and indeed, it would persist into the reign of his successor
Tutankhamun.
Towards the end of the reign of his father Amenhotep III, the young Amenhotep IV was installed as co-regent.
A record of the ceremony has come down to us in a temple inscription at Karnak, dedicated to the god Re-Horakhti
– Re-in-the-Horizon. The inscription describes the new deity as: ‘Re Horakhti who rejoices on the horizon in his
name of Solar light (Shu) which appears in the Solar Globe (Aten)’.i
In the Dream Stela, positioned between the paws of the Sphinx, Akhenaten’s grandfather Thutmose IV had
claimed that Horemakhet ‘Horus-in-the-Horizon’ had spoken to him in a dream; he would make him king, if he
would only remove the sand from around his paws! That this was the Aten is further confirmed by a
commemorative scarab in the British Museum, with an inscription that he had led his army to subjugate the land
of the Mitanni (Syria and north Palestine) ‘with Aten before him’.ii Here we glimpse an early form of the Atenist
religion that Akhenaten would later extend.
In the fifth year of his reign, Akhenaten relocated his entire court to a new
capital city at Tel-el-Amarna on the eastern bank of the Nile. He named his
new city Akhetaten, “horizon of the Aten”. The location was significant
because at Amarna, the sun could be seen to rise in a cleft in the eastern
mountains, which does look rather like the Akhet hieroglyph (left), depicting
the sun rising (or setting) between two peaks. An inscription on a boundary
stele, declares that the site was chosen by the Sun God himself, ‘in the place
which the Aten enclosed on the eastern bank for His own self’.iiiA boundary
stela dated conclusively to year 5 of Akhenaten, gives us again the various titles
of the new deity: ‘...Rē-Herakhte, rejoicing in the Horizon in his aspect of the
Light which is in the sun-disk…’iv Before Akhenaten the Aten was regarded as
simply the disk in which the Sun God resided, in various forms, such as Re or
Shu; after Akhenaten the sun-disk absorbed all these aspects and became itself the god.
Akhenaten’s heresy was abandoned after only eighteen years by his successor, the boy-king Tutankhaten, who
changed his name to Tutankhamun and returned the royal court to Thebes. Horemheb would later deface
Akhenaten’s statues and inscriptions; and his name would be struck from later king lists. The city of Akhetaten
was demolished. Of the Aten, we subsequently hear no more.
A conventional dating of Akhenaten’s reign (omitting co-regencies), is as follows:
Thutmose IV
Amenhotep III
Amenhotep IV-Akhenaten
Tutankhamun
1392-1382 BC
1382-1352 BC
1352-1336 BC
1336-1327 BC
10 years
30 years
18 years
9 years
The precise dates are a subject of ongoing debate. The length of Akhenaten’s reign is also uncertain, as it is not
known whether he was co-regent with Smenkhkare for the last two years of his reign; or whether this little-known
king reigned alone.
The present author has researched the occurrence of eclipses across Egypt during this period and it may be
seen that, on all generally accepted criteria, Egypt experienced an unusually high incidence of total eclipses during
this dynasty.v
If the diurnal rotation were constant, then the location from which historical eclipses were viewed could be
retro calculated with certainty. However, the tidal retardation of the rotation means that the eclipse track will fall
further east than expected. Astronomers refer to this small discrepancy (TDT - UT) as ΔT (delta-T). The
cumulative discrepancy between clock and calendar due to this slowing has been calculated at about half a day
since 1500 BC.vi Therefore, any eclipse track of this era would actually fall on the opposite side of the world
unless appropriate adjustment is made for ΔT. There remains a range of statistical uncertainty in the value of ΔT
(about 15 minutes) and to fix the time with more certainty the astronomers would need a historically dateable
report of an eclipse. However, the Egyptologists would like to fix historical events precisely by a reference to the
astronomical event. Inevitably this becomes something of a circular argument.
The currently accepted values for ∆T show that a total eclipse crossed the Nile on August 15, 1352, BC
(∆T=35701.4) and would have been total at Amarna.vii According to the conventional chronology, this was the
first year of Amenhotep IV/ Akhenaten.
However, on May 14, 1338, BC (∆T=35352.8) another long eclipse crossed the upper Nile at Aswan and may
just have been total at Thebes.viii At just under seven minutes it came close to the maximum magnitude possible
for a total eclipse. The conventional chronology puts this towards the end of Akhenaten’s reign. Only four years
later, on December 30, 1332, BC (∆T=35185.3) another eclipse was visible from Egypt.ix However, this was a
dawn eclipse. From a location midway between Amarna and Cairo, it would have risen only partially eclipsed,
and totality occurred just above the horizon. According to the conventional chronology, this was the fourth year
of Tutankhamun’s reign.
As this was a period when the sun-disk was the sole deity throughout Egypt, we should ask why these eclipses
were not clearly recorded in inscriptions. During the Amarna period, we find numerous illustrations from the city
of Akhetaten. These depict the sun-disk casting its rays down upon the favoured king and his family as they
worshipped the Aten.
The apparent absence of any reference to these eclipses within contemporary inscriptions therefore raises the
possibility that the conventional chronology is incorrect. This is a possibility that will no doubt appeal to the ultrarevisionists; and a question that conventional Egyptologists cannot simply ignore! For example, according to the
new chronology promoted by David Rohl, the reign of Akhenaten would fall some 377 years later, between 1022
BC and 1006 BC.x The eclipse dates of course, remain unchanged, and on Rohl’s analysis, they occurred during
the Second Intermediate or ‘Hyksos’ period – a time from which little record of anything has survived.
Alternatively, the apparent lack of any references to the eclipses raises the possibility that the Atenist heresy
could itself have been inspired by this series of prominent eclipses; and that Egyptologists just do not recognise
the references.
Neither is it entirely clear what we should be looking for. Egyptologists do not know what the hieroglyph for
an eclipse should look like. In a series of papers on the Eclipse Chasers website, the Egyptian astronomer Aymen
Mohamed Ibrahem has proposed some interesting ideas.xi He argues that the symbol Akhet, long thought to mean
‘horizon’ may sometimes stand for ‘solar eclipse’; or more literally he believes ‘Akhet net Pet’ to stand for
‘horizon of heaven’: as if the sun sets and rises on a heavenly horizon during an eclipse.xii Another of his theories
relates to the Sphinx: the Sphinx was the Egyptian lord of solar eclipses and its name 'Horemakhet' would mean
literally: 'Hor in the eclipse'. On this interpretation, the city of ‘Akhetaten’ would therefore stand for ‘eclipse of
the sun disk’; perhaps telling us that it marks the place where a solar eclipse was viewed.
Another of Ibrahem’s conclusions relate to the eclipse of June 24, 1312, BC (∆T=34695.4) which passed over
Anatolia. This may have been recorded in a Hittite text and the synchronisms provided by the Amarna letters have
therefore enabled him to propose a revised chronology. However, on his interpretation, it is the eclipse of 1352
BC that fell during year 4 of Akhenaten and therefore inspired the building of the city.xiii
The eclipse of 1312 BC is certainly pertinent to these investigations. It seems it occurred during the
preparations for departure of the Hittite army from its winter camp. The precise site of this camp cannot be
determined, and neither can the date of departure, but Ibrahem convincingly argues that the 1312 BC eclipse is
the only one that fits with the conventional dating – although he agrees that June might be rather late for the army
to commence its campaigns.
The present author is sceptical of any major revisions to the standard Egyptian chronology. However, one
possibility is that the conventional chronology could be just a few years in error; and only a small difference in
the calculated value of ∆T (well within the statistical margin of error) would suffice to make the dawn eclipse of
1332 BC total at Amarna. In my own recent book Under Ancient Skies, I wondered if Akhenaten himself could
have been there to see it. Alternatively, it might have been reports of the blackened sun rising in the gap in the
mountains which led Akhenaten to believe that Amarna was the site chosen by the god himself?
It is also possible, as we have seen above, that if the dawn eclipse of 1332 BC fell in year 4 of Akhenaten’s
reign, then the king could already have experienced two previous total eclipses during his lifetime. Most people
will be fortunate to see even one eclipse unless they chase them around the world! This common experience by
the Egyptian people would at least explain why Akhenaten thought he was the chosen one; and also, why the
priests at first went along with his heresy.
If Egyptologists could agree upon an unambiguous inscription that records one of these eclipses then not only
would it fix the Egyptian chronology, but it would also establish the stability of the Earth’s rotation back to the
fourteenth century BC.
A boundary stela from the city of Akhetaten holds a fragmentary proclamation by Akhenaten, which
Egyptologist Cyril Aldred translated as follows:
…as Father Aten lived, something had been said which was more evil than that which the king had
heard in his Year 4…more evil than what he had heard in his year 1…more evil than what King
(Amenhotep III?) had heard…more evil than what king Tuthmosis IV had heard… xiv
In Under Ancient Skies, I left unanswered the question of what king Thutmose IV might have heard? Perhaps it
too, was a report of a prominent eclipse – but I was unable to find one that would fit the requirements during the
conventional dating of his reign.
According to the scarab inscription, Thutmose IV led his army east into the land of the Mitanni with the Aten
before him. If this is merely the rising sun, then what is so remarkable? The sun rises every day in the East. Could
this be another reference to a dawn eclipse? There is one that might fit this requirement – but this would require
a deviation from the standard calculation of ∆T.
A retro calculation using the accepted value for ∆T of 36295.9 seconds shows a dawn total eclipse occurring
in Iran on May 3 1375BC, just southeast of modern Tehran.xv However if we instead posit a ∆T of 33000 seconds
then its track falls further west in Northern Syria – the land of the Mitanni. The next question is: what effect would
this revised value for ∆T have upon the other eclipses discussed above?
It may be seen that if the tracks of the other eclipses are adjusted in proportion, then the track of the 1352 BC
total eclipse would cross the Nile further south near Aswan. The eclipse of 1338 BC would have been seen much
further north and should have been total at Thebes. The ‘dawn’ eclipse of 1332 BC, however, now falls over the
Libyan coast, and the narrow path of totality crosses the Nile further south, indeed not far from the point where
the 1352 BC eclipse also crossed the river. So, we may see that all three eclipses would remain visible from Egypt
during the Amarna period, even on this revised scenario.
The track of the total eclipse of 1312 BC, being more east-to-west is scarcely affected, and is shifted only
slightly further north, but closer to the Hittite capital of Boghazkoy. Since we do not know the precise location of
the Hittite winter camp, this cannot harm the hypotheses discussed in any way. An element of statistical
uncertainty remains in all of these retro calculations. There is little point in being pedantic as to the precise tracks,
until such time as an inscription is found that supplies both an exact location and time of day for one of these
eclipses.
So, on these astronomical arguments it is now possible to suggest a chronology for the Egyptian XVIII
Dynasty. Consider:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
If the omen of year 4 of Akhenaten was the last of 4 eclipses, then it must have been that of 1332 BC.
Therefore year 1 of Akhenaten was four years earlier in 1336 BC.
Therefore, the omen of year 1 was a report of the 1338 BC eclipse.
The year 1352 BC falls within the long reign of Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III reigned between approximately 1366 BC and 1336 BC
The year 1375 BC falls shortly before the reign of Thutmose IV (as the eclipse prophesied his accession).
Thutmose IV reigned between 1374 BC and 1366 BC
However, since we can be confident that the eclipse of 9 May 1012 BC was viewed at sunset in Ugarit on the
Syrian coast; this implies that the standard value of ∆T holds for that date. This eclipse was discussed by Rohl in
support of his new chronology;xvi and the present author finds little cause to disagree with this identification. xvii
This would suggest that the postulated disturbance of the Earth’s rotation must have occurred sometime between
1312 BC and 1012 BC, most likely during the ‘dark age’ that has long been referred-to as the Third Intermediate
Period. It suggests that some event may have altered the length of day slightly.
For adherents of Velikovsky, who are accustomed to the idea of catastrophic upheavals, the possibility that a
glitch in the diurnal rotation may have made the earth rotate about an hour faster over a period of 300 years, will
not seem very significant. However, even this modest supposition would not be welcomed by conventional
scholarship. So, upon this subject I shall speculate no further beyond the evidence presented above, for it relies
crucially upon the identification of an eclipse that may have been seen by Thutmose IV; and upon a correct
interpretation of the extraordinary events of the Amarna period.
** 2020 Additional Note
In parallel with my own eclipse investigations: 1998-2005 for Under Ancient Skies the following paper by
William Murray came out in 2003. It represents genuine parallel thinking on the same subject:
www.egyptologyforum.org/EMP/DAPE.pdff
Tags: Akhenaten, eclipse, dawn eclipse, Egyptian chronology, Aten, Amenhotep III, Thutmose, Hittites
Citation footnote added 2021
The above text is unchanged as the article was left in abeyance in 2006, other than formatting for publication in
Prehistory Papers in 2020:
Dunbavin, Paul (2020) Akhenaten and Eclipses, in Prehistory Papers, pp 85-97, Third Millennium Publishing,
Beverley, ISBN: 978-0-9525029-4-4
https://www.academia.edu/62458309/Akhenaten_Eclipses_and_the_Chronology_of_the_Egyptian_XVIII_Dynasty
Following Pages:
The eclipse tracks as discussed above, firstly showing the ‘standard’ delta-T followed by an experimental value
of 33000 seconds that gives a better fit to the historical references.
Eclipse tracks with standard delta-T
1375 BC 03 May
1352 BC 15 August
1338 BC 14 May
1332 BC 30 December
1312 BC 24 January
Eclipse tracks using an experimental delta-T of 33000 seconds
1375 BC 3 May
1352 BC 15 August
1338 BC 14 May
1332 BC 30 December
1312 BC 24 June
Notes and References
Translation given by Desroches-Noblecourt, C., Tutankhamen, Penguin, Harmondsworth (1965), p 92
Ibid, p 26
iii
Aldred, C., Akhenaten, King of Egypt, London (1988), p 49
iv
Ibid, p 47
v
On average, any location on the earth’s surface should experience an eclipse about every 375 years. See:
Meeus, J., J. Brit. Astr. Assn, 92, 124-6 (1982)
vi
Stephenson F.R. and Holden M.A. Atlas of Historical Eclipse maps, Cambridge University press (1986)
introduction, iix
vii
Retro-calculations based on Skymap Pro 6
viii
Retro-calculations based on Skymap Pro 6
ix
Retro-calculations based on Skymap Pro 6
x
Rohl, D., A Test of Time, Century, London (1995), P 241
xi
http://www.eclipse-chasers.com/egygod1.htm
xii
Aymen Ibrahem, Egyptian Cosmology, Part VII, Karnak the Horizon of Heaven, (2000):
http://members.aol.com/KCStarguy/blacksun/egyptianeclipse.htm
xiii
http://eclipse-chasers.com/egypt4.htm
xiv
Aldred, C., Akhenaten, King of Egypt, London (1988), p 50
xv
Retro-calculations based on Skymap Pro 6
xvi
Rohl, D., A Test of Time, Century, London (1995),
xvii
Dunbavin, P. Under Ancient Skies: Ancient Astronomy and Terrestrial Catastrophism, Third Millennium
Publishing, Nottingham (2005), p 133.
i
ii
Troy or Amarna? The Oldest Recorded Solar Eclipse
Paul Dunbavin
Summary: A 2012 study by Göran Henriksson raised the possibility that a solar eclipse was described
in the Iliad of Homer. If so then it would be one of the earliest dateable eclipses and of value to
astronomers and geophysicists to determine the stability of the Earth’s rotation back to the second
millennium BC; and thereby confirm circumstances of other ancient eclipses. In 2005-6 I published my
own research on the subject of eclipses visible from Amarna, Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty and
from Anatolia, to investigate whether there was a non-linear change (a wobble or nutation) of the
Earth’s rotation ongoing at that era, residual from an earlier astronomical event. The possibility of
another dateable eclipse observation allows an opportunity to revisit those concepts; together with its
potential value in tying early-historical and legendary events to the Julian calendar.
To begin, it may help to summarise some of the consensus theories, ancient and modern, about the
date of the Trojan War. It was used by the Greeks as an epoch from which they would establish the
date of other historical and legendary events both before and after the war. The date for the
foundation of Rome also depends on it; and even the migration of the legendary eponymous Brutus
to Britain is referred back to the Trojan War! We may therefore see how important an identification
of its true calendar date could be for historians and archaeologists. This uncertainty is not modern;
Various classical historians tried to back-calculate dates for the Trojan War with results ranging
between 1135 BC and 1334 BC. Earlier Greek history from the Mycenaean era was lost during the so
called Late Bronze Age collapse around 1200 BC; it is rather as if we could only date modern events by
years before or since the Napoleonic War. However, the debate about the date of the Trojan war is
an old minefield upon which I shall trespass no further. The focus here lies rather in the potential
identification of a dateable eclipse report to verify the stability of the Earth’s rotation as far back as
possible.
Homer’s Trojan war is now regarded as at least partly historical, since Schliemann’s identification of
Troy with the mound at Hissarlik near the Dardanelles. We may discard the interventions of the Greek
gods and their influence on the participants; but our difficulty lies in where we should draw the line
between the fiction and the reality upon which the story is based. The date of Homer’s composition
of the Iliad also remains vague but is typically placed around 850 BC; and so we can be confident that
it was based on oral tradition in circulation for at least 300 years.
Archaeologists identify nine levels of occupation at Hissarlik. The oldest hill fort (Troy I) dates from
3000 BC or perhaps earlier. The level usually associated with Homer’s Troy is the late bronze age layer
of Troy VI; this shows clear evidence of burning and warfare that archaeologists date to c.1250 BC.
However, even should we accept this destruction as the most likely date, we still cannot rule-out that
events and characters of earlier or later conflicts have been conflated and woven into a fictional
recreation. Such is the fate of oral history once its true chronology is lost.
Göran Henriksson draws our attention to a possible reference to an eclipse within Homer’s description
of the final battle of the Trojan war:
…and you would have said that the sun and moon were no longer fixed in the sky, since a fog
covered over all that part of the battle where the leading men had made their stand…But the rest…
fought in the ease of a bright sky, with the sunlight spreading clear and sharp and no cloud to be
seen…but those in the centre were suffering cruelly in the fog and the fighting…
[Iliad, 17, Martin Hammond Translation] [1]
You must decide for yourself whether you think this could be a reference to a solar eclipse.
Henriksson therefore posits that a solar eclipse of 1312 BC took place during the final battle of Troy,
which can then be tied to events in the Hittite archives. The Hittite chronology is in turn dateable
(according to Henriksen’s summation) via another eclipse that occurred in 1335 BC, the tenth year of
King Mursili II. [3] Dating of the Hittite chronology is itself dependent upon links back to Egyptian
chronology via the Amarna letters; these would make Mursili II a contemporary of Akhenaten,
Tutankhamun and the late Amarna period. However, as one might expect, there are many opinions as
to the correct identification and others would prefer that the 1312 BC eclipse was itself the one
referred-to in the Hittite text [4] As a proposed date for the Trojan War this is somewhat earlier than
the 1250 BC consensus of the archaeologists and the median of the historical dates.
Following Henriksson, Papamarinopoulos and co-researchers preferred to date the battle much later
via a partial annular eclipse of 1218 BC June 6 based on other potential astronomical references in the
Iliad and Odyssey. [2] They would demolish Henriksen’s links to the Egyptian chronology via the Hittite
archives as too tenuous and prefer their own interpretation of Homer’s epics. However, I shall not
pursue their (primarily linguistic) arguments in detail here.
The circumstances of historical eclipses are now much easier for historians to study than when
Henriksson first considered the matter in 1985, or even for myself 2000-6, due to the availability of
retro-calculation software and various websites. The circumstances of these two eclipses according to
the NASA website (2022) are slightly different from those originally cited by Henriksson:
1312 BC June 24 2 mins 48 seconds, total over Anatolia, partial over Egypt (Cat No: 01634)
1335 BC Mar 13 6 mins 36 seconds, annular/partial over Egypt and over Anatolia (Cat No: 01579)
The date and magnitude of an ancient eclipse can be retro calculated with confidence, however where
the shadow fell on the Earth’s surface is less easy to determine. This depends upon tidal slowing of
the diurnal rotation (TDT - UT = ∆T) due to the pull of the Moon on the Earth’s equatorial bulge. The
discrepancy (Delta-T) between clock and calendar due to this tidal slowing amounts to about half a
day since 1500 BC. [5] The fall of the shadow can be estimated within an uncertainty that would shift
the path slightly east or west of expectation.
However the present author, being a catastrophist, could not trust any retro calculated eclipse tracks
prior to mid-first millennium BC due to the possibility that non-linear ‘events’ could have changed the
rotation in ancient times. Before the most recent of such events it would become impossible to
determine historical dates in the absence of a contemporary historical chronology dateable by some
other means. Such events would include ‘glitches’ in the length of day, due to variations in the figure
and balance of the planet, causing the shadow of an eclipse to fall east or west of the retro calculated
path; in addition, nutations of the axis and pole-shifts could also cause a north-south variation. These
would arise if the axis of rotation were wobbling slightly, triggered by internal changes to the shape
of the Earth (i.e. instances of the Chandler wobble of a magnitude greater than are experienced today)
or even external astronomical forces that might trigger the core wobble.
To summarise my own earlier work as published in Under Ancient Skies in 2005; [6] and in a follow-up
article, one such reset may have occurred during the Greek Dark Age that followed the Trojan War;
[7] this being one of a series of such events coincident with earlier dark ages and climate-events.
Coincidence is one thing – proving them empirically is quite another.
In order to verify ∆T for a particular date some precise information is needed and ancient reports are
seldom so helpful. For accuracy, the specific time of day and the start or end point of the shadow on
the ground are needed, together with a precise location where it was observed. [8] Professor F.
Richard Stephenson, perhaps the foremost authority on these subjects, found no report of an eclipse
that he was prepared to trust prior to that seen at ancient Ugarit (Syrian coast). [9] Originally, he had
suggested that this was the eclipse of 3 May 1375 BC, later revised to 1223 BC, but the circumstances
of the Ugarit text are better reproduced by the eclipse of 9 May 1012 BC. [8] The key aspect of this
particular report is that it occurred just before sunset – a very conspicuous omen – thus offering both
a precise location and time of day to confirm the path of the Moon’s shadow. *Note 1
Stephenson also rejected a divination from a Shang Chinese oracle bone dated at 1302 BC because it
appeared (inexplicably) to be a whole day out from the Chinese sexagenary cycle. [9] However,
astronomers constantly update their calculations and this can be embarrassing for historical
researchers who cite them! The NASA webpage no longer confidently suggests values for ∆T prior to
500 BC in the abbreviated table. [10] I should also mention at this point that Henriksson, in his 2012
paper, disputes some of the methods used by Stephenson to determine the path of ancient eclipses,
declaring them: “completely useless for epochs before 700 BC”. The earliest eclipse report currently
suggested by historians would be that of 5 March 1223 BC. [11] However, for the reasons given herein,
I would still prefer the 1012 BC eclipse as the earliest observation that can be reproduced.
The ancient historians, In their various opinions of the date for the final battle at Troy, cannot even
agree upon the year or season of the year that it occurred, let alone give a precise time of day. At best
it gives us a window of about six to eight hours of daylight. Set this alongside the vague location of the
final battle and we may see that the circumstances of the ‘Troy eclipse’ would not provide the precise
information needed by astronomers. Here and in the 2006 paper, I am attempting not so much to
identify a historical report via retro-calculation, rather to find an independently dateable event that
cannot be reproduced by uniformitarian retro-calculation methods alone.
In 2005 in Under Ancient Skies I proposed that the Atenist heresy of pharaoh Akhenaten was inspired
by a statistically rare sequence of eclipses across Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty. [12] In parallel
around the same time William McMurray independently published theories regarding the Amarna
eclipses. [13] In a more recent paper Emil Khalisi [14] preferred to model earlier eclipses. As with
Henriksson, these researchers follow uniformitarian assumptions that tidal slowing can be retro
calculated indefinitely to estimate the eclipse paths.
My own proposal in 2005-6 was that the construction of Amarna by Akhenaten was inspired by the
observation of a dawn eclipse from the site of the Aten temple on 30 December 1332 BC, which would
fix year 5 of Akhenaten’s reign according to inscriptions on one of the boundary stelae. The eclipse
would have been observed from the Amarna temple site as the sun rose in in a cleft in the eastern
mountains known as the Royal Wadi. [15] Such an identification (an eclipse occurring at dawn) would
be of value not just for historical chronology, but could fix both the location and time-of-day to a
precision that would be more useful for astronomers. In 2005-6 I experimented with various values
for ∆T to find one that would allow the start of the eclipse shadow to fall at Amarna; for this to be
valid would require a non-linear step-change to ∆T of about 1500 seconds over a period of 300 years,
since the 1012 BC observation. Such a change to the rate of rotation and the inevitable wobble that
must follow it would have occurred during the Greek Dark Age (the Egyptian Third Intermediate
Period) and therefore shortly after the Trojan War. It should also be coincident with other evidence
of climate and sea-level changes worldwide consequent upon the wobble of the axis.
The ‘evil reports’ that inspired Akhenaten to build his new city were recorded on the boundary stelae.
These give dates to the precise day within the kings reign – but unfortunately this does not help
without a true calendar date for his accession.
The king declared that he would build the city in the place chosen by the Aten himself and that once
established there he would never again leave its boundaries. In a proclamation of year 8 of his reign,
the king records that he came to Amarna in his year 5 to formally celebrate the foundation of the city.
The fragmented inscription was summarised by Egyptologist Cyril Aldred, citing the Amarna Boundary
Stelae Project:
…as Father Aten lived, something had been said which was more evil than that which the king had
heard in his Year 4…more evil than what he had heard in his year 1…more evil than what King
(Amenhotep III?) had heard…more evil than what king Tuthmosis IV had heard… [16]
To reappraise my own conclusions of 2005-6 the identification of the ‘evil omens’ as eclipses were
based on an experimental ∆T very loosely set at 33000 seconds rather than the 31593 seconds used
for the ‘standard’ retro calculation of the 1332 BC eclipse. This would allow the dawn eclipse to
commence at Amarna, giving the following evaluation:
•
•
•
•
•
The evil of year 5 was a report of the 1332 BC ‘dawn’ eclipse
The evil of year 4 was a report of the 1335 BC eclipse
The evil of year 1 was a report of the 1338 BC eclipse
The evil seen by Amenhotep III was the 1352 BC eclipse
The evil seen by Tuthmosis IV was the 1375 BC eclipse (viewed from Syria)
Note that these are dates when the king received reports of the phenomena, rather than their true
date of occurrence. It is not essential that the king actually saw the eclipses himself, but he may have
experienced at least one of them, or their partial shadow as they crossed the Nile.
The author’s crude drawing of a dawn eclipse as viewed from the temple at Tel-el-Amarna (click for a photo link)
It seems likely that the annular eclipse of 1335 BC would also have been reported to Akhenaten and
could also have been one of the evil omens – yet another ambiguity to add to the problem of pinningdown the precise dates for the reigns. Other possible reconstructions might perhaps prefer that the
eclipse observed from the city of Akhetaten (Amarna) was one of the other dates: 1335 BC or 1338 BC
– but only the 1332 BC eclipse could correspond as the last-of-three reports in the king’s
proclamation. So why should this third report be considered more evil than the others?
Some astronomical uncertainty must remain; the 1332 BC eclipse may have begun just before or just
after dawn; the track would not have fallen precisely at the Amarna alignment at mid-winter, but to
the south of it; or perhaps only a large partial eclipse was observed from the city itself? Nevertheless
the spectacle must have been sufficiently inspiring that Akhenaten took it to indicate that Aten wished
him to build his new capital precisely at that place, which he called ‘Akhetaten’: “horizon of the Aten”.
The ‘evils’, as surviving on the boundary stelae, cannot be positively associated with eclipses. [17] We
might wish for a more precise hieroglyph that Egyptologists would recognise as an eclipse rather than
as a general reference to the sun-god. Unfortunately, the historical record is seldom so helpful. When
Horemheb demolished the city to obliterate all memory of the Aten, he had the ‘omens’ on the stelae
chiselled-out, so that we can no longer determine what Akhenaten actually saw.
When considering Egyptian king-lists, not only must we be sceptical of the precise start and end dates
of the reigns, but also of their lengths, since overlapping co-reigns and regencies must complicate such
estimates. In addition to the short reign of Smenkhkare (Nefertiti?) between Akhenaten and
Tutankhamen, there was a co-regency of uncertain duration at the start of his reign, between
Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten and his father Amenhotep III.
If 1332 BC were indeed year 5 of Akhenaten then it would refine the Egyptian chronology just 15 or
16 years later than current consensus, with knock-on effects for any other floating chronology that
depends on it. Year 1 of Akhenaten would therefore fall somewhere around 1335 BC or 1336 BC. There
is no point in trying to be more precise when there are so many uncertainties in the Egyptology as to
the duration of the co-regnum with his father.
The current consensus historical dates for the Eighteenth Dynasty would place Akhenaten between
1352 BC and 1334 BC and for Tutankhamun between 1332 BC and 1323 BC. Between these reigns was
a short reign of Smenkhkare or Nefertiti, about which Egyptologists hold disputed theories.
Radiocarbon dates cannot help to pinpoint the dates either, as there remains a statistical uncertainty
for all radiocarbon dates in the order of 100-200 years. Recent ‘fine-tuning’ attempts based on seeds
from the tomb of Tutankhamun would tend to place his reign slightly later, between about 1320 BC
and 1310 BC, adjusting Akhenaten’s reign accordingly. [18]. However, a similar radiocarbon study of
2010 had indicated an earlier date. [19] So what are we to believe?
Again, the present author being a catastrophist, could never entirely trust radiocarbon dating either.
The reasons for the ambiguity of carbon-14 at certain eras has never been convincingly explained by
the specialists. It should be apparent that any abnormality of the Earth’s rotation must also cause
fluctuations in the magnetic field and the cosmic ray flux, thus destroying the assumptions upon which
the rate of carbon-14 production in the atmosphere is based.
The proposed revision would then imply that, rather than the 1332 BC eclipse occurring (unrecorded)
during the reign of Tutankhamun, it could have been the last in a series of total eclipses across Egypt
that occurred during the lifetime of Akhenaten: 1352 BC, 1338 BC and 1332 BC. He may also have seen
or heard reports of the annular “ring of fire” eclipse on 13 March 1335 BC. The circumstances of these
eclipses according to NASA (Espinak 2021) were as follows:
1375 BC 03 May
2 mins 6 secs; a dawn eclipse at Syria & eastern Anatolia
1352 BC 15 August
3 mins 16 secs; total across southern Egypt, partial across Anatolia
1338 BC 14 May
6 mins 51 secs; total across Egypt, partial across Anatolia
1335 BC 13 March
6 mins 36 secs; annular across Egypt, partial over Anatolia
1332 BC 30 December 4 mins; a dawn eclipse commencing in western Egypt
The eclipse maps in the links above give the astronomical date number rather than the equivalent
Gregorian date BC (or BCE) and have been refined slightly from those that I employed 2000-2006.
As for co-ordination with the Hittite chronology, we may well accept the conclusion of specialist Gary
Beckman that the absolute dates for the Hittite chronology may never be known. [20] The “omen of
the sun” mentioned in the Hittite text, if the omen were indeed an eclipse, could be that of 1335 BC or
1312 BC or perhaps one of the other eclipses above, which were partial over Anatolia. The dates for
King Mursili II form a floating-chronology that depends crucially on links to Egypt via the Amarna
letters (tablets in Akkadian cuneiform discovered at the Amarna site) together with archives from the
Hittite capital Boğazköy.
Two letters are from a widowed Egyptian queen, begging King Suppiluliuma of Hatti, to send one of
his sons to become her new husband. We may wonder whether this widowed-queen was
Ankhesenamun, the sister-wife of Tutankhamun; or could the letter have been sent by Nefertiti upon
the death of Akhenaten? Conventional Egyptology prefers that the letter was written by
Ankhesenamun. However, little is known about Nefertiti; she also had no sons of her own and she too,
rapidly disappears from the historical record. The identification depends crucially upon the linguists’
preferred identification of Bibhuria or Nibphuria as the Babylonian rendering of Tutankhamun’s birthname rather than that of Akhenaten: Naphurria; yet another uncertainly to add to the list. Egyptology
researcher Russell Jacquet-Acea has re-analysed this issue and suggested a revised chronology that
favours Nefertiti as the widowed queen; and that it was the long eclipse of 1338 BC that inspired the
building of Amarna. [21] However, such identification would neglect the two later eclipses; it would
not explain the three evil omens, or why the city had to be built at that precise location.
It should be stressed for the benefit of non-astronomers that the fixed-points in time provided by
astronomical events remain invariable. An adjustment of the regnal dates in the king lists by 15 or 16
years would relocate the eclipse of 1335 BC within the Hittite chronology, with knock-on effects for
other reigns – and therefore for synchronisms to the Trojan War. This becomes a chain of too many
‘ifs’ that makes it fruitless to project eclipse correspondences with any validity. The debate is another
minefield. Hence I shall not pursue the Hittite chronology further here; with so many uncertainties it
is perhaps best to keep the arguments simple.
From the motivation of my own investigations into possible catastrophic events during the Bronze Age
and in earlier millennia, my previous conclusions would stand with only slight adjustment due to the
refinement of the eclipse data since 2006. If we could once prove that a glitch or nutation has occurred
at some point in the past then all retro calculation and historical date assumptions prior to that event
become unreliable. We can no longer estimate where the eclipse shadows fell. However, acceptance
of such an event would open minds to discussion that might prove the validity of other catastrophes
earlier in Earth history.
One cannot expect specialist Egyptologists and other academics to cite or even read the work of nonspecialist authors such as myself; or to cite catastrophist theories that are published in books aimed
at the popular mass-market. Over the years there has been so much nonsense put out by followers of
the 1950s pseudohistory of Velikovsky, that it became almost impossible to publish sensible research
on the subject of catastrophism in prehistory. Even the more-restrained authors such as Graham
Phillips - who sought to link the ‘omens’ of Akhenaten with the Thera eruption, or the revised
chronology of Egyptologist David Rohl that would place Akhenaten’s reign 300 years later – both well
argued – do not help to establish credibility. [22] [23] So muddied has the water become! *Note 2
***************
Conclusions
The statistically rare concentration of eclipses crossing Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty would fit
well with the ‘evils’ reported to Akhenaten, which inspired him to establish his new solar religion.
However, to adopt the dates proposed here would require Egyptologists to abandon the
uniformitarian Delta-T constraints and accept a step-change event that affected the diurnal rotation
at some point between the 1012 BC and 1302 BC eclipses. The actual change is likely to have been
quite modest amounting to less than half-an-hour over 300 years, shifting the fall of the shadow to
the west. It should then be possible to apply standard formulae to extrapolate the most likely paths
of eclipses before and after the new fixed point. However, this still tells us nothing about any northsouth variation due to wobble or pole-shift resulting from the same event.
This brings us back to the possible identification of an eclipse during the final battle of the Trojan War.
I recall my own experience of the 1999 eclipse viewed beneath thin cloud as it passed over Cornwall.
The sky darkened rapidly; sea gulls flew towards the light and then a few minutes later, as the shadow
passed over, the screeching birds flew back the other way. The darkening of the sky through cloud
was only significant during the few minutes of actual totality and quite unremarkable during the thin
crescent of partial sunlight. This convinces me that the description given in the Iliad was not an eclipse
under cloud; and an eclipse certainly would not produce fog at ground level over half the battlefield,
with bright sunlight (not eclipsed) over the rest of the plain.
The eclipse of 1312 BC (on any retro calculation) was total for just over two-and-a-half minutes but,
as Henriksson accepted, only partial at Troy. Appreciable darkening – such as would be so conspicuous
as to be noticed in the heat of battle – could only have lasted for a few minutes. It could not explain a
darkening that persisted throughout a long battle, even allowing for the fact that the poet was
recording a degraded oral memory. Overall it seems more likely that the mist, in the very centre of the
battle, was a local weather phenomenon. Regrettably, the description in the Iliad is not sufficiently
concise to be trusted as a report of an ancient eclipse, much as a historical researcher might dearly
wish it were so.
Homer’s description of the fighting would however fulfil my own definition of a ‘mythological fossil’
as the poet or his source had no need to include a weather references within a fictional account of a
battle. It gives us confidence that he based his poetry on oral recollections of a real historical conflict.
The date of the battle, however, remains uncertain. Hopefully, the discussion and references here will
serve to assist future researchers who can approach the subject with an open mind.
Note 1 The retro calculation by Mitchell of the 1012 BC eclipse, as cited by Egyptologist David Rohl in his book:
A Test of Time could no longer be found in 2021 to re-assess for this article. However I did reproduce this eclipse
as Figure 6.1 of my 2005 book. While I did not and do not accept the revised chronology, the circumstances of
the Ugarit sunset eclipse can indeed be reproduced in retro-calculation software and via the NASA website much
better than for 1223 BC. It is an interesting aside that close to the eclipsed sun would have been – as Rohl
remarked – a first-magnitude red giant star that exploded to form the Crab Nebula in AD 1054.
Note 2 Muddy Waters! In 2006 I did attempt to publish an article on these eclipses in a specialist journal to
complete the research of my earlier book, but the mere mention of ‘catastrophism’ led to a dismissive rejection
by that journal’s referee who assumed that it was inspired by Velikovsky’s ideas; and another journal that
supposedly publishes alternative chronology suppressed a revised version because it would not support
Velikovsky’s chronology! The revised article was therefore left in abeyance until I included it in Prehistory Papers
in 2020. However, it was made available on request as unpublished to a small number of interested researchers
who commented on the earlier book.
Relevant Hyperlinks
https://www.history.com/news/bronze-age-collapse-causes
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44963755_Hittite_Chronology
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/letters.htm
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/deltat2004.html
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/uncertainty2004.html
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/deltaT.html
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEcat5/SE-1399--1300.html
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1301-06-05.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1311-06-24.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1331-12-30.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1334-03-13.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1337-05-14.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/-1399--1300/-1351-08-15.gif
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhistory/SEplot/SE-1374May03T.pdf
http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/polarmotion/plots/chandler_wobble_plots.htm
https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-018-0971-9
https://eos.org/science-updates/earths-wobbly-path-gives-clues-to-its-core
https://www.third-millennium.co.uk/under-ancient-skies
https://f7e94415-3a55-48d9-ba14ed235f05a65f.filesusr.com/ugd/e5604c_b2b136af2b8f4a05b72ea1c0b6bf9797.pdf?index=true
http://www.egyptologyforum.org/EMP/DAPE.pdf
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amarna.htm
https://www.archaeometry.org/helios.htm
https://pharaoh.se/dynasty-XVIII
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180605112057.htm
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/29044#:~:text=Since%20Amenhotep%20ruled%20for%20approximately,for%20a
t%20least%20eight%20years.
https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/aegyptisches-museum-und-papyrussammlung/collectionresearch/bust-of-nefertiti/the-queen/
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Akhet-hieroglyph-Cf-Frischers-zone-3-figure-6_fig19_317647684/download
https://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1227757509
References
1) Hammond, Martin (1987) The Iliad, A New Prose Translation, Penguin, Harmondsworth, London
2) Papamarinopoulos, S. et al (2013) A new astronomical dating of the Trojan war’s end, Mediterranean
Archaeology and Archaeometry, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 93-102
https://www.academia.edu/7806255/A_NEW_ASTRONOMICAL_DATING_OF_THE_TROJAN_WARS_END
3) Henrikkson, G. (2012) The Trojan War Dated By Two Solar Eclipses, Mediterranean Archaeology and
Archaeometry, Vol. 12, No 1, pp. 63-76
4) Jacquet-Acea, Russell (2020) The Solar Eclipses of Mursili II, independent.academia.edu
https://www.academia.edu/15591950/The_Solar_Eclipses_of_Mursili_II
5) Morrison, S.L. & Stephenson, F.R. (2004) Historical values of the Earth's clock error ΔT and the calculation of
eclipses, JHA, Vol. 35, Part 3, No. 120, p. 327 – 336 (ISSN 0021-8286)
6) Dunbavin, P. (2005) Under Ancient Skies: Ancient Astronomy and Terrestrial Catastrophism, Third Millennium
Publishing, Nottingham; ISBN:0-9525029-2-5
7) Dunbavin, Paul (2020) Akhenaten and Eclipses, in Prehistory Papers, pp 85-97, Third Millennium Publishing,
Beverley, ISBN: 978-0-9525029-4-4 https://www.third-millennium.co.uk/features
8) Mitchell 1990 as cited by Rohl ( see ref 23 below and Note 1)
9) Stephenson, F.R. (2008) How Reliable Are Archaic Records of Large Solar Eclipses? JHA, 39, 2, No. 135, p. 229
– 250 (ISSN 0021-8286) - see pp241-2
10) NASA - Delta T https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/deltat2004.html
11) Pardee, D & Swerdlow, N. (1993) Not the Earliest Solar Eclipse, Nature, 363, p 406
12) See Ref 6 above, chapter 6
13) Mc Murray, W. (2003) Dating the Amarna Period in Egypt: Did a Solar Eclipse Inspire Akhenaten?
www.egyptologyforum.org/EMP/DAPE.pdf
14) Khalisi, Emil (2004) The Solar Eclipses of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, arXiv: 2004.12952 [physics.hist-ph]
15) Aldred, C., (1988) Akhenaten, King of Egypt, Thames & Hudson, London ISBN: 0-500-27621-8, (chapter 3 pp
27-43)
16) ibid, chapter 4 (pp 47-51 summarising the Amarna Boundary Stelae Project)
17) Murnane, W.J. & van Siclen III, C.C. (1993). The Boundary Stelae of Akhenaten, Kegan Paul International,
London and New York:
18) Manning et al., (2010) Mediterranean radiocarbon offsets and calendar dates for prehistory, Sci. Adv. 2020;
6 : eaaz1096, 18 March 2020
19) Ramsey, C.B. et al. (2010) Radiocarbon-Based Chronology for Dynastic Egypt, Science 328, 1554
20) Beckman, G. (2000) Hittite Chronology, Akkadica, pp 19-32
21) Jacquet-Acea, Russell (2019) The True Length of Reign of Pharaoh Horemheb, independent.academia.edu
https://www.academia.edu/15119537/The_True_Length_of_Reign_of_Pharaoh_Horemheb
22) Philips, Graham. (1998) Act of God, Sidgewick & Jackson, London, ISBN: 0-283-06314-9
23) Rohl, D. (1995), A Test of Time, Century, London; ISBN: 0-7126-5913-7
Other References
Walker, C. (1989) Eclipse seen at Ancient Ugarit, Nature, 338, pp 204-5
De Jong, T. & Van Soldt, W.H. (1989) The earliest known solar eclipse redated, Nature, 338, pp 238-9
Stephenson FR. The earliest known record of a solar eclipse. Nature. 1970 Nov 14;228(5272):651-2. DOI:
10.1038/228651a0. PMID: 16058640.
Stephenson F.R. and Holden M.A. (1986) Atlas of Historical Eclipse maps, Cambridge University Press
Bryan, Betsy M. (1991) The Reign of Thutmose IV, John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, ISBN 0-8018-4202-6
Tags: Troy, Amarna, eclipse, ancient eclipse, dawn eclipse, Akhenaten, Akhet, Delta-T, earliest eclipse,
Hittite archive, Mursili II, Troy eclipse, Tuthmosis IV, Ugarit eclipse, 1332 BC.
Citation:
Publication pending in Prehistory Papers Volume II in 2022, ISBN: 978-0-9525029-5-1
www.third-millennium.co.uk/features/Troy Amarna and the oldest solar eclipse
Copyright: Paul Dunbavin & Third Millennium Publishing, December 2021, V 1.4
www.third-millennium.co.uk
Paul Dunbavin