Peter James is a British historian and author specializing in the

ancient history Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...

and

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

of the Eastern

Mediterranean region In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and wa ...

, with key related interests being chronology (dating techniques), ancient technology and astronomy, and sub-

Roman Britain Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered was ...

. He graduated in archaeology and ancient history at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

and pursued postgraduate research in ancient history at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. He has published four books (three co-authored) on various aspects of ancient history. In his best known work, ''Centuries of Darkness'' (1991), he and four colleagues challenged traditional chronology for the

Bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

Iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

Ages in the

Near East The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...

and the

Eastern Mediterranean Eastern Mediterranean is a loose definition of the eastern approximate half, or third, of the Mediterranean Sea, often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It typically embraces all of that sea's coastal zones, referring to communi ...

. In particular, they advanced the idea that the

Greek Dark Ages The term Greek Dark Ages refers to the period of Greek history from the end of the Mycenaean palatial civilization, around 1100 BC, to the beginning of the Archaic age, around 750 BC. Archaeological evidence shows a widespread collaps ...

can be drastically reduced and arose solely from a misreading of key elements of the

history of ancient Egypt The history of ancient Egypt spans the period from the early prehistoric settlements of the northern Nile valley to the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The pharaonic period, the period in which Egypt was ruled by a pharaoh, is dated from the ...

. Ongoing criticism and discussion of the evidence is listed on the authors' own website. Reviews at the time were sharply divided on the merits of the book, but there was generally more praise for the critique of problems in the conventional ancient

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 ...

than for the proposed knock-on revisions to the chronologies of surrounding cultures. The Centuries of Darkness (CoD) debate has recently been met with increased interest, partly due to the organisation of three colloquiums on the subject of ancient World Chronology. In ''The Sunken Kingdom: The Atlantis Mystery Solved'', James gives a hypothesis for the

location In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...

Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...

. By first claiming that references to

mythological Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

Tartarus In Greek mythology, Tartarus (; grc, , }) is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato's ''Gorgias'' (), souls are judg ...

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

were in fact meant to identify a

Lydia Lydia (Lydian language, Lydian: ‎𐤮𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣𐤠, ''Śfarda''; Aramaic: ''Lydia''; el, Λυδία, ''Lȳdíā''; tr, Lidya) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the mod ...

n king by the name of

Tantalus Tantalus ( grc, Τάνταλος ) was a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his punishment in Tartarus: he was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches, with the fruit ever eluding his grasp, and the wate ...

, James identifies Atlantis with a hypothetical lost temple city called Tantalis, now

Manisa Manisa (), historically known as Magnesia, is a city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province. Modern Manisa is a booming center of industry and services, advantaged by its closeness to the international port cit ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

Bibliography

*''Centuries of Darkness: A Challenge to the Conventional Chronology of Old World Archaeology'', in collaboration with I.J. Thorpe

t al. T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is deri ...

Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ., 1993, (hardcover), (paperback); originally published by Jonathan Cape, London, 1991, *''The Sunken Kingdom: The Atlantis Mystery Solved'', Jonathan Cape, London, 1995, (hardcover); Pimlico, London, 1996. (paperback) *''Ancient Inventions'', with I.J. Thorpe, Michael O'Mara, London, 1995, *''Ancient Mysteries'', with I.J. Thorpe, Ballantine, New York, 1999, * (with P. van der Veen) ''Solomon and Shishak: Current Perspectives from Archaeology, Epigraphy, History and Chronology, Proceedings of the Third BICANE Colloquium held at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge 26–27 March 2011'', BAR International Series 2732, Oxford, 2015, * J. M. Tebes Review of Solomon and Shishak in Antiguo Oriente (2017): http://bibliotecadigital.uca.edu.ar/greenstone/cgi-bin/library.cgi?a=d&c=Revistas&d=james-der-veen-solomon-shishak. * Ronald Wallenfels, “Shishak and Shoshenq: A Disambiguation” in Journal of the Ancient Oriental Society (issue 139.2 (2019), pp. 487–500): https://www.academia.edu/40041219/Shishak_and_Shoshenq_A_Disambiguation

References

External links

Centuries of Darkness
Author's website.
The Sunken Kingdom
{{DEFAULTSORT:James, Peter Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Historians of antiquity Alumni of the University of Birmingham British historians Proponents of alternative chronologies Atlantis proponents