Scientists analyse ancient plants to work out when the Egyptian kings ruled

Scientists have used the analysis of ancient plants and seeds to complete the most detailed chronology of the kings of ancient Egypt yet.



The international study sheds light on one of the most important periods of Egyptian history, documenting the various rulers of Egypt's Old, Middle and New Kingdoms.

In the past, the dating of events was controversial, with Egyptologists relying on various different ways of working out which king ruled over which period.

But the new radiocarbon dating, led by Professor Christopher Ramsey from the University of Oxford, is said to resolve the chronology once and for all.

A scrap of papyrus and seeds in a Deir el-Bahri offering bowl. Some of the objects collected fro museums around the world were more than 4,000 years old



The researchers obtained seeds, baskets, textiles, plant stems and fruits linked to the particular reigns of ancient Egyptian kings from museums worldwide.

They then combined their radiocarbon data with historical information about the order and length of each king's reign to make a complete chronology of ancient Egyptian dynasties.

A statue of Djoser, the pharoah of the Third Dynasty of Egypt

The new dating evidence rules out some chronologies that were put forward, particularly in the Old Kingdom, which is shown to be older than some scholars thought.

In the Old Kingdom, one of the best known pharaohs of the Third Dynasty of Egypt is Djoser, who is thought to have commissioned the first of the pyramids.

He was found to have ruled between 2691 and 2625 BC - about 50 to 100 years earlier than some experts thought.

The study also suggests that the start of the New Kingdom might be pushed back slightly to between 1570 and 1544 BC.

'The very first dating done with radiocarbon was dating Egyptian material of known dates, to check that [the method] worked,' said Andrew Shortland from Cranfield University told the BBC.



'Now, for the very first time, [we] managed to get radiocarbon techniques so good, that we can do it completely the opposite way around. We can say, from using radiocarbon, whether the Egyptian history is correct or not.



'Previously radiocarbon hasn't had a voice on this because the errors had been so great. Now radiocarbon is able to distinguish between different ideas of reconstructing the history.'



Academics say the study has implications for the whole region, as the Egyptian chronology anchors the timing of historical events in neighbouring areas.

Prof Ramsey and colleagues from the universities of Oxford and Cranfield, along with a team of researchers from France, Austria and Israel, radiocarbon-dated 211 plants from museum collections worldwide.

The pyramids at Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and burial place of the Egyptian kings. New radiocarbon dating of plants has given definitive dates for the Egyotian rulers

They used a computer programme devised by Prof Ramsey that provides a radiocarbon calibration and analysis of archaeological and environmental chronological data.

Prof Ramsey said: 'For the first time, radiocarbon dating has become precise enough to constrain the history of ancient Egypt to very specific dates.

'I think scholars and scientists will be glad to hear that our small team of researchers has independently corroborated a century of scholarship in just three years.

'My colleague Joanne Rowland went to a lot of museums, explaining what we were doing and asking for their participation.

'The museums were all very helpful in providing the material we were interested in to ask for their help.

'We are very grateful to them for providing us with the material we were interested in, especially important since the export of samples from Egypt is currently prohibited.

'Fortunately, we only needed samples that were about the same size as a grain of wheat.'