The history of new chronology can be conventionally divided into several stages.
The FIRST stage lasted from XVI to XX centuries, when different researchers here and there discovered considerable contradictions in Scaliger chronology. Below is the list of several known to us names of scientists, who didn't agree with the chronology of Scaliger-Petavius and considered that authentic chronology of the Ancient world and the Middle Ages was considerably different.
De Arcilla - XVI century, professor of the University of Salamanca, see. Chron 1, Chapter 1. Information about his research is rather vague. N.A.Morozov by chance managed to learn about them. It is known only, that Arcilla was arguing, that «ancient" history was invented in the Middle Ages. But until now we unfortunately couldn't find his works themselves. In the University of Salamanca there is no information about the works of Arcilla.
Isaac Newton (1643-1727) –great English scientist, mathematician, physicist. Many years of his life he devoted to chronology. He published a great work "The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms amended. To which is Prefix'd, A Short Chronicle from the First Memory of Things in Europe, to the Conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great", see. [1298]. See details in Chron1, Chapter1.
Jean Hardouin (1646-1729) –outstanding French scientist, the author of numerous works on philology, theology, history, archeology, numismatics. He was the Director of French Royal Library. He wrote several books on chronology, where he criticized the whole structure of Scaliger history. In his opinion most "ancient monuments" were made much later or are fakes. See details in Chron 7, Appendix 3.
Petr Nikiforovich Krekshin (1684-1763) – personal secretary of Peter the Great. He wrote a book, in which he criticized the adopted today version of the Roman history. At the times of Krekshin it was "quite fresh" and was not considered as something evident, as it is common now. See details in Chron 4, Chapter14:30.
Robert Baldauf - German philologist of the second half of XIX century – beginning of XX century, privat-docent of the University of Basel. He is the author of the book "History and critics" [1025:1] in four volumes. Based on the philological considerations he came to the conclusion that the monuments of the "ancient" literature are of a much later origin, than it is believed. Baldauf argued, that they very made in the Middle Ages. See details in Chron 7, Appendix 3.
Edwin Johnson (1842-1901) – English historian of the XIX century. In his works [1214], [1215] he subjected the Scaliger chronology to serious criticism. He considered that it should be significantly shortened. See details in Chron1, Chapter1.
Nicolay Alexandrovich Morozov (1854-1946) – outstanding Russian scientist-encyclopedist. He made a breakthrough in chronological research. He subjected the Scaliger version of chronology in history to detailed criticism. He proposed ideas of several new natural science methods of the analysis of the chronology. In fact he turned chronology into a science. See details in Chron1, Chapter1.
Wilhelm Kammeyer (end of XIX century - 1959) – German scientist, lawyer. He created a method of determining identity of ancient official documents. He described, that nearly all ancient and early Middle Ages Western European documents are actually later period fakes or copies. He came to the conclusion about the falsification of the Ancient and Middle Ages history, and wrote several books regarding this subject. See details in Chron 7, Appendix 3.
Immanuil Velikovskiy (1895-1979) – outstanding doctor-psychoanalyst. He was born in Russia, lived and worked in Russia, England, Palestine, Germany and the USA. He wrote a number of books about the ancient history, where he marked several contradictions and oddities in the ancient history. He made an attempt to explain them using the "catastrophism theory". In the West he is considered the founder of critical school in chronology. But in fact Immanuil Velikovskiy tried to defend chronology of Scaliger from too big transformations. That's why he can be rather distantly referred to predecessors of new chronology. It seems us that the fact, that in Western Europe the historical works of I. Velokovskiy were much more known, than earlier and more informative works of N.A.Morozov , served as a significant brake in the development of new chronology in Western Europe in the XX century. See details in Chron 7, Appendix 3.
To summarize it is worth to say, that the inconsistency of the Scaliger chronology was rather clearly indicated in the works of scientists of XVII-XIX centuries. Detailed criticism of the Scaliger version of history was given and a thesis about global falsification of the ancient texts and monuments was formulated. However, nobody except N.A.Morozov could find ways to build correct chronology. But even he didn't manage to create a reasonable version of correct chronology. His version turned out to be one legged and inherited a number of significant mistakes of the chronology of Scaliger-Petavius.
The SECOND stage – first half of the 20th century. This stage should be definitely connected with the name of N.A.Morozov . He was the first to understand and clearly explained a principal idea, that in the radical restructuring Scaliger chronology needs not only "high antiquity", but until VI century C. E. N.A.Morozov used a number of new scientific methods for the analysis of the chronology and provided many irrefutable arguments in favor of his deep idea. During the period from 1907 to 1932 N.A.Morozov published his main books about revision of the ancient history [542]-[544]. But by mistake he considered that the chronology after VI century C. E. is more or less correct. N.A.Morozov stopped far before getting to the logical end. See details in Chron1, Chapter 1:3.
The THIRD stage - from 1945 to 1973 years – can be conventionally characterized as «the veil of silence". Historical science tried to sponge out chronological research of N.A.Morozov and his predecessors. In Russia discussion about chronology stops and a subtraction area around works of N.A.Morozov appears. At the West discussion closes within the supposition of I. Velikovskiy about "catastrophism".
The FOURTH stage 1973-1980 started in 1973. This year A.T.Fomenko , an employee of Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of MSU, working at several issues regarding celestial mechanics, paid attention to the article of American astrophysicist Robert Newton [1303], published in 1972, where he found a strange jump of the moon acceleration, so called D" characteristic. The jump appeared around X century C. E. Based on the Scaliger dates of the notes about moon and sun eclipses, R. Newton calculated the acceleration of the Moon as a time function at the interval from the beginning of C. E. until the XX century. As an unexpected jump of D" characteristic for a decade (!) is not explained by the gravitation theory, it induced active scientific discussions that turned in 1972 into a discussion, organized by London Royal Society and British Academy of Sciences [1453]. The discussion didn't lead to clarification of the situation, and then R. Newton proposed to consider, that the reason of the strange jump were some magic non-gravitational forces within the system Earth-Moon.
A.T.Fomenko noted, that all the attempts to explain the break-off in behavior of D'' didn't touch the issue about the accuracy of the dates of those eclipses, based on which calculations of R. Newton were done. From the other side, although A.T.Fomenko was far from historical research that time, he heard that in the beginning of the century N.A.Morozov proposed some new dating of the "ancient" eclipses in his work "Christ", published in 1924-1932 years. It is worth saying that in 1973 initial relation of A.T.Fomenko to the works of N.A.Morozov , based on the misty tales in the corridors of Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of MSU, was rather suspicious. Nevertheless, having overcome the skepticism, A.T.Fomenko found the astronomic table of N.A.Morozov with new dates of the "ancient" eclipses and recalculated "D'' characteristic, using the same scheme as R. Newton. He was surprise to find out, that the magic jump disappeared and D'' diagram turned nearly into a straight horizontal line. The work of A.T.Fomenko about this was published in 1980 [883].
But struggle with a mystery in the celestial mechanics generated another serious issue – how to be with ancient chronology? Dates of eclipses are connected with a number of different historical documents! As the results of N.A.Morozov suddenly helped to solve a difficult question from the celestial mechanics, A.T.Fomenko decided to find out more about the works of N.A.Morozov . The only professor of the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of MSU, who kept a rare work of N.A.Morozov "Christ" was M.M.Postnikov. He was interested in the research of N.A.Morozov and sometimes told colleagues about it. In 1974 A.T.Fomenko addressed to M.M.Postnikov with a request to read several summarizing lectures about the works of N.A.Morozov . After some hesitation M.M.Postnikov agreed and in the same 1974 read five lectures for a group of mathematicians, who worked at the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of MSU.
As a result the group of mathematicians became interested into the chronology issues, considering them from the point of applied mathematics. It became clear, that it this impossible to clear up this complicated issue without creation of new independent dating methods. That's why during 1973-1980 yeas the main attention was given to the creation of mathematical and statistical analysis methods for historical texts. As a result in 1975-1979 years A.T.Fomenko managed to propose and develop several such new methods. Based on them it appeared to be possible to determine a global picture of chronological re-dating in the version of Scaliger, after which mistakes of this version are mainly removed. Particularly A.T.Fomenko found three important shifts in the chronology around 333 years, 1053 years and 1800 years. These shifts, of course, exist not in real, correct chronology, but only in a wrong version of Scaliger-Petavius. It appeared that "Scaliger book" is slicked of four copies of the same short chronicle.
During the period of 1973-1980 years the first scientific works on this subject were prepared and were given into print.
The FIFTH stage of 1980-1990s is characterized by the fact, that during this period articles about new dating methods and obtained with their help results in the field of chronology started to appear in scientific publications, in magazines, that specialize on mathematics (pure or applied). The first publications on this subject were two articles of A.T.Fomenko [883], [884], issued in 1980, and also a preprint of M.M.Postnikov and A.T.Fomenko [681], also published in 1980. In 1981 a young mathematician, specialist in the theory of probabilities and mathematical statistics G. V. Nosovskiy actively got in the research on new chronology. During this period several tens of scientific articles on independent empirical-statistical and astronomic methods in chronology were published. These articles were written by A.T.Fomenko alone or in co-authorship with mathematicians: G. V. Nosovskiy, V.V.Kalashnikov, S.T.Rachev, V.V.Fedorov, N.S.Kellin. See the list of literature. It is worth saying, that the research was supported by academician physicist E. P. Velikhov, who presented two articles of A.T.Fomenko (with the description of methods and global picture of chronological redatings) in the Reports of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and academician mathematician Y. V. Prokhorov, who presented two articles of V.V.Kalashnikov, G. V. Nosovskiy and A.T.Fomenko (about the dating of Almagest of Ptolemy) in the Reports of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
A.T.Fomenko presented reports about new dating methods on scientific mathematical workshops of academician V.S.Vladimirov, academician A.A.Samarskiy, academician O.A.Oleynik , corresponding member S.V.Yablonskiy, and also on a scientific workshop on history of academician I.D. Kovalchenko. Besides, academician historian I.D. Kovalchenko, a specialist in the application of mathematical methods in history, was more interested in these methods and considered, that historians should more deeper investigate chronology issues.
During the 1980-1990s A.T.Fomenko, G.V.Nosovskiy, V.V.Kalashnikov several times presented reports about new methods of independent dating on scientific mathematical conferences, See Chron 1, Chapter 1.
Interesting is position of academician A.N.Kolmogorov . When A.T.Fomenko presented a scientific report about new methods of dating on the 3rd International Vilnius conference on the theory of probabilities and mathematical statistics in 1981, A.N.Kolmogorov came to the place and during 40 minutes of the report was standing on his feet in the lane. A.N.Kolmogorov chose the place so, that he couldn't be seen from the hall, but himself he could easily see and hear, what was going near the blackboard. After the report A.N.Kolmogorov went away in silence and didn't contact the speaker. Besides, at that time A.N.Kolmogorov was already in poor health and forty minutes standing on feet required considerable efforts from him.
Then already in Moscow A.N.Kolmogorov invited A.T.Fomenko to his home and asked to give him to read one of our works on chronology. He was given a short 100-pages report, written by A.T.Fomenko in 1979 and existing only in manuscript form before it was published as preprint in 1981 [888]. Additionally A.T.Fomenko gave to A.N.Kolmogorov a more detailed 500-pages typed text on this subject. In two weeks A.N.Kolmogorov again invited A.T.Fomenko for a conversation. It lasted around two hours. From the conversation it became clear, that A.N.Kolmogorov learned the whole amount of materials. He had many questions. First of all he was excited about dynastic parallelisms between "ancient", including Biblical and medieval dynasties. He told that he is afraid about the possibility of radical restructuring of many modern notions, based on the ancient history. He didn't have any objections regarding the main points of the methods. In conclusion A.N.Kolmogorov returned A.T.Fomenko 500-pages text, but asked to leave him 100-pages report as a gift, what was done.
It is worth adding the following message, received by A.T.Fomenko orally from one of the participants of the below described conversation. Some time ago professor M. M. Postnikov proposed for publication in magazine «Success of mathematical sciences" an article with review of chronological research of N.A.Morozov. After this the following conversation took place between the members of editorial board of the magazine, among who was academician P. S. Alexandrov and academician A.N.Kolmogorov . A.N.Kolmogorov refused to take this article even into his hands, and told the following words. The article should be refused. In due time I spent much forces for struggle with Morozov. But how foolish we will look, if finally it appears, that Morozov was right, - A.N.Kolmogorov . The article was refused.
This conversation raises the corner of curtain under the events of past years, when research works of N.A.Morozov were forbidden. Today they try to convince us that everything "happened by itself". Like research of N.A.Morozov was so uninteresting that it was soon forgotten. In fact as we start to understand huge forces were directed at struggle with N.A.Morozov , as even A.N.Kolmogorov was engaged in it. Interesting is also the fact that A.N.Kolmogorov allowed, that N.A.Morozov could be right.
Seems that all that time, when research of N.A.Morozov was artificially put into oblivion historians were always interested in possibility to renew such research. Otherwise it is difficult to explain that curious fact, that in 1977 when chronology research of mathematicians of the MSU was in the beginning, when there were no yet any publications on this subject, in "Communist" magazine already appeared an article of doctor of historical sciences A. Manfred with strong denunciation of "new mathematical methods" in history. Last names of the authors of methods were not indicated, although it was absolutely clear, what the issue was about.
A. Manfred wrote: "To give them free rein, these "young" scientists, they would pelt the book market with summaries of digital data... "New" tendencies require thorough critical analysis and overcoming. THEY INTERFERE INTO THE PROGRESS OF GLOBAL HISTORICAL SCIENCE..." ("Communist", July 1977, No.10, p.106-114.).
Right after our first publications about chronology, in 1981 a meeting of the Department of history of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, devoted to criticism of our works, took place (July 29, 1981). In the official letter, addressed to A.T.Fomenko , Academic secretary of the Department of history of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR candidate of historical sciences V. V. Volkov and Academic secretary of the Research Council "Basic regularities of the development of human society" at the Department of history of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR N. D. Lutskov indicated: "On July 29th, 1981 under the chairmanship of deputy academician-secretary of the Department, academician Y. V. Bromley meeting of the Department took place... Your conclusions were subject to strong criticism by specialists of six humanities institutes, and also employees of Sternberg Astronomical Institute". (May 8, 1984).
From the speeches on the meeting in 1981 especially fierce were reports of historians corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Z.V.Udaltsova and commission chairman E. S. Golubtsova. E. S. Golubtsova was the head of special commission of historians, created for analysis of our works. Following the materials of this discussion, publication of a series of historians' articles with bitter denunciation of our works started in historical press.
Such "discussion" repeated once again in 1998-1999, what will be described below.
SIXTH STAGE – after 1990. It could be conventionally characterized as "period of books on new chronology". At this time books, describing both our chronological research and based on them suppositions about the way history before XVII century looked like, started to appear in print. The first book, that went out on this subject, was the book of A.T.Fomenko "Methods of statistical analysis of narrative texts and supplements to chronology", publishing house of the MSU, 1990. This book appeared with introduction of A.N.Shiryaev, the president (in 1989-1991) of the International Society of mathematical statistics and theory of probabilities n. a. Bernoulli, head of the department of theory of probabilities and mathematical statistics of the institute of mathematics n. a. V.A.Steklov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, further corresponding member of the RAS, the head of the department of theory of probabilities of mechanical-mathematical faculty of the MSU.
Besides this book should have been published much earlier. It was fully prepared for print in the publishing house of Saratov university already in 1983-1984, under the editorship of candidate of historical sciences S. A. Pustovoyt (Moscow). But suddenly in June of 1984 the publishing house received a letter from Leningrad historians (head of sector of universal history of the Leningrad Department of Institute of History of the USSR, correspondent member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR V.I.Rutenburg, academic secretary candidate of historical sciences T.N.Tatsenko, head of the group of history of the earliest states on the territory of the USSR and the ancient world candidate of historical sciences I.A.Shishova, academic secretary candidate of historical sciences I.V.Kuklina). In particular, they wrote, that our research is "effectively directed against basic principles of Marxist historical science... The sector of universal history and the group of history of the earliest states on the territory of the USSR and the ancient world consider publication of the monograph of professor A.T.Fomenko "Introduction into criticism of ancient chronology. Experience of statistical research" "absolutely impossible". The historians strongly requested to stop publication of the book.
Typing of the book was stopped.
Our book was included in the plan of publishing house "Nauka" for 1991:
V.V.Kalashnikov, G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko "Geometrical and statistical analysis of star configurations. Dating of star catalogue of Almagest". It passed through review and was given into print to the printing office. But when significant part of work was already done, publishing house "Nauka" nearly stopped issue of books in the country due to change of situation in the country. Later this book was published in 1995 in publishing house "Factorial", where all the prepared materials for our book were given from "Nauka". In some time publishing house "Nauka" proceeded with its work. In 1996 and 1997 in "Nauka" two other our books on chronology were issued.
So, after the issue of the book of A.T.Fomenko "Methods..." in 1990 there was a break, after which starting from 1993 the books, reflecting the current stage of our chronological research were published from time to time. In this time appeared the term "New chronology". So we called the chronology, which started to appear due to application of developed by us new methods of dating. It is called new in the sense, that it differs from the accepted today chronology of Scaliger-Petavius. Actually it should have been called "True Chronology", as mistakes of chronology of Scaliger-Petavius are improved in it.
Issue of books on new chronology was started by several Moscow publishing houses: publishing houses of the MSU and Teaching-Scientific Center of pre-univercity education of the MSU, publishing houses Nauka, Factorial, Kraft, Olimp, Anvik, Delovoy Express. Our books were issued abroad both in English and Eussian in publishing houses Kluwer Academic Press (Holland), CRC-Press (USA), Edwin Mellen Press (USA).
In 2000-2003 all the material was collected, revised and put into order as a seven-volume book "Chronology", the first volume of which is before the reader.
Starting from 1995-1996 many articles with discussions of our books on new chronology appeared in different newspapers and magazines. Often extremely opposite opinions were expressed in them. Some people liked our books, others were outraged. Not less than hundred articles appeared every year. Their number considerably increased in 1999-2000.
In 1998 during more than half year radio station "Svobodnaya Rossiya" provided its broadcast time for a series of radio programs, where Y.S.Chernyshov admirably told about the content of our books. In particular, he fully read on radio the text of two our books - "Empire" and "New chronology of Rus, England and Rome". Also the first chapters of the book «Biblical Rus". In 2001 these radio programs were renewed, but soon stopped, although Y.S.Chernyshov was ready to continue them.
In 1998 on a TV channel TVC by studio "Author television" (ATV) within a famous program "Night flight" (TV host A.M.Maximov) were arranged seven meetings with Moscow economist A.V.Podoynitsyn, a participant of informal group "New chronology". A.V.Podoynitsyn told about the content of our research and answered in a live broadcast on many questions of TV audience. The programs aroused strong interest.
In 1999 a famous writer, sociologist, logician and philosopher A.A.Zinovyev called us, right after his return to Russia from a long time emigration. Having read our works A.A.Zinovyev came to the conclusion that our concept is in general correct. Moreover, it corresponds to his research in the field of history and historical falcifications. His ideas on this subject A.A.Zinovyev shortly stated in written by him introduction to new publication of our book "Introduction to new chronology",
Published in 2001 (Moscow, "Kraft").
Starting from 1996 our works on new chronology were placed in Internet on a number of web sites. Their number constantly grows. At the moment there are around ten in Russia and at least one in Germany. We want to note an outstanding role in organization of German web site of professor E.Ya.Gabovich (city of Karlsruhe, Germany). The role of E.Ya.Gabovich is not limited to creation of web site. He is the founder of new Historical Saloon in Germany, where the last years ideas of new chronology are actively discussed. Moreover, E.Ya.Gabovich rendered us invaluable help, working in German archives. He is the author of a number of valuable ideas, related to reconstruction of original history.
Recently in Russia is popular a web site chronologia.org, within which new chronology is constantly actively discussed. On this web site one can find speeches of both its followers and opponents.
In 1990-1998 there was a weak reaction on our works from historians. There were just separate articles in newspapers and magazines, the authors of which even didn't do any scientific review, and just expressed their disagreement. In 1998 things changed. One of the meetings of the Presidium of RAS was especially devoted to discussion of our research. Then a special meeting of the bureau of history department of RAS was appointed. Later there was a discussion at the meeting of the bureau of mathematics department of RAS. At the meeting of the bureau of history department of RAS even a "program of struggle" with new chronology was proposed. It started to come into live especially actively in December of 1999, when at the historical faculty of the MSU a big conference named "Myths of new chronology" was organized. At the conference our research was aggressively discussed and it finished with request for "organizational conclusions". Details see in Chron7, Appendix 4. Then a rather interesting process started. The materials of this conference were with inconspicuous variations published many times under different cover pages and different names. By now there are already seven (!) such repeating each other books Seems that their number may grow in the nearest future. We attentively read this criticism. It appeared that there were no any new ideas from historians. But the form of presenting the material became more "advanced" and pseudo-scientific.
Also the art of attaching labels improved. We wrote a detailed answer; see Chron7, Appendix 4. Starting from 1996 in Germany started to appear the books of German scientists, where they proved the falseness of West-European medieval chronology, see Chron7, Appendix 3 3. But in this works the true scale of problem is not realized. Their authors suppose that it is possible to do local improvements of Scaliger chronology, just having slightly changed it in one or another place. This is a mistake. Before they realize this, their activity will not lead to success. At the same time a critical side in these works is on a good level. First of all we want to mention the book of Uve Topper "Great action" about falcification of history, and also a book of Bloss and Nimitz "Fall C-14", devoted to radiocarbon analysis. See the list of literature.
The last years our works on new chronology raised not only interest, but generate interesting research, based on our results in the field of chronology and on our reconstruction of the universal history, described in the last books of "New chronology". In 2000-2001 the books of Omsk mathematician Alexander Gutz "Authentic history of Russia" and "Many variants history", a book of N.I.Khodakovskiy "Time spiral" were published. Clear influence of our works is seen in the book of A. Bushkov "Russia, which didn't exist" This list can be continued. Although the basics of chronology in these works are nearly didn't touched, but they open several new and interesting facts, confirming our common idea.
But a number of thoughts, expressed in these and other works we strongly don't share. Being positive to such activity, we nevertheless want to separate clearly our scientific research on chronology. We consider it absolutely not acceptable, when some ideas, which don't exist in our books, are prescribed to us, or when somebody speaks from the name of New Chronology without our agreement. Everything we find necessary to say on the subject of chronology is written in our books, or will be clarified in future ones. The sources of New Chronology were and remain our books. It is not acceptable, when several of our ideas and results, or even the common basis of our concept, are prescribed to other people. We have negative relation to use of created by us term and the concept of "New Chronology" itself for promotion of strange for us opinions.
One more interesting fact. Recent publications of some authors are definitely of a secondary character, they were born on the "waves", going to different sides from New Chronology. Such informational "secondary waves" are definitely useful, but as they don't constitute the essence of New Chronology, its basics, that is natural science methods of dating and created on their base (as our supposition) new concept of history. ATTEMPTS TO CHANGE THE BASIS OF NEW CHRONOLOGY BY SECONDARY OBSERVATIONS OF LINGUISTIC OR HISTORICAL CHARACTER MAY PUT INTO MISUNDERSTANDING , CREATE AN ILLUSION, THAT THEY CONSTITUTE THE CONTENT OR EVIDENCE OF NEW CHRONOLOGY. THIS IS WRONG. THE BASE OF THE CONCEPT IS FIRST OF ALL STATISTICAL AND ASTRONOMICAL METHODS OF DATING.
G.V. Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko.
April 2001.
