FOREWORD
We would remind that the New Chronology started with creation of new mathematical, statistical and astronomical methods of dating of the events, described in the ancient sources. Based on these methods we restored the correct chronology of the Ancient Times. Next, based on the New Chronology, we in general reconstructed the ancient history right until the XVIII century. Then the next stage came. Many people became interested: what the famous "antique" authors - Herodotus, Thucydides, Titus Livius, Homer and others actually told about? Answering this important question, we analyzed in our books nearly all the main "antique" and medieval sources, on which the edifice of the Scaligerian history of the Ancient Times rests, which, as appeared, was built rather late – in the XVII-XVIII centuries.
In particular, we thoroughly studied the following texts: the Bible (both Old and New Testaments), Talmud, Torah, New Testament and Old Testament "Apocrypha", Koran, the Bible of Mormons (The book of Mormon), Popol Wuj (a holy book of the American folk Maya-Kiche), Herodotus, Titus Livius, Claudius Ptolemy, Homer, Cajus Suetonius Tranquill, Cornelius Tacitus, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Plutarch, Thucydides, Xenofon, Plato, Aristophanes, Ovid, Polybius, Pausaanias, Vergil, Seneca, Strabo, Diodorus of Sicily, Ammianus Marcellinus, Joseph Flavius, Haggadah (Jewish Legends), Appianus of Alexandria, Apollodorus, Eutropius, Sextus Aurelius Viktor, Eliah Startian, Julius Capitolin, Eliah Lampiridius, Paulus Orosius, John Malala, Marco Polo, Plano Carpini; "ancient"-Indian Epos "Mahabharata", "ancient"-Persian Epos "Shah Nameh" (Firdausi), "ancient"-German Epos, "ancient"-Scandinavian Epos "The Elder Ecu", Geoffrey of Monmouth, Nennius, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Holinshed, Saxo Grammaticus, Legends about King Arthur, Legends about Alexander the Great, Trojan Legends, old-French Legends, some important Muslim sources, next Nikita Choniatus, Anna Comnina, Procopius of Caesarea (and some other Byzantine authors), Geoffroi de Villehardouin, Robert de Clari, "The Primary Chronicle" and other main Russian chronicles (including Siberian), a huge multivolume Russian "Illuminated Compiled Chronicle" (recently finally published by Moscow publishing house Akteon), Mauro Orbini, Philostratus (A tale about Apollonius of Tian), Iamblichus of Chalcis, Diogenes Laertius, Porphyrius, Bartolome de Las Casas, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, works of some Church Fathers, ancient chronological works and tables (Joseph Scaliger, Dionisius Petavius, Matthew Vlastar etc.)…
Let's stop listing, referring readers to our books and to the full list of the used literature, including also modern studies and comments (totally there are around 2200 names in our list now).
Moreover, we studied thousands of the ancient images: icons, pictures, drawings, engravings, frescos, mosaics, stained glass, espaliers, carpets, sculptures, gemmas, cameos, coins, images on ceramics, enamel etc. In particular, several tens of ancient zodiacs with signs of dates were found out. Many of them were not known earlier. More than forty zodiacs were already dated by us with astronomical method and created by us effective computer algorithm of data analysis. It appeared that all these "ancient" zodiacal dates were at the epoch of the XI-XIX centuries, not at the "far past". We actively continue this important work, giving a huge contribution to the "skeleton" of the New Chronology.
Here is one more use of our new reading of the Ancient texts. For example, an interesting question: what were the ancient customs in Russia earlier the XVII century? It is not easy to find the answer. Now we understand that the existing today chronicles on Russian history were tendentiously processed at the Romanovs' epoch and distort an authentic picture earlier the XVII century. From where to take the needed information? It appeared that it is necessary to take the "antique" sources: Titus Livius, Herodotus, Tacitus and others. Much is told in them about "Ancient Rome", that is, as we showed, about Russia-Horde of the XIII-XVII centuries. From here we should take the ancient evidences about the Hordians, which were called in these sources "ancient Romans", or "ancient Skythians", or "the most ancient Egyptians". Roughly speaking, the "antique Roman" customs – these are ancient Russian customs of the epoch of XIV-XVI centuries (lets repeat that the notion of "nations", "nationalities" itself, appeared late, not earlier the XVI-XVII centuries).
But let's return to the list of the ancient authors. It finally appeared that nearly all the ancient texts and chronicles, which reached us (many of them are connected with each other), actually tell about the events of the XI-XVII centuries. And to the far (sometimes monstrously far) phantom past they were thrown by the wrong Scaligerian chronology, which was mistaken not only for tens and hundreds, but often for thousands years! Exactly "often", not "sometimes".
At the same time, as we already noted, it appeared to be not so many main, fundamental primary sources "on antiquity" according to the number of names. They occupy just several shelves in a standard bookcase. So, one shouldn't think that for restoration of the correct skeleton of the "antique" history "extremely many" sources are required. As it appeared, around seven-eight tens are enough.
But except the acknowledged chroniclers, the outstanding poets, play-writers, writers told about the ancientry. For example, already mentioned Homer and Vergil, the works of which turned out to be extremely valuable for restoration of the correct history. Or famous Shakespeare. NOW IT'S HIS TURN.
The name of Shakespeare is well known and respected. According to expectations, the New Chronology throws a bright and unexpected light on his great works. Now we can finally understand - WHAT SHAKESPEARE ACTUALLY WROTE ABOUT.
At the present book we will show, that such outstanding plays of Shakespeare as "Hamlet", King Lear", "Macbeth", "Timon of Athens", "Henry VIII", "Titus Andronicus" (the action of which is wrongly related today to the far past and wrong geographical regions), actually tell about the real and important events of the XII-XVI centuries, which took place mainly in the mother country of the Great Empire.
- Prince Hamlet turns out to be a reflection of Andronicus-Christ (Andrew the Pious) and John the Baptist (from the XII century);
- king Lear is a reflection of Chan Ivan IV the Terrible (from the XVI century);
- king Makbeth is a reflection of evangelic tsar Herod (from the XII century);
- Timon of Athens is a reflection of Judas Iscariot (from the XII century);
- the English king Henry VIII – this is once again a reflection of Ivan the Terrible (from the XVI century);
- the English queen Catherine of Aragon is a reflection of tsarina Sofia Paleolog, the wife of Ivan III=IV the Terrible (from the XVI century);
- the English queen Anna Boleyn – this is a reflection of Elena Voloshanka = Biblical Esther (from the XVI century).
In particular, imperator Andronicus-Christ (Andrew the Pious) was reflected on the pages of Shakespeare under such names: prince Hamlet (in "Hamlet"), Macduff (in "Macbeth"), philosopher Apemantus (in "Timon of Athens") and Titus Andronicus (in "Titus Andronicus").
All this may seem to some people not only unexpected, but unreal. How this could be? If we remember the events, described by Shakespeare, we will not find anything similar to the story of Christ or Ivan the Terrible. Such perplexity is clear and natural. Actually, having come to the modern theatre or cinema, and listening attentively to the tragedy, performed by outstanding artists, it is difficult to imagine, that actually they, not understanding this, tell about the events of not so far past and about the famous heroes, but whose connection with the Shakespearian works was, as appeared, long ago forgotten.
The reason of such psychological fog is clear. As appears, we are unaware of how far from the original its literary processing may (just externally) go. A playwright and a poet add invented details to the ancient chronicle, emotionally decorate a poor and dry plot. As a result, literary emotions sometimes come to the fore and hide an authentic core. It remains, but is blurred over by secondary trifles, covered with "thick dust". And not an easy analysis is required to "put off the dust", to sort out the "rubble". It is necessary to behave like investigators, criminalists, puzzling out malefactions and crimes. Moreover, not having beforehand objective guiding landmarks, often it is impossible to understand – who is written out from whom and who to compare with who, where to look for original.
And here the GChM – Global Chronological Map of A.T.FOMENKO and based on it New Chronology helps us. It would be impossible to do such work without its help. Moreover, luckily, in case of Shakespeare also the other ancient sources remained, which told about the events, to which his works were devoted. Most modern readers and theatre viewers don't know about these sources. And it is difficult to understand anything without them.
That's why first, resting on the GChM and our previous results, we will try to "calculate chronologically" – where to direct our precise attention. And then, having taken in the hands not only the books of Shakespeare, but also other half-forgotten and sometimes even hardly accessible ancient texts, we will try to restore the authentic picture based on the questionnaire-codes, that is consequently comparing formalized "biographies" of the personages. As a result we managed to put off the later layers from the works of Shakespeare.
Next. Many people heard about the existence of so called Shakespearian question. Usually it sounds like this: who was Shakespeare? If he was a person, about whom the official version tells, or an absolutely different author or even authors hide under this name? Let's note that this topic is not connected with our studies. Our results don't anyhow depend on the answer on the "Shakespearian question". It is not important for us, who hides under this loud name. In any case, as all the competing versions state, it could be a poet, or several poets, who lived at the end of the XVI - XVII century. Probably, several tens of years later the accepted today dating. For the full picture, in the Appendix we will shortly provide the most popular opinions about the authentic personality of Shakespeare. This is an interesting material, showing how loose were the Scaligerian notions of the origin and destiny of some famous works of the XVI-XVII centuries.
But, lets repeat, the question is in the authentic author (or authors) of Shakespearian texts is of secondary interest for us. The texts themselves are much more important. As appeared, they contain enough information, letting to restore an authentic core of the described events. That's what we will do. The study will be very interesting. And the results – rather unexpected.
Let's use, in particular, the fundamental five volumes edition of Shakespeare [971] of the beginning of the XX century (Brockhaus and Efron), together with vast scientific device. It turned to be rather valuable for us, as it contains big fragments of the ancient texts, telling in general of the same events, as Shakespeare told. It is considered that they were earlier (for example, "antique") primary sources of the Shakespearian plays. But now we start to understand that this is not always so. Many of them were created at the epoch of Shakespeare and they clarify many things in his works.
Quoting the edition [971], we keep the spelling, including reading of some names (sometimes unusual today). In some required cases we will address to the ancient-English Shakespearian original.
In conclusion – a small digression aside. Together with the active support of our studies on chronology, wide and deep interest to them, there are still relentless "angry" (sometimes rather nervous) attempts to condemn strongly our works, to "glue labels". We will not dwell on them here. Such answers on many questions and notes, appearing among the interested readers, could be found in some our previous books, and also on our site chronologia.org, including the section "Answers on critics", on the first page of the site.
We are grateful to T.N.Fomenko for many valuable discussions and supplements, and also for the proposed by her name of this book.
A.T.FOMENKO, G.V.Nosovskiy
Moscow, Lomonosov Moscow State University
