In previous articles in this review we have looked at some of the ways in which people have sometimes attempted to suppress or rewrite history to make one side look better than the other. That is not to say that the revision of history is always a bad thing. Sometimes new information comes to light or further reflection results in the legitimate correction of errors in the historical records. However, recent attempts by the Russian mathematician A. Fomenco and his colleagues to rewrite the whole of global history are particularly disquieting because of the broad scope of the project and strident claims of absolute scientific accuracy.
Chronology, the dating of historical events in their proper time sequence, is the basis of historical writing. Obviously, the accuracy of these dates is of prime importance. By applying statistics and mathematical models Fomenco and his supporters call into question the accuracy of our current traditional chronology. He concludes that “history” as we know it, really began only in the Middle Ages.
Consequently, ancient history never really existed, except in the minds of those who, allegedly, rewrote it to suit themselves or their wealthy influential clients. The consequences of this dramatic forward shift of conventional dates are catastrophic. We would have to conclude that Jesus Christ was born in 1053 A.D. and crucified in 1086 A.D. that the ¨myths¨ of Greece and Rome were ¨crafted¨ during the Renaissance, and so forth.
According to adherents of this “New Tradition,” as it is called, the idea of reconstructing global history first arose during the late Renaissance, when the Italian theologian and scientist I. Scaliger (1540-1609) determined the exact dates of key events in Greek history and so set the stage for our “traditional” chronology, which, it is said, is all wrong.
Errors and discrepancies are found in our chronological system. However, Fomenco and his followers object to all or most of our conventional dating methods, including art, archaeology, manuscripts, astronomy, and other methods of dating historical events. To counter their claims requires a certain amount of expertise and detailed research in each of these areas. It can be done, but it is time-consuming and, ultimately, possibly quite futile.
Do they have a case? The reader is told that the evidence of mathematics and astronomy is absolutely irrefutable. After all, who can argue with mathematics and the fixed dates of eclipses and other astronomical events?
Sounds convincing at first but Fomenko tends to ignore or explain away evidence to the contrary. For example, Ptolemy’s Almagest (ca. A.D. 151) a star chart of prime importance in contemporary chronology, is said to have been composed centuries later than commonly thought on the grounds that his observations are too accurate for the astronomical instruments of his time. Therefore, the lunar eclipse of the moon of August 27, 413 B.C. during the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta never happened, the war never took place, and ¨ancient¨ Greece never existed; it was simply a re-invention of Mediaeval Greece. The fact that no such eclipses occurred during the actual mediaeval Greek war either is brushed aside by an appeal to ¨chronological shifts,¨ in which ¨real¨ events get mixed up and re-written as ¨ancient¨ happenings, a rather convenient explanation.
One does not have to be a mathematician to grasp the implications of Fomenko’s application of mathematical models to history. For example, by relying on graphs and the simple numerical analysis of chronicles, Fomenko believes he can “prove” that two (apparently) separate dynasties, such as that of the Holy Roman-German Empire (A.D. 911-1307) and the “ancient” Jewish Kingdom (according to the Bible, Book of Kings), are one and the same!
Fomenko accomplishes this amazing revision of history by ignoring the details. For example, he argues that if towns A and B are less than one kilometer apart we are justified in saying that they are one and the same town. Likewise, if the differences between two dynasties are sufficiently small, we are therefore entitled to conclude that they too represent only one dynasty. Well, no, we are not entitled to this conclusion. Take a drive through southwestern Ontario, Canada, and you will pass through many towns so small you are through them before you realize it. Such minute local details, sometimes of great importance, are not covered by Fomenco’s mathematical formulae. Adherents of the ¨New¨ Tradition might argue that the differences are too small to matter, but history is made up of matters great and small. To ignore this is indeed to run the risk of falsifying history.
