Critical Study on Chronology of the Ancient World

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crystallize
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Critical Study on Chronology of the Ancient World

Post by crystallize »

Good day.

It is sad to see that alternative history is revolving around Fomenko and his ideas of Tartaria and maths. It wasn't always like that.

Fomenko's early publications grew from studies of Morozov and Postnikov, not bothering with maths, Russia, or similarity of words. But these were never translated and so they are totally unknown in the West.

The following is a translation of Chapter 1 from the 1970s study by Postnikov, repackaging Morozov's ideas from 1907-1932 but in more dymanic way.

https://mega.nz/file/YCxATYJI#VEqo9QVFc ... crlotoehuI
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Re: Critical Study on Chronology of the Ancient World

Post by Peter Kirby »

crystallize wrote: Mon May 09, 2022 2:32 am Good day.

It is sad to see that alternative history is revolving around Fomenko and his ideas of Tartaria and maths. It wasn't always like that.

Fomenko's early publications grew from studies of Morozov and Postnikov, not bothering with maths, Russia, or similarity of words. But these were never translated and so they are totally unknown in the West.

The following is a translation of Chapter 1 from the 1970s study by Postnikov, repackaging Morozov's ideas from 1907-1932 but in more dymanic way.

https://mega.nz/file/YCxATYJI#VEqo9QVFc ... crlotoehuI
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Re: Fomenko, a Neo-Soviet Propagandist

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According to wiki - and I wouldnt waste another minute of my time reading this nutbar - A. Fomenko insists "the lands west of the 13 colonies that now constitute the American West and Middle West were a far eastern part of 'Siberian-American Empire' prior to its disintegration in 1775, and many other theories, that contradict the conventional historiography to say the least."

He's part of the Revisionist cabal which would justify invading Alaska (as The Beast has invaded Ukraine) on grounds that it was Russian, once - honestly, you couldn't make this sh*t up:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... honor.html
https://carlbeckpapers.pitt.edu/ojs/ind ... ad/160/156

The mathematician Anatolii Timofeevich Fomenko and the self-styled “New Chronology” (Novaia khronologiia) with which he is associated have proposed a radical revision not just of Russian but of world history, a revision whose dimensions can be illustrated by two of its postulates: in world history everything that is supposedly known about what happened before 1000 CE is a later invention; in Russian history the Mongol Empire had nothing to do with Mongols from Mongolia but was a Russian empire whose history was erased in the seventeenth century and later in Russia by the pro-Western Romanov dynasty and in Western Europe by the states created by revolts against it. Despite the prima facie ludicrousness of this schema, the New Chronology is a thriving enterprise. Fomenko and his coauthors have published dozens of books in Russian and English; the total number of pages which have appeared under Fomenko’s name as author or coauthor is probably over ten thousand. These totals do not include publications by other New Chronology advocates. Books by Fomenko and his colleague Gleb Vladimirovich Nosovskii appear in huge press runs.1 One commentator, after noting that the New Chronology is included in some school curricula and the programs of several political parties, estimated that 30 percent of Russians are sympathetic to the New Chronology.2 The New Chronology maintains a website, publishes a biannual journal, and broadcasts several television programs.3 Fomenko is a formidable element of the contemporary Russian intellectual scene.4

The New Chronology has rightly elicited vehement opposition from Russian historians, as well as scholars from other disciplines, because Fomenko’s theories are worthless fantasies, utterly devoid of serious value for the study of history. But his popularity in Russia has required historians there to study the New Chronology for two reasons, first, to refute its outrageous distortions of history, and second, to explain why such nonsense has achieved such a huge audience in Russia. The New Chronology has received relatively little scholarly attention outside Russia.5 The amount of time, energy, and publications devoted in Russia to refuting Fomenko in and of itself justifies Western interest in the polemics about the New Chronology as a feature of post-Soviet Russian historiography and culture. Unfortunately to appreciate why Russian historians become so livid at the mention of Fomenko’s name and why the popularity of the New Chronology elicits such shock in Russian academic circles it is necessary to present unadorned an extensive précis of this version of Russian history.6 Then we can identify the connections between the New Chronology and the elements of Russian historiography and Russian intellectual history it has cannibalized in the composition of its fractured fairy tale.

Rather obviously, this rubbish 'Theory' has long been subsidized and deliberately encouraged by arch-Revisionist decepticon and murderous sociopath Vladimir Putin. A veritable Hitler/Stalin/Mao of our day... Слава Україні!

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crystallize
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Re: Critical Study on Chronology of the Ancient World

Post by crystallize »

So, is anyone reading it?
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Critical Study on Chronology of the Ancient World

Post by Leucius Charinus »

crystallize wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 12:48 pm So, is anyone reading it?
YES. I had a quick read through this chapter. It's a pity there are no page numbers. The first third (or more) was devoted to the authenticity of Tacitus and there have been a range of modern authors who would agree there is no guarantee that Tacitus has not been tampered with by the (utterly corrupt) church industry of the middle ages.

At the end there is the summary:

Summary of the chapter

1. During the Renaissance (and on its eve) there was every opportunity for the activity of apocryphers, amplifiers, and outright falsifiers (see § 3).
2. Numerous falsifications of the time have been uncovered by historically-philological scholarship, but there is no certainty that they have all been uncovered (see § 2).
3. The authenticity of some of the most important ancient historians (Tacitus and Livy) raises serious doubts (cf. §1 and §7).
4. There are theoretical reasons to think that all ancient writings are apocrypha of the Renaissance and its eve (cf. § 5)

My feedback on all this is to point out that the author wrote prior to the scientific development of radio-carbon dating and that this development has enabled scholars to estimate the dating of various manuscripts within some upper and lower bounds.

For example a number of codices have been C14 dated. These include the Tchacos Codex (containing the Coptic Gospel of Judas) and the Yung Codex (NHC 2) containing the Gospels of Philip and Thomas. The C14 results point to the mid 4th century or thereabouts.

Thus the C14 results preclude a wholly Renaissance invention. The C14 essentially must send the author M. M. Postnikov and scholars like Nikolai Aleksandrovich Morozov and also Fomenko back to the drawing board.

The C14 results however do not preclude a mass invention of other supposed manuscripts from antiquity such as has been established for example with the Latin forgery mill known as Pseudo-Isidore (covered in the chapter).

Many modern biblical scholars are often unaware of the woeful state of the manuscript transmission history for many of the texts that they are dealing with. So this chapter has some interesting observations on when many of these manuscripts first appeared - often from within the archives of the (utterly corrupt) church industry.

Thanks for posting about this stuff.
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Re: Critical Nonsense.

Post by billd89 »

But isn't the stock Tinfoil Hat Reply "C-14 results are faked"?

Indeed, Fomenko rejects C-14 data.

He's written an entire chapter of a book disputing C-14 Dating, with the rhetorical question: “ARE RADIOCARBON DATINGS TO BE TRUSTED?” so you really cannot pretend it's just one or two asides. The entire corpus of his work is dangerous make-believe, scary Kremlin (Neo-Soviet) propaganda.

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Re: Critical Nonsense.

Post by Leucius Charinus »

billd89 wrote: Thu Jun 02, 2022 8:04 am But isn't the stock Tinfoil Hat Reply "C-14 results are faked"?
I subscribe to the view that C14 dates (coupled with their bounds) are generally valuable and legitimate estimates. I am therefore arguing that Fromenko's theories are falsified. However the article cited engages with the history of manuscripts "discovered" in the archives of the church industry. And I do subscribe to the view that the church industry of antiquity and the middle ages was utterly corrupt. This organisation would not blink twice over the forgery and fabrication of manuscripts that glorified and/or obfuscated the pseudo-history of its origins. Feel free to change my mind.
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Fomenko's Neo-Soviet Revisionism

Post by billd89 »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 11:50 pmMy feedback on all this is to point out that the author wrote prior to the scientific development of radio-carbon dating and that this development has enabled scholars to estimate the dating of various manuscripts within some upper and lower bounds.
You're simply wrong. Fomenko first began publishing his garbage in 1980 but expanded his thesis in the early 1990s. Radio-carbon dating, we should all know, has been established since the 1970s. (It doesn't matter if the RU are still decades behind the rest of Europe. Soviets rape history, "science" is superfluous to their agenda. Use it or abuse it - 'the ends justify the means.')

You are what some may recall as a "fellow-traveller." Your motive may be different, but the modus operandi is nearly identical.

"The West/Christianity must be destroyed!"

Another dated review of Fomenko is Marlene Laruelle's “Conspiracy and Alternate History in Russia: A Nationalist Equation for Success?” in The Russian Review, Vol. 71, No. 4 (OCTOBER 2012), pp. 565-580. LINK.
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A Kommisar of the New and Glorious History Speaks!

Post by billd89 »

I was once in a left-wing cult (5 YEARS!), and this familiar Soviet clap-trap reminds me that we actually had The Complete Writings of Kim Il-Sung (in 27 volumes) "For Sale"...

https://www.northernarchitecture.us/anc ... ology.html
One has to add the following report that A. T. Fomenko received orally from one of the partakers of the conversation that is to be described below. A while ago, Professor M. M. Postnikov had submitted an article with an overview of N. A. Morozov's chronological research in a journal titled Uspekhi Matemati-cheskih Nauk (The Successes of Mathematical Sciences). The following dispute among members of the journal's editing board, among them Academicians P. S. Alexandrov and A. N. Kolmogorov, ensued. A. N. Kolmogorov refused so much as to touch the article, saying something along the lines of "This article is to be rejected. I spent enough time and effort fighting Morozov in the days of yore". However, he had added the following: "And yet we shall all look perfectly idiotic if it turns out that Morozov had been right". The article was rejected.

This conversation sheds some light on the events of the days when N. A. Morozov's research was practically vetoed. Today we are being convinced that everything had happened "automatically" and that N. A. Morozov's research was of little enough interest to have been forgotten by everyone in a short time. We are now beginning to understand that the forces opposing N. A. Morozov were all the more formidable to have needed the participation of A. N. Kolmogorov. It is also noteworthy that A. N. Kolmogorov considered it possible for N. A. Morozov to have been correct.

Apparently, during the time N. A. Morozov's research was cast into oblivion, historians have been constantly bothered by the possibility of someone resuming it. It is hard to find another explanation for the peculiar fact that as early as 1977, when the research conducted by the Moscow State University mathematicians was in its earliest stages and no publications had been issued on the topic, the Communist magazine had published an article by Doctor of Historical Sciences A. Manfred with a severe criticism of "the new mathematical methods" in history. The names of the methods' authors weren't mentioned, but the implications were perfectly clear. A. Manfred wrote the following: "If these "young" scientists are given any degree of liberty at all, they will drown the book market in summaries of numeric data. The "new" tendencies need to be overcome as a result of scrupulous critical analysis, since they are holding back the progress of global historical science..." (Communist, July 1977,10th issue, pages 106-114).

In 1981, immediately after our first publications on chronology appeared, the History Department of the USSR Academy of Sciences gathered for a special session on June 29, 1981, that had the criticism of our work as its main objective. The Learned Secretary of the History Department of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Cand. Hist. Sci. V. V. Volkov and the Learned Secretary of the Principal Tendencies of Human Society Development Council of the History Department of the Academy N. D. Loutzkov sent A. T. Fomenko an official note saying, among other things, that: "The Department's session took place on 29 June, 1981, conducted by the Vice Academician Secretary of the Department, the Academician Y. V. Bromley... Your conclusions were sharply criticized by the specialists of six humanities institutes as well as the staff members of the Sternberg Institute of Astronomy" (8 May 1984).

The most vehement criticisms of the 1981 session belonged to the Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Z. V. Udaltsova, and the chairwoman of the commission, Y. S. Goloubtsova, both of them historians. Y. S. Goloubtsova was in charge of a special commission of historians that had been assembled to analyze our works. The materials of this discussion had provided the basis for a series of articles with harsh criticisms of our research in various historical periodicals.

A similar "discussion" recurred in 1998-1999, as shall be mentioned below.

The sixth stage - is the post-1990 period. It can be characterized as 'the stage of publishing books on New Chronology.' This is when the books that covered our chronological research, as well as those containing derived hypotheses about what pre-XVII century history really looked like, started to appear. The first book on this topic was A. T. Fomenko's Methods of Statistical Analysis of Narrative Texts and their Application to Chronology, MSU Publishing, 1990. The foreword was written by A. N. Shiryaev, President of the International Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability Theory in 1989-1991, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Head of the Probability Theory Studies Section of the Moscow State University Department of Mathematics and Mechanics, Head of the Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics Department of the V. A. Steklov Mathematics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

A Plenum is required, of course:
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Supposedly, World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov once admired 'New Chronology' (Fomenko says); the revelation that some of these ideas might be supported by "the unique 1777 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica" also does not surprise me much.
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Re: Fomenko's Neo-Soviet Revisionism

Post by Leucius Charinus »

billd89 wrote: Fri Jun 03, 2022 6:57 am
Leucius Charinus wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 11:50 pmMy feedback on all this is to point out that the author wrote prior to the scientific development of radio-carbon dating and that this development has enabled scholars to estimate the dating of various manuscripts within some upper and lower bounds.
You're simply wrong. Fomenko first began publishing his garbage in 1980 but expanded his thesis in the early 1990s.
The link in the OP refers to the 1970s study by Postnikov, repackaging Morozov's ideas from 1907-1932. I was responding to these repackaged ideas of Morozov who clearly wrote prior to the scientific development of radio-carbon dating.
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