Chapter 4.
THE EPOCH OF THE XII CENTURY
22. THE 'CLASSICAL' ABDUCTION OF SABINE WOMEN.
A famous legend about the abduction of the Sabine women is associated with the founding of 'ancient' Rome. You will recall that after having founded Rome, Romulus soon discovers that there are very few women in Rome. In order to secure future generations, The Romans address the neighbouring people, requesting that the Roman men be allowed to take the foreign women in marriage. They refuse. Then Romulus arranges a feast to which all the neighbours are invited. They, not having suspected anything wrong, arrive to the festival with their wives and children. At a prearranged signal the Romans abduct young Sabine girls and women. The Sabine men flee. Due to the abduction of their women a war soon breaks out between the Sabines and Royal Rome.
The question is: if 'Ancient' Royal Rome is a reflection of the Horde Empire which emerged in the confluence of the rivers Oka and Volga, i.e. is there any mention in the Russian chronicles of the abduction of the Sabines? An event frequently reflected in Western European art. The Horde sources must be referring to a conflict caused by the abduction of Cossack-wives in the capital of Russia-Horde. It turns out there is such a reference and it was a focus of attention for a long time. More than that, the historians have a problem in connection with that, which they persistently 'are trying to solve', albeit unsuccessfully. See the next paragraph.
We discovered that the abduction of the Sabine women in 'Ancient' Rome largely reflects the abduction of the wives by the serfs in Russian Novgorod = Yaroslavl on the Volga River. It's no coincidence that the well-known Kholopii Gorod (the Town of Serfs) was situated near Yaroslavl. It turns out that not only Titus Levy and Plutarch, but Herodotus too tell us about the Novgorodian's War with Serfs on the account of their wives. Furthermore it's reflected in the famous 'Odyssey' by Homer and in works by the 'ancient' historian Pompeius Trogus … Therefore all of them knew the history of Russia-Horde of the XIV-XVI cc. quite well. Trojan War of the XIII c. also contributed to the story about the abduction of the Sabines [����] ch.1.
23. THE HISTORIANS' PROBLEM: WHY IS KHOLOPII GOROD (THE TOWN OF SERFS) SITUATED NEAR YAROSLAVL AND NOT NEAR VOLKHOVSKII NOVGOROD ON THE SWAMPLAND?
As the original sources tell us, Kholopii Gorod (Town of Serfs) was founded by the kholops-serfs not far from the chronicles' Velikii Novgorod. However, there is no Kholopii Gorod situated near a rundown Volkhovskii district stockaded town, slyly called by the Romanovs 'that very Velikii Novgorod'. When the Romanovs were moving – on paper – the Yaroslavl events from Volga to the swampy Volkhov, they didn't think of drawing on the map Kholopii Gorod next to it. It's quite understandable – you can't remember everything. They drew 'Novgorod' but ignored the other Volga cities associated with it. Neither did they pay attention to a Novgorodian story in the chronicles about the abduction of wives by the serfs. Here the Romanov historians made a big mistake. They didn't take into account that the story about the Novgorodian wives and the serfs is very well known. Many ancient primary sources tell us about it. So, of course, to make the forgery precise, they should have moved – on paper – Kholopii Gorod following the neighbouring Yaroslavl-Novorod.
Then of course the historians realised the mistake. But it was too late. The 'ancient' chronicles were expurgated and rewritten. The 'ancient' maps were edited and circulated on a large scale. And they didn't want to start a new alternative history. That is why they restricted themselves to small falsifications, having tried to fix the historians' mistake by correcting it post factum. For example they pointed out one of the foggy gnat swamps of Volkhov and unfoundedly declared it to be 'Kholopia gora' (Mount of serfs). Purporting that there is no Kholopii gorod (town) here, but instead here is Kholopia gora (mount) for you. Having thought for a while they called one of small monasteries near Volkhov 'Nogord' KLOPSKII Monastery, i.e. Khlopskii (monastery). They happily started showing 'Khlopskii' to visiting foreigners. Among others they showed it to N.Witsen too. He nodded approvingly and neatly sketched it in his travel notes, to illustrate that it was a famous historical place. It's true that it became wild and desolate, but, as the story goes, 'extremely ancient'. As a result the Romanovs' story acquired 'reputable validation'. You see, the Dutchman drew the 'Klopskii' monastery near Volkhov on a piece of paper. The learned Europeans know best!
So where is on the old maps the real Kholopii Gorod (Town of serfs) marked? AS IT HAPPENS ON VARIOUS OLD MAPS KHOLOPII GOROD IS CLEARLY DEPICTED AND IS SITUATED NEAR VOLGA CLOSE TO YAROSLAVL [����] ch.1. Where it is supposed to be according to the Russian chronicles. It is considered that 'Kholopii gorod stood near the town of Mologa 80 km from Uglitch, (at present it is the bottom of Rybinsk Reservoir') [161], p.331, commentary 509. A significant part of the former territory of the region today is submerged under the Rybinsk Reservoir. So any kind of excavations in the place of Kholopii Gorod are impossible.
Thus, the famous 'classical' legend of the Romans abducting the Sabine women consists of the two layers. The first – the reflection of Trojan war of the XIII century, i.e. the Crusade of 1204. The second – the story of the Kholopia war of the Novgorodians in Russia-Horde 'over the Cossack-wives' in the late XIII - early XIV cc.
24. THE TWO BAPTISMS OF RUSSIA.
The first Baptism of Russia was given in the XII century by Andronicus-Christ himself, aka the apostle Andrei the First-called (Andrei Bogolyubskii). The approximate epoch of the adoption of the Apostles' Christianity (the second Baptism of Russia) was under the Emperor Dmitry Donskoy=Costantine I the Great (allegedly in the IV century) we estimate at the turn of the XIV-XV cc. It corresponds beautifully with the date of Christ's Birth as calculated by us to the middle of the XII century [���] Due to a centennial mistake of the chronologists, in various documents the Nativity began to date as a hundred years earlier – in the middle of the XI century. If the adoption of Christianity was circa 1400, then from the middle of the XI century until that time 350 years passed, and from the middle of the XII century – approximately 250 years. Thus dating the adoption of Christianity as circa 1400 corresponds with an established tradition of dating the adoption of Christianity to three hundred years after than Nativity [��].
25. ON THE OLD ICONS ON THE HALO OF JESUS CHRIST THERE IS WRITTEN A DATE DENOTING YEAR 1370 – THE EPOCH OF THE ADOPTION OF THE APOSTLES' CHRISTIANITY.
On the old Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian icons on the Halo around Christ's head there was painted a cross and on it three Church Slavonic letters. On the left end – letter 'OT' (it was spelled as Omega with letter T above it). At the top end of the cross they painted letter 'OH' (ON) with the title (OH=ON (H=N in Russian) was written in the form of Russian letter 'O'), and on the right end – the letters 'IZHE' octuple which corresponds with modern Russian letter '�' (Latin 'E'), but which was spelled as modern Russian letter 'H' (Latin 'N'), see fig.37 [��] ch.2.
On the later icons these letters started to disappear. Sometimes all three letters or some of them remained unchanged. But almost always – and clearly not by chance – the title above 'O' disappeared. We will explain further why it happened.
What did these Russian letters mean: OT, OH (with the title) and IZHE on Christ's Halo? To a person familiar with the Church Slavonic recording of numerals the answer is obvious. It is number 878. Definitely. Firstly, ALL THE THREE LETTERS HAVE A NUMERIC VALUE. We will clarify that not all the letters in the Church Slavonic have this property: there are only 9 of them x 3 = 27. And overall there are 40 letters including yuses ('yus' is a name of a letter originally representing nasal vowels in Old Church Slavonic) in Cyrillic alphabet [155:1], p.17. But all the three letters depicted on Christ's Halo have the numeric value.
Secondly, ALL THE THREE LETTERS ON CHRIST'S NIMBUS ARE CORRECTLY PLACED. To clarify, as there is no zero in the Church Slavonic recording of numerals, various letters are used for the units, tens and hundreds. Thousands, tens of thousands, etc. are denoted with specific signs situated next to the letters. Accordingly, a composite of the three Church Slavonic letters-numerals by no means denotes a number. It is necessary that the first letter was of the hundreds category, the second – from the category of tens, and the third one – from the units category. Otherwise the record will be nonsensical or erroneous. But on Christ's Halo the number is written absolutely correctly, without any mistakes. Specifically, the first letter 'OT' means 800. The second letter 'OH' means 70. And the third letter 'IZHE' octuple, means 8. It results in number 878.
But this is not all. In the Church Slavonic language a number is distinguishable from the rest of the text with a title. Where if a number is a multi-digit, then the title is placed above the letter-numeral second on the right [155:1], p.22. For example, for a three digit numeral the title will be positioned above the middle letter. This is exactly what we see in Christ's Halo.
So, it is a number which is written on Christ's Halo. If some abbreviations of words were meant, then the probability of meeting all the requirements listed above is infinitesimal. THEREFORE ON CHRIST'S HALO THERE IS DEPICTED THE NUMBER 878.
What can it mean? There is no information in ecclesiastical tradition, that number 878 is somehow connected with Christ himself. On the other hand this number strongly resembles a date. As we are talking about the Russian icons, then it is only natural to read it according to the Russian-Byzantine era from Adam. I.e. according to the standard era of the Russian sources. In the ecclesiastic Russian church documents the era of Adam was universally used until the end of the XVII century, and in some cases even later.
But then we have exactly two possible interpretations of this date. It is apparent that the thousands in years are omitted in it, which corresponds with the era in the Russian documents of let's say the XVI-XVIII cc. The millenniums as a rule were skipped [1v], [5v]. Therefore before us is either year 6878 or year 5878 from Adam. The first date when converted to the years AD gives us year 1370 (you have to deduct 5508 from 6878). The second date gives us year 370. All the other possibilities to add the millenniums result either in the dating earlier than BC, or to the time in the future, which is nonsensical.
If there was the year 370 depicted on Christ's Halo, it would bear no sense not only in the new chronology, but not in the Scaligerian chronology either. Besides, the date was discovered by us specifically on the icons of the era of the XV-XVI cc. Which points out the year 1370 as the most plausible date. But it ideally fits the epoch calculated by us of the adoption of the Apostles' Christianity around the year 1380. It is possible that the year 1370 signified some important phase on the way to the adoption of Christianity.
It is interesting to trace – how the attitude towards these letters was changing over the course of time. The old icons turned darker and it was necessary to retouch them, i.e. to paint over anew. Only in the XIX century they learnt to 'uncover' icons, i.e. to remove the upper layers and to reveal the earlier ones. That is why we ought to understand that today we often see not the original, but the uncovered layer, which could have been partially lost and retouched by art restorers. If they didn't understand something or something seemed wrong to them, they could 'improve' the original. If we turn to the surviving icons with the letters on Christ's Halo, we will see, that on the overwhelming majority of the icons the title above the letter O is missing. But if we refer to the old icons, then sometimes there still remain traces of the title.
The matter is as follows. The three letters – OT, OH with the title, IZHE octuple – to anyone familiar with the Church Slavonic alphabet, will immediately suggest that there is a numeral written there. Specifically 878. And it not written just anywhere in a corner of an icon, but on Christ's Halo. But then a question arises – what did it mean? In the XVII-XIX cc. the specialists no longer had answers to this. We would highlight the fact that in the XVIII-XIX cc. it was compulsory to study the Church Slavonic language at school. Even those who graduated only after three classes of the parochial school knew the Church Slavonic language. That is why practically anyone of that time having read on Christ's Halo the Church Slavonic number 878 would immediately ask a question: what does it mean? But there was no answer.
That is why it was decided to omit the title above O in the new icons altogether, and when uncovering the old icons they tried not to repaint it. And in some cases they would even wipe it out to be sure.
So, Dmitry Donskoy = Constantine the Great enthrones in the year 6870 from Adam, i.e. in the year 1362. He defeats khan Mamai = Ivan Velyaminov = Emperor Maxentius or Maximinus seven years later in 1369 or 1370, after which in 1370 the Empire adopts Christianity. That is why it is specifically the year 1370 depicted on Christ's Halo. Recorded according to the era from Adam, i.e. by the date of (6)878. Therefore The Battle of Kulikovo took place most likely not in 1380, as it is generally thought today, but approximately in 1370.
However, dating it by the year 1380 is probably a reference to the victory of Constantine over Licinius, i.e. to the final victory over the enemies. According to the Lutheran Chronicle, Licinius was executed 17 years later after the beginning of Dmitry Donskoy's reign in 1363. This gives us year 1380 – precisely the date of the Battle of Kulikovo.
