So which Monarch had the longest reign ever???

From what i found until now Louis XIV reigned from 1643 to 1715 (72 years) but its likely someone must have reigned longer. 

Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonn��) (September 5, 1638 �C September 1, 1715) reigned as King of France and King of Navarre from May 14, 1643 until his death.

Her Imperial Majesty Empress Kojun of Japan was born Princess Kuni Nagako (jp: ��߃�m����Ů�� kuni no miya nagako jo��) (March 6, 1903 - June 16, 2000). She was the consort of the Showa Emperor, and mother of HIM the Emperor Akihito.

The Empress Nagako, known posthumously as Empress K��jun (�㴾�ʺ� k��jun k��g��), was the longest lived empress consort (k��go) in Japanese history. She was Crown Princess from 26 January 1924 to 25 December 1926, Empress from 26 December 1925 to 7 January 1989, and Empress Dowager from 7 January 1989 to 16 June 2000.

Longest Reigning European Monarchs

This list includes only rulers of empires and kingdoms.

Afonso I of Portugal reigned 73 years (1112-1185), but began his reign as a Count; he became the first King of Portugal in 1139, reigning with that title for 46 years.

Nikola I of Montenegro reigned 58 years (1860-1918), but began his reign as a Prince; he became the first and last King of Montenegro in 1910, reigning with that title for 8 years.

Ivan IV ("the Terrible") of Russia reigned 51 years (1533-1584), but began his reign as Grand Duke of Moscow; he became the first Tsar of Russia in 1547, reigning with that title for 37 years.

I found another list with contestants...

we have Pepi II of Egypt, whose dates are not nailed
down that firmly but seem to have been 94 years mainly in the 23rd
century BC...supposedly from age about 6 to about 100 as Decebal said also.

Other unclearly documented claims are those of:

 Musoma Kanjio(1856-1963) chiefship at his 8 in 1864 and held it for over 98 years, and

Minhti, king of the Burmese predecessor state of Arakan 1279-1374....earlier editions of the Guinness Book also noted almost certainly vastly inflated claims of 101 and 83 years for the 6th  Emperor K�an and 5th Emperor K�sh�, Emperors of Japan.

Hardly believeable considering in those time life expectancy wasn't higher than 35 years.

LOL, what a nonsense if you tell me. Typical exaggeration of the ancient time.

Lets not forget Queen Mab. She ruled part of Britain from at least the first millenia BCE up to the middle ages. And being as one day in Elfhame is one year in the rest of the world. We have to times her reign by 365.

 According to old people life were so much better in the past, the sky bluer, and the food cheaper and people live longer all that is just plain nonsense. In reality, people suffer from chronic malnutrition, were shorter, had a shorter life, even with ridiculous purchasing power. In truth as we advance the life expectancy keep increasing, some believe one day some human will be as old as 200 year old.

Actually dude are you familiar with the word science. By analysing the bones of people in ancient egypt you can actually tell if they were malnourished or not. in reality the people didn't quite died of hunger but more of malnutrition and that even the most wealthy and most have bad hygiene and would died of water-borne diseases as well tuberculosis. This was because those people have little understanding of how a diet work and how diseases are transmitted. For instance the longest living pharoahs all have tno teeth  at a very early age of 30. In ancient egyppt a 30 year old could pretty much be similar to a 60 year old nowadays.

Below is the age pyramid of the ancient egyptian, you'll notice only an extreme few made it to 70-80. 100 year old people would be like a very rare phenomenon. That's why I'm very sceptical that any king would live to 70 plus in such an early age.

 Modern pyramid

You're missing Maju's point. You could have a 200-year-old human at a time when life expectancy was 18. Or life expectancy could be 90 and no-one live longer that 100.

Life expectancy is affected by medical and hygienic advances and the like. Maximum life span is largely genetic, it's unaffected by evolution (since living longer - past a certain age - doesn't increase the number of children), and so far we haven't done any serious genetic engineering in humans.

Maju appears to be. You seem to be unfamiliar with the concept.

well i think living to 96 is not that weird and he was king of egypt  so you can consider that the 0.001% of that population life expectancy that time.

and Ramisses( spelling ) i think ruled for 60 years or so.

which is a good excuse for him to be considered God or something.

it will be weird when you go to some stories talking about someone rules for 20,000 years

i think that was the yellow king of china or something.

Originally posted by kotumeyil What about the longest reign of a dynasty? For example it is said that Ottomans reigned for 623 years, but I don't know if this is the longest...

I had read once Zhou Dynasty of China (1122 BC - 256 BC) was the longest.

Originally posted by Aeolus Originally posted by kotumeyil What about the longest reign of a dynasty? For example it is said that Ottomans reigned for 623 years, but I don't know if this is the longest... I had read once Zhou Dynasty of China (1122 BC - 256 BC) was the longest.

No, actually the longest ruling dynasty in the world, which continues to this day, is the Yamato dynasty of Japan. Although a precise starting date hasn't been establshed, tradition places the first emperor of the Yamato dynasty at 660BC.

 No it is you that is not getting my point. If you have life expentancy at 18 the extreme would not exceed 60 years old (although the more primitive you are the greater the variance). Our age is partly determine by our genetics but our environment mosty determine how fast we die. Perhaps many of us have the potential to live perhaps 300 years in the best possible environment, but without the appropriate technology such as vaccination, proper diet and medication and in the future gene therapy you will die fast. The extreme are those who had exceptional genetics but still the limit put upon them by the environment will cut this life considerably. With an expected life of 18 year old, no one can live at 200 years, the variance is way to high and improbable. if you look at the chart, no one exceeded the 80 years in early egypt, and they certainly sampled a rather large number of bones and mostly the wealthiest. that's why if someone tell me that a Pharaoh reigned for more than 70 years, i would automatically dismissed such a statement as improbable, freaks exists but you don't bet on freaks, as simple as that. that the scientific approach. However you need to verify the statement, by analysing the specimen scientifically and perhaps looking at historical data to back such an extreme specimen (not shown on the chart). If you don't find such evidence, it would be more logical to deny that any king in such an early age lived that old rather than to accept.

Rameses II rule for 66 years  perhaps 65 years  (1278 to 1212 B.C), to be taken with a pint of salt. Pharaohs were masters of propaganda, they did a lot of thing to be an outstanding, better than their predecessors. It was a world of proganda .  Although test reveal a 90 year old longevity, which was considered as extremely rare for the time. He may have been a freak in reality. But I do not accept the test done on the ramses as proof enough, I'm very sceptical about the method use.

nonsense, prove it Sir. Show me the age population distribution of Niger and Spain. if you don't I will.

 niger

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbpyrs.pl?cty=NG&out=s&ymax=300 - http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbpyrs.pl?cty=NG&out= s&ymax=300

 Spain

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbpyrs.pl?cty=SP&out=s&ymax=300 - http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbpyrs.pl?cty=SP&out= s&ymax=300

 I hope you can analyse the data. The data are crude but you can clearly notice the proportion of the upper extreme.

This prove my point as time and technology progresses, the extremes are push further and further. My theory than human will reach 200 years (or perhaps 300 gene therapy excluded) is not so farfetched,a nd back by many experts in the field.

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbpyrs.pl?cty=FR&out=s&ymax=300 - http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbpyrs.pl?cty=FR&out= s&ymax=300

 Life expectancy in Niger is 42, way higher than in ancient egypt (check my pyramid for ancient egypt would be about 30 in ancient Egypt). How many reach 110 th, certainly much more in Spain than it would be in Niger and that speaking in proportion (Spain has 4 time more people than niger,  4 folds more in Spain mean equality with Niger but I'll bet my head that it would something in the order of 8 folds or more)

 Your signature isn't that the one of the Israeli walls. I've seen a thread on that in another forum

So what is your Point or do you want to prove Quetzalcoatl?

that there were no Egyptian Pharaoh called Pepi II  lived to 100 years of age?

and what makes your "statistics" about people lived in 2000 BC accurate enough to make you think its "Hardly believeable" someone like Pepi II will live to 100 years old?

 The medical care was more likely to harm them than save them.

 This medicine had an effect in reducing stress or act like a mild pain killer or anti-biotics but overhall it was more about luck.

About leeches, what did the medieval people use it for. Do you know leeches have real medical application. leeches produce an anti-coagulant that improve circulation. Leeches have been used to restore blood circulation into a amputated body part that has beenreattached also used to treat  skin grafts.

http://www.heartinfo.org/ms/news/519818/main.html - http://www.heartinfo.org/ms/news/519818/main.html

'No one'? How do you prove that?

 It is mathematical.

 Good if you understand the maths behind you can answer it just by looking at the pyramids, so why asking me.  Look at the pyramids, the sample is not widely spread. More than 80% of the scores are within 1 standard deviation, an almost 100% within 2 standard deviation. Mathematically speaking, 100 year old peeps were a miracle in ancient egypt, or at least improbable although I never said zero. That's why I said it is very unlikely to have a person living that old.

 It is statistical and therefore mathematical as well.

  Apparently this statement seems to be correct on the surface but that is just apparent, why?? Having a lot of food doesn't mean you are well nourish, eating too much food is a form of malnutrition. Infact the food weren't that good, the elite had a lot of food but bad food mostly. For example the pharaohs had their teeth worn out by the consumption of bread full of tiny peebles.. The ancient egyptians hardly understand the concept behind a diet (which a rather modern concept which come by with science). So the elites suffered of malnutrition just like the poor if not worst. It can be argued who of the poor or the elite has the best diet. So don't confused the amount of food available as being an indicator for being well nourished.

  Further do you think the elites actually had better hygienes than the poor. Proper hygiene is a rather modern concepts too. You know the barbarians had better hygienes than the romans, Romans cities were filthy and the Gauls sacking romes would die of diseases (whereas barbarian villages were amasingly clean with proper waste disposal). When you argue you should not think as it is now but as it was. Nowadays the better educated wealthy people actually behave more like the poor of the past (with balance diet, restricting the amount of food they eat) and whereas the poor behaves like the elites of the past eating way too much food thus suffering from diseases associated with over-nutrition.

We do in fact have a contemporary inscription of Pepi II which reveals that he was living in the year after the thirty-first cattle count of his reign.   A cattle count took place on the first year of the reigning king and every other year afterward, which thus indicates that at least he was still reigning in his 64th year.  Another interesting thing is that he was not the only centenarian of the time.  We also know of a certain Pepiankh who declared that he reached the age of 100.  There are other examples of Egyptian longevity here:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/oldage.htm - http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/oldage.htm

Obviously, but what is it? Otherwise it could well be doubted that you know what you are talking about, couldn't it?

You overlooked my other question again, too.

Don't worry, I can handle statistical analysis.

It's because I understand the maths that I don't look at the pyramid. All mortality tables assume that the initial population goes to zero at some point, usually around 108-110. But people live longer than that.

You said zero, not almost zero. You also said impossible, not very unlikely.  Noone is suggesting it was likely.

The analysis you appear to be using is applicable to normal distributions - bell curves if you like - which mortality isn't. But if it were the calculation would depend on the assumption that the tails of the curve go to infinity, so there would always be the possibility of someone living to any age (and in fact having a minus age at death, which somewhat pours cold water on the whole thing).

I asked how you were calculating the variance (and therefore the standard deviation). Just asserting what you think it is isn't telling me how you calculated it.

Originally posted by Constantine XI Originally posted by Maju They were less stressed and therefore they lived longer.  Darn right, if I sat on a throne all my life and didn't even have to go to the effort of wiping my own backside (fact of life for the Pharaohs) you can be sure as anything I wouldn't be suffering a premature death from stress or overwork!

Of course there might be the occasional assassination to worry about

 What you expect me to spoon feed you by converting the crude pyramids into a normal distribution distribution . You are crazy mate, I have no time to do that in a historical forum.  The pyramids  act as a raw source of information from which I can very well estimate the standard deviation (itself a less accurate measure than the variance).

using this simple formula

where u = life expentancy, N is the number sampled.

 The tail goes to infinity? jesus christ what the hell you are talking about. We are talking about humans here, not gods.

But as I pointed out, life expectancy is not the mean age at death, and anyway that formula only applies to normal distributions, which mortality is definitely not. A pyramid is hardly a normal distribution.

Moreover, even if the technique were valid here, if you take any sample, and categorise the results, the extreme (indeed any rare) values of the underlying population will not be represented. If a sample category contains no elements, that does not prove that the category is not represented in the general population.

And with regard to this being a historical forum, you're the one who introduced the mathematical concepts, not me.

Well, if it doesn't the maths you are using don't apply.

Originally posted by gcle2003 Originally posted by Constantine XI Originally posted by Maju They were less stressed and therefore they lived longer.  Darn right, if I sat on a throne all my life and didn't even have to go to the effort of wiping my own backside (fact of life for the Pharaohs) you can be sure as anything I wouldn't be suffering a premature death from stress or overwork! Of course there might be the occasional assassination to worry about

You really know how to take all the fun out of being Pharaoh, don't you!.

You know the saying: lies, damned lies, and statistics. We are dealing with people, and special cases of people. Statistics shouldn't be generically applied to someone like the Pharaoh.