Cyrus the Great Research Papers (original) (raw)

The pivotal date of 465 BCE for the death of Xerxes has been accepted by historians for many years without notable controversy. However, according to Thucydides, a historian renowned for his high chronological accuracy, Themistocles met Artaxerxes, who had succeeded Xerxes, his father, just after the fall of Nexos (The Peloponnesian War I:98;137) which occured after the fall of Skyros dated at the beginning of the archonship of Phaedo in 476 BCE, according to Plutarch (Life of Theseus §§35,36). Thus, the meeting with Themistocles would have occurred soon after 475/474, not 465/464.
The present Achaemenid chronology comes mainly from official Babylonian king lists which ignore coregents and usurpers. This official version is contradicted by contracts dated in "year, month, day" proving the existence of frequent co-regencies and usurpers. In addition, according to the astronomical tablet referenced BM 32234 the death of Xerxes is dated 14/V/21 between two lunar eclipses, one dated 14/III/21 (26 June 475 BCE), which was total, and a second dated 14/VIII/21 (20 December 475 BCE), which was partial. Thus the death of Xerxes has to be dated 24 August 475 BCE. Likewise, the death of Artaxerxes I is fixed precisely by Thucydides (The Peloponnesian War IV:50-52) just before a partial solar eclipse (21 March 424 BCE) which would imply an absurd co-regency of Darius II with a dead king for at least one year! In fact, Plutarch and Justinus have effectively described a long co-regency of Artaxerxes but with his first son Darius B (434-426), not Darius II, and afterward two shorts reigns: Xerxes II for 2 months then Sogdianus for 7 months, which occurred before the reign of Darius II.
The arrangement of the intercalary months in a chronology without co-regency has several anomalies especially the presence of two months Ulul in a single cycle. By contrast, in a chronology with co-regency, and thus two distinct cycles, the abnormal intercalary month in year 30 of Darius (Persepolis) corresponds to another cycle ending in year 4 of Xerxes. The titular of Xerxes (496-475) in Egypt and the data of Diodorus confirm the co-regency of 10 years with Darius (522-486), likewise Elephantine papyri with many double dates with civil and lunar calendars.
Lunar dates were supposed to come from a Babylonian calendar, but this is impossible because the city of Elephantine, in the far south of Egypt, was largely administered by Egyptian officials who used a civil calendar to date their documents. Parker (1950) assumed that the Egyptian lunar calendar began with the 1st invisibility (day after the new moon and just before the new crescent). As lunar day 1, called psdntyw "shining ones", has played a major role in Egyptian religious celebrations, it is regularly quoted in ancient documents, which sometimes also date it in the civil calendar. In the papyrus Louvre 7848 containing a double date, lunar and civil, in the year 44 of Amasis, the first date (II Shemu 13) is lunar and the second (I Shemu 15) is civil and as the civil date fell on 21 September 558 BCE the lunar date fell on 9 (= 21 – 12) September 558 BCE which was a full moon day according to astronomy, not 1st invisibility "shining ones"! The lunar calendar at Elephantine with its system of double dates used by Persians officials and Jewish scribes from 500 to 400 BCE confirms that the Egyptian lunar day 1 was a full moon.