Historical Events Database - History

[Laura]

Re: Historical Events Database

Notice that I've got 1539 stuck on there with a question mark. It's the half-way between 1347 and 2013. I did a quick search and found this:

Meteors, Prodigies, and Signs: The Interpretation of the Unusual in Sixteenth-Century England
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/parergon/v029/29.1.carter.pdf

Abstract:

In sixteenth-century England, unusual events inspired religious and political interpretations. Some historians have viewed such responses as reactionary attempts to assign a spiritual gloss to fundamentally ordinary phenomena, a process that early modern thinkers rejected as they naturalized rare prodigies and brought them into a more secular and regular worldview. Such an explanation is inadequate to address the concerns of contemporaries who saw the concept of ‘natural’ itself as a problematic interpretation and who consequently sought to attribute a greater significance to extraordinary occurrences, allowing them to represent the potential for divine activity in the world.

Maybe we can get hold of the whole thing?

Later on in the century there was this:

The current All Fools’ Day tradition can be traced back to 16th century France, when the beginning of the New Year was originally observed on April 1. This was celebrated then, as New Year is today, with parties and dancing late into the night. In 1582, however, during the reign of the French King Charles IX, Pope Gregory introduced a revised calendar for the Christian world which meant that New Year fell on January 1. Since it took some time for many people to hear word of the change (communications being what they were in the 16th century), New Year's Day continued to be celebrated on the first day of April in many areas. The more stubborn simply refused to accept the change. People who had accepted the dates of the new calendar played tricks on those who had not and referred to the victims of such pranks as "April Fools," sending them on a "fool's errand".

This evolved into an annual tradition, migrating to England and Scotland during the 18th Century and was introduced to the American colonies by British and French settlers.

Tradition dictates that pranking must stop at noon.

This was interesting, though not really related:

Flicker Spirits
The words “Flimmern” and “Geist” are Germanic in origin and translate as Flicker-Spirits or Flicker-Guides. This unexplained phenomenon was first described by the alchemist Jakob Bohme in the 16th Century as the ability to see shadowy figures out of the corner of your eye. Generally, these beings flicker in-and-out of a person’s peripheral vision and appear to be humanoid, dark and agile.

This was weird:

A treasure-transporting tornado is the given explanation for why a shower of 16th-century coins fell from the sky on June 16, 1940, in the Russian village of Meschera. Archaeologists who analyzed the aged currency supposed that it was from an undiscovered, buried trove that recently had been exposed by soil erosion before being scooped up and redeposited by the storm.

Same page shows at the top a woman who was struck by a meteorite!!! http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/natural-disasters/4331114

 

[Persej]

Re: Historical Events Database

It was funny that, in order to make it work, I had to add 141 years of "historical expansion" to two periods which is about how much things are off.

But that means that we live in 1732 (2014 - 2*141), not 1873?

 

[Laura]

Re: Historical Events Database

It was funny that, in order to make it work, I had to add 141 years of "historical expansion" to two periods which is about how much things are off.

But that means that we live in 1732 (2014 - 2*141), not 1873?

You are right. Well, like I said, it's just a first playing with it. So there wasn't a second stretch. Scratch that off. There WAS another stretch, though, but I haven't yet figured out where it goes. I think it goes in before Diocletian because Ammianus remarks about the "destruction of Gaul" only the part of his history that talks about it is the very part that is missing.

 

[Human]

Re: Historical Events Database

Playing with numbers (it's fun although a better assessment of the events must be done):
If the destruction of Rome occurred in ~1014 but misdated to 534
If the black death was correctly dated in ~1348
If again the great comet of 1680-1681 was correctly dated,
Then we could be in some really dire straits :D

Thing is, we can note the number of years between events by ice-cores and tree-rings. What I think was happening was that years were added to "pad" the history of Christianity to give it more "authority" and make it seem like a safe refuge from catastrophe.

I was reading the paper mkrnr found and translated for me today and even if the guy doesn't realize that it's really about REPEATING, CYCLIC disasters, he had some good insights.

Examples: 1) his remark that Christianity could NOT have been imposed without a cataclysm... a religion of fear and constant prayer toward a fearful god; 2) his conjecture about the slaves in Alexandria reading the Septuagint. Put that together with the cult of Caesar and you have a volatile mix, especially among Jews and slaves mixed. It's probably in that milieu that gnosticism had its greatest development.

Anyway, while I was sitting at the table reading, and some of the numbers he was tossing out were popping up and down in my head, I made a little diagram at the bottom of the page. I've scanned it and attached as PDF to this post so you can see what I'm thinking.

I think that there were something like 300 years between events and since those guys playing with history and stuff were also into numerology, it would be entirely their style to add deal with the historical prestidigitation this way. It was funny that, in order to make it work, I had to add 141 years of "historical expansion" to two periods which is about how much things are off. Interestingly, 141 adds up to 6 and 3 such periods would be 666. And then, two of the 333 year periods, which is how the numbers sorted from 540 to 1014 to 1347 - three known events - add up to 666.

Anyway, take a look at how I was playing with it.

I'm looking at it and don't get something.
You say (and indicate) you had to add two 141 year periods, but to me it seems that the middle interval equals to 333 in both cases, real/actual and expanded.
I think that's the reason Persej was confused, upper numbers include only one 141 period, although two are shown.

Could it be that they (whoever) added some period prior to 540 AD?
540 AD - 141 - 333 = 66 AD

I don't get why was 1539 AD selected (marked) also, because it's not half-way between 1347 and 2013; at the middle point is 1680 AD (333 years from 1347 AD). That year there was the Great Comet of 1680 as mkrnhr said, first comet discovered with telescope _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/1680_V1
Maybe that helps...

edit: And yeah mkrnhr, I think we are in dire straits, regardless the comets or not :)
When posted yesterday, the C's line "cycle within cycles" came to my mind, and was thinking that I missed some shorter cycle with my number play. Anyway, if a period was added prior to 540 AD it leads again to mid 1st century, and only thing that crossed my mind was the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD.

 

[Human]

Re: Historical Events Database

Few thoughts about playing with numbers in context of historical timeline.
Regarding the numerology and the usual fixation people dealing with it exhibit, I would expect that the digits of inserted time period sum up to 9 so not to disrupt the numerological predictions later on (and, if possible, taking into account the 11s and 22s).
Also, if somebody wanted to hide the cyclical nature of an event, I would not expect the same inserted period into two consecutive cycles because it would not obscure the periodicity itself. The result would be cyclical event with different (apparently larger) period.

 

[Laura]

Re: Historical Events Database

Few thoughts about playing with numbers in context of historical timeline.
Regarding the numerology and the usual fixation people dealing with it exhibit, I would expect that the digits of inserted time period sum up to 9 so not to disrupt the numerological predictions later on (and, if possible, taking into account the 11s and 22s).
Also, if somebody wanted to hide the cyclical nature of an event, I would not expect the same inserted period into two consecutive cycles because it would not obscure the periodicity itself. The result would be cyclical event with different (apparently larger) period.

True.

As I said, I was just casually playing with a jotted timeline. From what I have learned from the tree-rings from Mike Baillie and the cybis.se website, http://www.cybis.se/forfun/dendro/hollstein/index.php , the conclusion is:

The result was overwhelming! We did not see a trace of the "correct" conventional dating, but instead a well discriminated match 218 years later than expected with a T-value between 5.0 and 6.5 (depending on the normalization method used), and with a high skeleton chi2-value. We then also confirmed a 218 years offset with reasonable correlation between Roman time and recent time local oak masters.

Conclusions. Until somebody demonstrates a better alternative, we consider these results as a proof that there are invented years in our time line, possibly 232 years as proposed in our astronomical excursions.

So, maybe some of ya'll can look at this and make some sense of it.

The astronomical part is very troubling as well. It is discussed in a paper on Bela Lukacs website:
http://www.rmki.kfki.hu/~lukacs/lukacs.html

In particular here: http://www.rmki.kfki.hu/~lukacs/FOMENKO1.htm
and here: http://www.rmki.kfki.hu/~lukacs/BACKARI3.htm

My suggestion is that not only do we have invented years in history, but that in the "invention" process, info about "famous eclipses" was written in, only the details of a more recent eclipse was substituted.

 

[Laura]

Re: Historical Events Database


I wrote to the Larrson's to see if they had any ideas about how to adjust the history. Here is their response:

Our research is striktly limited to natural sciences, almost exclusively dendrochronology.
Our results are pretty much compatible with Mike Baillie's, except for the links of an about 1000 years long tree-ring chronology representing roughly the first millennium BC and synchronizing against data of archaeologically Roman origin. We suspect that this (in itself consistent) chronology is dated too old by 218 years, which would mean that "Roman times" have to appear more than twohundred years nearer to our time. (Please note that the calendar error not necessarily has to be the same as the dendro error.)
This is the only result we can tell you, you have to "adjust" history yourself.

Best regards, Petra & Lars-Åke

 

[Human]

Re: Historical Events Database

I've been going through the posted links, and only thing I can say for now is that it's really a mess. :)

Short overview is:

Baillie in _http://archeo4.arch.unipi.it/arias/materiali_web/dendrocronologia/baillie_2002_future%20in%20dendrochron%20and%20archaeol.pdf discusses dendrochronology and gives some dates for possible extraterrestrial impacts: 2345 BC, 1628 BC, 1159 BC, 207 BC and AD 540. So far I didn't notice anything about "adjusted" historical timeline. It needs to be seen what was used as a "reference curve" for his chronology.

Guys from _http://www.cybis.se/forfun/dendro/hollstein/index.php state the things they replied to Laura - 218 additional years.
In addition, they also did excursion into astronomy, matching some distinct eclipses with the help of _http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html, and came to conclusion that there could be 232 additional years inserted into the timeline. At the end they toss a reference to Coptic Calendar _http://www.copticchurch.net/easter.html which is currently at year 1730, and speculate what could be the origin point.
The only more or less hard fact is correlation between tree rings that "adjusts" timeline for 218 years.

Lukacs has some good points but evades to give a conclusive statement, at least I haven't seen it on _http://www.rmki.kfki.hu/~lukacs/FOMENKO1.htm
When examining the plots of deltaT quantity (differences between times)

In order to calculate for a given place on earth the precise circumstances of an eclipse, it is necessary to know the difference between "Terrestrial Time" (TT), formerly "Ephemeris Time" (ET), and "Universal Time" (UT).

This difference TT - UT = DeltaT.

Especially in the case of solar eclipses a precise knowledge of deltaT is indispensable, since deltaT determines a.o. the times of contact and the magnitude of the eclipse at a given place.

the disappointing part was to see that his statement about "smoothness" when switching from different sets of data is not exactly correct, the "break", change in trend at -500 can be seen in attached plot.
He basically "glued" together three different sets of data and fitted a parabola, which then had "problems" in adjustment to data points.
There is also the caution note on the website where data can be downloaded

It is important to pay attention to the differences in deltaT, depending on the author especially when studying old eclipses, say before AD 1000.
In AD 1500 there is a difference of 95 seconds between the values given by Stephenson & Houlden in 1986 and those by Stephenson in 1997;
In AD 1000 the difference is only 25 seconds between the values given by Stephenson & Houlden and Stephenson, but there is a difference of almost 200 seconds with the Jones' values;
In AD 500 the difference between the Stephensons & Houlden (1986) and Stephenson (1997) values amount to 1123 seconds, while the difference with Jones' values reach 818 seconds;
For the earlier centuries the differences are rapidly increasing to exceed 11400 seconds (this is more than 3 hours !!) around 2000 BC.

When studying ancient eclipses it is important to keep these uncertainties in mind.

Errors of a few minutes will probable hardly affect our ideas of the perception of ancient observers, except perhaps in the case of total or near total solar eclipses that might become near total or total respectively, or in the case of eclipses starting or ending at dawn or sundown.
For the more remote past, when uncertainties in delta T become increasingly important, precise calculations for a given place tend to become very problematic indeed.

Nevertheless, it seems that data from cca 300 BC to AD 1000 don't resemble a parabola.

Bottom line, for now, there is a discrepancy between "official" and actual historical timelines, but to establish how and where the years were added/removed needs more digging and researching.
FWIW, regarding the character of Christianity, two events stick out as possibly important for timeline adjustment, the Caesar's comet 44 BC and Constantine's "In hoc signo vinces" AD 312.
Also, as noted before, there are the events AD 1014 and AD 1347.

 

[Human]

Re: Historical Events Database

More detailed study of Lukacs' article and the deltaT data lead to conclusion that info about eclipses was tampered with.

My suggestion is that not only do we have invented years in history, but that in the "invention" process, info about "famous eclipses" was written in, only the details of a more recent eclipse was substituted.

Another possibility would be that time was not slightly and continuously rescaled, which would not give correct results as Lukacs showed, but that timeline was singularly altered at some (or several) points in history, what Larsson's demonstrated possible with their "astronomical excursions".

Although history and astronomy are not my areas, for proper timeline adjustment, I would suggest running a cross reference with Asiatic records, especially with Chinese ones. Not so much using the eclipses, since they are more of a local character, but "guest stars", comets and (super)novae.
Knowing that there are no European records about one of most famous supernova, SN 1054, that was visible for two years (apparently because European astronomers were preoccupied with Church schism at that time :)), the current dating of Asiatic records is not so reliable.

In addition, the identification of SN 1054 with Crab nebula is also doubtful

The location of the guest star as “to the south-east of Tianguan, perhaps several inches away “ has perplexed modern astronomers, because the Crab nebula is not situated in the south-east, but to the north-west of Zeta Tauri.

On the other hand, relative time dating of Chinese records (time periods between events) was possibly less altered than European timeline, so identifying some events in both chronologies could help in determination of at least relative timeline in Europe.

 

[Laura]

Re: Historical Events Database

Yeah, it's a huge mess.

My problem is that I KNOW the history and it has real problems. And it seems clear to me that there was deliberate cover-up at one point, for sure, and maybe several. But I don't know how to deal with the astronomical or dendrochronology things because they use a lot of jargon and I'm lousy at math.

The further problem is that, yeah, historians get into text analysis, paleography, comparison and collating, but they are all working from the premise that our timeline is pretty much okay - just a tweak here and there and all will be fine. So nearly all of them are NOT looking for solutions to the obvious, glaring, historical time-line problems in any really open-minded way.

Probably a more useful thing to do would be to establish backward when and where eclipses might have occurred to see what might have been witnessed by those who might have been re-writing history for various purposes and who may then have inserted some "details" about an eclipse with which they were familiar into a text that mentioned an eclipse, but didn't give details, and they were wanting to make it more "real" or believable.

This problem with the chunk of environmental data that appears in Gregory of Tours while there is a complete gap in the Eastern chronicles is like a smoking gun to me. I'll attach the table so you can see what I mean.

What it says to me is that the tradition of including portents and prodigies was so ingrained, so much expected, that it was seen as necessary to have such events as the skeleton on which the fake history (Gregory of Tours) was hung. And since there were real events in a chronicle that occurred during the period that the writer of the history wished to cover, it was seen as clever to just lift them and then destroy the parts of the real histories to which they belonged so that the theft would not be noticed.

I also think that, in spite of the fact that they might "dress up" an event (describe details of a recent eclipse at the spot where an ancient eclipse is mentioned) or "lift events bodily" from one text and put them in another, these people were unlikely to just MAKE THEM UP because they truly believed that portents and prodigies were like "acts of God". That may even have been the motivation in the Gregory of Tours case: "we can't make that up because God might punish us for hubris, but God won't mind if we use his acts for holy purposes", i.e. creating a fake history to justify God's chosen.

 

[Laura]

Re: Historical Events Database

Another problem is The Apocalypse of St. John.

Fomenko establishes quite compellingly that the opening part of Revelation is a horoscope that can be dated to 1486.

http://<iframe width="420" height="...eM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This was right in the middle of the Florentine Renaissance when a whole lot of texts were being recovered and re-copied, so the horoscope COULD have been put in then UNLESS it is found in the very ancient texts.

Regarding the text itself:

Justin Martyr (c. 100–165 AD) who was acquainted with Polycarp, who had been mentored by John, makes a possible allusion to this book, and credits John as the source.[8] Irenaeus (c. 115–202) assumes it as a conceded point. At the end of the 2nd century, it is accepted at Antioch by Theophilus (died c. 183), and in Africa by Tertullian (c. 160–220). At the beginning of the 3rd century, it is adopted by Clement of Alexandria and by Origen of Alexandria, later by Methodius, Cyprian, Lactantius,[citation needed] Dionysius of Alexandria,[9] and in the 5th century by Quodvultdeus.[10] Eusebius (c. 263–339) was inclined to class the Apocalypse with the accepted books but also listed it in the Antilegomena, with his own reservation for identification of John of Patmos with John the Apostle, pointing out there were large differences in Greek skill and styles between the Gospel of John, which he attributed to John the Apostle, and the Revelation.[11] Jerome (347–420) relegated it to second class.[12] Most canons included it, but some in the Eastern Church rejected it. It is not included in the Peshitta (an early Syriac translation of the Christian Bible).[13]...

{But, whatever they may have been referring to may not necessarily be the exact same text we have today thanks to "emendation" and creative description of astrological signs and symbols inserted for an unknown reason.}

The English Biblical scholar Robert Henry Charles (1855–1931) reasoned on internal textual grounds that the book was edited by someone who spoke no Hebrew and who wished to promote a different theology from that of John. As a result, everything after 20:3, claims Charles, has been left in a haphazard state with no attempt to structure it logically. Furthermore, he says, the story of the defeat of the ten kingdoms has been deleted and replaced by 19:9–10.[17] John's theology of chastity has been replaced by the editor's theology of outright celibacy, which makes little sense when John's true church is symbolised as a bride of the Lamb. Most importantly, the editor has completely rewritten John's theology of the Millennium, which is "emptied of all significance."[18]

It is apparently written in "pidgen Greek", i.e. VERY BAD Greek.

Regarding the MS history:

There are approximately 230 Greek manuscripts available for the reconstructing of the original reading of Revelation. Major texts used are: the uncial scripts Codex Sinaiticus (4th century), Codex Alexandrinus (5th century), and Codex Ephraemi (5th century); the papyri, especially that of p47 (3rd century); the minuscules (8th to 10th century); the church father quotations (2nd to 5th centuries); and the Greek commentary on Revelation by Andreas (6th century).[36]

{There are actually a few codices that are said to be that old. The usual way they are dated is by the type of script used, i.e. uncial or miniscule or whatever. I don't think that any scientific dating has been done on these very old MSS, but I may be wrong. Something to look into.}

Some have argued that the author originally wrote Revelation in Aramaic and it was later translated into common Koine Greek. However, the Semitic words and phrases used throughout the book are evidence that Revelation is good "Jewish Greek" as used in 1st century Palestine. Though not proven, this hypothesis may explain the numerous grammatical imperfections of the text.[42] The errors in Greek may demonstrate that the writer's original language was not Greek.[43]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation

So, the question is, can it be established that the figures that Fomenko points out are a horoscope (convincingly) were present in the same form in the ANCIENT texts? If so, we have a problem. Or may have. We do not have to accept that Fomenko's interpretation is the right one, but he makes a darn good case for it.

If not, we may be looking at an editorial interpolation/addition and the horoscope itself would tell us WHEN this was done, so we would have a selection of likely suspects. So that is a question that needs to be researched. Here is some alleged "history" of the time for possible clues: http://www.telusplanet.net/dgarneau/euro59.htm

Next item of Fomenko's claims is that, according to the astronomical evidence, i.e. the eclipses and certain other details, Jesus was born in 1056 and crucified in 1083. Again, if - as I think - familiar details of an experienced eclipse were inserted to "flesh out" the text, this would give us an approximate date of when this editorial insertion was made.

Note that in 1054 there was a supernova that became the Crab Nebula but it was not recorded by Europeans but was recorded by the Chinese and the Arabs. Why is this not in European history? Here is some "history" of that period for possible clues. http://www.telusplanet.net/dgarneau/euro49.htm

 

[Dirgni]

Re: Historical Events Database

{Hmmm... another source to check out? Widukind?}

I ordered the Latin/German Reclam version of the Res gestae saxonicae / Die Sachsengeschichte (The History of the Saxons) by Widukind of Corvey.
http://www.amazon.de/Res-gestae-Saxonicae-Die-Sachsengeschichte/dp/3150076994/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391859384&sr=8-1&keywords=Widukind+Corvey

Wikipedia tells that:
Widukind of Corvey (c. 925 – after 973) was a medieval Saxon chronicler. His three-volume Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres is an important chronicle of 10th-century Germany during the rule of the Ottonian dynasty.
Widukind first wrote several Christian hagiographies before he began his Res gestae saxonicae.:)

In my opinion it is maybe as "history" as "History of the Franks" by Gregory of Tours - but without portents. The part I read is just about a lot of fights and the "great deeds" of the rulers and the tribe of the Saxons. I had the impression that it was just tried to enlarge the deeds of an "Saxon elite" to a "history" with the aim to legitimate their claim to rule an as large part of "Europe" as they can get. Its language reminds me of the language used by managers of larger companies or politicians of the last one or two decades ("Was it just propaganda at that time???"). Widukind first wrote several Christian hagiographies before he began his Res gestae saxonicae - this makes me think. The Res gestae saxonicae is one the major sources of history of this time - this makes me think, too.

This "chronicle" could be quite accurate when it was written about a time very near to the time it tells about (assuming that it really happened). At least it presents some of the opinions about its topic and of the time when it was written. One may be able to dig up some hints below the story e.g. something mentioned not or in a different way one expects.

Interestingly Rome (people, pope) seems to be of no interest as it was not mentioned at all but only (travels to) Italy. The author tried to connect the Saxon past to the Greek and Alexander the Great. Constantinople and Greece seemed to be important and Rome not.

Just my 2 cents :/

English translation of some parts of "The Deeds of the Saxons, or Three Books of Annals"
_http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/download/1150/the_deeds_of_the_saxons_by_widukind_of_korvey (parts)

Widukindus Corbeius: Rerum gestarum Saxonicarum libri tres
http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost10/Widukind/wid_sax0.html

Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Res_gestae_saxonicae_sive_annalium_libri_tres

Widukind of Corvey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widukind_of_Corvey

 

[Human]

Re: Historical Events Database

The situation with Gregory of Tours looks like "classic" mathematical interpolation procedure to me. You pin two known points (start and end) and assume the behaviour between them according to trends before and after.
Looking at http://www.telusplanet.net/dgarneau/euro41.htm and http://www.telusplanet.net/dgarneau/euro42.htm to put things into some historical context, what stood out for me was that the interpolated time period included the siege of Rome and happened exactly before Gregory I, pope in Rome, took all power in his hands which was the first time some pope did that.

Gregory I, the bishop of Rome (590-604) assumed secular responsibility for the defense of Rome against the Lombard attacks and the supervision of the police, Law courts, markets, schools and utilities. This established an extremely dangerous president as Christ had warned the Church that God's Kingdom is not of this world. To this point in history, the Church focused on Authority not Responsibility. Gregory would combine Authority and Responsibility or Spiritual and Secular that would manifest all sorts of evil activities within the Church.

Note that in 1054 there was a supernova that became the Crab Nebula but it was not recorded by Europeans but was recorded by the Chinese and the Arabs. Why is this not in European history? Here is some "history" of that period for possible clues. http://www.telusplanet.net/dgarneau/euro49.htm

The situation with SN 1054 is not so clear.

Wikipedia says.

"the spectacular supernova (stellar explosion) of 1054, which produced the Crab Nebula, went virtually unrecorded in Islamic texts even though it was widely noted in China." Owen Gingerich, Islamic astronomy, Scientific American, April 1986 v254 p74(10). There is also a 13th-century Japanese reference to this "guest star" in Meigetsuki. The event was long considered unrecorded in Islamic astronomy, but in 1978 a reference was found in a 13th-century copy made by Ibn Abi Usaybi'a (1194–1270) of a work by Ibn Butlan, a Nestorian Christian physician active in Baghdad.

The only Arab record.

While SN 1006, which was significantly brighter, was mentioned by several Arab chroniclers, there exist no Arabic reports relating to the rather faint SN 1181. Only one Arabic account has been found concerning SN 1054, whose brightness is between those of the last two stars mentioned. This account, discovered in 1978, is that of a Nestorian Christian doctor, Ibn Butlan, transcribed in the Uyun al-Anba, a book compiled by Ibn Abi Usaybi'a (1194–1270) in the mid-thirteenth century. This is a translation of the passage in question:

"I copied the following hand written testimony [that of Ibn Butlan]. He stated: “One of the famous epidemics of our time has occurred when a spectacular star appeared in [the zodiac star] Gemini, of the year 446 [of the Muslim calendar]. In the autumn of that year, fourteen thousand people were buried in Constantinople. Thereafter, in the middle of the summer of 447, the majority of the Fostat people [Le Caire] and all foreigners died”. He [Ibn Butlan] continues: “While this spectacular star appeared during the sign of Gemini [...] it provoked the beginning of the Fostat epidemic when the Nile was low in 445.” "

The three years cited (AH 445, 446, 447) refer, respectively, to: 23 April 1053 – 11 April 1054, 12 April 1054 – 1 April 1055, and 2 April 1055 – 20 March 1056. There is an apparent inconsistency in the year of occurrence of the star, first announced as 446, then 445. This problem is solved by reading other entries in the book, which quite explicitly specify that the Nile was low at 446. This year of the Muslim calendar ran from 12 April 1054 to 1 April 1055, which is compatible with the appearance of the star in July 1054, as its location (admittedly rather vague), is in the astrological sign of Gemini (which, due to Axial precession, covers the eastern part of the Constellation Taurus).The date of the event in 446 is harder to determine, but the reference to the level of the Nile refers to the period preceding its annual flood, which happens during the summer.

There are several possible European records.

In 1999, George W. Collins and his colleagues[12] defended the plausibility of European sighting of SN 1054. They argue that the records suggest that European sightings even predate Chinese and Japanese reports by more than two months (April 1054). These authors emphasize the problems associated with the Chinese reports, especially the position of the supernova relative to Zeta Tauri. They also adduce a Khitan document which they suggest might establish observation of the supernova at the time of the solar eclipse of 10 May 1054 (which would corrobate the "late" date of Chinese observation of the event). Conversely, they interpret the European documents, taken in conjunction, as plausibly establishing that an unusual astronomical phenomenon was visible in Europe in the spring of 1054, i.e. even before the Sun's conjunction with Zeta Tauri. They also surmise that the correct year in the report by Ibn Butlan is AH 445 (23 April 1053 – 11 April 1054) rather than AH 446 (12 April 1054 – 1 April 1055).

The publication by Collins et al. was criticised by Stephenson and Green (2003). These authors insist that the problems with the Chinese and Japanese documents can easily be resolved philologically (as common copyists' mistakes) and need not indicate unreliability of the Chinese observations. Stephenson and Green condemn attempts at uncovering European sightings of the supernova as it were at any cost as suffering from confirmation bias, "anxious to ensure that this event was recorded by Europeans".[20] They also reject the idea of the Khitan document referring to the supernova as a mistake based in a translation of the document, and as inconsistent with astronomical reality. Green and Stephenson (2003) thus argue for the standing majority consensus established by 1995, to the effect that the European documents do not offer themselves to an interpretation as sightings of SN 1054.[13] The thesis of Collins et al. upon publication was reviewed in the magazine Ciel & Espace with some enthusiasm[21] but it has not received much attention since its rejection by Stephenson and Green (2003).[22]

Note that F.R.Stephenson is the physicist who also provided data of historical eclipses, that Lukacs uses in his article. I don't know if he has anything to do with Fomenko's studies, but something smells fishy, like there is an intention to deliberately diminish the value and discredit the European history and historians, from "more scientific", astronomical point of view.

In addition, the identification of SN 1054 with the Crab nebula, which is not without problems, is incorporated (like one of the basics) into supernovae research, and all associated astronomical objects, in their evolution/development. If the dating (or identification) is not correct, it puts supernova physics (including gravitational collapse into black hole) into potential problems also. And, as stated before, there has been no correct supernova theory/model up to now.

 

[Dirgni]

Re: Historical Events Database

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.... :/

 

[Laura]

Re: Historical Events Database

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.... :/

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.