Phantom time theory

[granpa]

here is a rather interesting theory that I just came across.

https://en.wikipedia...time_hypothesis

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.

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.

Basically the theory states that the years 614 to 911 simply never existed. The year 614 was followed by the year 911.

I personally doubt the theory simply because the years 600 to 900 are too recent.

However the theory becomes more plausible if the missing years are pushed much further back.

And something like this could explain some of the so called Dark Ages or Egyptian intermediate periods

https://en.wikipedia...Greek_Dark_Ages

Edited December 7, 2014 by granpa

[Kenemet]

This has been discussed before.

It's an unworkable idea, and proposes a huge collusion among governments that were at war with each other and cultures that disliked each other. It also ignores archaeological evidence and evidence from other areas of the world.

While there are a lot of questions about the Egyptian timeline, the idea doesn't work for the Intermediate periods of Egyptian history.

[granpa]

nations don't go to war with each other because they dislike one another.

they go to war with one another because it's an efficient way to kill off millions of poor people.

Edited December 7, 2014 by granpa

[Hanslune]

nations don't go to war with each other because the dislike one another.

they go to war with one another because it's an efficient way to kill off millions of poor people.

Granpa explain how that idea would have worked in say the Athenian and Spartan wars?

[lightly]

nations don't go to war with each other because they dislike one another.

they go to war with one another because it's an efficient way to kill off millions of poor people.

dam ... i guess i'm pretty high risk then!

[cormac mac airt]

nations don't go to war with each other because they dislike one another.

they go to war with one another because it's an efficient way to kill off millions of poor people.

Apparently ignorance really IS bliss.

cormac

[jaylemurph]

I love the unwritten law that underscores threads like these (you know, the ones for which even the most cursory use of the Search function would render unnecessary):

"If I don't know this thing, then surely no one else will." As if the person speaking already contained all the knowledge in the world and no one else had any.

--Jaylemurph

[Peter B]

here is a rather interesting theory that I just came across.

https://en.wikipedia...time_hypothesis

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.

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.

Basically the theory states that the years 614 to 911 simply never existed. The year 614 was followed by the year 911.

I personally doubt the theory simply because the years 600 to 900 are too recent.

However the theory becomes more plausible if the missing years are pushed much further back.

And something like this could explain some of the so called Dark Ages or Egyptian intermediate periods

https://en.wikipedia...Greek_Dark_Ages

You might like to read the thread I've linked below and consider the issues people have raised in it:

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=275114

[Kenemet]

You might like to read the thread I've linked below and consider the issues people have raised in it:

http://www.unexplain...howtopic=275114

Thank you! I was in too much of a hurry to hunt for it, but it was one of the threads I'd been thinking of.

I found the idea hard to swallow and the evidence unconvincing but the participants in the thread did a good job of presenting a number of issues and debating them.

[jmccr8]

Peter,

That thread was obviously started during a phantom time episode or quite possibly we are now entering a phantom time warp.sometimes it's hard to tell what phantom time zone I'm in.

jmccr8

[granpa]

here is a rather interesting theory that I just came across.

https://en.wikipedia...time_hypothesis

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.

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.

Basically the theory states that the years 614 to 911 simply never existed. The year 614 was followed by the year 911.

I personally doubt the theory simply because the years 600 to 900 are too recent.

However the theory becomes more plausible if the missing years are pushed much further back.

And something like this could explain some of the so called Dark Ages or Egyptian intermediate periods

https://en.wikipedia...Greek_Dark_Ages

The Julian calendar day Thursday, 4 October 1582 was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, Friday, 15 October 1582 (the cycle of weekdays was not affected).

If 10 days can be dropped out of the calendar then why not 300 years? Perhaps the 300 years were dropped for exactly the same reason.

Perhaps they were dropped in order to bring the calendar back in line with some unknown standard.

[Hanslune]

The Julian calendar day Thursday, 4 October 1582 was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, Friday, 15 October 1582 (the cycle of weekdays was not affected).

If 10 days can be dropped out of the calendar then why not 300 years? Perhaps the 300 years were dropped for exactly the same reason.

Perhaps they were dropped in order to bring the calendar back in line with some unknown standard.

It was dropped back in only a few countries - the ten days and later eleven days; others did so later and I believe the British did so in 1767. Everyone was well aware of it. Dropping 300 years has the difficulty of explaining why the other non-western government were not aware of it nor anyone else.

Fixing a calendar doesn't require dropping 300 years the calendar counts years so you drop days or the parts therein.

[granpa]

That would depend on the calendar and I am assuming that everyone was aware of it and everyone dropped 300 years

Edited January 16, 2015 by granpa

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

I can understand a case of "we added some time to the calendar" but the Chinese can continuous records for that period that indicate that those 300 years did happen.

[shrooma]

300yrs without taxes?

how many governments would let THAT slide.....

.

Edited January 16, 2015 by shrooma

[Peter B]

The Julian calendar day Thursday, 4 October 1582 was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, Friday, 15 October 1582 (the cycle of weekdays was not affected).

If 10 days can be dropped out of the calendar then why not 300 years? Perhaps the 300 years were dropped for exactly the same reason.

Perhaps they were dropped in order to bring the calendar back in line with some unknown standard.

You appear to be missing a few points.

1. It's not as though there's a complete lack of archaeological evidence for the period in question. The evidence is less than for periods before and after, but it's there. Pick a Byzantine Emperor in this period and you can find coins for him.

2. Look at maps of Europe and the Middle East in 600 and 900. If the intervening years didn't happen then how did so many political changes occur so quickly? The rise of the Islamic Caliphate was fast, but according to conventional histories it still took 20 years from the death of Muhammad until Sassanid Persia was conquered, another 60 years after that until the conquest of Visigothic Spain, and another 40 years after that until the Umayyad Caliphate was overthrown by the Abbasid Caliphate. This phantom time theory not only wants to pack all this into a couple of years, but also the complete decline of the Abbasid Caliphate as well.

3. As others have pointed out, faking the years ~600-900 would also involve China faking the decline of the Sui Dynasty and most of the history of the T'ang Dynasty. It would also cause complete chaos to the histories of India, South-East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and Central America.

4. There are events which occurred prior to this phantom time period which have been dated by independent methods such as dendrochronology (tree rings) and historical records of eclipses. They're not out by 300 years.

Positing classical-era astronomers' use of Babylonian eclipse records mostly from the 13th century BC provides a feasible and mathematically consistent explanation for the Greek finding all three lunar mean motions (synodic, anomalistic, draconitic) to a precision of about one part in a million or better. Chinese historical records of solar eclipses date back over 4,000 years and have been used to measure changes in the Earth's rate of spin.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse#Historical_record

In other words, regardless of any unknown reason for wanting to fiddle with the calendar, there is simply too much evidence that the events in the years ~600-900 actually happened.

[granpa]

I think you are the one who is missing a few things. The events attributed to those missing years actually happened. They just happened before or after those missing years

[Peter B]

I think you are the one who is missing a few things. The events attributed to those missing years actually happened. They just happened before or after those missing years

Yes, I'm missing something, so I hope you can explain it to me.

1. We know that the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, died in AD14. We know that the last Eastern Roman Emperor, Constantine XI, died in AD1453. That's an interval of 1439 years. In those intervening 1439 years we have a complete list of Roman Emperors - the years their reigns started and ended. The total period of those reigns is 1439 years.

2. We also know that Augustus died 2001 years ago because we have independent evidence that the events of AD14 actually occurred 2001 years ago.

If the Phantom Time Theory is correct and the years 614-911 never occurred, then either point 1 or point 2 above must be incorrect.

And if the years 614-911 never happened, how is it that astronomers can confirm that historical records of eclipses back to centuries before Christ are accurate?

[shrooma]

The events attributed to those missing years actually happened. They just happened before or after those missing years

.

and not 'during.....'

.

[granpa]

300yrs without taxes?

how many governments would let THAT slide.....

.

What on earth are you talking about????

The Julian calendar day Thursday, 4 October 1582 was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, Friday, 15 October 1582 (the cycle of weekdays was not affected).

Were taxes collected during the 10 missing days in 1582?

[Hanslune]

Not to forget the list of Japanese emperors and would have covered # 33-60

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

[Hanslune]

That would depend on the calendar and I am assuming that everyone was aware of it and everyone dropped 300 years

How and how?

[granpa]

Fixing a calendar doesn't require dropping 300 years

the calendar counts years so you drop days or the parts therein.

That would depend on the calendar

How and how?

https://en.wikipedia.../Aztec_calendar

The Aztec calendar is the calendar system that was used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian peoples of central Mexico. It is one of the Mesoamerican calendars, sharing the basic structure of calendars from throughout ancient Mesoamerica.

The calendar consisted of a 365-day calendar cycle called xiuhpohualli (year count) and a 260-day ritual cycle called tonalpohualli (day count). These two cycles together formed a 52-year "century," sometimes called the "calendar round". The xiuhpohualli is considered to be the agricultural calendar, since it is based on the sun, and the tonalpohualli is considered to be the sacred calendar.

Edited January 16, 2015 by granpa

[Hanslune]

https://en.wikipedia.../Aztec_calendar

The Aztec calendar is the calendar system that was used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian peoples of central Mexico. It is one of the Mesoamerican calendars, sharing the basic structure of calendars from throughout ancient Mesoamerica.

The calendar consisted of a 365-day calendar cycle called xiuhpohualli (year count) and a 260-day ritual cycle called tonalpohualli (day count). These two cycles together formed a 52-year "century," sometimes called the "calendar round". The xiuhpohualli is considered to be the agricultural calendar, since it is based on the sun, and the tonalpohualli is considered to be the sacred calendar.

Nice but how is that germane to the question at hand?

[Quaentum]

In Central and South America we have archeological evidence and such things as the Mayan calendars to show that those years did exist. Since the Europeans had no contact with the Americas at that time, there would have been no way to get them to to join in the deception and alter anything.

Important events in a family were passed down from father to son. So something noteworthy happens to an ancestor in 610 CE. You also have other notable events between that ancestor and the father passing it on to his 10 year old son in 912 CE.

For the hypothesis to work all the civilizations in Central and South America as well as all the people handing down family history would have to lie about what happened in those supposedly non existent years. Now how likely do you think it that everyone in the world would have lied about events during those years?