At this point we would like to make note of a curious series of remarks by the Master Fulcanelli in the first pages of his book Dwellings of the Philosophers. He tells us in his first sentences that there is a gross misconception about the Middle Ages common among scholars and laymen, produced by a written history that is not supported by the evidence. History tells us that the Dark Ages were a time of invasions, wars, famines, epidemics, and a host of disruptions to life and culture; yet the very same period was the time of the building of great cathedrals, monuments, houses, cities, and so forth; none of which bear the marks of such scourges. He then goes on to point out that art is entirely reflective of a culture, and generally only thrives during times of peace. The Gothic buildings - cathedrals and others - all undeniably reflect peace, serenity, prosperity, and a flourishing, happy society. The statuary, obviously having used live models, shows us plump, well-fed people, with jovial expressions, fond of good living and satire. Even gargoyles are more comical than frightening, and the suffering Christs are generally depicted as “resting” rather than actually in torment. As Fulcanelli points out, if that period of history had been as “dark” as it is depicted, had the people been suffering and moaning in misery of human affliction, the art would have depicted it. But it didn’t. Something is, indeed, inexplicably amiss here. And, as Fulcanelli points out:
it is easy to fabricate texts and documents out of nothing. […] Falsification and counterfeiting are as old as the hills, and history, which abhors chronological vacuums, sometimes had to call [counterfeiters] to the rescue.218
In the seventeenth century, a Jesuit Father, Jean Hardouin, uncovered a fraud wherein locals were creating ancient Greek and Roman coins and medals and burying them about the countryside to “fill in the gaps” of history as well as make money by selling such “finds.” In 1639, a certain Jacques de Bie published The Families of France, Illustrated by the Monuments of Ancient and Modern Medals, which, according to Anatole de Montaiglon contained more “invented medals than real ones.”219 Fulcanelli goes on to cite more instances in which the possibility - probability - that our history has been largely fabricated looms as an ever-growing specter of confusion. We will discover, as we go along, that this problem of falsification of history is not just an idea, but also a FACT.
As it happens, there are some eminent experts in the present day who have smelled the rat and who propose the exact same thing that Fulcanelli has suggested. When we investigate the matter, we discover that the chronology of ancient and medieval history in its present form was created and completed to a considerable extent in a series of works during the 16th and 18th centuries, beginning with J. Scaliger (1540-1609), the “founder of modern chronological science.” and D. Petavius (1583-1652). Chronology is what tells us how much time has elapsed between some historical event and the present. To determine real chronology, one must be able to translate the data in the ancient documents into the terminology and units of modern time reckoning. Many historical conclusions and interpretations depend upon what dates we ascribe to the events in a given ancient document.
The accepted traditional chronology of ancient and medieval world rests on a foundation of quicksand. For example, between different versions of the dating of such an important event as the foundation of Rome, there exists a divergence of 500 years. What is more, falsification of numbers was carried out down even to contemporary history. Alexander Polyhistor took the first steps towards filling up the five hundred years, which were wanting to bring the destruction of Troy and the origin of Rome into the chronological connection. But, was he helping, or further confusing the matter? As it happens, according to another chronology, Troy had fallen at the same time as the foundation of Rome, and not 500 years before it.
Isaac Newton, as we will see, devoted many years to historical and chronological studies. He made up his own tables that came to be the generally accepted timeline. A lot of people are not aware that some of the important events of Greek history were arbitrarily moved forward by him as much as 300 years, and those of the Egyptian were moved forward up to a thousand years. Naturally, penetrating minds were able to discern the problems and as early as the sixteenth century. A.D., Professor of Salamanca University de Arcilla published two papers in which he stated that the whole of history earlier than the fourth century AD, had been falsified.
In more modern times, the first serious attempt to systematize the considerable critical material, and to analyze historical paradoxes and duplicates from the standpoint of natural science was undertaken by a Russian scientist and academician, N. A. Morozov (1854-1946). In 1994, A. T. Fomenko, a Russian Mathematician, published Empirico-statistical analysis of narrative materials and its applications to historical dating. The abstract of this book says:
These two volumes represent a major, unique work, which is the first of its kind published in the English language. A comprehensive set of new statistical techniques is presented for the analysis of historical and chronological data. These techniques constitute a new important trend in applied statistics.
The first volume concentrates mainly of the development of mathematical statistical tools and their applications to astronomical data: dating of ancient eclipses, dating of Almagest etc. The problems of correct dating for ancient and medieval events are discussed.
The second volume concentrates on the analysis of ancient and medieval chronicles and records (such as Egyptian, Byzantine, Roman, Greek, Babylonian, European etc.). An astonishing wealth of historical data is considered.
The conclusions, which are drawn concerning the accepted chronological dating of events in ancient history, will certainly provoke controversy and serious debate. The author suggested a new chronology, which is dramatically different from the traditional one. […]
The book provides the necessary background and material for intelligent participation in such debates.220
Fomenko’s work deserves far more discussion than I can devote to it here. I would like to note that mainstream historians and archaeologists are crying “Foul!” about it despite the fact that he has drawn some extraordinary conclusions and presents his thorough analyses with logical arguments and a sincere desire to get at the Truth. As we have already noted, it is increasingly clear that the “status quo” is more important to some people than the Truth. Regarding the medieval period with which we are presently concerned, Fomenko points out that
We have discovered that there exists a strong parallelism between durations of reigns for English history of 640-1327 A.D. from one side and Byzantine history of 378-830 A.D. continued by Byzantine history of 1143-1453 A.D. from another side.
[This parallelism] suggests that Byzantine is an original in above parallelism, and England before 1327 A.D. - a reflection. It could be seen […] how English history before 1327 A.D. was constructed from several reflections of the Byzantine Empire of 1143-1453 A.D. […]
The reader asks: How could the Byzantine chronicles be inserted into medieval English history (of the island Anglia)? The answer will be extremely simple if we will erase from our minds the picture, which is imposed by traditional Scaliger’s chronology.
Starting from 11th century, several crusades stormed the Byzantine Empire. Several feudal crusaders’ states were founded on the territory of Byzantine empire in 11-14th cc. In these states many nations were mixed: local population, the crusaders from England, France, Germany, Italy etc. In these crusaders’ regions and in Byzantine Empire the new culture was created, in particular, were written a historical chronicle. Among Byzantine inhabitants were a lot of people from Europe, in particular, from some island, which later will be called England. In 1453 AD Turks conquered Constantinople. Byzantine empire was ruined and the crowds of its inhabitants left the country. Many of them returned to Europe, to their old homeland. In particular - in the island Anglia.
These descendants of crusaders took with them their Byzantine historical chronicle, because these texts describe their own real history in Byzantine Empire (during many years - one or two hundreds years). Several decades passed. On the island Anglia starts the writing its history (i.e., the history of the people living on the island). In 16-17th centuries some qualified historians appear and start to create the general history of the whole land Anglia (“from the beginning”). They search for ancient documents. Suddenly they find several old trunks with “very old” documents. The documents are dusty, the paper is very fragile, and the old books fall to pieces. These chronicles were transported from Byzantine Empire. But now (in 16-17th cc.) nobody knew this. Unfortunately, the prehistory of these trunks is forgotten. And, unfortunately, is forgotten that these chronicles describe the history of ANOTHER LAND.
The English historians of 16-17th centuries carefully analyze these texts as the history “of island England” and put them into the basis of “old British-island history, which started many centuries ago”. In some strong sense they were right because really the authors of the chronicles were closely connected with island Anglia (but, let us repeat, described ANOTHER LAND - Byzantine empire). This process is quite natural and does not suggest any special falsification of the history. Such natural errors were inevitable at the first steps of creating of the general history. As a result, appeared such chronicles as Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Nennius’ chronicle etc.
After some time this wrong version of an old English history standing stock-still, becomes a “monument”. Further historians simply modify (only a little) the initial scheme of the history, add some new documents. And only today, using some statistical and other methods we start to discover some strange regularities inside the “history textbook” and start to realize that the real history was possibly sufficiently shorter and that today we need to remove from the “old English history” its “Byzantine part” and return this piece to its right place (in time and in the geographical sense). This procedure is very painful. We realize this because we discovered the same problem in the old Russian history, when we also found several chronological duplicates.
It is possible, that this process of “insertion of an old Byzantine chronicle” in the beginning of a “local history” is presented for several different regions, which were closely connected with Byzantine Empire. In particular, it is true for Russia, for England, for Rome, for Greece. […].221
And what are those corollaries? Well, if Fomenko is correct, the ancient histories of Byzantium were carried to Europe, and because many of the local legends also arrived from that region of the world, i.e. the Nart sagas, it was assumed that this was the real history of Britain and even Europe. In short, Fomenko’s idea connects events from the time of Jesus, and the area of the world in which Jesus was said to live, to the general area of the world from which the Nart Sagas originated, the roots of the Grail Legends, and they may all be a mythicized history, and historicized myth of actual seed events of real history that has been, until the present time, incompletely understood.
Again and again we are finding the threads leading off to the east - to Russia, Siberia - which happens to be the general area of the land of Colchis. ‘Apollodorus tells us about Hercules:
When the labours had been performed in eight years and a month, Eurystheus ordered Hercules, as an eleventh labour, to fetch golden apples from the Hesperides, for he did not acknowledge the labour of the cattle of Augeas nor that of the hydra.
These apples were not, as some have said, in Libya, but on Atlas among the Hyperboreans. They were presented (by Earth) to Zeus after his marriage with Hera, and guarded by an immortal dragon with a hundred heads, offspring of Typhon and Echidna, which spoke with many and divers sorts of voices. With it the Hesperides also were on guard, to wit, Aegle, Erythia, Hesperia, and Arethusa. […]
Now Prometheus had told Hercules not to go himself after the apples but to send Atlas, first relieving him of the burden of the sphere; so when he was come to Atlas in the land of the Hyperboreans, he took the advice and relieved Atlas. But when Atlas had received three apples from the Hesperides, he came to Hercules, and not wishing to support the sphere, he said that he would himself carry the apples to Eurystheus, and bade Hercules hold up the sky in his stead. Hercules promised to do so, but succeeded by craft in putting it on Atlas instead. For at the advice of Prometheus he begged Atlas to hold up the sky till he should, put a pad on his head. When Atlas heard that, he laid the apples down on the ground and took the sphere from Hercules. And so Hercules picked up the apples and departed. But some say that he did not get them from Atlas, but that he plucked the apples himself after killing the guardian snake. And having brought the apples he gave them to Eurystheus. But he, on receiving them, bestowed them on Hercules, from whom Athena got them and conveyed them back again; for it was not lawful that they should be laid down anywhere.’222
It is extremely interesting to note the similarity between the hydra - a hundred headed snake - and the gorgon slain by Perseus. We also note the connections to the Hyperboreans, and the fact that the Golden Apples were given to Athena, who was also gifted with the head of Medusa by Perseus. Another interesting note is that the area where these apples were located was the Hesperides which is said, in the account above, to be in the Land of the Hyperboreans. We also want to note that the same general story is told about the Quest for the Golden Fleece:
No sooner did Pelias hear that than he bade him go in quest of the fleece. Now it was at Colchis in a grove of Ares, hanging on an oak and guarded by a sleepless dragon.’
Medea guided Jason to the fleece by night and used her drugs to send the guardian dragon to sleep, and then, carrying the fleece with her, made her way back to the Argos with Jason.’
Curiously, the name “Pelleas” occurs in a number of Grail Stories. The important thing is, however, that we have a sneaking suspicion that this Colchis is also the Hesperides - the Land of the Hyperboreans. We also wonder about the possible relationship between “Arcadia“ and Colchis. If the ancient “Athenians“ of Plato’s tale were not actually from Athens, as we know it, then it is also possible that a far more ancient “Arcadia” existed as well.
