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In your September/October 1987 issue, John Bimson and David Livingston in their article “Redating the Exodus,” BAR 13:05, referred to evidence coming from our investigation at Tell el-Dab‘a in the Eastern Nile Delta. I would like to correct some of their statements in this respect.
Using the low Egyptian chronology of the New Kingdom (NK) and the association of the Middle Bronze (MB) II A and B material with Egyptian material culture in finely stratified contexts, I proposed to lower the transition from MB II A/B by about 50 years (not 100!) to about 1700 B.C. (not to 1650 B.C.). While our MB II C started about 1570 B.C.,1 this is a local development and cannot simply be used as evidence for determining the end of MB II C in Palestine.
The recent two campaigns at Tell el-Dab‘a (both in 1987) have shown that the Second Intermediate period occupation (highly Egyptianized MB II B/C) seems not to continue into NK-settlement in any of the investigated areas, which are situated far from each other. The 18th Dynasty occupation, starting probably with Amenhotep III, seems to be based on a new foundation, probably a religious one.2 This would imply that the end of the MB II occupation, with the presence of bichrome ware (stratum D/2)—as in the final phase of MB II C in Palestine3—should be terminated with the end of Avaris (after the 10th and possibly as late as the 15th regnal year of Ahmose). This event happened, according to recent chronological findings, between 1530 and 1515 B.C.4 The subsequent campaigns in Palestine, including at first a siege of Sharuhen for three years by Ahmose, have been seen generally as one of the most powerful factors in bringing about the change from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. As only the southern and coastal parts of Palestine were affected directly by the campaigns of Ahmose and his immediate successors, there is a question as to whether the change to the Late Bronze Age was not regionally delayed farther inland. According to Baruch Halpern’s demonstration “Radical Exodus Redating Fatally Flawed,” BAR 13:06), there seems not to be much room for such a delay in the inland centers in the calculations of Bimson and Livingston.
If Ahmose’s campaign played an important part in triggering a shift to the Late Bronze Age culture, then this could only have happened after 1530–1515 B.C. and the following campaigns, i.e., towards the end and not in the middle of the 16th century B.C. Surely the change to the Late Bronze Age was not brought about in a couple of years, but took some time, with regional variations. One also has to admit that the difference between MB II C and LB I A is only minor. However, I see little chance, even with the modern super low chronology, to arrive at a date late in the 15th century B.C. for the end of MB II C.
My second point: While we cannot entirely exclude a minor nomadic element, the MB culture in the Eastern Nile Delta was generally an urban and sedentary culture with close ties to coastal Syria in its early stage, as its own architectural tradition and house burials demonstrate. I therefore cannot see the point, following verbally Josephus’s very tendentious interpretation, which identifies the carriers of the Hyksos rule in Egypt as proto-Israelites.
While I disagree with the chronology and interpretation of the archaeological evidence given by Bimson and Livingston, I do, however, see some logic in their theory, which deserves 055much thought and which should not be dismissed altogether. It has already been suggested by others that the expulsion of the Hyksos5 from Egypt was such a stunning event that it entered into the tradition in Canaan, lasting long enough to merge later with the Exodus story.
In your September/October 1987 issue, John Bimson and David Livingston in their article “Redating the Exodus,” BAR 13:05, referred to evidence coming from our investigation at Tell el-Dab‘a in the Eastern Nile Delta. I would like to correct some of their statements in this respect. Using the low Egyptian chronology of the New Kingdom (NK) and the association of the Middle Bronze (MB) II A and B material with Egyptian material culture in finely stratified contexts, I proposed to lower the transition from MB II A/B by about 50 years (not 100!) to about 1700 B.C. (not to 1650 […]
