August 18, 1960 Mr. A. F. Shore Dear Sir: I thank you for your letter of August 11th. You regard RC tests as superfluous since these dates were secured by historical methods, more exact than the RC method. If this is the case, then a radiocarbon test of some relics dating from the New Kingdom is even more desirable for the purpose of testing the test itself. When Professor W. F. Libby devised the method, he felt the need to check it on some well established data, three to five thousand years old, before offering it as a generally reliable method of dating. For that purpose he tested an acacia beam from the tomb of Zoser at Sakkara, a cypress beam from the tomb of Sneferu at Meydum, and wood of the funerary ship from the tomb of Sesostris III. It is agreed among the Egyptologists that the dates of the Old and Middle Kingdoms are not so certain as the dates of the New Kingdom, even if the long chronology of Flinders Petrie is no more in discussion. I assume that having been asked to submit material of established dates you would have preferred to select a relic of the 18th, 19th, or 20th Dynasty. By now the margin of error of the test is much narrower; but the prime objective to check the method on a known date was never fulfilled. I am writing to Mr. Wiseman and mailing him a copy of this letter.   Very sincerely,   Im. Velikovsky