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"The advancement of research into the chronology, archaeology and history of the ancient world."


ISIS was the only scholarly organisation specifically established to study the chronology of ancient times. Its multidisciplinary approach - combining archaeology, textual analysis and scientific dating techniques - has revealed new and fascinating insights into the history of the ancient world.

It was founded in 1985 by a group of students and scholars of ancient history, and its related fields of study, who felt it was important to develop an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Man's ancient past.

ISIS has published research on the great cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East including Egypt and Nubia; Canaan, Philistia and Israel; Phoenicia and Syria; Assyria, Babylonia, Elam and Persia; Anatolia; Cyprus, Crete and Greece; and Italy, Sicily and Sardinia. Fields of study have included Egyptology; archaeology; astronomical retrocalculation; textual analysis; dendrochronology; carbon dating; pottery; jewellery, goldwork and metalworking technology.

The Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum (JACF) is the journal of the Institute. In its time it was the only academic publication dedicated to the study of old world chronology: a high quality, award-winning journal, heavily illustrated with diagrams, charts and photographs to enhance the arguments put forward by the contributors.

Contributors have included : -  
Prof. Mike Baillie (Dendrochronology)
Dr. John Bimson (Biblical Chronology)
Prof. Nicolas Coldstream (Aegean archaeology)
Vronwy Hankey (relative pottery chronologies)
Prof. Mohamed Ibrahim (the chronology of the Serapeum)
Dr. Bill Manley (the archaeology of the Theban necropolis)
Wayne Mitchell (astronomy and ancient omen texts)
Dr. Bernard Newgrosh (scientific dating methods and Assyrian history)
David Rohl (Egyptian and biblical chronology)
Peter van der Veen (the Amarna letters in the New Chronology)
Prof. Peter Warren (Cretan archaeology and the Theran eruption)



The editorial policy of the JACF has been to offer its pages as a forum for debate on all matters relating to the study of ancient history and chronology. Therefore the views expressed in contributions to this Journal are not necessarily those of the Institute or the editors. In particular, in recent years the Journal has provided a forum for debate about the radical 'New Chronology' revision of Egyptian and related history.

Although ISIS as an organisation formally closed in October 2005, it has left this valuable legacy of research which it hopes will now find a wider audience. The last journal in the series, JACF 10, was published in January 2006. Meanwhile interest in ancient Egypt continues unabated; the New Chronology discussion group remains active (see links), and further publications from individual scholars have appeared, including work on removing the Greek Dark Age (David Rohl's 'Lords of Avaris') and integration of the NC with Assyrian history (Bernard Newgrosh, 'Chronology at the Crossroads').

ISIS and its journal was the forum for the publication of the David Rohl New Chronology, as well other revised chronologies. Articles on astronomy, Egypt David Rohl, and the Amarna Letters are particularly recommended.   An introduction to the New Chronology of David Rohl may be found at the Wikipedia link above.

"The Journal in which the New Chronology was first developed"