Catastrophic Chronology

I am [again] indebted to the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies for their encyclopaedic knowledge of the Catastrophic canon and [especially] for their comments and observations.

Strangely, he does not mention Heribert Illig, the SIS member who came up with the idea of a massive dark age in first millennium AD European history – which Heinsohn took onboard and expanded.

Nor does he mention the efforts of Steve Mitchell in SIS journals to evaluate Illig and the lesser revision as proposed by Hunnivari.

Academic and Mankind in Amnesia
http://www.sis-group.org.uk/news/acadmic-and-mankin-amnesia.htm

The chronology of Zoltan Hunnivari is based upon two “corner-stones”:
1) Augustus, the first Emperor of the Roman Empire, died on 19th August 14 AD.
2) A total eclipse of the sun preceded the death of Augustus.

On 19 August AD 14, Augustus died while visiting the place of his birth father’s death at Nola.

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

For in the following year, when Sextus Apuleius and Sextus Pompeius were consuls, Augustus set out for Campania, and after superintending the games at Neapolis, passed away shortly afterward at Nola.

Indeed, not a few omens had appeared, and these by no means difficult of interpretation, all pointing to this fate for him.

Thus, the sun suffered a total eclipse and most of the sky seemed to be on fire; glowing embers appeared to be falling from it and blood-red comets were seen.

Roman History, 56.29 – Cassius Dio – circa 220 AD
http://lexundria.com/dio/56.29/cy

Unfortunately, no one [except Zoltan Hunnivari] has been able to find a “suitable solar eclipse for Italy” that can be interpreted as an omen for the death of Augustus.

The search for this elusive total solar eclipse is facilitated by NASA’s Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses.

During the five Millennium period -1999 to +3000 (2000 BCE to 3000 CE), Earth will experience 11898 solar eclipses.
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The Gregorian calendar is used for all dates from 1582 Oct 15 onwards.
Before that date, the Julian calendar is used.

Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak (NASA’s GSFC)
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEcat5/SEcatalog.html

The problem for Zoltan Hunnivari is that his chronology is not radical enough.

However, based upon Gunnar Heinsohn’s chronology there are about 700 phantom years in the mainstream chronology betweens the 230s AD and 930s AD.

Therefore, according to Gunnar Heinsohn’s chronology the missing August 14 AD total solar eclipse should appear in the Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses somewhere around 714 AD.

The Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses lists Annular Solar Eclipses for 26th August 713 CE, 15th August 714 CE, 4th August 715 CE and 25th August 732 CE but none of these eclipses were visible in Europe.

The Annular Solar Eclipse of the 14th August 733 CE was visible in Europe but according to NASA a “total eclipse” would not have been observed in Italy.

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsearch/SEsearchmap.php?Ecl=07330814

However, remembering that Gunnar Heinsohn’s chronology is based upon a worldwide catastrophe occurring in the 230s AD, the “total eclipse” of 14th August 733 CE [14 AD] would have been observed in Rome if the Earth’s axis was tilted at 33.4° [instead of the current value of 23.4°].

Therefore, based upon this selection the “total eclipse” preceding the death of Augustus occurred on 14th August 14 AD whilst the very same “total eclipse” is dated by NASA as having occurred on 14th August 733 CE.

Accordingly, the phantom years in Gunnar Heinsohn’s chronology are precisely quantified to be 719 years [733 minus 14].

Furthermore, Ewald Ernst suggests that this worldwide catastrophe occurred in 234 AD.

More than 10 Obelisks from Egypt were erected in Rome.
They all were toppled in 234.

Toppling Rome’s Obelisks and Aqueducts – Ewald Ernst

Therefore, using the precise value of 719 phantom years, the worldwide catastrophe of 234 AD [when the Earth’s axial tilt changed from 33.4° to 23.4°] is also dated as 953 CE in Gunnar Heinsohn’s chronology.

Even the most ardent catastrophist will think twice before accepting this interpretation of events.

But it is worth remembering that Annular Solar Eclipses can be dangerous events – even when they occur on the other side of the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Northern_Italy_earthquakes

An annular solar eclipse took place on May 20, 2012 (May 21, 2012 in local time in the Eastern Hemisphere), with a magnitude of 0.9439.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_May_20,_2012

As additional food for thought it is worth considering whether Rome’s current Mediterranean climate would realistically nurture [or warrant] the development of central heating and welcome the popular proliferation of public hot baths.

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

Some buildings in the Roman Empire used central heating systems, conducting air heated by furnaces through empty spaces under the floors and out of pipes in the walls—a system known as a hypocaust.
…
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, overwhelmingly across Europe, heating reverted to more primitive fireplaces for almost a thousand years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_heating#History

In ancient Rome, Thermae and balnea were facilities for bathing.

Thermae usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while balneae were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout Rome.

Most Roman cities had at least one, if not many, such buildings, which were centres not only for bathing, but socializing.

Roman bath-houses were also provided for private villas, town houses, and forts.

They were supplied with water from an adjacent river or stream, or more normally, by an aqueduct.

The water would be heated by a log fire before being channelled into the hot bathing rooms.

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

The hot floor and water would have most likely been heated by fires which slaves underneath kept burning or from the hot air from outside.

The temperature of the caldarium is not known exactly: however, since the Romans used sandals with wooden sole, it could not be higher than 50–55 °C (122–131 °F).

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

Furthermore, it is interesting to consider whether the scarcity of Finnish Iron Age artefacts reflects the fact that Finland was entirely above the Arctic Circle until 953 CE [234 AD].

The Iron Age in Finland is considered to last from c.500 BC until c.1300 AD when known official and written records of Finland become more common due to the Swedish invasions as part of the Northern Crusades in the 13th century.
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Pre-Roman period 500BC – 0
The Pre-Roman period of the Finnish Iron Age is scarcest in findings but the known ones suggest, that cultural connections to other Baltic cultures were already established for which the findings of Pernaja and Savukoski provide solid argument.
Many of the era’s dwelling sites are the same as those of the Neolithic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Finland#Iron_Age

The Neolithic Era, or Period, or New Stone age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 10,200 BC, according to the ASPRO chronology, in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world and ending between 4,500 and 2,000 BC.

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

Sadly, the work of Heribert Illig and Hans-Ulrich Niemitz appear to be well hidden on the internet and only summaries of their collaboration are easily encountered.

The Phantom Time Hypothesis, originally by Heribert Illig and Hans-Ulrich Niemitz, states that the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto III, in collusion with Pope Sylvester II, misdated the Western calendar in order to celebrate the end of the first millennium – 297 years early.

This theory claims that Otto and others then filled in the ‘phantom time’ with some pretty interesting, but totally imaginary, history.
…
The term ‘Dark Ages’ is in disrepute to describe the period between 500 and 1000 CE – Common Era…
During this period, it was formerly believed, Western Europeans did very little that would interest historians, or indeed anybody not directly related to them.

They produced almost no literature, art, or cultural artefacts.

They made no appreciable progress in agriculture or technology.

They didn’t even have any interesting wars.

This bothered scholars.

What bothered them even more was that in the 7th, 8th, and 9th Centuries, there were no records to speak of.

Cities that one might assume to have been continuously inhabited, such as the German towns that were formerly Roman colonies, seem to have been empty of, say, market activity.

One could only conclude that, while there were obviously buildings there, churches and such, nobody ever came to town to sell a pig.

Or at least, kept it a secret.

The Phantom Time Hypothesis
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-london/plain/A85654957

The phantom time hypothesis is a historical conspiracy theory advanced by German historian and publisher Heribert Illig (born 1947) which proposes that historical events between AD 614 and 911 in the Early Middle Ages of Europe and neighbouring regions are either wrongly dated, or did not occur at all, and that there has been a systematic effort to cover up that fact.
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The hypothesis suggests a conspiracy by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and possibly the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII to fabricate a dating system that placed them at the special year of AD 1000, and to rewrite history, inventing the heroic figure of Charlemagne among other things.

Illig believed that this was achieved through the alteration, misrepresentation, and forgery of documentary and physical evidence.

The bases of Illig’s hypothesis include:

The scarcity of archaeological evidence that can be reliably dated to the period AD 614–911, the perceived inadequacies of radiometric and dendrochronological methods of dating this period, and the over-reliance of medieval historians on written sources.

The presence of Romanesque architecture in tenth-century Western Europe, suggesting the Roman era was not as long before as conventionally thought.

The relation between the Julian calendar, Gregorian calendar and the underlying astronomical solar or tropical year. The Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar, was long known to introduce a discrepancy from the tropical year of around one day for each century that the calendar was in use. By the time the Gregorian calendar was introduced in AD 1582, Illig alleges that the old Julian calendar “should” have produced a discrepancy of thirteen days between it and the real (or tropical) calendar. Instead, the astronomers and mathematicians working for Pope Gregory had found that the civil calendar needed to be adjusted by only ten days. From this, Illig concludes that the AD era had counted roughly three centuries which never existed.

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

Hans-Ulrich Niemitz specifically argued that the mainstream chronology was wrong because the 10 day calendar adjustment associated with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582 CE should have been 13 days if the Julian calendar was introduced in 46 BC.

However, if a worldwide catastrophe occurred in 234 AD [953 CE] which changed the Earth’s axial tilt then it is highly likely that this discrepancy of three days indicates the Earth’s orbital period was temporarily disturbed before settling to the Gregorian value of 365.2425 days.

The central thrust of Heribert Illig’s argument that a dating system was fabricated [around a new base date 1000 CE] seems to be generally supported by the evidence [and warrants further investigation].

Clearly the Church of Rome [aka Church of Egypt aka Second Roman Empire] needed to distance itself from the act of god that levelled Rome in 234 AD and this could be achieved by fabricating a long and illustrious Phantom Pedigree.

The Phantom Pedigree carefully avoids any specific dates before 235 AD because real historical evidence exists before this date that would falsify their fabricated fictions.

Accordingly, the earliest exact date in papal history is associated with the death of Pope Pontain in Sardinia [note the careful avoidance of ruined Rome] during 235 AD.

However, I very much doubt that the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III or Pope Sylvester II had any involvement in the fabrication of this Phantom Pedigree.

This is primarily because a Phantom Pedigree would require widespread support and acceptance within the church franchise before it could successfully gain traction and be successfully co-ordinated, administered, produced and promulgated

Therefore, a more likely vehicle for initiating the Phantom Pedigree was a franchise holders meeting like the First Council of Nicaea in 1044 CE [325 AD] which agreed the uniform branding of Easter, “early canon law” and early canon folklore.

The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325.

This first ecumenical council was the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom.

Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the nature of the Son of God and his relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Creed of Nicaea, establishing uniform observance of the date of Easter, and promulgation of early canon law.
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Delegates came from every region of the Roman Empire except Britain.

The participating bishops were given free travel to and from their episcopal sees to the council, as well as lodging.

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

The second reason I doubt the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III had anything to do with the manufacture of this Phantom Pedigree is that Otto III was part of a Saxon dynasty that was fabulously fabricated [and richly illustrated with imaginary iconography] in the 12th century.

Here [again] the originators of this Phantom Pedigree also carefully fabricated the totally imaginary realm of Old Saxony for which no real artefacts could ever be found that would contradict the franchised Phantom Pedigree.

And just to be extra careful this totally imaginary realm of Old Saxony was geographically located in the Low Countries were [it was hoped] all evidence of human occupation was buried beneath many feet of mud and rubble after the worldwide catastrophe of 234 AD.

The Low Countries make up a coastal region in north western Europe, consisting especially of Belgium and the Netherlands, and the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Meuse, Scheldt, and Ems rivers where much of the land is at or below sea level.

This wide area of Northern Europe roughly stretches from French Gravelines and Dunkirk at its southwestern point, to the area of Dutch Delfzijl and German Eastern Frisia at its northeastern point, and to Luxembourg and French Thionville in the southeast.

Most of the Low Countries are coastal regions bounded by the North Sea or the English Channel.

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

FOOTNOTE
Wikipedia on axial tilt.

Earth’s axial tilt
Perhaps one of the most apparent factors contributing to Earth climate change is the angle at which the earth is tilted. This is the angle at which Earth’s axis of rotation is from the vertical, also known as Earth’s obliquity.

Earth’s current tilt angle is approximately 23.5 degrees.

The axial tilt angle affects climate largely by determining which parts of the earth get more sunlight during different stages of the year. This is the primary cause for the different seasons Earth experiences throughout the year, as well as the intensity of the seasons for higher latitudes.

For example, in the Northern Hemisphere, if there were no axial tilt, i.e. Earth’s obliquity would be zero degrees, then there would be no change in the seasons from year to year. This would be because there would be no difference in the amount of solar irradiation received, year-round, anywhere on Earth.

On the other hand, if Earth’s axial tilt angle was great (45+ degrees), the seasonality of each hemisphere, individually, would be highly exaggerated. Summers would be extremely hot, with substantially more hours of daylight than night each day. Winters would be extremely cold, with substantially more hours of night than daylight each day.

This is because, during summer for the northern hemisphere, if the earth is tilted more (pointed towards the sun more), there would be more available hours in which the suns rays can strike any certain place, thereby increasing the number of daylight hours at any given place, with more and more daylight hours at higher latitudes.

Also, because the northern hemisphere would be tilted much more towards the sun, it would be physically closer to the sun, thereby increasing the intensity of the sun’s rays hitting the northern hemisphere, thereby causing the northern hemisphere to become hotter.

Likewise, during winter for the northern hemisphere, there would be fewer hours of daylight because the northern hemisphere would essentially be pointed away from the sun. Fewer daylight hours means less solar radiation hitting the northern hemisphere, especially at higher latitudes, and therefore causing the northern hemisphere to become colder.

The same things can also be said about the southern hemisphere, particularly at high latitudes.

In either case, the climate around the equator is not affected nearly as much as the higher latitudes, thereby creating a sizable difference in how obliquity affects different latitudes.

This is all, of course, dependent on what the actual tilt angle is at any given point in time. The thing is, though, that Earth does in fact change obliquity over time in a cyclic pattern. Earth’s obliquity does not change much, though, as obliquity has been determined to cycle between the small range of 22.2 degrees to 24.5 degrees, in a cycle that lasts approximately 41,000 years.

Therefore with the small tilt variation over time, the Earth has always been thought to have had a seasonal climate, at least in the high latitudes due to the solar affect of changing Earth obliquity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_and_celestial_effects_on_climate#Earth.27s_axial_tilt

FOOTNOTE
Immanuel Velikovsky on axial tilt.

The physical effects of retardation or reversal of the earth in its diurnal rotation are differently evaluated by various scientists. Some express the opinion that a total destruction of the earth and volatilization of its entire mass would follow such slowing down or stasis. They concede, however, that destruction of such dimensions would not occur if the earth continued to rotate and only its axis were tilted out of its position. This could be caused by the earth’s passing through a strong magnetic field at an angle to the earth’s magnetic axis. A rotating steel top, when tilted by a magnet, continues to rotate. Theoretically, the terrestrial axis could be tilted for a certain length of time, and at any angle, and also in such a fashion that it would lie in the plane of the ecliptic.
In that case, one of the two hemispheres – the northern or the southern – would remain in prolonged day, the other, in prolonged night.

The tilting of the axis could produce the visual effect of a retrogressing or arrested sun; a greater tilting, a multiple day or night; and in the case of still greater tilting, a reversal of poles with east and west exchanging places; all this without a substantial disruption in the mechanical momentum of the rotation or revolution of the earth.

Other scientists maintain that a theoretical slowing down or even stoppage of the earth in its diurnal rotation would not by itself cause the destruction of the earth. All parts of the earth rotate with the same angular velocity, and if the theoretical stoppage or slowing down did not upset the equality of the angular velocity of the various parts of the solid globe, the earth would survive the slowing down, or stasis, or even a reversal of rotation. However, the fluid parts – the air and the water of the oceans – would certainly have their angular velocity disrupted, and hurricanes and tidal waves would sweep the earth. Civilizations would be destroyed, but not the globe.

According to this explanation, the actual results of such a slowing down of the angular velocity of rotation would depend on the manner in which it occurred. If the application of an external medium, say a thick cloud of dust, acted equally on all parts of the surface of the globe, the globe would change its speed of rotation or might even cease rotating, and the energy of its rotation would be transferred to the cloud of dust; heat would develop as the result of the bombardment by the particles of dust striking the atmosphere and the ground. The earth would be buried under such a thick layer of dust that its mass would noticeably increase.

The cessation of the diurnal rotation could also be caused – and most efficiently – by the earth’s passing through a strong magnetic field; eddy currents would be generated in the surface of the earth, which in turn would give rise to magnetic fields, and these, interacting with the external field, would slow down the earth or bring it to a rotational stasis.

It is possible to calculate the mass of a cloud of particles and also the strength of the magnetic field that would cause the earth to stop rotating or to slow down, say, to half its original rotational velocity. A rough calculation shows that if the mass of this cloud were equal to the mass of the earth and consisted of iron particles magnetized close to saturation, it would create a magnetic field strong enough to stop the rotation of the earth; if the magnetic field were half as strong it would slow the rotation of the earth to half its original velocity. However, if the cloud were electrically charged, the strength of its magnetic field would depend on its charge.

If the interaction with the magnetic field caused the earth to renew its spinning, it would almost certainly not be renewed at the same speed. If the magma inside the globe continued to rotate at a different angular velocity than the shell, it would tend to set the earth rotating slowly. In the tidal theory the origin of the earth’s rotation is ascribed to the action of meteorites.

If the angular velocity of the various strata or segments of the globe were disrupted by some stress, these strata or segments would shift, and heat would be created as the result of the friction. Cracks and rifts would appear, seas would erupt, land would submerge or rise in mountain ridges, with “the midmost of the earth trembling with terror and the upper layers of the earth falling away.”

The stresses between the various strata that would result in all this might also convert some of the energy of rotation, not into heat, but into other forms of energy, including electrical. A discharge of great magnitude between the earth and the outer body (or cloud) could take place in this way.

Thus celestial mechanics does not conflict with cosmic catastrophism. I must admit, however, that in searching for the causes of the great upheavals of the past and in considering their effects, I became skeptical of the great theories concerning the celestial motions that were formulated when the historical facts described here were not known to science. The subject deserves to be discussed in detail and quantitatively. All that I would venture to say at this time and in this place is the following: The accepted celestial mechanics, notwithstanding the many calculations that have been carried out to many decimal places, or verified by celestial motions, stands only if the sun, the source of light, warmth, and other radiation produced by fusion and fission of atoms, is as a whole an electrically neutral body, and also if the planets, in their usual orbits, are neutral bodies.

Fundamental principles in celestial mechanics including the law of gravitation, must come into question if the sun possesses a charge sufficient to influence the planets in their orbits or the comets in theirs. In the Newtonian celestial mechanics, based on the theory of gravitation, electricity and magnetism play no role.

Worlds in Collision – Immanuel Velikovsky