Talk:New chronology (Fomenko)

Pseudoscience?

http://www.rmki.kfki.hu/~lukacs/PTOLFOM.htm: "Therefore it is sure that Fomenko is right in his statement that the Almagest, as we know it, is not older than 800 AD. In contrast to Fomenko, I do not consider this as a proof that mysterious Claudius Ptolemy lived after 800." (B. Lukács, President of the Matter Evolution Subcommittee of the Geonomy Scientific Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

http://www.world-mysteries.com/sci_16.htm: "One of the most popular arguments in support of the conventional chronology is that the carbon-14 dating method supports it. ... There are other arguments, of different type, claiming that there is nothing abnormal in coincidence of dynasty functions for different dynasties. ... Critics of the New Chronology often mention that biographies of certain rulers, like Napoleon and Hitler (both dictators) are quite similar, so by applying the method of Morozov and Fomenko we should consider them to be the same person and ultimately make a senseless statement that the first 20 years of the 19th century are simply the years thirties and forties of the 20th century." (Wieslaw Z. Krawcewicz, Gleb V. Nosovskij and Petr P. Zabreiko; Nosovskij is Fomenko's associate)

There is nothing at these links that proves Fomenko's New Chronology isn't pseudoscience. From the first glance it appears that two researchers think that some specific claims of Fomenko may make sense or be interesting. I didn't get the impression that these researchers endorse the New Chronology.

A much more relevant link would be something like this: http://www.pereplet.ru/gorm/fomenko/protocol.htm This is the minutes of a session by History Department of Russian Academy of Sciences dedicated to Fomenko's works. The title of the session was "Myths and reality in history". The conclusions (translation mine, sorry for the errors):

1. Fomenko's ideas contradict data from documentary sources and constitute a picture of history that has nothing in common with reality and is created entirely by Fomenko's imagination and pseudoscientific calculations.
2. According to authoritative specialists in mathematics, astronomy, physics and chemistry, the data from these sciences that Fomenko uses should be ignored, because it bears no relation to science, but is rather a speculative interpretation. In particular, radiocarbon and dendrochronologic methods, developed together by archeologists and natural scientists completely refute Fomenko's conclusions.
3. Fomenko's atempts to present a perverted picture of Russian and world history are dangerous and harmful, because they create distemper and undermine the systems of historical science and education.
4. A direct discussion with Fomenko is pointless, because there is nothing to discuss. Additionally, the public sometimes may perceive critique of his chronology as attacks on "advanced ideas". Too much ballyhoo just gives extra publicity to these works by amateur historians. The main goal of historians confronting such pesudoscience should be creating new textbooks for schools and universities, publicaiton of well written books on Russian and world history that lack dogmatism, strained schemes.

Ergo, Fomenko's works are pseudoscience. Paranoid 08:01, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation needed

The term New Chronology is also used to describe revisionist chronologies of Egyptologists such as David Rohl and Peter James. This will cause a great deal of confusion if the various "New Chronologies" are not treated individually. Indeed, I was led to this page via the Rohl link. —Nefertum17 09:26, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Refutations/criticisms?

The article is heavy on claims supporting the theory, and blank on anything refuting the theory. The only thing that comes close is a weak criticism of Fomenko as having no strong academic background in history, which is barely relevant. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ [AMA] 18:16, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this argument doesn't essentially refute itself. That said, the article itself is essentially a travesty. A problem is it's hard to find a neutral summary of this garbage - almost all of it is heavy praise by ignorant people. Which makes it hard to say what, precisely, is wrong with it without going into original research. I did remove all the garbage at the beginning about how uncertain traditional historical chronology is. john k 00:22, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"all the garbage at the beginning" was there principally to show why Fomenko can make claims that traditional chronology is wrong and how he explains that it happened. I tried to keep it as NPOV as possible. To the best of my knowledge, nothing there was outright wrong.

The article is not heavy on claims "supporting the theory", it's just heavy on claims, period. The article is rather weak on direct evidence both for and against the theory. The problem with finding refuting evidence is that the theory is consistent on the surface. You have to dig really deep and do a lot of work to disprove every single claim. For example, how do you prove that Pope Gregory VII is NOT Jesus? You have to go to the oldest known documents that reference Pope Gregory VII ( which are probably written in Latin and lie somewhere in Vatican library archives ), analyze them, find contradictions between them and what little we know with confidence about Jesus. It's even harder to prove that Jesus is not Elisha ( we only know about him from the Book of Kings, he could well be a mythical character ).

All in all, there are two ways this theory can be proved wrong:

1) refute sufficient number of individual claims. It seems very difficult and it takes a lot more time and space to disprove each individual claim than to make it. There are many articles in the Internet that disprove some claims, and again there are articles that disprove those "disproofs".

2) demonstrate how to build the conventional chronology beyond 10th century AD, using only the original historical documents of undisputed authenticity. To the best of my knowledge, it has never been done.

--8.4.80.163 19:01, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think that the contradictions between the documents about Gregory VII and Jesus are pretty obvious - for instance, Gregory VII referencing Jesus. The fact that Gregory VII lived in Italy and Germany, and had interactions with Emperor Henry IV, a German, while Jesus lived in Judea. The fact that Gregory VII spoke Italian, German, and Latin, and Jesus spoke Aramaic. What about the life of Gregory VII is even comprehensible without an already existing Christian religion? The idea that this is even vaguely plausible is completely absurd. Furthermore, the stuff about chronology being devised in the sixteenth century by Scaliger is nonsense - there were chronographers throughout the middle ages. I was just reading today about a fifteenth century Italian who wrote a history of Italy from the end of the western Roman Empire until his own day. As far as your supposed "only ways the theory can be proven wrong," it is pretty clear that both have been done. I challenge you to find a single one of the individual claims that makes any sense at all. As far as the conventional chronology, going back at least to 500 BC, there is nothing at all controversial about any of it, and there are numerous chronologies, chronicles and histories that document sufficiently long periods, and refer to material in other chronicles, as to leave no holes that need to be filled. It seems to me that, in order for the entire history of humanity before 1500 to be held to be complete bunk, there needs to be some evidence that there is anything in particular wrong with the standard account. To give this theory any kind of credibility, when it simply doesn't make any sense on the face of it, is ridiculous. And to present Fomenko's absurd supposed recounting of how the conventional chronology was devised as though it was fact is unacceptable. john k 04:33, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Supporter of Fomenko would say that these "facts" about Gregory VII are not facts, but rather hypotheses based on conventional chronology. Do we have any authentic documents written by Gregory VII where he mentions Jesus? Do we know anything at all about Gregory VII that is not based on works of people who lived several centuries after him? Do we have any physical proof that Jesus spoke Aramaic? Etc. Every single of these facts you mentioned is disputed by Fomenko. That's what I mean when I'm saying that the theory is consistent. I'm not trying to defend this theory, rather I'm saying that it can't be defeated by such trivial arguments.

If Gregory VII was not a Tuscan who went to study in Rome, went to Germany with the deposed Pope Gregory VI, returned to Rome where he became a major papal diplomat to Leo IX and his successors, was elected pope upon the death of Alexander II, got into a dispute with Henry IV with regard to investitures of bishops in Germany, excommunicated him, got visited by a penitent emperor at Canossa in Tuscany, then ended up supporting rebels against the emperor in Germany and excommunicating Henry again, was driven from Rome by Henry's troops, called upon Robert Guiscard of Apulia to save him, and suffered the indignity of Rome being sacked by his own allies' troops, and died in exile in Salerno, who the hell was he? I am not a medieval historian, so I am not overly familiar with the sources for the reign of Gregory VII, but my basic understanding of the status of sources from the Middle Ages is that there are, in a fact, a relatively large number of them. For instance, for the First Crusade, which I am more familiar with, which occurred a few years after Gregory's death, we have three or four separate western chroniclers of the crusade, plus Anna Comnena's Alexiad, plus various Arabic sources, all of which provide a basically compatible picture of what happened. Occam's Razor must come into play at a certain point. Fomenko expects us to believe that the ancient and medieval histories we have correctly preserve the dates of rulers, but do not accurate represent anything about their lives. So, despite the fact that we know a great deal about the life of Gregory VII, or, really, aboutmost of history between 550 BC or so and the present. That we really know far too much about this period, in far too many sources, and with far too much detail for it to all be fraudulent, we are expected to believe that the only accurate thing derived out of this is some dates for rulers. Furthermore, the whole dates of rulers thing itself is nonsense. As an example, the chart comparing Kingso f Judah with Holy Roman Emperors is particularly silly. To get a short reign after Henry the Fowler, to match Abijam, Fomenko puts in Lothar, a ruler of Italy who certainly did not reign in between Henry I and Otto I, and was not related to them. Otto III is forced to stand in for Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah, which makes little sense, and Otto II is given 13 etra years of reign for no particular reason except to match Jehosaphat. Henry II and Conrad II are comgined into one. Henry V is skipped. So, more absurdly, is Frederick Barbarossa. Also skipped is Otto IV (and Philip of Swabia, although he may not count). Then, Charles of Anjou is counted as reigning from 1254, which he certainly did not do, and he was not Holy Roman Emperor. Then we skip Rudolf I, and go to Adolf (also for some reason giving his alleged analogue Jehoiachin 11 years of reign, when the bible gives him 3 months and ten days (2 Chronicles 36:9). The whole exercise proves about as much evidence as just assertion would. john k 14:30, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

To quote Fomenko:

"Comparing history of 11th century Italy with Gospels, we shouldn't assume that Roman history is the "original", whereas Gospels are the reflections, describing the event in a highly distorted form. Can we trust Italian historical documents from that epoch more than we can trust church documents? It's a difficult question. The thing is, all existing sources of European history prior to 14th century are essentially historical belletristics (fiction), written in 15-17th centuries. Although they are based on real events, their descriptions can be very distorted. We can't even trace the evolution of biography of Pope Gregory VII between 14h and 17th century ( i.e. who edited it, when they did it and what they did ). Gospel canon appears to be more reliable because it's known since 14th century in a large number of identical manuscripts. Besides, tradition of reading Gospels aloud in the church made it impossible to edit them. Thus, modern canons of books, used in the sermons, completely read aloud in front of worshippers, can be considered to have stayed intact since 14th century, and canons of all other books - intact since late 16th - early 17th century ( with some rare exceptions of printed books from early 16th century, but not earlier ). It is not impossible that the information from Gospels could be much more accurate than the information from "secular" sources, speaking of the same events ( which were finally edited in 17th century )."

Don't ask me to comment on that, it's the literal translation.

As far as I can understand what Fomenko is saying, all this is is begging the question - he is already assuming that Gregory vII and Jesus are identical. "All existing sources of European history prior to 14th century are essentially historical belletristics," Fomenko says. Oh, really? The basic fact is that Fomenko simply says that anything which doesn't accord with his theories is "fiction," and ignores it. So that there is no possible way to actually coherently argue against his views - he'll just say that any particular piece of evidence is forged and move on to the next argument. In this particular case, I remain utterly mystified - what about the "semi-mythical" accounts of Gregory VII's life is such as to make Fomenko think it is a garbled version of the Jesus story? How did late medieval historians become so confused as to confuse the Son of God with an ultra-montanist Bishop of Rome who got into a dispute with a German emperor? john k 23:32, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I guess we wouldn't be having this discussion if we had extant documents from pre-14th century epoch ( I don't know if these documents exist, Fomenko implies that they don't. ) He is just being equally critical to all sources where history is described by people who lived long after the events based on the documents which were subsequently lost. This also applies to Byzanthine historians who manage somehow to trace the chronology from their day to Adam. Is Adam historical, or did they start fantasizing and/or using utterly unreliable source at some point?

We do have extant documents from before the 14th century. Many extant documents. Fragments of papyrus dating from at least the Roman period have been found in Egypt. Most classical texts survive from Byzantine manuscripts. There are many medieval manuscripts from prior to the 14th century, as well. For god's sake, given that there are numerous printed books from the 15th century, don't you think the claim that there are no written documents at all from a period only a couple of centuries before is nonsensical? There are manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dating from at least the 11th century. Furthermore, there are inscriptions on monuments, and numismatic evidence. Fomenko just pretends that these sources are all forged, or misdated. As to Byzantine chronographers, I would imagine that the chronology from Adam until at least the 8th century BC (when Claudius Ptolemy's chronology begins) is based upon the Bible. From the 8th century BC on, the Bible can be coordinated with Ptolemy's stuff. From the 6th century or so, you begin to have fairly reliable Greek historical sources. So, yes, the chronology used by the Byzantines before the 8th century BC or so is presumably highly fanciful. No more fanciful than Fomenko's ideas, though. At any rate, we are not arguing about dates before the 8th century BC. That stuff, while it is itself, I think, fairly secure, at least in its broad outlines, is on an entirely different level of certainty than the history of the classical world and the medieval period, which Fomenko is disputing - classical and medieval history is, very simply, attested in a completely consistent way by so many different sources as to make it unassailable. john k 18:23, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually the claim that there are old written documents has to be based on evidence, not just bald assertions that the document is obviously old. We don't have written records recording the history of classical works. The works are simply discovered in a monastery. We don't have good catalogs of the holdings of monastic libraries at different times, nor do we have old references to works. Now let's look at modern author - say Voltaire. We have lots of mentions of voltaire in lots of records. Government records, libraries, publishing houses, journals and diaries, etc. So we can show there are third party witnesses to his existence at an exact time. It can be proven in court. Most of the evidence offered for the authenticity of classical and early christian works are hearsay and internal evidence, not third party witnesses.

How did medieval historians confuse the Son of God with Bishop of Rome? Presumably, the same way Roman historians managed to almost completely miss the appearance of the Son of God altogether. --Itinerant1 17:35, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A rather different thing - the Romans didn't consider Jesus to be the Son of God. Renaissance chroniclers certainly did. john k 18:23, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you believe that you understand how the conventional chronology was devised, why don't you describe it briefly in the article and show why Fomenko is wrong in his interpretation. You can use this as a reference. --Itinerant1 21:02, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, my knowledge of chronology is relatively limited. I am fairly sure, though, that Fomenko has created a false portrait of it. I would think that a renaissance or medieval historian would be able to tear most of his argument to shreds. Among other things, the idea that anybody needed to "devise" a convention chronology of the period since Eusebius is highly dubious - there are many and multiple Chronicles from many and multiple places and times that all agree on the same basic questions. As I noted before, sources in Arabic, Greek, and Latin all agree about the time of the First Crusade, for instance. Whatever work Scaliger did in reconstructing Eusebius would clearly only have relevance to the period before Eusebius, and particularly to the period before the establishment of the Roman Empire. john k 23:32, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You're asking me to find a claim that makes sense. How about this. ( The information comes from Fomenko's book, so you may want to double-check the information ) The methods we use to calculate the date of Easter were established by Alexandrian mathematicians in the 3rd century and chosen at Nicaean council in 325. One of the objectives those mathematicians had was to devise a scheme that guarantees that the Easter always takes place after Jewish Passover ( they are never on the same date ). In Julian calendar and in the assumption of correctness of Metonic cycle, dates of Easter and Passover repeat every 532 years, so it is only necessary to calculate dates for 532 years to make sure they never coincide. The problem is that if we use this algorithm to calculate dates of Easter and Passover for 4th century, we discover that they coincide several times ( e.g. in 316, 319 and 343 ). The last time they coincided was in 784 AD. Therefore, per Fomenko, the earliest the Paschal cycle could have been established was in 9th century.

You can use this link: http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/easter/easter_text2a.htm

It claims: "The Julian Easter algorithm should not be used before c. 530 AD as it differs slightly from the computations of the Christians of Alexandria and from the 532-year cycle of Victorius of Aquitaine that was used in the western parts of Europe up to the 8th century AD" It's sufficient to refute this claim if you can find proof that our modern algorithm is different from that of Alexandrian Christians and their algorithm does not have this problem. I couldn't.

--Itinerant1 08:33, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am not an astronomer or a mathematician, so I can't vouch for much of anything. I do find this a wholly dubious pretext for throwing out hundreds of years of internally consistent and detailed historical chronology. But, according to this site, this argument is simply wrong - "The council unanimously ruled that the Easter festival should be celebrated throughout the Christian world on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox; and that if the full moon should occur on a Sunday and thereby coincide with the Passover festival, Easter should be commemorated on the Sunday following. Coincidence of the feasts of Easter and Passover was thus avoided." So coincidence was avoided not by careful astronomical calculations, but simply by the expedient of delaying easter for a week if they happened to coincide.

I'll settle for that ( although the reference to the exact text of Nicaean Council decision would be more convincing ).

True, although our wikipedia article Easter suggests that the council itself simply referred the matter to the astronomers of Alexandria, who determined themselves the specific rules. Or some such. john k 23:32, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It would be a dubious pretext to throw away hundreds of years if we had this single claim. But it's not the case. Fomenko gives several methods of independent dating of historical events. We have Paschal cycle, Almagest, solar and lunar eclipses described by Thucydides, Dendera Zodiacs, etc. etc. To disprove the theory, you'd have to disprove all or most of them. Which demonstrates an important point:

It is easy enough to make dozens of similarly dubious claims and thus create the appearance of a broad tapestry of support. Occam's Razor, which asks "why on earth would everybody in the sixteenth century believe in a completely and utterly fraudulent version of even recent history," would suggest that just about every piece of evidence that supposedly demands that thousands of years of history be radically changed is probably going to turn out to either be entirely tendentious or to be a misuse of evidence. john k 23:32, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The point is that the accepted cronology is based on lots of dubious claims. Occam's razor doesn't support Fomenko's chronology, but it does support the idea that the so called history is totally unreliable. People had very good reasons to believe in a fraudulent history. It is well accepted that forgery was a common practice used to promote one's theological political goals. No one seriously disputes this. (The question is the extent of the forgery.) It is known that catholic teaching depended not upon the bible but upon tradition. However protestantism and the renaissance tried to make a new basis for religion and politics. Protestant depended on the written word of god in the bible and to some extent the church fathers for authority, while the renaissance depend on classical works forge their new society. The rise of the state system where the king and ministers siezed power from the church and nobles depended on the classical and early christian works. The existence of these classical and early christian works are highly documented, but only in modern times, when they actually had the most influence.

1) Each individual claim makes sense as long you don't consider historical evidence ( other than the facts commonly known to non-historians );

2) It often takes a lot of work to disprove the claim;

3) In many cases you can't disprove it without using documents, pronounced by Fomenko as "falsified" by Scaligerian chronologers;

4) Once you've disproved it, it does not really get you anywhere because there are many more claims to come. --Itinerant1 21:02, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Fomenko doesn't have the right to proclaim documents as "falsified" simply because they don't fit with his theory. The basic points you've outlined simply show that Fomenko (like most similar quacks) is relatively clever in his ability to keep people confused and off-balance when they try to dispute his arguments, because he creates a huge number of tendentious arguments. john k 23:32, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The problem is you can't simply proclaim the document are valid either.

At any rate, to get back to my basic point, presenting a picture of our modern understanding of ancient and medieval chronology was devised wholesale in the 16th century is simply absurd, and wikipedia can't just repeat Fomenko's lies as though they are truth. There are several Byzantine universal chronicles - George Syncellus, Theophanes, and Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote ones in the 9th and 10th centuries that, between them, cover all of history from Adam to their own time. I would imagine that there are surviving texts of these documents from that time period. I suppose it might be claimed that these are later forgeries, but simply claiming things are forgeries without any evidence is not an argument. john k 14:30, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Simply claiming they're real isn't an argument either. One would have to document the history of the documents, and one might discover copies just appeared in a monastery in western europe.

I can't find any direct references to Theophanes or George Syncellus in Fomenko's books. However, "Chronography" by Syncellus/Theophanes is based on "The Chronicle" of Eusebius of Caesarea, "rediscovered" and first published in 1544. Fomenko claims that it was based on "Historia Ecclesiastica" by Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos. If this were the case, neither "Chronicle", nor "Chronography" could be dated earlier than 14th century. If we move this trio 400 years into the future, all of the chronology induced by their work goes as well.

Referring to Eusebius as being based on Xanthopoulos seems backwards - NCX's work is normally seen as based on Eusebius and other earlier Byzantine ecclesiastical historians. As to Eusebius being "rediscovered," this seems to be dubious as well. Scaliger, and so forth, reconstructed Eusebius's chronicle from the work of Syncellus, et al, not vice versa. john k 23:32, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But there's no evidence either way is there?

Fomenko has a lot to say about Constantine:

"3.24-a BIBLE, Ceremonial visit of Queen of Sheba to the palace of Solomon in Jerusalem: "And king Solomon gave unto the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. So she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants" ( 1 kings 10:13 )

"3.24-b PHANTOM MIDDLE-AGES. Relations with Rus' during the time of individual rule of Constantine Porphyrogenitus had peaceful and even friendly character. In 957 Princess Olga, already being Christian, visited Constantinople, and Constantine left detailed description of her ceremonial visit.

"The discovered parallelism ... is indirectly supported by medieval texts. They frequently compare Olga with biblical Queen of Sheba. As we said before, these comparisons are often traces of latter Scaliger-Romanov "editing" of old texts. (...)

"Let's take the Primary Chronicle and read: "In the year 6463 Olga went to the Grecian land ... Just like when the Ethiopian queen came to Solomon to hear his wisdom, ... so did Olga"

"From there on, the chronicler starts quoting the Bible and Solomon's dialogues with Ethopian Queen of Sheba. We've already mentioned in our book "The Empire" that during the Middle Ages, Scythia-Rus' was sometimes called Ethiopia.

"individiual weight of this parallelism may be small, but the fact that it fits well into the global parallelism, lasting several hundred years, makes it significant."

He also claims that Constantine VII is a reflection of Henry II Plantagenet, on the basis that the word "Porphyrogenitus" means the same thing as "Plantagenet". I'm pretty sure this is wrong ( Wiki gives different etymology for the word "Plantagenet" ). --Itinerant1 21:02, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Broomflower" generally is the etymology used. It should be noted that contemporary sources never refer to Henry himself as Plantagenet, only to his father (who was not only not the son of a king, but never himself became king). It may be noted that there isn't all that much resemblence between the conventional narratives of their reigns, either, and that Constantine reigned for 46 years and Henry for only 35. At any rate, the fact that Constantine Porphyrogenitus is clearly taken to be a figure who lived before "Eusebius" was written is problematic. How could he be continuing the chronicle of Theophanes if Theophanes was continuing the chronicle of Syncellus, which was largely based on Eusebius, whose work had not yet been fabricated? Presumably, then, to maintain the theory, Constantine's work, also, must be pseudepigraphical, and only attributed to him later. And yet, there is no evidence for any of this forgery save Fomenko's assertion and his dubious astronomical theorizing. It seems as though we are moving away from debating what should be in this article, though, and towards simply arguing about Fomenko's theories as such. john k 23:32, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

BTW, this site seems to suggest that even without Ptolemy, chronology back to at least 364 AD is secure. john k 23:37, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Note: The fellow responsible for this site seems to be a Lamarckian and possibly a Velikovskian, so his views, even when seemingly sensible, ought to be taken with a teaspoon of salt. john k 07:43, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Certainly, Fomenko's logic has IMO a gaping flaw on first glance. He says (as someone quoted above) that the written history of Europe prior to 15C are embellished historical fiction, and should not be trusted. Yet, he is using historic accounts of celestial bodies to argue his invented-dark-ages theory. Who's to say those historic accounts aren't also tremendously embellished -- especially considering the lucrative currency of special astronomic phenomena in biblical and apocalyptic literature? - Keith D. Tyler ¶ [AMA] 05:06, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

Just one gaping flaw? john k 07:44, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No profanation of Wikipedia's principles is allowed

Dear Mr.Jacobi,

I have noticed that You deleted the latest balance update I did for Mr. Fomenko's theory, You said the update was "irrelevant".

If the update was irrelevant, then the whole article is irrelevant. Especially ridiculous is the mention that not having formal historic education means something for ability to substantiate a historic theory -- yet this nonsense included in the article. Scaliger, creator of the classical chronology, had no formal historic education whatsoever (there was no such thing in Paris or Bordo where he graduated in 1500s). Even more, in the Moscow University, where Fomenko educated, history even on mathematics faculty is taught quite strictly, and he always had only A+/5 marks for the discipline.

Also, it is complete profanation of Wikipedia's principles to have article about some theory, where manipulative selectivity rules in representing theory's core essence:

1) For example, the article "conveniently" omits the fact that the whole Fomenko's theory is divided into two parts. First part questions Scaliger's classic chronology validity, while the second part is called "reconstruction", on which Fomenko himself does not vouch for, but only offers it as the least conflicting rebuild of the history, given the classical chronology being proven invalid, as he sees it. The article mixes this all together in an attempt to discredit the whole theory by attacking mostly "reconstruction".

2) With this, it is parody on balance when such simple fact as that the most important method of dating of subjects, radiocarbon, was strictly proven to have error valued in an order of thousand years was "omitted". The research was done back in 1950s, what makes it obviously independent, unbiased and having nothing to do with any historic theories. And the same results were received later by many other physics and institutions, and only historians/archaeologists of classical chronology conveniently prefer to ignore those findings. Physicians, who researched this problem, do not, none of them with the rarest exception. (Well, this is actual science, so there only very little possibility to manipulate exists, comparing to, say, history.)

3) Astronomic evidence, provided by Fomenko, failed to be contested by defenders of classic chronology. Star of Bethlehem's characteristic and time of "bursting" is even independent on Ptolemy's work. Yet the article made it sound as if with any possible Ptolemy's mistake Fomenko's Christ birth dating would turn immediately incorrect.

4) The most important thing that was "omitted", and which, by the way, was Fomenko's professional interest from the very beginning, is statistic similarities in historic rulers' timelines with each other for the time before XVII century. Those findings were never actually disputed (no wonder, because among historians there are no or little people who could ever get in actual exact science). One of Fomenko's deciding arguments was that documented and genuine history of rulers of XVII-XX centuries never shows anyhow close correlation with each other -- comparing to history of prior centuries, for which Fomenko insists history was multiplied and thus outstretched with additional centuries. Indeed, the probability that those similarities from the middle and ancient ages were a mere coincidence is just single digit percentage (and there is no way how any classic chronology historian could explain it). Real-time documented history of XXII-XX centuries shows that there are very little similarities, startling contrast to the prior centuries.

5) Article mentions that Fomenko manipulates with dynasties' members and their lifetimes. However, there are no actually works that would show those "omissions" in Fomenko's researches. Thus that wishful thinking is only further humiliates the idea of Wikipedia.

6) Independently on believability of Fomenko's "reconstruction" part of his works, all those above mentioned facts keep the question of validity of Scaliger's classic chronology very firmly. In essence, this part of Fomenko's work is his greatest scientific achievement. With this, Fomenko's chronology currently looks no to be no more theory than Scaliger's one.

This all, however, does not mean that Fomenko's theory is actually true or not -- neither for "Scaliger's chronology challenge", nor for "reconstruction". And it is no goal of Wikipedia's articles to put verdicts about such matters, the goal is simply to put core facts of the theory correctly, without slant and manipulation. In the current state, the article is deceiving.

Sincerely, DenisRS.

If the article doesn't represent Fomenko theory well, please just change that part, giving sources and trying not to insert POV.

IMHO Scaliger is a misleading target of attack, not only in Fomenko's chronology, but also by other disputers of mainstream chronology. Historical science (as in academic science) will surely claim, that there chronology is nowadays independent of Scaliger and corrected quite some details of Scaligers theory.

On the topic of alleged manipulations by Fomenko, there were some examples discussed on the german article. I can try to translate the essentials of that discussion.

Pjacobi July 4, 2005 14:52 (UTC)

Sigh...I don't think mainstream chronology has ever been especially based on Scaliger. As I pointed out to another pro-Fomenko interlocutor, Between Eusebius and a series of Byzantine chroniclers the entire period up to the 11th century or so is pretty well-trodden. john k 4 July 2005 14:57 (UTC)

4) The most important thing that was "omitted", and which, by the way, was Fomenko's professional interest from the very beginning, is statistic similarities in historic rulers' timelines with each other for the time before XVII century. Those findings were never actually disputed (no wonder, because among historians there are no or little people who could ever get in actual exact science).

Are you serious? I was able to tear apart the one about Holy Roman Emperors and Kings of Judah, and I'm not even a medieval historian. The supposed similarities only come about because Fomenko is willing to completely distort his lists in order to make them fit. john k 4 July 2005 15:12 (UTC)

It is intersting, please post a link where it can be read. Because as far as I saw lifetime spans of kings do not differ in Fomenko and "officious" version. Also, just read Britannica article about Scaliger to see that he is exacly considered to be "official" chronology creator. Anyway, whoever could be considered as it's creator, it does not change mathematics correlations calculations that Fomenko did.

If you bothered to read this talk page, I discussed this above. Fomenko combined multiple kings into one for the comparison, ignores important emperors like Frederick Barbarossa, and includes one 10th century king of Italy (but not any other 10th century kings of Italy) in his list to get a short reign. It's nonsense. As to Scaliger, that is not what Britannica says at all. It says he was an important contributor to modern chronology, and that he reconstructed Eusebeius's chronicle. But his important contributions were in ancient and classical history (as you'd guess from someone whose principal contribution was to reconstruct a chronology written by a fourth century historian). Medieval history didn't need to have a chronology constructed - it was well known. And, again, there were numerous Byzantine chronographers who covered the whole period from the purported creation of the world up until the end of the 11th century, at least. That they were not mostly known by western Europeans prior to Scaliger does not mean that Scaliger created the standard chronology. john k 5 July 2005 04:37 (UTC)

Russian nationalism

I wonder if some attention should be paid to the way that Fomenko's ideas play to Russian nationalism. His basic idea of how history actually happened, as I understand it, has to do with a world-spanning Russian Empire, and similar business. I know that criticisms of his work have sometimes focused on these issues. john k 4 July 2005 20:06 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but IMHO it's rather a eurocentric view, as all historical accounts of China, India, Mesoamerica etc are disregarded as pure fantasy. --Pjacobi July 4, 2005 20:15 (UTC)

I would imagine that since Mesoamerica doesn't intersect Europe until the 16th century, the archaeological and historical record there can be interpreted unproblematically. I'm not sure what the situation is with China and India. China would prove a particular problem, what with the 3000 years of continuous recorded history. But he has no problem rejecting all historical accounts of the middle ages as (almost) pure fantasy, or as forgeries, so I doubt he'd have any problem with the rest of the world - it's perhaps Eurocentric, but it's hardly more respectful of European historical accounts than it is of non-European ones. john k 4 July 2005 20:48 (UTC)

Fomenko wrote separate books about China, there was nothing disregarded as fantasy (by DenisRS).

Also, Gary_Kasparov has nothing to do with being Russian in his nationality, and he also has nothing to do with "imperialism", because he belongs to Putin's liberal, anti-Kremlin opposition.

Dendera Zodiacs

I don't know where you got the 1168 AD and 1185 AD dates for Dendera zodiacs. Fomenko's books state quite clearly:

Long horoscope - May 6, 540; Round horoscope - March 15, 568 ( Morozov's solution )

or

Long horoscope - May 14, 1394; Round horoscope - March 22, 1422 ( Fomenko's solution )

Fomenko's interpretation: Saturn in Virgo; Jupiter in Cancer; Mars in Capricornus; Venus in Aries; Mercury between Aquarius and Pisces. Conventional interpretation: Saturn in Libra; Jupiter in Cancer; Mars in Capricornus; Venus in Pisces; Mercury in Virgo. --Itinerant1 17:47, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Comment in article space

I moved this comment in article space here. --Pjacobi 23:05, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Reduce hearsay, add valid facts - respect NPOV

Salutations Gentlemen Wikipedians,

Anti-Fomenko “Damage Control” WiKiPedia page is openly biased; valid pro-Fomenko arguments are not admitted. Suggest the strict respect of NPOV.

NB:

Frederick Barbarossa allegedly missed by Fomenko in “dynastic parallelism” fig.r6.5.1. is explicitly mentioned in the descriptive part of Annex 6.5. on p.534 of “History..”, ISBN 2913621058..

The Lecture 2002 of H.Jeffreys vividly shows that in order to suite “ancient” datings of eclipses Moon-Earth system parameters have to be artificially twisted (fig.6). Tidal friction parameter stays strict linear constant, if Fomenko’s datings used. Astronomical software calculates exact date to a minite, eclipse path to a meter and phase of solar eclipses up to 16800 years backwards or forwards. These exact calculations do not fit the any of the datings provided by allegedly “ancient”, in fact mediaeval astronomers. To suite “ancient” datings they stage a convoluted astronomical circus with unknown forces at play. There was NO TOTAL ECLIPSE in Babylon on 15.04.136 BC, look at fig.4 qv. Therefore the whole chronology attached to it is not valid. [1].

The Lecture 2002 of H.Jeffreys also mentions the same source as Fomenko, i.e. translations of Babilonian datable texts by A.J.Sachs. Any astronomer will confirm that the number of astronomical units, i.e. planets and constellations quoted in these texts is not sufficient for a unique dating of such horoscopes.

“Moscow as III Rome is a formula”, recognized by official history of Russia. Was in use under Ivan III, alleged reign 1452-1505, introduced by Filofei (Philoteus), Russian monk.

It was inserted by User:Franck Ver Stut. --Pjacobi 23:05, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Re: Barbarossa, I have not read Fomenko's books, so I have no idea what he does to explain his absurd list of Holy Roman Emperors that he compares to the Judaean King List. The fact that he can come up with a specious explanation for why he has to completely mess around with the list in order to get it to fit with the Judaean list is immaterial. The basic fact is that his synchronisms are artificially created - he must manipulate them to get them to fit properly. This is a serious problem, given that the supposed "coincidence" of the synchronisms is one of the principle justifications for his entire theory. These are a whole lot less coincidental when Fomenko has to seriously mess around with the actual lists to get them to fit right. john k 15:56, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

This lists seem dubious. What is a serious charge to be refuted is that eclipse appearances can't be calculated without resort to fudge factors.

Read before reviewing Fomenko

J.Kelly avows, firstly, having not read Fomenko books, secondly, accuses Mr Fomenko of malignant data manipulation! As a matter of fact, data based research is based on data processing alias data manipulation, i.e. re-arranging the data, attributing weights for statistical calculations, etc..Fomenko’s research is anything but malignant for where his proprietary statistical methods are concerned; in rare cases when he merges reigns or makes substitutions he properly warns the reader. As a matter of fact the contrary is true; that is, in most instances the differences in reigns, names and durations originate from Fomenko’s source i.e. “Chronological Tables Spanning the entire Global History; Containing Every Year since the Genesis and until XIX century.” Published in English by G.Blair, a member of the Royal Society, 1808-1809., London, vol.1,2. (p.541, “History: Fiction Or Science?”, ISBN 2913621058) Fomenko presumes the closer in time is the researcher’s source to the event researched, the more original information and not subsequent interpretations can one extract. He thinks that later editions of chronological tables were over-edited (massage) by the historians of the 19-20th cy.

How hard is it to correctly spell the name of someone whose name is easily accessible simply by looking at the text that pops up by holding your cursor over the link to my user page? Beyond this, I have a difficult time understanding your point. Why aren't any of Fomenko's supporters able to speak English competently? john kenney 00:31, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

BTW, I agree with you that Fomenko's lack of education in history is not particularly convincing as an argument against him. Fomenko's theories are absurd because they are absurd, not because he is not a historian. Plenty of trained historians have also believed absurd things, although few have believed things as absurd as those believed by Fomenko. john k 00:36, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

read the book first, it is written in very competent english

j.kenny, kindly read the book first (http://www.atlasbooks.com/marktplc/01098.htm). eventual discrepancies in reign durations in fomenko's charts are due to use of the chronological tables of G.Blair 1808-1809 edition (!). methinks, history will become a science inspite of anti-fomenko incantations. NPOV. FVS

From the link you gave:

Of course, some real events were the source of most written documents, even those that were later falsified and manipulated. However, the same real event could have been described in chronicles by authors writing in different languages and having contradictory points of view. There are many cases where such descriptions - found in sources reliably dated before the invention of printing - are plainly unrecognizable as the same event.

From the WP article:

• That archaeological, dendrochronological, paleographical and carbon methods of dating of ancient sources and artifacts known today are erroneous or non-exact;
• That there is not a single document that could be reliably dated earlier than the 11th century;

raylu 00:53, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Wow, you can't spell my name either, and it's actually written on this page. Very well done. As to Mr. Blair's book, I doubt Mr. Blair combines multiple Holy Roman Emperors into one, or deletes Frederick Barbarossa. I also doubt that he says that King Lothar of Italy was a King of Germany at the same time as Otto the Great. As to the competent English, is it more competent than that on the various Fomenko websites linked from this page? Because that is not what I would call competent English. john k 16:32, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

As to whether history is a science, I would suggest that it is not a science, nor is it meant to be one. Fomenko's choice of "History: Science or Fiction" is a false one, if by "science" one means the narrow modern sense of the term (as opposed to the much broader sense of "organized system of knowledge") And whether or not history is to become more "scientific," I think the fate of the historical discipline will have very little to do with Mr. Fomenko's ideas, which are a complete fraud. john k 16:34, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually History can be a science in the broad sense in that it rests on proper principles and is internally consistent and produces verifiable results. Just as facts from natural science can be proven by experiment, historical facts need to be proven by a paper trail anyone can follow. History is also of course an art as many people read history for it's literary value and without concern for proving every detail. If history is a science it therefore needs to be proven that any particular history needs to be taken seriously as fact, and this can't be done if the trail of corroborating sources isn't available. Unfortunately the wikipedia article on Fomenko refuses to recognize that this is the case and that Fomenko's question is valid even if his answer is dubious.

Stuff moved from main page

I'm moving anon's "Problem of Sources" material here, since it is not appropriate to the main page. I will briefly respond as to why I do not feel this material is appropriate below. john k 21:00, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

The Problem of Sources

Few people are aware of how problematic ancient history is. Modern History depends for its reliability of the masses of documents that are constantly produced by printing presses and by hand, and now by typewriters, xeroxes, printers, etc. We know that documents are real in part because each document has its own history. If you get a book that is claimed to be written in 1900 you can verify that by looking at records of publishers, mentions of the book in literary reviews, purchase records of libraries, etc.

There are two problems with using the works of classical authors as a source of history.

1. How do you know the contents are true? Most people are aware that we can't assume that Thucydides and Ceasar are necessarily telling the truth, and we don't have many sources to verify their facts as truth or errors. There are a surprising small number of works from that period. However at the time of the printing press and the increase of literacy on we have massive archives full of documents produced by people of that era. The physical volume dwarfs that of the classical and early christian world.

This is all true, although it obscures the very large number of medieval documents and manuscripts which are indeed available. But even excusing the (certainly purposeful) misleadingness of it, what is the relevance? john k 21:00, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Part of Fomenko's point is that the medeival documents are seen as unreliable and ignorant. The relevance is that Fomenko is questioning part of our history, and people need to be aware in the article that there are good reasons to question history. Serious history relies on valid sources.

2. How do you know when it was really written? Most people aren't even aware this is a problem. But ask yourself, are there publishing or other records from the time showing that Plato wrote his dialogues? No, not that we know of. All ancient works are copies of copies produced by monks. Therefore Plato's Dialogues have their own history! They appear at a certain point in time in the historical record, and this point in time is comparatively recent.

This is simply untrue. We have papyri of various classical works from around the time of Christ, usually found in Egypt. Obviously, this is not our source for most ancient documents, but what we have found does not contradict the monkly manuscripts. As to "comparatively recent," that's quite a vague term. john k 21:00, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

There's an interesting table at [2]. Our perspective on history of ancient Greece and Rome is defined by a small number of documents ( works by Livy, Tacitus, etc ), yet for none these documents do we have any manuscripts that we can date less than 1000 years after the deaths of their authors. How can we be confident of their accuracy?

As for the relevance to the topic at hand: for example, Fomenko claims that Tacitus' "Histories" was fabricated in early 15th century by Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini. If it is true that we can't trace the history of the existing manuscripts beyond 15th century, and we don't have any independent sources that confirm "Histories", we have to question a large chunk of ancient history.--Itinerant1 23:47, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

How do we know they're from the time of christ? The key point is whether we have independent sources telling us the dates of documents and verifying their contents as factual. I was actually told years ago by a classics professor that his colleague in the history department believed that classical history was an inappropriate term, because you can't have real history with such sources. (We also know that lots of works are accepted to be forgeries.)

Especially because of point 2. we have the problem that all of the history of classical works and the church fathers have to be critically examined to determine when these works appeared. We may not be able to find any mention of some of these works in the middle ages, and they suddenly appear in the renaissance where they had a huge influence. We may not be able to reliably attribute those works to the ancient world, instead these works tell us a lot about the rennaisance and the religious conflicts and the creation of the state system. They were in fact essential to the creation of the throne and altar system of protestant and catholic states. It is actually surprisingly difficult to find works detailing the history of certain works and how we know that such and such was written when, and when the work entered the historical record. Perhaps someone can tell us here of some works which do explain histories of documents.

This seems to be an odd way to put it. Also very-west-centric. Many ancient texts that were unknown in the west were very clearly known to the Byzantines, and some were also known to the Arabs. We shouldn't pretend that Latin Christendom is the only thing in the world. john k 21:00, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

How do we know they were known to the Byzantines and Arabs? Which ones, and at which dates did they appear in the historical record?

It is quite possible that there can be know real history, because we can't know if work are forgeries or if the authors are reliable. The works are valuable as literature, not as a historical record.

I suppose this is theoretically possible, except that there's a whole class of scholars whose job is to look at all the evidence and try to reconstruct ancient history. I see no reason to simply claim a priori that all their work is useless, just because it is a more tricky task than reconstructing more recent history. john k 21:00, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

There is no claim that their work is useless. However it is hard to find a work that documents how we know that old sources are authentic. I would love to see one that does. It appears that many scholars take works on face value. The best defense is that it's hard to imagine who was capable of writing classical literature if not the aristocratic greeks and romans. This may be prejudice, but it's hard to imagine the monks doing so. On the other hand, it is possible these works appeared at a time when education for an elite few was sufficient to produce great writers.

This also applies to statuary, coins, art work, etc.

??? This goes rather seriously off the rails. At any rate, if, as is in fact the case, coins, archaeological evidence, scientific dating methods, and written sources all basically agree with each other on chronology (as they do), why do we need to discard the whole structure just because it isn't perfect? john k 21:00, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Lots of things can be internally consistent, but that doesn't mean they're true. Old coins and statuary have a long history of forgery. The point is that people aren't aware after reading the article that Fomenko is making valid inquiries into the foundation of our history. He may likely be wrong about the problems of the foundation, and his new chronology is more likely wrong, but his attempt is a valid endeavor and not crackpot on the face of it. In fact accepting unverifiable sources as history is the definition of crackpot history.

Perhaps people aren't aware of this because Fomenko is not making valid inquiries into the foundation of our history? As to "unverifiable sources," the problem is that you are demanding a standard of verifiability which is impossible to achieve. john k 01:33, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

While Fomenko's theories about the true chronology probably tell us more about Fomenko and modern Russia than about what happened long ago, criticisms of the validity of our knowledge of the past as no more than fiction do need to be taken seriously.

No they don't, because they don't take seriously the vast amount of work which historians, who are certainly completely aware of the valid concerns about sources you have raised, have done to reconstruct the history of the past. At any rate, this material is pretty clearly presenting a (vaguely pro-Fomenko) POV, and shouldn't be in the article. john k 21:00, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Show me a history explaining how we know classic documents are valid and how we recieved them? Critical works regularly admit that the works simply appear in a monastery, which begs the question of why they should say anything about the time period before they showed up in the monastery.

They don't "simply appear in a monastery." You don't know what you're talking about. Even beyond the fact that you are vastly simplifying the sources of ancient documents (Hint: Most don't come from western Europe at all, but from Byzantium)As I noted before, many classical papyri have been found in archaeological expeditions in Egypt. There is also ample numismatic and monumental evidence to confirm the essential accuracy of the accepted timeline. john k 01:16, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

And, as I also noted before, Fomenko does not confine his attentions to the classical past. He also claims that the whole Medieval period was also essentially forged. And our knowledge of the medieval past, in terms of number of contemporary manuscripts, is whole orders of magnitude greater than our knowledge of the ancient past. john k 01:17, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

John Kenney - Fomenko Damage Control Manager

Life as a Contrarian (Fomenko) is tough, and it may prove helpful to remember that "To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence."

Sun Tzu (alias Thomas Moore or Erasmus or alias some other euro-humanist - according to Fomenko Chinese history was written by jesuit missionaries to China; he suspects it to be no more than FIVE HUNDRED years long, sic!

Classical History is : A Collection of Writings of Unknown Date and Authorship Rendered into English, French, German, etc.. From Supposed Copies of Supposed Originals Unfortunately Lost.

Franck Ver Stut

Er...the "collection of writings of unknown date and authorship" (some of which are dated, and most of which do have recorded authors), can certainly be found in untranslated form. There are both Greek and Latin manuscripts of classical works. So the translation issue is a canard. As to Chinese history...well, I don't even see how I can argue with you. The whole project is so obviously absurd that anyone who is willing to believe it is obviously completely hopeless. (But, uh, More and Erasmus were both around before the Jesuits.) There's also the issue of archaeology, which Fomenko and his disciples seem scrupulously determined to avoid. At the monument of Behistun, Darius I of Persia in the three ancient languages of Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian, describes how he came to power. His story is astoundingly similar to that told by Herodotus, in Ancient Greek, in his Histories. Did the monks who forged Herodotus have access to the Behistun inscriptions? Also, Fomenko's theories completely ignore the evidence of linguistics, of which they make a complete hash. john k 01:31, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Crucifixion Eclipse

The term "Crucifixion Eclipse" is capitalised as if this were established fact. I very much doubt it could have been (see reasons below). But not sure how to change it, since it's Fomenko's theory we're talking about, even if that theory includes non-existent phenomena.

• Eclipses last around 5 minutes, but the sky went dark for three hours. Sky darkening is characteristically associated with earthquakes, and we are told in the Bible the earth opened up, so an earthquake is clearly the explanation for the sky darkening.
• Jesus had to be put to death immediately after his trial, to avoid them offending the Passover, which is always held close to the Full Moon. An eclipse of the Sun can only occur when the moon is a New Moon, 14 days apart in the monthly cycle.
• There is no astronomical evidence for any solar eclipse occurring in Jerusalem around that time. In fact, we can be certain there was not one, unless the moon took an uncharacteristic side swipe through the heavens - which would have caused a lot of damage all over the world - and then returned to its normal orbit as if nothing had happened. That's even more fanciful than Fomenko himself. JackofOz 07:19, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Your first two points are pretty solid. Your last point is begging the question, though - the Fomenkoites believe the crucifixion happened during some eclipse in the 11th century "AD", so they have you beat there. At any rate, I agree that this should be qualified more. It may be added that most non-religious people probably doubt an earthquake, too - feel that the Gospel description of the crucifixion takes some liberties with what actually happened. john k 15:28, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The exact quote (Matthew 27):

"From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour ... the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people."

Luke 23 clarifies that "the sun stopped shining", Mark repeats after Matthew, and John makes no mention of any wondrous events. Everyone mentions that Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for Jesus' body before sunset.

So, what are most likely possibilities?

• There was a solar eclipse; 3 hour period refers to full duration of the eclipse, not to the totality period; either Passover could coincide with New Moon back then, or Evangelists were mistaken when they were writing about Crucifixion occurring just before Passover.
• There was a lunar, not a solar eclipse. Lunar eclipses do last several hours and take place at Full Moon. But then Jesus couldn't have died before sunset.

In either case, there would have been an earthquake just after the eclipse. ( By the way, I live in the region where earthquakes are quite common, and I can assure you that there is no darkening of the sky associated with earthquakes - certainly not 3 hours _before_ the event. )

• Maybe Gospels describe something entirely different, e.g. a major volcanic eruption in the vicinity of Israel.
• Maybe the entire sequence of events is fictional and was invented for dramatism. --Itinerant1 19:15, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I think the last possibility is the most likely one. john k 19:45, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The crucifixion eclipse and the star of Betlehem should be mentioned because it is well known, but it obviously could be represented in multiple ways so is not the best example. Better examples of Fomenko's work might be eclipse triad from Peloponese wars which has mostly undisputed interpretation. Nikola 04:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

---

How can we believe stories from documents and scrolls dating back centuries ago which refer to events that happened even more centuries before them, and for whose validity we have no idea? And how can we decide which parts of the same document forms historical fact and which is "myth"? For example do you believe that Jesus and some of his disciples crossed the lake in a boat? If yes, do you also believe that they had the power to destroy a whole town with fire from the sky? Do you also believe that a woman touched Jesus from behind and stole some of his energy, for which he scolded his disciples? What is myth and what is "history"? Think of the ancient Greeks. In every situation we make huge assumptions to suit our view of our history, but it does not need to be so.

Let's be more open minded and not stuck in our views, which were infused into us from child hood. A good start is to start reading texts from scratch, not translations, and if we need to resort to translations then try to read the oldest ones which probably suffer less from political correctness restrictions. Reading Genesis and Luke can be a great eye opener for a start.

Uh, you're comparing blatantly mythical stories from the bible to mainstream history.

You don't see anything inane about that?

---

Supposition: if indeed Gregory VII was Christ, and the first Crusade happened (or does he claim it did not), then it would require us to believe one of three things: either Christianity spread like wildfire (fairly improbable, even if I did believe in the Christian faith; a lone messenger on horseback is fairly unlikely to influence anything), enough so that the majority of the British population was Christian only 10 years after Gregory's death: Baha'i doesn't have this many followers after nearly two centuries. Either Christianity was already there without the Gospels (Christianity's existence doesn't preclude Christ's character from being either a mythical rendition or altogether fictional, but without the Gospels, this is very doubtful). Either, Western Europe went into crusading mode (also known as the let God sort them mode) at a time when Christianity would not even have caught on enough for them to be firmly established.

If I understand Fomenko clearly, he claims that de facto Christianity existed before Christ, only not under that name. Nikola 12:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

What more, for the Middle Ages, the kingdom of England probably holds the record for paper trail (British historians tend to like this particular red tape); we still have edicts, bills, ordnances, assize texts dating from the Middle Ages, they probably have tenfold what France has to offer, with four times the population. Now, in addition to the fact that it would take too many people to falsify the damn thing, why in hell would they go and falsify such a mass of triviality.

Snapdragonfly 69.159.106.238 20:49, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed - the Medieval period is far too well-documented for this kind of nonsense to hold even apparent plausibility. Even the vaguest familiarity with the actual sources of medieval European history ought to be enough to convince one that this stuff is total nonsense. john k 02:15, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Luckily, an article by Fomenko which treats Britain specifically is available online at [3] so you may see for yourself :) Nikola 12:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

And that kind of thing actually built him a circle of followers. It's beyond repair. Britanny was not on English Lands, he misses 2 states of the Heptarchy and most of the Welsh principalities (mentioning only Britanny, which was only united in the 10th century and had only 3 kings afterwards), he can't even explain the existence of the Brithonic and Gaelic with his theory, the text calls the Danish the Dutch. Now I have one question, for this kind of head on analysis, while graduate level studies in history might not be necessary, something else is: does Fomenko have any knowledge of Latin, Ancient Greek and/or Classical Arabic? Any of the Byzantine system, which was hardly feudal? His table is nonsensical; for a mathematician, he doesn't seem to need much to be satisfied. He also doesn't seem to know the franch expression An de Grace, of which Year of Grace is a literal translation (Norman-French influences in Anglosaxon are actually older then the Norman conquest). Assumes that Caesar conquered (which is wrong) and happily forgets the existence of enough trivial documentation to bury him and his fans under. He shows a total lack of even the most basic knowledge of linguistics, repeatedly. Snapdragonfly 18:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem with Fomenko is that he is oftenly interpreted the other way around than he should (including this article). He is a mathematician. He built statistical models with which he found correlations, in this case between Byzantine and English rulers. He is not a historian or linguist, and his interpretation of these correlations can be very dubious at best. But it is the correlations that need to be examined.

Regarding your specific questions, I don't see why any of this doesn't explain the existence of the Brithonic and Gaelic. I think that Fomenko doesn't have knowledge of Latin, Ancient Greek or Classical Arabic, but his associates do. About An de Grace, he offers alternative explanation, this doesn't mean that he doesn't know the usual explenation (this is not very important anyway). Nikola 07:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Reality?

I'm an historian, and I have some questions:

1. 1. Did this guy really exist? (lack of biographical evidences).

Yes. Here are details http://www.univer.omsk.su/foreign/fom/fomenko.htm

1. 1. Was he one of famous soviet scientist who rewrite everything coming from West? (science, history, religion).

Question is incorrect. No.

1. 1. Why must we trust him in his historical theories if he has no formal historic education? In historic education there are methods, and with methods come neutrality (at least something near it). Fomenko has no methods, only refutations of something established.

Incorrect. His theory is not in the area of history but applied mathematics. Why should we trust Pythagorean theorem?

1. 1. What about scientific dating of objects? Not only carbon-14, there are I think 3 or 4 others scientific dating methods. Is he trying to rewrite nuclear physics also?

Unfortunately there are a lot of proofs of very essential mistakes of 'carbon-14' methods up to +/- 2000 years. All other methods where also criticised by Fomenko and many others.

Souris2005 13:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Recent edits

Added by user 81.48.250.16: "We do not claim that Karakorum was located in Northern Russia! This is a substantial distortion of our text. We haven’t made any such claim, nor have we studied any text entitled “Tartar Relations”, which remains unknown to us. All the above ruminations of the commentator bear a very distant relation to our claims and hypotheses."

But you do. See the book "New Chronology of Russia, England and Rome" (2000), chapter 13, part 12 ( here in Russian: http://www.chronologia.org/rusangl/13-7.doc ) You don't refer to the text specifically as "Tartar Relations", but it is clearly the text being discussed.

"User 81" comments: Read "We" as Fomenoko+Nosovsky(F&A)

F&A used 1997 edition of russian translation of Carpini's: "Historia Mongalorum quos nos Tartaros appellamus, and Liber Tartarorum, or Tatarorum" which did not specify “Tartar Relations”. Correct, it is the practically same source. Article 12.3 "Carpini's geography of Mongolia" in the link you supplied asserts that Karakorum is not situated in consensual Mongolia, but in Russia, i.e. Karakorum=Great Novgorod=Yaroslavl=capital of Horde=capital of Russia. Look at the map to see where Yaroslavl is, it is Central, not Northern Russia. Matter of taste, that. The point of F&A is that Mongolia=Megalion=Russia=Horde.

Why do you refer to Fomenko as "we"? --Itinerant1 21:51, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow, could be Fomenko himself, or one of his associates! How very exciting. john k 21:35, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Looking at it, it would appear that it is Fomenko...wonderful! john k 21:39, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, 81.48.250.16 is a French IP. Unless Fomenko has decided to retire to Rennes, France, it's unlikely to be him. --Itinerant1 01:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

---

We need to go over these comments and either integrate them in the article or remove them. I'll do what I can, as time permits.

For now, comment about Karakorum is removed, "Northern Russia" is changed to "Central Russia". Whether it's Northern or Central is mostly a matter of definition. According to conventional history, there were relatively few Russian cities to the north of Yaroslavl in 1245, so Yaroslavl can be considered "northern". Hardly a matter to argue about.

Comment about "popular" books is removed, text is revised. The original content is still quite good, though. Looking through the lists of references in several Fomenko's books, I see large numbers of journal publications in 1982-1990; only one journal publication since 1991 ( The dating of Ptolemy's Almagest based on the coverings of the stars and on lunar eclipses. - Acta Applicandae Mathematicae. 1992. vol.29, pp.281-298. ). Several books with scientific sounding names published in 1990-1995, starting with "Methods of Statistical Analysis of Narrative Texts and Applications to Chronology" ( MSU publishing house, 1990 ). First volume of "The Empire" - clearly a popular book - is published in 1995. --Itinerant1 21:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding crafting/inventing chronology ( I have to admit, distinction between meanings of these two words in this context is lost on me ).

We have a statement that "majority of extant ancient documents is based on old authentic documents, but almost all such documents were edited in XVI-XVII centuries... but some deformations of medieval history were intentional, bordering on falsification" ("What century is it now?" (2003), chapter 7, part 7).

"Reconstruction of Global History" (1999) says that "while creating the history of Europe, Western chronologers move unpleasant events into the past" (chapter 9, part 4). And then in chapter 12 we have much stronger statements: "To support Scaliger-Petavius version [of chronology], a 'scientific historical school' was created in Western Europe; all documents that came to attention of this school were adapted to fit this version... majority of contradicting documents were destroyed or edited ... Most documents that serve as a foundation for modern version of history are western-european in origin; as we've discovered, all such documents were edited in XVII century".

And even "the fact of war with Mongolian 'horde' (army) in America was thoroughly erased from American history textbooks." (same book, chapter 9) I think this fact should be highlighted in the article, many people will find it interesting. Presence of Russian hunters/fur trappers in America as far south as San Francisco and as late as early 19th century is an established fact, but an entire army? --Itinerant1 22:42, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

What's this about a scientific school? I've never heard of this. Ever. I sincerely doubt people would be able to edit so much in the 1600's. Formenko seems to forget people were far more literate in the 1600's than in previous centuries. (Oh but Formeno would say those centuries didn't exist!) There were bound to have been thousands of eyewitness recordings, so how does he explain that?

Second of all, how could a SINGLE school rewrite ALL of history? What would be the purpose of this? How could it be kept secret? This is just completely insane. There are so many problems with the possibility of such a school even existing it's hilarious. I'm guessing the idea of this school was taken completely out of context by Formenko's followers.

Fomenko's comments

Just asking because I'm sort of new to this whole editing thing: since the last time I came to this article, a number of comments have been added, purportedly by Fomenko himself (and, indeed, apparently so). Whilst these are certainly interesting, do they not violate Wikipedia's policies regarding POV and original research? Lordrosemount 18:55, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Generally, people are not outright forbidden from editing preexisting articles about their theories, although they are on a shaky ground - see Wikipedia:Autobiography and Wikipedia:No original research. The biggest concern is accidental introduction of original research, i.e. previously unpublished information. But, as I said earlier, poster's IP makes it rather doubtful that he is connected to Fomenko in any way, making it a moot point. --Itinerant1 20:23, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

That certainly does not make this a moot point. This is entirely unacceptable and unencyclopedic to "comment" on one's own theory (or to impersonate the theorists.) This article has tremendous original research problems and I will tag it as such. Grandmasterka 02:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Just because we don't have a reference for every statement does not mean that all of the material is "original research." It is acceptable for a theorist to comment on his own theory within certain limits. To quote Wikipedia:Autobiography: "... Wikipedia should not contain any "new" information or theories (see Wikipedia:No original research) and all information should have checkable third-party references. Facts, retellings of events, and clarifications which you may wish to have added to an article about yourself must be verifiable."

I don't see any outright unverifiable statements in this article. [4] and [5] contain full texts of most Fomenko's books. If you can read Russian, you can probably find references for every single statement, including the ones allegedly added by Fomenko. --Itinerant1 20:03, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I kind of see what you're saying. But the "comments" have to go. They could be reincorporated into the article somehow, or deleted entirely, but the article looks extremely amateurish the way it is now. Grandmasterka 01:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the purported Fomenko/Nosovsky comments, as I should've done ages ago. john k 01:29, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The thing that struck me as strange was that I've never seen a Wikipedia article in it with comments written in the first person before, irrespective of whether or not the person who added them was the subject of discussion. I mean, if Madonna decided to write her own Wikipedia entry, would it make sense for her to write it in the first person, just because the facts she was presenting were verifiable and previously published? I wouldn't have thought so. Anyway, they're gone now, so that's fair enough (thanks to John K.). Lordrosemount 19:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Unrelated work that also questions established chronology

http://www.radikalkritik.de/pauline_epistles.htm

How do I join the conversation here?

Anyways, regarding the poster named "Paranoid" saying we should compare Napolean with Hitler if we used Fomenkos methods.Well he simply doesn't understand the method.It is based on CUMULATIVE logical documentation.Fomenko WOULD NOT in the end say Napolean was Hitler since the evidence is very lacking duh.I find the overall wiki entry on Fomenko fine but I hope the scribe of the article read the translated books and also I believe an English translated third is due out shortly.

NPOV

I'm going to remove the original research tag (If I remember correctly, I added it in response to the "Fomenko's comments", which are gone now.) What do people think about the POV tag? I think that should be removed as well. Opinions? Thoughts? Concerns? Grandmasterka 18:38, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Anyone? RemovetheNPOVtagyesno? I'll remove it myself on Monday if no-one objects... Grandmasterka 13:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I object. The article is chock-full of PoV, assigning motive to Fomenko instead of simply stating the facts. The FACTS are that Fomenko claims to believes X, for specific reasons Y, while historians disagree because of reasons Z. Not that Fomenko is twisting Z with nonsense that sounds akin to Y in order to fool people into believing X. That may be...perhaps is probably...what is actually occurring, but it's still supposition and PoV.

If the case against Fomenko is as clear as it surely seems to most people, then it should sell itself. We shouldn't be corrupting Wikipedia with PoV "insurance" against anyone accidentally not seeing things the way we do. Biasing an article with PoV is actually more like a confession that someone doesn't fully believe in the version he's trying to ensure everyone else will accept. --Kaz 13:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi there Kaz. Here is the part you added:

It would seem that New Chronology would face several problems with the real world, including historical records and scientific facts, and the question of why real history is different, as well as its own internal consistency. These are addressed by Fomenko in several ways, including the following: (My emphasis added)

The people who believe in this think this is what's true in "the real world". I fail to see how this is improving NPOV. And I am not "proving my bigotry" by removing it. (I like your other changes, by the way.) Determining what's "real world" and what's not isn't NPOV. Grandmasterka 13:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I've now changed that part (based off your revision) to something I think is more NPOV. See what you think. Grandmasterka 13:45, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Question

Hey, what does NPOV mean please?

gf

Please see WP:NPOV which should explain it. By the way you can sign your comments by putting for tildes in a row - ~~~~ JoshuaZ 23:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Please do not add posts that have nothing to do with the article here.

Any particular reason why you have deleted approx. 3 or 4 posts after this ?? 24.36.92.155 23:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)gf

• PLEASE keep discussion relevant to the article itself. DO NOT keep adding your opinion on whether New Chronology is/isn't correct. Any discussion that is not aimed at improving the article may be removed at any time. This is an encyclopedia, not a message board. Grandmasterka 03:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

• BRAVO! Solid NPOV gold, but the article exudes biased non-NPOV contributions and opinions of mainstream historians, therefore they should go. It would be right though to inform WIKI readers in the very beginning that mainstream doesn't like this rusiian fella, moreover it will be only just to reiterate mainstream position in Criticism chapter. Following your clear rule I'll clean up a bit. 86.199.91.137 12:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)Poggio

Grand Master Ka! Above you say; "DO NOT keep adding your opinion on whether New Chronology is/isn't correct. Any discussion that is not aimed at improving the article may be removed at any time. This is an encyclopedia, not a message board. [[User:Grandmasterka

And yet the title page of this site is: "Talk:New Chronology (Fomenko)"! So what in the hell is this page about? Does it exist to "Talk" about "New Chronology" or to oppress it? You and I have even had some off topic discussion about this same thing but all of my words have been obliterated!

Since the words or works of Fomenko, ETAL, touch upon so many different topics, it is very easy for any opponent to pick and chose one specific point to make a good case against its relevance! Hell, any good believer in his viewpoint could do the same thing! But it is within the mass of his accusations that reliable construxts may be established. And, if it was within the pervue of this list to do so, I could list hundreds of correlations that he has asserted that could not so easily be dismissed.

You and I even discussed (in off site discussions) the obvious anti-Fomenko attitudes ingrained within this site that ridicule and make shamefull accusations against the Fomenko assertations. J. Kenney has a number of those available to read in the posts you have left to be read. But you still tend to segregate those of us in support of the ideas from those who oppose them! I ask you mano a mano is this fair? Is this NOPV?

As long as you act as the judge, jury and excutioner of this "Talk" page, then your readers will still be left out of any reasonable reason to consider the arguments presented by those of us who see some relevance in Fomenko's assertations! Just because the idea of the Wikipedia is to be a "encyclopedia" does not mean you should shun all imformation from those who have access to some "verifiable" information that could prove some of his (Fomenko's) asertations as correct!

Please do not tell me my comments have "nothing to do with the article!"

Regards,

Ron Hughes (

hell, at least I do not have to worry about my copyright's!) LOL

History as a science - twisted perception of reality

So what do we have as a result? The article in question is absolutely biased and does not offer any other conclusion different from “pseudoscience”. Rka 11:48, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The facts cannot be said to be biased, except by ideologues.

Wiki Dictates What To Believe

Is it possible to have a description of the theory in 'New Chronology (Fomenko)' about the New Chronology of Fomenko and why he believes he is right. Frankly I dont care a bit whether the regular 'scientists' believe his theory or not, or why. I am perfectly able to make up for myself whether someone has a point or not, this should not only be valid for me, but also for anyone else, so can wiki please stop claiming controversial points of view as pseudoscience. All science is merely religion as it is based on common believes which we then call facts in our religion of science. Whether one believes an artifact is 1000 years old because the scientific method of carbon dating says so, doesnt make the artifact 1000 years old. When it is realised that carbon dating is highly flawed and adjusted, accordingly the age of the artifact will change with it. But the truthful age of the artifact will not, whether is was or was not 1000 years old, the real age will still be what is really was. So start giving us a New Chronology of Fomenko page which describes the theories of Fomenko and his proof of the facts he claims to be true. So anyone can make up his own mind about the matter of the myth of history.

You can't pick and choose facts like that. The fact that the New Chronology is disputed is of equal importance than the actual theory. To exclude mention of criticism in the way you advocate would be to turn Wikipedia into a vehicle for spreading the "truth according to Fomenko", instead of an impartial entity.

Also. Science is not religion precisely because it is willing to accept change. If it is proven that Carbon 14 dating is untrustworthy, or that quantum mechanics are a fallacy, the scientific community will recant its previous statements to the contrary and start exploring the universe from a new starting point. Religion is full of things that nobody can "prove", things you merely have to "believe".

Pause and reflect. --Agamemnon2 15:21, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Grammar

"The list of his supporters includes such famous figures as Chess World champion Garry Kasparov."

Should this be "such a famous figure"? 70.66.9.162 13:30, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Heavily Biased Article? Really need sources here...

Does any one have actual sources to papers where they show his mathematical approaches are correct/incorrect?

There are no published documents that show errors in his works that I can find. It should be mentioned that the 'main stream' simply does not agree with his dates, rather than reject them, because none of them have been formely rejected.

Some parts of the article are very biased against Fomenko because it focusses on specific details (such as different date for Jesus' birth etc). If you actually read his work it clearly shows a difference between the parts that he proves most mathematically likly, and the parts where it says its possible, yet this article represents Fomenko insisting on all of these dates as 100% definitive. It is obvious the authors of this article thus far, have not read any of his actual published papers, and do not understand the mathematical probabilities he claims.

The consistency section (and most of the other sections) are completely baseless (they provide no sources at all). It isn't enough to tag these but they should be removed completely because they are defamatory.

Don't get me wrong, some of his works appears questionable (with reguards to manipulating data for the dynasties), but other data is irrefutable. For example dating of the Egpytian Zodics is extremely solid, the Zodiacs actually have enough information in them that not only can a date be extracted, but the date can be verified because the zodiacs contain redudant information (about equinoxes etc.).

A Few Questions

How the hell does Formenko adress modern DNA testing and gene sciences in accordance with his new chronology? For instance, many parts of Europe show heavy admixture from asian populations that all date back to the times of the Huns and Mongols. I could name numerous DNA tests that directly contradict Fermenko's theories.

Second, does Fermenko have ANY real evidence of a vast conspiracy that covered up world history? -Anonymous

Wait, in fact I'm amazed nobody has even mentioned genetic and DNA testing and all that, not even the people who try to refute Fermanko. All sorts of sciences on DNA and drift, along with the movements of populations, when certain haplogroups appeared and so much more.... All go in correlation with mainstream history. Like I said, the asian admixtures in central European populations and when they popped up go in direct accordance with the Hunnish and Mongol invasions of Europe. From the small black slave populations in Portugal and Spain that can be dated back to the 1,400's (which is confirmed by Encyclopedia Britannica)..... I could go on and on about how the DNA testing refutes Fermenko's ideas. They're a crushing blow against all that he has to say. The only refutation I can think of this is that something else brought the asian admixture in. Uh yeah, so why does DNA dating correlate with the mainstream history ideas?

-Anonymous

Furthering on the above comments (which were not posted by me), it seems that Fomenko has problems with scientific dating in general. The assertion in the brief summary of Fomanko's claims "That archaeological dating, dendrochronological dating, paleographical dating, carbon dating, and other methods of dating of ancient sources and artifacts known today are erroneous, non-exact or dependent on traditional chronology" is simply left unsupported in the article. Given that these and other similar methods of dating artifacts are accepted as both relevant and sufficently exact (if somewhat imprecise) by the overwhemling majority of experts in the various fields in question, they cannot simply be dismissed out of hand. Even putting asside the issue of whether or not Fomenko is "right," which is not, as I understand it, the main focus of this article, some explaination of why he discounts the vast aray of available scientific dating methods is necessary in the article for the sake of completeness and comprehensibility. While it is certainly possible that Fomenko presents arguments which convincingly disqualify all mainstream dating methods, the non-appearance of said arguments in this article renders his hypothesis unconvincing from the start to those with a more traditional grounding in the discipline. Its like asking someone to fight you with one hand behind their back, just because you say so, and then bragging about how great you are when you win. Further the criticism section should be expanded/revised. As it stands now two of the three sentences are about Fomenko's popular success and famous supporters, which doesn't quite seem appropriate somehow. --Dunraven 15:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)