INTRODUCTION
We present certain empirico-statistical methods for the analysis of narrative and numerical data extracted from different texts of historical character such as chronicles or annals. They are based on several statistical principles worked out by the author, and originally reported at the Third International Vilnius Conference on Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics in 1981. The principal results were published in the papers [15]-[32], [293]-[299], [304]-[319] and in the book: A. T. Fomenko, Methods for Statistical Analysis of Narrative Texts and Applications to Chronology, Moscow Univ. Press, Moscow, 1990 (in Russian). See also Part 1.
The methods are applied to the problem of correct dating of the events in ancient and medieval history. These results induce conjectures on the redating of some important ancient historical events.
Generally speaking, we might say that the commonly accepted "Modern Textbook" of ancient and medieval European, Mediterranean, Egyptian and Middle Eastern history is a fibered (layered) chronicle obtained by gluing together four nearly identical copies of a shorter "original" chronicle. The other three chronicles are obtained from the "original" chronicle by redating and renaming the events described in them; we rigidly move the "original" chronicle in its entirety backwards in time by approximately 333, 1053 and 1778 years. Thus, the full "Modern Textbook" can be reconstructed from its smaller part, namely from the "original" chronicle for the 9-17th cc. A.D. See Appendix 1, Figs. 101-104.
Of course, the research described here cannot claim to establish any final conclusions, especially since we have used purely mathematical methods to analyze what is really very complicated, multifaceted and sometimes subjectively embellished material from the historical chronicles. Without doubt, a complete treatment of the problem requires a combination of different methods, including those of pure history, archaeology, philology, physics, chemistry, and, finally, mathematics, which, as the reader has seen (Part 1), is capable of giving us a new vantage point from which to view the problem of chronology.
