A.T.FOMENKO, V.V.Kalashnikov, G.V.Nosovskiy
STARS TESTIFY

Dating of the star catalogue of "Almagest".

Volume 3, Book 1

FOREWORD

Here is the first book of the 3rd volume of the seven volume book "Chronology" (the seven volume book is divided into14 books).

Volume 1. FIGURES AGAINST LIE. - A.T.Fomenko.

Volume 2. ANTIQUITY IS MIDDLE AGES. - A.T.Fomenko. Book 2. WE CHANGE DATES – EVERYTHING CHANGES. - A.T.Fomenko

Volume 3. Book 1: STARS TESTIFY. V.V.Kalashnikov, G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko. Book 2. CELESTIAL CALENDAR OF THE ANCIENTS - G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko, T.N.Fomenko.

Volume 4. Book 1. NEW CHRONOLOGY OF RUSSIA. - G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko. Book 2. THE MIRACLE OF RUSSIAN HISTORY - G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko

Volume 5. Book 1. EMPIRE. - G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko. Book 2. RISE OF THE TSARDOM. - G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko

Volume 6. Book 1: BIBLICAL RUSSIA. - G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko. Book 2: OPENING OF AMERICA BY RUSSIA-HORDE. - G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko. Book 3: SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD - G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko.

Volume 7. Book 1. WESTERN MYTH. - G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko. Book 2. RUSSIAN ROOTS OF THE "ANCIENT" LATIN. - G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.Fomenko, T.N.Fomenko

The book is devoted to new scientific direction: development and application of independent natural scientific methods for dating of historical events. The book continues the studies of A.T.Fomenko: "Figures against Lie", "Antiquity is Middle Ages" and "We change dates – everything changes". In the present volume we date historical monuments and texts by their astronomical contents.

The problem of independent dating is long ago known in chronology. The idea of application of the methods of natural sciences is also not new. But systematical building of the chronology, starting from its basics, only by means of independent (not resting on the chronological scale of Scaliger) natural scientific methods, for the first time was realized by A.T.FOMENKO and a group of mathematicians of the Moscow state university, starting from 1973. The opened by us chronology was called "new chronology".

THE FIRST BOOK of the present third volume is based on the book of A.T.FOMENKO, V.V.Kalashnikov, G.V.Nosovskiy "Dating of the star catalogue of Almagest", issued in 1995 [���3]:1, [���3]:2, and then re-issued in a considerably revised form in 2000 under the name "Astronomical analysis of chronology" [���3]:3. Its main result is: dating of the star catalogue of Almagest is contained in the interval of the VII-XIV centuries A.D. Introduction and chapters 1-9 from the edition of 2000, written by us together with V.V.Kalashnikov, were included in the present edition nearly without changes, with one exception: a detailed contents of Almagest is excluded from the Introduction. The issue is that by today the Russian edition of Almagest of 1998 already became well known to the readers (this was not so in 2000), that's why there was no more need to remind the contents of Almagest. Other changes are minimal and are just of editorial character.

Similar, chapters 10-11 of the edition of 2000 (written by G.V.Nosovskiy and A.T.FOMENKO) were subject to just insignificant editorial correction. Chapter 12, written by T.N.Fomenko, was excluded, as in the revised form it was included into the book "Celestial calendar of the ancient".

THE SECOND BOOK of the present volume, written by A.T.FOMENKO, G.V.Nosovskiy and �.N.Fomenko, contains new datings of the Egyptian horoscopes. The issue is, in particular, about monumental bas-reliefs, discovered in the "ancient"-Egyptian churches, where zodiacal constellations and planets, that are horoscopes, are expressed. Today they are related to the deep antiquity. But they could be precisely dated based on the modern astronomy. It appeared that all the "ancient"-Egyptian horoscopes, which we managed to find out in literature, are dated with the XI-XIX centuries A.D. For example, astronomical datings of the "ancient"-Egyptian horoscopes from the churches in Dendera and in Esna (Latopolis) uniquely indicate the epoch of the XII-XVI centuries. All this means that some Egyptian constructions, related today to the deep antiquity, actually were built in the late Middle Ages.

The first book of the 3rd volume is devoted to solution of a famous problem of dating of the star catalogue from the famous Almagest of Ptolemy.

In the introduction the contents of Almagest is shortly described. Information about the catalogue of Almagest and other star catalogues is given. It is explained, why the problem of the dating of old star catalogues is interesting. Data about the medieval astronomers is given, the activity of which is connected with the creation of star catalogues.

In chapter 1 the necessary data from astronomy, astrometry, history of astronomical instruments and means of measurement of the star coordinates is collected.

In chapter 2 the star catalogue of Almagest is preliminarily analyzed. Connected with it problems are discussed: ambiguousness of identification of the stars; some anomalies, earlier noted by the researchers, for example, a sinusoid of Peters. The accuracy of latitudes and longitudes in the catalogue of Almagest is discussed.

In chapter 3 different possibilities of dating of the star catalogue of Almagest, based on standard ideas and methods, are analyzed. It is shown that there is no possibility to date the catalogue with more or less usual and elementary means. Principal difficulties, for passing which a considerably more thin method is needed, are discovered. In this connection the known to us works, the authors of which made attempts to confirm the traditional dating of the star catalogue of Almagest by means of proper motions of the stars, are analyzed. The fails of these attempts are discovered.

At the end of chapter 3 the idea of our method of dating of star catalogues is described.

In chapter 4 some fast stars are identified with the stars, mentioned in the catalogue of Almagest. This identification, of course, is not always successful. Moreover, it depends on the proposed dating of the observations of Ptolemy. The same fast star in different epochs, changing its position on the sky, could be identified with different stars from the catalogue of Almagest. This effect is important. Its misunderstanding already lead some authors (for example, Yu.N.Efremov, Yu.A.Zavenyagin) to wrong datings of the catalogue of Almagest.

Chapter 5 contains mathematical results, used in statistical analysis of star catalogues. Possible mistakes of the catalogues are classified, methods of their identification and compensation of systematical component are proposed.

In chapter 6 the results of our global statistical processing both of all the star catalogue of almagest and its different parts are provided. The found statistical characteristics of different areas of the star sky of Almagest let to discover the "well measured" and "badly measured" areas of the sky. A separation of the star atlas of Almagest on the areas of uniformity, considerably differing from each other in the accuracy of the star coordinates, is found out. This lets us look in a new way on the structure of Almagest and develop a method of dating of the catalogue.

In chapter 7 the star catalogue of Almagest is dated with two independent means: statistical and geometrical. The received results coincided. IT APPEARED THAT THE OBSERVATIONS OF PTOLEMY WERE DONE NOT EARLIER THAN THE 600 YEAR A.D. AND NOT LATER THAN THE 1300 A.D. this is related to the star catalogue of Almagest or, at least, its most ancient part. The other parts of Almagest could be written considerably later – in the XV-XVII centuries. As we show in the following chapters, most likely, it was so.

In chapter 8 we explain a mysterious "sinusoid of Peters", and also analyze the provided in Almagest meaning of the angle between the planes of equator and ecliptics.

In chapter 9 other famous star catalogues are studied and dated: the catalogue of Tycho Brahe, the catalogue of Ulugbek, the catalogue of Hevel, the catalogue of al Sufi. On their example the proposed by us method is illustrated and the received results are discussed.

Chapter 10 is written by G.V.Nosovskiy and A.T.FOMENKO. In it a possibility to date some other astronomical observations, included in Almagest, except the star catalogue, is considered. The received results ideally agree with our dating of the star catalogue of Almagest. We restore "the chronology of Ptolemy", that is those notions about the global chronology, which had Ptolemy himself and the later editors of his book in the XVI--XVII centuries. These notions were later forgotten due to incorrect re-calculation of the dates of Ptolemy in the years of "the Common era".

In chapter 11, written by G.V.Nosovskiy and A.T.FOMENKO, other problems, related to the dating of Almagest in general, are considered.

 

A.T.FOMENKO, G.V.Nosovskiy

Moscow, Lomonosov Moscow state university