Peter James (1952 - 2024) was a British author specializing in the

ancient history Ancient history is a time period from the History of writing, beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian language, ...

and

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

of the Eastern Mediterranean region, with key related interests being

chronology Chronology (from Latin , from Ancient Greek , , ; and , ''wikt:-logia, -logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the deter ...

(dating techniques), ancient technology and astronomy, and

sub-Roman Britain Sub-Roman Britain, also called post-Roman Britain or Dark Age Britain, is the period of late antiquity in Great Britain between the end of Roman rule and the founding of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The term was originally used to describe archae ...

. He graduated in archaeology and ancient history at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

and pursued postgraduate research in ancient history at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. He has published four books (three co-authored) on various aspects of ancient history.

Alternative Bronze Age chronology

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 metalloid ...

Iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () 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, forming much of Earth's o ...

Ages in the

Near East The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

and the

Eastern Mediterranean The Eastern Mediterranean is a loosely delimited region comprising the easternmost portion of the Mediterranean Sea, and well as the adjoining land—often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It includes the southern half of Turkey ...

. In particular, they advanced the idea that the

Greek Dark Ages The Greek Dark Ages ( 1180–800 BC) were earlier regarded as two continuous periods of Greek history: the Postpalatial Bronze Age (c. 1180–1050 BC) and the Prehistoric Iron Age or Early Iron Age (c. 1050–800 BC). The last included all the ...

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

history of ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt spans the period of Egyptian history from the early prehistoric Egypt, prehistoric settlements of the northern Nile valley to the Roman Egypt, Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The pharaonic period, the period in which Egypt wa ...

. 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 Conventional Egyptian chronology reflects the broad scholarly consensus about the outline and many details of the chronology of Ancient Egypt. It places the beginning of the Old Kingdom in the 27th century BC, the beginning of the Middle Kin ...

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.

Attempts to identify Atlantis

In ''The Sunken Kingdom: The Atlantis Mystery Solved'', James gives a hypothesis for the

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

Atlantis Atlantis () is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works '' Timaeus'' and ''Critias'' as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world ...

. By first claiming that references to

mythological Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

Tantalis by

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

were in fact meant to identify a

Lydia Lydia (; ) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom situated in western Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis. At some point before 800 BC, ...

n king by the name of

Tantalus Tantalus ( ), also called Atys, was a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his punishment in Tartarus: for either revealing many secrets of the gods, for stealing ambrosia from them, or for trying to trick them into eating his son, he ...

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

Manisa Manisa () is a city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province, lying approximately 40 km northeast of the major city of İzmir. The city forms the urban part of the districts Şehzadeler and Yunusemre, with ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

Bibliography

*''Centuries of Darkness: A Challenge to the Conventional Chronology of Old World Archaeology'', in collaboration with I.J. Thorpe t al. 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 1952 births 2024 deaths Alumni of the University of Birmingham British historians Proponents of alternative chronologies Atlantis proponents