About

This website is dedicated to the theory of New Chronology elaborated by Dr. Anatoly T Fomenko et al in the course of 44 years of meticulous research with the toolbox of exact sciences. The initial impulse was given by the major discovery in the telluric system Earth-moon made in 1971 by NASA chief astrophysicist Dr. Robert R Newton. History: Fiction or Science? Series of books and e-books is the most explosive tractate on history ever written.

The list of 1534 sources, illustrations from ancient manuscripts, and countless facts attest to the falsity of the chronology used nowadays. The dominating historical discourse was essentially crafted in the XVI-XVII century from a rather contradictory jumble of sources such as innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts whose originals had vanished in the Dark Ages, the allegedly irrefutable proof offered by late medieval astronomers resting upon the power of ecclesial authorities.

The consensual world history was manufactured in Europe in the XVI-XIX centuries with the political agenda of powers of that period based on erroneous clerical chronology elaborated in the XVI-XIX centuries by Kabbalist-numerologist Joseph Justus Scaliger and Jesuit Dionysius Petavius. The objections to such chronology by Sir Isaac Newton or Jean Hardouin (Curator of Louvre under Louis XVI) were discarded.

Thank you for your interest!

Authors and Personalities

Anatoly Timofeevich Fomenko (Ukrainian, b. 1945 in Stalino). Full Member (Academician) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Full Member of the International Higher Education Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Professor, Head of the Moscow State University Section of Mathematics of the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics. Solved Plateau’s Problem from the theory of minimal spectral surfaces. Author of the theory of invariants and topological classification of integrable Hamiltonian dynamic systems. Laureate of the 1996 National Premium of the Russian Federation (in Mathematics) for a cycle of works on the Hamiltonian dynamical systems and manifolds’ invariants theory. Author of 200 scientific publications, 28 monographs, and textbooks on mathematics, a specialist in geometry and topology, calculus of variations, symplectic topology, Hamiltonian geometry and mechanics, and computational geometry. Author of many books on the development of new empirical-statistical methods and their application to the analysis of historical chronicles and the chronology of antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Gleb Vladimirovich Nosovskiy (b. 1958). Candidate of Physics and Mathematics (MSU, Moscow, 1988), a specialist in the theory of probability, mathematical statistics, the theory of probabilistic processes, theory of optimization, stochastic differential equations, computer modeling of stochastic processes, and computer simulation. Worked as a researcher of computer geometry at Moscow Space Research Institute, Moscow Machine Tools and Instruments Institute, in Aizu University in Japan. A faculty member of the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics at MSU.

Robert Russell Newton (1918-1991) was an American physicist, astronomer, and historian of science, best known for his book The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy (1977). In Newton’s view, Ptolemy was “the most successful fraud in the history of science.” Newton showed that Ptolemy had predominantly obtained the astronomical results described in his work The Almagest by computation and not by the direct observations that Ptolemy described. According to R. Newton, that was a conscious falsification.

Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) was a French and Dutch philologist and historian best known for his works on chronology. Born in Agen, he in 1559 went to Paris to study Greek and Latin and then began to teach himself Hebrew, Arabic, Syrian, Persian, and the principal modern languages. He converted to Protestantism in 1562 and traveled to French and German universities and Italy to study its antiquities.

After the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day (August 1572) and the persecution of French Protestants, he went to Geneva, where he taught at an academy, returning to France in 1574. He was called to the University of Leiden (1593), where he became known as the most erudite scholar of his time. He remained there until his death.

Scaliger’s greatest work is the Opus de emendatione tempore (1583; “Study on the Improvement of Time”), a study of previous calendars. In it, he compared the computations of time made by the various civilizations of antiquity, corrected what he considered their errors, and, for the first time, placed chronology on a scientific basis. His other major work is Thesaurus temporum, complectens Eusebi Pamphili Chronicon (1609; “The Thesaurus of Time, Including the Chronicle of Eusebius Pamphilus”), a reconstruction of the Chronicle of the early Christian historian Eusebius Pamphilus and a collection of Greek and Latin remnants placed in chronological order. Two other treatises (published in 1604 and 1616) established numismatics, the study of coins, as a new and reliable tool in historical research. His other works were collected and published posthumously in 1610, and two collections of his correspondence appeared in 1624 and 1627.

Dionysius Petavius (Denis Pétau, 1583-1652), was a French Jesuit theologian. Born in Orléans, attended the University of Paris and then followed the theological lectures at the Sorbonne. In 1603 was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Bourges but resigned two years later to become a Jesuit. Taught rhetoric at Reims, La Flèche, and the Collège de Clermont. Later, he taught positive theology for twenty-two years. In 1629, at the invitation of Philip IV, he taught ecclesiastical history at Madrid; in 1639, at the invitation of Pope Urban VIII, he became a cardinal in Rome. A crater on the Moon is named Petavius in his honor.

To raise interest in the theory of the New Chronology

A FOREWORD BY GARRY KASPAROV, World Chess Champion, 1999.

The current foreword can hardly be regarded as an actual preface to this book in the usual sense.

History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 1: Fomenko, Dr Anatoly T, Yagoupov, Mike, Zinoviev, Alexandr: 9781703003147: Books: Amazon.com

You’re presented with ad libitum ruminations regarding chronology, chronological research, and the general problems of “ancient” history. Its content can best be described as an edited and extended shorthand report of a lengthy conversation between yours truly and the authors of the present book.

My interest in chronological problems is easily explained – I have had a passion for ancient, medieval, and modern history since childhood and have studied a vast amount of historical literature. I’ve got a good memory and remember most historical dates, names, and events by heart. Over the years, I have developed a rather exhaustive picture of “ancient” and medieval history in its consensual form; however, having a penchant for analyzing, calculating possibilities, comparing situations, and so on, I gradually became more and more convinced that there was something seriously wrong with the ancient historical dates.

Contradictions that appeared insoluble in the traditional historical paradigm arose constantly; one of the first problems that drew my attention was the impossibility of placing the heroes of ancient Greek mythology within the traditional historical timeframe. The mythical Theseus kills the Minotaur to liberate Athens from the humiliating necessity of paying tribute to the powerful Cretan king, and then unites the entirety of Attica, making his hometown the capital; these events along with his contemporaries storming the walls of Troy, and various other deeds of this “hero generation,” span seven or eight centuries (!) of ancient Greek history. It is well understood that myths can hardly be called a reliable source; one wonders what makes the historical chronicles that underwent multiple copying and ultimately hark back to oral tradition, any more trustworthy. I began to understand that reading history textbooks is by no means sufficient; one has to analyze the “historical evidence” that one is offered critically, using one’s common sense, as it were.

About a year and a half ago, I came across several books by the Moscow State University mathematicians A. T. Fomenko and G. V. Nosovsky. That was how I first learned that a group of professional mathematicians led by Academician A. T. Fomenko had been studying chronological issues for twenty years and that their research yielded some interesting results. The critical side of these books is very serious; they contain an admirable amount of valuable materials and deserve to be studied and discussed. However, some of the actual hypotheses and reconstructions suggested by the authors may prove debatable. It is clear that putting forth a final reconstruction of historical events is an extremely complex task, and all such attempts are bound to be vulnerable to criticism in one way or another. However, the research results that have already been published make it impossible to deny the fact that the consensual chronology of “ancient” history contains major inconsistencies that we have no right to carry on denying. I would like to relate some of my considerations on the matter.

1. THE FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY AS A WEAPON OF POLITICAL POWER STRUGGLE. THE POSSIBILITY OF GLOBAL HISTORICAL FALSIFICATIONS TO THIS DAY.

The entire concept of the new chronology is supported by the important fact that the falsification of history has always been a formidable weapon in the political power struggle. The XX century provides us with some prime examples, and it is perfectly obvious that there have been many possibilities for altering history in the XV or even the XVII century.

Sources of information were a lot more heterogeneous back then, and what they provided defied all possibilities of verification and clarification. Thus, various kings, czars, khans, and dukes – people possessing real power and the ability to control publishing houses, as well as all activities of historians and chronographers – could manipulate the accounts of historical events (or events they wanted to see as such) at their convenience, without any external control whatsoever.

This argument cannot possibly encounter any substantial objections and is important enough to counter nihilistic criticisms claiming all of the reconstructions offered to be nonsensical ipso facto. Written history implies the existence of its writers and immediately leads one to question their objectivity. Even the official chronicles tell us that the Middle Ages have been full of elaborate palace plotting, political intrigue, and mortal dynastic confrontation. As a matter of fact, the latter offers the greatest possibilities for falsification.

All of these genealogical trees of monarchs and millenarian dynastic reigns may have been compiled due to direct commands of rulers to prove the length of their family history. We can be almost perfectly certain that all of the dynastic histories of the Middle Ages stemmed from the offspring of a rather limited number of mythical characters and served to justify the claims to legitimacy of various monarchs. We regard it as yet another example of how easily uncontrolled power becomes abused.

Thus, Henry of Navarre’s claims for the French throne required extending the history of the backwater Bourbon clan 250 years and nine generations into the past to “find” the necessary intersection with the Capet-Valois dynasty.

2. THE LACK OF CORRELATION BETWEEN THE REAL GENE POOL AND THAT OF THE “PHANTOM AGES”

The new chronology is next supported by the fact that certain basic genetic traits of homo sapiens

that manifest in various aspects of our existence appear nonexistent in the “phantom” ages, as opposed to the “provable” history that spans 600 years according to the authors of these books. When we compare various stages of human evolution, we see a great discrepancy between the patterns of human behavior over the period that we can be certain about, and in the phantom ages.

1) THE BIOLOGICAL FACTOR.

It would be interesting to study the rate of human reproduction. We appear to possess the information that can be verified. The population of England, for instance, grew from 4 million to 62 million between the XV and the XX centuries. Another example is France of the XVII-XX centuries (starting from the reign of Louis XIV), where the population grew from 20 to 60 million – although France actively participated in the bloodiest of wars. France had lost around three million men in their prime, for the most part, in Napoleon’s wars. Apart from that, there have been many minor wars and skirmishes in the XIX century, plus the horrendous mass slaughters of World War I.

It is obvious that the natural reproduction rate was reduced by the deaths of large parts of the young populace that occurred twice within two centuries. We are not speaking of the bloodshed during the French Revolution and the wars of the XVIII century. We see that the population grew by a factor of three over three hundred years.

In England, this factor was a lot higher. Immigration from the former colonies might also play a role here – still, the growth rate is most impressive. England is an even better example since the gene pool there had not been afflicted by quite as many wars. Official history tells us that the population grew from 4 million in the XV century to 62 million in the XX – in other words, the growth rate over 500 years equaled 15x. Such factors as the annexation of Ireland and Scotland are countered by the emigration to the colonies.

The question that arises instantly is as follows: what had these countries’ populations been back when they had stopped being Roman colonies in the IV-V centuries? The fertile province of Gaul is known to have been well-populated. If both its Eastern and Western parts had had 20 million inhabitants (a minimal hypothetical estimation), simple logic tells us that the barbarian hordes that had swarmed the Empire must have equaled millions in their numbers.

If we are to try using the reverse geometrical progression in our calculations, we get an irrational result. It appears that humans had stopped breeding at some point, or their numbers were “growing in reverse.” An attempt at a logical explanation (such as epidemics or bad hygiene) can be easily countered by the following considerations: according to historical documents, there was no progress in hygiene between the V and the XVIII centuries. Epidemics occurred frequently, and hygiene was extremely poor. Firearms were introduced in the XV century, and the wars became much bloodier.

If we’re to compare the population of the “ancient” Oecumena of the Pericles epoch (V century BC) and the epoch of the emperor Trajan (II century BC), we’re to obtain even more exciting results. If we’re to consider the number of large-city inhabitants and the sizes of the armies, we’re to encounter incredible population growth rates. Greece united under Athens can hardly be compared to the grandiosity and the splendor of the Roman Empire, but the proportions aren’t met in any case.

Really, consider the 15,000 free citizens of Athens, Rome, and Alexandria, possessing half a million inhabitants each. One of the parts has a rearguard of fifteen hundred soldiers from the army of united Greek city-states, including 300 famed Spartans, all of which stay to cover the retreat of the main body of the army in a war where the very existence of the Hellenes is at stake. The other one has 26 legions (!), which were kept by Rome in times of peace, with no overall mandatory draft.

This is more than the Russian Empire could gather to counter Napoleon’s intervention in 1812.

In the Second Punic War (II century BC), after suffering three bitter defeats from Hannibal, the Romans put forth an army of 80 thousand soldiers, which the Carthaginians had also destroyed in the historical battle of Cannes.

All of this notwithstanding, Rome still found enough reserves to reach a breakpoint in the lengthy war that raged for fifteen more years all over the Mediterranean. The scale of this conflict is amazing – the next historical war with several fronts shall be the one of 1755-1763 between the English and the French.

2) THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL FACTOR

Let us regard the actual size of human beings. The pictures and the descriptions of the “ancient” Greek athletes show us well-built people of a considerable size who run, jump, and break all possible records in javelin-throwing. They win battles over enemy armies seven to ten times the size of theirs. Then we see the armor of the medieval knights that is fit for people the size of modern teenagers, making a rather modest impression of the state of human physique at the time. The contrast with the well-developed bodies of the “ancients” is stunning; we see a sinusoidal curve in the development of the human muscles. Biological species may evolve in sinusoidal curves but hardly over 2000 years since substantial qualitative alterations require dozens of millennia.

3) THE PSYCHOPHYSICAL FACTOR

Let us consider the factor of a mass character that I shall be referring to as psychophysical.

Documented history tells us of the insatiable need of human beings to make discoveries. The vector of technological progress is a strictly vertical one. Every ten years, something happens, i.e., discoveries, sea voyages, explosions . . . Everything keeps on changing, and we see constant evolution – from Columbus to the landing on the Moon, from crossbows to nuclear bombs. Forwards and upwards.

However, the traditional ancient history tells us of periods when humanity had apparently remained dormant for centuries – “ancient” Egypt, the medieval “Dark Ages” – whole epochs of utter stasis in human thinking. It appears that the inhabitants of ancient Egypt and Rome had different genetic codes and couldn’t be bothered about anything, so they froze in their development, resulting in a total lack of innovative activity.

At the same time, there were prosperous ancient empires where those among homo sapiens who possessed penchants for arts and sciences could get plenty of opportunities for growth and development. But, alas and alack, all of the prosperous “ancient” empires had ceased their development at some point.

3. THE RATE OF TECHNICAL AND CULTURAL PROGRESS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

These rates completely fail to reflect the human ability for practical improvement. Here are a few examples.

1) THE PRIMITIVE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

A thousand years should be enough to expand the arsenal limited by harps, kitharas, whistles, and flutes. There are no records mentioning drums or percussion of any kind. A violin is more complex, but it isn’t of the Binomial theorem magnitude, so it may have been invented over the millenarian “Classical Greek period.” It is well understood that Stradivarius “could only have been born in Italy,” but we’re being told that there had been a great Classical period of growth in arts and sciences.

There had been fifty years of peace in Periclean Athens before the Peloponnesian War. Then, there was a rather calm period between the Macedonian and Roman conquests. As for Rome, there had been at least two centuries of perfect peace. And nothing much had happened. Everything remains on the same primitive level even though many affluent people spend great sums of money on singers, musicians, and poets patronizing fine arts to the best of their ability. Rome allegedly copied all things Greek, but no musical progress ever occurred. Most noteworthy, no notation had been invented over all those years. One fails to understand how a sophisticated society patronizing fine arts can manage with no notational system. The result was that “no musical artifacts had survived till our day” due to the alleged non-existence of notation.

2) THE NON-IMPROVEMENT OF WEAPONS AND MILITARY TACTICS.

If we’re to wonder about just how primitive the Graeco-Roman musical culture was, we shall be perfectly confused by yet another mysterious paradox, namely, the amazing fact that the “ancient” Roman Republic, and later the Roman Empire, had failed to improve their weapons and military tactics in any way at all. The Roman citizens used to gather in rather effective military formations when the military expansion of the Republic began. As for the Roman Empire, it is common knowledge that it had been a state heavily dependent on military aggression and annexation of territory. We learn all of this from the so-called “ancient” sources.

Military expansion requires weapons and strategic thought to evolve rapidly, yet centuries have passed without significant changes.

The Romans couldn’t so much as master steel metallurgy, and that is hardly an invention at all; it just requires the diligent work and experimentation of a number of generations.

The improvement of weapon quality is a crucial issue. The lives of the legionaries depended on their weapons and the general character of military actions. We are being told, however, that the Romans kept using their short swords of low-quality iron over the entire course of their history.

Let us consider the cavalry history next. If we’re to trust the “ancient” sources, Roman cavalry hadn’t been particularly powerful due to the lack of harness. The reins must have already existed, but the stirrup only appeared in the eighth century, according to the traditional dating offered by official history.

The stirrup is supposed to originate from China. Knighthood allegedly appears around the same time as the stirrup, which is logical and understandable.

Ancient Romans, on the other hand, failed to pay any attention to the harness at all, even considering the fact that the most dangerous battles in Roman history had been fought with the Oriental nations that have been known masters of horseback riding – the mythical Parthians, for instance, the ones that disappeared mysteriously with their entire kingdom. These Oriental nations had possessed two important advantages – the cavalry and the archers, who delivered devastating blows to the Romans. The arrows from their heavy longbows literally swept infantry away by hundreds.

However, Rome failed to improve its projectile weapons in any way. Ancient Rome had not given birth to crossbows, either, although Romans, being ballistics experts, could have invented such powerful weapons as the crossbow and the longbow, which can be used by one person.

Nevertheless, this never came to pass, and the military tactics of the Roman army remained pretty much unaltered. Another funny irrationality is that many “ancient” Greek myth heroes had been first-class archers. Even the mighty Heracles had to rely on arrows occasionally; the great bow of Ulysses had slain the unfortunate contestants for Penelope’s hand, and Apollo, with his never-miss bow, had killed many giants.

There are two well-known cases when the Roman legions suffered a disastrous defeat. The first one is the destruction of the army of Carrus on the plains of Carrhae in 53 BC, and the second is the demise of Emperor Valentis’ army in 378 AD. Four centuries are supposed to have passed between the two; however, both of these battles are reported to have been lost in exactly the same way, namely, with mounted archers virtually ripping the body of the Roman army to shreds. The legions are chased out of formation, what meager cavalry is available gets stuck somewhere, and the scattered Roman warriors are picked out and slaughtered one by one.

The descriptions of the battles are identical; moreover, they are supposed to have occurred near each other in Asia Minor. The new chronology deems these battles to have been a pair of phantom duplicates of a real defeat of the Western army that occurred due to its inability to counter the formation-breaking mounted archers; the battle is of indeterminate antiquity but may have been one of those fought in the medieval Trojan war.

One should also regard the history of brilliant victories of the Roman armies and enquire why the enemies of the Romans failed to have copied anything from the Romans. King Mithridates, a long-time foe of the Romans, possessed the intelligence and the means to develop effective countermeasures. The Romans didn’t demonstrate much besides drill and a high level of discipline in the legions. Nevertheless, four hundred years are supposed to have passed between the abovementioned battles, and the Roman army allegedly suffered no serious defeats over this period, except the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, which was lost to the Germanic tribes by Quintilius Varus.

The invention of new ways of destroying fellow humans allegedly began in the XIV-XV centuries and has not stopped ever since, as something brand new is introduced every 10-15 years. Humans are supposed to have been doing nothing for centuries before that epoch.

The official history offers a very strange version of the history of heavy armor. The equipment of knights was only minimally modified from the VIII to the XIV centuries. Their numbers remained small, and regular armies were truly infinitesimal due to the high cost of weapons and ammunition. A fully equipped knight was a formidable battle unit, and several hundred of them in a squadron could scatter an entire army of unprofessional fighters in the epoch of the glorious Richard Coeur de Lion. This fact should tell us something about both the number of people and the fact that the unprofessional armies were poorly trained, apparently because humanity did not have a rich enough history.

However, in the XIV century, everything changed drastically with the invention of gunpowder and firearms. Ways of destroying medieval fortifications are found, and ballistic trajectories are calculated. Towards the end of the XV century, all the Italian fortresses fell before the French troops because the French had new small mobile cannons capable of rendering the high ancient walls into piles of shards. The attempts at inventing new types of fortification began instantly, and those appeared in the XVI century, greatly curbing the destructive power of the artillery. Everything has been developing according to the classical “missile – armor ” scheme ever since.

4. A LACK OF CORRELATION BETWEEN THE AIMS OF ANCIENT PUBLIC CONSTRUCTIONS AND THE AVAILABLE MEANS

The lack of correlation between the grandiose goals set by the “ancient” builders and the meager means of their realization, as described by the ancient sources, seems apparent.

1) THE LACK OF GEOGRAPHICAL MAPS

The Roman Empire has been well known for its well-developed network of roads and communications. The existence of these roads without many geographical maps seems impossible, as does the scrupulous planning of the Roman military operations. The scientific principles of cartography had been formulated and expounded by “the great geographer and astronomer of the days of yore,” Claudius Ptolemy. The strange disappearance of maps made in that epoch is hard to explain.

Destruction by the barbarians is an illogical supposition since any prominent leader of the barbaric tribes, such as Alaric or Attila, would quickly estimate the military value of these objects and guard them jealously due to the military advantage they gave the owner. The reactionary medieval church apparently did not include descriptive geography (that did not tackle the issue of the Earth’s shape) in the list of heretical sciences.

In this case, how does one explain the wide propagation of crude illiterate dauberies bearing the proud name of “maps” in the VI-XIV centuries? How could the Western European crusader troops have reached Jerusalem using them for orientation?

2) THE ABSENCE OF CREDIT AND BANKING SYSTEMS

The “ancients” remain perfectly taciturn about the state of affairs regarding the credit and the banking system in the Roman Empire. A normal quotidian existence of a state implies flourishing trade, which requires credit institutions when conducted as extensively as it allegedly had been. These began to appear in Western Europe when the possibility of building an empire had already existed. Where one has an empire, one should also see trade institutions using the credit system in order to allow traveling through the imperial vastness without having to drag bags of gold along. The pragmatic “ancient” Roman Empire could have developed something of the kind over its alleged three or four centuries of peaceful existence. It is remarkable that according to the official version of history, banking systems appeared in medieval Italy – in Genoa, Florence, and Milan.

5. THE LACKLUSTRE FATE OF FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

1) THE LACK OF PROMINENT SCIENTISTS IN THE PERIOD FOLLOWING THE FIRST CENTURY BC

Traditional history tells us a lot about the scientists of ancient Greece – almost too much, it seems. The life of Aristotle is supposed to be known day by day. We have a most exhaustive biography of Socrates, who had been a mythical figure, according to some historians. We all know Plato’s dialogues with his disciples – indeed, we have information about almost everyone – Archimedes, Heraclitus, the mythical Pythagoras, Aristarchus of Samos, the ancient precursor of Copernicus, and his exile because of his heretical theories. We have studied Euclid extensively. And after that, we encounter a void. Since around the first century AD in traditional dating, we have seen no more scientists, except for the occasional odd historian, geographer, or philosopher. The development of fundamental science allegedly ceases completely.

We know well that there was a period in Roman history when an entire reigning dynasty patronized sciences. In the beginning, there was Adrian, a proponent of monumental construction; after he appeared the urbane and cultivated Antoninus, and finally, Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher emperor and the famed patron of sciences. All the Golden Age criteria are met; geniuses should flourish in times like these.

It suffices to briefly glance at the epoch of Catherine the Great in Russia, where there had been such phenomena as the “folk genius” of Lomonosov. Nothing of the kind ever takes place in “ancient” Rome, an empire covering a great territory and basically comprising the entire “ancient world” with its most talented nations. One sees a scientific void. We are being presented with the pseudoscientific compilations of the first Christian theologians who had tried to adjust the new religion to the political and cultural realities of the Roman Empire as the greatest achievement.

2) THE ABSENCE OF A FITTING SYSTEM OF CALCULUS

The fact that the Roman calculus system isn’t really fit for any serious calculation remains in the dark for some reason. Try dividing large numbers using columns, or calculating the volume of a complex geometrical figure, for instance. And how about the theory of repeating decimals? The “ancient” Romans nevertheless performed some rather complex calculations, as it turns out. Extensive architectural projects, engineering, and ballistics all required meticulous calculations since one can hardly build a temple or a bridge or bring down an enemy fortress on approximate estimations.

One cannot help inquiring about the calculus system used by famous ancient Greek scientists such as Archimedes, Aristarchus of Samos, Euclid, and Ptolemy. They required a more highly evolved system.

However, if they possessed one, why didn’t the pragmatic Romans, who had copied the best Greek inventions, consider adopting it as well? Calculus is the cornerstone of any science; how could they have ignored it? The only logical explanation is that the Greeks had no such system.

Indeed, the Attic and Ionic calculus systems that have been “preserved” by the official history are even clumsier than the Roman version. How could the calculations have possibly been conducted, then?

It is hardly a secret that the entire “ancient” science concurs perfectly well with the so-called “Arabic” system of calculus that only came into existence ten centuries after the main works of the ancient Greek founding fathers of mathematics and physics had already been written, according to traditional history. We see a gigantic temporal gap during which the ancient manuscripts were still copied and renovated despite the overall decline of sciences. The reason for this remains nebulous since the described phenomena allegedly did not exist in the real world. One also wonders where the educated monastic scribes who could decipher the complex formulae came from.

In reality, all the copies of the aforementioned tractates use the so-called Arabic calculus system we’re accustomed to.

We are faced with the amazing neglect of the publishers at the dawn of the printing era who failed to preserve the specimens of this complex mathematical tightrope-walking of the “great ancient thinkers,” who had been capable of solving complex problems with nothing but a clumsy alphabet-based system of calculus.

3. NO TRACE OF RESEARCH IN CHEMISTRY

Nothing is known about whether or not chemical research was conducted in the ancient world. No reports of either chemists or alchemists have reached our age. One wonders why the alchemists should appear as late as the Middle Ages since the actual idea of the transformation of matter can be traced to the very roots of philosophic thought. The ancient Greek philosophers had apparently considered transubstantiation the most important natural event. They tried to provide a valid theory explaining it but, for some mysterious reason, failed to follow through with anything practical since no ancient Greek chemistry ever came into existence.

We have read much about the Greek fire, a fearsome weapon of the Byzantine army in the early Middle Ages. It is most doubtful that this was just crude oil since, in this case, Byzantium wouldn’t have been able to retain the monopoly for such an effective weapon for such a long time. The chronicles are most probably referring to some chemical composition, which implies the existence of a certain theoretical base; however, we know nothing of any chemical research conducted in medieval Byzantium.

4) THE UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF MEDICAL SCIENCE

Let us add a few comments regarding anatomy and medical science. The works of Hippocrates haven’t reached us, nor have the writings of other prominent physicians. This is very odd since the emperors and the kings weren’t any less interested in medicine than they were in developing military strategy. The “ancient world” apparently had everything necessary to develop medical science; however, nothing was undertaken in this respect. Anatomy, medicine, and chemistry only appeared in the Middle Ages. I find it most peculiar to see that Homer’s poems and other works of “ancient” literature should reach us in a much better condition, being copied more often than the priceless tractates on the healing of the human body in the Middle Ages – all this although the barbarian rulers needed good doctors as much as the educated Roman emperors did.

5) THE INSUFFICIENT DEVELOPMENT OF SEVERAL OTHER INDUSTRIES

It has to be said that the considerations related to the development of science and culture are equally valid for all the other “ancient” civilizations: Egypt, Babylon, and China. The development also reaches a certain level there, only to freeze and perish for no apparent reason. The authors of these books offer good argumentation to prove that no Golden Age ever existed for any of these civilizations unless we’re to believe the evidence of a purely epistemological nature.

It is important to note that all of the technical and scientific achievements of the “ancient world” correlate amazingly well with the level of European civilization by the time the first publications of the “ancient” authors took place. The scientific thought of the “ancient” geniuses could not have produced anything over the ten centuries of their existence that would be more advanced than the achievements of the Europeans, who have had about three hundred years of progress in the Renaissance epoch behind them!

This consideration makes the hypothesis that the entire “ancient” history was written by medieval authors in the XV-XVI centuries seem a lot less far-fetched and improbable. The medieval chronologers had simply transferred their world into the past, having projected their quotidian reality onto “ancient” Greece and Rome. No qualitative alterations have been made since these authors clearly lacked Jules Verne’s imagination, so all the changes they made were strictly quantitative. The living standards of the fictitious “ancient world” were higher since “the ancients had more of everything.” No innovations in either weapons, science, or simple articles of quotidian use have been made. Nobody seemed to have objected to the fact that the evolutionary level of the XV-XVI centuries had equaled that of the Roman Empire in its prime. This “ancient empire” could also have developed the abovementioned elementary things.

Let us now divert our attention to the biographies of the “ancient” celebrities. An abundance of minute details transforms these “biographies” into works of literary art. The accuracy of the ancient authors in reconstructing the most trivial episodes from the biographies of their heroes is amazing. An acid retort made by Alexander the Great to Parmenion during their discussion of the ransom offer made by King Darius; the instructions given by Caesar to his legates before the battle of Pharsalia; the famous last words of Julian the Apostate; and all similar grains of wisdom have apparently been immediately taken down in shorthand by the eyewitnesses and passed on reverently in their initial form until reaching the actual authors of the biography in question. Different sources contradicted each other occasionally, but the apocryphal versions had always been weeded out and left in the junkyard of history, whilst the original picture remained preserved exactly the way it had always been.

Sadly, modern biographers appear to have lost the “ancient” art of intuitive comparative analysis. Volunteer informers also seem to have lost their effectiveness despite the progress in means of communication, and the actual characters of modern history have lost the art of uttering punchy aphorisms at the right moments. We must contend that the biographies of the most famous historical figures have gaps in them, and many important periods of their lives have not been reflected in any sources due to the sheer lack of factual information. It should only be natural that the events of the last three centuries allow for an aleatory interpretation that depends on the sources available or selected by an author.

The events of 14 July 1789 or 14 December 1825 are not related with such crystal clarity as to the story of Catilina’s conspiracy has only reached us in one version, apparently for the facilitation of subsequent historical research.

The bookshelves crammed with various historical and analytical literature should not confuse anyone – 99% of these books have been written over the last 150 years and usually expound the brief accounts in the original sources. Some authors offer new hypotheses based on a meticulous analysis of the “ancient” text (remaining within the paradigm of traditional chronology, naturally).

These hypotheses are discussed by all interested parties, which opens many avenues for further research. We should thus be aware that the images of famous “ancient” military leaders, politicians, and philosophers that exist in our imaginations have been edited by every new generation of historians. The original sources remain virtually the same. The “tales of the days of yore” are usually based on a single source, one author whose writings are assumed to be absolute truth and are later used for reference in all subsequent research and commentary. Thus, the creation of the Great Persian Empire of the Achaemenians was first mentioned in the

History of Herodotus.

The history of the Punic Wars, as well as the information on Carthage, was related by Polybius. Unfortunately, the sources that he had been referring to did not survive. This rather prolific author had extremely bad luck – only 5 of 40 (!) volumes of his Universal History have reached our time, so the reconstruction of history that occurred later on was forced to deduce many of the details of Hannibal’s campaigns.

It has to be noted that the remaining unique evidence always belongs to the side that has won in a military conflict; all remaining accounts of the side that lost were immediately destroyed (as in the incineration of Suza and the total destruction of Carthage and Jerusalem), and the official point of view was subsequently formed.

Such interpretations are barely worthy of any trust, even in the traditional concept of history.

6) THE PAUCITY OF VARIETY IN ARTICLES OF QUOTIDIAN USE

The everyday life of the Roman Empire has been described in sufficient detail. Let us regard the items of quotidian use among the ruling elite. There are neither chairs nor functional cutlery or kitchen utensils present. Artful chefs and great feasts became legendary – Lucullus, for one, attained fame primarily for the lavishness of his gluttony – however, the sophisticated culinary taste does not include the serving and the cutlery that remain primitive and crude.

Strange for a great empire. One instantly remembers the accounts of the horrendous table manners of the XVI-century aristocracy, who used their hands to eat and made loud noises.

I recollect my visit to the Croatian Brioni Islands in the Adriatic. The place is unique and truly beautiful. The tourists are told that the Roman emperor Domitian’s summer residence used to be nearby. The place is really suitable, being close to Italy and possessing clear waters and an even climate. There is even an underwater aqueduct system that had allegedly been constructed by the “ancients.” The guides explain it in detail: the slaves dived using hollow cane reeds for aqualungs. The result is impressive, especially because the depth there is 50 meters at the very least.“

Ancient” vessels are naturally present in abundance. One can always buy a large jug for storing grain or a small amphora for scented oils. Local smugglers obtained those in large quantities since the Adriatic was part of an important Greco-Roman trade route, and many ships sank there. “Ancient” excavations have also been conducted. The actual excavated settlement shown to tourists is a medieval Byzantine one – not much of sight since it’s only about 100 by 200 meters in size. However, there is a tale of a different and much older settlement that had existed here before. One can also see the ruins of the “Emperor’s palace” – the remnants of some nondescript construction and stairs emerging from the water – not too impressive. The guide proceeds to relate that the senators used to live here and shows the remnants of the steam baths with separate compartments for hot and cold water – nothing remotely resembling the posh imperial resort that it is supposed to have been unless one is to use one’s imagination to the maximum.

6. THE ABSENCE OF ANCIENT INSCRIPTIONS CONTAINING DEFINITE DATES

Now that we’re about to return to the real Middle Ages, one has to mark another fact that concerns human psychology and the absence of “ancient” datings. My search yielded no results – various cathedrals, palaces, and churches have all brandished plaques with the dates in the modern chronological system. We are told that the cathedral is 500 years old; however, the plaque was only put up in the XIX or the XX century (the most conscientious sources also quote the date the actual plaque appeared). There are no old datings, even scribbled by hand. I haven’t found a single truly old building in Western Europe with either a plaque or an engraving with an authentic date made immediately upon construction. The guides are tactful enough to refrain from commenting on this.

We can only envy the high morality of our predecessors who have successfully resisted the petty temptation of sending a note to the future and scribbling a “Johnny-was-here” on the wall together with the date.