Anatoly Fomenko and the New Chronology

[Anodyne]

Russian mathematician Anatoly Fomenko has devised a system he calls the "New Chronology" that he says firmly establishes the fictive nature of the medieval epoch. The University of Moscow professor published a book called Antiquity in the Middle Ages: Greek and Bible History, in which he argues that the written record of human history should be condensed from thousands of years into hundreds of years. For Fomenko, history unfolded not over millennia but centuries.

Article was published in the "Skeptic." It debunks his claims.

jcolavito.tripod.com/lostcivilizations/id13.html

An infomerical describing an aspect of his book:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBOjAOMCxnI

Outline of his book:
history.mithec.com/

Detailed description of the book:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_%28Fomenko%29

About the man:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Timofeevich_Fomenko

[drooperdoo]

I actually read Fomenko's book recently. It's strange that it would come up here.

Even if one rejects Fomenko's model, he makes a compelling case that our current chronology is flawed as hell and rests mostly on the whims of medieval priests.

The evidence is actually persuasive that this chronology we inherited from the Church has serious problems. Even Sir Isaac Newton thought so, and wrote his last book on the subject.

So it's not just Fomenko who thinks that we need to seriously look into the subject. A surprising number of great minds have weighed in and agreed: We take too much for granted in history, accept too much because of custom, the deadening influence of tradition.

As for Fomenko's personal theory (over and above the critique of the traditional chronology of history) I'm intrigued by some aspects of it--such as his assertion that, in the muddling of history, one event described four different ways might, after centuries, be construed as four different events. It was fascinating, for instance, when he noticed that the Phoenicians and the Venetians had the same maritime empire, the same colonies, and phonetically the same name. So was the account of one culture being muddled and split into two separate [and erroneous] cultures?

Following his line of thought, I found some correspondences on my own--like the Greek politician Solon, known as one of the Seven Wise Men of Athens. Isn't it interestining that this "wise man" who was also a political leader has a name that is suspicious similar to the Solomon of the Bible (Solomon, who was purported to be a political leader and wise man, too)? Archaeologists and historians agree: Solomon didn't exist, but Solon did.

So was Solomon the result of Greek culture hitting the Levant after the conquest of Alexander and being co-opted by the Jews--just as they co-opted Sargon's birth-legend of being floated on a reed-boat as a baby on the Tigris River when they fleshed out Moses' fictitious biography? The book of Ecclestiastes is said to have also been inspired by the Greek school of stoic philosophy, and was evidence of recent cultural influence after Alexander the Great's conquest of the region--but it was backdated by later Biblical scholars and made to appear deceptively older when in fact it was not.

Armed with these mainstream admissions, it's easy to accept (at least, in my mind) that Solomon and Solon might actually be muddled accounts of the same man.

So who knows how many other times in history stuff like this has taken place?

Fomenko's chronology may be as wildly off as the traditional model we passively accept because of the hypnotioc lure of tradition, but let's not throw the baby-Moses out with the bath water: Certain elements of his critique may actually have merit . . . as was proven recently when an iron statue of Romulus and Remus long attributed to the Etrsucans was carbon dated and discovered to have actually been created in the 13th Century.