1. See Alan Gardiner, "The Inscription of Mes: A Contribution to the Study of Egyptian Judicial Procedure", Vol 4 in Kurt Sethe ed. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskunde Aegyptens, p 11

2. Thus Gardiner (op cit p. 22) adds the comment "This is undoubtedly the correct view". The original remarks of Loret are found in ZAW 39 (1901) 4.

3. The so-called "Table of Abydos", a king list contructed by Seti I, cites Horemheb as the immediate successor to Amenhotep III, omitting mention of the reigns of Akhenaton, Tutankhamon and Ay, providing support for Loret's interpretation.

4. Critics might argue that the chronology of the traditional history also allows for precisely 59 years between the Amenhotep III (1405-1367) and the death of Horemheb (1335-1308?). But this chronology was constructed with the "Inscription of Mes" dateline specifically in mind. (We note especially the question mark affixed to the date for Horemheb's death, supposedly in 1308 B.C., reproduced from Gardiner's Egypt of the Pharaohs.) Not so with the revised history chronology which followed necessarily the genealogy of the Berlin stele.

5. It is generally assumed by scholars that Ay was the party responsible for the destruction of the site of Akhetaton (Tel el-Amarna). We believe instead that Horemheb should be viewed as the party responsible, and probably very early after becoming pharaoh. At least one of the Amarna letters, that from the Hittite king Suppiluliuma, is likely addressed to him.

6. Note on the destruction of Akhetaten (Amarna) to be supplied later.

7. According to Goetze "The preserved parts of the annals of Murshilish justify the assumption that his reign covered more - and probably not much more - than twenty two years".CAH II Part 2 p. 126-7. The operative word here is "assumption". Goetze admits that "What we possess of annals from the later years of Murshilish - it is unfortunately incomplete - does not relate any large-scale military operations anywhere." (p 125-6) During these years Mursilis apparently fought only defensive battles on the north of his realm.

8. The fact that twenty years have passed since the plague first appeared in the Hatti land necessitates dating the stela sometime before the fifteeth year of Mursilis, probably closer to the tenth. The plague must have appeared five to ten years before the end of the reign of Suppiluliumas considering the sequence of actions by that king which are cited as its cause. It certainly does not date from the first ten years of Mursilis. Toward the end of his lament/prayer Mursilis acknowledges that "the protectorates beyond the frontier, (namely) the Mitanni land (and) the Arzawa land, each one has rebelled; they do not acknowledge the gods and have broken the oaths of the gods. They persist in acting maliciously against the Hatti land." Further on he notes that "those countries which belong to the Hatti land, (namely) the Kashkean country ... also the coutry of Arawanna, the country of Kalasma, the Lukka country, the country of Pitassa - these lands have also renounced the Sun-goddess of Arinna. They cast off their tributes and began to attack the Hatti land in their turn" ANET 396 This state of affairs differs markedly from that which prevails in the ten year annals.

9. At Boghazkeuy, ancient Hattusas, the Hittite capital, though a distinct separation exists between the Hittites and their 9th/8th century Phrygian successors, the lack of sedimentation at the separation level has led authorities to surmise that the hiatus between the two inhabitants at the site was very brief.

10. In the traditional history it is considered that this event occurred very late, since it was during the assault on the city that Suppiluliumas received a request from the widow of Tutankhamon to send her one of his sons as a husband. And since for other reasons the death of Suppiluliumas is placed in 1335 B.C., only four years after the death of Tutankhamon, the attack on Carchemish must have taken place in a very narrow time frame at the end of the reign of the Hittite king. But even in the conventional chronology the dates of the Hittite and Egyptian kings are not firmly established, calling this interpretation into question. And the identity of the widowed queen is by no means an established fact. In the revised chronology, assuming that we are dealing with the widow of Tutankhamon, the siege of Carchemish must be dated very early in the reign of Suppiluliumas, since the death of Tutankhamon took place either before or very soon after Suppiluliumas began his kingship.

11. Some would eliminate Tutankhamon from the list since the letter extends greeting to the king's wives and sons, but even the boy-king had at least one wife and had already fathered a son who apparently died at birth or soon after. The traditional history would eliminate Horemheb from the list of candidates since they date the Amarna letters in the period from Amenhotep III to Tutankhamon. But we believe this dating to be in error (see below).

12. We know that the annalists of Shalmanezer once made reference to a king Mari of Damascus, mistaking the Semitic honorific title mari ("my lord") for the name of the king. Here Labarna (or Tabarna) may be mistaken for (if not actually) a legitimate alternative name for Supiluliuma. We quote from Gurney in defense of our suggestion. "The kings of the Old Kingdom style themselves 'Great King, tabarna'. The title 'Great King' belongs to the language of diplomacy and denotes the Hittite king's claim to be one of the great powers of the time, with dominion over lesser kings. Tabarna is probably nothing but the name of the ancient forebear Labarnas in a disguised form. The title is borne only by living monarchs, and it is thought that each reigning king was regarded by the Hittites as the incarnation of the founder of the royal line. The variation in the initial letter would indicate that the original (Hattian?) form of the name contained a peculiar consonant which the Indo-European Hittites were unable to pronounce." Gurney, The Hittites, p. 64.

13. See E. Carter, "Report on the the Kahramanmarash Archaeological Survey Projedct from 24/9/93 to 11/11/93." Arastirma Sanuclari Toplantisi 12 (1995) 331-341 and "The Kahramanmarash Archaeological Survey Project: A Preliminary Report ont he 1994 Season." Arastirma Sanuclari Toplantisi 13 (1996) 289-306.

14. The only publication known to the author is the ucla website dedicated to the zinjirli find. The Zuckerman/Kaufman article can be found at http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/nelc/stelasite/zuck.html

15. ANET 284 The relevant text is from an undated inscription in which Sargon describes himself as the one "who exterminated Kasku, all Tabali and Cilicia (Hilakku), who chased away Midas (Mi-ta-a) king of Musku, who defeated Musur (Mu-su-ri) in Rapihu, etc. Elsewhere in an inscription dated to his fifth year (ANET 284) he notes that "Pisiri of Carchemish broke the oath sworn by the great gods and wrote messages to Midas (Mi-ta-a), king of Muski, (full) of hostile plans against Assyria" This later Midas may well be the legendary king whose touch turned profane objects into gold, or he may be his grandson. There is some evidence that the Phrygian kings used the names Midas and Gordion alternatively through much of their history.

16. For a description of the contents of the following Hittite inscriptions we rely entirely on the description provided by Peter James and his colleagues in Appendix 4 of their Centuries of Darkness. This author has unfortunately (due to illness) not had opportunity to research these documents first hand. This task accomplished, I hope to return to this section and modify a few statements.

17. The assumption that Shalmanezer would name a son after his grandfather Tukulti-Ninurta II, is entirely reasonable. He boasted of his descent from this king in many of his inscriptions.

18. Hugo Winckler, The History of Babylonia and Assyria (1911), p. 210.

19. William Hallo & William Simpson, The Ancient Near East: A History (1971) 127

20. We simply do not know how princes, ruling over various regions of the Assyrian empire, addressed themselves to foreign dignitaries in their correspondence. The Amarna letters are among the few examples of such dialogue in existence. It could well be that there were dozens of "kings of Assyria" governing simultaneously, just as there were multiple "kings of Hatti" in north Syria at any one time.  It is inconceivable that Ashurnasirpal and Shalmanezer III would employ the title "king of Hatti" in such a cavalier manner to Hittite regional kings, yet demand that the title "king of Assyria" be employed more strictly.

21. Even though Ashuruballit claims that his father Ashur-nadin-ahhe was sent gold by an earlier Egyptian king in response to a request, we need not assume that his father was acting independently, nor that he claimed the title "king of Assyria" (though he probably did). He may simply have been the governor of the Harran region, acting on behalf of the Assyrian king.

22. Ibid, p. 131

23. It is known that Suppiluliumas, fearing that the downfall of Washuganni and the expulsion of the Mitanni might relieve the Assyrians from this northern threat, thus encouraging their military aggression, attempted to reestablish a Mitanni prince named Kurtiwaza as vassal in the vacated capital. This prince, part of the conspiracy that killed Tushratta, had replaced the deceased king, but had in turn been expelled by Shuttarna, son of the Hurrian Artatama, as king of Mitanni. Kurtiwaza was indeed installed as king, but the outcome of the experiment is unknown. Lacking an army we imagine that Kurtiwaza was soon abandoned to his own devices as Hittite influence in the area waned. Of some interest to this revision is the fact that it was Sarre Kusuh who escorted Kurtiwaza from the Carchemish area north-east to Washuganni, coming into conflict with Harran and the Assyrians as he did so. It is possible that Ashuruballit was still alive at the time, but if so, he lost the battle and for a time vacated Harran. This event must date to around the year 885 B.C. The reign of Ashirnasirpal was just beginning.