Conventional Egyptian chronology
This is a conventional chronology of the rulers of ancient Egypt, taking into account well accepted developments during the 20th century but not including any of the major revision proposals that have also been made in that time. See also Egyptian chronology, Pharaoh.Even within a single work, often archeologists will offer several possible dates or even several whole chronologies as possibilities. Consequently, there may be discrepancies between dates shown here and in articles on particular rulers. Often there are also several possible spellings of the names.
The dates of Dynasties 1 to 10 are from Baines and Malek, Atlas of Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 1980).
The dates of Dynasties 11 to 20 are from Kitchen, “The Basics of Egyptian Chronology in Relation to the Bronze Age”, in Astrom (ed) High, Middle or Low (Gothengurg, 1987), taking his low chronology.
The dates of Dynasties 21 to 26 are from Kitchen, Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1973, Warminster).
(This information has been supplemented from The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw (Oxford, 2000), and Digital Egypt for Universities, which was developed by The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology.)
It should be noted that there is a 60 year discrepancy between the dates proposed by these two authors. There is no attempt to remove this in the combined chronology presented below, which is the “Conventional Chronology” that is quoted by David Rohl in A Test of Time (1995, Century).
All dates BC
= Early Dynastic Period =
Possible Kings of Dynasty 0
1st Dynasty 2920-2770
2nd Dynasty 2770-2650
Position uncertain
= Old Kingdom =3rd Dynasty
4th Dynasty
5th Dynasty
6th Dynasty
=First Intermediate Period=7th Dynasty
In the kinglist summaries from the third century BC historian Manetho, this is a group of 70 kings ruling 70 days: there is no evidence for this - it may be a later literary metaphor for chaos at the end of the Sixth Dynasty, chaos for which there is also no direct contemporary evidence.8th Dynasty
Kings with Unknown Position
9th and 10th Dynasty 2135-1986
11th Dynasty
=Middle Kingdom=11th Dynasty (continued)
Unknown Position
12th Dynasty
=Second Intermediate Period=13th Dynasty
21 kings for about 63 years then
Then 6 more kings for about 20 years14th Dynasty
About 76 minor kings of the Delta, contemporary with the second half of the 13th dynasty.15th Dynasty 1633-1525
16th Dynasty
32 minor kings contemporary with the 15th and 17th dynasties. 17th Dynasty 1606-1539
About 15 kings in all, contemporary with the 15th dynasty, the last three being
=New Kingdom=18th Dynasty
19th Dynasty
20th Dynasty
=Third Intermediate Period=Tanite 21st Dynasty
Theban 21st Dynasty
22nd Dynasty
23rd Dynasty
24th Dynasty
25th Dynasty
26th Dynasty
=Late Period=26th Dynasty (continued)
