An Excursus on Exceptions in King Lists
An Excursus on Exceptions in King Lists
Every Chronological King List Makes an Exception for Great Kings
This post may be uninteresting to those who are not concerned with the chronology of the ancient world. That is why it is categorized as “The Chronologist.”
In the study of ancient history and chronology, we are heavily dependent on king lists that were preserved by various cultures, preserving a timeline of their history.
Some king lists, such as the Turin Canon, The Assyrian King List, and the Kings of Judah in the books of Kings and Chronicles are chronologically true. This means they did not list co-reigns. Therefore if you want to find the years of a certain king’s reign, all you have to do is add up the reigns of the kings after him down to the last one whose date is known.
However, in my studies of the ancient world, I have come across exceptions to this rule in every one of the major chronologically true king lists.
The Exception
Nearly all of the exceptions I’ve found fit a similar pattern. A great king was followed by his son (or daughter) who was also a great king, but they shared a co-regency of ten years or more. The chroniclers, wanting to emphasize the long reigns of both the father and the son list both of their reigns in full but deduct the overlapping years from someone in the dynasty who was viewed as a lousy king. This kept the list chronologically true, for the most part, except for the shortened reign of the king that got shorted.
Here are the examples of this I’ve found.
The Turin Canon: Senusret III and Amenemhat III
There is no overlap between Amenemhat III and IV in the Turin Canon, which gives A IV 9+ years. From his highest monument year date, he reigned for 13 years, indicating a 4-year co-regency with Amenemhat III.
In order to add up to the full 213 years that the Turin Canon assigns to Dynasty 12, both the 39-year reign of Sensuret III and the 48-year reign of his son Amenemhat III had to be included. The thirteen years of their co-regency were deleted from the reign of Senusret II, who reigned quite long but accomplished very little.
Eratosthenes King List (EKL): Palmanothes and Apappus
The Egyptian Kings Appappus (Pepi II) and Palmanothes (Amenemhat III) are both listed in full, despite coming to the throne in the same year, 1586 BC. Pepi reigned in Memphis while Amenemhat III was the high king of Dynasty 12 over all of Egypt. Their reigns overlapped by 48 years, but both of their reigns are listed in full. The EKL makes up for it by deducting 48 years from kings of Dynasty 11.
Assyrian King List: Shalmaneser I and Tukulti Ninurta I
The Assyrian King Lists the reign of Shalmaneser I, also called Assyrian Belus, as 30 years, and his “son” Tukulti Urta I as 37 years. However, Ctesias informs us that Semiramis was the daughter of the Assyrian Belus, also called “Aku-Urtist” and “she reigned on her own for 17 years.” Subtracting the 17 from the 37 reveals that Tukulti Ninurta I had a 20-year co-reign with “his” father. I believe the Assyrian chronicler deducted the 20 years from the successor(s) of Tukulti Ninurta I to keep the list otherwise accurate.
Ptolemy's Canon: Darius the Great and Xerxes I.
They co-reigned for 10 years, but their full 36 and 21-year reigns are listed in Ptolemy’s Royal Canon. The difference was deducted by omitting the co-reign of Artaxerxes I with his son Darius-B, who attempted to assassinate his father and was killed. (Darius B is commonly said to be the son of Artaxerxes II, but fits better in the reign of Artaxerxes I.) According to the Persian and Babylonian business and astronomical tablets, Artaxerxes I ruled for two more years after his son Darius B was executed for treason. Ptolemy's Canon deleted the 8 years of Darius-B and 2 of the years of Artaxerxes I in order to allow the full reigns of Darius I and Xerxes to be listed. For support of this see page 274 of Gertoux here:
Kings and Chronicles: Jehoshaphat and Jehoram
The scriptural book of Kings informs us that Jehoshaphat reigned for 25 years (1 Kings 22:42), and his son, Jehoram, reigned for 8 years (2 Kings 8:16). However, the text of 2 Kings 8:16 says that Jehoram came to the throne while his father was King of Judah.
Floyd Nolan Jones has noted that Scripture gives Jehoram of Judah three different start dates for his reign (pro-rex, co-rex, and sole-rex), the first two of which were while Jehoshaphat his father was still on the throne. The conclusion is that Jehoram’s 8 years of rule included 4 years of co-regency with his father.
This was one of the only cases where the Bible records a co-reign for the kings of Judah. It doesn’t mean there never were co-reigns. But it means this was an exception to the usual practice of not listing overlapping years. This exception was probably made because Jehoshaphat was viewed as such a great king the inspired chronicler did not want to leave any of his years out.
Only One Exception Per King List?
Thus far, I have found only one such exception per king list. This is possible evidence for the existence of an ancient scribal convention that only one such exception was allowed for the greatest king in the king list. The fact that Scripture makes this exception for Jehoshaphat may say something about him.
There may be other examples in the Sumerian and Babylonian King Lists. These are all of the examples that I can remember at the moment.