Chronological Framework of Ancient Histo

Answers Research Journal 16 (2023): 635–670.
https://assets.answersresearchjournal.org/doc/v16/chronological_framework_ancient_history_5.pdf
Chronological Framework of Ancient History. 5:

The Babylonian Dynasties of Berossus
Ken Griffith and Darrell K. White, Independent Scholars, Middletown, Virginia, 22645
Abstract
The Babylonian dynasties of Berossus are incomplete. The authors solve for the missing values in
Berossus using known information. As a result, we find dates for Ninyas, the Fall of Akkad to the Guti,
Sardanapalus, and the first and second Median Revolts in the days of Ashur-danin-pal and Sargon II. We
also find clarifying information about the reign and identity of Semiramis II as a contemporary of Tukulti
Ninurta I. Finally, we identify three of the “god-kings” common to the histories of the ancient nations, as
real people in the king lists. The resulting table of Berossus covers the era from the Flood to the conquest
of Babylon by Cyrus, in 1,809 years.
Keywords: Berossus, Ancient History, Babylon, Nimrod, Sardanapalus, Trojan War, Semiramis, Menes,
Hermes, Thoth, Tukulti Ninurta I, Fall of Akkad
Chronological Framework of Ancient History chronologies of Berossus, Manetho, the Assyrian

This paper is the fifth in the Chronological King List, the Babylonian King List, and the
Framework of Ancient History series in which Sumerian King List? We believe so, but we need to
the authors attempt to build a model of ancient process them one at a time.
history using the durations recorded by the ancient The history of Mesopotamia poses a difficult
chroniclers, with the goal of finding a result that is problem because the narrative and durations passed
consistent with the biblical text. The methodology down to us by chroniclers and historians of the
for this series was developed in the first paper Greco-Roman Era appear at first glance to differ
CFAH-1 (Griffith and White 2022a). considerably from the information that has been
In each paper as we triangulate the dates for excavated and translated from tablets in the ancient
events, we number them as anchor points, which cities of the same region, such as the Sumerian,
are also recorded as a tab in the accompanying Babylonian, and Assyrian King Lists. Drews (1965)
spreadsheet, and numbered in the form AP-X, where gives an excellent account of the modern rejection of
X is the number of the anchor point in the series. The the ancient Greek universal histories of Assyria and
“Anchor Points” tab lists the anchor points in the Babylonia, followed by their partial reconciliation
order they are determined for the first five papers, with the tablets excavated in the past two centuries.
and lists the paper in this series as CFAH-X where Berossus records eight dynasties that ruled over
X is the paper. You are currently reading CFAH-5. Babylon from shortly after the Flood down to the
We will release updates to the spreadsheet as the Persian Conquest of Babylon. However, the tablets
series progresses. Previous papers in the series are recovered from Sumer seem to indicate that Babylon
available at the Answers Research Journal website. was an Amorite colony that was founded during the
Akkadian Era, centuries after the oldest cities in
Introduction Sumeria (Oppenheim 1964, 155).
In papers CFAH-2 (Griffith and White 2022b) We believe that both sets of information were
through CFAH-4 (Griffith and White 2023b), we originally valid, and with some error checking, may
have shown that the ancient chroniclers had access be completely reconciled. However, to do this in detail
to information that allowed them to accurately will first require a detailed revision of the chronology
calculate durations back to key events in ancient of Egypt.
history; and we defined a method of triangulating In this paper, we will work out and restore the full
these durations that allows dates for events in chronology of the eight dynasties of Berossus and will
ancient history to be firmly established. Using this show that it fits with the Sumerian King List and
methodology to filter durations given by the ancient Babylonian King List, at least as far as the dates for
chroniclers has allowed, so far, some 30 key events the Fall of Akkad, and the conquest of Babylon by
in ancient history to be triangulated. Table 1 shows Semiramis II. In the paper, CFAH-15, we will revisit
anchor points relevant to this paper. the subject and attempt to synchronize the king lists
The question is whether this forms a reliable of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Sumer, and Elam in
chronological framework. Can we integrate the greater detail.
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636 Ken Griffith and Darrell K. White
Table 1. Anchor points relevant to this paper (known dates).

# Event Date BC Paper
1 Babel Founded 2234/2233 CFAH-2
2 Dispersion 2192/2191 CFAH-2
3 Egyptian Cities Founded 2189/2188 CFAH-2
6 VAT-4956 Nebuchadnezzar II Year 37 568/567 CFAH-3
7 Era of Cyrus 560/559 CFAH-3
9 Era of Nabonassar 747 CFAH-3
10 Era of the Olympiads 776/775 CFAH-3
11 Era of Rome 753 CFAH-3
12 Fall of Troy 1184/1183 CFAH-3
13 Battle of Salamis 480 CFAH-3
15 Semiramis II 1232/1231 CFAH-3
19 Phoroneus 1753 CFAH-3
21 Semiramis I 2036/2035 CFAH-3
22 Thoth brings Writing to Egypt, War of Unification 2164 CFAH-3
23 Kali Yuga 3104 CFAH-3
27 First Territorial Division 2254 CFAH-4
28 Second and Final Territorial Division 2247 CFAH-4
29 The Flood 2348 CFAH-4
30 Creation 4004 CFAH-4
A Brief Historical Review of language of civilizations from the Akkadian Empire

Sumeria, Akkad, and Assyria down until the defeat of the Achaemenid Empire by
The conventional chronology of the Ancient Near Alexander in 331 B.C. The city of Akkad is not believed
East recognizes a series of civilizations that occupied to have been found yet by archaeologists, though we will
and ruled the region that is today called Iraq. argue that Akkad was the same city known as Babylon.
Sumerians Assyrian Empire

While the pre-Pottery Neolithic A and succeeding About 550 km north of the oldest cities of Sumeria
cultures are recognized as the oldest civilizations on was a city named Asshur, which became the seat of
earth, the earliest cities in the lower Mesopotamian the later Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians worshiped
plains were built by the Ubaid and Uruk cultures. the biblical Asshur, son of Shem (Genesis 10:22) as
These gave rise to a civilization called the Sumerians, their ancestral god. The Assyrians spoke a dialect
whose primary cities were Uruk, Kish, Ur, Nippur, of Akkadian for most of their 1,300 year history
Eridu, Isin, and Larsa, all of which lay near the Tigris until their final 150 years when Tiglath Pileser III
and Euphrates rivers on the plains above the Persian changed the official language to Aramaic. Thus, one
Gulf. The Sumerians developed cuneiform writing might argue that Assyria was an ethnic subset of the
from pictographs invented by their second king, En- Akkadian culture.
mer-kar, whom Rohl (1995, 206–207) identified as
Nimrod. They spoke an agglutinative language that Intermediate Civilizations
has not been conclusively linked to any other known In addition to these three oldest civilizations of
language family (Michalowski 2004). Sumer, Akkad, and Assyria, several other ethnic
groups struggled with Assyria for power in the region.
Akkadian Empire These included the Guti, the Amorites, the Kassites,
Several centuries after the Dispersion, Sargon the Hurrians, and the Elamites.
of Akkad conquered his Sumerian neighbors and
created one of the first recognized empires. The city of The Guti
Akkad was located to the North of Sumer and created The Gutean people, from the land of Gutium in
an empire that lasted about a century and a half. the mountains northeast of Assyria, defeated the
The Akkadian language was Semitic, related to Akkadian Empire and, according to the Sumerian
Hebrew, but used the Sumerian cuneiform script and King List, ruled Sumer for several generations. Very
became the primary administrative and diplomatic little is known about them other than what can be
Chronology For Ancient History 5: The Babylonian Dynasties of Berossus 637
discerned from their names. By their neighbors, they Mitanni. They seem to have come to dominate the
were called the Quti, Kurti, and Kuti. region of Upper Mesopotamia in the centuries after
the Amorite invasion of Akkad.
The Amorites
The Amorites were Semitic-speaking westerners The Elamites
who invaded the region of Sumer and Akkad along Alongside all of these, the nation of Elam, another
with or shortly after the Gutean defeat of Akkad. The of Shem’s sons, lay to the southeast of Sumer and
name Amorite, written as “Amurru” in Sumerian, was Akkad. Elam periodically invaded or was invaded by
derived from the word Martu, which meant “West” the major powers of the Babylonian heartland until
in the Sumerian language. Thus, the Amorites were it was conquered by King Asshurbanipal of Assyria
westerners from the perspective of Sumeria. Biblical in the seventh century before Christ and given to his
archaeologists have assumed since the nineteenth allied tribe, the Parsua, which is to say, the Persians.
century that the Amurru of Sumeria were the same
people as the biblical Amorites (Genesis 10:16), one of The Babylonian History of Berossus
the tribes descended from Canaan. Berossus was a Babylonian priest of Bel-
This assumption may not be fully justified, in Marduk who wrote a three-volume history entitled
part because the signs for syllables in cuneiform and Babyloniaca from 290 to 278 B.C. under the
hieroglyphic scripts are not necessarily written in the sponsorship of Antiochus I Soter of the Seleucid
order they were pronounced. Shem had another son, Empire. However, his work was dedicated to the
Aram, whose tribe in Hebrew and Semitic languages successor, Antiochus Theos, who came to the throne
was called “Aramu.” Aramu and Amurru could be in 262 B.C. Berossus was a contemporary of Manetho
easily written the same way in cuneiform script. and the 70 rabbis who translated the Septuagint in
Furthermore, the Sumerian Amurru could refer to a the competing kingdom of Ptolemaic Egypt.
wide set of western tribes, while the biblical Amorites We begin the reconstruction of ancient history
were a specific tribe of Canaanites who lived between with Berossus’ Babylonian History for three reasons.
Bashan and the Mediterranean coast. First, it appears that Berossus had access to
In English translations of the Bible, the tribe precise and trustworthy data.
descended from Aram is called the Arameans, and Second, details, including exact durations, for each
their language, which was later used by Christ, was dynasty except the first, third, and seventh have
called Aramaic. The Semitic-speaking Amorites survived.
came to dominate the region around Babylon, and And, third, the history of Berossus is
eventually founded the “Amorite Dynasty of Babylon” chronologically one of the most complete, outside of
of which Hammurabi was the most famous king. the Bible, stretching from the Creation to the end of
the Achaemenid Empire.
The Kassites The original writings of Berossus are no longer
The Kassites, who called themselves “Kassu,” extant, but his chronology can be pieced together
invaded the region of Babylonia from the northwest (table 2) from ancient chroniclers who quoted his
at least a century after the Amorites did. Their name works (King 1907, 90–91).
for Babylonia was “Karduniash,” and they ruled from Given some durations from other historical
an administrative center in the city of Nippur, as sources, this is like a matrix or puzzle for which we
well as the fortress, Dur Kurigalzu, in the North, and have enough known information from other sources
Sealand in the South. The Kassites were the major to solve for the missing values.
faction that opposed the Assyrians in the struggle to Table 2. Babylonian dynasties of Berossus.
control Babylon for nearly six centuries.
Dynasty Reigns Dynasty Duration
Sargon II referred to Merodach Baladan as a
“Kaldu,” which was the Assyrian way of saying Kassite. Period 1 10 432,000
Given that some languages and dialects replace “r” Period 2 86 34,080
with “l” and vice versa, it seems likely that the name 1 ? Chaldean ?
Karduniash was the source of the word “Chaldean.” 2 8 Median 224
3 11 Interregnum ?
The Hurrians 4 49 Chaldean 458
Another tribe of nomadic people lived in the
5 9 Arabian 245
region between Carchemish on the Euphrates and
the Upper Tigris River. They are referred to as the 6 45 Assyrian 526
Hurri or Hurrians in Assyrian correspondence, and 7 ? Assyrian ?

they were sometimes ruled by another group called 8 6 Chaldean 87
Before attempting to place the dynasties of this destruction of the Assyrian Empire in the End of
Berossus, let’s review two key rulers that anchor his his Reign . . . (Jackson 1752, 257)
chronology: Semiramis II and Sardanapalus. According to [Ctesias], for 30 generations after
Ninyas, the kings led a life of luxury and indolence in
Semiramis II : 1232 B.C. their palace; the last of them, Sardanapalus, made a
Reviewing what we found in Griffith and White vigorous defense against Arbaces, the rebel governor
(2023a), “Anchor Points of Ancient History,” the of Media, but finding it impossible to defend Nineveh,
second Queen Semiramis is thus far unattested by he set fire to his palace, and burnt himself with all
that name from archaeology. Yet, she is one of the his treasures; this event took place 1306 years after
best-dated characters in ancient history. Ninus. (Chambers 1880, 811)
We have 12 durations to her conquest of Babylon, Eusebius quotes Abydenus, “Then he lists [the
six from the Trojan war and later events, and six kings of the Assyrians] from Ninus and Semiramis
back to the founding eras of the Flood, Babel, and the up until Sardanapallus, who was the last of all
Dispersion. The actions of defeating the Arabs and the kings; and from Sardanapallus until the first
conquering Babylon, as well as the dates attributed Olympiad, there are 67 years.” (Bosanquet 1873, 167;
to her match the era of Shalmaneser I and Tukulti Eusebius 2008, 53)
Ninurta I. The chroniclers testify that she was the The Greek scholars citing Ctesias give between
daughter of “Assyrian Belus,” whom we identify as 41 and 31 generations, and between 1,460 to 1,280
Shalmaneser I, and she was therefore either the sister years for the Assyrian civilization. It seems difficult
or wife of Tukulti-Ninurta or possibly even Tukulti to believe they were reading the same source.
Ninurta, himself. Alternatively, the later chroniclers Adding to the confusion of the Greek chroniclers
beginning with Berossus may have misinterpreted themselves, the later chroniclers such as Eusebius
the Tukulti Ninurta Epic to conclude that this was a interpreted Sardanapalus as Esarhaddon or
woman rather than a man. Nabopolassar, and modern scholars have offered
In addition to the 12 durations to her reign already both Ashurbanipal (Nichols 2008) and Tiglath
cited, we will bring to bear several more, as well as an Pileser III as candidates for Sardanapalus, despite
inscription from the palace of Tukulti Ninurta I that the fact that his legend resembles neither of those
hints that “he” may have been a woman ruling as a strong kings.
male king. These will pinpoint the reign of Tukulti It appears to us, as long ago stated by the
Ninurta I relative to his father Shalmaneser I, and chronicler Hellanicus, that there were two different
also confirm our placement of the Fall of Akkad. kings understood by the name Sardanapalus (Drews
1965, 130).
Sardanapalus The first of these, Ashur-danin-pal, son of
Sardanapalus was supposedly the last king of the Shalmaneser III, coreigned with his father from
Assyrian Empire, however, the chroniclers seem to 843 to 823 B.C. As per Abydenus, the reign of
have conflated several different people under this Sardanapallus began 67 years before the Olympic
name, and if we include modern scholars, at least six Era, giving 843 B.C. (Smith 2008, 53). Ashur-danin-
different men have been identified as Sardanapalus. pal made Nineveh his citadel and fought a civil war
Let’s review the ancient sources: against his father prior to his death. Transliterating
Syncellus: Sardanapalus was the last of 41 Ashur-danin-pal into Greek yields “Sardanapalus”
Assyrian kings whose reigns totaled 1,460 years. (Klonsky 1974, 2).
(Browne 1844, 559) Vellieus Paterculus claimed that Sardanapalus
Castor of Rhodes: A second Ninus gained the died 870 years before his time, which gives 841 B.C.,
Assyrian Empire after the death of Sardanapalus, yet he references four other events at the same time
which was 1,280 years after the first Ninus. (Cory which cluster around 823 B.C. (Paterculus 1924, I.6.1-
1876, 91) 4). This suggests he was referring to Ashur-danin-pal
Ctesius: “[Assyrians in Asia] . . . reigned for thirty as Sardanapalus but confused the start of his coreign
generations down to Sardanapalus; for it was under with his death.
this ruler that the Empire of the Assyrians fell to the Berossus or his redactors appear to have confused
Medes, after it had lasted more than thirteen hundred Sardanapalus with Sargon II, as he places the end
years, as Ctesias of Cnidus says in his Second Book” of the first Assyrian Dynasty of Babylon in 706 B.C.,
(Diodorus 1935, vol. 1, book 2, 423). which was followed by a Median revolt until 700.
Ctesias [recorded] . . . that Sardanapalus, in whose Arbaku the Mede paid tribute to Sargon II in 713 B.C.,
reign the Medes and Babylonians took Nineveh, (Luckenbill 1989, vol. 2, §192) and may have been
and destroyed the Assyrian Empire, which was the Arbaces credited with slaying the misidentified
thenceforth transferred to the Medes, and so placed Sardanapalus.
Abydenus confused the issue even further by There are two possible meanings for this period.
conflating Tiglath Pileser, Nabopolassar, and First, Hamilton argues from the Hindu records of the
Sardanapalus as one king (Clinton 1824, 267). He predeluvial era that this 120 saroi of 1,200 “prophetic
apparently thought the P-L-S consonants in all of years” of 360 day years, being 1,182 Julian years,
their names signified they were the same man. This only counted from the “return of Atri,” or Cain, to the
shows the pitfall of building chronology on etymology realm of Eden 474 years after Creation, to the Flood
rather than vice versa. itself (Hamilton 1820, vol. 1, 359, 279–402). Thus,
In the Assyrian records, there were two revolts Hamilton places these 120 decades as being the time
of the Medes. The eponyms for the last four years of of the rule of Cain and his descendants.
Shalmaneser III say “revolt” (Glassner 2005, #9). His Alternatively, these 1,200 years could count
successor, Shamshi Adad V, recorded that his older from Creation to the Flood using the cipher of the
brother Ashur-danin-pal had led the entire nation to Babylonians and Hindus, as explained below. As
rebel against his father, and then the subject nations seen in Griffith and White (2023b), this 120 saroi
rebelled too (Luckenbill 1989, vol. 1, §254). In his third may represent a priestly symbolic period of the “120
campaign, Shamshi-Adad V reconquered the Medes years” in Genesis 6:3, where they used multiplication
(Luckenbill 1989, vol. 1, §257). Gertoux (2016) argues and division to transform the days of the actual
that Jonah’s mission to Nineveh occurred in the middle period of 1,656 years before the Flood into a form of
of this revolt in the year 824 B.C. The second revolt of the number 120.
the Medes occurred when Sargon II was slain in 705 As noted by Hamilton and Bosanquet (Bosanquet
and appears to have lasted five years until 700 B.C. 1880, 27; Hamilton 1820, vol. 1, 279–402), the
Some of the Greek chroniclers, such as Abydenus, Hindus apparently multiplied 120 times seven days
also seem to have confused these two revolts of the of a week, times two for mornings and evenings, to
Medes with the fall of Nineveh to Cyaxares the Mede get 1,680 prophetic years from Adam to the Flood.
and Nabopolassar the Babylonian in 612 B.C. Then they multiplied by 360 days and divided by
Finally, we must conclude that while the original 365.25 to get 1655.85 Julian years from Adam to
work of Ctesias appears to have been valid and the Flood, which is within two months of the value
detailed information, by the third century of the in the Masoretic Text. This interpretation suggests
Christian Era, the Greek and Roman chroniclers that the 120 saroi duration of the Predeluvian kings
completely misunderstood Assyrian history, largely in Berossus is symbolic rather than literal.
due to confusion over the identity and time of Of the two possibilities, we consider Hamilton’s first
Sardanapalus. A number of the durations recorded by to be more likely to be correct, that the Babylonian
Ctesias were preserved by them, but not necessarily 120 saroi is counting the rule of the patriarchs in
in the correct context. the line of Cain from the date of Cain’s return to the
The confusion about Assyrian history continued Land of Eden until the Flood extinguished his line.
from the Roman Era until the Assyrian tablets For a detailed reconstruction of the history of the
were deciphered in the nineteenth century of the 1656 years from Creation until the Flood, Hamilton
Christian era. The discovery and translation of the (1820) integrated the writings of the Hindus, Chinese,
Assyrian King List and several historical chronicles and Babylonians with the Masoretic Text of the Bible.
have greatly aided the reconstruction of Assyrian His two volumes are worth reading, with the warning
history. However, there still remain some confusing that he strays into ecumenism at several points.
and contested points that directly impact Biblical
chronology, particularly concerning the reigns of Period 2—From the Flood to the
Sargon II, Sennacherib, and Shalmaneser III, and First Division of the Earth
supposed identifications of Ahab and Jehu in the Period 2 falls immediately after the Flood and has
Assyrian inscriptions. 34,080 “years,” though Polyhistor gives an alternate
With those caveats in mind, we will proceed to reading of 33,091 years. Interpreting the 34,080
attempt a reconstruction of the dynasties of Berossus. of Period 2 as days yields 93.3 Julian years from
the Flood to the beginning of the First Dynasty of
Period 1—The Prediluvian Kings Babylon, which we identify as the rule of Bel Marduk,
Period 1 (table 2) is considered to represent the which was the Babylonian deification of Cush, the
time from Creation to the Great Flood. The 10 reigns son of Ham (fig. 1).
match the 10 Patriarchs before the Flood in number As Cush, with the help of Nimrod, was the
but not in actual years of reign. As mentioned builder of Babel, he must have begun to rule in some
in Griffith and White (2022a), the 432,000 years sense prior to the ritual founding of that city. The
represent 120 saroi of 3,600 days, which signifies chroniclers preserve three different durations for the
about 1,200 years. rule of “Belus”: 62 years, 55 years, and the duration
Fig. 1. Durations to Berossus Period 2. Painting of Yao by Kanō Sansetsu.Japan, Edo period, 1632. Kanō Sansetsu
(狩野山雪 1589–1651) “Japanese painting of the legendary Chinese Emperor Yao, by Kanō Sansetsu. From a
folio depicting varioius Confucian figures,” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Confucian_Figures_-_
Painting_of_Emperor_Yao_by_Kan%C5%8D_Sansetsu.jpg. CC BY-4.0.
of the Tower of Babel as 42 or 43 years, as we found first division, probably into quarters, occurred in
in Griffith and White (2022b). 2254 B.C. Griffith and White (2023b, 478, AP-27), and
The variants of Ctesias that have been passed down the final division of the earth into territories for the
to us have two durations for the length of the reign 70 nations occurred in 2247 B.C., the year of Peleg’s
of Belus, the first king at Babel. Syncellus records birth (Griffith and White 2023b, 478, AP-28).
55 years, while Scaliger recorded 62 years (Clinton Counting back from the Usurpation of Pradyato
1824, 267). When placed before the Dispersion in in Kali Year 1000, or 2104 B.C., by 150 years yields
2192/2191 B.C., these come to 2254 and 2247 B.C. 2254 B.C. for the division of the earth by which the
for the start of the reign of Belus. These two dates Hindus began to count their own nation’s history.
correspond to the first and second divisions of the The first division in 2254 B.C. preceded the
earth mentioned in the Book of Jubilees and Genesis founding of Babel by 21 years. But after the disaster
Griffith and White (2023b, AP-27, AP-28). of the confusion of tongues, we can see how a nation
This interpretation is confirmed by the Hindu
might have counted their history as beginning with
record that they ruled themselves for 150 years after
the division of the earth when they were first given a
the division of the earth prior to the Usurpation of
claim of title to the territory that would become their
Pradyato which was 1,000 years after the Kali Yuga
nation.
(Hamilton 1820, vol. 1, 153).
Given that the Flood occurred in 2348 B.C., which
3104 B.C. Kali Yuga; minus, was Kali Year 756, this leaves 94 years from the end
1,000 years; gives: of the Flood to the first division of the earth.
2104 B.C. Usurpation of Pradyato
2348 B.C. year of the Flood; minus,
In the previous paper, Griffith and White (2023b), 94 years to the First Division of the earth; minus,
we triangulated anchor points for the first and 150 years of Hindu self-rule; gives:
second divisions of the earth by the patriarchs. The 2104 B.C. Usurpation of Pradyato
Thus the 34,080-day duration of Period 2, being As noted above, the original Sardanapalus was
93.3 Julian years, or 94.7 years of 360 days, averaged Ashur-danin-pal who died shortly after his father in
as 94 years exactly, triangulates with the Hindu 823 B.C., therefore Berossus or his copyists appear to
records, as well as the Book of Jubilees which says have confused him with the Assyrian king who was
that the children of Noah secretly divided the earth killed in the second Median revolt.
among themselves seven years before the final Regarding the Median revolt, Herodotus relates
division of the earth (Charles 1913, 8.9) in the year (Herodotus 1862, Book I, §95):
that Peleg was born, thus in 2254 B.C. This presents The Assyrians had held the empire of Upper Asia for
the picture that the division of the earth was a seven- the space of five hundred and twenty years, when the
year process. Medes set the example of revolt from their authority.
Rawlinson cited Gutschmid who had first They took arms for the recovery of their freedom, and
suggested that the 86 “kings” for Period 2 in Berossus fought a battle with the Assyrians, in which they
appear to represent a checksum, which is a number behaved with such gallantry as to shake off the yoke
used to verify the accuracy of the data. We will of servitude, and to become a free people. Upon their
solve for the missing numbers in the eight historical success the other nations also revolted and regained
dynasties, and then return to the question of Period 2 their independence.
and the reign of Belus, the first king at Babel. Counting from Semiramis II in 1232 B.C., 520 years
In order to solve for the missing values in dynasties brings us to 712 B.C. in the reign of Sargon II, plus
1, 3, and 7 we must first see if the dynasties with or minus five years, which is close to the date that
complete information can be anchored. Then we will Deioces (Day-ee-ohk-keys) became king of the Medes.
solve for the unknown values from the known. (Note We interpret this passage to mean that the
that our anchor points for the dynasties appear out of Median revolt began when Sargon was ambushed
order, until the end when listed in chronological order.) on a campaign to Anatolia early in 705 B.C., and as
soon as news of his death spread, the other nations
Dynasty 6: 526 years of Assyrian Rule of Babylon revolted. Sennacherib’s attention was focused on
Berossus identifies Semiramis II at the beginning putting down rebellions for the next several years so
and “Phallus,” which is short for Sardanapalus, at that the Medes were able to gain their independence
the end of Dynasty 6. Most scholars speculate on by 700 B.C..
the identity of Sardanapalus, but our anchor point The Royal Canon of Ptolemy lists the Babylonian
for Semiramis II provides the key. Semiramis II kings back to Nabonassar in 747 B.C. The Canon
began her sole reign in 1232 B.C. (Griffith and White records two kingless years in Babylon following the
2023a, 135, AP-15) and the Sixth Dynasty lasted 526 final year of Sargon II.
years, so 706/705 B.C. would be the date for the end Ptolemy’s Canon agrees with Berossus that
of Dynasty 6 when Assyrian control of Babylon was disruption of Assyrian rule over Babylon occurred at
interrupted. 705 B.C. was the year that Sargon II was this time, but places Sargon’s final year one year later
killed by a rebellion near Tabal in Anatolia (fig. 2). in 705/704 B.C. rather than 706/705 B.C., as our duration
From the annals of Sargon and his son, to Semiramis suggests. The two kingless years in
Sennacherib, we know that Elam conquered and held Ptolemy suggest a rebellion or war, though it could
portions of lower Babylonia for two or three years also be caused by the later Neo-Babylonians striking
prior to the year the chroniclers count as the start Sennacherib out of their king list because he destroyed
of “the Median Revolt” (Luckenbill 1989, vol. 2, §42, the city of Babylon later in his reign. Sennacherib is
§234–254). This Elamite incursion occurred between listed as king of Babylon for those two years in the
Sargon’s defeat of Merodach Baladan in 710 B.C., and Babylonian King List B (Pritchard 1969, 272).
his final campaign to conquer the Chaldean holdouts The Greek chroniclers place the end of the
in Bit Yakin in 706 B.C. Assyrian Empire variously in 608, 612, 700, 705,
Thus, the Median Revolt, which is unrelated to 824, or 843 B.C. But we know that Nineveh was not
Median Dynasty 2 of Berossus, began with the death destroyed until 612 B.C., and the last forces of Ashur-
of Sargon II in 705 and culminated with Median Uballit II were scattered in 608 B.C.
independence in 700 B.C. This discrepancy is probably due to the fact that
However, there were actually two such wars that the Greeks got their Assyrian chronology from
could be called Median revolts, which is why the Ctesias, who was the medical doctor to the Persian
chroniclers confused them, and three if we count the King Artaxerxes II and had access to the archives of
destruction of Nineveh by Cyaxares in 612 B.C. The the Medes and Persians. From the perspective of the
earlier Median revolt coincided with the rebellion Medes, they were dominated by Assyria in some form
of Ashur-danin-pal from 826 to 822 in the last four or other for over 14 centuries, until 700 B.C., when they
years of Shalmaneser III. obtained independence under the reign of Deioces.
Fig. 2. Durations to Berossus Dynasty 6. Eugène Delacroix. The Death of Sardanapalus. Oil on canvas. 12’ 1” × 16’
3”. Louvre. “La Mort de Sardanapale,” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix_-_La_
Mort_de_Sardanapale.jpg. Public Domain.
AP-32: Deioces the Mede: 710/709 B.C. 1232 B.C. Semiramis II; minus,
The “Deioces” of Herodotus and Ctesias appears 520 years to Deioces; gives:
to be based on the Da-a-a-uk-ku mentioned as a 712 B.C. ±5 years for the accession of Deioces (717–707 B.C.)
governor of Mannea in Sargon’s annals, and his
family as Bit Da-a-uku. Sargon captured him in his Counting from the other direction:
seventh campaign and deported him with his family
to Northern Syria (Luckenbill 1989, vol. 2, §6–11). The
53 years Deioces reigned (I.102)
question is whether the career of Deioces was ended
by Sargon in that year, or did Sargon inadvertently 22 years Phraortes (I.103)
give him the opportunity which enabled him to 28 years under Scythia
become King of the Medes? 40 years Cyaxares
Deioces was the King of the Medes during what 35 years Astyages gives:
Ctesias called, “the Median revolt,” in which Sargon 150 years from Deioces to defeat of Astyages; added to,
was slain and Media became independent of Assyria. 560 B.C. reign of Cyrus; gives:
The Assyrians however, did not look at it quite that 710 B.C. ±2 years reign of Deioces
way. After Sargon was killed, Sennacherib fought
revolts for the next five years, but still viewed himself From Ctesias we have a different list of Median
as the ruler of the “Four Quarters of the Earth.”
kings starting about a century and a half earlier.
Herodotus (1862, Book I, §95) gives 520 years of
The years for the last king are not preserved, but
Assyrian rule before Deioces became king, which
is 520 years after Semiramis II in 1232 B.C., giving most scholars equate Aspondas with Astyages, so
712 B.C. But he only counts 150 years from Deioces we will substitute his reign for the missing value.
to the defeat of Astyages by Cyrus, which is usually Starting from the king near the time of Deioces his
dated 550 B.C. list is: (Diodorus 2004, 2.31.10-34.6)
22 Arbianes who is usually identified as Tiglath-Pileser III.
40 Artaios Then they place the end of Dynasty 6 of Babylon
22 Artines in 747 B.C. Since modern scholarship assigns a new
40 Astibaras dynasty to Babylon in 747 B.C., matching the Era of
[35] Aspondas; gives: Nabonassar, they assume that Berossus must have
159 years before the defeat of Astyages; added to, started a new dynasty at that time also. Rawlinson
550 B.C. defeat of Astyages; gives: arbitrarily assigned an additional 28 years to the
709 B.C.±2 years reign of Arbianes/Deioces reign of Pul in order to match his chronological
system, resulting in 775 B.C. for the end of dynasty
In calculating the reign of Deioces from Herodotus, six. Contradicting Rawlinson, we previously
most scholars use the start of Cyrus’ sole reign, demonstrated Brahe’s hypothesis that 747 B.C. was
558 B.C., yielding 708 B.C. for Deioces’ reign, but if a calendar reform similar to the Gregorian reform of
using the start of Cyrus’ co-reign, 560/559 B.C., it the Julian Calendar, not a new Babylonian dynasty
yields 710/709 B.C. for the start of Deioces’ reign. Thus (Griffith and White 2022b).
it appears that Herodotus counted from the accession Castor of Rhodes: 843 B.C.: Velleius Paterculus,
of Cyrus as coregent with his father in 560 B.C. and who published his book around the time of Christ’s
omitted one or two rulers between Deioces and Cyrus, ministry, states that Media started to break away
while Ctesias counted the period from the actual date from Assyria some 870 years before his era, after
of the defeat of Astyages, ten years later, in 550 B.C. the monarchy had lasted for 1,070 years. He appears
The best fit for all this information is Deioces to have been following Castor, a contemporary of
starting to reign between 711 and 708 B.C., Berossus Julius Caesar, who dated the first breaking away
Dynasty 6 of Babylon ending with the death of of the Medes to 843 B.C., which was the first year
Sargon II in 705 B.C., and the culmination of the of the co-reign of Ashur-danin-pal with his father
Median Revolt five years later in 700 B.C. Shalmaneser III.
The reign of Deioces is pivotal to the history Castor may have been nearly correct, as the
of both the Medes and the Hittites, which we eponyms 20 years later for the years 826 to 823 for
will examine in the forthcoming paper, CFAH- Shalmaneser III all say “revolt.”
13. The durations present the picture that by The question is what he meant by “the monarchy.”
transplanting Deioces from Mannea in Northwest Was he counting from the reign of Ninus or the death
Iran to Northern Syria, Sargon gave Deioces the of Ninyas?
opportunity that enabled him to become a king over Using 823 B.C. for the death of Sardanapalus,
the nomadic Umman Manda tribes that ranged the 1,070 year duration of Paterculus only reaches
between Anatolia and Iran, from which position he to 1893 B.C. If Paterculus had counted from the Era
stirred up the rebellion that ambushed and killed of Augustus, 27 B.C., then his 870 plus 1,070 year
Sargon eight years later. durations go back to 1968 B.C. which was the death
Technically, Deioces began to reign as a judge in of Ninyas/Gilgamesh. But this gives 897 B.C. for the
Mannea shortly before Sargon deported him in 714. “breaking away” of the Medes.
But by 708 he and his son had created a new alliance in As argued above there were two Median revolts,
the region North of the Taurus Mountains, including 122 years apart. If we analyze the passage of
the Cimmerians in Cappadocia, the tribes of Urartu Paterculus, he gives four other events related to
in Armenia, and perhaps Media in the East. Sardanapalus, clustered around 823 B.C., which year
saw the defeat of Ashur-danin-pal. Therefore, it
Conflicting Interpretations for Dynasty 6 would seem that Paterculus counted the 870 years
Most scholars focus on Sardanapalus or the Median back to the start of the 20 year coreign of Ashur-
Revolt, the most popular interpretations being: danin-pal in 843 B.C.
Mainstream: 612 B.C.: Many secular scholars are It appears he made a 55 year error regardless of
certain that Berossus and Herodotus confused the which starting point we use. We consider it most
Median revolt with the end of the Assyrian Empire likely he correctly counted 844/843 as the start of
(Grote 2022, 865). They argue that Berossus and the reign of Sardanapalus, and thus his 1,070 year
Herodotus are in error, and Nineveh fell only once, duration was 55 years short, if he meant to count
in 612 B.C. It is clear that the Assyrian Empire fell back to the 1968 B.C. death of Ninyas.
in 612 B.C., but some scholars make unwarranted Freret: 898 B.C.: Freret interpreted the 870 years
assumptions which cause them to reject the testimony of Paterculus from the era of Augustus, 28/27 B.C.,
of Berossus and Herodotus. concluding the Median break away started in
Pul: 747/775 B.C.: Eusebius and Rawlinson 898 B.C., and therefore the Assyrian Monarchy,
identified Sardanapalus as the Pul of the Bible, which had lasted 1,070 years to this time, started in
1968 B.C., the year that Ninyas/Gilgamesh died. Some We have no surviving record of self-immolation
chronologists incorrectly interpret this breaking by Sargon II or Ashur-danin-pal. This may be an
away as the Median Revolt. Freret’s interpretation embellishment of Sardanapalus based on Shamash-
appears confirmed by Justin as follows: (Russell shum-ukin, the older brother of Ashurbanipal who
1827, vol. 2, 69). burned down the palace of Babylon around himself
Justin, the abbreviator of Trogus Pompeius, relates in 648 B.C.
that the kingdom of the Medes, from Arbaces to Second, the 1,306 year duration assumes that
Cyrus, continued 350 years. . . . The calculation of Sardanapallus died the same year as the culmination
Velleius [Paterculus] would give 338 [years], that is of the second Median Revolt in 700 B.C. As they give
to say, 12 years less than Justin, and 19 less than Sardanapalus 20 years of reign, this would have
would result from a computation founded on the matched Sargon II, whose reign began in 720 or 721,
length of the reigns as recorded by Herodotus. except that he died in 705. Thus the chroniclers add
Freret’s interpretation of Paterculus assigns an extra five years to the “Sardanapalus” who was
338 years between Arbaces, the first Median king, killed by the Medes.
and Cyrus’ coreign in 560/559 B.C., which yields
898/897 B.C. for Arbaces, when Media started to break AP-43: Conclusions for Dynasty 6: 1232–706 B.C.
away. This may refer to a third event. We have found strong triangulations to the
We conclude that Berossus’ Sixth Dynasty of reign of Semiramis II when Dynasty 6 began in
Babylon lasted from 1232/1231 B.C. to 706/705 B.C. 1232/1231 B.C., as well as to Sargon II with whom
with the Median Revolt culminating in independence Dynasty Six ended in 705 B.C. However, all of the
six years later in 700 B.C. chronicler’s durations point to the death of Sargon
Since the chroniclers gave durations to two in 706 B.C., when Assyrian sources pinpoint it to
different “Sardanapalus” and two different Median 705 B.C. This appears to be a one year error in the
Revolts, we will make them anchor points to chronological scheme of Berossus.
distinguish them. The primary person on whom the legend of
Sardanapalus was based appears to have been Ashur-
AP-33: Defeat of Sardanapalus I—Ashur-danin- danin-pal, the son of Shalmaneser III, who coreigned
pal—First Median Revolt: 826–822 B.C. with his father from 843 until his death in 824 B.C.
The real person named Sardanapalus was Ashur- Durations given by the chroniclers to Sardanapalus
danin-pal who was defeated and presumably died in may refer to Sargon, Ashur-danin-pal, or to the fall
the last year of Shalmaneser III, 823 B.C. (Luckenbill of Assyria in the time of Ashur-Uballit II. The event
1989, vol. 1, 254). His rebellion also led the Medes intended by the chroniclers must be determined by
and other nations to rebel against Assyria, thus we the context.
count this as the First Median Revolt. The First Assyrian Dynasty of Babylon, as
Berossus called it, was founded by an Assyrian
AP-34: Sardanapalus II—Sargon II: King, Tukulti Ninurta I, and also ended with three
Second Median Revolt: 705–700 B.C. Assyrian kings ruling Babylon. Those were Tiglath
Based on the date of his death, Sargon II appears Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, and Sargon II.
to be the second person referred to by the chroniclers However, during much of the interval between
as Sardanapalus, despite that not being his name. Tukulti Ninurta and Tiglath Pileser, the kings
Perhaps one of the chroniclers decided that “Sargon” of Babylon appear to have been appointed by the
was meant to be “Sardan.” Kassites whose administrative capital was the city
Sargon’s death by the hand of the Umman Manda of Nippur. Therefore the “First Assyrian Dynasty” of
tribes in 705 B.C. was the opening volley of the Second Babylon was not controlled by Assyria for much of
Median Revolt, which appears to have been successful its 526 years of existence. Berossus appears to have
by 700 B.C. Although Esarhaddon later had a vassal named it thus simply as a way of dividing Babylonian
treaty with the Scythians and Medes under Bartatua/ history between major events.
Phraortes, they were never completely subjugated by
Assyria again. AP-45: Dynasty 8: Neo-Babylonian
The 1,306 year duration given by Ctesias from Empire: 626–539 B.C.
Ninyas to Sardanapallus appears to count from It is generally agreed that the Eighth Dynasty
2006 B.C., the start of the coreign of Ninyas, to of Berossus, known as the Neo-Babylonian Empire,
700 B.C., the culmination of the Second Median lasted 87 years from 626/625 B.C., when Nabopolassar
Revolt. However, there are two problems. took the kingship of Babylon away from Assyria, until
First, Ctesias or his redactors confused this 539 B.C. when Babylon was conquered by Darius the
event with the self-immolation by Sardanapallus. Mede and Cyrus the Persian.
The thirty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar II The city was then taken over by the Amorites.
in 568 B.C. is one of the most firmly dated events in However, the Amorite Dynasty of Babylon in the
antiquity, due to an astronomical diary that recorded Babylonian King List was not formed until about two
not just eclipses but the positions of the planets as centuries later.
well (Griffith and White 2023a, 132. AP-6). Thus we The Kassites also arrived about two centuries
have a high degree of confidence for the start and end after the Fall of Akkad and established hegemony
dates of the Eighth Dynasty of Babylon. over southern Babylonia, as well as the city of Akkad
in the north which was by then called Babylon. By
AP-44: Dynasty 7: Second Assyrian the time of Tukulti Ninurta, the Kassites, Gutium,
Dynasty of Babylon: 705–626 B.C. and Amorites of Babylon were loosely allied against
Solving for the unknown from the known, we Assyria with the monarchy controlled by the Kassite
reason that the duration of the Seventh Dynasty of nobility.
Berossus was 80 years, from the end of Dynasty Six While the Guti or Gutium are believed to have
(706 B.C.) to the start of Dynasty Eight (626 B.C.). This come from the Zagros Mountains, we don’t know
supplies the first missing value of the Berossus king enough to identify them as Arabs per se. However,
list. the names Guti and Kurti are similar to “Gether,” a
The Royal Canon of Ptolemy supplies the missing son of Aram in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10:23).
number of kings of Babylon and their reigns for this The Kassites spoke a language that was neither
dynasty, starting after Sargon’s last year. Semitic, nor Indo-European. But some believe it was
Kingless (2) a branch of the Hurrian-Urartian language family
Bel-ibni (3) (Schneider 2003). The Hurrians lived in the region
Assur-nadin-shum (6) of Sanli-Urfa, which Cyrus Gordon identified as Ur
Nergal-ushezib (1) Kasdim (Gordon 1958, 1977), and were probably a
Mushezib-Murduk (4) mix of Arameans and Arphaxadites, like Abraham’s
Kingless (8) family was (Genesis 25:20; Deuteronomy 26:5).
Assur-akh-iddin (13) Abraham’s older brother Nahor had a son named
Shamash-shum-ukin (20) Kesed who may have been the progenitor of the
Kandalanu (22) Kassidim (Genesis 22:22).
Seven kings with combined reigns total 69 years, While it is widely assumed that all Semites spoke
plus ten kingless years in Babylon during that period Semitic languages, this was not universally the case.
yields 79 years for the last Assyrian Dynasty of The Elamites, who were unquestionably descended
Babylon. Adding one year for the fact that Berossus from Shem (Genesis 10:22), spoke a language that
mistakenly counted the death of Sargon II as 706 is not related to any other known. Likewise, the
rather than 705 B.C., gives 80 years for the Second Lydians, descended from Shem’s son, Lud, spoke
Assyrian Dynasty in the table of Berossus. Luwian, which was a branch of Indo-European.
The Hurrians living north of the Euphrates,
AP-42: Dynasty 5: “Arab” Dynasty: 1477–1232 B.C. referred to in Scripture as the “Arameans beyond
According to Berossus, the Arabs of Dynasty Five the River” (2 Samuel 10:16) spoke a non-semitic
ruled Babylon for 245 years. Dynasty Five ended language, while the Amorites and Arameans south of
when Semiramis II took Babylon from the Arabs and the Euphrates River in the Levant spoke languages
began her reign over Babylon in 1232 B.C. This gives closely related to Hebrew, called “Ugaritic” and
1477 B.C. for the start of Dynasty Five. “Aramaic,” respectively.
The question is who were the Arabs mentioned by The Kassites may have been a subset of the
Berossus that ruled Babylon for 245 years? Hurrians, who were in turn descended from Arphaxad
We know of three non-native groups that conquered in the region of Ur Kasdim, today called Sanliurfa.
Akkad or Babylon prior to Tukulti Ninurta I: They were either close cousins of Abraham’s line, or
1. The Gutium conventionally conquered Akkad they were the tribe of Kesed, the nephew of Abraham
around 2200 B.C.; by his brother Nahor.
2. The Amorites are considered the founders of The Kassites, who called themselves “Kassu” in
Hammurabi’s “Amorite Dynasty of Babylon” Akkadian (Balkan 1954, 131 f.; Zadok 2013), were
around 1900 B.C.; and, later called “Kaldu” or Chaldeans by Sargon II
3. The Kassites are believed to have conquered (Luckenbill 1989, vol. 2, §35). Their name, Kassu,
Babylonia circa 1590 B.C. was possibly derived from either Arpha-kassad or
We propose that the answer to the question is that Kesed, the nephew of Abraham, to give the biblical
the Gutium and Amorites were allied tribes that “Kasdim” which was much later rendered as “Kaldu”
defeated King Shar-Kali-Sharri of Akkad together. or “Chaldean.”
While the Kassites are commonly assumed to have Phoenicians reported by Berossus was the same
come from Iran due to that being their location after location and event as the Fall of Akkad to the Gutium
the peak of their influence had passed, Zadok (2013) and Amorites, which ended the Akkadian Empire.
writes: We would further argue that the Guti, or Kurti as
J. A. Brinkman (1976–80, p. 465a) and W. De Smet the Assyrians called them, were an Aramean tribe
(1990, p. 11) point out that the earliest evidence for allied to the early Amorites who were the “people
Kassites is from northern Babylonia and west of of the East” which included the tribes of Abraham’s
it, viz., the Middle Euphrates and Alalah VII (see descendents through Ishmael, Esau, and his sons by
Brinkman, 1976–80, p. 466b). Keturah, many of whom had intermarried with the
Alalakh is located on the Orontes River near Canaanites.
Antioch in Syria, not far from the Mediterranean
Coast. This is consistent with an Arphaxadite or AP-35: Fall of Akkad to the Guti Arabs:
Kesedite origin of the Kassites in the region of 1477/1476 B.C.
Harran and Urfa. (fig. 3) The date 1477 B.C. will prove to be pivotal when
we synchronize the Arab dynasty of Babylon with
the Arab/Hyksos dynasties of Egypt in the next
paper. Eusebius reported from Berossus that the
Phoenicians and Arabs went to war with Babylon
and were victorious, starting the Arabian Dynasty of
Babylon as suggested by the following:
164. In the eighteenth year of Cecrops, the Chaldeans
made war and fought with the Phoenicians. (Eusebius
Chronicle, 1.1.1:61)
165. In this war the Chaldeans were defeated, and
the Arabians reigned in the country of Babylon for
two hundred and sixteen years before Belus the
Assyrian came to reign. (Ussher 2003, §164,165)
Fig. 3. Territories of Amorites and Arameans prior to the These two entries in Ussher’s annals for the
fall of Akkad. Fulvio314, “Middle East topographic map- years 1539 and 1538 B.C. are enigmatic because
blank,” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Middle_ we cannot find the original sources of these quotes
East_topographic_map-blank_3000bc_crop.svg. CC BY from the Chronicle of Eusebius about the war
3.0. between the Chaldeans and Phoenicians, and the
The Kassites were known for their breeding of 216 year duration to the Assyrian Belus. However,
horses (Heinz 1995, 167; Zadock 2013). the citation of section 61 of the first book of the
Berossus, writing in the third century before Chronicon matches the content of sections 62–67
Christ, used the term “Arab” to describe a group which give a detailed chronology of Cecrops, who
of people in the second millennium before Christ. was one of the first kings of the region of Attica in
But, the Bible does not use the word “Arabian” Greece. This suggests that a fragment from this
until late in the reign of Solomon at the dawn of section detailing the war of the Chaldeans has been
the first millennium (1 Kings 10:15; 2 Chronicles lost since Ussher’s time.
21:16). Instead Genesis uses the term, “people of The original Greek version of the Chronicle was
the East.” also lost until the late eighteenth century when an
Abraham sent his younger sons “to the East,” and Armenian translation was found in Yerevan. It is
Jacob visited his uncle Laban in Haran among the from the Armenian manuscript that we have today’s
“people of the East” (Genesis 29:1). Later in the Bible, English translation of the Chronicle. However,
the Midianites and Amalekites in Arabia were also Bishop Ussher cited the Chronicle of Eusebius two
called “the people of the East” (Judges 6:3, 33). And centuries before the Armenian manuscript was
finally, the journey of the Joktanites “from Mesha found. Many classical and medieval chroniclers
toward Sephar, the great mountain of the East” quoted passages of the Chronicle, and there are two
suggests that Mash or Mesha and his brother Gether known Syriac manuscripts that preserve fragments.
inherited lands to the North and East of Assyria, Our best guess is that Ussher was quoting a passage
which is precisely where the Guti suddenly appeared quoted by an earlier source, or that he possessed a
from in the time of Naram Sin of the Akkadian surviving manuscript of the Chronicon.
Empire. We have reason to believe that Eusebius was using
Therefore we do not consider it a stretch to Castor’s chronology and that he got the information
suggest that the Fall of Babylon to the Arabs and about the Chaldean War from Polyhistor’s citations
of Berossus. The Chaldean War and the 216 year
duration both fit precisely in our framework, but not
in the way that Ussher applied them. Due to Castor’s
misidentification of Sardanapalus his chronology is
consistently high by several decades for events prior
to 800 B.C.
Continuing the hypothesis that the Fall of Babylon
to the Arabians and Phoenicians refers to the Fall
of Akkad, we can see that the quote of Eusebius
above refers to the wars of Naram Sin of Akkad,
who boasted that he conquered Armanum, Ebla,
and Amanus on his way to the Mediterranean Sea
(Frayne 1993, 133).
Thus the archaeological evidence supports Ussher’s
citation that the Chaldeans went to war against the Fig. 4. Amorite invasion in 1477 B.C. Fulvio314, “Middle
Phoenicians, which is to say, the Canaanites. East topographic map-blank,” https://en.m.wikipedia.
Eusebius used the names for the people of those org/wiki/File:Middle_East_topographic_map-
blank_3000bc_crop.svg. CC BY 3.0.
regions in his day in the third century A.D. to refer
to the Akkadians as Chaldeans, the Amorites of Zagros mountains to the northeast of Babylonia.
Canaan and Syria as Phoenicians, and the Aramean In the conventional chronology the Guti conquered
and Abrahamic “People of the East” as Arabs. Since the Akkadian Empire around 2200 B.C., and their
we’ve argued above that the Kassites were the dynasty lasted only one century in Sumeria before
Chaldeans, we can see that the word Chaldean came the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur.
to mean “Babylonian” in the Greek language. But the However, the Assyrian annals give us precise years
Akkadians were a different tribe from the Chaldeans for campaigns against the Guti/Kuti by Arik-den-ili,
who replaced them. Shalmaneser I, and Tukulti Ninurta I (Luckenbill
Ironically, the people whom the Bible calls “People 1989, vol. 1, 26, 40, 50). These Assyrian campaigns
of the East’’ appear to us to be the same people whom against the Guti took place from 1305 to 1232 B.C.,
the Sumerians referred to as “Amurru,” or Amorites. with one last campaign against them by Tiglath
Amurru in Sumerian means, “Westerners.” Pileser I around 1150 B.C.
Therefore the People of the East from the perspective Tukulti Ninurta was the first Assyrian king to
of Abraham in Palestine were the Westerners conquer Babylon. The reign of Tukulti Ninurta I
from the perspective of Sumeria. We contend that coincides in time with the Babylonian recollection
these Amorites included Arameans, Gether (Guti), of Semiramis II conquering Babylon and then
Arphaxadites (Hurrians and Kassites), the sons of (re)building its walls in 1232 B.C.
Keturah, Midianites, Edomites, and actual Canaanite Combining Berossus with the Assyrian King
Hittites and biblical Amorites who intermarried with List we find that the Guti and associated Amorite
them. tribes conquered Akkad/Babylon in 1477 B.C. While
There are two pieces of evidence in the ancient the Guti themselves were eventually expelled in
tablets themselves supporting the hypothesis that a series of campaigns beginning in 1305 B.C. and
the Guti and Amorites were allied in their attack on culminating in a short lived Assyrian conquest of
Akkad (fig. 4). Babylon in 1232 B.C., the allied Amorites and Kassites
First, ancient cities used year names instead of continued to rule the city of Babylon and the region of
year numbers. Excavations in Iraq have revealed Karduniash for five more centuries.
year names on tablets from the Akkadian Era. For The Assyrian Belus began to reign in 1261, as did
Shar-Kali-Sharri, who appears to be the Akkadian Shalmaneser I. Semiramis II began her sole reign
King who was killed by the Gutium, about 23 of his around 1232 B.C., as did Tukulti Ninurta I.
year names have been found. Two of these are named We have clear records of Shalmaneser I and
after his defeats of the Gutium, and two of these are Tukulti Ninurta I fighting major campaigns
named after his defeats of the Ammuru, or Amorites against the Kuti in the same narrow time frame
(CDLI:Wiki 2023). that Berossus places the downfall of the Arabian
Second, from the Assyrian King List, which we Dynasty of Babylon.
consider to be reasonably accurate back to Ashur- Recognizing the Amorites and their successors,
Uballit I, we find that a major enemy of the Assyrian the early Kassites, as the “Arabian Dynasty” of
kings in this 200 year period from 1477 to 1232 B.C. Berossus, conventionally dated to have captured
was the Guti or Kuti tribe. This tribe lived in the Akkad in 2200 B.C., we can see that the earlier periods
of the conventional chronology of Babylon have been 1753 B.C. first year of Phoroneus; minus,
pushed back more than seven centuries beyond their 60 year reign of Phoroneus; minus,
real dates which can be found by triangulation of 190 years to Phorbas; gives:
historical durations. 1503 B.C. reign of Phorbas
But, it can be argued that Tukukti Ninurta
defeated the Kassite King Kashtiliash, not the We do not know in which year of Phorbas that
Guti! After solving for the missing information in Cecrops became king. But, this puts the war of
the dynasties of Berossus, we will demonstrate that the Chaldeans against the Phoenicians, that the
Tukulti Ninurta certainly defeated both the Guti and Chaldeans ultimately lost, within ten years of
the allied Kassites. 1485 B.C.
Eusebius also states about Cecrops that, “At
AP-36: Assyrian Belus— this time, Moses had become recognized amongst
Shalmaneser I: 1261 B.C. the Hebrews” (2008, 183). Using Ussher’s dates for
We learned from the above quote by Eusebius Moses, his flight from Egypt occurred in 1531 B.C.
that the Assyrian Belus, or “Lord,” began his reign Given that Cecrops reigned for several decades, using
216 years after the Arabians took Akkad/Babylon. Ussher’s date of 1491 B.C. for the Exodus, it occurred
Using 1477 B.C. for the Fall of Babylon, 216 years in the reign of Cecrops.
later was 1261 B.C., the same year that Shalmaneser Returning to Ussher, who places the reign of the
I began to reign according to the Assyrian King List Arabs in the year following the war of Chaldeans
(Glassner 2005, Text 5). According to Berossus the in the eighteenth year of Cecrops, we can see he
Arabs still ruled Babylon until the death of Assyrian also made an error. Where Ussher erred was the
Belus. assumption that the war was completed in a single
Given that the War of the Chaldeans is dated by year. Similar to the Hundred Years War, the war
Ussher to the eighteenth year of Cecrops, we have between the Amorites and Kassites against the
enough information from Eusebius about Cecrops Akkadians lasted two generations from Naram Sin
to count back to another of our anchor points, the to Shar Kali Shari before Akkad finally fell. Thus
reign of Phoroneus in 1753 B.C. from (2008, 180– the 216 year duration should be counted from the
182). Fall of Akkad, not from the reign of Naram Sin or
Ogygus is said to have been the first [king] of the Cecrops.
Athenians. . . . Phoroneus the son of Inachus, king
of the Argives, is considered to have lived at this 1477 B.C. Fall of Akkad; minus,
time. Plato mentions this in the Timaeus, as follows: 216 years: gives;
“When he wished to acquaint them with ancient 1261 B.C. Assyrian Belus
history, so they could discuss the antiquity of this
city, he began his account with the old stories about 721 B.C. last year of Shalmaneser V; plus,
Phoroneus and Niobe, and then what happened after 540 years to Shalmaneser I in AKL; gives:
the flood.” Ogygus lived in the time of Messapus, the 1261 B.C. Shalmaneser I
ninth king of Sicyon, and Belochus, the eighth king
of the Assyrians. Conclusion for Dynasty 5
After Ogygus and until the time of Cecrops, it is Durations from the reign of Semiramis II place the
said that there was no king in Attica for 190 years, capture of Babylon by the Arab Dynasty in 1477 B.C.
because of the great destruction caused by the flood. The Assyrian kings recorded their campaigns
The number of years is calculated from the kings of against the Kuti beginning in 1305 and culminating
the Argives, who reigned before Ogygus. From the with the capture of Babylon around 1232 B.C., which
end of the reign of Phoroneus, king of the Argives, matches the sole reign of Tukulti Ninurta within a
in whose time Ogygus’ flood is said to have occurred, year. These details match the chroniclers’ records of
until Phorbas, in whose time Cecrops became king of Semiramis II, as well as the capture of Akkad by the
Attica, 190 years elapsed. Guti recorded in the Sumerian King List.
In our third paper we triangulated the reign of We also find that Shalmaneser I was the person
Phoroneus to 1753 B.C. which is one of our anchor referred to as Belochus II and “Assyrian Belus” by
points (Griffith and White 2023a, AP-19). Earlier in the chroniclers.
section 64, Eusebius gives the reign of Phoroneus
as 60 years. Eusebius also gives the duration of AP-41: Dynasty 4: Chaldean:
780 years from the first year of Cecrops to the first 458 years: 1935—1477 B.C.
Olympiad. These durations allow us to estimate the According to Berossus, the Fourth Dynasty of
reign of Cecrops. Babylon lasted for 458 years and ended with the Arab
and Phoenician victory which occurred in 1477 B.C. The most obvious choice given that Period 2
This gives 1935 B.C. for the start of Dynasty Four. gives 34,080 days from the Flood to Cush’s reign,
The start of this dynasty is in the time frame would be the first division of the land. That would
of Abraham and Chedorlaomer of Scripture, one give Cush a reign of 62 years, as recorded for Belus
century after the start of the reign of Semiramis I. by Ctesias.
While not precisely dated in Scripture, Abram’s However, given the results of our research in
defeat of Chedorlaomer was between his seventy- Griffith and White 2022b,Berossus may have counted
sixth and eighty-sixth years, after his descent his First Dynasty of Babylon from when the city of
and return from Egypt. According to Ussher- Babel was founded in 2233 B.C., for the entire 42/43
Jones, Abram’s eighty-sixth year would be in the years that the Tower of Babel was being built until
year 1911/1910. Therefore Chedorlaomer’s first the Dispersion in 2192/2191 B.C. We can try both
campaign, 14 years earlier, must have been no later values and see which one fits with the checksum to
than 1925, four years before Abraham left Harran be explained at the end of our reconstruction of his
in 1921 B.C. dynasties.
Unfortunately, the records of the kings of Elam The Irish annals record that “At the end of forty-
are minimal for this period. Assyriologists of the two years after the building of the Tower, Ninus son
nineteenth century identified Chedorlaomer as a of Belus took the kingship of the world” (Macalister
supposed “Khudur Lagomer” who was a contemporary 1941, §13).
of Hammurabi (Shook 1916, 21). However, this This suggests that Cush, as “Belus” reigned over
identification turned out to be a mistranslation. Babylon for 43/42 years while the Tower was being
We will elaborate further in CFAH-15, that built and that Nimrod probably coreigned with Cush
Berossus Dynasty 4 covers the same period as during the Babel project. The question is whether
much of the Sumerian King List, starting about Berossus counted one king or two with Ninus co-
three decades after the death of Gilgamesh in Uruk reigning for the first dynasty.
Dynasty I, and culminating with the collapse of Eusebius copied Polyhistor’s version of Berossus,
the Akkadian Empire under the Guti and Amorite in which he relates that the First Dynasty had two
hordes in 14777 B.C. kings named Evouchus and Chomasbelus. (Eusebius
2008, 24) These are identifiable as Cush and Nimrod.
AP-38: Dynasty 1: Therefore the First Dynasty had two kings.
Chaldean: 2233—2191 B.C. For now, we see two possible start dates for
We have good reason to connect the reign of Belus, Dynasty 1, 2254 and 2233 B.C. We will seek to clarify
the legendary first king at Babylon with the Tower of which was intended by the list after solving for the
Babel. Drews (1965, 133) writes: other missing information.
Castor (F1) recorded Belus as a contemporary of
Ogygus, and of the Cyclopes who forged thunderbolts AP-39: Median Dynasty of Babylon:
for use against the Titans. . . . Thallus, a first century 224 years: 2191–1968 B.C.
A.D. admirer of Euhemerus, wrote that Ogygus Since we have deduced that the First Dynasty of
and Belus, king of Assyria, fought on the side of Berossus lasted from either the first division of the
Cronus against Zeus and the so-called gods (Fallus earth (2254 B.C.) or the founding of Babel (2233 B.C.)
F2). Abydenus (F4) located the battle at the Tower until the Dispersion (2191 B.C.), the Second Dynasty,
of Babel, and cited the confusion of tongues as the for which he gives 224 years, logically begins with the
unhappy result of the battle. Dispersion.
Though Castor placed them as enemies of each How could the Medes have obtained rule over
other, the king named Belus and the god called Zeus, Babel during the rule of Ninus?
or Picus, appear both to be based upon Cush, who Current scholarship denies that the Medes existed
was according to many sources, Bel Marduk, the first as an identifiable group prior to the first millennium
king at Babel. before Christ. Genesis (10:2) lists Madai as one of the
If we identify the first dynasty of Berossus as the sons of Japheth among the 70 tribal leaders. But the
reign of Cush at Babel, then we have three possible biblical text does not mention Madai or the Medes
starting dates for his reign: the first division of the again until the deportation of Samaria in 721 B.C. (2
land, (Griffith and White 2023b, AP-27) for which Kings 17:6; 18:11).
we have seen the duration of 62 years before the The Book of Jubilees says that Madai’s lot was the
Dispersion, the second division in the year of Peleg’s “land of the sea,” which appears to have been North-
birth in 2247 B.C. (Griffith and White 2023b, AP-28), West Europe. “Madai saw the land of the sea and it
or the founding of Babel in 2233 B.C. (Griffith and did not please him, and he begged a [portion] from
White 2022b, AP-1). Ham and Asshur and Arpachshad, his wife’s brother,
and he dwelt in the land of Media, . . . ” (Charles 1913, Empire, which coincides with the end of the Median
Jubilees 10:35–36). Dynasty of Babylon.
Therefore, after Babel, Madai remained in the
territory he traded for, which must have included AP-40: Dynasty 3: Division and Rebellion:
the region of Babel. In an earlier paper (Griffith and 33 Years: 1968–1935 B.C.
White 2021a), we made the case that the original A footnote in the Armenian version of Eusebius
Babel and territory of the Medes was in the region of citing Polyhistor, who based his chronology upon
Subartu near the modern city of Diyarbakir, Turkey that of Berossus, indicates that the duration of
at the center of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic-A Culture. Dynasty 3 was already missing from the text, but
Since it is clear that Ninus ruled the near-east there are two margin notes stating 34 years and 48
after the Dispersion, then Madai’s occupation of years (Eusebius 2008, 25; King 1907, 90). Clinton
Babel would have been under Ninus’ lordship. (1824, 272) included this number in his chart of
Diodorus relates the story of how this Median Berossus.
Dynasty came to be: (Diodorus 2004, Book II, Ch. 1) Using the dates we’ve already found from the
And as his power continually increased, he made end of Berossus Dynasty 2, 1968 B.C., to the start of
a campaign against Media . . . [he]made one of his Berossus Dynasty 4, 1935 B.C., is a short period of 33
friends astrap of Media, while he himself set about years. Thus, we may interpret the margin notes of
the task of subduing the nations of Asia, and within a 34 and 48 to be the two possible values, of which 34
period of seventeen years he became master of them is closest to our own calculation. This allows us to fill
all . . . in the missing number for the third dynasty, which
The chroniclers also mention a second Ninus 1,280 might be called an “interregnum” of 34 years.
years after the first, whom we identify as the Assyrian The extra 15 years calculated for the 48 year
King Shamshi Adad V, who, like the first Ninus, had duration can be explained by Polyhistor’s duration
a wife named Shamurammat, or Semiramis. Given to the Median Dynasty of Babylon, meaning the
that he also conquered the Medes, it is uncertain Dispersion, which is 15 years high by our calculation.
which Ninus the above story refers to. It seems likely that Polyhistor used the same method
That being said, the “Median Dynasty of Babylon” we have. He calculated his date for the start of the
appears to have been a foreign dynasty appointed Median Dynasty, and then subtracted 224 to get
by Nimrod over the original region of Media and the the beginning of Dynasty 3. And then he calculated
original city of Babel, long before the Medes migrated back two dynasties from Semiramis in 1232 to arrive
into Iran. This region, Subartu, would in later at 1935 B.C. for the start of Dynasty 4. Taking the
centuries become the core territory of the Kingdom of difference he got 48 years as the duration of Dynasty 3.
Mitanni. Whether Mitanni had any lineal connection Since we have triangulated the dates for Babel
to Madai, there is not enough evidence currently and the Dispersion from about 16 sources in Griffith
and White (2022b), we will keep our 2191 B.C. date
known to say.
for the Dispersion. Therefore, we find that 33 years
Using the 224 year duration given by Berossus, the
is the best fit for Dynasty 3. This is confirmed by the
Median Dynasty collapsed with the death of Ninyas,
checksum, explained below.
the son of Semiramis I, in 1968 B.C.
Regardless of whether it was 33 or 48 years, to
Polyhistor’s testimony conflicts a little with our
have 11 kings in such a short period indicates a time
dates for the second dynasty. “Polyhistor gives 975
of instability. Thus, it appears that when Ninyas died
years as the interval between the Median conquest
the empire, if it could be so-called, fragmented.
of Babylon and the commencement of the Assyrian
Using the Ussher-Jones dates for Abraham, the
empire of 526 years” (Clinton 1824, 281).
Third Dynasty of Berossus lasted from Abram’s
The commencement of the Assyrian empire of
years 28 to 61 in Ur of the Chaldees.
526 years represents the start of Dynasty 6 when
Tukulti Ninurta conquered Babylon in 1232 B.C. The Checksum
Nine hundred and seventy-five years before 1232 B.C. A checksum is a technique used in computer
yields 2207 B.C. for when the ancient Medes obtained engineering to ensure accurate values for important
control over Babel, which is assumed to be the start numbers in order to maintain and preserve the
of Dynasty 2. This is 15 years earlier than our anchor integrity of the data. Typically a series of numbers
point for the Dispersion, yet it is relatively supportive or a value is summed or run through a more complex
of our dates for the second dynasty. algorithm giving a unique value that is separate from
As will be considered below, several lines of the data.
evidence suggest that the Greek chroniclers For example, some types of computer memory use
considered 1968 B.C. to be the start of the Old Assyrian an additional bit to allow for verification of data; the
bit is set to “1” if the 8 bits in the byte are odd, or a reading of 33,091 suggests that either Berossus or
“0” if the 8 bits in the byte are even. If a single error later chroniclers made variants which adjusted the
occurs, then that byte can be flagged as erroneous. numbers to fit alternate chronologies.
More complex checksums allow for data to be verified If we reduce the 34,080 days to 34,060 days, and
and even corrected. give the First Dynasty a reign of 62 years, then the
Rawlinson cites Gutschmid as suggesting that the checksum and the chronology are both “perfect” in
total of the years in the king list of Berossus including terms of Ussher’s Biblical chronology. However, we
the checksum should add up to 36,000, which is ten will just present the chart with the numbers as we
saroi (Rawlinson 1862, vol. 1, 191–193). However, have received them, and use 42 years for the reign of
analysts performing checksums on data include all of Cush over Babel.
the data, not just part. In the previous paper, Griffith and White 2023b,
Thus, if Gutschmid’s hypothesis was correct, the we confirmed Cullimore’s hypothesis that the variant
sum of the reigns plus the sum of the number of kings chronogeneologies in the Samaritan and LXX
in the table of Berossus should yield 36,000. Using manuscripts were altered to fit estimates using an
the values we found for the missing data, the sum of erroneous rate of precession to calculate the number of
the kings and the years of reign does indeed come to years since the Flood, when the Vernal Equinox was
36,000. Table 3 shows our reconstruction of the nine in the Pleiades. We showed that alterations were being
dynasties after the Flood. made as late as Clement in the first century using the
We do find an imperfection in our solution, but it Babylonian estimate of precession of 1° per century,
appears to be original to Berossus. There is a 20 year instead of the more accurate value of 1° in 71.585 years.
gap between Period 2 and the start of Dynasty 1. We If we followed the LXX chronology, we might
see no way to reduce one of the missing numbers use Polyhistor’s reading of 33,091 days and add the
sufficiently to raise the duration of Dynasty 1 by 20 missing 989 days as years to Dynasty 1; this would
years. Thus the 86 reigns of Period 2 must represent push the Flood date back to 3222 B.C. This suggests
some real value, possibly the total population of men that Polyhistor’s variant was adjusted to match the
and women alive in 2254 B.C. date of the Flood as calculated by precession using the
If the First Dynasty had been counted as 62 years, Babylonian rate of 1° per century, and was calculated
then the chronology would be complete from the Flood circa 147 B.C. (Griffith and White 2023b).
to Fall of Babylon. But that would require reducing Returning to the canonical version of Berossus,
either the checksum of 86 kings or the 34,080 days the total of 1,696 years for the eight dynasties prior
by 20. Perhaps Berossus only wanted to count the to 538 B.C. comes out to 2234 B.C., which falls within
reigns of the kings over the city itself, which was a year of our other triangulations for the founding of
not founded until 2234/2233 B.C. Alternatively, the Babel (Griffith and White 2022b, AP-1), which is well
preserved value of 86 kings, may have been corrupted within the error of four years that we would expect
from an original of 66, which is closer to the biblical from summing eight durations. This time period
value of 70 tribal leaders (Genesis 10). also covers the two Babylonian calendar periods, the
The easiest place from which to obtain the missing Era of Nabonassar and the Era of the Chaldeans.
20 years would be from the 34,080 days for Period Therefore, a year of error could easily have slipped in.
2 from the Flood to the First Division of the Earth, The checksum’s close correspondence provides
because 20 days would be insignificant to the number strong evidence that the dates we have suggested for
of years. The fact that Polyhistor gives an alternate the Babylonian dynasties are indeed correct.
Table 3. Kings after the Flood—Berossus reconstructed.
Kings After the Flood—Berossus Reconstructed
AP # Dynasty Kings Years From (BC) To (BC)
39 0 Period 2 86 34,080 2348 2354
40 1 Chaldean 2 42 2233 2191
41 2 Median 8 224 2192 1968
42 3 Interregnum 11 33 1968 1935
43 4 Chaldean 49 458 1935 1477
44 5 Arabian / Guti 9 245 1477 1232
45 6 Assyrian 45 526 1232 706
46 7 Assyrian 9 81 706 625
47 8 Neo-Babylonian 6 87 625 538
Total 223 35,777 = 36,000
The use of a sophisticated technique such as a the source, she is said to have reigned for either 7 or
checksum to preserve the integrity of the data also 17 years.
shows that the ancient Babylonians were far more His daughter Tratre’s, who was also called Ak’urartist,
advanced than evolutionary anthropologists might ruled in her own stead for 17 years (Eusebius 2008,
imagine. 65).
The checksum conclusively confirms the accuracy Having been placed in the same time frame, this
of the numbers in and of itself. Combined with the woman should be the historical person referred to by
other triangulations (Griffith and White 2022b, AP- the chroniclers as the second Semiramis.
1–3) which confirm 2234/2233 B.C. for the founding However, there appears to be no record of her
of Babel, it becomes quite certain that we have the in the Assyrian King List, nor in inscriptions from
correct overall duration of the dynasties from Babel the time of Shalmaneser I and Tukulti Ninurta I
to the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. Fig. 5 charts all yet discovered. That is, unless we consider the
eight of the Dynasties of Berossus. possibility that Semiramis II has been under
our noses in the archaeological record as Tukulti
Confirmation of the Fall of Akkad Ninurta I “himself.”
Via Other Sources Eight additional durations and synchronisms
Our claim that the Fall of Akkad occurred in seem to confirm this possibility, as well as our
1477 B.C., rather than the conventional date of
interpretation of the Fall of Babylon to the “Arabs”
2200 B.C., reduces the conventional timeline for
as being the Fall of Akkad (fig. 6).
Sumer and Akkad by more than seven centuries.
This calls for stronger evidence than two citations
1. Tukulti Ninurta I reigned 37 years
from Berossus and Ctesias. We have found eight
All known copies of the Assyrian King List give
additional durations and synchronisms that appear
Tukulti Ninurta a reign of 37 years (Glassner 2005,
to confirm our hypothesis that the sack of Babylon
recorded by Berossus as beginning the Arabian Text 5).
Dynasty of Babylon in 1477 B.C. was in fact the Fall of
Akkad to the Guti and Amorite hordes. 2. Kashtiliash was defeated near year 20 of Tukulti
In Ctesias’ king list of Nineveh there is a king named Ninurta
Belochus in three versions of this list from Syncellus, Based on his annals, scholars estimate that
Eusebius, and Scaliger (Clinton 1824, vol. 1, 267) Tukulti Ninurta defeated Kashtiliash around year
(Table 4), who is associated with a daughter “who 19 or 20 of his reign. If his reign began in 1233 as per
ruled on her own” variously named Badossa, Atossa, the Assyrian King List (Glassner 2005, Text 5), then
Semiramis, Tratre’s, and Aku’urartist. Depending on this puts the conquest of Babylon two decades later
Fig. 5. Solution to the Dynasties of Berossus.

Table 4. Rescensions of Ctesias.
Kings of Nineveh from Ninus to Sardanapalus
Eusebius Years Years Syncellus Years Barbarus Years
Lib. I Lib II Belus 55 Belus 62
Ninus 52 52 Ninus 52 Ninus 52
Semiramis 42 42 Semiramis 42 Semiramis 42
Ninyas/Zames 38 38 Ninyas 38 Zinas 38
Arius 30 30 Arius 30 Arius 30
Aralius/Amyrus 40 40 Aralius 40 Aranus 40
Xerxes Balaeus 30 30 Xerxes 30 Xerxes Ballaeus 30
Armamithres 38 38 Armamithres 38 Mamythus 38
Belochus 35 35 Belochus 35 Belochus 35
Balaeus 52 52 Balaeus 52 Balleus 52
Altadas 32 32 Sethos 50 Altallus 35
Mamythus 30 30 Mamythus 30 Mamithus 30
Macchalaeus 30 30 Aschalius 28
Spherus 22 20 Spherus 22 Spherus 20
Mamylus 30 30 Mamylus 30 Mammythus 35
Sparetheus 40 39 Spartheus 42 Spareus 40
Ascatades 40 40 Ascatades 38 Ascatagus 40
Amyntas 45 45 Amyntas 45 Amintas 50
Belochus 45 25 Belochus 25 Atossa / Semiramis II 23
Filia Tratres/
Badossa vel 17 7 Bilochus 25
Semiramis
Balatores 30 30 Balatores 30 Belleroparus 34
Lamprides 32 32 Lamprides 30 Lampridus 32
Sosares 8 20 Sosares 20 Posarus 20
Lampares 30 30 Lampares 30 Lamparus 30
Pannias 42 45 Panyas 45 Pannius 45
Sosarmus 19 19 Sosarmus 22 Sosarmus 20
Mithraeus 27 27 Mithraeus 27 Mithreus 35
Teutamus 32 31 Teutamus 32 Tautelus 32
Teutaeus 40 40 Teutaeus 44
Subtotal 908 929 947 903
Arabelus 42
Chalaus 45
Anebus 38
Babius / Teutamus II 37
Thinaus 30 30 lost 30 Eutaeus 40
Dercylus 40 40 Dercylus 40 Cercillus 40
Eupalmeus 38 38 Eupaomes 38 Eupalus 36
Laosthenes 45 45 Laosthenes 45 Lausthenes 45
Peritiades 30 30 Pertiades 30 Peritiadus 30
Ophrataeus 21 20 Ophratius 21 Ophrateus 20
Ophratanes 50 50 Ephecheres 52 Ophratanus 50
Acrazanes 42 42 Acraganes 42 Acrapanus 40
Sardanapalus 20 20 Sardanapalus 20 Sardanapalus 30
Ninus II 19
Total to Ninus 1224 1244 1427 1253
Fig. 6. Addition durations to the Fall of Akkad.
than our triangulated date. Are we mistaken that Shalmaneser I began 20 years before the sack of
Babylon fell to Assyria in 1232 B.C.? Babylon in 1232. This now agrees with the Fall of
Babylon being in 1232 and being around year 20 of
3. Eusebius 17 years “on her own” the reign of Tukulti Ninurta.
We can triangulate the coreign of Shalmaneser Conventional scholars also place the reign of
I and Tukulti Ninurta I using the following Tukulti Ninurta a decade or two earlier than the
information. First, Ussher, citing a lost fragment of Assyrian King List, so this is a rare case where we
Eusebius (1.1.1:61 not found in Schoene’s edition) agree with conventional chronologists.
tells us that Assyrian Belus, who was Shalmaneser
I, began to reign 216 years after the Fall of Babylon 4. Gideon contemporary with Semiramis
to the Arabs (Ussher 2003, §164,165), which was Sanchoniathon was cited by Porphyry and
earlier determined to be 1477 B.C. We are also told Eusebius as a contemporary of Semiramis. (Eusebius
by Berossus that Semiramis conquered the Arabian 2002, 484, 485)
Dynasty of Babylon 245 years after their conquest of [PORPHYRY] ‘Of the affairs of the Jews the truest
that city (Eusebius 2008, 25-26). history, because the most in accordance with their
places and names, is that of Sanchuniathon of
245 years of Arabian Dynasty; minus; Berytus, who received the records from Hierombalus
216 years until Assyrian Belus; gives: the priest of the god Ieuo; he dedicated his history to
29 years ±6 mo. of Shalmaneser’s reign Abibalus king of Berytus, and was approved by him
and by the investigators of truth in his time. Now
The Assyrian King List gives Shalmaneser I a the times of these men fall even before the date of
reign of 30 years. This suggests he was still alive when the Trojan war, and approach nearly to the times of
Babylon was conquered, unless there is a year of error Moses, as is shown by the successions of the kings of
in the length of his reign or the durations from Berossus. Phoenicia. And Sanchuniathon, who made a complete
The passage quoted above gives “Ak’urartist” collection of ancient history from the records in the
a reign “on her own” of 17 years, which implies various cities and from the registers in the temples,
she had a coreign with her father Belochus, a.k.a. and wrote in the Phoenician language with a love of
Shalmaneser I. truth, lived in the reign of Semiramis, the queen of
If we deduct 17 years from the 37 year total reign the Assyrians, who is recorded to have lived before
of Tukulti Ninurta, it suggests “his” coreign with the Trojan war or in those very times. And the works
of Sanchuniathon were translated into the Greek The last two Kassite kings reigned a total of four
tongue by Philo of Byblos.’ years after the dethronement of Marduk-apla-iddina
Sanchuniathon’s source was cited as the books I. In this thought experiment which pegs the Kassite
of the priest Heirombalus of the god “Ieuo.” While dynasty to the defeat of Kashtiliash I in 1232 B.C., that
Gideon was not a priest, his God was called Yah[weh], places the defeat of Marduk-apla-iddina I in 710 B.C.
and his nickname after destroying Baal’s altar was Coincidentally, that is the same year that Marduk-
Jerubbaal (Judges 6:32). Gideon appears to be the apla-iddina II (Merodach Baladan) was defeated by
person cited by Sanchoniathon. Sargon II and his son Sennacherib, thus ending his
According to Jones, Gideon defeated the coalition reign as well.
of Midian, Amalek, and Sidon in 1251 B.C. (Jones After a one-year reign by a usurper, the final
2002, 279, Chart 5). Our 20 year upward adjustment Kassite King was installed by his father, the King
of the reign of Tukulti Ninurta places the first year of Elam, Shatruk Nahunte, who was the nephew of
of the coreign of Semiramis and the tenth year of Marduk-appla-iddina, and the son reigned for three
Shalmaneser in 1251 B.C. Thus Semiramis II is found years.
to have been the contemporary of Gideon from 1251 Coincidentally, Merodach-appla-idina II also
until his death in 1218 B.C., and outlived him by four interacted with an Elamite king named Shutruk
years. Nahunte who refused to help him when he was
attacked by Sargon II (Luckenbill 1989, vol. 2, §32–
5. Kassites 576 y minus 50 to death of Kashtiliash 34, 47, 67, 257).
We are informed by the Tukulti Ninurta Epic that Remember that the Elamites had seized
the name of the king of Babylon defeated by him was Babylonia for three years prior to the Median Revolt
Kashtiliash. This is confirmed by a recovered letter B, which began in 705 B.C. In Sargon’s second to last
on a clay tablet from Tukulti Ninurta to his grand campaign the previous year, 706 B.C., he sent his
vizier which was found at Dūr-Katlimmu (Fales generals against Bit Yakin to defeat the Elamites
2010, 82), advising him that the captive Kashtiliash and “Kaldu” who had taken Karduniash, but not
with his wife and a retinue of women were being sent Babylon proper.
to him. We know from the history of Sargon II and
Due to the current placement of the Kassite Ptolemy’s Canon that the king of Babylon defeated
Dynasty of Babylon by historians, it is assumed that and expelled by Sargon in 710 B.C. was Marduk-
Tukulti Ninurta defeated Kashtiliash IV. However, appla-iddina II, aka Merodach Baladan of the Bible
only two kings named Kashtiliash are named in (Isaiah 39:1).
the Babylonian King List. The middle section of the Both Merodach Baladan I and Merodach
Kassite list falls into a lacuna, so we do not know how Baladan II were Kassite, or Chaldean, kings who
many kings had that name. both interacted with a king of Elam named Shutruk
The Babylonian King List informs us that the Nahunte, supposedly I and II, 475 years apart.
Kassite Dynasty lasted 576 years. Its third king was And the death or deposing of both kings named
Kashtiliash I, whose reign ended 50 years after the Merodach Baladan was immediately followed by an
dynasty was founded by Gandash (Pritchard 1969, Elamite invasion of Karduniash and installation of
272). an Elamite king of Karduniash with a claim to the
As an experiment, if we anchor the end of the reign throne. And in both cases, after Shutruk Nahunte
of Kashtiliash I to the sack of Babylon in 1232 B.C., died he was succeeded by a son named Kudur-
then the Kassite Dynasty can be computed as follows. Nanhunte.
This highly improbable cluster of coincidences
1232 B.C. defeat of Kashtiliash I; plus, strongly suggests the possibility that one person,
50 years to Gandash; gives: Merodach Baladan, has been duplicated by
1282 B.C. Kassite Dynasty founded; minus, serializing the Babylonian King List. His Elamite
576 years for entire Kassite Dynasty; gives, contemporaries Shutruk Nahunte, and Kudur-
706 B.C. Kassite Dynasty Ended Nanhunte have been duplicated with him.
There are many supposed synchronisms that
The last three kings of the Kassite Dynasty are appear to place the Kassite Dynasty, and particularly
included in the Babylonian King List B, they were: Merodach Baladan I, in the time frame of the second
(Pritchard 1969, 272) millennium. Reilly has made a fair beginning of
taking apart some of those synchronisms, showing
13 Mardukaplaiddin them to be false (Reilly 2023, n.d.).
1 year Zababa shumiddin We intend to examine the Kassite Dynasty and its
3 Ellilnadin[ahhe] false synchronisms in detail in the paper CFAH-15.
For now we merely note that the defeat of Kashtiliash Eusebius Lib I: 177 yr
I fits to the year with the conquest of Babylon by Eusebius Lib II: 174 yr
Tukulti Ninurta I in 1232 B.C.; and that the end of the Syncellus: 177 yr
Kassite Dynasty in 706 B.C. is consistent in fine detail Barbarus: 185 yr
with recorded events in the annals of Sargon II and Eusebius preserved the precise 216 year duration
Sennacherib. This is a puzzle piece that appears to from the Fall of Babylon to the Arabs down to
fit precisely. But to prove it will require a dedicated Assyrian Belus. He clearly did not get this figure from
paper, which will be CFAH-15 in this series. For now the values of Ctesias, as he relates it with the figures
we mention it, and set it aside as interesting but thus relating to Cecrops of Athens. Nevertheless, Ctesias
far unproven. comes within a few decades of the same results.
If the Fall of Akkad had occurred in 2200 B.C., then
6. Sargon, Naram Sin, and Shar Kali Sharri in how did Ctesias get the names of Manishtushu as
Ctesias King List “Mamuthis” and Shar Kali Sharri as “Aschalius” and
Table 4 referred to above, shows the four recensions place them only two centuries before Shalmaneser I?
we have of the king list of Ctesias for Assyria going While not as precise, Ctesias is an external and
back to the Dispersion. In that list, if we identify independent witness that the Fall of Akkad was the
Traatres as Semiramis, as she was explicitly named event referred to by Berossus as the Arab Conquest of
by Eusebius, and her predecessor, Belochus, as Babylon, and that it occurred in the fifteenth century
Shalmaneser I, then we can anchor the first year before Christ, not the twenty-second.
of Belochus II to 1261 B.C., the known first year of
Shalmaneser I. 7. Ishbi-Erra 8th year Amorite city destroyed: AP-46
There are four kings in the Ctesias list that can Tukulti Ninurta painted such a large swath of
be identified as Sargon of Akkad, Manishtushu, red across the Ancient Near East that he could not
Naram Sin, and Shar-Kali-Sharri, who were the four possibly have been missed by his contemporaries.
strongest kings of the Akkadian Empire. Sargon’s If, as we claim, the Fall of Babylon to the Arabs in
son, Rimush, is omitted by Ctesias. 1477 B.C. was the Fall of Akkad to the allied Guti and
Amorites, then the subsequent dynasties in lower
Akkadian Name : Ctesias Name Sumeria must surely have noted the conquest of
Sargon, 56 yr : Balaeus, 52 yr Babylon by Tukulti Ninurta I.
Rimush, 9 yr : unlisted The Sumerian King List informs us of four
Manishtushu, 15 yr :Mamuthos, 30 yr dynasties after the Fall of Akkad: Uruk IV, Guti, Ur
Naram Sin, 37 yr: Sethos/Altallus 35 yr III, and Isin. It also gives us the individual reigns of
Shar Kali Sharri, 25 yr: Aschalius, 28 yr kings and the total years for each Dynasty.
Totals 142 yr: 145 yr The entry for Utu Hegal between the Guteans
and Ur III gives his reign as “420 years and 7 days;
We identify the probable Fall of Akkad as occurring one king ruled 427 years and 6 days.” This appears
at the end of the reign of Shar Kali Sharri. There is to be a scribal error. The unit 420 represents the
a year name found in the economic tablets, “year power of 6, and 7 days the power of 1, for a total of
the king of Akkad was killed in battle,” (CDLI:Wiki, 6 × 420 + 7 = 2,527 days.
2023) which almost certainly refers to Shar Kali Two thousand, five hundred and twenty-seven
Sharri. days is seven years and seven days of 360 day years,
The crippled Akkadian Dynasty limped through or 6.92 Julian Years. Most scholars accept this to
three more kings, who are listed in the Sumerian mean seven years.
King List. But power apparently shifted to Uruk
with the death of Shar Kali Shari. So the remaining 1477 B.C., Fall of Akkad; minus,
38 years of the dynasty after his death were parallel 30, Uruk Dynasty IV; minus,
with the first rulers of the Uruk IV Dynasty. 92, Guti kings to Utu-Hengal; minus,
Thus, counting from the death of Aschalius to 7, Utu-Hegal; minus,
Belochus II in Ctesias can give us a rough estimate of 108, Ur III to death of Ibi-Sin: 108 yrs; gives:
the duration that we’ve already confirmed to be 216 1240 B.C. ± 2 yr, death of Ibbi-Sin: AP-46
years from the Fall of Akkad to Shalmaneser I.
The regnal lengths for the list of Ctesias that have Ibbi-Sin of Ur III was defeated by Ishbi-Erra, the
been passed down to us appear to be inaccurate, but King of Isin in the seventeenth year of the latter
still within the general ballpark. (Sigrist 1988, 4, 13–14).
Counting reigns in Ctesias from the death of Scholars are divided over the proper order for the
Aschalius (Sharri Kari) to start of Belochus II year names of Ishbi-Erra (Sigrist 1988, 4). The year
name presumed by Mieroop to be Ishbi-Erra’s eighth King List. Counting back from the death of Shar Kari
year says, “Year the Amorite City was Destroyed” Sharri and the Fall of Akkad in 1477 B.C. to the reign of
(Fitzgerald 2002, 156–157; Sigrist 1988, 13). Sargon of Akkad using the durations in the Sumerian
Assuming this was counted from his conquest of Ur, King List places the earliest date for the start of
as opposed to his first year as king in Isin, the result Sargon’s reign in the year 1642 B.C., and the latest
matches perfectly. However, that means it would be date for his death in 1553 B.C. The reigns of Sargon I
his twenty-fifth year as King of Isin. and Pepi I, using our anchor points, overlapped, with
Recall that the “First Dynasty of Babylon” Pepi’s reign beginning a decade or two before that of
of which Hammurabi was a king, is called the Sargon. Naram Sin’s reign began a few decades after
“Amorite Dynasty of Babylon” by scholars. It is well the death of Pepi I. Therefore the cartouches of Pepi in
documented from the year names of lower Sumeria the destruction layer at Ebla support the destruction
that the city of Babylon was taken over by Amorites by either Sargon or Naram Sin.
after the Fall of Akkad to the allied Guti horde. We find that this archaeological synchronism
between Sargon of Akkad and Pepi I of Memphis
1240 B.C. Fall of Isin ±2 yr, minus appears to support our framework.
8 years, gives
1232 B.C. ±2.5 years destruction of Amorite City Etymology of the Names
Having placed them in the same place and time
This matches the conquest of Babylon, the Amorite by other means, we can look at the etymology of the
City, by Semiramis/Tukulti-Ninurta in 1232 B.C. Note names of the daughter of Shalmaneser, “Tratres”
that we rounded up the partial year for the reign of and “Aku’urartist,” compared to the name Tukulti
the Guti. If we had rounded down, the result would Ninurta. Keeping in mind they were translated
have been 1233 B.C., which is still within the error from Akkadian into Greek by Ctesias, and finally to
range to triangulate. English using Latin script, both names, especially
The two paths for durations from the Fall of Akkad Aku’urartist, look like bad transliterations of Tukulti
to the Fall of Babylon to Tukulti Ninurta triangulate Ninurta. Note that the name of Tukulti Ninurta
both dates, as well as the Fall of Ur to Ishbi-Erra in was written in Assyrian as “Tukulti-Urta.” Thus the
1241/40 B.C., which is noted as Anchor Point 46. transliteration might have originally been:
[T]aku[lti] ur-artis; or,
8. Sargon of Akkad and Pepi I [T]aku[lti] [N]ur-artis
In Griffith and White 2023a, AP-16 we triangulated As previously seen in the case of Nitocris of Egypt
the reign of Nitocris, or Netjerkare, the last ruler of (Griffith and White 2023a, AP-16), in the second
Dynasty 6 of Egypt, using durations from the Turin millennium before Christ wherever the chroniclers
Canon and Africanus to Menes, the end of Dynasty 8, tell us about a woman who ruled as king, the
and the Trojan War. She died in 1479 B.C. archaeological record shows us a “man” with a similar
Both Sargon of Akkad and Naram Sin boasted name. This is because kingship was universally
that they conquered the Syrian city of Ebla. When viewed as a male office. In order for a woman to rule,
Ebla was excavated two vessels were found in the she had to rule as a man.
presumed Akkadian destruction layer bearing the
cartouche of Pepi I of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt The Enigma of Semiramis II and Tukulti Ninurta I
(Aruz 2003, 241). This has been taken to mean that Taken all together, these triangulations and
Pepi I was either contemporary with or reigned synchronisms suggest that Tukulti Ninurta I may
slightly before either Sargon or Naram Sin of Akkad. have been the throne name of the woman remembered
Does our chronological framework support or in legend as Semiramis II. Alternatively, she could
contradict this archaeological synchronism? have been his queen.
Counting back from the death of Nitocris in Returning to the colorful account of Diodorus, most
1479 B.C. to the reign of Pepi I, using the regnal of her story appears to be taken from Semiramis I.
lengths in Manetho from Africanus, places the reign These would include being the wife of Ninus, mother
of Pepi I or “Phius” beginning 167 years before the of Ninyas, a first husband named Onnes, and her
death of Nitocris, and lasting 53 years (Manetho association with Egypt.
1964, 53–54). Thus, using 1479 B.C. for the death of However, the campaigns against Armenia (Urartu/
Nitocris, Pepi I reigned from about 1646 to 1593 B.C., Quti), Cappadocia, and India as well as the building
and Pepi II was born a full year after his death, and of Babylon appear to be based on Tukulti Ninurta. In
therefore named after his grandfather. the annals of Shalmaneser I and Tukulti Ninurta I
There are variations in the regnal lengths for the we see that the legend of Semiramis II may be much
kings of Akkad in the different copies of the Sumerian closer to reality than anyone would have guessed.
Semiramis was said to have campaigned in

Cappadocia and Armenia. Shalmaneser I and
Tukulti Ninurta I campaigned in the same regions.
Semiramis II supposedly fought a war against a
king of India. Tukulti Ninurta defeated a Kassite
King named Kashtiliash, who was the third king
of a dynasty whose founder was Gandash. The
Greek geographers considered India to be the land
of the “Kassoi,” meaning Cushites, and India was
thought to begin in the Zagros Mountains just East
of Babylon. Thus we can easily see that the Greek
chroniclers may have confused Kassu (Kassite) for
Kassoi (Cushite) and thus began the legend that
Semiramis invaded India and Ethiopia.
The Kassite personal names were similar to
later Hindi names, and some of their gods had the
same names and attributes as later Hindu gods.
The Kassites were obviously not kings of India, but
the Kassite culture had enough affinities with later
Hindi culture that later Greek historians may have
assumed that the kings of Karduniash were kings of
India. Thus the story of Semiramis versus the King of
India recorded by Diodorus could have been based on
the battles between Tukulti Ninurta and Kashtiliash
in the Tukulti Ninurta Epic. Fig. 7. Tukulti Ninurta Altar Depiction. Osama Shukir
Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), “Detail of a symbolic
Semiramis was said by Diodorus to be “libidinous,”
base with a cuneiform inscription of Tukulti-Ninurta I,
(F1i and F1ld as well as Dio Chrys. 47.24) which is to 13th century BCE. From the Temple of Ishtar at Assur,
say, lustful and promiscuous. In the palace of Tukulti Iraq. Pergamon Museum, Berlin, Germany. Two men
Ninurta were found many pornographic images, were depicted in relief, standing and kneeling holding a
which were extreme even by pagan standards (Bloch mace (representing the Assyrian king Tulkulti-Ninurta
and Peri 2016–2017, 16). I, r. 1243–1207 BCE, in two movements), before a symbolic
Based on the surviving images of Tukulti Ninurta base with a symbol of the god Nabu of writing (not
I, this person definitely wanted to be perceived and shown here). The cuneiform inscription mentions the
name of the king and the god Nusku (Nuska),” https://
remembered as a hypermasculine man. Fig. 7 shows
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Detail._Assyrian_
an inscription assumed to be two copies of Tukulti king_Tukulti-Ninurta_I_stands_and_kneels,_13th_
Ninurta standing and kneeling in worship before an century_BCE._From_Assur,_Iraq._Pergamon_Museum.
altar. Perhaps this could be better understood as a jpg. CC BY-SA 4.0.
representation of Shalmaneser I standing, and Tukulti
Ninurta, depicted as his son, kneeling in front of him. my reign (into being), turn him
However, there is a strange passage in “The from a man into a woman.
Tukulti Ninurta Inscription” found in his palace in May she make his manhood be poured out.
Kar Tukulti Ninurta which hints at something else. (Bloch and Peri 2016–2017, 33 and 35)
This inscription names his deeds of the first ten years This curse is unique for two reasons. First, unlike
and ends with a curse on any future king who might the Babylonians, Assyrian Kings nearly unanimously
remove his name. claimed that the god Asshur had appointed them to
Such formulaic curses are found on many kingship. While in Babylon, Ishtar or Inanna was
Assyrian inscriptions. Typically they wish defeat, credited with “granting her love” to the man she
starvation, exile, and slavery on anyone who defaced chose to be king, the Assyrian kings did not look to
their inscription or inserted their own name into it. a female goddess to give them power, with only one
However, the curse of Tukulti Ninurta contains a known exception. (Ashur-nasirpal I left an inscription
unique element. praying to Ishtar to be healed of a disease in which he
He who erases (my) inscription (literally, credited her with making him king in the hopes that
inscribed name) she would heal him.)
... Assyrian kings may have nodded to the Sumerian
May the lady of the battle tradition by referring to themselves as “the favorite
fray, who called prince” of Ishtar, but kingship was conferred by
Asshur, because the king was the vizier, or high While later queens like Hatshepsut and Cleopatra
priest, of the god Asshur. Here, Tukulti Ninurta wore a fake beard on the throne, they also had statues
credits the goddess of battle for calling his reign into depicting themselves as beautiful women. If Tukulti
existence. Ninurta I was really the woman remembered as the
Second, there are no other known instances of an second Semiramis, then unlike them, she may have
Assyrian curse that calls for the offending man to be taken the idea of literally becoming a man quite
turned into a woman. This was a significant deviation seriously.
from the curse formula used before and after Tukulti A reasonable question is how a woman could
Ninurta. possibly have become the King of Assyria?
The curse could be taken to imply that Tukulti We should note that there was historical precedent
Ninurta viewed “himself” as a woman who had been for this in the first Semiramis, assuming her legend
raised up to manhood and kingship by the warrior to have been based on the real person, who was their
goddess Ishtar, who, incidentally, was the first ancestor. We know that both the Assyrians and
Semiramis. And thus she self-consciously viewed Egyptians worshiped a goddess under the names
herself as repeating the actions of her ancestor Ishtar and Neith, depicted as carrying a bow and
goddess. shield and being the goddess of battle. The Greeks
According to Justin, the first Semiramis, the appear to have borrowed Athena from the Egyptian
wife of Ninus, took the throne after his death by Neith. The real woman who was later worshiped as
pretending to be a man: (Justinus 1853, Book I.2) Ishtar must have had some event in her life where
[emphasis added] she wore the male accoutrements of battle.
Semiramis, not daring to entrust the government to a If our chronology section above is correct, then her
youth, or openly to take it upon herself (as so many coregency with her father began in his ninth or tenth
great nations would scarcely submit to one man, much year, so that she had 20 years of his backing to secure
less to a woman), pretended that she was the son of her grip on the throne. By the time of his death the
Ninus instead of his wife, a male instead of a female. 2 Assyrian superstitions around the goddess Ishtar
The stature of both mother and son was low, their voice may have protected her.
alike weak, and the cast of their features similar. 3 She The death of her father may have created a crisis
accordingly clad her arms and legs in long garments, for her. Would one of the generals of Assyria try to
and decked her head with a turban; and, that she might wrest the throne away from the woman pretending
not appear to conceal anything by this new dress, she to be a man?
ordered her subjects also to wear the same apparel; a Perhaps the motive behind her conquest of
fashion which the whole nation has since retained. 4 Babylon around the year of her father’s death may
Having thus dissembled her sex at the commencement have been to prove herself worthy of the throne
of her reign, she was believed to be a male. 5 She beyond any shadow of doubt. By conquering the city
afterwards performed many noble actions; and when of Babylon, formerly known as Akkad, she did what
she thought envy was overcome by the greatness of no prior King of Asshur had done.
them, she acknowledged who she was, and whom she As Solomon wrote, there is nothing new under the
had impersonated. 6 Nor did this confession detract sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). The mad attempts by men and
from her authority as a sovereign, but increased the women of modernity to escape the bounds of sexuality
admiration of her, since she, being a woman, surpassed placed upon and within us by our Creator is nothing
not only women, but men, in heroism. new in the course of human history.
In the curse, Tukulti Ninurta refers to that former We don’t have enough evidence to conclusively
woman, by this time worshiped as the goddess of say that Tukulti Ninurta was a woman, nor is that a
battle, as the one who called his reign into being. conclusion we would wish to find. Another possibility
By saying, “[may she] turn him from a man into a is that the later Babylonian chroniclers misread or
woman” he is saying, may the reverse of what was misunderstood the Tukulti Ninurta Epic such that
done to me be done to you. Berossus believed Tukulti Ninurta was a woman,
The evidence suggests that the hypermasculine and then this tradition found its way into the Greek
Tukulti Ninurta I was quite possibly the woman world as the Semiramis myth. For now, we simply
remembered as Semiramis II, who reigned claiming note that the information we have about them, except
the title “King of Kings,” not as a Queen. Tukulti for their sex, seems to match up quite tightly.
Ninurta wanted to be perceived and remembered as
a man, not as a woman. If there were two famous Objections to 1477 B.C. Fall of Akkad
women who pretended to be and ruled as men, then There are three sets of objections to our date for
this could also explain why both of them were called the Fall of Akkad, coming from the Kassite, Hittite,
“Semiramis” by the later chroniclers. and Assyrian chronologies.
Kassite Synchronisms As discussed in our first paper (Griffith and White

The Babylonian King List places the Kassite 2022a), serializing parallel dynasties stretches out
Dynasty after the First Dynasty of Babylon and history and duplicates events. The Babylonian King
the Fifth Dynasty of Uruk. An entry in a different List imitates the style of the Sumerian King List,
Babylonian chronicle for the last king of the First which was the first to deliberately serialize parallel
Dynasty says that in his days the man of Hatti dynasties in order to give the appearance of great
attacked Akkad (Glassner 2004, Text 41). This is antiquity and to promote the propaganda that only
assumed to refer to the sack of Babylon by Mursilis I one king was entitled to rule over all the cities of
the Hittite, which we agree it was. Then the Kassite Sumeria at any given time.
Dynasty is assumed to have taken over Babylon
immediately following the Hittite sack of Babylon. Hittite Synchronisms
With this, we strongly disagree. There are claimed synchronisms between the
The Kassite Dynasty ruled from the city of Hittites and the Babylonian King List at several
Nippur over Karduniash, which was the larger points. First it is claimed that Mursilis I sacked
region of Chaldea that included the city of Babylon. Babylon, ending the reign of Samsuditana, the last
The Kassite Kings sometimes ruled over the Kings king of Hammurabi’s dynasty. We agree with this
of Babylon. More accurately, the Kassite and synchronism, but the question is when did Mursilis
Assyrian Kings struggled with each other for the I live and reign? We will seek to answer that
right to choose the kings of Babylon for about five definitively in the forthcoming paper CFAH-13.
centuries. It is also claimed that Tudhkhaliya IV was
The Babylonian King List, being composed in the defeated by Tukulti Ninurta I at the Battle of Nihriya.
Neo-Babylonian Era for the purpose of glorifying However, neither king mentions the other by name.
Babylon, placed the native Amorite Dynasty of In CFAH-13 we will demonstrate this to be a false
synchronism because Tudkhaliya IV lived centuries
Babylonian kings first; then the kings of Uruk, the
after Tukulti Ninurta I. We will deal with the other
oldest city, second; then the Kassite Dynasty who
supposed Hittite synchronisms as well.
ruled over them for much of that time from Nippur,
third. Then followed the dynasties of lesser regions
Shamshi Adad I
and cities like Sealand, Isin, and Bit-Bazi, followed
The strongest argument against our placement
again by the Assyrian-appointed kings from Tiglath
of the Fall of Akkad in 1477 B.C. is the placement of
Pileser III to Kandalanu (Pritchard 1969, 272).
Shamshi Adad I in the Assyrian King List around
In the forthcoming paper CFAH-15 we will make a
1808 B.C. The entry for him says that he came up from
detailed case that the city dynasties in the Babylonian
Karduniash and defeated King Erishum. And this is
King List reigned in parallel. even supported by an ancient list of year names that
Scholars are aware that each of the major kings appears to record the birth of Shamshi Adad during
were followed by many petty kings of local cities. the reign of Naram Sin (Glassner 2005, Text #8).
Notably in the Mari texts was found a letter comparing Since this Shamshi Adad was known to be a
Hammurabi to Yarim Lim, king of Yamhad (Dalley contemporary of Hammurabi, and Hammurabi is
2002, 44) which said: known to have reigned about four and a half centuries
There is no king who is mighty by himself. Ten or after the Fall of Akkad, therefore the Fall of Akkad
fifteen kings follow Hammurabi the ruler of Babylon, would have to be placed before 2200 B.C., if the peg for
a like number of Rim-Sin of Larsa, a like number Shamshi Adad I in the Assyrian King List is correct.
of Ibal-pi-el of Eshnunna, a like number of Amud- There was a Shamshi Adad I who lived nearly six
pi-el of Qatanum, but twenty follow Yarim-Lim of centuries before Shalmaneser I and rebuilt a temple
Yamhad. that Shalmaneser later repaired (Luckenbill 1989,
Who were these petty kings who followed vol. 1, §119). However, we contend that Shamshi Adad
Hammurabi? The Babylonian King List tells us the I was not the great conqueror of Ashur, Mari, and
cities which they ruled included Uruk, Karduniash/ Yamhad who was contemporary with Hammurabi.
Nippur, Sealand, Bit Bazi, and E. There is another entry in the Assyrian King List
The tentative Kashtiliash I synchronism noted for Shamshi Adad IV saying that he “came up from
above suggests that the Kassite Dynasty actually Karduniash” and conquered the city of Ashur in
began a few generations before the First Dynasty 1053/2 B.C.
of Babylon. Thus the entire Babylonian King List We will demonstrate that the Shamshi Adad who
appears to cover the period from Ghandash in conquered Ashur and Mari was Shamshi Adad IV.
1282 B.C. to Kandalanu in 627 B.C., listing the kings As first proposed by Hoeh (1967, chapter 12) and
of city states as separate dynasties for the period in Hickman (1986), he was a contemporary of Kings
between. Saul, Ishbosheth, and David.
In CFAH-14 and CFAH-15 we will examine a was the territory of the early Medes and their
cluster of strong synchronisms between Shamshi descendants since the Division of the Earth by
Adad and the Kings of Mari and Yamhad with the Noah in 2247 B.C. The fourth dynasty of Berossus
united monarchy of Israel. But before we can do included Sumerian kings such as Lugal Zagesi
that, we need to process the Egyptian and Hittite who had conquered Subartu. Sargon of Akkad
chronologies and firmly anchor them using durations transferred the priesthood from Babel in Subartu
and triangulations. to his city of Akkad, which eventually came to
We simply note for now that we are aware of the be called Babylon. The records going back to the
objection that Shamshi Adad I was a contemporary founding of Babel would have been brought by
of Hammurabi, and both the AKL and the Limmu those priests to Akkad. Additionally, the Kassites,
List seem to place him in the nineteenth century B.C. whom we have argued were the real “Chaldeans,”
We have a thorough answer to this objection. But may have brought their astronomical records from
it requires two papers of its own. And happily, the Harran when they established the Kassite Dynasty
solution to this problem will unlock what appear to in 1282 B.C.
be six of the “archaeologically unattested” kings of We have found that we can synchronize the
Israel in the correspondence of neighboring countries. chronology of Berossus with the known data from
the Sumerian and Babylonian king lists. However, to
Synchronizing Berossus with the prove it more thoroughly requires first triangulating
Sumerian King List the Egyptian, Hittite, and Assyrian chronologies,
We have made the case previously (Griffith which we will attempt to do in papers 6 through 14.
and White 2021) that Nimrod’s Babel and But, we do have enough information to correlate the
Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon were different cities. first dynasties of Uruk and Kish to Berossus, so we
When Sargon of Akkad conquered Subartu, he will do so below.
claimed to have taken holy soil and the priesthood
from “Babylon” and “built a new Babylon opposite AP-47: The Reign of Ninyas Zames/
Akkad.” Gilgamesh: 2006–1968 B.C.
We argued that the Babylon that Sargon built There was a semi-legendary king who appears in
“opposite Akkad” was simply an external enclosure three king lists under different names (fig 8). The
for the temple shrine similar to the layout of cities in Greeks knew him as Ninyas Zames, the Babylonians
Sumeria, and probably across the Euphrates River as Gil-gamesh, which appears to be the source of
from Akkad. Centuries later the city of Akkad came “Zames,” and the Egyptians referred to him as the
to be called Babylon in reference to its temple and god Horus the Younger, but in the king list as a
ziggurat, which by the time of Nebuchadnezzar, real person named Mbeidos in Greek, or Den in the
were inside the city walls. Nebuchadnezzar’s city Egyptian tongue. All three had the same length of
was divided by the river, and the walls enclosed both reign, 38 years, and durations to his death reach the
sides. same year in both Egypt and Nineveh.
The idea that Akkad and Babylon were the same We previously triangulated the 42 year reign of
city is supported by the chronicles of Nebuchadnezzar Semiramis I to the years 2036–1994 B.C. (Griffith
and Neriglissar of Babylon, which refer to them and White 2023a, AP-21). In the Irish annals we find
simply as the “King of Akkad” (Glassner 2005, Texts Semiramis credited with a 30 year reign, and Ninyas
24, 25). Zames 38 (Murphy 1896, 14). This implies that they
Diodorus agrees that Babylon did not yet exist shared a coregency during the final 12 years of her
when Ninus conquered that region (Booth 1814, reign. Counting 12 years before her death gives
Book II, chapter I): the years 2006–1968 B.C. for the reign of Ninyas or
Ninus therefore, the Assyrian king, with the prince Gilgamesh, with his sole-reign beginning in 1994 B.C.
of Arabia, his assistant, with a numerous army, Some of the chroniclers seem to count the beginning
invaded the Babylonians then next bordering upon of the Old Assyrian Empire from the death of Ninyas,
him: for the Babylon that is now, was not built at that while others count from his coreign, and still others
time but the province of Babylon had in it then many count from the reign of Ninus.
other considerable cities, whose inhabitants he easily
subdued . . . 2036 B.C. reign of Semiramis I; minus,
If Babel and Babylon were two different cities, 30 years sole-reign; gives:
then how was Berossus able to count a continuous 2006 B.C. ±5 years for the co-reign of Ninyas and Semiramis
series of dynasties from Babylon back to Babel?
We count the first four dynasties of Berossus as Chambers cited Ctesias as giving 1,306 years from
ruling over the original Babel in Subartu which Ninyas to the death of Sardanapalus.
Fig. 8. Durations to the reign of Gilgamesh aka Ninyas. Hero holding lion from Dur Sharrukin, Louvre. Jastrow
(2006), “A hero taming a lion. Bas-relief from the façade of the throne room, in the Assyrian Palace of Sargon II
at Khorsabad (Dur Sharrukin), 713–706 BCE,” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hero_lion_Dur-Sharrukin_
Louvre_AO19862.jpg. Public Domain.
According to [Ctesias], for 30 generations after In Plato’s Timaeus, the character Hipparchus
Ninyas, the kings led a life of luxury and indolence in cites Iamblichus as stating the Assyrians had
their palace; the last of them, Sardanapalus, made a made 270,000 years of astronomical observations.
vigorous defense against Arbaces, the rebel governor Interpreted as days that duration is 739 years,
of Media, but finding it impossible to defend Nineveh, (Cullimore 1833a, 161, 176; Hare 1832, vol. 1, 42)
he set fire to his palace, and burnt himself with all though the start and end of the period have not been
his treasures; this event took place 1306 years after preserved. This fairly well approximates the period
Ninus. (Chambers 1880, 811) from the death of Ninyas until Semiramis II.
Note that Chambers conflated Ninyas with Ninus.
They were two different people. Recognizing that the 1232 B.C. Semiramis II; plus,
chroniclers confused the second Median Revolt with 739 years; gives:
the death of Sardanapalus, many of their durations 1971 B.C. ±1.4 years (1972.4–1969.6 B.C.)
are from the year of Median Independence in 700 B.C.
Counting from the founding of Egypt via Manetho’s
First Dynasty: (Manetho 1964, 29)
700 B.C. the year of Median Independence; plus,
1306 years from Ninyas; gives:
2188 B.C., Menes founded Thinis; minus,
2006 B.C. ±0.5 years for the start of the reign of Ninyas
62 years, Menes (Mizraim)
57 years, Atothis I (Nimrod)
The Old Assyrian Empire, which began with the 31 years, Kenkenes (Atothis II)
death of Ninyas, was said by Africanus to have begun 23 years, Uonephes (Isis/Semiramis)
over seven centuries before the reign of Semiramis II. 20 years, Usaphaidos (vizier or co-regent)
(Cullimore 1833a, 175) 26 years, Miebidos (Ninyas/Gilgamesh)
1969 B.C. ±3 years for the death of Ninyas/Gilgamesh
1232 B.C. reign of Semiramis II (Griffith and White
2023a, AP-15); plus, For some reason Eratosthenes omitted Uoenephes
700 years; gives: in his first dynasty list, so we cannot use it to get a
1932 + 50 years to death of Ninyas (1982–1932 B.C.) duration to the death of Ninyas.
Ctesias gives 1,280 years from the death of AP-48: Death of Ninus/Nimrod: 2068 B.C.
Ninyas to the death of Deioces (Russell 1827, vol. 2, We previously established 2192/2191 as the year
352, 353). If we include the 28 year overlordship of of the Dispersion in which Nimrod, remembered
the Scythians, then Herodotus places the death of as Ninus, among other names, founded Nineveh
Deioces 128 years before Cyrus (Russell 1827, vol. 2, (Griffith and White 2022b, AP-2).
353) became king of Anshan, which was in 560 B.C. In Egypt the reign of Atothis in Dynasty 1 is given
(Griffith and White 2023a, AP-7). 57 years by Africanus after the 62 year reign of
Menes (Manetho 1964, 27–29).
560 B.C., Cyrus co-rex in Anshan; plus,
128 years to death of Deioces; plus, 2188 B.C. Menes founds Thinis; minus,
1,280 years to death of Ninyas; gives: 62 year reign of Menes; minus,
1968 B.C. ±6 years for death of Ninyas 57 year reign of Atothis (Nimrod); gives:
2069 B.C. death of Atothis/Nimrod
As Diodorus records, the first Median Dynasty
was established by Nimrod as a vassal of his empire There is a second witness to these numbers in
(Diodorus 2004, II.1). Its duration, as per Berossus, Eratosthenes (Manetho 1964, 215):
ended 224 years after the Dispersion. The end of the
Median Dynasty coincided with the death of Ninyas/ 2188 B.C. Menes founds Thinis; minus,
Gilgamesh, “the last of the gods.” 62 year reign of Menes; minus,
59 year reign of Atothis I/Nimrod; gives:
2191 B.C. Dispersion; minus, 2067 B.C. death of Atothis I/Nimrod
224 years of Median Dynasty of Babylon; gives:
1967 B.C. ±6 months for the end of Nimrod’s Empire As noted in AP-47 the 1,360 year duration fits
in two different places. Diodorus cites Ctesias as
giving 1,360 years from the death of Ninus until
And finally, Aemelius Sura gives 1,905 years
the death of Sardanapalus (Cory 1876, 83), which
from the death of Ninus to the establishment of the
we interpret as a reference to the death of Sargon
Roman dominion in Asia by Lucellus and Pompey in
II in 705 B.C.
63 B.C. (Russell 1827, vol. 1, 352, 353). As Ninyas was
sometimes referred to as the second Ninus, it appears
705 B.C. Median revolt kills Sargon II; plus,
he was meant by this duration, as it triangulates
1,360 years since Ninus; gives:
perfectly with the others for his death.
2065 B.C. ±5 years for the Death of Ninus
63 B.C. Roman conquest of Asia; plus,
Layard (1849, 257) compares the many durations
1905 years; gives:
given by the chroniclers to Ninus:
1968 B.C. ±0.5 years for death of Ninus [II] The antiquity of the Assyrian Empire is the first
point to which we shall allude. The period of that
There is a ninth duration that seems to fit, but empire was computed at 1360 years by Ctesias,
belongs elsewhere. Ctesias said it was 1,360 years as the fragments of his work now read, but which,
from Ninus to the death of Sardanapalus (Cory 1876, as Browne has shown in his Ordo Seclorum, was
83). If interpreted from the reign of Ninus II, or undoubtedly at first, 1460. Diodorus says 1400 years,
Ninyas, in 1968 B.C., this duration reaches the death Castor 1280, Africanus 1484, Eusebius 1240, Velleius
of Ashur Uballit II in 608 B.C. However, Ashur Uballit Paterculus 1230, Orosius 1164, Syncellus 1460,
II was not Sardanapalus; and, as shown below, this Augustine 1305, Trogus and Justin 1300. These
duration better fits the death of Nimrod to the death variations are caused to a great extent by the epochs
of Sargon II. from and to which the several writers computed. All
agree in assigning a period of about 1460 years from
608 B.C. Death of Ashur-Uballit II; plus Ninus to the destruction of Nineveh.
1,360 years to start of Assyrian Empire; gives: Given the other durations to follow this one, the
1968 B.C. ±5 years for the death of Ninyas 1,460 years appears to be from the final defeat of
the forces of Ashur-Uballit II in 608 B.C., rather than
These eight or nine durations to the death of from the Fall of Nineveh four years earlier.
Ninyas/Gilgamesh and the beginning of the Old
Assyrian Empire triangulate, placing his death in 608 B.C. final defeat of Ashur-Uballit II; plus,
1969/1968 B.C., 224 years after the Dispersion, at the 1,460 years to death of Ninus; gives:
end of Berossus Dynasty 2. 2068 B.C. ±5 years for death of Ninus
We previously triangulated the reign of Semiramis known as Ninus, Atothis, and Narmer, died between
I from five sources as being from 2036 to 1994 B.C. 2070 and 2065, with tight triangulations for 2068 B.C.
(Griffith and White 2023a, AP-21). In Manetho’s (fig. 9).
First Dynasty, Kenkenes ruled between Atothis There is a major discrepancy between the records
and Uonephes. We identify Uonephes as the same of Ninus in Nineveh and Atothis I in Egypt as the
person as Semiramis I, ruling under a male name, person that many scholars have identified as Nimrod.
a hypothesis which will be explored in more detail in According to Ctesius, Ninus ruled only 52 years in
CFAH-6. Nineveh. Fifty-two years after the Dispersion in 2191
Kenkenes is given 31 years by Africanus, 32 was 2139 B.C. As shown above, Atothis died 71 years
by Eratosthenes, and 39 years by Eusebius. We later in 2068 B.C.
interpret the extra years in Eusebius as a co-reign The testimony of the ancient chroniclers tells us
with either his predecessor or successor. Thus, the that the “Olympians” led by Heracles, were chased
death of Atothis I/Nimrod would have been at most into Egypt by Titan or Typhon (Allan 1899, 78).
32 years before the first year of Semiramis. She did Identifying Heracles as Nimrod, and Titan as Shem,
not rule immediately after his death, but appears to we expect to find a different date for the end of
have taken about 32 years to consolidate her power Nimrod’s reign in Assyria, from his reign and death
and take the throne. in Egypt.
Ancient sources make several references to a
2036B.C. start of reign of Ounephes/Merneith/Semiramis I; plus,
war that began immediately after the Dispersion
32 years of Kenkenes; gives:
between Titan, also called Typhon, and Kronos and
2068 B.C. ±0.5 years for the death of Atothis/Nimrod
the followers of Zeus/Cush. From Cory’s ancient
fragments (Cory 1876, 76):
Summing up the evidence, we have a loose
The Sibyl having named Kronus, Titan, and Iapetus
triangulation of two durations given by Ctesias
from two different events, an exact duration from (Japheth) as the three sons of the Patriarch (Noah),
Syncellus, and three sets of Egyptian data for the who governed the world in the tenth generation, after
First Dynasty of Egypt confirming that Nimrod, the Flood, and mentioned the division of the world
Fig. 9. Durations to the death of Ninus, aka Nimrod. Narmer Palettte, verso. Heagy1, “Verso of the Narmer Palette,”
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Narmer_Palette_verso.jpg. CC BY-SA 3.0.
into three parts, (viz, by Shem, Ham, and Japheth), Given the precision of durations cited from
over which each of the Patriarchs ruled in peace, Ctesias himself, we must conclude that the original
then relates the death of Noah, and the war between Babylonian sources used by Ctesias contained far
Kronus and Titan. more detailed information, of which we have been
The “Olympians’’, whom many scholars (Johnson handed down only the barest summary by the later
2003, 2016) have identified as the faction of Cush and chroniclers. It is a shame that the scribes of the
Nimrod, are said to have fled from Titan, also called Middle Ages did not preserve his entire body of work.
Typhon, to Egypt.
As the god Amen [Amun] was identified with Zeus and The First Dynasties of Uruk and Kish
Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans, so also was Aries, While we are here, we can make some sense of the
although this popularly was attributed to the story first dynasties of Kish and Uruk in the Sumerian
that the classical divinity assumed the Ram’s form King List. Both cities counted their first king as a
when all the inhabitants of Olympus fled into Egypt man named Gasir or Gaur. David Rohl was the first
from the giants led by Typhon. (Allan 1899, 78) to identify the founding kings of Uruk, Mes-kia-
The “divinity assumed the Ram’s form,” may be a gasir as Cush, and En-mer-kar as Nimrod (1995,
reference to the Vernal Equinox having moved into 206–207). We would add to his analysis that Gaur
Aries, the Ram, by the time that Nimrod fled from or Gasir of Kish was also Cush. Kish and Uruk both
Assyria into Egypt. His flight would account for counted their king lists back to the rebellion of Cush
the reign of Ninus in Nineveh being only 52 years, against Noah and the founding of Babel, which is to
ending in 2139; while in Egypt as “Atothis”, which say, decades before the actual founding of either Kish
is the Greek form of the name “Thoth” in Manetho, or Uruk.
based on Djehudi” in the original Egyptian tongue. The reigns of most of the kings prior to Sargon
He lived another 68 years until his death in 2068 B.C. of Akkad found in the Sumerian King List use a
In Griffith and White (2023a), Anchor Point 22, different unit of time which has been mistranslated
we found that Thoth brought writing to Egypt in as years. Thus Gasir is given a reign of 1,200 years in
2164/2163 B.C., the same year as the War of Unification Kish, and Mes-kia-gasir is given 324 years in Uruk.
which was fought by Narmer and Menes in the 28th Both refer to Cush, whose reign is counted as 62,
year of Menes. The Sumerian Epic, En-mer-kar and 55, or 42 years depending on which starting point is
the Lord of Aratta, records that En-mer-kar, whom used. We will revisit the Uruk list, after looking at
Rohl identifies as Nimrod (1995, 206–207) , invented the other sources.
writing pictures on clay tablets to send messages In Kish the king called Kullassina-bêl, incorrectly
(Vanstiphout 2003, 50, 85–87). rendered “Pala-kinatim” in early translations,
Having placed both characters in the same time by means, “all of them were king” (Maier 1997, 244).
durations, we can recognize from their actions that The reigns of Gisur and Kullassina-bêl add up to
they were the same man, and therefore Egyptian and 2,100 “years” but when divided by 36 give 58.3 years,
Sumerian pictorial writing had the same source— which loosely approximates the reign of Cush from
Nimrod. Later scribes took the pictographic writing the division of the land until the Dispersion. “All of
system in different directions, resulting in cuneiform them were king” might mean that in the last two
in Sumer, and hieroglyphics in Egypt. decades at Babel they experimented with some kind
In addition to the name Thoth, Nimrod was also of democracy with Cush as the head of the assembly.
known as Nar-Mer in Egypt, which is probably As noted by Pritchard: (1969, 52)
a localized form of En-Mer-Kar from Uruk. In The Anunnaki, to judge from the available
Sumerian, En-Mer, meant “Lord Storm.” We can Sumerian material, are the unnamed “great gods”
see that the divine author of Scripture was making of the Sumerian pantheon who participated in
a play on his real name by calling him NMRD, which the assemblies called by the leading deities before
means “we shall rebel” in Hebrew. making final decisions . . .
Uonephes/Semiramis did not take the throne until Thus the 70 clan leaders listed in Genesis 10
32 years after his death in 2036 B.C. This means that might literally have represented the first senate
Ctesias’ Nineveh king list as preserved by Eusebius or sanhedrin, both of which mean a ruling body of
and others is missing a 103 year interregnum between 70. In Sumerian texts the number is usually given
the flight of Ninus to Egypt and the enthronement as 50, while in the Hittite texts it is 70 (Pritchard
of Semiramis as “Dumuzi” in Uruk. This must have 1969, 124). This first senate was remembered in the
been noted in the original text of Ctesias because mythologies as the “assembly of the gods,” called the
several of the chroniclers who cited him preserved “lesser anunnaki” or “igigi” whose numbers were
precise durations back to Babel and the Dispersion inflated in later centuries to 300 and again to 600
that cross the interregnum accurately. (Pritchard 1969, 69, 72). This could also account for
the later egalitarian political ideology of the Guti of If we assume that the period the Kish king list
whom the Sumerian King List claimed, “no king was intended to refer to was from the division of the earth
famous; they were their own kings” (ECTSL 2006). in the days of Peleg then the combined reigns of Gasir
We appear to have another witness to the Babel and Kullasina-bel would come to 55 years. Dividing
data from Polyhistor as quoted by Eusebius (Eusebius 2,100 by 55 gives a multiple of 38.182 per year. It is
2008, 24–25): not immediately evident why they would have used
That is what Polyhistor says about the building of the that multiple, but if we divide the regnal lengths at
tower. He continues with the following details. Kish by 38 we find that Chomasbelus and Kullasina-
After the flood, Euechius ruled the land of the bel had about the same length of reign, being about
Chaldaeans, for 4 ners. 23 years.
Then his son Chomasbelus became king, for 4 ners
and 5 sosses. Gasir/Cush: 31.57
Recalling that a neros is 600 and a sossos is 60 we Kullasina-bel: 23.68
have two rulers over Babel after the Flood given as: Total reign: 55.25 years
Evechius: 2400 units
Chomasbelus: 2700 units A third possibility is that the nice rounded 1,200,
This appears to be another version of the same which is 2 neroi of 600, for Gasir in the Kish king list
information from the Kish Dynasty, thus, Evechius is missing a few nessoi which are units of 60. If we
was Cush and “Chomasbelus” may be intended to reverse engineer the Kish list to get a nice rounded
refer to “Kullasina-bel” meaning “all of them were multiple, multiplying 62 years × 36 gives 2,232,
king,” or it could refer to a co-reign with Nimrod, his which is three neroi and 7.2 sessoi. Subtracting the
son (Genesis 10:10; Glassner 2005, 60; Maier 1997, 900 of Kullasina-bel’s reign from the total leaves
244). Gasir’s reign with 1,332 units, and thus the missing
Attempting to find what units these are, Table 5 value is 2.2 sessoi. Dividing these new numbers by
divides the 5,100 total units by the various possible 36 we get:
known combined reigns of Cush and “all of them were
king.” The most likely unit used will give a whole Gasir/Cush: 2 neroi, [2.2 sessoi], 1,332 1/36= 37.0 years
number of days when divided into either 365.25 or Kullasina-bel: 1 neroi, 5 sessoi, 900 1/36= 25.0 years
360. Total reign 3 neroi, 7.2 sessoi 2,232 62.0 years
Table 5. Solving for the units in the durations of
polyhistor. Calculating 2347–94–62 = 2191 B.C. for the
Solving for the Units in the Durations of Polyhistor Dispersion. This counts from the end of the Flood
Total Reign Units
rather than from its beginning in 2348 B.C., but is
Into 365.25 Into 360 within one year of a perfect representation of the
Units years per year
5100 62 82.25 4.44 days 4.37 days time from the Flood to the Dispersion.
Both sets of data seem to imply that for the last
5100 60 85. 4.29 days 4.23 days
two decades of Cush’s reign at Babel he shared power
5100 42 121.42 2.93 2.96 days
either with the senate or with his son, Nimrod. The
differing lengths of Cush’s reign could be counted as
It appears that the best fit is about 42 years total 42.5 years from the founding of Babel in 2233 B.C.; 55
reign, using 3 days of a 360 day year as the unit of years from the final division of the land in 2247 B.C.,
time. Thus they multiplied the actual number of the year Peleg was born; or 62 years from the first
years by 120. division of the land, about 94 years after the end of
5100/120 = 42.5 years for the combined reign the Flood.
broken down as.
Solving the First Dynasty of Uruk
Evechius / Cush: 20 years Table 6 compares the known reigns of the same
Chomasbelus: 22.5 years kings from Nineveh and Egypt with the values from
Total Reign: 42.5 years Uruk. The values of the first five reigns at Uruk
appear to be using a multiple, while the sixth king
Using similar data from the First Dynasty of Kish, and onwards appear to be using regular years. The
divided by 36, we get: first five kings also have the star by their names
indicating they were gods, thus we are looking at the
Gasir/Cush: 33.33 years “reign of the gods.” The last of the “gods” in this list
Kullasina-bel: 25.0 years is Gilgamesh, and in Egypt Horus the Younger was
Total reign: 58.33 years said to be the last of the gods.
Table 6. Comparison of Reigns in Uruk to Ctesias and Manetho
Solving the First Dynasty of Uruk

Bible Name Known Reigns Uruk Name Uruk Reign Divided by 3.33
Cush: 62, 55, 42, 33, 20 65, 62, 55, 42, 40, 20 Mes-kia-gasher 324 97
Nimrod 123, 57, 55, 52 En-mer-kar 420 126
Interregnum (Kenkenes) 100, 32 Lugal Banda 1200 360
Naamah 42, 30 Dumuzi 100 30
[Ninyas], Hor, Arba 38, 26 Gilgamesh 126 38
By trial and error, we found that dividing the Uruk likely rulers of Sumeria and Nineveh during the
reigns by 3.33 gives values that are quite close to the interregnum between the expulsion of Nimrod from
known reigns of Ninus, Semiramis, and Ninyas. We Assyria in 2139 B.C. and the reigns of Semiramis I
saw this multiple in Griffith and White (2022b) used and Ninyas-Gilgamesh a century later.
by Syncellus to convert 30,000 years of Hephaestus The value for Mes-kia-gasher may also have
to 9,000. It is unclear to us why they used a multiple come from another source using a different unit of
of 3.33, as it does not match any natural division of time. Dividing it by 5 comes to 64.8 years, which
the year, but is simply one third of 10. Given that we suggested was the combined reign of Belus and
the used sexagesimal as their numbering system, 10 Kullassina-bêl in the Kish list, counting from the
is one of their bases, and 6 is the other, and 3 is half first division of the earth to the Dispersion. One fifth
of 6. So perhaps they multiplied by ten and divided of a 360 day year was 60 days, the bimestral of two
by six, and then divided again by two to get these months.
values. It seems likely that Nimrod founded the city of
However, using this multiple for Mes-kia-gasher Uruk in Sumer early in his 123-year post-dispersion
for Uruk, the reign for Cush comes out 33 years rule. Therefore the reigns for En-mer-kar, Dumuzi,
higher than the highest previously determined value and Gilgamesh were local data from Uruk, but the
of 62 years. value for Cush would have come from a predispersion
Lugal Banda means “little king” and is mentioned source, and could have been misunderstood by the
in the Epic of Gilgamesh to be the father or forefather much later Sumerian scribes.
of Gilgamesh. That name seems to be an insertion in Thus we find that the multiple being used for three
this list, for three reasons. First, the reign of 1,200 of the first five kings in the Uruk king list was 3.33,
units is three times higher than any other reign or 110 days, and the multiple used in the Kish list
recorded in the Uruk list. Second, the value of 1,200 was 36, which is ten pre-flood days, and the values
may be from the same source as the Kish list, which for Mes-kia-gaser and Lugal Banda in the Uruk list
gives Gisur (Cush) 1,200 units of reign. If that is the are insertions using different units from the other
case, then the 1200 units of reign for Lugal Banda are three “gods.”
using a different unit of time than the other values in As in the Hindu reigns of the first three Yugas
the Uruk list. which were multiplied by 4,320, it appears that the
And, third, if Lugal Banda refers to Cush, then Sumerian scribes deliberately counted the reigns of
we have him twice in the list under different names. certain ancestors, whom they viewed as gods, using
However, the details of the two Sumerian Epics about multiples of the real years, perhaps as a way of
Lugal Banda and the war against Aratta suggest he setting them apart from the later kings in the lists.
was probably not Cush, as he was one of the warrior
companions of En-mer-kar who was left behind in a Conclusions
cave to die (Vanstiphout 2003, 97–137). The most important conclusion is that the
At any rate, Lugal Banda appears to be a scribal chronology of Berossus confirms the durations
insertion to fill the interregnum between the death of back to Babel and the Dispersion that we cited in
Nimrod/Enmerkar and the accession of Semiramis, Griffith and White (2022b). First we counted back
who is recorded as Dumuzi in this list. Since it doesn’t to Babel, the Dispersion, and the Flood. In this
make sense as a number, we will just set that piece paper we counted forward from the Flood to Cyrus
aside for now. The 32 year reign of Kenkenes in Egypt using Babylonian sources, and got the same answer.
gives us the length of the interregnum in Egypt. Berossus was missing a 21 year gap between the end
The Sumerian poem, Gilgamesh and Agga, gives of Period 2 and the first dynasty of Babylon, but for
us the names of Agga and his father Enmebarragesi all other dates from Babel to Cyrus he is precise. The
as the rulers of Kish to whom Gilgamesh refused duration from the Flood to the conquest of Babylon
to submit (Katz 1993, 43). They were the most by Cyrus was 1,809 years.
Synchronizing the Babylonian Dynasties of Edited by Joan Aruz and Ronald Wallenfels. New Haven,
Berossus with the anchor point for Semiramis II Connecticut: Yale University Press.
(1232/1231 B.C.) and with our triangulated dates Balkan, K. 1954. “Kassitenstudien, 1: Die Sprache der
Kassiten.” American Oriental Series 37.
for Babel and the Dispersion results in a nearly
perfect fit with our Chronological Framework of
Bloch, Yigal and Laura A. Peri. 2016–2017. “I Placed My Name
There”: The Great Inscription of Tukulti-Ninurta I, King
Ancient History, further supporting the assertion of Assyria, from the Collection of David and Cindy Sofer,
that the ancient chroniclers had access to accurate London. Israel Museum Studies in Archaeology 8: 2–55.
chronological data whereby they were able to Booth, G. trans. 1814. The Historical Library of Diodorus the
calculate precise durations from ancient events to Sicilian in Fifteen Books to which are added the Fragments
events in their day. of Diodorus. London, United Kingdom: McDowell, Row &
A built-in checksum using both reign durations Square, Fleet Street.
and number of kings confirms that this reconstruction Bosanquet, J. W. 1873. “On the Date of the Fall of Nineveh, and
is accurate. The use of a checksum by Berossus the Beginning of the Reign of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon.”
Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 2: 147–178.
demonstrates dedication to accuracy and a high
Bosanquet, Samuel Richard. 1880. Hindu Chronology and
degree of sophistication, and has enabled us to Antediluvian History. London, United Kingdom: Hatchards
repair the lost data with reasonable confidence. The Piccadilly.
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conquest of Babylon and 2234/2233 B.C. for the Chronology of the Holy Scriptures: And the Indications
founding of Babel. Therein Contained of a Divine Plan of Times and Seasons:
This degree of accuracy and sophistication suggests Together With an Appendix. London, United Kingdom:
that the testimonies of Berossus and Herodotus in John W. Parker.
regard to the time of the Median Revolt were based CDLI:Wiki. 2023. “Year Names of Sharkalisharri.” https://cdli.
ox.ac.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=sharkalisharri_year-names.
on valid information, though it was misunderstood
Charles, R. H. 1913. “The Book of Jubilees.” In The Apocrypha
and corrupted by later Greek chroniclers. and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. Oxford, United
While the characters of Ninus, Semiramis, and Kingdom: Clarendon Press.
Ninyas have obviously been embellished by the Chambers, Ephraim. and Andrew Findlater. eds. 1880.
Greek chroniclers, the fact that the durations to their Library of Universal Knowledge with Copious Additions
reigns match the Egyptian data for the rulers of the by American Editors. Vol. 1 of 15. New York, New York:
First Dynasty gives us confidence that the Greek American Book Exchange.
chroniclers gained access to a core of real historical Clinton, Henry Fynes. 1824. Fasti Hellenici. The Civil and
information from the Medes, Persians, Babylonians, Literary Chronology of Greece, From the LVth to the
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and Egyptians.
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chroniclers leaves little doubt that the earlier periods Phoenician, Carthaginian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and
of the accepted chronology of the Ancient Near East Other Authors. Edited by Edward Richmond Hodges.
are grossly in error due to the circular reasoning used London, United Kingdom: Reeves & Turner.
to derive and support those chronologies. Cullimore, Isaac. 1833a. “On The Ancient Chaldean and
The two most controversial findings in this paper Egyptian Chronology.” The Morning Watch 6: 161–179.
are that the Fall of Akkad occurred in 1477 B.C., https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Morning_
and that Tukulti Ninurta I was probably the Watch/j4U3AAAAMAAJ.
Dalley, Stephanie. 2002. Mari and Karana: Two Old
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(April), 129–142. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4434874
Manetho.
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Answers Research Journal 16 (2023): 635–670.

Chronological Framework of Ancient History. 5:

Chronological Framework of Ancient History chronologies of Berossus, Manetho, the Assyrian

Table 1. Anchor points relevant to this paper (known dates).

A Brief Historical Review of language of civilizations from the Akkadian Empire

Sumerians Assyrian Empire

Hurri or Hurrians in Assyrian correspondence, and 7 ? Assyrian ?

Fig. 5. Solution to the Dynasties of Berossus.

Fig. 6. Addition durations to the Fall of Akkad.

Semiramis was said to have campaigned in

Kassite Synchronisms As discussed in our first paper (Griffith and White

Solving the First Dynasty of Uruk

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