A quantitative analysis of the Third Intermediate Period Nile Level Records from the Karnak ‘Quay’ and their implications

Edward Mushett Cole

doi:10.35305/cl.vi22.137

Autori

Edward Mushett Cole King’s College, Inglaterra

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35305/cl.vi22.137

Parole chiave:

Ancient Egypt, Nile Flood Records, Third Intermediate Period, environmental change, societal crisis

Abstract

The Nile Level Records were found by Georges Legrain in 1896 on the side of what has been called the ‘Karnak quay’ in front of the first pylon of the temple of Amun at Karnak. Ever since they were discovered, much of the research on them has been focused on the assistance they can provide for clarifying the difficult chronology of the Third Intermediate Period, rather than the information they can give us about the nature of the environmental conditions during this period. This is an oversight given that paleo-environmental evidence from Nile sources in the Ethiopian Highlands appear to suggest that this was a period of low Nile floods, and that these are the most closely dated records to the end of the New Kingdom - something which is attributed by some scholars to a decline in flood levels. This article carries out a quantitative analysis of the surviving records and reviews what the results can tell us about the nature of the annual floods and Egyptian reactions to periods of low annual floods.

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