Historical Events Database - History

Laura said:

Dirgni said:

This is a site which discusses chronology of the history:
http://www.chronologiekritik.net/

This page offers you a complete list of the papers published here (in English, German, Spanish and French)
http://www.ilya.it/chrono/enpages/hemeroen.html

There are papers discussing cataclysms, faked history, calender changes.... :/

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Can you scan through them and see what might be relevant and useful, and attach them as docs or pdfs to posts here for archiving purposes? I haven't been able to access the second site at all.

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The headlines below can give you only an overall impression of the outreach of our debate. They are of course shocking, but every single line is the result of detailed analysis and years of research. Some of the discoveries could be presented as follows:

- There is no true historical date before the 14th century - all need a critical scrutiny.
- Far less than two thousand years have elapsed since the Roman Empire.
- The Christian Church as an institution existes only since the Middle Ages.
- The Bible, as we know it, was written in the 15th century.
- The first complete printed edition of the Talmud was produced at the time of Zwingli's Reformation (Venice 1519-23)
- Christianism, Jewish faith and Islam emerged more or less at the same time.
- Most of the Greek and Roman authors are literary creations of the Renaissance.
- The Egyptian and the Mesopotamic Empires lasted at best some hundred years.
- Several cosmic catastrophes - at least one in the last thousand years - have affected our calendar.
- The chronology of other civilisations, as the Chinese and Indian, has been adapted to the European.
- An important part of the monuments in our museums are fakes.
- Original buildings, artistic works and paintings often tell us something different from their modern interpretation.
- As a rule, manuscripts are the most easily faked artefacts, but also stone engravings can be faked or wrongly interpreted.
- "Classical" languages as Latin, Ancient Greek and Classical Arabic are late creations.

These headlines may offer an idea about the central subject of our debate, namely the Ancient History, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. We focus mainly on the civilisations in the European-Mediterranean space, which includes the Arab world, but are not at all opposed to do research in other parts of the world. Of course, all fields a touched: archaeology, literature, architecture, numismatics, history of the religions, philology, astronomy... and even the evolution of humankind and astrophysics.

Here arises a question : Are we just talking about personal beliefs or can this far-reaching debate be conducted with scholarly practices? The answer is yes - this is a strictly scholarly debate and scholarly methods must apply at every stage.

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Introduction to an article by Ursula and Franz Siepe in “Zeitensprünge” 1998 regarding the evolution of chronological development in the Italian Renaissance time.

Siepe, Ursula und Franz (1998): „Wußte Ghiberti von der ‚Phantomzeit‘? Beobachtungen zur Geschichtsschreibung der frühen Renaissance“ in Zeitensprünge 2-98, S. 305-319

The authors were astonished by an unexpected phrase in the famous Propyläen World History (1964). They stated that the politician and historian Leonardo Bruni Aretino (ca. 1370-1444) harboured the opinion that between the fall of ancient Rome and the rise of humanist art in Italy only eight centuries (rather 700 years) had elapsed instead of the nowadays believed roughly one thousand years.
They couldn’t believe their eyes and quote the phrase a second time in order to make sure that this is really what the encyclopaedia meant: Between the 5th and 14/15th centuries there had only passed approximately 700 years. Even though the fall of Rome might not be fixed at a special date, nowadays it should roughly be located in the 5th century Christian time-reckoning while Brunis lifetime would be regarded as flourishing around 1400 AD.
Quite a number of famous Italian Renaissance writers and politicians such as Petrarca, Ghiberti, Bruni and finally Vasari (16th century) were convinced that the time between classical splendour and its revival in their own time amounted to seven hundred years. Famous modern historians are quoted to this effect, like Erwin Panofsky (1978) who adds another known humanist who held the same belief: Leone Battista Alberti. Moreover, Petrarca counts a full millennium gap between the last Roman emperor Julius Cesar and the new start with Carolus IV of Prague after the barbarian time, which again is short by roughly three centuries if compared to our modern time-scale.
The authors also reflect on the role Charlemagne plays in this obscure interval with the nearly only prominent date of 800 AD bridging a wide span between the two banks that are safely known: classical Rome and revival of art and philosophy in Florence. The great Charles might rather be looked upon as belonging to the sphere of myth.
Ghiberti is then quoted again with his second commentary to the history of art which is generally esteemd for its truthfulness and reliability by all experts. In the time of emperor Constantine and pope Silvester in the 4th century the splendour of Rome was extinguished as well as all knowledge and craftsmanship by the rise of Christendom, and it was only after 600 years that it awoke again. He even gives an exact amount of years: 382 Olympiads (that is 1528 years) after the founding of Rome (AUC: 753 BC) which brings us to 775 after Christ and that would get us far short of the modern date for Ghiberti. A modern historian (Julius v. Schlosser 1912 and 1941) tries to emendate this mistake by proposing that an Olympiad is to be reckoned with five years instead of four which only shows that the enigma is realised but not solved. By the way; even by this assumption it would not be enough anyhow.
On the other hand, when adding to Constantine‘s time of 323 AD the said 600 years as Ghiberti writes, then we arrive at 923 AD as the end of the dark age which again is far to short, because Ghiberti states clearly that only with Giotto (that is around 1300 for modern dating) the end of the dark time has come. For us, a millennium would roughly serve the purpose.
Since those surmises of the humanists concerning the timelag between them and the fall of Rome show that they cover distinct intervals only coinciding more or less in the fact that they end short by vaguely three centuries, they do not give the impression of having been copied nor adopted from each other. A misunderstanding on our part can also be ruled out as modern historians have noted the problem and tried to get around it by unscientific means. The authors of the article vividly object to the helpless efforts of modern historians who try to hush up the problem by wrong mathematics and absurd suggestions. The phantom time-thesis of Heribert Illig, chief in staff of the review „Zeitensprünge“, which allows for cutting out three centuries in the Middle Ages might eventually bridge the gap, is the suggestion of Siepes.
So far no objection on my part. But then I miss a clear statement in the „upshot“ the authors draw at the end of their article. They don’t mention the uncertain chronological knowledge of early Renaissance historians who hardly ever give any concrete vision of years accounting for the mentioned seven centuries, except once by using Olympiads which leads to an uncomprehensive amount of years. The humanists’ suppositions rather convey the idea that they are in want of a historic timetable and can only guess the time gone by in clumsy packages. This confirms my concept that our modern way of counting years began around 1500 and was completed by Nostradamus and Scaliger, among others.
Franz Siepe wrote another article which appeared just in the preceeding number of the same review which was to my knowledge the first article of Siepe in „Zeitensprünge“ of Heribert Illig and Gunnar Heinsohn:
Siepe, Franz (1998): „Heidentum und Christentum. Chronologische Friktionen in mittelalterlicher Sakralkunst“ in ZS 1-98, S. 66-82 (Mantis, Gräfelfing)

Here Siepe demonstrates that the official interpretation of Carolingian and ‚preromanic‘ art pieces with heathen aspect is forced by clerical concepts and ends up in unjustified twists by supposing the opposite of what the artists might have intended. We become aware of the unbridged gap that are the dark Middle Ages. It makes no difference whether we regard figures of classic antique pagan mythology or German pre-Christian heathendom, the Catholic Church adopted them all without hesitation. Siepe does not yet have the idea of the Christian church being that young and just in the making during the Renaissance (as Edwin Johnson 1890 or Wilhelm Kammeier 1935 have worked out). But he sees clearly that the accepted chronology is not helpful in explaining those discrepancies.

Siepe‘s articles have strongly aided me in my proposal that the factual use of our reckoning the years after Christ has only been worked out after 1500 because early humanist historians had no command yet over such an enterprise. Yet nobody seems to have cared about the second issue which is hinted at only in the headline of the second article: Did Ghiberti know about the phantom-time? The authors neither gave an answer nor did they suppress the question, they just left it open. The answer is completely clear: No! They didn’t! Ghiberti and Bruni and the others reckoned with 700 years instead of 1000, that means they had no idea yet of the inserted 297 years Illig has proposed since 1991. They definitely had no knowledge of the time table we use today. So the insertion of three phantom centuries could only have been invented and put into practice after Vasari and his forerunners, most probably by Nostradamus and Scaliger and the like. Pope Silvester II and emperor Otto III could not have adopted this new chronology in the year 1000 AD as Illig had suggested.
Of course one would search in vain for this obvious result in „Zeitensprünge“ although the idea should have dawned on many a reader then.
The article of the couple Ursula and Franz Siepe was quoted by me in my book Kalendersprung (2006, S. 370) pointing to an important insight into the making of modern chronology. It is apt to prove that to the early humanists the length of the dark ages had been vague and that their conjectures – however they might have gained them, perhaps from Iranian-Arabic sources – did not convey the same idea as later writings proposed. They were still without any phantom-time of the type Illig had found. It is impossible that for five hundred years such a phantom-time should have been propagated by the church without politicians and philosophers following those lines or using the dates. Today, sixteen years after the articles of Siepe, our understanding of the making of modern chronology has progessed again by a great leap which is not subject of this review.

Uwe Topper, January 2014

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Uwe Topper said:

The authors also reflect on the role Charlemagne plays in this obscure interval with the nearly only prominent date of 800 AD bridging a wide span between the two banks that are safely known: classical Rome and revival of art and philosophy in Florence. The great Charles might rather be looked upon as belonging to the sphere of myth.

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Charlemagne's 1,200-year-old bones are likely the real deal
After 26 years of analysis, German researchers conclude that "with great likelihood" they've been dealing with the skeleton of Charles the Great

by Dara Kerr -- February 6, 2014 4:21 PM PST

Charlemagne, otherwise known as Charles the Great and the "Father of Europe," was said to have been a tall, thin man with a slight gait to his walk. He reigned over Western Europe from 800 A.D. to 814 A.D., and the region was definitively empowered by his rule.

His bones have long been on display at a treasury in Aachen Cathedral in Germany. While historians have questioned whether the displayed bones were really those of Charlemagne, new research shows they could be authentic, according to The Local.

It's said that when Charlemagne died in his 70s -- 1,200 years ago -- he was buried beneath the Aachen Cathedral. Throughout the centuries, various emperors were said to have opened his tomb and buried him again in more elaborate caskets. It's also said that his bones were dispersed throughout several reliquaries. Today, however, it's believed the majority of his remains are within the treasury in Aachen.

On the 1,200th anniversary of Charlemagne's death last week, researchers from the Centre of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich confirmed that after 26 years of analysis they believe the displayed bones are those of the Father of Europe.

Since 1988, the researchers have been secretly analyzing 94 bones and bone fragments believed to have belonged to Charlemagne. The once-entombed bones all appear to come from the same person -- a man who was 6 feet tall with a slim body mass index. Such height was very unusual in the 800s.

As for the limp in his walk, researchers found kneecap and heel bone deposits that indicate a possible injury. The researchers also concluded that the bones belonged to a man who was in old age when he died. While it's said that Charlemagne died of pneumonia, researchers couldn't find any clues to this illness within the buried bones.

Despite some inconsistencies, like the pneumonia, the researchers seem optimistic that the bones in Aachen are Charlemagne's.

"Thanks to the results from 1988 up until today, we can say with great likelihood that we are dealing with the skeleton of Charlemagne," researcher Frank Rühli said, according to The Local.

Dara Kerr, a freelance journalist based in the Bay Area, is fascinated by robots, supercomputers and Internet memes. When not writing about technology and modernity, she likes to travel to far-off countries.

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Laura said:

Fomenko, et al, don't deal with cataclysms or massive depopulation events or tree rings or carbon 14 dating. He dismisses all of that because he has his numbers. Well, I agree, the numbers definitely tell us that something is seriously wrong, that something strange happened. But that is where you have to start thinking about human nature and most mathematicians don't know much about that at all, at least not in my experience.

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Cataclysms are the reason for our wrong chronology

Paper read at the international meeting of chronologists in Potsdam, Sept. 12th to 14th, 2008

Uwe Topper
Berlin · 2008.

The academic convention concerning historiography is not acceptable to reasonable thinking. Three main points are missing in the present concept of history:

1. A trustworthy description of the development of this view of history, or: history of the foundations of historiography.
2. Research into the chronological bases of historiography.
3. Taking into account the catastrophes of cosmic origin which occurred during the recent history of man and changed his environment drastically.

As far as the first point is concerned, I can summarize in a few sentences the results we reached so far. The lifelong work of Wilhelm Kammeier has not been ignored by scholars (though it might seem so) but is now more or less integrated in academic research except that the author‘s name is not mentioned. He had scrutinized a great number of medieval documents and found that they are all productions of a later age. By this not only the chronology of the Middle Ages is shown to be non-existent, but also a huge gap is left for historiographers which they so far can hardly fill with facts. All pre-Renaissance history has to be completely re-written, and legends or sagas cannot fill this gap. Archaeology as well has to be readjusted as it was founded on the same timetables that historiography had proposed, and even the aims of the excavations have to be reconsidered. Only after analysing all excavation reports can there be a readjustment of the preliminary results of those excavations. Especially coins and pottery have to be re-classified completely.

Point two: At first a thorough clarification of the process of the construction of the present chronology has to be established. Mentions of Scaliger, Calvisius and Petavius are not enough because the whole development of computistics within the church is a labyrinthine matter that can only be clarified by returning to the beginning of Christian dating by Anno Domini (AD, modern years counting from the birth of Christ) which might be located near AD 1500. In case the churches refuse to cooperate, their chronology has to be regarded as fake and work has to begin at point zero.

It has been proposed to use foreign dating – such as Muslim Hijra years – to fill in the missing time, but this does not really satisfy because those foreign chronologies – this judgement pertains to all of them – are not free from falsifications, moreover they are mostly based on the Christian way of constructing chronology and adjusted to our own.

Scientifically based chronology will turn out to be the only solid ground for a new approach provided that those physical or chemical procedures do not turn out to be vicious circles like radiocarbon dating or dendrochronology have so far. For the moment I can only think of using astronomical and calendric traditions that might bring light to our problem.

Now point three which I shall elaborate in detail: The reason for the wrong chronology lies in the frequent catastrophes of cosmic origin. This has been locked out of academic thinking for a century and a half, partly on scientific grounds which include errors, but mostly on an emotional (and even religious) foundation.

Catastrophes have brought human civilization to a standstill several times in history, living conditions have been interrupted, and the cultural development had to start anew. To deny those facts in historiography is an error and a serious twisting of facts. Since the position of the earth had been changed momentarily by every such catastrophe, all kinds of mathematical retrocalculation of cosmic events such as eclipses or positions of planets must be wrong. Any historiography based on such retrocalculations turns out erroneous results.

Those who knew this problem had to fake their „chronicles“ in order to bring heaven and earth into harmony, a treacherous harmony that has never endured for a long time. The work of the mainly religious chronologists (computists of the church) has to be regarded as consciously faked papers with the purpose to eradicate the memory of those cataclysms and to fill in the unknown gaps.

As far as geological history is concerned, the possibility of cosmic intruders such as meteorites, comets, asteroids and the like – commonly placed under the label „bolides“ – has been taken into account since the Steinheimer Becken (Steinheim Meteor Crater) in southern Germany was examined thoroughly more than half a century ago. The idea then was extended to other locations and nowadays it is rather fashionable to discover more and more impact craters. This has nothing to do with our item.

The new term of the catastrophes I have in mind is „cosmic jolt“ or „leap“ of the earth. Such a leap cannot result from a bolide crushing into the crust of the earth (which, except in extremely rare cases, would destroy most life on earth). We still do not know what unleashes such a jolt as I am proposing, but this does not concern our present chain of thoughts. Such a jolt implies that the axis of the earth jumps for a tiny fraction in its orbit around the sun, a fraction that can only be measured afterwards by calculating the precession and its speed. After a short lived instability the earth regains its stable orbit and continues to circle the sun on the usual parameters. A jolt can be ascertained from historic documents of astronomical and calendric nature.

Certainly, such a jolt has far-reaching consequences for life and environment: Sea coasts and islands change places, mountains are rising or sinking, volcanoes erupt and ravines open for new rivers, the atmosphere will be darkened for many years, in certain regions life will cease altogether, cultural achievements have to be regained by hard efforts for generations. Denying those accidents gives us a wrong picture of human evolution.

There is another reason why those cosmic interruptions should not be excluded from historiography: the retrocalculated chronology after such an event must be wrong.

Is there documentary evidence for such jolts? There are many such items of evidence, but they have not been taken seriously or not related to each other to give a clear sight. The geological transformation is the most obvious proof, but so far it has been put off into far-away, prehistoric times, mostly ending with the end of the last Ice Age. North Sea and Baltic coasts have changed enormously during the last millennium as maps of the Renaissance still recall. In mountain ranges such as the High Atlas in Northern Africa one can easily make out three levels of land rising, the original limits of human activity are well visible.

My research into the three coastlines on the Iberian peninsula during the 1970s gave me a basic knowledge of those three catastrophes during recent history although in my publication then (1977) I did not yet recognize how young those events really were. Instead of the then proposed 9000 years of Plato I now have to get down to only one thousand years as far as the last three land risings (= jolts) are concerned. We now propose 650 BP, 740 BP and 950 BP. Those dates are hypothetical and more uncertain the farther back they reach.

Now let us regard astronomical documents proving those jolts. Arabs as well as Greeks have handed down to us a great amount of astronomical data that can be exploited to this effect. Although modern astronomers agree that the angle of the earth’s axis (the ecliptic epsilon) is not unchangeable but undergoes a certain movement calculated as a curve diagram, they do not know or recognize that this same movement can be interrupted at certain moments and thus give different parameters for years gone by. Medieval and antique observations give us sufficient data to previous interruptions of the diagram. Even the short periods of instability after a jolt are documented by ancient astronomers.

We have to relearn four important items:

A: When the earth jumps on its precession cycle as proposed, the cardinal points of the year as well as the length of the seasons change. This has been marked in calendars.
B: Although north remains north on earth after a jolt, the north pole in the sky changes its place for the observer.
C: By a jolt the speed of the precession is altered. This can be ascertained after some lapse of time.
D: Astronomical retrocalculations of past years and events are broken up by the jolts. This deletes modern chronology.

Let us consider those four points in detail.

Point A concerns the change of the angle of the earth regarding the precession cycle

The cardinal point of the year had been measured in bygone times by a great number of Euro-Asian astronomers with considerable accuracy. The angle of the solstices as well as the declination combined deliver the obliqueness of the ecliptic with sufficient precision, a term that all classic and Islamic astronomers dominated. Their values differ slightly from the actual values, and do not integrate into the graphic curve developed from actual values and retrocalculated for classic or Islamic times. Therefore those ancient values are nowadays termed wrong, especially the values given by Ptolemy.

The anomaly of the circuit of the earth, its aphelion and perihelion, could be determined as well very early, be it by the differing length of the seasons (analemma with gnomon) or by the changing width of the visible sun’s diameter measured in a camera obscura of a round observatory. Both ways are believed to have been practiced by Ptolemy who might even have used measurements obtained by Hipparchus said to have been made around three centuries previously.

Arabs and Persians worked out highly accurate determinations of the apsides with values until the fragments of spheric seconds. Those informations correlate between each other but do not accord with modern retrocalculations. To attribute those discrepancies to lapses in copying or to results of bad instruments sounds absurd. Even the movement of the apsides along the ecliptic was calculated then and its velocity was noted. These values differ as well from the actual ones. What is more: Between those two groups of data we have no intermediary values

Point B: The movement of the Celestial North Pole

The term „precession“ denotes the uneven circling of the earth like a spinning top which means that its axis moves in relation to the pole, and thus the equinox wanders backwards.

A simple way to understand this as a layman is to observe the movement of the polar star during the centuries. Christopher Columbus, while crossing the Atlantic some five hundred years ago, had difficulties in determining true north because the amount of deviation of his compass was not known to him. But the polar star did not help him either without special mathematics because at that time it stood more than three degrees from the center of the sky, circling around it. Today Alpha Ursae minoris (our polar star) is only half a degree distant from the real pole and therefore quite apt to be used as guidance, but even this small difference can be noticed by any shepherd.

The slow dislocation of the polar star in the course of centuries is an effect of precession and its most obvious example. Joseph Scaliger who – like later Sir Isaac Newton – secured his chronological work by involving astronomy, used an ancient tradition which said that a star in the constellation of Draco, Thuban by name (meaning the serpent), had been the polar star in those times, supposedly the times of the Phoenicians. According to mythology it should have been the star we now know as Gamma Draconis, the brightest in the head of Draco, also called Etamin (because the Arabs called it Ras at-Tannin, head of the serpent) and around which the whole firmament turns. Yet Scaliger named another star Thuban, the one we today call with the same name (Alpha Draconis) because it would lay on the precession circle as retrocalculated from data available to Scaliger (the same we use today). Only this star could have been the polar star of the ancients, argued Scaliger, and this holds until now, except that the „historical“ moment would be chronologically far off: 2800 B.C., i.e. two thousand years to early for any Phoenicians. (Note: Kunitzsch, Almagest 1974, p.172 relates this exceptional mistake of Scaliger to John of London, 1246 and repeats this p.224)

Aristotle in his work „De Coelo“ described the earth as a globe floating motionless in the centre of the universe and around which are circling the sun, the moon, and all the stars except one star: the polar star. This one is an unchangeable point which sailors use to determine their course.

Now, which star did Aristotle refer to? His thought is quite correct at least from our actual point of view. But in his time – say around 300 B.C. – there was no star at that point of the sky that could have served as polar star if we use our data for retrocalculation. The earth‘s axis would point to a section of the northern sky without any stars in the (present-day) constellation of Camelopardalis. Not even approximately would there have been a star to serve as guide for sailors. Then what is Aristotle talking about? We don’t know but can deduce that the sky at the time of Aristotle looked different from what it would have looked like if modern retrocalculations are applied.

A similar observation can be made concerning the polar star of the Arabs. They chose Kochab (which equals Beta Ursae minoris) and called it al-Kaukab al-Shamali, star of the north, from which it took its modern name Kochab. Yet if we retrocalculate from modern values the Arabs would have lived more than three thousand years ago or at least have retained such an old term which in their own time was useless. As far as I can see modern retrocalculations going back more than six centuries do not give any meaningful results when compared to old traditions.

Point C: Variation of the speed of precession

Well known is the conclusion that nearly all data and descriptions in the Almagest of Ptolemy are somehow wrong; they do not fit his time if retrocalculated nor do they fit any other time. This had been noted by the first critical astronomers, the Arabs, when they compared the Almagest to their own findings. And critics never were silent about this point until today. As a modern example I only mention the well-known American astronomer Robert Newton who categorically said that the whole Almagest is a fraud. Values for the movement of Venus are completely wrong if looked upon with modern data in mind. Locations of fixed stars are absolutely wrong as well. Exceptions are the length of sidereal and tropical year and moon observations.

How can this be explained? The only solution that makes sense to me are the jolts that have taken place in the meantime.

I might compare the jolts to the sporting behaviour of a marathon runner who knows well his capacities. He will always have the same length of pace and run in constant evenness so his speed will be absolutely uniform. When he arrives at the finish line, his steps can be counted back and one can be sure to find the spot where he set his foot 5 km before. But a photographer who took a snapshot of that special spot can prove that the calculation gave a wrong result. The runner jumped once in a while on his way, maybe for sheer joy, while nobody noticed it or thought it worthwhile to talk about. Every jump changes the position of his steps.

The example is only partly working to its purpose because the jumps of the earth were noticed and recorded and they can even today be recognised in traditional literature. If the Almagest is sorted out as untrustworthy and fraudulent, this does not concern us here. It belongs to points 1 and 2 in the beginning of this lecture.

If the earth moved along its path at even speed and with the same parameters as today, then some of the data obtained by the old astronomers would be correct. But if the earth made some jumps in the meantime, then certain data will be wrong such as the anomalistic year, the precession and the angle of the ecliptic.

Let us look again at the runner: It could even happen that some photographs of his steps do coincide more or less with the calculated ones, yet the number of steps will be different after each jump. In our case this means the number of years. As the steps of the runner had not been counted, this point would not be detected. Only if his jumps were very big would some person say: There is something wrong here. And this phrase was exactly the one Sir Isaac Newton exclaimed when he checked the chronology of Scaliger and Petavius. Thus modern chronology criticism started.

Precession jolts since Babylonian time

Our actual value (since the Renaissance) of the speed of precession is 72 years for one degree displacement of the spring equinox. This was not always like that.

In the Middle Ages the speed was a bit quicker. As Arab astronomers wrote, the precession speed at their time was around 65 to 66 years per degree, starting from al-Battani (around 880 AD) to Kushayr and as-Sufi until Haraqi (1112 AD). An anonymous contemporary of Zarqallu (11th century) noted likewise 66, and the Latin book of Alfonso X, the Wise (13th century) gives the same value.

We can retain: All values for about four hundred years oscillate around 66. As chronology criticisers we doubt the lapse of 400 years and even the exact dating of those texts but it seems clear to me that they pertain to the time before the Renaissance. The astonishing uniformity of the value cannot be explained by copying because the values differ very slightly and are often declared to be the result of painstaking calculations. Even a slow change within this interval can be noticed.

Let us step back into classical time: Ptolemy gave the speed as exactly 100 years per degree (and the Arabs confirmed this for Ptolemy). It might seem this is just a round number but the mistake can only add up to a few years, as this value had been handed down by Hipparchus as well nearly three hundred years earlier.

Recently even older dates have been discovered: Dennis Rawlins found an old manuscript in 1981 (published only in 1999) that shows that Aristarchus 130 years before Hipparchus had nearly the same value of 100. (Quoted in German by Sepp Rothwangl, internet). This means once again that an original value for the precession speed had been handed down by the Greeks over something like four centuries. Again I have to admit that we now don’t know when this really was and for how long the speed was uniform. But since the Arabs knew this value it must have been calculated some time before them.

Stepping back again until Babylonian time we suddenly are confronted with the value 50, as Rothwangl asserts quoting cuneiform tablets. The big year of precession, he continues, of the astronomer Kidinnu amounted to 18.000 years thus corresponding to what was passed on by Greeks concerning a phrase of Heraklitus which can only be found in Aetius. Here now the tradition is very weak and contestable, yet lacking other information we can resume the following: From Kepler to us there is the factor 72, while it is 66 for the Arabs and 100 for the Greeks of post-Alexander time; for the Babylonian epoch it was supposedly 50.

To call these figures rounded to fit magical purposes is not logical as 72 is our real value and yet this figure couldn’t be more symbolical for a Christian scientist. I regard all these values as calculated by astronomers on the base of real observations in their own time. The calculation can depart from the difference between sidereal and tropical year or using information of generations past about the location of stars on the ecliptic. Both methods had been used.

It strikes me that any intermediate values are missing. The change of the precession speed was not slow and surreptitious but abrupt. At certain moments the speed changed suddenly, that is what I call a jolt.

Point D: Chronology by means of retrocalculation

Archaeo-astronomers researching megalithic monuments or medievalists analysing astrolabes always use a simple method to find out the age of the object in question: They look for an indication of the spring equinox (or any other similar date) given by their object and then just apply mathematics like a ruler using 72 years for 1 degree precession. Why so? Because this speed has to be a natural constant value and holds good for millenniums and even millions of years. The law of uniformity is fully acknowledged. The result is wrong.

How wrong can be shown by an example: Alfonsine tables always give 17 degrees distance to the positions of Ptolemy. The official chronologic distance is 1120 years. Applying the modern rate of 72 the distance would be a hundred years more. Taking into account Ptolemy’s rate the distance would be completely out of order: 1700 years. Only with the Arab value of 66 we arrive at 1120 years. This looks well arranged. The conclusion would be that the speed of precession between Ptolemy and Alfonso was stable at 66 years per degree.

But what if a jolt had happened in-between? Then the time lapse between the two persons is wrong. As long as we take a wrong precession speed for our retrocalculations the results must be erroneous. If jolts have taken place, all chronography based on astronomy is wrong. Jolts have taken place as I just tried to prove. Then Christian years before the last jolt (around 650 years ago) are wrong.

The model of a Platonic Year (of roughly 25.900 years) as revolution of the sky by precession is unreal. Not even an ellipse or oval form would help to improve the dates, because in this case Kochab could have never been the polar star of the Arabs. It stands too far off in time when calculated with actual values. For the last millennium we can only pretend to know that precession has always been retrograde.

There is another hint to the correctness of the above thoughts, the notion of trepidation of the Arab and early Renaissance writers.

The Latin term trepidatio, also called accessio and recessio, or in Arabic iqbal and idbar, had been observed as fact by certain astronomers of the Middle Ages. This to-and-fro movement of the position of the equinox and other data could not be foretold by the known mechanisms of anomaly and never found a satisfying theoretical explanation. It was observed only some short decades and then vanished. John of Königsberg (Regiomontanus, end of 15th century) wrote a pamphlet refuting vehemently this notion of irregular movements. I suppose that in his time trepidation had definitely ceased.

The Indian astronomers are said to have been the first to give knowledge of the trepidation, and from there via Persia it may have reached the Arabs who handed it on to Andalusian and Christian scientists. Those held fierce discussions about this subject. King Alfonso X is on record as having considered trepidation as a fact when he started to reign (around 1260 AD), but towards the end of his long rule he disregarded it (in 1290 A.D.). The disturbance had ceased, the values had gone back to constancy. This fits our supposition that the last but one jolt had taken place around 1260 A.D.

French astronomers in Paris have noted the same: Campanus de Novare (1261-64) used compromise values, but from 1290 onwards the Toledan tables give stable data. Morelon (1997) names five French astronomers who agreed on this. Trepidation is thus revealed to be an indication of an unstable movement of the earth after a jolt.

Result: Retrocalculation of bygone times by an unchanging value of precession (of actual observation) or of the steady decrease of the angle of the ecliptic or the constant movement of the apsides cannot give true years if jolts and an abrupt change of those parameters are not taken into account. Best results may be obtained when traditions of earlier astronomers and calendar usage are considered as valuable.

Quoted Literatur

Humboldt, Alexander v. : Kosmos (1845. Nachdruck Frankfurt/M., 2004)
Kunitzsch, Paul : Ibn as-Salah. Zur Kritik der Koordinatenüberlieferung im Sternklatalog des Almagest (Göttingen 1974)
Newton, Robert R. : The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy (Baltimore, London 1977)
Rashed, Roshdi (Hrg.): Histoire des Science Arabes (Paris 1997)
Rothwangl, Sepp : internet www.calendersign.chello.at (2003)
Topper, Uwe : Kalendersprung (Tübingen 2006)

Click to expand...

The Self-Deception of C-14 and Dendrochronology

How Dendrochronology Has Been Lulled into a False Sense of Security by an Urgently needed Auxiliary Science

Christian Blöss / Hans Ulrich Niemitz
Berlin · 1996

First published (in German) in: ZEITENSPRÜNGE 8 (former VFG); 1996. 3. pages 361-389

Author's note: This article reflects the discussion up to November 1996. A more detailed position is worked out since then. Nevertheless we publish this version and refer to the actual discussion in ZEITENSPRÜNGE and to the book "C14-Crash" to be published in spring this year.
The use of C14 instead of 14C: It has been our experience that the whole world talks about "Cee-fourteen" (= C14), but not about "radiocarbon" or "fourteen-cee" (= 14C). Furthermore, everybody means the same thing with that, namely either the radioactive isotope of carbon 14C or the method of determining absolute age based upon the measurement of its radioactivity. Therefore, we will follow this custom to make it easier to read and speak about it.
Source of text: This is a translation of "Der Selbstbetrug von C14-Methode und Dendrochronologie" originally appearing in ZEITENSPRÜNGE 8 (1996) 3 361-389 and also as an off-print (MANTIS edition) together with "Die 'magic dates' und 'secret procedures' der Dendrochronologie" by H.-U. Niemitz and "Dendrochronologische Zirkelschlüsse" by H. Illig. The main body is professionally translated while small parts of it are edited or supplemented by the authors themselves. Part 9 is based completely on the authors' English.

We are sorry for the lack of pictures in this article. Please ignore the references.

What was announced as a "C14-article" at the annual chronology-meeting in Hamburg has developed into a second "dendro-article". The previous one also appeared in this magazine last year [Niemitz 1995, see also Illig 1991]. The insider knows that the C14 method would have been long lost had it not been for the intervention of dendrochronology: a C14 measurement has to be calibrated, and it is only dendrochronology which supplies the required source of comprehensive calibration. Without this assistance, the C14 method would have lost its reputation as the most reliable method of determining the absolute age of historical artefacts for the most recent 50.000 years.

In contrast, it is hardly known that without C14 dendrochronology would never have been able to bring about a complete tree-ring sequence for the Post Glacial Age.

1. How Dendrochronologists Have Humbled Themselves to the Traditional Chronology of Europe

The dendrochronologists' predicament, that there are floating tree-ring sequences which could not be predated, was and is great. The floating chronologies were supposed to have been worked into a tree-ring sequence covering the entire Post Glacial Age which was to be complete in the end. If an unknown sample of wood were investigated for its usefulness in extending the "master" (the standard sequence) and there was no indication of which area of chronology it belonged to, the "a-priori probability of finding the correct date [that is, the correct synchronous layers] was so small that there was little chance of actually finding it" [Hollstein 1970, 147]. For Hollstein, it was not reliable to work out a tree-ring sequence without it being predated by historical sciences since without outside support an approach such as this held the danger of improper dating if the wrong "synchronisation" were accepted from among the many thousands of possibilities.

Most of Hollstein's colleagues relied upon the C14 method when predating, with whose help dendrochronologists, lacking any wood artefacts which could be dated absolutely, planned to push ahead into the early Post Glacial Period. H. Schwabedissen [1983, 284] remarked that investigations by C14 physicists and dendrochronologists alone can not lead us to our goal. Rather "consistently competent archaeologists" would have to be called in.

We agree with Hollstein's opinion about the fundamental difficulties of accepting the synchronous layers for a tree-ring sequence without seeking premises: it is simply not possible to be successful at synchronising without predating. On the other hand, we reject the traditional chronologies being accepted unreserved by dendrochronologists such as Hollstein who thoughtlessly submit their synchronous layers to the regime of a Christian calendar which came about based on dubious criteria. If one wishes to rely upon the help of other methods, one has to be sure that they are suitable.

Dendrochronology believes itself to be on absolutely safe ground when it relies upon historical data which are integrated into the context of European history. Comparisons are made until an adequate synchronous layer is found. This is what dendrochronologists like to call "successful" synchronisation [see for instance Becker/Schmidt 1982, 104]. However, even "convincing synchronisation" [Schwabedissen 1983, 282 on the Master from "Kirnsulzbach"] proves to be false dating in the final analysis [a summary, for example, with Leuschner/Delorme 1984, 234]. H.-U. Niemitz has described the alarming frequency of oddities in the period of the so-called "mass migration gap" [1995; also Illig 1991] which are also unacceptable according to the internal criteria of dendrochronology and for which it will probably only be possible to be solved after other synchronous layers can be freed from the principle of "traditional chronology" (see figure 2 ) .

When dendrochronologists are asked about their dependency upon predating, they usually state it is not important that an auxiliary science which is consulted for predating tree-ring sequences has to be valid in the end since the methodologically highly reliable standard of dendrochronology will be applied exclusively in the end. In contrast to this are not only the errors and contradictions in the individual tree-ring sequences which have been negotiated openly and corrected afterwards, but also those that can be only recognised indirectly in the tree-ring chronologies. It is just as proper to ask the question of what this auxiliary science is used for if it doesn't have any effect in the end. The assertion that C14, by presetting an event, does not produce any predisposition towards a decision on the later synchronous layer, is simply wrong. It is urgently advised to look at the suitability of the C14 method as an auxiliary science for dendrochronology.

2. Under What Conditions C14 Functions...

The idea for developing the C14 method arose as W.F. Libby recognised in 1939 that 1) the steady and uniform production of radioactive C14 in the atmosphere (as a result of normal atmospheric nitrogen N14 being bombarded by slow neutrons from cosmic rays) as well as 2) its unusually slow radioactive decay would have to produce there a proportion of C14 and normal carbon C12 which is globally and locally almost stable and uniform.

R.D. Long remarked correctly that we would only be entitled to make this assumption if nature were organised in a fundamentally uniform fashion [Long 1973, 125]. This would mean that in all living organisms the same ratio of C14/C12 would be present, exactly as this ratio has to appear constant over time in atmospheric CO2.

If an organism ceases exchanging materials with the outside world ultimately when it dies, it particularly stops to exchange any carbon atoms with the surrounding. Although the C14/C12 ratio should remain dynamically stable in the outer world, it now decreased exponentially within the organism. The longer ago it was that an organism ceased exchanging materials, the lower the share of C14 atoms would be in relation to the C12 atoms present in it. It was possible to calculate the time that has past since its death from the measure of that lower ratio between C14 and C12. This means that it should in principle be possible to determine the point in time when a sample ceased exchanging materials from the measurement of the remaining radioactivity.

The evidence of the C14 method was originally made dependent on the following 5 prerequisites:
1. Measurability: The C14 radiation to be measured must differentiate itself distinctly from the background radiation in order to measure exactly and to receive a definite determination of age. (Problems of C14 laboratories with their results on replicated measurements)
2. Cutting Off: During its storage period between the time when it died and the corresponding investigation today, the sample under investigation may not have had any exchange of carbon (Problem of contamination)
3. Spatial Invariance by Instantaneous Distribution: There must have been the same C14/C12 ratio in all organisms which lived simultaneously at different places (Problems arising from comparing different hemispheres, reservoir effects).
4. Organic Invariance: There must have been the same C14/C12 ratio in all different organisms which lived simultaneously at the same place (Problem of "isotopic fractionation").
5. The Fundamental Assumption: The C14/C12 ratio must have always been the same in the past. From this follows the statement: "The appropriate age can be directly calculated from a C14 value." (Problem of the "Suess Effect", C14 fluctuations around the theoretical value in long tree-ring sequences).

There are some other assumptions which are, of course, less decisive, which we will not deal with here. We refer to our book on this topic which will appear shortly. As long as these prerequisites could be looked upon as fulfilled, the formula of "one measurement is one date" applied. The immense fascination which drew laypersons and scientists working on questions of dating rested upon this efficient nature of the method expressed here in the form of a formula: without looking at the 'before' and 'after', the 'above' and 'below', without weighing the 'more' or 'less' in samples against one another, it was possible to discover the absolute age of a sample in a direct fashion by means of one single measurement!

Aitken's often rendered statement that "one date is no date" [1990, 95] makes it clear that people have dissociated themselves from the rigorous validity of the prerequisites named here. With the exception of the third prerequisite of "spatial invariance by instantaneous distribution", none of them is "officially" valid anymore. In addition to that this third prerequisite is the most important prerequisite for applying the C14 method because simultanous tree-ring sequences have grown always more or less spatially separated from one another. At least sequences growing thousands of kilometres apart were compared for their C14 dates under the prerequisite 3! If this possibility of meshing were no longer to exist, the alliance between C14 and dendrochronology would have to break apart.

3. ...and How C14 Fulfilled These Prerequisites and Fulfils Them Today

The history of the C14 method is simultaneously a history of the criticism of the practising laboratories. The question "error in measurement or not?" can apparently never be dealt with unemotionally. This becomes clear when we for example read J.G. Ogden III's remarks about how the results of measurements from his laboratory were accepted: "It may come as a shock to you, but fewer than 50 percent of the radiocarbon dates from geological and archaeological samples in northeastern North America have been adopted as 'acceptable' by investigators" [Ogden 1977, 173]. We also quote R.M. Clark as another example of the standard of the measuring laboratories' errors: "Thus there can be no doubt that on average the variability between replicate observations is far in excess of the variability expected in view of the quoted standard errors" [Clark 1975, 252; same statement Clark 1979, 52; emphasis added].

Clark's estimations come from a time when the completion of the European oak chronologies using the C14 method had come into our immediate grasp. Ten years later, after it had seemingly already been completed, the decision was finally made to carry out a more precise investigation of systematic deviations between the measuring laboratories. Some of the measuring laboratories evidenced deviations in their measured values that were so alarming that they had to acknowledge that their image had been damaged. "It may be yet a few years before the C14 community can repolish its somewhat tarnished image. The important thing is that we have begun a process of self-healing" [Long 1990, iii]. At this point we naturally ask about the self-healing process for the tree-ring sequences drawn up using C14.

Prerequisite No. 2 (Cutting Off) touches upon the large area of "contamination". Although here the most drastic errors have actually become obvious, we are of the opinion that this is only a minor important scenary to distract people from the actual problem. Nevertheless in our context it becomes controversial when we ask the question if the annual rings can absorb C14 from earlier rings or, as the case may be, if the annual rings can give their C14 to earlier rings. In a systematic investigation using a sample of the Californian bristlecone pine which is so very important for dendrochronology, it was shown that carbon was diffused in over 100 annual rings from the sapwood to heartwood areas [Long et al. 1979, 536].

We will skip over prerequisite No. 3 (spatial invariance, etc.) and dedicate ourselves to No. 4 for a moment, which originally also made a demand on invariance: Regardless of the type of metabolising organism, the relation between C14/C12 occurring in the atmosphere or in water was to appear again in the same manner in all living things - leaving spatial differences completely aside. But even Libby had to differentiate between simultaneously living shells and wood because the wood shows - luckily in a systematic fashion - less radioactivity than the shells. Of course, the recently felled wood seemed to have had a corresponding difference in age of 600 years by which they were too old from a radiometric point of view. The phenomenon that various organisms have a different preference for each of the various carbon isotopes is designated "isotopic fractionation". In practice it should be corrected before each statement on age is made.

The "Fundamental Assumption" which is listed as the prerequisite No. 5 had to be watered down only a few years after the method was introduced in its general version. It was recognised that both the increased burning of natural fossil resources since the start of the Industrial Revolution as well as the latest atomic bomb tests have led to a sometimes dramatic shift in the relationship of C14/C12. Originally this relationship was looked upon as a temporal constant. In the course of the sixties, it was recognised that it was necessary to water down the Fundamental Assumption still further as fluctuations were seen even for the time before the Industrial Revolution.

Finally, C14 measurements on trees recently felled and especially old which therefore had ring sequences reaching far into the past and which of course could be measured with regard to C14 made it necessary to make the transition from the Fundamental Assumption to the so-called "Simultaneity Principle" which was weaker [as an example Willis et al. 1960]. But see figure 3 which demonstrates the fundamental problems with that principle.

The Simultaneity Principle, which succeeded the Fundamental Assumption, only made the statement "that radiocarbon dates are the same at any given epoch over the entire earth so a calibration at any one locality is equivalent to a world wide calibration" [Libby 1970, 9]. We shall interpret this Simultaneity Principle directly with regard to dendrochronology: while the validity of the Fundamental Assumption means that two different tree rings of random origin which have the same C14/C12 ratio must be of the same age, the Simultaneity Principle only allows the following statement: Two distinct tree rings of different origin and of the same age have the same C14/C12 ratio. The reverse conclusion - having the same values for the C14/C12 ratio automatically means the same age - is now no longer permissible (for the procedure of calibration see figure 4 ).

This meant that not only the method's elegance but also its independence was gone. In 1960 there was no one calibration scale which reached into pre-Christian times. It would take just under 10 years until the first tree-ring chronology was drawn up for this purpose in the USA. In Europe it took longer. A comprehensive independent tree-ring chronology was available only after about 25 years. The C14 scientists had a decisive share in its construction. Why were dendrochronologist so urgently dependent upon the assistance of C14?

4. Why Dendrochronology Needs C14...

Trees which form yearly tree rings grow rings of varying thicknesses year for year depending upon the specific climate. This produces tree-ring sequences which are typical not only for each type of tree, but also for each region and epoch (microclimates). We will be primarily looking at the conditions in Europe. Therefore, tree-ring sequences which have grown at the same time and in neighbouring areas can be combined to what is called "local masters" (see figure 5 ). Although some Irish oaks may be correlated up to a distance of 70 kilometres from the place where they were found [Smith 1972, A92], the distance for comparing the master locations of the Danube and the Upper Main has increased by more than two times [Becker/Frenzel 1977, 16]. "Local masters" which have been verified well and for a long time can be synchronised over a distance of up to 300 kilometres [Hollstein 1977, 16]. However, non-local comparisons, such as those between the southern and northern German regions, have shown that various oakwood chronologies are not applicable [Eckstein 1984, 40].

The individual characteristics of single tree-ring sequences have been filtered out of local masters such as these and are therefore typical tree-ring sequences which generally only include a limited period of time (typically some hundreds of years). They are the building blocks of the only absolute tree-ring chronologies which are to be drawn up. Nonetheless, they must remain local. It is not without reason that they are designated "southern German", "western German", "northern German", etc.. As long as the local masters were not synchronised in relation to one another, they remained as "floating chronologies" without an absolute date. On the local level, when a local master is drawn up, experience shows that one moves ahead quickly and reliably. The ring sequences are generally long and synchronisms can be recognised in a statistically significant fashion. Experience has shown that it is fundamentally more difficult to combine these local masters to a regional chronology among one another. Although we can derive the temporal combination from stratigraphic evidence locally, there are no such aids on the regional level. What can you do if these aids are missing? This is dendrochronology's crunch question: should all of the layers be checked for synchrony or should we rely upon the aid of predating?

If that means that a particular time is poor in discoveries and that it is therefore difficult to bridge the gap between the bordering masters which are already present, then this question has already been decided. Predating was done (this is how the "mass migration gap" [Hollstein 1970] came about, for example) and avoided doing all that expensive and time-intensive 'detailed work' of going through all of the sychronisms one could imagine. The Irish dendrochronologists, for example, had a curious problem when they used C14 predating for their local floating tree-ring chronologies: the longer they worked and the more wood samples they gathered, the more difficult it was to classify the new wood samples. If they worked properly, there should have been the opposite effect, namely: the more wood samples they gathered, the easier it should have been to classify the new wood samples. However, the Irish alarm bells haven't rung yet.

We would like to present another example to the reader to make dendrochronology's dependency upon C14 clearer: the position of the floating sequence "C" of the southern German oak chronology - it included some 2.350 years at that time [Becker 1980, 219] - was temporally anchored on the basis of the Fundamental Assumption (principally with only one C14 value) with the approximate date of "900 before Christ" for the most recent ring. After synchronizing a number of connected C14 values with corresponding values of a ring sequence on the other side of the Atlantic (what is only legitimate if the Simultaneity Principle is entirely correct!), this date but not that of the neighboured sequence B shifted by just under 1.000 years into the past (see figure 6). After later dendrochronological interlinking, the accuracy of this immense shift was verified by means of an inconspicuous correction of less than 10 years [Linick et al. 1985, 21]. If dendrochronological interlinks were above all suspicion, in retrospect the Simultaneity Principle would then have been brilliantly confirmed along the whole line. However, if this principle proved to be wrong, that would mean that dendrochronology would have to put up with some critical question, for instance if it really is of the opinion that a wrong - or perhaps better: corrupted - C14 result was so accurately fitted by pure coincidence?

5. ...and How Dendrochronology Has Made Itself Dependant Upon C14

In 1966, a team consisting of two dendrochronologists and a person versed in the practical use of C14 demonstrated in a key article on methods what the auxiliary science C14 will bring for dendrochronology in future [Ferguson et al. 1966]. An undated, therefore "floating" master chronology from Thayngen in Switzerland as well as Burgäschi-South was historically predated as Neolithic and was synchronised using a set of C14 data by means of an American annual ring chronology (see figure 7 ). At the time, this chronology was looked upon as finished. This means that this master chronology received an absolute date which was confirmed to the year almost exactly by means of the later approaching European chronology [Becker 1992, 38]. This floating tree-ring chronology formed a first building block in a central European oak chronology which was almost completely prestructured via America. Only a little bit less than 20 years later, as filler sequences were found in time for all of the gaps, it was finally secured for dendrochronology.

In 1966, German dendrochronologists discovered that the Tree-Ring Laboratory in Arizona had worked out the longest continual tree-ring chronology up to that time for Pinus aristata (bristlecone pine). H.E. Suess, a C14 scientist - co-author of the key article on methods from 1966 - carried out C14 calibration using this tree-ring chronology. In doing so, he arrived at the conclusion that the assumption of a constant C14/C12 ratio in the past was only acceptable in very limited cases. This meant that dendrochronology moved into first place in the "fraternal competition between the two methods of dating", as B. Huber, the German forest botanist and dendrochronologist, indirectly hinted [Huber 1966, 1].

Long before 1966 H.E. Suess had pleaded for dropping the Fundamental Assumption. Beyond that, he was the first person who consistently demanded that calibration curves be worked out (see figure 11 ). Since at least 1963 Suess has regularly carried out measurements for the Tree Ring Laboratory in Arizona. In 1965 he published the first and the most recent calibration curve which extends over 2.000 years. This curve made one thing clear: The author would accept certain fluctuations, however the concept of a basic imbalance between the production and disintegration of C14 appeared unthinkable to him. His calibration curve meandered "faithfully and truly" along the bisector of the angle which represents perfect balance between disintegration and production which remains static.

In 1966, Suess was among the most progressive chronologists. He was one of the first persons to be aware of the fact that it is only possible to predate a sample of wood using several C14 surveyed tree rings. The C14 values produced a pattern of fluctuation - the so-called "wiggles" - which could be used for dating if it agreed with the fluctuation pattern of another wood samples. The dendrochronologists were used to a similar procedure with the pattern of thickness of their tree ring samples. In a forced march which left the stagnating Europeans behind, C.W. Ferguson from the Tree Ring Laboratory in Arizona was incidentally also a co-author of the key article 1966 and set up his tree-ring chronology which at the end extended over more than 7.000 years. He required only about three years for that, a measure the European Dendrochronologists could only dream about.

How could he have been so successful so quickly? We have to assume that the Pinus aristata tree-ring chronology itself was built up through C14 sample comparisons, which was at that time the most modern procedure and the one which promised the best chances of success; apparently, the Pinus aristata tree-ring chronology was only meagerly verified on the basis of dendrochronological criteria. The publications in this area are rare and only rudimentary. Even in the main publication from 1969 the exact dendrochronological information for this tree-ring chronology is missing [Ferguson 1969; 1965 as well].

The quick success in constructing the Pinus aristata tree-ring chronology is surprising since we know that the bristlecone pine (Pinus aristata) has much worse dendrochronological characteristics than European oaks (ring thicknesses in the µm instead of the mm range, up to 5% missing rings, only a fraction of all of the rings can be evaluated, changing the drilling head within a tree, significantly lower density of samples, etc., see figure 8 for the inadequate small number of used tree-ring sequences) That should have increased the suspicion that the designer of the Pinus aristata tree-ring chronology required C14 as an aid even more than those for the European oak chronology. Without any possibility to "wiggle-match" he based the raw construction on the actualistic dogma, that a radiocarbon age is always nearly the true age.

In the attempt to understand the genesis of the European oak chronology, we recognised rather quickly that all of the relevant oak chronologies - partly after a lengthy rejection - had gone through a phase of "tentative absolute dating" of the corresponding floating sequences by comparing C14 samples with the tree-ring chronology of the American bristlecone pine. That confirmed our former estimation that there will be no success without some help of predating methods. We could only wonder that the Europeans were so naive in trusting the Americans. To be fair, we also have to point out that in the beginning the Europeans delayed and fundamentally rejected this type of dating to a certain extent. This resistance only subsided in the 70's. B. Becker used the Pinus aristata tree-ring chronology after 1973 [Becker/Suess 1977], the Irish no later than the beginning of the 80's [Baillie 1983] only after a hefty dispute which was carried out in the periodical NATURE [Pearson et al. 1977].

In all publications which referred to Ferguson's bristlecone pine chronology in any form, we encountered an unshakeable belief in its correctness. However, where the question of methodological reliability had to be asked, the authors constantly referred to LaMarche and Harlan [1973] confirming Ferguson's chronology. (LaMarche and Harlan managed to prepare their own chronology within a very small number of years from 118 ring sequences after apparently one single collecting period ...) Ferguson undermines the arguments of his opponents himself since he was only able to state that there "is no conflict" between LaMarche and Harlan's temperature-determined tree-ring sequence which came into being at the White Mountains' upper limits of tree growth and his own moisture-determined tree-ring sequence from the lower limits of tree growth [Ferguson 1979, 209]. These chronologies can not be compared with one another according to dendrochronological criteria since the ring thicknesses are dependent upon different climactic factors.

6. Betting on the Wrong Horse or The Simultaneity Principle Is Wrong

Everything would have been different if W.F. Libby had done his homework properly in 1949. That consisted primarily of verifying the Simultaneity Principle in the sense of the spatial invariance of the C14/C12 relationship in organisms which are metabolising simultaneously. Libby had arranged for this revision to be carried out using living organisms because it was the basic prerequisite for an intensification in the direction of the Fundamental Assumption. If it was not even possible to prove spatial invariance for today, then the hypothesis on spatial and temporal invariance, which had much more far-reaching consequences, would be totally meaningless. 1949, Libby had measured the C14/C12 values in samples from 18 modern wood species of global origin. In an article for SCIENCE [Libby et al. 1949] he was able to report that the test for spatial invariance was passed with flying colours: we could assume a mean variation which only amounted to ± 50 years.

An unprejudiced analysis of the results of his measurements arrives at a totally different result: The range between the smallest and the largest values corresponded to a difference in the C14 age of approximately 1.000 years while the measured values are almost evenly distributed over this range without significant compression. The reason for a discrepancy to a flatteringly small variance of ± 50 years is to be found in Libby's methodological procedure. He based his analysis on the assumption of a normal distribution of the readings. That has the same meaning as the assumption that the improperly measured values have a mean variation around one single "true" value. (That was what Libby actually wanted to prove.) If that were the case, the measured values would have to have been distributed in an approximate bell shape (figure 9). In contrast, it is only the flat distribution, which is much worse, which depicts his actual measured values. It is simply not possible to view this as a normal distribution.

The result: Libby fudged. He applied the methods in such a fashion that things came out that he wanted to see: spatial invariance of the C14/C12 relationship in organisms living at the same time. He therefore created the initial situation in which the intensification of the - supposedly verified - Simultaneity Principle to the Fundamental Assumption was accepted as self-evident. This silly custom of underhandedly obtaining a date which the consumer considers reliable from a larger amount of readings which are in and of themselves disparate by means of an improper hypothesis is still cultivated to the present day. (We showed this using the example of the treatment of C14 data of what is known as the "Cadbury Massacre" [Campbell et al. 1979] when we presented our paper in Hamburg. We also refer to our forthcoming book.)

At the C14 conference in Uppsala in 1970 for any observer who had his eyes open the decisive Fall came. Here the question was also that of the Simultaneity Principle. Although this was confirmed by J.C. Lerman et al. in a paper on "C14 in Tree Rings from Different Areas" [J.C. Lerman et al. 1970, 295], H.S. Jansen, together with T.A. Rafter, presented measurements (see figure 10 ) on annual rings on a Kauri tree from New Zealand which evidenced a completely different tendency than those of the American bristlecone pine (see figure 11 ) and which therefore disproved the Simultaneity Principle [Jansen 1970]. The calibration curve drawn up on the basis of these values deviated systematically from the bisector of the angle as an equivalent to the balance between production and disintegration of C14. It therefore evidenced a permanent increased rate of production in relation to the rate of disintegration by 45%. Jansen had already published the results of his measurements in the NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF SCIENCE [1962, 74ff.] without there being any reaction. In spite of the obvious controversial nature of the data presented, the debate recorded exclusively questions on the chemical preparation of the wood measured. There was only one place where Rafter admitted his uneasiness by expressing his "suspicion" that the southern hemisphere may run somewhat differently. P.E. Damon supplied the key word of "missing rings". This caused Rafter to say that adding approximately 50% of the existing rings as missing would set everything to rights.

Of course, the problem would not allow itself to be solved by adding missing rings. W. Shawcross, in an article for WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY, held this situation to the C14 scientists. At the same time, he expressed the concern that "one might shudder at what prospect would be unfolded by another, older, kauri log" [Shawcross 1969, 191]. Shawcross, who is a historian by profession, would have been glad to take recourse to the auxiliary science of C14 for New Zealand since there were difficulties in drawing up an absolute chronology for the time before the settlement by the Europeans. He was only doing the homework for C14 scientists by compiling information on growth characteristics of the Kauri tree in order to receive a statement on the reliability of the calibration curve. Although the only way that the C14 scientists saw out of this disaster was to assume the presence of missing rings, he presented the experience made by a forestry expert that Kauri trees tend to form double rings [ibid, 192]. Of course, this aggravated the situation even more.

In 1970, in the hot and decisive phase of laying the foundation for the C14 method, something scandalous happened at the conference in Uppsala: the scientific community throughout the world had waited ten years long to see how the C14 community would deal with the fact that the Fundamental Assumption had broken down, which had become obvious in 1960. There were two possibilities: admit that the hypotheses for securing the method which formed the basis of the theory were wrong, or sketch out an alternative path upon which the vehicle of "absolute dating" could be brought to its goal in spite of everything. The title of this symposium clearly expressed the conflict in that situation: "Radiocarbon Variations and Absolute Chronology". A decision was made in favour of the second alternative without any reason - in spite of this flagrant contradiction which Jansen discussed and proved - with the hypothesis of spatial invariance of the C14/C12 ratio which was presented as if it were irrefutable. If they had seriously entered upon a discussion on the subject of "Kauri tree versus bristlecone pine", that would have meant the end of the C14 method.

7. Can There Be Any Patterns of C14 Fluctuations Such as This?

We have shown how at the cradle of the C14 method, people closed their eyes to the all-decisive problem. Libby measured a range of 1.000 (written: one thousand!) C14 years in his contemporary wood samples and assured his adherents that there was only an error of ± 50 years. We have already pointed out the fact that synchronising woods which are of different regional origin by means of C14 - especially if the Atlantic is between them - has to rely upon the validity of the Simultaneity Principle. We would like to show now that the C14 pattern itself, which is the important one when annual ring sequences are being synchronised in the generally recognised fashion, contain the decisive references for the fact that the Simultaneity Principle is invalid. These patterns which are considered to be "state of the art" [Baille 1995] of dendrochronology point out the insoluble contradictions in the C14 method and therefore also in dendrochronology.

The calibration curves show that the C14/C12 ratio had already fluctuated in the past. This fluctuation could be a result of a temporary increase in C14 production or - the equivalent to this - C12 atoms disappearing. That would mean that we have a section of the calibration curve before us which would run more steeply than the bisector of the angle (see curve shape A in figure 4 ). Or, on the other hand, the fluctuation is a result of a temporary decrease in the production of C14 or - the equivalent to this - an increase in C12 atoms. That would mean that we have a section of the calibration curve before us which would run more flatly than the bisector of the angle (see curve shape B in figure 4 ). It should be noted that this curve shape is less important for the characteristic C14 pattern. There is, of course, a third way how the calibration curve runs: Here the sign of the curve's rise changes compared to the general pattern (see curve shape C in figure 4 ). The reason for this can only be found in a significant decrease of C14 atoms - going beyond the range given by the radioactive decay - since even a total stop in C14 production can only force the calibration curve to become horizontal. However, the stop of production can not change the sign of the rise of the calibration curve.

It seems to be just as questionable if additional "fossil" carbon compounds (i.e. without C14) appeared in the atmosphere as if the proportional amounts of C14 disappeared. The only things which at first glance seem to be at all explicable by "normal" means are the curve shapes A and B - that is, with a change in C14's rate of production.

However, although the changes in activities remain in the range of a couple of percentage points within a period of time of some decades generally, the equivalent production rate increases becoming a multiple of the "normal". We would have to observe an increase of six-fold [from data in Vogel 1969, 1144] or even fourteen-fold [from data in Mook 1972, F27] of the "standard production rate" in order to be able to explain the C14 fluctuations. It is, of course, not possible for a reversal corresponding to curve shape C of this tendency, which is almost jointly correlated to follow out of a correspondingly high, but negative production rate since C14 disappearing alone is out of the question.

In fact, the C14 fluctuation patterns require production rates for C14 (in the final analysis for C12 as well to explain curve shape C) which are multiples of the value which is looked upon as normal. Are publishing scholars aware of this circumstance? Can they explain how these "fluctuations" in the production rate come about, considering that the general tendency of published calibration curves lead us to the assumption that there was a constant production rate which was perhaps a little less 10.000 years ago than it is today? Can they explain the ranges in their calibration curves which correspond to curve shape C and which in the final analysis could only have been caused by gigantic injections of fossil carbon into the atmosphere? All of these questions have to be answered with "no".

The fact that there has been a consistent lack of analysis of C14 patterns with regard to C14 production - in spite of its fundamental significance for dendrochronology as well - is characteristic. The only thing we see are the general suppositions on the causes in the direction of changes in the earth's magnetic field, sun spot activities and cosmic radiation. However, the only thing which happens is that the change in activity is observed and stated in quantitative terms. This is in the range of some percentages and is therefore rather tame. As a result, the inversion of the production rate for C14 (which is in fact impossible) remains undiscovered. However, the calculation of the production rate leads - in the framework of an uniformitarian's point of view - to incomprehensibly large values. How could we explain the C14 pattern?

a) Impermissible curve features - errors in measurement or a violation of the Simultaneity Principle?: if C14 activity is regionally scattered in such a fashion that an ensemble of annual rings from various trees would produce a wide range of C14 instead of a linear C14 pattern, then a calibration curve with the familiar design would be an illegitimate approximation curve within this range. As far as the result is concerned, that is exactly what the official critics of the use of C14 patterns for purposes of synchronisation have always asserted [Damon 1978, Clark, 1975-1980]. They traced scattering in replicated measurement to errors in measurements (see figure 14 ). They would doubtless have received more attention if they had shown the reasons for curve shape C, which are in and of themselves impossible without injecting large amounts of fossile carbon (free of C14) into the atmosphere (see figure 12 for a trustworthy pattern of the retrograde run in question). We do not wish to decide the question of "errors in measurement or spatial variance" (not dealing with quantitative injection of fossile carbon) at this point. As far as the effect is concerned, both meant in the final analysis that C14 patterns are artefacts of a mathematical way of treating the body of readings and are in fact not real effects. In this case, dendrochronologists are back to where they were after the Fundamental Assumption broke down: even if there is a multiplicity of C14 values for the sequence in question, it is not possible to get sufficiently exact predating from C14.

b) Distorting the calibration curve which in fact runs much more steeply in relation to the bisector of the angle by breaking it up and by additionally adding "invented" ranges in accordance with curve shape C: In the analysis of C14 patterns, we already noticed that these patterns consist primarily of curve shapes A and C. However, there is only a tenable explanation for curve shape A: the amount of C14 produced exceeds the amount that disintegrates. Curve shape C requires the "destruction" of C14 or - its equivalent as well as the only thing conceivable - that the atmosphere is "vaccinated" with pure C12 (what is called fossil carbon). We believe that a quasi-periodical change in increased C14 production (A) and the vaccination with fossil carbon (C) is absurd as long as this leads to a copy of the bisector of the cartesian cross (see chapter 9 which was added for this off-print). On the other hand, it seems completely possible to us in the final analysis that these abnormal ranges (C) can be - among other things - artificially created by placing the corresponding ring sequences in order to be able to serve natural history's lasting paradigm of uniformitarianism (see figure 13 ). Since the measured values are generally scattered over a very large range - see explanation attempt a) - it is relatively easy to fudge these ranges in.

Explanation attempt a) comprises the non-applicability of the Simultaneity Principle. Either the measurements of various laboratories (or even in the same laboratory on different days) can not be correlated, or there are local C14 fluctuations. If curve shapes "C" were produced generally by upwelling ocean layers containing fossil CO2 these must come out to be genuine local for the inhomogenous character of the oceanic streams ("conveyor belts") and would disprove the Simultaneity Principle automatically. In any case, this would threaten the credibility of all tree-ring chronologies. Explanation attempt b) also fundamentally questions the calibration curves which are in use. This approach is primarily directed against the central but never consciously stated prerequisite of the C14 method that the same conditions are supposed to have applied for the past 50.000 years as for the last 50 years.

It assumes on the other hand that either the global C14 clock was set back by a corresponding supplement in the C12 reservoir in the recent past or that there has been a lasting increase in the production rate for C14. In any event, the correct calibration curve (or the calibration range if there is a corresponding lack of reliability) would be steeper than the bisector of the angle. This would mean that practically all of the previously measured samples - assuming that the measurements were trustworthy - are significantly more recent than previously assumed.

C14 science should formulate its protest against these attempts at explanations carefully. In the final analysis, it not only has an undigested burden from the past to swallow (Libby's fudging extravaganza). It also must admit to itself that there has never even been an attempt to explain the causes for the C14 pattern, nor the "deviators" such as the Kauri tree mentioned above. The protest from the dendrochronologists' camp should be directed exactly at their "brother-in-arms" C14 which has repeatedly avoided clarifying methodological problems. The C14 community has remained silent on these problems because they would have denied themselves the only salvation still open to them: support from dendrochronologists.

We are aware of the fact that these are processes which are hardly the result of conscious deception or consciously misleading anyone. It becomes that much more obvious how strong the power of self-evident truths is which are founded in all levels of consciousness. One of them has been mentioned here: the unquestioned belief that there were not any different conditions which could have influenced processes of development than those which are predominant today (= "uniformitarianism"). We can see how effective this belief is when we observe how Libby swept away explicit evidence for disparate C14 findings. He did so in order to allow this belief to become effective in the first place by opening the way to transferring - allegedly regular - conditions to the past by his fudging.

We recognise this opinion about how natural processes work even in the first calibration curves. The bisector of the angle was a symbol for the possibility of continuing today's conditions - in spite of any fluctuations. We also interpret the omissions in the analysis of the C14 patterns as a result of attitudes which have remained unconscious on the limited possibility of processes in nature. H.E. Suess, the person who defended the use of C14 patterns most eagerly and with the most endurance, was never really interested in how nature actually produces these patterns. The pencil with which he initially drew the curves through the patterns of measured values should have fallen from his hand when he created the first of his impossible curve shapes (C). After all, this section meant that the atmosphere was quickly and lastingly vaccinated with fossil carbon, i.e. C12. Of course, Suess expressly rejected this as a cause originally because it would have required a stronger change in temperature (to release fossil carbon dioxide from the deep water of the oceans) as would have been necessary to end or to start respectively the Ice Age [Suess 1965, 5949]. Instead of this, he still defended Lucrecius' claim in 1990 that nature doesn't make any jumps and insisted on uniformitarianism [Suess/Linick 1990, 406]. In the final analysis this was based on his feeling and not on any effective arguments.

8. Summary and The View to Warwen Chronology

It was our goal to show that dendrochronology, in drawing up European oak chronologies, has relied upon a method which is untenable. (The same statement applies to American dendrochronology.) It would be a nice coincidence if European dendrochronologies were correct. However, we do not believe that one can arrive at the right goal when inadequate methods are used on a permanent basis. Two tasks can be seen at the end of this article. The findings and conclusions which have been compiled and presented here shall be presented in a more detailed and differentiated fashion in the form of a book. They shall therefore be revised. We would like to wait for the reactions to our speech in Hamburg on the occasion of the annual meeting as well as this article and, if necessary, fit them in.

At the same time, it is obvious that our criticism of dendrochronology as well as of the C14 method reaches through to the absolute chronology of the Post Glacial. The minimum duration for the tree-ring chronologies to be constructed was estimated at approximately 10.000 years because of the date (which is part of common property in science, although it is amazing how little substantiated it is). One of the persons who substantiated this number was G.J. de Geer, who drew up a Warwen chronology at the beginning of this century going back 7.000 years which was worked out with similar methods and is supposed to have come about exclusively Postglacial. We consider the comment, which we have encountered on a number of occasions, namely that this chronology conforms at least roughly with modern calibrated C14 data (although we haven't yet come across the corresponding publication), as one touchstone for our criticism. It has only been presented here in its rudiments.

9. Remark About the Possibility of Wiggles

It is our experience that difficulties occur when analyzing the interdependence of the production rate of C14 and the actual C14/C12 relation as starting activity for an organism which stopped metabolism. It seems to be not easy to accept that the production rate for C14 becomes negative on principle when the calibration curve changes the sign (described as curve-form C). Lowering of the rate is not enough. Of course there can be no negative production of C14, so flow-in of C12 instead must occur. The only effect we learned of so far and which can produce the wiggled form of the curve is the upwelling of ocean-layers with fossile carbondioxid (which diffuses into the atmosphere to lower the actual concentration of C14 faster than by radioactive decay alone). Discussion of this effect continues. If this comes out as the main cause for the "wiggles" the Simultaneity Principle must break down for the globally inhomogenous character of the so-called oceanic "conveyor belts".

Once again we want to emphasize that the real production rate must be an order of numbers larger than the always cited imaginary and never measured value of ca. 7.5 kg per year and that the ocean-layers do not upwell just in a way that it might compensate this production rate in bringing the calibration line into the neighbourhood of the bisector of the cartesian coordinates referring to calendar and conventional radiocarbon age respectively. The well-known calibration curve is in the end the product of fitting the dendro-sequences to that bisector instead of fitting them exclusively mutually in a methodologically satisfying procedure.

10. Literature

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Baillie, M.G.L. (1983): "Belfast dendrochronology: the current situation"; in: Ottaway (1983, ed) 15-24
Baillie, M.G.L. (1995): "A Slice through time. Dendrochronology and precision dating"; London (B.T. Batsford Ltd)
Becker, B. (1980): "Tree-ring dating and radiocarbon calibration in south-central Europe"; in: RADIOCARBON 22 (2) 219-226
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Becker, B. and B. Frenzel (1977): "Paläoökologische Befunde zur Geschichte postglazialer Flußauen im südlichen Mitteleuropa"; in: Frenzel (1977, ed) 43-61
Becker, B. and B. Schmidt (1982): Verlängerung der mitteleuropäischen Eichenjahrringchronologie in das zweite vorchristliche Jahrtausend (bis 1462 v.Chr.)"; in: ARCHÄOLOGISCHES KORRESPONDENZBLATT 12 101-106
Becker, B. and H.E. Suess (1977): "Der Radiocarbongehalt von Jahrringproben aus postglazialen Eichenstämmen Mitteleuropas"; in: Frenzel (1977, ed) 43-61
Berger, R. and H.E. Suess (1979, eds): "Radiocarbon Dating", Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference, Los Angeles and La Jolla; Berkeley (University of California Press)
Berger, R. (1970, ed): "Scientific methods in medieval archaeology"; Berkeley (University of California Press)
Campbell, J.A., M.S. Baxter and L. Alcock (1979): "Radiocarbon dates for the Cadbury massacre"; in: ANTIQUITY LIII 31-38
Clark, R.M. (1975): "A calibration curve for radiocarbon dates"; in: ANTIQUITY XLIV 251-266
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- (1980): "Calibration, Cross-validation and Carbon 14. II"; in: JOURN. ROY. STATIST. SOC. A 143 (2) 177-194
Damon, P.E., J.C. Lerman and A. Long (1978): "Temporal fluctuations of atmospheric 14C: causal factors and implications"; in: ANN.REV.EARTH PLANET.SCI. 6 457-494
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Ferguson, C.W. (1965): "Longevity of Bristlecone Pine, Pinus aristata"; Vortrag gehalten auf dem AAAS Treffen, Berkeley (Kalifornien) am 30. Dezember 1965
- (1969): "A 7104-year annual tree-ring chronology for bristlecone pine, pinus aristata, from the White Mountains, California"; in: TRRE-RING-BULLETIN 29 (3-4) 3-29
- (1979): "Dendrochronology of Bristlecone Pine, Pinus longaeva"; in: ENVIRONMENT INTERNATIONAL 2 209-214
Ferguson, C.W., B. Huber and H.E. Suess (1966): "Determination of the Age of Swiss Lake Dwellings as an Example of Dendrochronologically-Calibrated Radiocarbon Dating"; in: ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR NATURFORSCHUNG 21a (7) 1173-1177
Frenzel, B. (1977, ed): "Dendrochronologie und postglaziale Klimaschwankungen in Europa. Verhandlungen des Symposiums über die Dendrochronologie des Postglazials, Grundlagen und Ergebnisse, 13. - 16. Juni 1974"; Wiesbaden (Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH)
Hollstein, E. (1970): "Dendrochronologische Untersuchungen an Hölzern des frühen Mittelalters"; in: ACTA PRAEHISTORIA ET ARCHAEOLOGICA I 147-156
- (1977): "Eichenchronologie Westdeutschlands und der Schweiz aus römischer und vorrömischer Zeit"; in Frenzel (1977, ed) 16-24
Huber, B. (1966): "Jahrringchronologische Untersuchungen"; als Bericht über das Jahr 1966 an die DFG vom 21. November 1966 (Bad Godesberg)
Illig, H. (1991): "Dendrochronologische Zirkelschlüsse"; in: VORZEIT-FRÜHZEIT-GEGENWART III (3-4) 125-129
Jankuhn, H. (1984, ed): "Archäologische und natirwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen an ländlichen und frühstädtischen Siedlungen im deutschen Küstengebiet vom 5. Jahrhundert v.Chr. bis zum 11. Jahrhundert n.Chr.", Bd. 2: Handelsplätze des frühen und hohen Mittelalters; Weinheim (DFG, Acta Humaniora)
Jansen, H.S. (1962): "Comparison between ring-dates and 14C-dates in a New Zealand Kauri tree"; in: NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 5 74-84
Jansen, H.S. (1970): "Secular variations of radiocarbon in New Zealand and Australian trees"; in: Olsson (1970, ed) 262-274
LaMarche, V.C. and T.P. Harlan (1973): "Accuracy of Tree Ring Dating of Bristlecone Pine for calibration of the Radiocarbon Time Scale"; in: JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH 28 (36) 8849-8857
Lerman, J.C., W.G. Mook and J.C. Vogel (1970): "C14 in tree rings from different localities"; in: Olsson (1970, ed) 275-301
Libby, W.F. (1970): "Radiocarbon dating"; in: PHIL.TRANS.R.SOC.LOND. A 269 1-10
Libby, W.F., E.C. Anderson and J.R. Arnold (1949): "Age Determination by Radiocarbon Content: World-Wide Assay of Natural Radiocarbon"; in: SCIENCE 109 (4 March) 227-228
Linick, T.W., H.E. Suess and B. Becker (1985): "La Jolla measurements of radiocarbon in South German oak tree-ring chronologies"; in: RADIOCARBON 27 (1) 20-32
Long, R.D. (1973): "An Evaluation of Tree-Ring Calibration and Carbon 14 Dating"; in: PRÄHISTORISCHE ZEITSCHRIFT 48 125-132
Long, A., L.D. Arnold, P.E. Damon, C.W. Ferguson, J.C. Lerman and A.T. Wilson (1979): "Radial translocation of carbon in bristlecone Pine"; in: Berger/Suess (1979, eds) 532-537
Long, A. (1990): "From the editor. Summary of the international workshop on intercomparison of 14C laboratories"; in: RADIOCARBON 32 (1) iii
Mook, W.G., A.V. Munaut and H.T. Waterbolk (1972): "Determination of the Age and Duration of Stratified Prehistoric Bog Settlements"; in: Rafter/Grant-Taylor (1972, cps) F27-F40
Niemitz, H.-U. (1995): "Die 'magic dates' und 'secret procedures' der Dendrochronologie"; in: ZEITENSPRÜNGE 7 (3) 291-314
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Olsson, I.U. (1970, ed): "Radiocarbon variations and absolute chronology"; Stockholm (Almqvist & Wiksell)
Ottaway, B.S. (1983, ed): "Archaeology, dendrochronology and the radiocarbon calibration curve"; University of Edinburgh, Department of Archaeology (Occasional paper No. 9)
Pearson, G.W., J.R. Pilcher, M.G.L. Baillie and J. Hillam (1977): "Absolute radiocarbon dating using a low altitude Euopean tree-ring calibration"; in: NATURE 270 (3 November) 25-28
Pecker, J.-C. and S.K. Runcorn (1990, eds): "The Earth's climate and variability of the sun over recent millenia: geophysical, astronomical and archaeological aspects"; in PHIL.TRANS.R.SOC.LOND. A 330 395-687
Rafter, T.A. and T. Grant-Taylor (1972, compilers): "Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference", 2 Volumes; Wellington (Royal Society of New Zealand)
Ralph, E.K. and Klein, J. (1979): "Composite Computer Plots of 14C Dates for Tree-Ring-Dated Bristlecone Pines and Sequoia"; in: Berger/Suess (1979 eds.) 545-553
Schwabedissen, H. (1983): "Ur- und Frühgeschichte und Dendrochronologie"; in: ARCHÄOLOGISCHES KORRESPONDENZBLATT 13 275-286
Shawcross, W. (1969): "Archaeology with a short, isolated time-scale: New Zealand"; WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 1 184-199
Smith, A.G., M.G.L. Baillie, J. Hillam, J.R. Pilcher and G.W. Pearson (1972): "Dendrochronological work in progress in Belfast: the prospects for an Irish post-glacial tree-ring sequence"; in Rafter/Grant-Taylor (1972, eds) A92-A96
Stuiver, M. (1993): "A Note on Single-Year Calibration of radiocarbon Time Scale, AD 1510-1954"; in: RADIOCARBON 32 (1) iii
Suess, H.E. (1965): "Secular Variations of the Cosmic -Ray-Produced Carbon 14 in the Atmosphere and Their Interpretations"; in: JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH 70 (23) 5937-5952
Suess, H.E. and T.W. Linick (1990): "The 14C record in bristlecone pine of the past 8000 years based on the dendrochronology of the late C.W. Ferguson"; in: Pecker/Runcorn (1990, eds) 403-412
Taylor, R.E., A. Long and R.S. Kra (1992, eds): "Radiocarbon After Four Decades. An Interdisciplinary Perspectice"; New York, Berlin, Heidelberg etc. (Springer-Verlag)
Vogel, J.C., W.A. Casparie and A.V. Munaut (1969): "Carbon-14 trends in Subfossil Pine Stubs"; in SCIENCE 166 (28 November) 1143-1145
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Computists and Chronology

Uwe Topper
Berlin · 2006

Medieval Christian monks who worked on calculating human history from Adam to the Last Judgment were called "Computists". These monks created schematic chronological tables, in which appeared packages of years whose numbers had deeper, symbolic meanings (like 7, 14, 30, 420 and so on). The Old Testament is full of those packages. For the time after the Resurrection they called their chronology ERA (i.e. turning round, "year"). Their chronological scheme looked something like this:

ERA 666 is taken as the center of theological history (because of Revelation 13:18). This number should be read "six-six-six"; it belongs with 369 (three-six-nine) and 963 (nine-six-three) in a group of symmetric numbers, the last two of which form the second level. The distance between them is, in each case, 297 years. A magical number, 297 is the product of the important prime number 11 and three to the third power (27). For computists, 297 was an expression of the Trinity.

Subtracting 297 from 369, we arrive at 72. Adding 297 to 963 we get 1260; these two figures, 72 and 1260, belong to a third level, and they are again equivalent from a symbolical point of view.

Used as historical "year dates", these figures appear absurd to us. To the computists, however, this magical dating system made sense. Six-six-six (666) was chosen as the date when the Antichrist appeared; 369 was taken for the beginning of the Church; 963 for the beginning of the "Roman Empire of German Nation". Seventy-two (72) indicated the destruction of the Temple, later the Passion of the Savior, who described himself as the Temple which was to be destroyed and rebuilt in three days. And 1260 equaled the final destruction, the Last Judgment that was to be expected, as laid down in Revelation. For the early computists, this last figure lay in the future.

Later, the Catholic Church created a new kind of chronology, the Incarnation Count, which began with the Birth of Christ, a system called Anno Domini (AD) that we still follow today. At a certain moment (difficult to recognize how long ago) the original start of the ERA chronology must have been linked with the date assumed for the Julian Calendar Reform, which, according to present-day notions, was fixed at 44 B.C.

From then on, therefore, all ERA dates had to be re-calculated: 666 ERA minus 44 BC yields AD 622, which is the present date for the Hegira (the beginning of Islam, year of the Antichrist) in our schoolbooks. According to the same rule, the first worldwide Council (Beginning of the Church) moved from 369 ERA to AD 325 (Council of Nicaea). The founding of the Germanic Empire moved from 963 ERA to AD 919 (first Reichstag, Diet).

The year 72 ERA also received a new value by subtracting 44: It became AD 28, the date for Christ's death according to Victorinus. Only 1260, the date of the Last Judgment that still lay in the future, remained unchanged. When the Last Judgment failed to happen, its date was postponed twice, once to 1290, then to 1335 (see Daniel 12: 11-12).

Another way of converting the numbers used the difference of 38 years between the Gothic ERA and the Catholic Anno Domini count: 963 ERA is 38 years away from 1001; this moved the Birth of Christ from a.u.c. 753 to 759 (i.e. 7 BC).

By using time packages of 297 years, a recognizable source of error was created. This error leads to historical dates that are frequently nearly three centuries out of sync with other dates believed nowadays. Taking a different path, the time reconstructor Heribert Illig arrived at a result that described the 297 years as having been added to the AD year-count only once. Unfortunately he does not explain how he found this package of years. His expression "according to the present state of my knowledge" (Illig 1994, p. 20; 1996, p. 18) sounds mystical. There are various different ways based on both Christian and Islamic computations that reveal this jump (see Topper 1999).

The determination of the beginning of the German Empire in AD 911 and of the two battles against the "Hungarians" in 933 and 955 followed this pattern of symbolic numbers - here above all the holy 11 - as did the fixing of Otto III to the years 999-1001, combining this event with millennarism. The Christianization of many states, from Iceland to Hungary, was attributed to those magical three years. Thus in the 15th century the year AD 1000 was elevated to being a landmark of European history. The imperial coronation of Charlemagne was also placed in a central position, in 800 or 801 AD. (These movements were also described by Landes, 1988.)

On the same time line the Conquest of Jerusalem by the Persians - a historiographical topos that by retro-projection in the Bible was attributed to Sanherib - was fixed at 614. Illig's idea that the two events (the "loss" of Jerusalem and the foundation of the German Empire 911) were in fact contemporary, (i.e. 614=911) is arbitrary; it fits the general pattern of chronology creation, no more.

References:

Illig, Heribert (1994): Hat Karl der Große je gelebt? (Gräfelfing) = (1996): Das erfundene Mittelalter (Düsseldorf, Germany)
Landes, Richard (1988): "A study of apocalyptic expectations and the pattern of Western chronography 100-800 CE" in: The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages. Eds. W.D.F. Verbeke et al. (Louvain, Belgium)
Topper, Uwe (1999): Erfundene Geschichte (Munich, Germany)

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The ERA, a medieval chronological reckoning

Uwe Topper
Berlin · 2006

The Julian or province-era, generally called ERA, was widely documented throughout Europe during the Middle Ages from the 5th to the 15th centuries at a time long before our modern AD-reckoning came into usage. The word ERA probably is Vandal in origin and means the same as the German word "Jahr" (year), meaning "turning round in a circle" like the beasts do on a threshing ground which is called "era" in Spain until today. As this way of reckoning the years was called "provincial era" in some documents, it was supposed that it started when Spain became a province of the Roman Empire. This opinion has been discarded long since, already Pauly-Wissowa (1893, I, 606) had strong objections.

Fig.1 {attached to post; era1.jpg} This stone of Granada (Alhambra) mentions the consecrations of three different churches, but offers a blank space for the date (above left) and a date later engraved with smaller letters (below right)

In order to compare the era-years to modern counting one has to subtract 38 years, and that is why the start of the ERA was placed at 38 BC. Yet nobody ever found a reason why this particular year should have been chosen as starting point.
There exist several hundred inscriptions in stone and more on parchment documents showing dates in ERA, especially in the geographic realm of the "Visigoths". The ethnic term "Visigoths" is mostly translated as Western Goths, erroneously, because it rather means "the wise godes", the Judges (just like the corresponding ethnic term "Ostrogoths" doesn't mean Eastern Goths but "the shining Godes" even when in this case the root is nearer in meaning).
Emil Hübner (Berlin 1871) wrote a Latin work about all Spanish inscriptions known then with ERA dates, and this book is still respected as basically valid (even in Spain), although further discoveries added more knowledge and new books appeared regarding this theme. In Hübner's book you find e.g. three inscriptions of church consecrations in the province of Cádiz giving dates in the 7th century AD naming a bishop Pimenius who is known as well through accounts of the councils of Toledo. Those inscriptions were accepted as genuine by all scientists, and so I undertook a journey to visit them. The dates engraved give 668 Era (corresponding to 630 AD), 682 Era and 700 Era. The oldest of them is engraved on a marble column in the church of the Martyrs in Medina Sidonia (Càdiz) and the text is easy to read:
"(D)EDICATA.HECBASI(LI)CA.D.XVIIKAL(I)ANVARIAs. ANNOSE(C)VNDOPONTIFICA(T)VSPIMENI.ERAdC(-)LXVIII", which means in English:
This basilica was consecrated on the 17 Kalends of January in the second year of Pimenius ERA 668.
The first and last letters of every line are missing because the edge of the column had been cut off by a mason. This did not make the text unintelligible, but it gives rise to suspicion because the date "dC" (600) ends at one edge and thus a "C" (100 years) could be missing.
This inscription is the oldest Christian church date in Southern Spain, the town of Sidonia is proudly announcing this to all visitors. But is it genuine?
The question is justified for several reasons. The isncription is on one of the four roof supporting marble columns, but it seems to me that its situation does not correspond to its importance as it is close to the ground (less than 1 meter in hight) so that it will easily be hidden by the congregation, whereas I would expect such an inscription above the doorway or at the altar. The other three columns of the edifice look homogenous, only this one looks singular as if it had been introduced later. The names of the martyrs which were still to be seen during the 19th century have since been carefully removed, but why?
The easiest explanation would be that names of saints change a lot in the course of time, they are subject to the prevailing dogma. Names like Cosimus and Damian are betraying the 16th century, they are easily detected as anachronisms. Therefore this list of martyrs had to be destroyed because in relationship to the given date they would not make sense. On another stone with ERA-date and the name of Pimenius the procedure was just the opposite: They removed the date and left the names of the martyrs.

So the anachronism was erradicated anyway, but the two stones taken together bluntly tell the technique: They are forgeries in order to create the history of the church. By long research into the matter and visiting a great number of the known inscriptions with ERA dates I found that all of them must have been faked (see Topper 1998, chapter 5).
So let us now take a look into the ERA-scheme in general, which will show us that we would not get any proof of history even if we had genuine inscriptions of this type.

Fig.2 {attached to post; era2.jpg} This stone found in Cordoba not only shows the name of the Gothic king Swintila and the date ERA 665, but also a typical cross of the 12th century 'Reconquista'

When did the ERA come into use ?

It is not clearly known when the Julian ERA started to be used. Hübner (1871, Nr. 113) reproduces the "oldest unsuspectable inscription" of Spain, a tombstone of a woman who died "504 ERA". Another similar tombstone testifies to a "female servant of God, who had lived more or less 70 years and died ERA 552". I could see this stone in the Museum of Cádiz in 1997, yet after publishing my book criticising the inscription the stone was removed and replaced by a photograph of something else.

Now let us consider the origin of the ERA the way it is generally accepted nowadays and was aptly explained by Krusch (1880) and his colleagues: If the earliest inscriptions showing ERA dates go back to around 500 ERA we can agree that ERA was started 493 by king Geiserich. In this year Geiserich supposedly sacked Rome, corresponding to the year 455 AD. After he had imposed the ERA for his empire, the council of Tarragona (516 AD) accepted this regulation for the Western Church as well. That means that from this date on the Vatican and all its dependencies used the ERA in their documents. Even the Arabs in Andalusia used the same procedure calling it "Tarikh es-Safar", which means "History of the Spaniards". Documents issued in Germany by the Castilian king Alfons X, the Wise, in his authority as king of Germany, used ERA dates as well.

The most commonly known medieval writer Isidore of Seville (7th c.) uses in one of his books, the "History of the Goths", dates according to ERA throughout as a red ribbon. But many historians regard this book as a fake. In other writings of Isidore the ERA dates are only handwritten on the margins and can thus easily be detected as later additions. In his famous "De Natura Rerum" (chapter VI, 7) Isidore explains that ERA began when the Roman emperor Augustus censured the people of his empire in 7 BC (or to others in 4 BC). This does not agree with the information that ERA starts in 38 BC, but it is a strong hint that the counting of the years from the birth of Christ on (AD) has its starting point at 7 BC (which is widely accepted nowadays).
I supposed (1999) that the Julian ERA was retrocalculated to the inauguration of the calendar reform of Julius Cesar in 45 BC. Accordingly later chronologists reckoning in AD would have to comply with the year 7 BC by subtracting only 38 years as is usual nowadays. We can conclude that Geiserich introduced his ERA not in 493 but 7 years later, that is exactly at 500 ERA. Why he should have started with 500 is open to suggestions. A possible explanation was put forward that Christian millennarists preferred a cycle of 500 (or later mostly of 1000) years (see Landes).

The magical year 1001

Waiting for the Thousand-year Paradise was the reason that produced our time-reckoning. It also provided us with the key to discover its manner of manipulation.

If the ERA started at 500 with stone inscriptions and manuscripts and was uninterruptedly used until the introduction of the AD reckoning, we should easily find out its limits: Either the difference was 38 years as proposed in modern times or it was 259 years (297 minus 38). Taken the latter case we have to conclude that the Renaissance writers erred or lied intentionally. By many researches I came to the conviction that they lied.

Some first indication was delivered by Hübner in his diligent work (p. 117): He reproduces an inscription Nr. 489 with the date Era 621 (corresponding to 583 AD) and says that this date must be false because style and art belong to the 9th century. Hübner easily skips the given date and prefers to trust the characteristics of art thus jumping over three hundred years. This is an example valid for many I have scrutinized. I regard all ERA dates as fakes produced in an age posterior to the dates suggested, in order to create history with theological interest. Hübner tells us involuntarily but surely that two types of chronology were fighting each other, with a difference of 297 years, of which the longer one is prevailing.

Fig.3 {attached to post; era3.jpg} On the -supposed- tombstone of the Byzantine general Belisarius, we find blank spaces for the age and the exact year of the death

So we don't have to ponder any longer why ERA-dates end in the 11th century - the latest ones have 1065 AD - and AD reckoning officially starts in Spain in the 14th century (or a century later). Did those cultured and documenting people in Spain not date anything for 300 years? This can only be explained as a jump over figures in a fictitious time-reckoning.

A remarkable hint indicating the jump over 297 years I found in the "Eternal Gospel" of Joaquim of Fiore. According to ecclesiastical opinion he lived between 1130 and 1202 AD and wrote a wellknown commentary on the Revelation of St. John. This work was reedited by a monk Gerard de Borgo Donino in 1254 AD but banned by the church, and the monk was imprisoned for 18 years!

Of course we don't know the real content of this book as it was rewritten by the church after the Tridentinum; the modern text contains details belonging to the theological discussion following the council of Trento.
The "Gospel" of Joaquim centres around the prophecy that in the year 1260 the second stage of the world would come to an end and the third one would start. This year would mark the end of the era of the Antichrist and the beginning of the era of the Spirit. The figure 1260 is pronounced in the Old Testament and in the Apocalypse as well, in the latter five times, twice of them verbally. History was accordingly concocted the way that the great movements of processionists and flagellants took place at 1260 AD.
Now what has 1260 to do with the Millennium, with 1000 years?

The expectation of the year 1001, loaded with fear by the church had been bound to the calculation of the ERA computists: 1260 minus 297 makes 963 plus 38 (difference between Era and AD) makes 1001.
So the year 1260 is as well the year 1001 of the New Paradise according to the reckoning of the ERA. "When thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be set loose from his prison." (Apoc. 20, 7).
We now can conclude from this way of computing that the pagan ERA was constructed before AD-reckoning had been installed because the latter jumped over 297 years. After the shift the mathematical difference between the two timetables resulted in 38 years which indicates the error of seven years (38 plus 7 gives 45 BC, the year of the supposed Julian reform). This 'mistake' was still known when Kepler calculated the "star of Bethlehem" to be the date of the birth of Jesus at 7 BC.

It seems obvious from this procedure - as confirmed by many other incidents - that there was a long quarrel between two sections of the church: There were the Spanish popes (Borgia) who defended the original conversion of Iberia to Christ by the mission of Santiago, whereas the other fraction, the later popes in Rome, in order to defend their primacy, invented the mission of Peter and Paul. They had to present a longer chronology then the ERA and thus made it jump over three centuries.

Literatur:

Hübner, Emil (1871 und 1900): Inscriptiones Hispaniae Christianae, mit Supplementum (G. Reimer, Berlin; reprint Hildesheim 1975)
Ideler, Ludwig (1826): Handbuch zur mathematischen und technischen Chronologie (2. Vol., Berlin)
Isidoro de Sevilla: Historia de regibus Gothorum, Wandalorum et Suevorum (ed. Faustinus Arevalo, Vol. 7, Paris 1862)
(1862): Etymologiarum, De Natura Rerum etc. (ed. F. Arevalo, Bd.I; Paris)
Krusch, Bruno (1880): Studien zur christlich-mittelalterlichen Chronologie. Die Entstehung unserer heutigen Zeitrechnung. (I and II, Berlin; 1938)
Landes, Richard (1988): "A study of apocalyptic expectations and the pattern of Western chronography 100-800 CE" in: The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages. Hrg. W.D.F. Verbeke et al. (Löwen)
Pauly-Wissowa (1893): Lexikon der Altertumskunde (edition Stuttgart 1958)
Topper, Ilya U. (1998): "Apuntes sobre la era árabe en el contexto mediterráneo" in: "Al-Andalus - Maghreb" III, Homenaje a Braulio Justel Calabozo (Univ. Cádiz)
Topper, Uwe (1998): Die "Große Aktion" (Tübingen)
(1999): Erfundene Geschichte (Herbig, München)
(2003): ZeitFälschung. Es begann mit der Renaissance (Herbig, München)
_www.cronologo.net

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Refutation of the thesis of 297 phantom years

Original title: Refutation of Dr. Heribert Illig's thesis of 297 phantom years in the Middle Ages by Dr. Ulrich Voigt

Uwe Topper
Berlin · 2006

When Dr. Heribert Illig published his theory that 297 phantom years were inserted into AD-reckoning between 31 August 614 and 1 Sept. 911, this was refuted by Dr. Ulrich Voigt (Hamburg) on the ground that the proper succession of weekdays would have been affected by such a manoeuvre.

At first I supported Illig by proving that weekdays did succeed in the regular fashion: The last day before the interval was a Saturday; the first day of the "secure" AD day-count was a Sunday. Thus no break can be detected.

Now, after roughly ten years of continuous discussion with various opponents I see my error and admit that Voigt has the better argument. Voigt insists that Illig's 297 years must not only be divided by 7 in order to maintain the normal sequence of weekdays but by 4 as well, or rather by 7 times 4 = 28. If the total amount of phantom years is not divisible by 28, there must sooner or later - in this case in the third year already - arise discrepancies between weekdays after inserting the phantom years. This is mathematically correct and disproves Illig's thesis of 297 phantom years.

Without diving into the whole discussion all over again I shall shortly explain my new way of arguing and where my error came up.

It is well known that weekdays follow equal dates in a rhythm that might be called "Jacobinic"; that is after every 11, 6, 5 and again 6 years. That is why the sequence is not broken even if the total sum is not divisible by 28. The inserted amount of 297 years corresponds to 10 times 28 (=280) plus 11 plus 6. "In this case", I wrote in 1996 in Illig's review, "it still has to be ascertained whether the sequence (11-6-5-6) follows suit after the inserted interval." Lacking possibilities and mathematical skill, I had to leave it to others to verify the proposal.

Now I followed the simple and clever argument of Voigt in his book (2003) and thought it through all over again, understanding that the Jacobinic sequence before the phantom period (614) had been 11-6-5-6 and after it (911) went on 5-6-11-6 thus breaking up the correct order of the weekdays, although this did not appear as such at first sight.

As far as computist manoeuvres are concerned, the break in the order of weekdays might seem irrelevant. But other nations used the Julian Calendar with its strict observance of weekdays and leap years, as well, and could not be forced by the emperor or the pope into following any new rhythm. They in fact preserve the same system until now and therefore the insertion of an odd number of years not divisible by 28 is an impossibility.
Voigt further pertains that the sequence of Christian Easter is another equally important factor to be regarded when judging the sum of phantom years. So the Metonic cycle (19 years) has to be another factor, bringing the whole sum up to 532 years (28 multiplied by 19). This therefore would be the smallest possible amount of years that could be artificially inserted.

Although this argument is equally valid in mathematical terms it has no backing from "outside" as no Christian nations can prove an uninterrupted sequence of Easter throughout medieval church history. Therefore this argument only holds within the Catholic frame of historiography.

Basically I repeat what I have insisted on for many years (see 2001, p.151) that the thesis of Illig concerning the insertion of 297 years is a mere game of computists and has no chance of historical reality.

Moreover, Voigt's book (2003) gives strong indications that our whole AD counting is based on Easter cycles and is not bound to historical events. Latest findings of Voigt will be presented by him in speeches on Oct. 30 in Hamburg and on Dec. 4, 2006, in Berlin. A book to that effect is planned by him for next year.

For anyone not totally informed on the theory of phantom time reckoning the following postscript has to be added: The refutation of the sum of 297 years does not mean that other parts of chronology criticism would have to be abandoned; missing archaeological proof for several centuries - as well as the discovery that AD time reckoning is a late and fragile restitution and not proven by historical records - are sustained with even more vigour and on better grounds.

References

Illig, Heribert (1996): "Das erfundene Mittelalter" (Econ, Düsseldorf)
Topper, Uwe (1999): "Erfundene Geschichte" (Herbig, München)
(2001): "Fälschungen der Geschichte" (Herbig, München)
Voigt, Ulrich (2000): "Zeitensprünge und Kalenderrechnung" (in ZS 2/2000, S. 296-309)
(2003): Das Jahr im Kopf (Likanas, Hamburg)
(2005): "Über die christliche Jahreszählung" with comments by K.-H. Lewin, Andreas Birken and Heribert Illig (in ZS 2/2005, S. 420-481)

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Calender reform and precession jolt

Abstract of the German article "Kalender und Präzessionssprung"

Ilya U. Topper
Madrid · 2009

When Pope Gregor XIII intended to reform the calendar he ordered a commission of very learned men to consider the possibilities and consequences. Most important among them was Aloysius Lilius who conceived a textbook which unfortunately never was published (still one of the desiderata in this matter). He died 1576, yet his brother Antonius abriged the text and the following year this „Compendium novae rationis“ of 11 pages was sent to „Christian princes and academicians“ but received little attention.

The most important point of this compendium is the declaration that the course of the sun – and thus the length of the year – is not constant but undergoes variations which had been observed and measured by learned astronomers since many centuries.

According to our present knowledge Lilius would have refered to Hipparchos and the Arab astronomers like Battenius who indeed calculated from observation the length of the tropical year in contrast to the sidereal year and thus used their respective precession factor whereby the Arab results differed from the Greek sources (as well as from our modern measurements). This certainly affects the cardinal points of the calendar (solstices anbd equinoxes) and thus interferes with clerical Easter computations.

As already mentioned (see the now slightly outdated article1 by Uwe & Ilya Topper) we have strong arguments to believe that the change of the precession factor did not come about gradually but apruptly by some not yet determined cosmic agent (possibly a fractional change in the electromagnetic sphere of the solar system). We locate this event vaguely around 1300 AD. (The authors earlier, from 2004 onward, had proposed two events at 1260 and 1350 but now think that a single event at roughly the same time bracket would even better match with historic and traditional reminiscences.)

In order to avoid disputations about the exact length of the solar year the papal commission agreed to use the Alfonsine year (commonly dated to 1252, but supposedly not earlier than 1440). It looks like a compromise between the ancient Greek and the medieval Arab values and is still today useful for all practical purposes.

Why did Pope Gregor XIII insist on having the 21st March as day of the spring equinox? He simply argued that this corresponded to the conviction of the fathers of the council of Nicea, the first ecumenical council of the church. (There is no historical record about which date was in use then but for our present purpose this does not matter). To put the church calendar in concordance with this assumption he had to advance the date by ten units which he ordered to be done in October 1582. In order to make the equinoctial date stay at its fixed place the leap rule was slightly changed, too, as is commonly known. (The new regulations for Easter calculation introduced at the same time do not concern us here).

Protestant churches followed more than a century later, in Germany from 1700 onward, in England in 173?, the orthodox churches and non-Christian groups (like the Berbers) have not yet adopted the new rules.

Popular customs and ancestral rites give strong evidence to different ways of regulating the calendar before the said pope arranged the new regulation four centuries ago. From many accounts and still commonly observed feasts all over Europe we can deduct that in protohistoric times – supposedly from megalithic times onward – the New Year day was determined astronomically and then propagated by fires and lit candles etc. all over the country. Those customs are still in vogue with Catholics in Spain or heathens in Germany, Iranian or Arab Muslims and even Jews all over the world. (For ample information please consult the German text).

The variation of the year length must have been very notable immediately after one of the aforementioned cosmic events. It was even observed by Greek and Arab astronomers that the spring equinox (to use a fixed date) was moving to and fro which they termed „trepidation“ thus making it impossible to predict the New Year day for a long time lapse in advance. Therefore ad hoc observations and their public announcement by fires and light were a necessity for generations. Even Copernicus took trepidation into consideration in his new planetary model. (See the article2 of Uwe Topper 2008; a new advance on this subject is forthcoming soon).

Another way of reacting to the unreliability of the sun’s course was to skip a fixed solar year altogether and to use the moon’s course as calendar guide. Thus the islamic regulation abolished the traditional calendar where Muharram had corresponded to January, Rabi‘ I and II to Spring (March and April) and Dhul Hijja to the pilgrimage in December, while Ramadan fell in September, most adapted to the necessity of fasting when water was scarce. The suppressing of the hitherto necessary leap month was ordered by Muhammad in Medina (Sura 9, 36 ff) as widely acknowledged. This means that the start of modern Hijra count is retrocalculated.

The commonly reported Roman combined sun-moon calendar of pre-Cesarian times as well as the Jewish and the Christian liturgic calendars could be reminiscences of the use of a lunar calendar during times of uncertainty.

This abstract has been written by Uwe Topper ​

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Laura said:

Who is this Uwe Topper person?

I'm on page 2 and I think we can disregard this person as a nut. I'll explain later.

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As far as computist manoeuvres are concerned, the break in the order of weekdays might seem irrelevant. But other nations used the Julian Calendar with its strict observance of weekdays and leap years, as well, and could not be forced by the emperor or the pope into following any new rhythm. They in fact preserve the same system until now and therefore the insertion of an odd number of years not divisible by 28 is an impossibility.

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1. A trustworthy description of the development of this view of history, or: history of the foundations of historiography.
2. Research into the chronological bases of historiography.
3. Taking into account the catastrophes of cosmic origin which occurred during the recent history of man and changed his environment drastically.

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The lifelong work of Wilhelm Kammeier has not been ignored by scholars (though it might seem so) but is now more or less integrated in academic research except that the author‘s name is not mentioned. He had scrutinized a great number of medieval documents and found that they are all productions of a later age.

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It has been proposed to use foreign dating – such as Muslim Hijra years – to fill in the missing time, but this does not really satisfy because those foreign chronologies – this judgement pertains to all of them – are not free from falsifications, moreover they are mostly based on the Christian way of constructing chronology and adjusted to our own.

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As far as computist manoeuvres are concerned, the break in the order of weekdays might seem irrelevant. But other nations used the Julian Calendar with its strict observance of weekdays and leap years, as well, and could not be forced by the emperor or the pope into following any new rhythm. They in fact preserve the same system until now and therefore the insertion of an odd number of years not divisible by 28 is an impossibility.

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As far as geological history is concerned, the possibility of cosmic intruders such as meteorites, comets, asteroids and the like – commonly placed under the label „bolides“ – has been taken into account since the Steinheimer Becken (Steinheim Meteor Crater) in southern Germany was examined thoroughly more than half a century ago. The idea then was extended to other locations and nowadays it is rather fashionable to discover more and more impact craters. This has nothing to do with our item.

The new term of the catastrophes I have in mind is „cosmic jolt“ or „leap“ of the earth. Such a leap cannot result from a bolide crushing into the crust of the earth (which, except in extremely rare cases, would destroy most life on earth). We still do not know what unleashes such a jolt as I am proposing, but this does not concern our present chain of thoughts. Such a jolt implies that the axis of the earth jumps for a tiny fraction in its orbit around the sun, a fraction that can only be measured afterwards by calculating the precession and its speed. After a short lived instability the earth regains its stable orbit and continues to circle the sun on the usual parameters. A jolt can be ascertained from historic documents of astronomical and calendric nature.

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Now let us regard astronomical documents proving those jolts. Arabs as well as Greeks have handed down to us a great amount of astronomical data that can be exploited to this effect. Although modern astronomers agree that the angle of the earth’s axis (the ecliptic epsilon) is not unchangeable but undergoes a certain movement calculated as a curve diagram, they do not know or recognize that this same movement can be interrupted at certain moments and thus give different parameters for years gone by. Medieval and antique observations give us sufficient data to previous interruptions of the diagram. Even the short periods of instability after a jolt are documented by ancient astronomers.

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A: When the earth jumps on its precession cycle as proposed, the cardinal points of the year as well as the length of the seasons change. This has been marked in calendars.

B: Although north remains north on earth after a jolt, the north pole in the sky changes its place for the observer.

C: By a jolt the speed of the precession is altered. This can be ascertained after some lapse of time.

D: Astronomical retrocalculations of past years and events are broken up by the jolts. This deletes modern chronology.

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Our actual value (since the Renaissance) of the speed of precession is 72 years for one degree displacement of the spring equinox. This was not always like that.

In the Middle Ages the speed was a bit quicker. As Arab astronomers wrote, the precession speed at their time was around 65 to 66 years per degree, starting from al-Battani (around 880 AD) to Kushayr and as-Sufi until Haraqi (1112 AD). An anonymous contemporary of Zarqallu (11th century) noted likewise 66, and the Latin book of Alfonso X, the Wise (13th century) gives the same value. ...

...classical time: Ptolemy gave the speed as exactly 100 years per degree (and the Arabs confirmed this for Ptolemy). ... this value had been handed down by Hipparchus as well nearly three hundred years earlier.... Dennis Rawlins found an old manuscript in 1981 (published only in 1999) that shows that Aristarchus 130 years before Hipparchus had nearly the same value of 100. ... Stepping back again until Babylonian time we suddenly are confronted with the value 50, as Rothwangl asserts quoting cuneiform tablets. ...

From Kepler to us there is the factor 72, while it is 66 for the Arabs and 100 for the Greeks of post-Alexander time; for the Babylonian epoch it was supposedly 50.

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Following his victory at Pydna (north-east Greece) in 168 BC, L. Aemilius Paullus confiscated the library of the defeated Macedonian king Perseus and transported it to Rome. The famous library of Aristotle, which had undergone many vicissitudes since Aristotle's death in 322 BC, was confiscated following the capture and sack of Athens by Sulla in 86 BC, and transported to Sulla's villa at Cuma (near Naples). Sulla's sometime colleague, L. Licinius Lucullus, in the aftermath of his expedition against Mithridates, king of Pontus, in 66 BC seized the vast royal library as war spoils, and transported it to his magnificent villa at Tusculum (near modern Frascati), where it was made accessible to interested scholars. The presence of these large libraries on Italian soil encouraged private Roman citizens of the first century BC to assemble libraries of their own.

The most famous private libraries were probably those assembled by T. Pomponius Atticus (110-32 BC) and Cicero (106-43 BC) - but the amassing of large private libraries was a feature of civilized Roman life which continued into the days of the later Roman empire. To judge by works quoted in his vast oeuvre (some seventy-five titles in c.600 rolls), the library of the antiquary M. Terentius Varro (116-27 BC), housed at his villa at Cassino, must have been enormous.

In the first century AD the poet Persius bequeathed to his mentor L. Annaeus Cornutus a personal library which included some 700 rolls containing the writings of Chrysippus.35 In the third century AD, before c..235, the poet Serenus Sammonicus is said to have bequeathed to the emperor Gordian (II) the Younger (AD 238) a personal library of some 62,000 rolls. A passage in Ammianus Marcellinus (written c.390) complains that private libraries in Rome were 'permanently locked up like tombs', hence inaccessible; but at least his complaint verifies the existence of private libraries in the late fourth century.

From a later period still, the evidence of the so-called 'subscriptions' points to the existence of private libraries in the hands of Roman aristocrats during the fifth and early sixth centuries. A subscription is a short statement appended to a work (or a book within that work) stating that the text had been revised and corrected by a named individual, sometimes helpfully supplying the date of the revision. Only one autograph subscription appears to have survived, but numerous others were copied along with their accompanying text into later manuscripts. In sum the subscriptions throw light on scholarly activity in aristocratic circles and attest to the existence of private libraries well into the sixth century, a point confirmed by the fact that Boethius, in his Consolatio Philosophiae (c.525), alludes to a richly furnished library with walls 'ornamented with ivory and glass'.

The enthusiasm for private libraries soon led to the creation of public libraries. The first Roman to contemplate the construction of a large-scale public library was apparently Julius Caesar, who intended that Varro should be its librarian, but Caesar was assassinated (44 BC) before the project got under way. The project was subsequently brought to completion by Asinius Pollio, the wealthy aristocrat whose consulship in 40 BC is celebrated in Vergil's Fourth Eclogue. This library, which is known through written sources only, was apparently situated near the Forum, and consisted of two parts, one to house Greek books and the other to house those in Latin. The model was followed in subsequent Roman libraries.

The library built by Augustus on the Palatine after c.28 BC, for example, remains of which have been excavated, had two identical chambers situated side by side—one for Greek, one for Latin—with the back wall of each chamber having a large recess (presumably to house a statue), and the side walls having numbers of niches, in which would be placed armaria or wooden bookcases lined with shelves and having wooden doors (as in a French armoire). The central area is open, presumably to accommodate tables and readers. It is the provision for readers and bookcases which distinguishes the layout of this and later Roman libraries from their Greek predecessors, such as that at Alexandria.

Although both Tiberius and Vespasian are known to have built public libraries, the greatest of the Roman libraries was that constructed by the Emperor Trajan (AD 98-117) as part of his monumental forum, dedicated in AD 112, and known as the Bibliotheca Ulpia. Trajan's Bibliotheca Ulpia is well known from excavation, and has been magnificently reconstructed by James E. Packer and his colleagues. Here, too, there were two chambers or reading rooms, one housing Latin books (the East Library), the other housing Greek (the West Library). The rooms were situated facing each other across a square portico, in the centre of which stood Trajan's Column, to this day one of the great visible monuments of imperial Rome. The two chambers now lie beneath the Via dei Fori Imperial!, but Trajan's Column still stands where it was erected in AD 112. … The walls had niches to house armaria running from floor to ceiling, on two storeys. Each chamber had thirty-six armaria, and if these were filled with papyrus rolls, it has been calculated that the two chambers might together have accommodated some 20,000 rolls: perhaps the equivalent of 5,000 volumes (roughly the content of the Reading Room in Cambridge). The central areas in each chamber were presumably furnished with chairs and tables fitted with the ancient equivalent of microfilm readers (winding machines to facilitate the rapid consultation of papyrus rolls).

The Bibliotheca Ulpia remained the largest and most lavish of Rome's libraries, but it was by no means the only one. Libraries were often incorporated into public baths, and formed part (for example) of the baths of Trajan, Caracalla, and probably Diocletian. …

The Younger Pliny, for example, mentions in one of his Letters that he built at his own expense, and endowed with 100,000 sesterces, a library for the citizens of his home town, Como, and at roughly the same time the heirs of one Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus endowed a magnificent library in Ephesus, the impressive remains of which are still standing. ...

Christianity was a religion of the book. From the very beginnings, all Christian communities needed collections of liturgical books for public prayer. But the holy scriptures needed to be interpreted accurately; and so Christian libraries of scholarly books, necessary for interpreting Scripture, soon developed. Sometimes these libraries will have originated as the private property of individual scholars: for example, that of Origen at Caesarea in Palestine; or that of Jerome, which he transported with him to Bethlehem; or that of Augustine in Hippo Regius.

At approximately the same time as Jerome and Augustine, the creation of an institutional library to house the Church's archives and to support Christian scholarship was undertaken by the papacy. Pope Damasus (366-84) rebuilt the basilica of (what is now) San Lorenzo in Prasina in order to house archives and a library; the titulus which Damasus composed to stand over the door of the new library survives among early medieval syllogae. At a later stage, however, the papal library was apparently moved to the Lateran Palace. The so-called Capella sancta sanctorum, excavated beneath the Lateran in 1900 and dating from the sixth century, was clearly a library, to judge from the frescoes which adorned it, including one showing a Christian reader holding a codex. Of the contents of the library, however, we know nothing.

In the early sixth century, Pope Agapetus (535-6), probably on the advice of Cassiodorus (who, as we learn from the preface of his Institutiones, wished to make Rome a rival to Alexandria and Nisibis in the pursuit of Christian learning), established a substantial library on his private estate on the Caelian Hill. The building in which the library of Agapetus was housed has been recovered by excavation (it was identified by means of an inscription reading BIBLIOTHECA AGAPETI i A. DXXXV—oxxxvi). It consisted of a single large room (30 x 22 metres), roughly similar in size to each of the rooms of Trajan's Bibliotheca Ulpia; and like it had niches in the walls to house armaria. Later in the sixth century, the property, including presumably the library, came into the ownership of Pope Gregory I—we know from the Liber pontificate that he was of the same family as Agapetus—who established there (between 575 and 581) the monastery dedicated to St Andrew from which came Augustine and the Roman monks who effected the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England. That Gregory took pains to preserve the library of Agapetus seems clear from an inscription or titulus preserved in a later sylloga which records that Agapetus, 'dwelling in this glorious place / skilfully created a beautiful location for the books'…

{Now notice the above particularly: Between 575 and 581 Gregory I is supposed to be establishing a monastery and then sending out missionaries to England... Take a quick look at our table of catastrophes for that period and you will see that there is another more likely story.

As is known from the polemic flying back and forth between the pagans and Christians, each side was blaming the other for the constant and repeating environmental assaults that were going on at the time. The majority of the people were still pagan, though the government had undertaken to impose Christianity. It would have been seen by the masses that this was the reason the god's were unhappy, so the Christians would have become the scapegoats. So, what is way more likely is that some of these wealthy Christians (the senatorial class transitioned easily to the church hierarchy after Constantine) were retreating to their country estates and barricading themselves against disaster and threats from their neighbors who were probably coming to the "castle gates" with pitchforks and firebrands.

This means that the "missionaries" sent to England were not exactly that... they were fleeing the disasters in Rome and the "persecutions" of the MASSES who were really upset because they were persuaded that the gods were angry at these upstart Christians.}

Unfortunately we know nothing of the size or contents (save that they included, perhaps not exclusively, patristic literature) of this lavishly constructed library, nor what became of its books.

The original plan of Agapetus and Cassiodorus, to found a Christian academy of books and scholars to compete with those of 546. {This is how it is described later; see above for what probably REALLY happened.} Some time after the death of Agapetus, Cassiodorus (c.485-6?.580), after a distinguished career in civil government, apparently took his books back to his private estate in Calabria, in the toe of Italy, and established there a private academy of Christian learning, at some point during the decade 546 x 555. {Again, barricading themselves against reprisals or just trying to survive the environmental assaults.}

The estate, called Vivarium (named for the fish-ponds which Cassiodorus had created there), was located at modern Squillace (near Catanzaro). But unlike other monastic establishments, the scholarly regime instituted by Cassiodorus combined Christian with secular (pagan) learning, and his library evidently reflected this regime. Cassiodorus' brief treatise, the Institutiones, is intended as an introduction to the resources of the library. As in the case of the secular and Christian libraries of Rome, the books at Cassiodorus' Vivarium were housed in armaria, and the Institutiones were intended in some sense as a guide to the contents of the individual armaria. For example, Cassiodorus explains that the eighth armarium contained manuscripts in Greek. How many Greek manuscripts were in question is unknown; but note that Greek texts, which in Trajan's Bibliotheca Ulpia had occupied a library room of their own, now occupy a single armarium. {And it was certainly too early for Cassiodorus to have MSS that cover the matters that concern us.}

At various points in the Institutiones, Cassiodorus names Aristotle, Demosthenes, Dioscorides, Galen, Hippocrates, Homer, and Plato; but some of these, for example Demosthenes, may have been no more than names to Cassiodorus, and some at least of the others were read there in Latin translation. The library evidently contained a number of (secular) Latin texts, notably Cicero, Columella, Ennius, Livy, Palladius, Quintilian, Terence, Varro, and (unsurprisingly) Vergil. But the bulk of the library was made up of grammatical and patristic writings in Latin. In terms of its holdings, then, the library at Vivarium was a forerunner of monastic libraries of the early Middle Ages.

Cassiodorus died well into his nineties, in about 575. What happened to the manuscripts which he had assembled at Vivarium?

Evidence of surviving manuscripts suggests that they were dispersed variously rather than that they were transferred en bloc to another library. During the past century there has been an understandable scholarly temptation to attribute sixth-century manuscripts of unknown origin to Vivarium, but more recent research treats these attempts with scepticism. We are left with a very small residue of some seven manuscripts which were owned and annotated, arguably by Cassiodorus himself, at Vivarium. The diverse provenance and early medieval ownership of these manuscripts suggests that the library of Vivarium was dispersed piecemeal by the heirs of Cassiodorus; and although some manuscripts may have been acquired by the papal library then at the Lateran Palace, as De Rossi suggested long ago, others seemingly remained at large in Italy and Rome (in the possession of booksellers?), awaiting discovery by acquisitive bibliophiles from remote parts of northern Europe.

The library of Vivarium is famous particularly because it is described in the Institutiones of Cassiodorus. But there were other sizeable libraries in sixth-century Italy which had equally extensive holdings. One example is the library principally but not exclusively of the writings of Augustine assembled by Eugippius (c. 460-535) at the monastery called castrum Lucullanum at Naples. Cassiodorus in his Institutiones describes Eugippius as 'not well-trained in secular literature, but thoroughly learned in the study of sacred writings'. A number of surviving manuscripts (and apographs of manuscripts now lost) indicate the extent and importance of Eugippius' library, not only in his lifetime, but later in the sixth century and on into the seventh. The library of Eugippius could have been consulted by Hadrian, who arrived in Naples c. 640 as a refugee from the Arab invasions of North Africa, became abbot of a monastery at nearby Nisidia (a few miles from the castrum Lucullanum), and was appointed in 667 by Pope Vitalian to accompany Archbishop Theodore to England.

{Now we note something interesting: a skip of 65 years. Well, obviously, if the things that are described in Gregory of Tours were actually happening in the Mediterranean and were responsible for the destruction of Rome and most of coastal Italy and a whole bunch of other areas, not to mention the plague, it's not a surprise that there is silence. But if there were groups of Christians who went off to their estates-called-monasteries to hold out against the catastrophe, no doubt some of them survived. We can be pretty sure that if Italy (and other Western Empire areas) were destroyed and decimated as we think they were, this Hadrian guy wasn't arriving there immediately. Of course, a few years might have been added to pad the history, but it really isn't a big issue here considering what was going on.}

The existence of the papal library of the Lateran Palace is also well attested in the seventh century. In October 649, the ill-fated Pope Martin I (649-55) convened at the Lateran Palace the ecumenical council which formally condemned the (imperially endorsed) monothelete doctrine. The acta of the Lateran Council of 649 include a substantial dossier of 161 quotations from 87 Greek patristic texts designed to illustrate the fallacies of monothelete doctrine and the veracity of dyothelete doctrine, with its emphasis on the double nature, operation and will in Christ. It has been supposed that the texts quoted in the dossier were available at the time in the Lateran Palace library. It is unlikely that this supposition is entirely correct, because Greek-speaking monks from Roman monasteries, notably that of St Anastasius ad aquas Salvias, assisted in the compilation of the acta, and may have drawn on their own (Roman) libraries of Greek patristic literature. It is highly likely that Theodore, the future archbishop of Canterbury, was one of the Cilician monks from St Anastasius who assisted in the drafting of the acta of the Lateran Council, and whose name appears as one of its signatories. The implication is that, at the least, Theodore will have been thoroughly familiar with the Greek patristic holdings of Roman libraries before his appointment to Canterbury.

{Now, let's re-imagine this as a meeting of refugee Christians not at the "Lateran palace", which was ruined, as was Rome, but possibly at the former estate of Agapetas on the Caelian hill, or even somewhere else nearby. It could even have happened somewhere in the East and the story transferred to a Roman context later. Considering the fact that so many texts of Greek origin are cited here, the latter is quite likely. Were these monasteries still in existence? It's possible - after all, that's what they created them for: to survive catastrophes and to barricade themselves against the rampaging peasants with pitchforks. Either way, in the East, or somewhere in Italy - maybe even Ravenna - it is an interesting thread. If it was completely made up, there would have been no mention of the Greeks at all, I think.}

One final late antique library needs to be considered: that of Isidore, bishop of Seville (c..560-636). Although no trace of it has survived, it is clear from his writings that Isidore had access to a very substantial (private) library, laid out probably like that of Cassiodorus at Vivarium, with books housed in individual wooden armaria. A collection of epigrams or tituli composed by Isidore and known collectively as Versus in bibliotheca, was evidently intended to provide inscriptions for the individual armaria. Depending on how the individual epigrams are distinguished, between fourteen and sixteen armaria are in question; and, assuming that each armarium held thirty codices, the entire library might have comprised a total of some 420 - 480 books. ... Exact figures are not easily available, but in his large corpus of writings, and most notably in his Etymologiae, Isidore quotes from more than 200 authors, entailing a larger still number of works: perhaps as many as 475. Of course many of the authors cited by Isidore were cited at second-hand; but by any reckoning his library was a very substantial one. But what happened to the library (no trace of which remains), and the books which it contained, is unknown.

Indeed very little is known about what happened to the books from all these late antique libraries. Were they all destroyed? Or were they merely dispersed, with the possibility that stray manuscripts might end up at any Italian, or even European, destination? Would books ransacked from public libraries in time of siege and barbarian invasion have had any commercial value? And were there booksellers or other commercial outlets to receive them? In other words, did the sorts of booksellers (librarii) frequented by Aulus Gellius in Rome in the midsecond century exist there in any form in the sixth?

{Here is where the lack of knowledge of the true nature of the catastrophe completely cripples this historian.}

It is not possible to determine with confidence precisely when the great public libraries in Rome were destroyed or dispersed. At c. AD 400 the great Bibliotheca Ulpia was still being consulted by scholars in search of historical materials, and in the mid-fifth century the poet Sidonius Apollinaris records with pride that he has been honoured with a bronze statue located amongst those of other writers 'between the two libraries' in the 'Ulpian porticus'— that is to say, in the portico between the East and West libraries of the Bibliotheca Ulpia, under the shadow of Trajan's Column. A century later Cassiodorus could still remark on the glory of Trajan's Forum (though he makes no mention of the Bibliotheca Ulpia). It has been suggested that the libraries of the Palatine and of Trajan's Forum were destroyed during the siege of Rome in 546.

{And here is where we see the re-writing of history most clearly. This is where the ruling elite, now the Christians, wished to cover up what had happened and the most likely reason for this cover-up was because, at the time, THEY WERE BLAMED FOR IT. So, the destruction of Rome all had to be attributed to barbarians: the Gothic king Totila was supposed to have laid siege to Rome THREE times. When you read this history, it makes absolutely no sense at all. And this is supposed to have happened before Cassiodorus and the gang withdrew to their monasteries because the Goths took over Rome never mind that Rome had been an Ostrogothic kingdome from 493 to 526... But, we won't get into trying to sort that out just now. Suffice it to say that the whole period is suffused with smoke.}

Public libraries in other parts of the western Roman empire may similarly have been destroyed or dispersed at this time; but, again, what happened to their books is unknown. In his study of the oldest manuscripts from Lyon, E. A. Lowe suggested that some books from the public library at Lyon may have found their way into the local cathedral library; and Bernhard Bischoff made a similar suggestion in the case of Verona. One wonders where Bobbio (founded 613) acquired its substantial collection of late antique manuscripts: perhaps from a nearby public library, perhaps at (say) Piacenza? Unfortunately, however, even acquisition by a monastic or cathedral library was no guarantee of preservation. During the seventh and early eighth century substantial numbers of late antique manuscripts were washed down and rewritten (so as to produce so-called 'palimpsests'), and in this way much ancient literature has been lost.

Even less is known about what happened to the private libraries of Roman aristocrats which, as we have seen, are well attested through the so-called subscriptions during the fifth and sixth centuries, and which clearly played an important role in the transmission of secular Latin texts. It has been plausibly suggested that private libraries were the source of the numerous secular Latin texts which emerged during the late eighth and earlier ninth centuries—with the implication that such private libraries, inevitably on a much smaller scale than public libraries and located principally in Rome and Ravenna, may have remained intact during the two hundred years of turmoil between c.550 and c.750.

What emerges from these considerations is that, in spite of the turmoil and the (presumed) attendant destruction and dispersal of libraries, some number of books must have been in circulation, and available for acquisition, at the time when Anglo-Saxon England was first drawn into the orbit of Roman culture. As we have seen, the second wave of monks sent to England from Gregory's monastery of St Andrew on the Caelian Hill took with them, as Bede tells us, 'a number of manuscripts' (codices plurimos).

{Was there actually a "second wave" or only the first? Or was the first wave "refugees" that went to England and in true "elite style", subdued the natives to their doctrine and then later, sent representatives to see how things were going and to say "hey, we've got it pretty good up here... send more peeps and books!}

Some years ago Armando Petrucci succeeded in identifying the style of script used in the scriptorium of Gregory's monastery, which he named 'Roman uncial', and was then able to point to a small corpus of manuscripts in this script which, according to his criteria, had originated in Gregory's monastery. Among these are several which have an early Anglo-Saxon provenance, and these could conjecturally have formed part of the codices plurimi sent to England by Gregory. Pride of place goes to a famous copy of the Vulgate gospels, now Cambridge, CCC 286 (s. viex), known as the 'St Augustine's Gospels' from its presumed association with the Roman missionary. Judging from annotations in Anglo-Saxon cursive minuscule, the manuscript was in England no later than the eighth century, and there seems no good reason to doubt the traditional association with Augustine. {Yeah, right.} … And an argument has recently been advanced that a fragmentary papyrus codex of Gregory, Horn. .xl. in Euangelia, now London, BL, Cotton Titus C. xv, fo. i (s. vi/vii) is the remnant of a manuscript brought to England by these missionaries.

Somewhat later Anglo-Saxon tradition also records (not improbably) that Augustine brought a copy of Gregory's Regula pastoralis to England. The important point to stress is that the manuscripts which served as exemplars for the codices plurimi were very probably to be found in the library of Pope Agapetus in Gregory's monastery on the Caelian Hill, and thus provide a direct link between the libraries of late antiquity and Anglo-Saxon England.

During the following century, substantial numbers of books from late antique libraries were transported to England. Following his consecration as archbishop of Canterbury in 668, Theodore and his colleague Hadrian will certainly have brought books with them to England. ... in Theodore's case, books (or copies of books) that were available in Rome, either in the library of the Lateran Palace or in that of his own monastery of St Anastasius ad aquas Salvias', in Hadrian's case, books (or copies of books) which were available in Naples and its vicinity, perhaps in the library assembled there by Eugippius in the castrum Lucullanum. Few traces of such books remain, however: of Theodore, perhaps a copy of biblical Acts (in Greek and Latin) now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; of Hadrian, liturgical books from Campania and the vicinity of Naples, subsequently lost or discarded, which have left traces in later Anglo-Saxon liturgical manuscripts.

At the same time as Theodore and Hadrian were making their way to England, various Englishmen began travelling to Rome, no doubt in search of books as well as spiritual enlightenment. We know that Benedict Biscop, founder and first abbot of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, made six trips to Rome; and Bede specifically notes that on three of these trips he acquired books in Rome, in one case an innumerabilis copia of books of all sorts….

In a narrative poem in octosyllables addressed by Aldhelm's student /Ethilwald to one Wihtfrid, hence datable approximately to the early eighth century, /Ethilwald describes a trip to Rome made by three Anglo-Saxon colleagues, two of whom were brothers, one of whom died there. When the two survivors returned to England, they brought 'numerous books' ('en vehebant volumina / numerosa'), and /Ethilwald goes on to specify that the books included monastic rules ('mysticis / elucubrata normulis') and books of the Bible, 'which the prophets and the pronouncements of the eloquent apostle had committed to parchment' ('quae profetae, apostoli / doctiloqui oraculi / indiderunt pergaminae').

Again, these were probably not library books in the sense in which I am using the term; but the poem provides a further example of the importation of Roman books to England. How many of these books have survived? David Dumville has identified eleven manuscripts of Italian origin that date from earlier than the seventh century and have a pre-eighth-century English provenance. As he remarks, 'This is a poor remnant of a body of imported books which must by the end of the seventh century have been numbered in thousands rather than hundreds.' I suspect that these figures are overly optimistic, and should myself incline to say 'hundreds rather than dozens'. But England's debt to Mediterranean libraries is incontestable….

Interestingly, one famous manuscript from a late antique Mediterranean library made its way to England in the late seventh century, only to be lost at some later time. This is a manuscript which formed part of the library of Cassiodorus at Vivarium, … That this 'codex grandior' of Cassiodorus was identical with a 'pandect of the old translation' acquired by Ceolfrith and Benedict Biscop at Rome, is clear from evidence of many kinds, not least that the layout and contents of the prefatory quire of the great Codex Amiatinus [CLA iii. 299], written at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow in the years before 716, were modelled closely on those of the 'codex grandior' as described by Cassiodorus. (Whereas the text of the 'codex grandior' was Vetus Latina, that of the Codex Amiatinus is Vulgate throughout, so it was only in matters of format and layout that the 'codex grandior' served as a model for the English pandect.) Unfortunately, since Bede and the monks of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow had no access to Cassiodorus' Institutions, they cannot fully have realized what an astonishing treasure Ceolfrith and Benedict Biscop had managed to acquire for them in Rome. …

In any case, as the example of the 'codex grandior' shows, Anglo- Saxon libraries were in the first instance stocked with books from Mediterranean libraries. Where and how these books were acquired, in Rome or elsewhere, we cannot say; and it is almost certainly unsafe to assume that the same kind of booksellers described by Aulus Gellius as operating in Rome in the second century AD were still in business in the seventh. But who knows? Various texts of sixth century date refer to the existence of antiquarii, '(professional) scribes'. Cassiodorus, for example, devotes a chapter of his Institutiones to scribes and the practice of correct spelling (i. 30), and Gregory the Great in his Dialogi expresses the hope that every abbot will find 'scribes at work' (antiquarios scribentes) in his monastery (i. 4). A late sixth-century manuscript of Orosius (now Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. LXV. i) carries the colophon, 'confectus codex in statione Viliaric antiquarii', 'this book was produced in the shop of Viliaric the scribe', where the term statio already suggests the later medieval meaning of 'a stationer's shop', and the name suggests that Viliaric was a Goth. Viliaric's stationer's shop was located in Ravenna…

Such antiquarii would produce books on commission, and at a price. It is therefore interesting to note that, according to Bede in his Historia abbatum [CPL 1378], Benedict Biscop, on his third trip to Rome, purchased no small number of books there for which he either 'paid a fitting price' ('librosque omnis diuinae eruditionis non paucos uel placito praetio emptos') or else acquired them as donations from friends. In the same chapter of the Historia abbatum. Bede goes on to say that Benedict, on his return journey to England, collected books at Vienne which he had previously purchased there (empticios ibi), which implies that there were booksellers in southern France as well as in Rome in the mid-seventh century.

In any case, by ways which can no longer be traced, Anglo-Saxon libraries were stocked to the point where, for several centuries, they could sustain the schools and scholarship which put England in the vanguard of European learning. But the processes by which these libraries were built up, to the point that they could even supply books and scholars to staff new foundations in the area of English missionary activity in Germany, are unknown to us because, in their turn, the Anglo-Saxon libraries have themselves vanished.

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