The first topic
Solving the problem of statistical recognition of dependent and independent historical texts. Formulating new statistical models and hypotheses, as well as verifying them with extensive experimental material of actual historical chronicles. It turns out we’re able to acquire general verifications of the models offered. In other words, we have managed to discover interesting statistical tendencies that define the evolution of textual information over a period of time, such as what really happens to the data contained in the manuscripts during their duplication etc. Having discovered these tendencies is our first result. The discovered trends are used as basis for the formulation of new methods of dating the events described in the chronicles. This is achieved by statistical comparison of the chronicles and documents pertinent to the research with the ones possessing confirmed datings. The methods are verified by a large body of correctly dated materials. Their application to the chronicles and documents describing the events of the XVII-XX century appears to confirm the efficacy of these methods. Namely, the statistical datings that we got as a result of our research concur with the ones confirmed by traditional methods. The a priori dependent chronicle pairs turn out to be dependent statistically with the use of our methods. The ones that are independent a priori turn out to be independent statistically as well. Experimental examination of veraciously dated chronicles describing the events of XVII-XX century a.d. led to the discovery of natural numeral coefficients that allow us to differentiate between a priori dependent chronicles and a priori independent ones in 1974-1979. Basically, these numbers are rather small for a priori dependent pairs and rather large for a priori independent ones. This means that nowadays we can compare arbitrary chronicles X and Y and find out whether their proximity coefficients are within the zone that refers to dependent chronicles or the one that refers to independent ones. It is needless to say that the boundaries of these zones were found experimentally. The discovery of the hidden dependencies that define the evolution of information in rather large historical chronicles as well as the development and experimental verification of the new dating methods (currently comprising a total of eight) – is the second principal result of our work. The datings achieved by our methods cannot be regarded as finite, so we shall refer to them as “statistical datings” and nothing more. We shall occasionally drop the word “statistical” for the sake of brevity. The above is to say that we regard the empirico-statistical dates that we computed to be a result of applying statistical methods to historical materials. Nevertheless, the concurrence of these statistical datings with the ones verified a priori that we have discovered in the interval of XVII-XX century a.d. implies that our results are of an objective nature.The second topic
It can also be referred to as critical. We analyze the traditional datings of events that occurred in ancient and mediaeval Europe, Asia, the Mediterranean countries, Egypt, and America. Bearing the reader’s convenience in mind, we have collected various materials here that can be found scattered across all kinds of scientific literature and are known to specialists of various profiles, but often remain beyond the awareness of the general public. These materials illustrate serious difficulties that are presently inherent to the problem of scientific dating of historical events preceding the XIV century a.d. We shall inform the reader of the fundamental research conducted by a prominent Russian scientist and encyclopedist Nikolai Aleksandrovich Morozov (1854-1946), honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, who was the first to have formulated the problem of confirming the ancient and mediaeval chronology with the means offered by natural sciences in its entirety in addition to having collected a great volume of critical materials and suggested a number of innovative hypotheses. We shall also tell of the chronological research conducted by Sir Isaac Newton, who questioned many datings of historical events, and several other representatives of the critical current in history and chronology. We quote from eminent authorities in the fields of archeology, source studies, and numismatics, and a variety of other well-known scientists, and extensively compare different points of view so that the readers could develop their own opinions of the problems in question. The primary application of novel empirico-statistical methods is the analysis of dates of historical occurrences. This is why we were forced to analyze as many dating versions of events in question as we could find in this day and age. The issue here is that various ancient and mediaeval chronicles frequently demonstrate significant discrepancies in dating certain important events. Attempting to navigate in this chaos of mediaeval versions, we devote special attention to those reflected in the chronicles of XV-XVI century a.d. due to the fact that the chronologists of that epoch were temporally closer to the events described than we are. Subsequent chronological versions of XVII-XX century are often revisions of derivative material, obscuring and heavily distorting the original mediaeval meaning. Starting with XVI-XVII century a.d., the version of the chronology of ancient history that was created in the works of prominent mediaeval chronologists J. Scaliger and D. Petavius «rigidifies». The main points of the official version of contemporary chronology coincide with those of Scaliger and Petavius. Hence we are to use the term “Scaligerian chronology” and refer to the consensual datings of ancient events as “Scaligerian datings”. We presume the reader to be more or less familiar with the traditional – Scaligerian de facto – chronology concepts familiar from school and university. We shall thus refrain from quoting the Scaligerian concept in detail, considering this knowledge to be in public domain. On the contrary, we shall be making a special emphasis on its inconsistencies. Further on, we shall give a brief analysis of traditional dating methods: datings based on historical sources, archaeological datings, radiocarbon datings, dendrochronology etc. It is expedient for allowing the reader evaluate the veracity and the precision of these methods as well as their application areas.The third topic
In 1975-1979 the author compiled a table that received the name of a “Global Chronological Map”, which may be referred to as GCM for the sake of brevity. It may be regarded as a rather complete “Scaligerian textbook” of ancient and mediaeval history. All the principal events of ancient history with their dates according to Scaliger (the ones used today), lists of main historical characters etc were placed along the horizontal axis of time. All the key original sources that survived and contained descriptions of contemporary life were quoted for each epoch. The resulting chronological map contains tens of thousands of names and dates. The physical space it covers amounts to several dozens of square metres. This map proved a priceless encyclopedia and guide for the edifice of contemporary – Scaligerian de facto – ancient and mediaeval chronology. Due to the large volume of the material, it made its way into Chron1 and Chron2 with many expurgations, as small tables and diagrams.The fourth topic
In 1974-1979, the entire arsenal of the new empirico-statistical dating methods was applied to the factual material collected on the map of the Scaligerian chronology. This was done by inspecting all manner of pairs of historical epochs and the key original sources pertinent to them. These chronicles were processed statistically and then compared in pairs, and eventually the dependence coefficients of compared historical texts were computed. If such coefficients for the two compared chronicles X and Y proved to belong to the same numeric order as those of the a priori dependent chronicles from the “certainty interval” of XVII-XX century a.d., we called them statistically dependent. In this case, both correlating epochs (temporal periods) were marked on the map with the same arbitrarily chosen symbol such as the letter R. If the proximity coefficient (or measure) of the two compared chronicles X and Y proved to belong to the same numeric order as those of the a priori independent chronicles from the “certainty interval” of XVII-XX century a.d., we called them statistically independent. In this case, both correlating epochs (temporal periods) were marked on the map with different arbitrarily chosen symbols such as the letters N and S. As a result of statistical research, pairs of statistically dependent chronicles and epochs pertinent to them were found and marked in the “Scaligerian history textbook”. We called such chronicles and arrays of events they described statistical duplicates. We discovered that the results of using different empirico-statistical methods correlate very well. Namely, the chronicle pairs “statistically similar” according to one method turned out to be “statistically similar” according to all the others (if such methods are at all applicable to the chronicles in question). This result correlation is perceived as important. It is vital that our empirico-statistical methods have found no unforeseen duplicates, or chronicles whose dependent nature we weren’t aware of a priori, on the interval of XVII-XX century a.d. At the same time, the same methods found a large number of new statistically similar chronicles (duplicates) that were previously considered underived, independent in all senses of the word and ascribed by contemporary historians to various epochs before the XVII century a.d., preceding the XI century in particular. The compilation of the Scaligerian chronological map and the discovery of statistical duplicates therein amount to the third principal result of this book. The fourth principal result is the division of the Scaligerian chronological map into the sum of four chronicle layers discovered by the author. These chronicle layers are nearly identical, but they are shifted in time in relation to each other. These shifts amount to significant amounts of time and their correspondent chronicle layers may be regarded as “short chronicles” of sorts. A very rough description of “The Contemporary Scaligerian Textbook of Ancient and Mediaeval History” would be calling it a sum, or a collage, of four copies of the same short chronicle, statistically speaking. A criticism of the Scaligerian chronology and the description of the four statistical results mentioned above comprise the main part of the present book. Its other parts are of a hypothetical and interpretational nature. They aid the formulation of a possible answer to the naturally occurring question about the meaning of all the discovered empirico-statistical facts, and what the history was “really like”.The fifth topic
This topic can be called interpretational. This is where we offer the hypotheses that may explain the trends we have discovered and the reasons why the “Scaligerian textbook of history” might contain duplicates. Neither this material, nor the “textbook of truncated history” that we offer are to be considered finite in any way. They may only be regarded as offering a possible version that requires a great body of work to be conducted by experts of various profiles, and maybe even special research facilities. The author’s position on a significant number of points raised in Chron1 and Chron2 has formed as a result of interaction, collective research, and extensive discussions with specialists from a wide variety of fields, most notably, the field of mathematics and fellow mathematicians. Specifically, the new statistical models and the results we have achieved have all been presented and discussed over the span of the past twenty-plus years: the Fourth and the Fifth International Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics Conferences in Vilnius, Lithuania, 1981 and 1985; the First International Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability Theory Congress in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 1986; the Multi-dimensional Statistical Analysis and Probabilistic Modelling of Real-Time Processes seminar by Prof. S.A. Aivazyan at the Central Institute of Economics and Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences; several national seminars on Stochastic Model Continuity and Stability by Prof. V. M. Zolotaryov (The V. A. Steklov Mathematics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences) and Prof. V. V. Kalashnikov (The National Research Institute for System Studies); Controllable Processes and Martingales seminars by Prof. A. N. Shiryaev (V. A. Steklov Mathematics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences) and Prof. N. V. Krylov (Department of Mathematics and Mechanics, Moscow State University); Academician V. S. Vladimirov’s seminar at the V. A. Steklov Mathematics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Academician O. A. Oleinik’s seminar at the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics, Moscow State University; Academician A. A. Samarsky’s seminar at the USSR National Mathematical Modelling Centre; The author would like to give thanks to all of the participants of the discussion, and the members of the audience. The author also expresses his gratitude to the following members of the Russian Academy of Sciences for their kind support and collaboration: Academician E. P. Velikhov, Academician Y. V. Prokhorov, Academician I. M. Makarov, Academician I. D. Kovalchenko, Academician A. A. Samarsky, and Academician V. V. Kozlov, as well as Corresponding Member S. V. Yablonsky. Thanks to fellow mathematicians, as well as mechanicians, physicists, chemists, and historians, most of them members of the Moscow State University faculty: Prof. V. V. Alexandrov, Prof. V. V. Belokourov, Prof. N. V. Brandt, Prof. Y. V. Chepurin, Prof. V. G. Dyomin, Cand. Sci. M. I. Grinchouk, Prof. N. N. Kolesnikov, Prof. V. V. Kozlov, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Prof. N. V. Krylov, Prof. A. S. Mishchenko, Prof. V. V. Moshchalkov, Prof. Y. M. Nikishin, Prof. V. A. Ouspensky, Prof. V. I. Piterbarg, Prof. M. M. Postnikov, Prof. Y. P. Solovyov, Prof. Y. V. Tatarinov, and Prof. V. I. Trukhin, as well as Prof. V. M. Zolotaryov and Prof. A. N. Shiryaev, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, both members of the V. A. Steklov Mathematics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; faculty members of the National Research Institute for System Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Prof. V. V. Kalashnikov and Prof. V. V. Fyodorov; faculty member of the Central Institute Of Economics and Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Prof. Y. M. Kabanov; faculty member of the National Institute of Scientific Research in Information Transfer Problems, Prof. A. V. Chernavsky; faculty member of the Moscow Oil and Gas Institute, Prof. I. A. Volodin; Prof. S. V. Matveyev, Chelyabinsk University Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; faculty member of the Kiev University, M. V. Mikhalevich, and Prof. V. V. Sharko, staff member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Institute of Mathematics. The author would like to express his heartfelt gratitude to all of them, along with S. N. Gonshorek for his collaboration and support. Over various stages the participants of the New Chronology project included the representatives of a variety of scientific paradigms. In their midst: V. V. Bandourkin and Prof. D. Blagoevic (Belgrade University, Belgrade, Yugoslavia), Cand. Phys. Math. Sci. B. E. Brodsky, T. G. Cherniyenko, Y. S. Chernyshov, Prof. B. S. Darkhovski, Prof. I. V. Davidenko, D. V. Denisenko, Cand. Phys. Math. Sci. T. N. Fomenko, V. P. Fomenko, Cand. Tech. Sci. T. G. Fomenko, I. A. Golubev, N. Gostyev, Cand. Phys. Math. Sci. M. I. Grinchouk, Prof. V. D. Gruba, I. Y. Kalinichenko, Cand. Phys. Math. Sci. N. S. Kellin, G. A. Khroustaliov, Prof. A. Lipkovsky (Belgrade University, Belgrade, Yugoslavia), Prof. A. S. Mishchenko, N. A. Milyakh, A. V. Nerlinsky, Cand. Phys. Math. Sci. I. N. Nikitin, Prof. E. M. Nikishin, M. G. Nikonova, A. A. Onishchenko, Dr. Guillermo Peña Feria (Cuba, Spain), M. E. Polyakov, S. N. Popov, Prof. M. M. Postnikov, N. Z. Rakhimov, A. Y. Ryabtsev, D. K. Salakhutdinov, Prof. Y. N. Sergiyenko, Prof. Jordan Tabov (The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Institute of Mathematics, Sofia, Bulgaria), Y. N. Torkhov, and Y. A. Yeliseyev. The author would also like to thank Prof. V. K. Abalakin, V. V. Bandourkin, A. V. Bogdanov, M. A. Bocharov, Prof. R. L. Dobroushin, Prof. E. Y. Gabovitsch, Prof. M. I. Grossman, Prof. A. O. Ivanov, Cand. Phys. Math. Sci. V. Kossenko, Prof. Y. M. Lotman, Dr. Christoph Marx (Switzerland), Prof. A. A. Polikarpov, Prof. V. D. Polikarpov, Cand. Hist. Sci. S. A. Poustovoyt, Prof. M. L. Remnyova, Prof. S. N. Sokolov, and Prof. A. A. Touzhilin, for valuable discussions and insights. Many thanks for the kind assistance of Professor Peter Gruber (The Technical University, Vienna, Austria) who proved to be most valuable indeed. The author is indebted to all those who helped with statistical work on original sources, namely N. S. Kellin, P. A. Pouchkov, M. Zamaletdinov, A. A. Makarov, N. G. Chebotaryev, E. T. Kouzmenko, V. V. Bashe, B. A. Silberhof, M. Y. Stein, V. P. Fomenko, Cand. Tech. Sci. T. G. Fomenko, and Cand. Phys. Math. Sci. T. N. Fomenko. Cand. Phys. Math. Sci. N. S. Kellin, Cand. Phys. Math. Sci. N. Y. Rives, Cand. Phys. Math. Sci. I. S. Shiganov, P. A. Pouchkov, M. Zamaletdinov, Cand. Phys. Math. Sci. S. Y. Zholkov, and A. V. Kolbasov have all provided much appreciated help with the creation of algorithms and programs, as well as statistical work on the material. The author would further like to thank T. G. Zakharova, Director of the N. A. Morozov Museum at the Institute for Biology of Inland Water, RAS, the entire staff of the museum, as well as V. B. Biryukov for the exceptionally valuable help in archive studies related to N. A. Morozov and his scientific output they provided. Starting in 1998, the development of the new chronology was aided by a number of specialists from a variety of unrelated fields and adhering to different cognitive paradigms. In 2001 and 2002 G. K. Kasparov voiced his support of the New Chronology in its critical part a couple of times, on the radio and the television; I wish to express my gratitude to him. I am also grateful to Professor A. A. Zinoviev (MSU), the eminent writer, logician and sociologist, for active support and fruitful discussions. My thanks also go to the IAELPS Academician M. K. Moussin, a merited employee of the oil and gas industry, and all the members of his family who actively took part in the “New Chronology” project. Special thanks to I. R. Moussina for her help in compilation of the Dictionary of Interlingual Parallelisms. The project development was greatly helped by A. V. Podoinitsyn, the economist, and Prof. I. V. Davidenko, the geologist. Disputes with various historians, philologists, and linguists provided for a significant influence on the development of the new chronology. The author is greatly beholden to the head of the Philological Department of the Moscow State University, Prof. M. L. Remnyova, for her kind assistance in allowing a reading of a special course in chronological problems and new mathematical methods in history and linguistics, which was read by G. V. Nosovskiy and the author, at the Philological Department of MSU in 1998. We would like to thank the Professor of the Philological Department, A. A. Polikarpov, who supervises the Laboratory of Computer Methods in Linguistics for his help in organizing this course and valuable discussions. Thanks to the Freeborn Russia radio station (Moscow) for the informational support of the New Chronology project in 1998-1999, namely, a large series of special weeklies dedicated to our research. Y. S. Chernyshov brilliantly presented these programs. The second cycle of these programs appeared in 2001. The author expresses gratitude to the dozens and dozens of people in complex chronological research, for their help and support. A fond, special thanks to the author’s parents, V. P. Fomenko and T. G. Fomenko, and his wife, T. N. Fomenko, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, for the great and invaluable help in processing statistical materials and for their steady, unswerving support during all the years of robust and complex development of the new chronology. I would like to re-emphasize that over the last couple of years our research has been getting active support of A. Zinoviev, the prominent thinker, logician, sociologist and writer. His support is all the more valuable to us since the period when it is being provided is that of the utmost controversy and difficulty in what concerns the acceptance of the New Chronology by the community of scientists. A. Zinoviev had pointed out the mechanisms used for the falsification of recent history (the XIX-XX century). His concept of “virtual reality” – the one created and deliberately planted for the distortion of one’s perception of reality and the creation of “the necessary myth of the days of yore” concurs well with the results of our research which have helped to remove the veil obscuring the creation of the Scaligerian version of history in the XVI-XVIII century. Many of A. Zinoviev’s ideas concerning the necessity of introducing the methods of modern constructive logic (including the logical methods created by himself) into sociology and history gain paramount actuality nowadays. The actual idea of translating of our seven-volume work into foreign languages for increasing the involvement of foreign scientists into the discussion of ancient chronology, as well as the organizational initiative, belong to none other but him. We are most grateful to A. Zinoviev for his support and the numerous scientific disputes covering a great scope of issues including those relevant to chronology. We consider it a great honour and privilege to be able to commune with one of the most eminent thinkers of the XX-XXI century. The present edition of the seven volumes of Chronology only became feasible due to the creation of a special project for the translation and publication of our works on chronology by Youri Filippov. One has to emphasize that the translation of such a great bulk of complex scientific material is a most grandiose endeavour per se. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Y. N. Filippov for the gigantic amount of labour invested, and also to the translators and editors for their hard and highly professional work. The book is dedicated to the memory of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Morozov, brilliant scientist, encyclopedist,and author of the most profound œuvres on chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy, and history. He was the first to have fully formulated the problem of finding scientific basis for ancient and mediaeval chronology using natural sciences, and obtaining fundamental results in this direction. The author would like to express the wish for this seven-volume edition to provide an impetus for the development of new empirico-statistical methods of studying historical texts so that the problems of ancient chronology can be solved in their entirety.
A. T. Fomenko,
April 2001
