Introduction
Background
A new chronology — something really new?
Although the ideas expressed at CronoLogo may well appear as a surprise to most readers, and most Historians will state they never heard of anything similar, they are in fact not new. Since the very beginnings of chronology, and throughout the centuries, several authors, some very renowned, have opposed the conventional scheme. Others have not put in doubt chronology as such, but every piece of conventional knowledge about what happened in that time.
That started in the 17th century in Spain with Nicolas Antonio and in France with Launoy, Hardouin and Germon, continued by the English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, who elaborated himself a chronological scheme different from the conventional one. Since then, several scholars have expressed the same or similar ideas, but although some achieved huge public debates, they were usually forgotten soon after they died.
Most of them were unknown to the authors of newchronology when they first came up with their theories about the need to shorten the chronology. But since then the lecture of older works has given additional and stronger fundaments to our ideas.
Chronological Overview
The following chronological-geographical index tries to give a mere overview over the historical epochs and the geographical space where scholars spoke out against the conventional view of History. The geographical space is quite loosely defined and more orientated on language than on political frontiers. By clicking on the names you can access more information about the author. Here you'll find only the most active authors; please visit the Who's who for more information.
|
Russian
/ Slavic |
Spanish |
French |
English |
German |
|
E. Gabowitsch · Andreas Otte Hans-U. Niemitz · Christian Blöss · Heribert Illig · Z. A. Müller · Christoph Marx · Gunnar Heinsohn etc., etc. |
1980 | ||||
| 1950 | |||||
| 1900 | |||||
| 1800 | |||||
| 1700 | |||||
| 1600 |
Catastrophists
In addition to strictly chronology-critical works there appeared always publications of scientists who advocated an alternative view of the historical sequence, often with catastrophist ideas. They were also discussed academically but mostly cited only as marginal figures. Some of these outsiders we have touched or discussed (go to the library with reviews of Muck, Pallmann, Dacqué, Ceram, Kaiser, or savants of the 19th centrury like Niebuhr, Fallmerayer.) Some more hints to strange nonconformists are reviewed in this new article: Vordenker.
The last 20 years
In past centuries, most researchers who questioned chronology had to defend themselves alone against the overwhelming majority of scholars. This changed from 1980 onwards, when several German and Swiss researchers - such as Christoph Marx, Gunnar Heinsohn, Heribert Illig, Christian Blöss, among others - founded the "Society for the Reconstruction of the History of Humankind and Nature" (GRMNG), which for the first time managed to bring together a broad range of authors with similar ideas.
The GRMNG was based partially on the ideas of the American researcher Immanuel Velikovsky, who had in the 1950s shocked the academic world by his book 'Worlds in Collision', suggesting that several cosmic catastrophs had cut into the history of humankind (C. Marx translated this and other books by Velikovsky into German). On the other hand, Velikovsky still stuck to the biblical chronology; a more flexible view was supported by the German researcher Uwe Topper, who in the 1970s discovered - without knowledge of Velikovsky's work - the basic role of catastrophs in our history. He published his view of our past, determined by decade-long field research in Asia, North Africa and Spain, in his book "Das Erbe der Giganten" ('The Legacy of the Giants', 1977) and thus stirred a new debate.
Nonetheless, the radical overthrow of the chronology - which, to tell the truth, had already be asked for by the widely read philosopher Oswald Spengler in the 1920s - began with the GRMNG and was presented to a broad public with a book by Heinsohn: "Die Sumerer gab es nicht" ('The Sumerians did not exist', 1988). After the GRMNG dissolved in 1988, the quarterly newsletter Vorzeit-Frühzeit-Gegenwart (VFG), published in Munich by Illig, became for one decade the most important forum for the critics of conventional history.
It was in the early 1990s when Topper get acquainted with Heinsohn, Illig, Niemitz and other members of the group and integrated the idea of the shortened chronology in his theories. In the mid-1990s, the ingenieur Eugen Gabowitsch called the attention of the group to Russia: there, in fact, a New Historic School existed since several years, led by the mathematician Anatoli Fomenko and based partially on the ideas of the Russian scholar Nikolai Morosow, who lived at the beginning of the 20th century.
This group uses statistical analyses to determine which historical facts (lists of kings, battles etc.) are too similar to others; thus, all events of the Middle Ages and before are considered reflections of later facts, mirrored into the past by late historiographs. Due to its radical views and to its mathematical methods, Fomenkos ideas are rejected or questioned by many German researchers; on the other hand it must be added that they are often only superficially known, given the fact that most of Fomenko's book lack German (or English) translations.
There are now regular meetings and debates which keep the research work going, most of them in Germany. Thus, an exchange of ideas among a growing group of interested participants is granted. To name only a few, there is the meeting of suscribers to Illig's magazine, since 1995 renamed Zeitensprünge (ZS); there is the 'Berliner Geschichtssalon' (BGS), founded in 1994 by Niemitz, Blöss and Topper, there is the 'Karlsruher Geschichtssalon', led since 1999 by Gabowitsch, who also founded together with Topper and others the 'Geschichtssalon Potsdam' in 2002.