Friends, Romans, Countrymen…

Gunnar Heinsohn really rattled the cage of the gentlefolk who inhabit the world of Settled History when he observed that the history of the 1st millennium is only supported by 300 years worth of archaeology.

Interestingly, the invention of 700 years worth of history [to infill the first millennium] implies that the Dark Ages are so dark because they represent “a period of intellectual darkness” in modern academia.

History: Stretching the Truth

Alfred de Grazia’s Magazine of Quantavolution [ http://www.q-mag.org/ ] has provided a venue for Gunnar Heinsohn to present the evidence that shows the Roman Empire was devastated by a catastrophe that resulted in the [so-called] Crisis of the Third Century.

The famous date of 409/410 CE, with the Rescript of Honorius as the date for Rome’s retreat from the British Isles, is misplaced, as is the date for Diocletian’s Saxons.
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Thus, it is not in the early 400s CE that Roman civilization is wiped out in Britain.

The isles were hit by the same conflagration that devastated the empire in the so-called Crisis of the Third Century.

Thus, Roman England falls nearly two centuries prior to the conventional date.

The traces of that disaster have been shown long ago: “Parts [of London] had been cleared of buildings and were already covered by a horizon of dark silts (often described as `dark earth’) suggesting that land was converted to arable and pastoral use or abandoned entirely.

The dark earth may have started forming in the 3rd century” (Schofield 1999).

CHARLEMAGNE’S CORRECT PLACE IN HISTORY
Gunnar Heinsohn – Gdańsk/Danzig – March 2014
http://www.q-mag.org/charlemagnes-correct-place-in-history.html

The Crisis of the Third Century, also known as Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis, (AD 235–284) was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague, and economic depression.

The Crisis began with the assassination of Emperor Alexander Severus at the hands of his own troops, initiating a fifty-year period in which 20–25 claimants to the title of Emperor, mostly prominent Roman army generals, assumed imperial power over all or part of the Empire. 26 men were officially accepted by the Roman Senate as emperor during this period, and thus became legitimate emperors.

By 258–260, the Empire split into three competing states: the Gallic Empire, including the Roman provinces of Gaul, Britannia and (briefly) Hispania; the Palmyrene Empire, including the eastern provinces of Syria Palaestina and Aegyptus; and the Italian-centered and independent Roman Empire, proper, between them. Later, Aurelian (270–275) reunited the empire; the Crisis ended with the ascension and reforms of Diocletian in 284.

The Crisis resulted in such profound changes in the Empire’s institutions, society, economic life and, eventually, religion, that it is increasingly seen by most historians as defining the transition between the historical periods of classical antiquity and late antiquity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century

Obviously, the suggestion that the Settled History of the 1st millennium is a monumental clusterfuck hasn’t gone down well with the Settled History brethren.

However, this month Ewald Ernst has entered the fray by unearthing additional evidence that demonstrates the Settled History of the 1st millennium is unravelling at breakneck speed.

I am convinced that Gunnar Heinsohn is working on a view of the 1st millennium CE that will not only revolutionize Roman history but also our understanding of the Christian world of the post-1000 CE Middle Ages. At the core we have a worldwide catastrophe, and some 700 years of phantom-time between 234 and 934 (Heinsohn prefers a somewhat less specific dating from 230s to 930s).

Toppling of Rome’s Obelisks and Aqueducts – Ewald Ernst – August 2014
http://www.q-mag.org/_media/ewald-ernst-on-trevor-obelisks-aqueaducts-01-08-2014.pdf

Ewald Ernst begins by discussing the aqueducts of Rome.

Rome’s first aqueduct supplied a water-fountain sited at the city’s cattle market. By the third century AD, the city had eleven aqueducts, sustaining a population of over a million in a water-extravagant economy; most of the water supplied the city’s many public baths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_aqueduct

None of these marvelous constructions – erected and working for over half a millennium – was still functioning in the 4th c. CE.
…
It is believed that all these aqueducts were demolished by barbarians.

Yet, it is not understood what could have driven conquerors – not only of Rome but of hundreds of other cities within the empire – to cut themselves off from the supply of water, the most important ingredient for survival.

Moreover, after every former attack on Rome the aqueducts, if damaged at all, were immediately repaired.

Therefore, this wonderwork of civil engineering was kept intact over more than five centuries.

In reality, the destruction of the aqueducts happened swiftly, and with a power no humans had at their disposal.

This happened, in 234 CE, only eight years after the last system had been completed under Alexander Severus in 226 CE.
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At the same time, Rome’s population was reduced from nearly one million to no more than 50,000.
…
The cataclysm had struck with such force that more than half a millennium passed before Europeans could begin to slowly regain the technological competence of imperial Rome.

Toppling of Rome’s Obelisks and Aqueducts – Ewald Ernst – August 2014
http://www.q-mag.org/_media/ewald-ernst-on-trevor-obelisks-aqueaducts-01-08-2014.pdf

Ewald Ernst then delivers his bombshell [with photographic evidence] that a Roman aqueduct was discovered [near Cologne] buried under seven metres of sand and gravel.

Near Cologne (Rhineland), to give an example, in the lignite area of the Elsbachtal, the gigantig mechanical diggers used to clear away the debris covering the precious coal, a small Roman aqueduct, dated to 224 CE, was brought to light after 7 m of sand and gravel had been removed.

So far, one does not understand the geological mechanism that could have laid down such an immense volume of material strangling a once fertile Roman region.

At least, nobody dares to point to barbarians as the culprits.

The catastrophe that befell Rome soon after the completion of the Aqua Alexandriana in 226 CE, also devastated the Elsbachtal 1,100 km further north.

Toppling of Rome’s Obelisks and Aqueducts – Ewald Ernst – August 2014
http://www.q-mag.org/_media/ewald-ernst-on-trevor-obelisks-aqueaducts-01-08-2014.pdf

Teile der römischen Wasserleitung = Parts of the Roman waterworks

Archäologische Grabung im Elsbachtal (Tagebau Garzweiler)
http://www.eva-hagedorn.de/index.php/das-elsbachtal-tagebau-garzweiler.html

Presumably, the mainstream wishes the aqueduct had remained buried in an obscure German language book from 1995.

The mainstream might yet counter with the argument that Roman aqueducts around Cologne were “almost entirely below ground” because they needed to be protected from frost damage.

The Eifel Aqueduct was one of the longest aqueducts of the Roman Empire.

The aqueduct, constructed in AD 80, carried water some 95 kilometres (59 mi) from the hilly Eifel region of what is now Germany to the ancient city of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (present-day Cologne).

If the auxiliary spurs to additional springs are included, the length was 130 kilometres.

The construction was almost entirely below ground, and the flow of the water was produced entirely by gravity.

A few bridges, including one up to 1,400 metres (0.87 mi) in length, were needed to pass over valleys.

Unlike some of the other famous Roman aqueducts, the Eifel aqueduct was specifically designed to minimize the above-ground portion to protect it from damage and freezing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eifel_Aqueduct

However, it looks like the mainstream will have a problem digging their way out of this “immense volume” of sand and gravel that is “strangling a once fertile Roman region”.

Der Tagebau Garzweiler liegt westlich von Grevenbroich und entwickelt sich in Richtung Erkelenz. Der Tagebau berührt im Wesentlichen den Rhein-Erft-Kreis, den Rhein-Kreis Neuss und den Kreis Heinsberg.

Die Braunkohle ist in drei Flözen abgelagert, die zusammen durchschnittlich 40 Meter stark sind. Die Kohle liegt zwischen rund 40 und maximal 210 Metern tief unter der Erdoberfläche. Sie dient ausschließlich zur Stromerzeugung in den nahe gelegenen Kraftwerken.

http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/de/1140420/umsiedlung/tagebau-rekultivierung/tagebaue-genehmigte-abbaufelder/tagebau-garzweiler/

TRANSLATION
The opencast mine Garzweiler lies to the west of Grevenbroich and develops itself in direction of Erkelenz.

The opencast mine touches in essence the Rhine Erft circle, the Rhine circle Neuss and the circle Heinsberg.

The brown coal is deposited in three seams which are 40 meters together averagely.

The coal lies between about 40 and maximally 210 meters deep under the earth’s surface.

She serves exclusively for the electricity generation in the near convenient power plants.