Historical Events Database - History

[Laura]

Re: Historical Events Database

By the way, the quoted text in the previous post is from Lapidge's "The Anglo Saxon Library".

Since I'm working this out in my head as I go along, let's continue and if anybody finds anything to add or sees a big glitch, let me know.

So, we have a story about some monks heading for the hills of England in 597 on a "Gregorian Mission" to convert the Anglo Saxons following which, we supposedly have some Greek monkly types with high-sounding titles traveling up there with a bunch of books. Let's see if there is a connection.

I wrote above about the Gregorian mission: "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!" Let's check a quick Roman History Timeline according to the mainstream:

380 - The Ostrogothic Christian emperor Theodosius makes Christianity the official religion of Rome, persecuting pagans and destroying temples.

395 - Ravenna becomes the capital of the Western Roman Empire, whilst Constantinople that of the east.

410 - Rome is sacked by Alaric, King of the Visigoths

455 - Rome is sacked by Genseric, King of the Vandals

476 - Romulus Augustulus is deposed, traditionally considered the end of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages in Europe. Byzantium continues to be the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.

496 - The first pope to achieve the Pontifex Maximus is Anastasius II.

{60 year skip?}

546 - Rome is sacked by Totila, King of the Ostrogoths

c. 590 - 604 - Pope Gregory the Great makes the Christian church exceedingly strong.

609 - The Pantheon becomes a Christian church.

630 - The Church of Sant' Agnese is the first Roman church to be constructed in Byzantine style.

725 - The King Ine of Wessex is the first man to create a hostel for pilgrims to Rome.

778 - Charlemagne conquers Italy and Rome. {And thus could plunder and control manuscripts almost at will unless they were carefully hidden.}

800 - Charlemagne is crowned the emperor in St. Peter's Basilica. {Never mind that Rome was still in ruins.}

Here is the other side of that story from Wikipedia, seriously dressed up, I should add: (for notes and references, check Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Canterbury )

After the withdrawal of the Roman legions from their province of Britannia in 410, the inhabitants were left to defend themselves against the attacks of the Saxons. Before the Roman withdrawal Britannia had been converted to Christianity and produced the ascetic Pelagius.[4][5] Britain sent three bishops to the Council of Arles in 314, and a Gaulish bishop went to the island in 396 to help settle disciplinary matters.[6] Material remains testify to a growing presence of Christians, at least until around 360.[7] After the Roman legions departed, pagan tribes settled the southern parts of the island while western Britain, beyond the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, remained Christian. This native British Church developed in isolation from Rome under the influence of missionaries from Ireland[4][5] and was centred on monasteries instead of bishoprics. Other distinguishing characteristics were its calculation of the date of Easter and the style of the tonsure haircut that clerics wore.[5][8] Evidence for the survival of Christianity in the eastern part of Britain during this time includes the survival of the cult of Saint Alban and the occurrence in place names of eccles, derived from the Latin ecclesia, meaning "church".[9] There is no evidence that these native Christians tried to convert the Anglo-Saxons.[10][11] The invasions destroyed most remnants of Roman civilisation in the areas held by the Saxons and related tribes, including the economic and religious structures .[12]

{Here we see another major destruction attributed to barbarian invaders. In fact, if one reads Nennius carefully, it seems that this may have been another instance of cometary destruction and it was covered up in the Roman history by the alleged sack of Rome by Alaric. Do note that sacking Rome wouldn't have made much difference since the capital of the Western Empire had already been moved to Ravenna and was to stay there, and be called "Rome" for a very long time. Anyway, a hundred years supposedly goes by while Britain is in "darkness" or basically on its own and then...}

It was against this background that Pope Gregory I decided to send a mission, often called the Gregorian mission, to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity in 595.[13][14] The Kingdom of Kent was ruled by Æthelberht, who married a Christian princess named Bertha before 588,[15] and perhaps earlier than 560.[16] Bertha was the daughter of Charibert I, one of the Merovingian kings of the Franks. ...

The historian Ian Wood feels that the initiative came from the Kentish court as well as the queen.[19] Other historians, however, believe that Gregory initiated the mission, although the exact reasons remain unclear. Bede, an 8th-century monk who wrote a history of the English church, recorded a famous story in which Gregory saw fair-haired Saxon slaves from Britain in the Roman slave market and was inspired to try to convert their people.[21] More practical matters, such as the acquisition of new provinces acknowledging the primacy of the papacy, and a desire to influence the emerging power of the Kentish kingdom under Æthelberht, were probably involved.[18] The mission may have been an outgrowth of the missionary efforts against the Lombards who, as pagans and Arian Christians, were not on good relations with the Catholic church in Rome.[22]

....Trade between the Franks and Æthelberht's kingdom was well established, and the language barrier between the two regions was apparently only a minor obstacle, as the interpreters for the mission came from the Franks. Lastly, Kent's proximity to the Franks allowed support from a Christian area.[23] There is some evidence, including Gregory's letters to Frankish kings in support of the mission, that some of the Franks felt that they had a claim to overlordship over some of the southern British kingdoms at this time. ... Frankish influence was not merely political; archaeological remains attest to a cultural influence as well.[24]

In 595, Gregory chose Augustine, who was the prior of the Abbey of St Andrew's in Rome, to head the mission to Kent.[13] The pope selected monks to accompany Augustine and sought support from the Frankish royalty and clergy in a series of letters, of which some copies survive in Rome. He wrote to King Theuderic II of Burgundy and to King Theudebert II of Austrasia, as well as their grandmother Brunhild, seeking aid for the mission. Gregory thanked King Chlothar II of Neustria for aiding Augustine. Besides hospitality, the Frankish bishops and kings provided interpreters and Frankish priests to accompany the mission.[25] By soliciting help from the Frankish kings and bishops, Gregory helped to assure a friendly reception for Augustine in Kent, as Æthelbert was unlikely to mistreat a mission which visibly had the support of his wife's relatives and people.[26] Moreover, the Franks appreciated the chance to participate in mission that would extend their influence in Kent. Chlothar, in particular, needed a friendly realm across the Channel to help guard his kingdom's flanks against his fellow Frankish kings.[27]...

Augustine was accompanied by Laurence of Canterbury, his eventual successor to the archbishopric, and a group of about 40 companions, some of whom were monks.[15] ... In 597, Augustine and his companions landed in Kent.[15] They achieved some initial success soon after their arrival:[22][28] Æthelberht permitted the missionaries to settle and preach in his capital of Canterbury where they used the church of St Martin's for services.[30] Neither Bede nor Gregory mentions the date of Æthelberht's conversion,[31] but it probably took place in 597.[30][c] In the early medieval period, large-scale conversions required the ruler's conversion first, and Augustine is recorded as making large numbers of converts within a year of his arrival in Kent.[30] Also, by 601, Gregory was writing to both Æthelberht and Bertha, calling the king his son and referring to his baptism.[d] A late medieval tradition, recorded by the 15th-century chronicler Thomas Elmham, gives the date of the king's conversion as Whit Sunday, or 2 June 597; there is no reason to doubt this date, although there is no other evidence for it.[30] Against a date in 597 is a letter of Gregory's to Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria in June 598, which mentions the number of converts made by Augustine, but does not mention any baptism of the king. However, it is clear that by 601 the king had been converted.[32] His baptism likely took place at Canterbury.[33] ...

In a letter Gregory wrote to the patriarch of Alexandria in 598, he claimed that more than 10,000 Christians had been baptised; the number may be exaggerated but there is no reason to doubt that a mass conversion took place.[15][28] However, there were probably some Christians already in Kent before Augustine arrived, remnants of the Christians who lived in Britain in the later Roman Empire.[11] Little literary traces remain of them, however.[38] One other effect of the king's conversion by Augustine's mission was that the Frankish influence on the southern kingdoms of Britain was decreased.[39]

Contemporary letters from Pope Gregory, however, refer to Augustine as a bishop before he arrived in England. A letter of Gregory's from September 597 calls Augustine a bishop, and one dated ten months later says Augustine had been consecrated on Gregory's command by bishops of the German lands.[34] {How then, did the English monks later presume to send missionaries to Germany???} The historian R. A. Markus discusses the various theories of when and where Augustine was consecrated, and suggests he was consecrated before arriving in England, but argues the evidence does not permit deciding exactly where this took place.[35]

Soon after his arrival, Augustine founded the monastery of Saints Peter and Paul, which later became St Augustine's Abbey,[22] on land donated by the king.[36] ...

...Augustine sent Laurence back to Rome with a report of his success, along with questions about the mission.[40] Bede records the letter and Gregory's replies in chapter 27 of his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum; this section of the History is usually known as the Libellus responsionum.[41][42] Augustine asked for Gregory's advice on a number of issues, including how to organise the church, the punishment for church robbers, guidance on who was allowed to marry whom, and the consecration of bishops. Other topics were relations between the churches of Britain and Gaul, childbirth and baptism, and when it was lawful for people to receive communion and for a priest to celebrate mass.[42]

Further missionaries were sent from Rome in 601. They brought a pallium for Augustine and a present of sacred vessels, vestments, relics, and books.[e] The pallium was the symbol of metropolitan status, and signified that Augustine was now an archbishop unambiguously associated with the Holy See. Along with the pallium, a letter from Gregory directed the new archbishop to ordain 12 suffragan bishops as soon as possible and to send a bishop to York. Gregory's plan was that there would be two metropolitans, one at York and one at London, with 12 suffragan bishops under each archbishop. As part of this plan, Augustine was expected to transfer his archiepiscopal see to London from Canterbury. The move from Canterbury to London never happened; no contemporary sources give the reason,[47] but it was probably because London was not part of Æthelberht's domains. Instead, London was part of the kingdom of Essex, ruled by Æthelberht's nephew Saebert of Essex, who converted to Christianity in 604.[18][48] The historian S. Brechter has suggested that the metropolitan see was indeed moved to London, and that it was only with the abandonment of London as a see after the death of Æthelberht that Canterbury became the archiepiscopal see. This theory contradicts Bede's version of events, however.[49]

In 604, Augustine founded two more bishoprics in Britain. Two men who had come to Britain with him in 601 were consecrated, Mellitus as Bishop of London and Justus as Bishop of Rochester.[18][50][51] Bede relates that Augustine, with the help of the king, "recovered" a church built by Roman Christians in Canterbury.[52][f] It is not clear if Bede meant that Augustine rebuilt the church or that Augustine merely reconsecrated a building that had been used for pagan worship. Archaeological evidence seems to support the latter interpretation; in 1973 the remains of an aisled building dating from the Romano-British period were uncovered just south of the present Canterbury Cathedral.[52] The historian Ian Wood argues that the existence of the Libellus points to more contact between Augustine and the native Christians because the topics covered in the work are not restricted to conversion from paganism, but also dealt with relations between differing styles of Christianity.[55]

Augustine failed to extend his authority to the Christians in Wales and Dumnonia to the west. Gregory had decreed that these Christians should submit to Augustine and that their bishops should obey him,[56] apparently believing that more of the Roman governmental and ecclesiastical organisation survived in Britain than was actually the case.[57] According to the narrative of Bede, the Britons in these regions viewed Augustine with uncertainty, and their suspicion was compounded by a diplomatic misjudgement on Augustine's part.[58] In 603, Augustine and Æthelberht summoned the British bishops to a meeting south of the Severn. These guests retired early to confer with their people,[59] who, according to Bede, advised them to judge Augustine based upon the respect he displayed at their next meeting. When Augustine failed to rise from his seat on the entrance of the British bishops,[60] they refused to recognise him as their archbishop.[59][61] {That sounds like a tale from the life of Julius Caesar.} There were, however, deep differences between Augustine and the British church that perhaps played a more significant role in preventing an agreement. At issue were the tonsure, the observance of Easter, and practical and deep-rooted differences in approach to asceticism, missionary endeavours, and how the church itself was organised.[58] Some historians believe that Augustine had no real understanding of the history and traditions of the British church, damaging his relations with their bishops.[61] Also, there were political dimensions involved, as Augustine's efforts were sponsored by the Kentish king, and at this period the Wessex and Mercian kingdoms were expanding to the west, into areas held by the Britons.[62]

Easier to implement were Rome's mandates concerning pagan temples and celebrations. Temples were to be consecrated for Christian use,[63] and feasts, if possible, moved to days celebrating Christian martyrs. One religious site was revealed to be a shrine of a local St Sixtus, whose worshippers were unaware of details of the martyr's life or death. They may have been native Christians, but Augustine did not treat them as such. When Gregory was informed, he told Augustine to stop the cult and use the shrine for the Roman St Sixtus.[64]

Gregory legislated on the behaviour of the laity and the clergy. He placed the new mission directly under papal authority and made it clear that English bishops would have no authority over Frankish counterparts nor vice versa. Other directives dealt with the training of native clergy and the missionaries' conduct.[65]

...Augustine received liturgical books from the pope, but their exact contents are unknown. They may have been some of the new mass books that were being written at this time. The exact liturgy that Augustine introduced to England remains unknown, but it would have been a form of the Latin language liturgy in use at Rome.[68]

Before his death, Augustine consecrated Laurence as his successor to the archbishopric, probably to ensure an orderly transfer of office.[69] Although at the time of Augustine's death, 26 May 604,[22] the mission barely extended beyond Kent, his undertaking introduced a more active missionary style into the British Isles. Despite the earlier presence of Christians in Ireland and Wales, no efforts had been made to try to convert the Saxon invaders. Augustine was sent to convert the descendants of those invaders, and eventually became the decisive influence in Christianity in the British Isles.[58][70] Much of his success came about because of Augustine's close relationship with Æthelberht, which gave the archbishop time to establish himself.[71] Augustine's example also influenced the great missionary efforts of the Anglo-Saxon Church.[72][73]...

A life of Augustine was written by Goscelin around 1090, but this life portrays Augustine in a different light than Bede's account. Goscelin's account has little new historical content, mainly being filled with miracles and imagined speeches.[76] Building on this account, later medieval writers continued to add new miracles and stories to Augustine's life, often quite fanciful.[77] These authors included William of Malmesbury, who claimed that Augustine founded Cerne Abbey,[78] the author (generally believed to be John Brompton) of a late medieval chronicle containing invented letters from Augustine,[79] and a number of medieval writers who included Augustine in their romances.[80] Another problem with investigating Augustine's saintly cult is the confusion resulting because most medieval liturgical documents mentioning Augustine do not distinguish between Augustine of Canterbury and Augustine of Hippo, a fourth-century saint. Medieval Scandinavian liturgies feature Augustine of Canterbury quite often, however.[81] During the English Reformation, Augustine's shrine was destroyed and his relics were lost.

So, we have Augustine and his pals all cozy with a local chieftain AKA King, who was married to a Frankish lady of the "Royal Merovingians" ... and we are wondering how a chunk of an Eastern Greek chronicle found its way into the History of the Franks written by a "Gregory of Tours"???

But wait, we have a little time before our Greek monks arrive from Rome. Before their arrival, there were other archbishops following Augustine - or so we are told. See the list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Archbishops_of_Canterbury The three following Augustine were all members of his mission, allegedly. And then, native archbishops, in the middle of which we suddenly see Theodore from Cilicia??? He sticks out like a sore thumb.

But, clearly, something was afoot with all these power-mad church guys cozying up to the ruling elite. Clearly, they ALL knew what had happened to the Empire, and they were doing what pathological types always do when their con is exposed: move to another place, wait for the heat to cool down, and keep playing the game. That's what this whole thing looks like from a distance. All the grandiose history that was written later about their marvelous church, their holy saints, etc etc, was a load of bollocks.

Anyway, it seems to me that the cozy affair with the Anglo-Saxons and Franks may have led to the necessity of providing a sufficiently estimable history for said Franks and Anglo-Saxons, and this was probably discussed openly. It was probably realized that they wouldn't be able to get away with a history that did NOT include some catastrophic events, duly recorded as background, so some talent was needed. The travels to Rome by Benedict Biscop probably were in search of suitable talent and materials.

Benedict Biscop (c. 628 – 690), also known as Biscop Baducing, was an Anglo-Saxon abbot and founder of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory (where he also founded the famous library) and was considered a saint after his death.

Benedict was born of a noble Northumbrian family and was for a time a thegn of King Oswiu.[3] At the age of 25 Benedict made the first of five trips to Rome, accompanying his friend Saint Wilfrid the Elder. However Wilfrid was detained in Lyon en route. Benedict completed the journey on his own and, when he returned to England, he was "full of fervour and enthusiasm ... for the good of the English Church."...

Benedict made his third trip to Rome. At this time he was commissioned by the pope to accompany Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus back to Canterbury in 669. On their return Benedict was appointed abbot of SS. Peter and Paul's, Canterbury, by Archbishop Theodore, a role he held for two years.

Yeah, I bet he was "full "full of fervour and enthusiasm ... for the good" of the power elite of which he was a member.

Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury (668-90), a Greek monk from Tarsus in Cilicia who had studied at Antioch and Constantinople, and had latterly been a member of the community of Greek-speaking Cilician monks at the monastery of S. Anastasio in Rome, arrived in England in 669, to be followed a year later by his colleague Hadrian (d. 709), a Greek-speaking monk from Libya in Africa, who had latterly been abbot of the monastery of Nisida in the Bay of Naples, and who on arrival in England became abbot of the monastery of SS Peter and Paul (later St Augustine's) in Canterbury. These two scholars brought to England a vast experience of Mediterranean scholarship, and they promptly established a school in Canterbury, to which (as Bede says), 'they attracted a crowd of students into whose minds they daily poured the streams of wholesome learning'…. {I bet they did.}

In the biblical commentaries, Theodore and Hadrian quote verbatim and in extenso from large numbers of books, in Greek and Latin. Of Greek authors, the following are quoted by name: Basil, Clement of Alexandria, Cosmas Indicopleustes (named as Christianus historiographus), Ephrem the Syrian, Epiphanius (sx), Evagrius [Ponticus], Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom (6x), Josephus, Sophronius, and Theophilus; in addition to these, a substantial number of Greek authors were laid under contribution anonymously.

It is particularly striking that the commentators quote from Greek texts which have not come down to us: from what were apparently writings in Greek by John Cassian, Evagrius (Ponticus), and Rufinus, the latter containing a Greek word unattested in any other surviving Greek text.8 The number of Latin authorities quoted in the biblical commentaries is far smaller, and included works by Augustine, Isidore, and Jerome (six works in total)….

The sum of these references, in Greek and Latin, implies a substantial library.

And I just bet that their library also included Syrian and Greek texts from which they lifted the skeleton of the History of the Franks.

 

[Human]

Re: Historical Events Database

However, I would like to point out that this precessional "wobble" is not taking into account certain other features of our cosmos, i.e. the electrical nature of it, and it is also relying on a certain motion of celestial mechanics that postulates forces that would act on a simple spinning top, NOT a body that is party of an electrically maintained system. In short, I don't think the spinning top idea is necessarily scalable, though I could be wrong.

So, if the earth is NOT doing this dance, what could be the explanation of precession?

Walter Cruttenden wrote a book "Lost Star of Myth and Time" that proposes a different explanation of precession. I can't say that everything he writes is on target, but this idea made a lot of sense. A few years ago, I was discussing it with mkrnr and he found a paper on the topic that was written in 1919 proposing the same solution. I attach it to this post.

Anyway, the idea is that the APPARENT precession phenomenon is NOT due to the earth doing a pirouette, but rather due to the background of space changing as the entire solar system moves on the outer arm of our galaxay in a helicoidal motion, that is, like a winding screw.

Or, like this, only imagine the solar system itself being the "screw" and not an inert object being lifted by it as the red ball in this image:

Having said all the above, it strikes me that all of this actually does point to something of a way out of the trap. We know from our own present observations that our planet speeds up and slows down in its rotation, but in the end it probably balances out. BUT, noting the variances between the precession measurements, assuming that what is actually being measured is our helicoid progress through space on the outer arm of our galaxy, in relation to the "family of stars" in our galactic environment, i.e. the zodiac, then we might be able to use this to measure how much time may have been added or subtracted from a given historical timeline.

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.

I would suggest that these retrocalculated "speed of precession" values can give us a ball-park figure as to how much time has been added or subtracted to or from our history.

Maybe I'm nuts, but what do ya'll think?

Few thoughts about precession.
The idea of a "screw", that helicoidal motion of total solar system is behind the Earth's precession, could be valid if only background starts would be taken into account. I think that with respect to polar star or zodiac, two motions, of Earth and solar system, in the view of precession, would be equivalent.
However, there is also the relative Earth-Sun motion and position, which can be used to discriminate between the two proposed precession reasons.

One thing is perihelion-aphelion positions (Earth's elliptical revolution around the Sun), the Earth is closest to Sun around Jan 3rd and furthest away around Jul 4th. The elliptical revolution also makes the precession (perihelion or apsidal precession), but with much slower rate relative to fixed stars (more than 134,000 years for one round). Therefore, if it's not the Earth that does the precession, the relative position between, e.g. vernal solstice and the perihelion, would more or less be the same in the course of time (since the precession of the equinoxes cycle is cca 6 times shorter than the apsidal precession cycle). On the other hand, if it's the Earth that "dances", then in cca 6500 years (or 6500 ago), the equinox would take place instead of a solstice (90°, cca 3 months) and perihelion would move only for 15° (cca 15 days). I think (well, better say hope) that with today instruments, technology and space research, the human race is capable to differentiate between the two.

The other thing relates to the seasons, or in the extreme, polar day and night.
According to my understanding, if it's the solar system and not the Earth that's responsible for precession, then the polar day would always be during the summer, e.g. June in Northern hemisphere. Or, to be more precise, the position of summer solstice would change due to precession (of the solar system), but the Sun would again "stand still", high in the sky/zenith, around 21st of June, marking the beginning of the summer and the longest day in Northern hemisphere. If it's the Earth, then in cca 6500 years (taking constant precession speed of 72 years/°), the summer would move for three months together with the solstice (with respect to fixed stars).
See precessionchart.jpg attached.

Note that the above is my understanding of the precession topic discussed here. Please, correct me if there is something wrong.


About tracking the "adjustment" of chronology.
I think there could be a slight problem using the precession speed for that purposes.
There is piece in Topper's article that gives an example (emphasis mine).

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.

What should then be taken as a constant precession speed? 72 years for a degree as it is now?
In that case, the period from 2nd to 13th century AD should be cca 100 years longer (according to 17° difference in star's position in the sky), the period from Aristarchus (3rd century BC) to Ptolemy (2nd century AD) would be 100 years shorter (taken that they used the precession speed of 1° in a century) and Hammurabi would not be in 18th century BC, but in 25th century BC (more than 600 years difference if the currently used time span from Aristarchus would be attributed to precession speed of 50 years for a degree).

In addition, when it is said that "Ptolemy fixed the precession rate at 1° per 100 years" (The Alfonsine Tables of Toledo by J. Chabás and B.R. Goldstein) it should be taken with a grain of salt because the precession was not exactly the same thing as we understand it today, the trepidation was also included in the calculations of the total precession.
The same goes for Hipparchus.

Swerdlow ends his list of Hipparchus's hypotheses by saying:
Finally, one of his suggestions was a motion of the sphere of the fixed stars through not less than one degree per century with respect to the equinoxes...

Note that this was only a hypothesis and it said "not less than a degree per century", not exactly the same as Ptolemy.

Apart from the Arabs with their 66 years per 1° (al-Battani (858-929 AD), al-Sufi 964 AD), there were also Indian astronomers with similar value of 27° in 1800 years (67 years for 1° in a 9th century AD commentary on 6th-7th century work from Precession and Trepidation in Indian Astronomy before A.D. 1200 by D. Pingree; _http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1972JHA.....3...27P). Later in the paper this value was identified that comes from an Arab source in 830 AD. Yet another Indian value is 60 years for 1°, attributed to source from 600/700 AD (ibid.)

And there are also the Chinese with their rates (emphasis mine).

One of those measurements was Zu Chongzhi's calculation of the precession, suì chā (岁差 yearly difference), the movement of the earth's axis on a large circle in relation to the star field. The first measurement of precession had been made by an Eastern Jin astronomer Yu Xi (281-356 AD) as 1º each 50 years. It was important not only for the calculation of the calendar, but also for understanding star positions and navigation over time. Polaris will not always be the North Star.
[...]
Using a different method than Yu Xi, Zu Chongzhi [祖冲之 Zǔ Chōngzhī 429-500 AD] measured the precession as covering 1º in 45 years and 11 months. This wasn't accurate {according to the value we have today}, but served as the beginning for future revision by later astronomers. Today's measure is 1º each 71.6 years. Zu Chongzhi was the first to incorporate the measure into a calendar.

For the Babylonians, I couldn't find any confirmation of Topper's claim that they used 1°/50 years.

What can be seen, putting the Greeks with 100 years for a degree aside since they used celestial spheres and formulas, and it seems that neither Ptolemy nor Hipparchus actually calculated the precession rate, there is constant increase of the rate through centuries. No need for Topper's "jolts" whatsoever.
Is it possible that the precession rate changed through time continuously? That would also kind of explain the mess with eclipse data and maybe even the Fomenko's claim about the zodiac of Revelation.
I think that chances that all of them got wrong results/numbers is not so high, since there are two Chinese with different methods within less than two centuries and similar results, at least one Indian with intermediate number before the Arabs, and several Arabs within few centuries with almost identical values.
Actually, from this picture, the thing that sticks out is current value of 72 years for a degree which has been constant from the Renaissance. :)

 

[caballero reyes]

Re: Historical Events Database

About Dates:

Quote from Laura:« Reply #758 on: Yesterday at 03:49:50 PM »

380 - The Ostrogothic Christian emperor Theodosius makes Christianity the official religion of Rome, persecuting pagans and destroying temples.

395 - Ravenna becomes the capital of the Western Roman Empire, whilst Constantinople that of the east.

410 - Rome is sacked by Alaric, King of the Visigoths

455 - Rome is sacked by Genseric, King of the Vandals

476 - Romulus Augustulus is deposed, traditionally considered the end of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages in Europe. Byzantium continues to be the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.

496 - The first pope to achieve the Pontifex Maximus is Anastasius II.

{60 year skip?}

546 - Rome is sacked by Totila, King of the Ostrogoths

c. 590 - 604 - Pope Gregory the Great makes the Christian church exceedingly strong.

609 - The Pantheon becomes a Christian church.

630 - The Church of Sant' Agnese is the first Roman church to be constructed in Byzantine style.

725 - The King Ine of Wessex is the first man to create a hostel for pilgrims to Rome.

778 - Charlemagne conquers Italy and Rome. {And thus could plunder and control manuscripts almost at will unless they were carefully hidden.}

800 - Charlemagne is crowned th

--------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- ----------------------------

I think the foundation of the Abbey of Montecassino (around 529) is important because according to history, the Benedictines have been really important manuscripts. Benedictines, religious order founded by Benedict of Nursia (Nurcia, italy 480 --- montecassino March 21--547). Benedict was the founder of the monastic life in the West, I think this is an important clue. Benedictine manuscripts have been really important, they are directly linked to the "European Renaissance" and the construction of Gothic Cathedrals, which is the most visible achievement. The abbey was destroyed during World War 2 where were the manuscripts? apparently were taken to Germany.

 

[SeekinTruth]

Re: Historical Events Database

<snip>
I wrote above about the Gregorian mission: "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!" Let's check a quick Roman History Timeline according to the mainstream:

380 - The Ostrogothic Christian emperor Theodosius makes Christianity the official religion of Rome, persecuting pagans and destroying temples.

395 - Ravenna becomes the capital of the Western Roman Empire, whilst Constantinople that of the east.

410 - Rome is sacked by Alaric, King of the Visigoths

455 - Rome is sacked by Genseric, King of the Vandals

476 - Romulus Augustulus is deposed, traditionally considered the end of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages in Europe. Byzantium continues to be the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.

496 - The first pope to achieve the Pontifex Maximus is Anastasius II.

{60 year skip?}

546 - Rome is sacked by Totila, King of the Ostrogoths

c. 590 - 604 - Pope Gregory the Great makes the Christian church exceedingly strong.

609 - The Pantheon becomes a Christian church.

630 - The Church of Sant' Agnese is the first Roman church to be constructed in Byzantine style.

725 - The King Ine of Wessex is the first man to create a hostel for pilgrims to Rome.

778 - Charlemagne conquers Italy and Rome. {And thus could plunder and control manuscripts almost at will unless they were carefully hidden.}

800 - Charlemagne is crowned the emperor in St. Peter's Basilica. {Never mind that Rome was still in ruins.}

The skip between 496 and 546 that I underlined above would actually be 50 years. (I meant to post this last night, but it was getting late and finished reading this morning). I left the other clues you added, Laura, in the quote as they're helping to keep all clues in mind and get an overall picture.

[...]So, we have Augustine and his pals all cozy with a local chieftain AKA King, who was married to a Frankish lady of the "Royal Merovingians" ... and we are wondering how a chunk of an Eastern Greek chronicle found its way into the History of the Franks written by a "Gregory of Tours"???

But wait, we have a little time before our Greek monks arrive from Rome. Before their arrival, there were other archbishops following Augustine - or so we are told. See the list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Archbishops_of_Canterbury The three following Augustine were all members of his mission, allegedly. And then, native archbishops, in the middle of which we suddenly see Theodore from Cilicia??? He sticks out like a sore thumb.

But, clearly, something was afoot with all these power-mad church guys cozying up to the ruling elite. Clearly, they ALL knew what had happened to the Empire, and they were doing what pathological types always do when their con is exposed: move to another place, wait for the heat to cool down, and keep playing the game. That's what this whole thing looks like from a distance. All the grandiose history that was written later about their marvelous church, their holy saints, etc etc, was a load of bollocks.

Anyway, it seems to me that the cozy affair with the Anglo-Saxons and Franks may have led to the necessity of providing a sufficiently estimable history for said Franks and Anglo-Saxons, and this was probably discussed openly. It was probably realized that they wouldn't be able to get away with a history that did NOT include some catastrophic events, duly recorded as background, so some talent was needed. The travels to Rome by Benedict Biscop probably were in search of suitable talent and materials.
<snip>

And I just bet that their library also included Syrian and Greek texts from which they lifted the skeleton of the History of the Franks.

This is a really good summing up of all the clues so far (with a bunch of details omitted to shorten it). So this is pretty much what seems to me, with my limited abilities to connect the dots, is the outline of what very likely happened and why. So I thought I'd just snip and paste the gist of it for others to get AS the gist.

I still have a lot of reading I've downloaded from the thread (took a break and read 30 Years Among the Dead recently and will continue reading more of the papers and books concerning this thread). The dating problems made me realize after reading the carbon14 and tree ring discrepancies how big a mess this whole thing is. We've known a whole set of problems about C14 dating being reset/scrambled including from overhead bolide explosions and such. But it seems to me that dendrochronology is a very reliable way of going back a considerable amount of time IF the way is found to get an "absolute date" to start from. Can't there be some other way without the C14 dependent circular, invalid and corrupted system now - while maybe using a corrected radiocarbon dating system just for additional crosschecking where applicable, keeping in mind the problems with the C14 system? Granted, it would take a whole lot of work and time to calibrate dendrochronology without relying solely on the C14 dating system.

Like so much else, this whole thing could have been handled in a reasonable way and truthful pursuit of ironing out the C14 problems could have saved SOME valid ways of using the C14 system, but it seems they really blew it. Now from labs to research grants are at stake to just keep the status quo - same old, same old.

One more question: the issue of precession variations and such in modern astronomy seem to have problems too, but Clube and Napiers reconstruction of comet debris "back-reconstruction" for orbits showing much being part of the same large comet that broke up over tens of thousand of years still seem quite valid, right? The only thing I'm not sure of is how the Electric Universe Theory aspects fit into it all. Any way to enlighten me on this, if you have the time and inclination?

 

[Mal7]

Re: Historical Events Database

Konstantinos Staikos has written six large volumes on the history of libraries from classical times onwards. They don't question the conventional chronology, but might still be of interest. They have many illustrations. The links are to the table of contents for each volume on the publisher's website. The books are also available on Amazon.

Volume One (published 2004): THE HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION: FROM MINOS TO CLEOPATRA.
_http://www.oakknoll.com/pages/book-table-of-contents/74805/konstantinos-staikos/history-of-the-library-in-western-civilization-from-minos-to-cleopatra-the

Volume Two (2005): THE HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION: THE ROMAN WORLD - FROM CICERO TO HADRIAN.
_http://www.oakknoll.com/pages/book-table-of-contents/76540/konstantinos-staikos/history-of-the-library-in-western-civilization-the-roman-world-from-cicero-to-hadrian-the

Volume Three (2007): THE HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION: THE BYZANTINE WORLD - FROM CONSTANTINE THE GREAT TO CARDINAL BESSARION
_http://www.oakknoll.com/pages/book-table-of-contents/76543/konstantinos-staikos/history-of-the-library-in-western-civilization-the-byzantine-world-from-constantine-the-great-to

Volume Four (2010): THE HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION: THE MEDIEVAL WORLD IN THE WEST - FROM CASSIODORUS TO FURNIVAL
_http://www.oakknoll.com/resources/tableofcontents/076544.pdf

Volume Five (2012): THE HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION: THE RENAISSANCE - FROM PETRARCH TO MICHELANGELO
_http://www.oakknoll.com/resources/tableofcontents/076547.pdf

Volume Six (2013): THE HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION - EPILOGUE AND GENERAL INDEX
"This extensive index on all five volumes will identify all proper names, places, and subjects covered in this comprehensive and scholarly series."

 

[Laura]

Re: Historical Events Database

This is a really good summing up of all the clues so far (with a bunch of details omitted to shorten it). So this is pretty much what seems to me, with my limited abilities to connect the dots, is the outline of what very likely happened and why. So I thought I'd just snip and paste the gist of it for others to get AS the gist.

Good job. Usually, as I'm going through all this stuff, I just hold it all in my head and there are oddities that I notice that sort of automatically trigger associative things in my head. But I realize that it's a lot of stuff to "hold in working memory", so to say.

I still have a lot of reading I've downloaded from the thread.... The dating problems made me realize after reading the carbon14 and tree ring discrepancies how big a mess this whole thing is.

Sometimes, the realization of the "mess" is just overwhelming. When that happens, I just turn my attention to the problem du jour and start patiently pulling on the threads to see where they lead.

BUT, the thing is, it really is like the most complex murder mystery ever and as much as I admire Miss Marple, Poirot, and Sherlock, I'm not sure that I am equal to the task - at least not alone. It's like playing the huge game of Clue: "The Benedictines did it in the scriptorium with the stylus..."

We've known a whole set of problems about C14 dating being reset/scrambled including from overhead bolide explosions and such. But it seems to me that dendrochronology is a very reliable way of going back a considerable amount of time IF the way is found to get an "absolute date" to start from. Can't there be some other way without the C14 dependent circular, invalid and corrupted system now - while maybe using a corrected radiocarbon dating system just for additional crosschecking where applicable, keeping in mind the problems with the C14 system? Granted, it would take a whole lot of work and time to calibrate dendrochronology without relying solely on the C14 dating system.

Yeah. And the Larssons, though they are gleeful about finding flaws in Baillie's sequence, don't seem to be doing it for the reasons we do: to really sort out history and find out where we are on the timeline and whether, and how much, history actually does repeat itself.

Like so much else, this whole thing could have been handled in a reasonable way and truthful pursuit of ironing out the C14 problems could have saved SOME valid ways of using the C14 system, but it seems they really blew it. Now from labs to research grants are at stake to just keep the status quo - same old, same old.

Yup. Very disheartening sometimes. That's why I'm thinking that there must be another way... Otherwise, we really are at the mercy of the texts and we know that they are created and destroyed by psychopaths.

One more question: the issue of precession variations and such in modern astronomy seem to have problems too, but Clube and Napiers reconstruction of comet debris "back-reconstruction" for orbits showing much being part of the same large comet that broke up over tens of thousand of years still seem quite valid, right?

As far as I know. I'd have to look at what he says more closely to see if he was actually working off dated historical events.

The only thing I'm not sure of is how the Electric Universe Theory aspects fit into it all. Any way to enlighten me on this, if you have the time and inclination?

Well, it seems that electrical influences can speed up or slow down processes in the solar system of all kinds, including orbits, rotation, etc, just as we are seeing today. It's hard to say whether the slowing of the earth's rotation is caused by "drag" created by clouds of comet dust, or simply because a flow of current is grounded throughout the system, though both could be doing something, but who knows what? What effect could an electrically supercharged atmosphere/EM field have on the rotation of a planet? What about its orbital speed? What effect could a quiescent sun have on the orbits and rotation of its planets? These are all questions that we don't have answers to.

Then, there's the issue that Sasa brought up about possible variations in the "precessional" phenomenon, whatever is behind it. If it is due to changes in background stars, or changes in orbit, or rotation, or a combination? What about varying speeds of the entire system through the galaxy? What about conditions in galactic space that might speed up or slow down such processes? Dust clouds? Dark matter? The bobbing up and down in respect of the galactic plane?

The whole system is so dynamic, and there is so much we do not know, that it seems that the only way we could really be sure of our history would be if we gave it a great deal of attention, ensured that things were out in the open and recorded properly, and the records protected from era to era. But we know that exactly the opposite happens thanks to psychopaths in power. To them, the truth of "what really happened" is irrelevant. For them, current events reporting and history are just weapons to deploy in their incessant seeking of power and control.

 

[SeekinTruth]

Re: Historical Events Database

Totally hit the nail on the head about psychopathy in positions of power, Laura. Thinking about all this, it really seems to me that history really DOES have to be looked at through Ponerology - otherwise the chance of figuring out what's going on when goes down even more.

Yeah, all those points your raised about the electric nature of the universe have been going round and round in my head as well. Especially how much is effected on the galactic level. We don't know SO much just about our solar system, never mind the rest of the galaxy, but it does seem that the galaxy would be a huge supplier of the electrical energies "transacted" with the sun/solar system (AND other galaxies).

The other thing that dawned on me earlier today from reading Meager1's last post is that so much of the names/titles, traditions, politico-religious and economic structures, etc. seem to have come from the whole worship of Augustus thing (still have to read that book), not just Julius Caesar. The whole Christianity shtick is totally a rehashed scam of a rehashed scam after the assassination of Caesar. Just mind boggling.

 

[Human]

Re: Historical Events Database

Then, there's the issue that Sasa brought up about possible variations in the "precessional" phenomenon, whatever is behind it. If it is due to changes in background stars, or changes in orbit, or rotation, or a combination? What about varying speeds of the entire system through the galaxy? What about conditions in galactic space that might speed up or slow down such processes? Dust clouds? Dark matter? The bobbing up and down in respect of the galactic plane?

One additional thing is why don't we see the effects of precession rate today?
If the year, as we measure it, is really a period of Earth's revolution around the Sun and precession rate amounts to 1° in 72 years, then the vernal equinox should have moved from March 21st (in 1582 AD when Gregorian calendar reform took place) for 6°, which corresponds to more than 6 days. And this year's equinox is predicted for March 20th.

Wikipedia gives possible answer.

Accuracy

The Gregorian calendar improves the approximation made by the Julian calendar by skipping three Julian leap days in every 400 years, giving an average year of 365.2425 mean solar days long.[56] This approximation has an error of about one day per 3,300 years with respect to the mean tropical year. However, because of the precession of the equinoxes, the error with respect to the vernal equinox (which occurs, on average, 365.24237 days apart near 2000[57]) is 1 day every 7,700 years. By any criterion, the Gregorian calendar is substantially more accurate than the 1 day in 128 years error of the Julian calendar (average year 365.25 days).

In the 19th century, Sir John Herschel proposed a modification to the Gregorian calendar with 969 leap days every 4000 years, instead of 970 leap days that the Gregorian calendar would insert over the same period.[58] This would reduce the average year to 365.24225 days. Herschel's proposal would make the year 4000, and multiples thereof, common instead of leap. While this modification has often been proposed since, it has never been officially adopted.[59]

On time scales of thousands of years, the Gregorian calendar falls behind the astronomical seasons because the slowing down of the Earth's rotation makes each day slightly longer over time {seems that the C's were right about the slowing down of Earth's rotation, and although they said the effect can't be measured with human instruments, it seems that it is known} (see tidal acceleration and leap second) while the year maintains a more uniform duration. Borkowski reviewed mathematical models in the literature, and found that the results generally fall between a model by McCarthy and Babcock, and another by Stephenson and Morrison. If so, in the year 4000, the calendar will fall behind by at least 0.8 but less than 1.1 days. In the year 12,000 the calendar would fall behind by at least 8 but less than 12 days.[60]

Calendar seasonal error

This image shows the difference between the Gregorian calendar and the astronomical seasons.

The y-axis is the date in June and the x-axis is Gregorian calendar years.

Each point is the date and time of the June Solstice on that particular year. The error shifts by about a quarter of a day per year. Centurial years are ordinary years, unless they are divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years. This causes a correction on years 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, and 2300.

For instance, these corrections cause 23 December 1903 to be the latest December solstice, and 20 December 2096 to be the earliest solstice—2.25 days of variation compared with the seasonal event.

It appears that the year as defined by Gregorian calendar is tied to equinox, not the real period of Earth's revolution around the Sun.
The above quote kind of discredits the second point in my previous post about discriminating the precession origin between Earth's motion and helicoidal movement of solar system. It leaves only the relative precession of the equinoxes vs. apsidal precession movement as possible way to see what dances and what not.

Leaving precession aside, the numbers seem to add up correctly with respect to Gregorian calendar reform (9.43 days difference accumulated in 1257 years from 10.8 min/year), i.e. no additional 3 days as mentioned previously in this thread. Only if the whole story about returning to Nicaean date isn't made up...

In addition to the change in the mean length of the calendar year from 365.25 days (365 days 6 hours) to 365.2425 days (365 days 5 hours 49 minutes 12 seconds), a reduction of 10 minutes 48 seconds per year, the Gregorian calendar reform also dealt with the accumulated difference between these lengths. Between AD 325 (when the First Council of Nicaea was held, and the vernal equinox occurred approximately 21 March), and the time of Pope Gregory's bull in 1582, the vernal equinox had moved backward in the calendar, until it was occurring on about 11 March, 10 days earlier. The Gregorian calendar therefore began by skipping 10 calendar days, to restore 21 March as the date of the vernal equinox.
<snip>
Lilius's proposals had two components. Firstly, he proposed a correction to the length of the year. The mean tropical year is 365.24219 days long, while the mean vernal equinox year is 365.2424 days.[15] As the average length of a Julian year is 365.25 days, the Julian year is almost 11 minutes longer than the mean year. The discrepancy results in a drift of about three days every 400 years. Lilius's proposal resulted in an average year of 365.2425 days.[16] (See Accuracy). At the time of Gregory's reform there had already been a drift of 10 days since the Council of Nicaea, resulting in the vernal equinox falling on 11 March instead of the ecclesiastically fixed date of 21 March, and if unreformed it would drift further. Lilius proposed that the 10-day drift should be corrected by deleting the Julian leap day on each of its ten occurrences over a period of 40 years, thereby providing for a gradual return of the equinox to 21 March. Lilius's work was expanded upon by Christopher Clavius in a closely argued, 800-page volume. He would later defend his and Lilius's work against detractors. Clavius's opinion was that the correction should take place in one move, and it was this advice which prevailed with Gregory.

All in all, the most of the historical precession story seems only to add more mud and blurs the picture even more. Similar like with the eclipses.
It looks like the psychopaths did a good job. Although I suspect that they were on their own in this, since they are known for the lack of creativity and schematic thinking.
Anyway, it only makes it more fun to "break the code". :)

P.S. Maybe it would be good to split the precession, eclipse and other related stuff into a different thread, not to usurp the Caesar's one?

 

[Gaby]

Re: Historical Events Database

So, if the earth is NOT doing this dance, what could be the explanation of precession?

Walter Cruttenden wrote a book "Lost Star of Myth and Time" that proposes a different explanation of precession. I can't say that everything he writes is on target, but this idea made a lot of sense.

All of this sounds so complicated to me, but I can picture the spiral. I remember seeing the concept in a documentary where it was explained how we were not on the same place in space after each rotation because everything moved "forward" like in a spiral (or something among the lines). I did not read "Lost Star of Myth and Time", but I remember it was also discussed within the context of Cro-magnon being able to measure time:

Lascaux and archeoastronomy
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,23833.msg266280.html#msg266280

Not that this helps, but FWIW. It is both a fascinating and frustrating topic!

 

[mkrnhr]

Re: Historical Events Database

The solar year that the civil year tries to emulate is the tropical year i.e from one equinox to the next.
Unfortunately, there are no real cycles in the solar system, only pseudo-cycles. Keplerian orbits are just a first-order approximation of the solar system objects. The main problem is the fundamental difficulty of defining an absolute coordinates reference system in "rotating systems". The problem applies to the siderial year (which difference with the tropical year is what defines precession). If we consider the movement of the Sun relatively to the barycenter of the solar system (mainly due to Jupiter and Saturn), the acceleration of the solar system relatively to the local neighbouring stars (with or without a solar companion), and the acceleration within the galaxy (without forgetting the big structures like the arms and about the gallactic plane), then what is the siderial year anyway? One can operate by extrapolating the actual dynamics in time, but this extrapolation is limited, one needs a physical model to extend the domain of "extrapolatibility" and there we have first one sin of astronomy: the use of the gravitational model alone, disregarding the electromagnetic interactions, whether at distance of through matter. We see how solar activity coupled to geomagnetic effect can affect weather and day length in ways not yet understood, not quantitatively at least. Well, even if we knew all that, we have also the other big sin of Astronomy: Uniformism. What happens during a close approach or a big impact? Not only from the point of view of kinematic energy exchange but also through electromagnetic and plasma discharge phenomena? Would that be sufficient for instance to change slightly the paremeters of Earth-Moon orbit so that eclipses are shifted across the epochs? Many fundamental sins and mess to sort out.

I don't know, it seems subjectively to me as if there were some large scale quantum limit to the information that can be extracted from our universe, leading us to endless circular logic in different domains.

Regarding the precession of the equinoxes, it appears that it is not constant in time. That's the good news because even if the predominant "reductionist" idea of the spinning top seems to suggest that this precession is constant. That's why we see those beautiful drawings of the future and past positions of the Earth axis drawing a perfect circle in the sky. It would be the case if the Earth orbited a Sun in isolation, with no other accelerations (or differential acceleration) on the solar system, and more importantly maybe, if the Earth was a solid object. It is not. Everything evolves in time and most interactions are nonlinear with lots of different couplings. We can verify if the solar system is completely stable through commensurability but it is not, there are only local and imperfect commensurabilities. That is for the long term. We can consider the short term dynamics (forgetting about the catastrophic aspect) and suppose that some portions of human history are within a time range where astronomical phenomena can be extrapolated.

The only way to deal with data we have is to forget about things we know would invalidate our approach, a self-inflicted amnesia of some sort. If we consider the reported values of precession in history, they are few. We can suppose that they were obtained within a time span in which we can consider (fit) a certain function (linear, parabolic, etc.). If we have an good estimate years between successive measurements, say A2 did his measurements X years after A1, it would help. But there is a problem: what is the precision of the measurement (the method of measurement, and the assumptions). Moreover, did A2 know about A1's results? Because it is known, as R. Feynman demonstrates somewhere, that researchers have a tendency to distort their results such as they do not differ too much from their illustrious predecessors.

It may be too much pessimism. However, when it comes to human history, we can consider the time reference to be the tropical year, or the passing of seasons, as experiences by human beings. In that sense, the only real data to be more or less trusted are those records year after year of the alternating seasons, with no reference at all to uniformist assumptions like a constant production rate of C14 or something like that. Tree rings would be perfect if we had lots of trees who have been alive for a couple of thousands of years or more. But even on Earth we have the catastrophic wild cards that shuffle completely the game. Maybe the best data we have actually are ice cores, if we consider they haven't been disturbed too much lately.

Sorry for the long mumble, maybe a clarification of these wild thoughts could be organized in a firthcoming post.

 

[Laura]

Re: Historical Events Database

It wasn't a mumble, it pretty much outlines the whole problem.

So maybe ice-cores are where we need to look next?

 

[mkrnhr]

Re: Historical Events Database

So maybe ice-cores are where we need to look next?

I think it's the less trapped route so far but I could be wrong of course. Last time I looked into it there was a controversy about datation and cross-dating different samples. First of all, i would rely mostly on Greenland ice cores because it is connected to the atmospheric circulation of the northern hemisphere. Antarctica is too isolated from the rest of the world, and any signal in the atmosphere will impress only weakly the ice because of the catabatic winds there.

The ice core sequences are not continuous, there are gaps. But it is possible theoretically to fill the gaps by comparing different samples if one knows how. There is particularly one sample from the GRIP2 sample I think (I'll verify later) which shows clearly the signature of the Tunguska impact. Maybe we can start there and go back in time for as long as possible. The problem with ice cores is that the latest years (centuries) can be individually separated (like tree rings) but after a certain depth they use a scaling factor (for example, x cm corresponds to y years) but I didn't find any clear literature on this point or where that transition occurs.


As an example, here are a sequence of events that appear in a particular ice core (NH4 concentrations in GRIP ice cores) where I tried to identify a sequence around 540AD. Maybe this sequence can be shifted in time to match the other ice cores. However, this is the sequence where we have both 540AD and 1014AD (this later is more important). In it, for instance 1348 is not significant (second graph).

These are old graphs, I should produce better ones during the week.

 

[luke wilson]

Re: Historical Events Database

So, if the earth is NOT doing this dance, what could be the explanation of precession?

Walter Cruttenden wrote a book "Lost Star of Myth and Time" that proposes a different explanation of precession. I can't say that everything he writes is on target, but this idea made a lot of sense.

All of this sounds so complicated to me, but I can picture the spiral. I remember seeing the concept in a documentary where it was explained how we were not on the same place in space after each rotation because everything moved "forward" like in a spiral (or something among the lines). I did not read "Lost Star of Myth and Time", but I remember it was also discussed within the context of Cro-magnon being able to measure time:

Lascaux and archeoastronomy
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,23833.msg266280.html#msg266280

Not that this helps, but FWIW. It is both a fascinating and frustrating topic!

_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHsq36_NTU

Added: Universe Today had this to say about the video: _http://www.universetoday.com/107322/is-the-solar-system-really-a-vortex/

Is it something like the above?

Not sure myself but your comment made me think of a similar video to the one above that I saw a couple of years back.

Uhmm, the discussion has got kind of complex so excuse me if the below is beyond wrong...

Didn't like some ancient civilizations have an almost unhealthy fascination with looking up at the sky and apparently they were really good at it? Could this offer some help in resolving the problem currently at hand? Just an idea...

If the data in Europe is corrupt due to the meddling of the church then surely it follows that one must look beyond Europe to try and see where the deception lies, that is, unless those other recorders of history from other lands were also knee deep in cooking up history and observations about celestial events.

Lastly, I noticed that a lot of books are being hunted down as possible avenues of inquiry... speaking from what I have observed here, I think it may also be safe to say that there is likely a researcher or 2 out there somewhere with material published maybe books as well that has really got to grips with this problem? The only question is in identification.. no? Another idea, not sure where to begin, how did Laura run into Carotta? Only if we had such luck with regard to this current problem... another idea on top of the different books...

That is all I got.

Oh yes, they cooked up hundreds of years? My my my.... The audacity of the whole thing is mind boggling.

Also another thing that came to mind whilst going through some of the previous posts, didn't the Cs at one point say something about 4D STS meddling with the past on like an ongoing basis? Maybe another complication to throw into the mixer...

 

[Human]

Re: Historical Events Database

The only way to deal with data we have is to forget about things we know would invalidate our approach, a self-inflicted amnesia of some sort. If we consider the reported values of precession in history, they are few. We can suppose that they were obtained within a time span in which we can consider (fit) a certain function (linear, parabolic, etc.). If we have an good estimate years between successive measurements, say A2 did his measurements X years after A1, it would help. But there is a problem: what is the precision of the measurement (the method of measurement, and the assumptions). Moreover, did A2 know about A1's results? Because it is known, as R. Feynman demonstrates somewhere, that researchers have a tendency to distort their results such as they do not differ too much from their illustrious predecessors.

Thanks mkrnhr, was hoping you would chime in.

With this about precession in mind, I sought an alternative and came to an idea to look for records of apogee positions. Since any rate determination of some long (quasi)cycle would be difficult within a time span of average human lifetime, it could be expected that more accurate measurements would be done of individual positions of astronomical objects. Although Earth's orbit is almost circular (only about 3% difference between perihelion and aphelion), even the ancients (Babylonians and Greeks) have noticed that Sun on it's way "around the Earth" appeared smaller at some points of its orbit. The point when it's the smallest corresponded to the point of largest distance between the Sun and the Earth, apogee. Take into account that it was geocentric system then, with several celestial spheres which was used to describe the skies.

What was said about year and precession leads that the position of perihelion/aphelion changes through year, as a combined motion of precession of equinoxes and apsidal precession. Moreover, the two go in opposite directions, so the resultant is apparent faster movement than that of equinox or perihelion individually. It's something like Milankovitch Cycles mentioned in several threads on forum. Here is a link which kind of puts things in layman terms _http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/seasons_orbit.php

What I found is that Hipparchus (~ 130 BC) determined solar apogee to be at Gemini 5 1/2 (65° 30'), then Ptolemy (2nd century AD) took this value and fixed it (no movement of apogee). When Arabs, starting with AD 830 in Baghdad, observed 15° difference between their measurements and Ptolemy's, they were surprised (understatement). Around AD 900 El-Batani measured 82° 17' and later Maghribi (AD 1265) determined solar apogee at Gemini 28° 50' 21'' (88° 50' 21''). There was also vague reference to later Indo-Tibetan astronomers with apogee at first point in Cancer (AD 1326) and European in 15th century AD with "it's near beginning of Cancer" (90°).
Today value is ~103°, with the rate of about 1 day in 58 years (~1°/59 year).

The two points of El-Batani and Maghribi give little bit smaller value than we have today. Using today's value with difference between Ptolemy and the Arabs we arrive a bit short to Hipparchus, and with difference between the Arabs and today, some 100 years ahead. All in all not to bad, we could push the Arabs slightly back in history timeline, maybe stretch a little bit time between them, and everything would work fine.
Bottom line, there is no much use of historical astronomical data for timeline "adjustment".

During this "excursion" I came to one realisation. Maybe it is already known here.

Relatively little of Hipparchus' direct work survives into modern times. Although he wrote at least fourteen books, only his commentary on the popular astronomical poem by Aratus was preserved by later copyists. Most of what is known about Hipparchus comes from Ptolemy's (2nd century) Almagest, with additional references to him by Pappus of Alexandria and Theon of Alexandria (c. 4th century AD) in their commentaries on the Almagest; from Strabo's Geographia ("Geography"), and from Pliny the Elder's Naturalis historia ("Natural history") (1st century AD).[4]
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Hipparchus is thought to be the first to calculate a heliocentric system, but he abandoned his work because the calculations showed the orbits were not perfectly circular as believed to be mandatory by the science of the time. As an astronomer of antiquity his influence, supported by Aristotle, held sway for nearly 2000 years, until the heliocentric model of Copernicus.

Hipparchus' only preserved work is Τῶν Ἀράτου καὶ Εὐδόξου φαινομένων ἐξήγησις ("Commentary on the Phaenomena of Eudoxus and Aratus"). This is a highly critical commentary in the form of two books on a popular poem by Aratus based on the work by Eudoxus.[5] Hipparchus also made a list of his major works, which apparently mentioned about fourteen books, but which is only known from references by later authors. His famous star catalog was incorporated into the one by Ptolemy, and may be almost perfectly reconstructed by subtraction of two and two thirds degrees from the longitudes of Ptolemy's stars. The first trigonometric table was apparently compiled by Hipparchus, who is now consequently known as "the father of trigonometry".

Claudius Ptolemy (/ˈtɒləmi/; Greek: Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος, Klaudios Ptolemaios, pronounced [kláwdios ptolɛmɛ́ːos]; Latin: Claudius Ptolemaeus; c. AD 90 – c. AD 168) was a Greco-Roman writer of Alexandria, known as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology.[1][2] He lived in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt, wrote in Greek, and held Roman citizenship.[3] Beyond that, few reliable details of his life are known. His birthplace has been given as Ptolemais Hermiou in the Thebaid in an uncorroborated statement by the 14th century astronomer Theodore Meliteniotes.[4] This is very late, however, and there is no other reason to suppose that he ever lived anywhere else than Alexandria,[4] where he died around AD 168.[5]

Ptolemy was the author of several scientific treatises, at least three of which were of continuing importance to later Islamic and European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest (in Greek, Ἡ Μεγάλη Σύνταξις, "The Great Treatise", originally Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις, "Mathematical Treatise"). The second is the Geography, which is a thorough discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the astrological treatise known sometimes in Greek as the Apotelesmatika (Ἀποτελεσματικά), more commonly in Greek as the Tetrabiblos (Τετράβιβλος "Four books"), and in Latin as the Quadripartitum (or four books) in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day.

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The Almagest is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy. Babylonian astronomers had developed arithmetical techniques for calculating astronomical phenomena; Greek astronomers such as Hipparchus had produced geometric models for calculating celestial motions. Ptolemy, however, claimed to have derived his geometrical models from selected astronomical observations by his predecessors spanning more than 800 years, though astronomers have for centuries suspected that his models' parameters were adopted independently of observations.[20] Ptolemy presented his astronomical models in convenient tables, which could be used to compute the future or past position of the planets.[21] The Almagest also contains a star catalogue, which is an appropriated version of a catalogue created by Hipparchus. Its list of forty-eight constellations is ancestral to the modern system of constellations, but unlike the modern system they did not cover the whole sky (only the sky Hipparchus could see). Through the Middle Ages, it was spoken of as the authoritative text on astronomy, with its author becoming an almost mythical figure, called Ptolemy, King of Alexandria.[22] The Almagest was preserved, like most of Classical Greek science, in Arabic manuscripts (hence its familiar name). Because of its reputation, it was widely sought and was translated twice into Latin in the 12th century, once in Sicily and again in Spain.[23] Ptolemy's model, like those of his predecessors, was geocentric and was almost universally accepted until the appearance of simpler heliocentric models during the scientific revolution.

Ptolemy looks like typical psycho-type person. He took the work of others, he's not creative (e.g. fixing the precession rate and apogee position), complicated things to the extreme - didn't see beyond his nose.
Moreover, his apparent time of life coincides with early Church, and with that Church his views influenced whole Europe for a long time. In addition, his work strongly influenced the Arabs also and, IMO, just made their lives much more difficult because of that.
I highlighted Aristotle because, to my knowledge, he is behind the most of Church's philosophy.

So, from (Church) pathological point of view, isn't it great to have a guy, one of them, whose stuff can be used in order to manipulate, usurp and influence normal creative thinking, to ponerize it, for their purposes?
Well, if there wasn't such a guy, why not invent him?
It's not like there is a need to go beyond the limits, just take stuff from others, those that suit purpose the best, wrap them nicely and maybe even slide the product around, to keep things calm so not to have much problems until the position is strengthened and power grip becomes more firm. In the process, destroy all other things that might have survived the catastrophe that happened and that might wake someone up to use their brains.

 

[Laura]

Re: Historical Events Database

I finished "Anglo-Saxon Libraries" last night and toward the end, the fact that Bede obviously had read Lucan was discussed. Lucan's poem about the Civil War between Caesar and Pompeius COULD have been the source of the legends of King Arthur. Bede (and about everybody else) was also very familiar with Vergil.

After reading these couple of books about the history of texts based on text analysis, and how they are even using computerized databases now to do their research, and I don't agree that the whole mess was just made up. I also don't agree that a thousand years has been added to the historical timeline, though I certainly think that there's about 300 years added in there or something like that figure. And here I'm only talking about the AD timeline. I can only recommend that others read these two books, at least, to gain some understanding of the texts in question. I have them in PDF so will attach.

Anyway, it seems to me that there was a catastrophe... maybe a generation or two went by for recovery which was under the eye of some church guys in enclaves that we know of as monasteries. At the right moments, they sent their people out to "get control" and covert the terrified remnants of the population, particularly in England where all the catastrophe polemic wasn't so well known, if at all.

They hooked up with the Anglo-Saxons and Merovingians who were little more than local kinglets, and in the time-honored tradition of ancient Greece and Rome, helped them write a history about their illustrious past. In this way, they were just trying to do what was usual... only, later on, the 300 or so (however many) years were added, at which point this history that was originally supposed to just correlate the people in question with the Roman/Greek history (like the history of the Goths, or the Bible for the Jews) got drawn out to cover this additional time. Why? Maybe it was seen as useful to intertwine it all with Christian history so it needed the additional time to create "Saints Lives" and Christian doings that would give more legitimacy to the church.

Another thing seems to be that the 300 years was added to cover up the fact that Julius Caesar was the real model/type of Jesus. And yeah, I can imagine that the "history of Jesus" was re-written to order and possibly local, more recent eclipse accounts were included for dramatic effect. Since Caesar was Jesus, then Fomenko's observation that the gospel accounts were written in the Middle Ages is irrelevant to that, though proves that the Jesus story was a late invention. The Apocalypse was also probably re-written with more recent, local details added for color and to make the text more convincing.