Chronological synchronism is an event that links two chronologies. For example, it is used in

Egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

to ground

Egyptian chronology The majority of Egyptologists agree on the outline and many details of the chronology of Ancient Egypt. This scholarly consensus is the so-called Conventional Egyptian chronology, which places the beginning of the Old Kingdom in the 27th centur ...

to other

Calendar era A calendar era is the period of time elapsed since one ''epoch'' of a calendar and, if it exists, before the next one. For example, it is the year as per the Gregorian calendar, which numbers its years in the Western Christian era (the Coptic ...

s. The main types of chronological synchronism are synchronisms with other historical chronologies and synchronisms with precisely datable astronomical events. Synchronisms with other chronologies often rely on some form of recorded communication between regions. For example, in Egyptology, the earliest such synchronisms appear in the 15th century BC, during the

Amarna Period The Amarna Period was an era of History of Ancient Egypt, Egyptian history during the later half of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty when the royal residence of the pharaoh and his queen was shifted to Akhetaten ('Horizon of the ...

by the considerable quantity of diplomatic correspondence between

Amenhotep III Amenhotep III ( egy, jmn-ḥtp(.w), ''Amānəḥūtpū'' , "Amun is Satisfied"; Hellenized as Amenophis III), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. According to different ...

and

Akhenaten Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dy ...

and various

ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...

ern monarchs; that links Egyptian chronology with other Near Eastern chronologies. Astronomical synchronisms rely on precise identification of astronomical events recorded in the historical record. The best known of these is the

Sothic cycle The Sothic cycle or Canicular period is a period of 1,461 Egyptian civil years of 365 days each or 1,460 Julian years averaging 365¼ days each. During a Sothic cycle, the 365-day year loses enough time that the start of its ...

whose careful study led

Richard Anthony Parker Richard Anthony Parker (December 10, 1905 – June 3, 1993) was a prominent Egyptologist and professor of Egyptology. Originally from Chicago, he attended Mt. Carmel High School (then known as St. Cyril) with acclaimed author James T. Farrell. He r ...

to argue that the dates of the

Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt The Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty XII) is considered to be the apex of the Middle Kingdom by Egyptologists. It often is combined with the Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth dynasties under the group title, Middle Kingdom. Some s ...

could be fixed with absolute precision. More recent research has eroded that confidence and questioned many of the assumptions used with the Sothic Cycle. As a result, experts have moved away from relying on it.One example is Patrick O'Mara, "Censorinus, the Sothic Cycle, and calendar year one in ancient Egypt: the Epistological problem", ''Journal of Near Eastern studies'', 62 (2003), pp. 17-26.

References

Chronology {{time-stub