Phantom time hypothesis

Hard to believe it but this is pretty interesting. If this is true we are in the 1700's not the 21st century, which I have always wondered how do we know for example that jesus was born more or less around 2000 years ago. What if there were gaps that made todays date inaccurate.

Phantom time hypothesis is a theory developed by Heribert Illig which suggests that the Early Middle Ages (614–911 AD) never occurred, meaning that all artifacts attributed to this time period are from other times and that all historical figures from this time period are outright fabrications. Other people who have written essays in support of the phantom time hypothesis include Hans-Ulrich Niemitz, Christoph Marx, Angelika Müller, Uwe Topper and Manfred Zeller. The vast majority of historians believe this theory to be incorrect, as all cited evidence can be considered circumstantial. As such, it is generally considered to be pseudohistory.

Where exactly did you get this information from and whay proof of this "phantom time hypothesis" do you exactly have?

As far as the calander goes it depends on whos calander you use. The chinese have us at around 5000 something and if you go by the start of it all then who knows somewhere around 16000 the point is that most of the earth has come to use the current calander as the right one so were stuck at year 2006 I never could understand the whole BC AD thing I thought it was a little stupid to count backwards and I doubt that people back then did it.

I've seen a similar theory that Jesus Christ supposedly lived in 1000 AD, with the similar concept of 'missing time', only a different portion of time than this theory you are looking at. I think the idea is crazy, myself. There is what I would call not only evidence, but proof, that this phantom time theory is false, at least during the time period under discussion. For more ancient history, i.e. before the time of writing, perhaps one could make a case for phantom time at some point, but too much written documentation exists to make any theory during civilized history even remotely plausible.

AMANNAMEDQUEST, please provide a citation for that quote.


Usually these kinds of 'phantom time' ideas rest on the statement that historical documents, being written documents produced by people, aren't necessarily 'objectively true'. The problem is, that we have lots of evidence besides written evidence to let us know about the past. Indeed, for the 'missing time' in this idea, we have mostly archaeological evidence. The 'phantom time' here is the bulk of the dark ages, when there weren't many people producing large volumes of written material. I wonder if that is responsible for whatever is making Illig come up with this idea?

The theories shouldn't be dismissed out of hand though. Even if we reject them after consideration, they do serve a use. What is our concept of past time really based on? Especially from the periods before modern dating techniques. Its mostly based on historical records, and people's understanding of history in the past was pretty dismal, very much mixed up with myth and fiction.

[edit on 25-11-2006 by Nygdan]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I dont have proof, but I can't rule it out. I just found it interesting and didnt see it posted here before. The site for my outside source is en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by DragonsDemesne
I've seen a similar theory that Jesus Christ supposedly lived in 1000 AD, with the similar concept of 'missing time', only a different portion of time than this theory you are looking at. I think the idea is crazy, myself. There is what I would call not only evidence, but proof, that this phantom time theory is false, at least during the time period under discussion. For more ancient history, i.e. before the time of writing, perhaps one could make a case for phantom time at some point, but too much written documentation exists to make any theory during civilized history even remotely plausible.

I believe what you're talking about is New Chronology

But back to Phantom Time Theory, I guess Illig believes that there was some sort of screw when we switched to the Gregorian calendar? I can't see why a 300 year period would be made up. What purpose would that really serve?

We have ancient records of elipses that sync up with our astromonical calculations. We have to remember that this theory erases roughly 300 years from world history, not just the history of a specific area. It's hard to believe that world history, for a 300 year period, was made up and that nothing recorded during this time frame actually occured.

its rubbish anyway
the assumption that we lost something by switching to the gregorian calendar doesnt take into account the fact that most of the world didn't
and they don't have any missing time
this kind of claim probably originated out of some alterno historians desire to sell a book

Well if people can catch thought a 1000 miles away and have telekeneises and can catch intentions and what they think or feel like then its probably true.

None of Illig's work has been translated into English, and his thesis has received little attention in the English-speaking world as a considerable body of evidence immediately refutes his hypothesis.




*Eclipses allow the calculation of the historical rate of rotation of the Earth and match the predicted lengthening of the day due to tidal effects of the moon with high precision. Even millisecond errors in the calculation would have accumulated and resulted in the eclypse being observed thousands of kilometers away from the reported location. Many independent historical eclypse reports going back as far as 700 BCE are in agreement with the traditional historical timeline. [1]

*Illig underestimates the archaeological evidence and also the research done on the literary sources from the period.

*Dendrochronology, the method of scientific dating based on the analysis of tree ring patterns, refutes a gap of three centuries. Records of ancient droughts and floods match thin and thick tree rings -- a silent testimony to those droughts and floods.

*Illig's hypothesis requires a widespread collaboration involving not only the Occident, but also the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world, in order to fabricate all the synchronisms provided by the sources. Such a collaboration, however, would have been practically impossible to implement in the past.

*Illig gives no credible motivation for the supposed fabrications, even assuming that they had been feasible. Niemitz suggests two possible motivations: the hypothesis that Otto III redefined the calendar to suit "his understanding of Christian millenarianism," and the hypothesis that Constantine VII's re-recording of historical texts involved altering dates. Neither of these hypotheses are considered to be very credible.

*Illig's claims regarding the Gregorian Error assumed that Pope Gregory XIII's calculation of the inaccuracy in the Julian calendar, in 1582, was based on the time since the adoption of the Julian calendar, in 46 BC. In fact, Pope Gregory's calculation was based on the time since the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Niemitz's response to this is that scholars in Caesar's time used the same date for the equinox that we do, so if the Gregorian calendar was based on the Julian calendar's state in 325, our current observation of the equinox would not match up as well as it does. This response would imply that the Gregorian calendar is only accurate by coincidence, because the alleged error made in the 4th century (not calculating by the equinox date from the beginning of the Julian calendar) is cancelled out by the alleged error made in the 16th century (the 'lost' three centuries).

The more I research history the more illogical it seems. Our history is much older than mainstream says or much shorter, but I dont think it is accurate. Im not saying certain events didn't happen, nor do I have proof, but for me the whatif always comes up. The interest for history was created in the renaissance. Some things just dont add up. And remember the sayin "the winners write history"

This was taken from the following

www.damninteresting.com...

To be honest, this theory doesn't make sense since it would have to be a conspiracy or an incorrect consensus of a global kind.

This is very very very unlikely since many older cultures such as the Japanese have recorded this period in detail.

Japanese History Timeline

Do your research and you will find more and more evidence for the existence of this time period.

All the best,

NeoN HaZe.

Our history is much older than mainstream says or much shorter, but I dont think it is accurate. Im not saying certain events didn't happen, nor do I have proof, but for me the whatif always comes up

what If its somewhere in the middle of much shorter or much older than the mainstream says
I checked this just for you and you know there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that it is somewhere in the middle of much shorter or much older than the mainstream says
funny that eh

Hi anybody knows where I can buy that book(the phantom times)? If anybody does, please email me: [email protected] thanx

Suppose its true, then 2012 wont be here for another few hundred years or so

It is not uncommon to see historic revisionists grasp at straws to prove their fabricated revision of history. As a matter of fact it is to be expected. But this!? WOW! Just WOW!

[edit on 26-1-2010 by Lilitu]

I think that rejecting this sort of thing shows a lack of comprehension about how calendars used to work. This is not intended as an insult to anyone, it is a simple mistake to make. Before the Gregorian calendar, everybody used different calendars. Most of these calculated years like this:

-In the second year of the reign of Tiberius
-In the first year of the reign of Gaius (Caligula)
-In the 27th year of the reign of Augustus

If you don't know who came befor who, it gets very complicated. Also, almost every civilisation has made itself look older by duplicating lines of rulers. By making their civilisation 600 years old instead of 300, they appear more powerful, sager, more credible. This kind of thing is more the norm than the exception.

We have a history because historians placed events according to the Gregorian calendar. Remember that there was no science of history before the 1800's. It was invented by writers, not scientists, who had a complete disregard for the truth. As a simple example, Irving Washington is the first person in the history of the world to have written that people once believed the Earth to be flat. This is so blatantly ridiculous and becomes apparently so the moment you think about it. But people don't think, they accept, then they build new lies atop the old ones. The only sure thing about history is that we know very little about what really happened and a lot about what didn't happen. Have a bit of fun; research the renaissance knowing the fact that the term comes from the title of a book: "The renaissance of art in Italy". This book deals exclusively with art. But in the 19th century, people misinterpreted this and invented the renaissance: it never happened.

Saying that things add up historically is wrong. We know that tree rings are added yearly because we compare a 300-year old tree to an event we believe happened 300 years ago. If the calendar is wrong, then all evidence supporting it is also wrong because it is all based on this calendar.

Illig does have some credibility. In Europe you can find builidings that were supposedly built 300 years apart. They employ the same materials, the same architecture and were built exactly the same way. This is impossible.

I'm not saying Illig is right, I simply think he's on the right track. Personally, I tend to think we are closer to the year 1200.

For a bit of veritable history, I suggest the following site:

MYTHS ABOUT THE MIDDLE AGES

I've heard the entire theory once and it's actually quite well-founded.
This document explains Niemitz' theory. an extract:

In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII started the so-called ‘Gregorian calendar’, which is basically a corrected version of the old Julian calendar of Julius Caesar. The Julian calendar, after being used for a long time, no longer corresponded with the astronomical situation. The difference, according to calculations by Pope Gregory, amounted to 10 days. Now please calculate: how many Julian years does it take to produce an error of 10 days? The answer is 1257 years.

The question – at which date was the Julian calendar correct – can be calculated with the following amazing result (Illig 1991):

1582 – 1257 = 325 (The year in which the “Gregorian” calendar began minus the years necessary to produce 10 days of error in the Julian calendar equals the beginning the Julian calendar.)

It seems, unbelievably, that Caesar introduced his calendar in 325 AD. This is unbelievable because by then he had already been dead for more than 300 years. If 16 centuries had passed since Caesar’s introduction of his calendar, the Julian calendar in Gregory’s time would have been out of sync with the astronomical situation by 13 days, not 10.

Some historians have noticed this contradiction, but they solve it this way: the scholars in Caesar’s time reckoned a different date for the equinox (the day in spring, where day and night have the same length). Yet it can be proved that the Romans used the same date for the equinox as we do today, i.e. the 21st of March (Illig 1991 and 1993).

If our thesis of 300 phantom years is right, then the thesis must also be valid for the whole of Eurasian-African history for the period between 600 AD and 900 AD. In this time period Byzantium and the new Islamic realms were supposedly fighting each other in the Near East and the Mediterranean.

Let us look at Byzantium first. Historians acknowledge a special problem for exactly this period: when did the Empire reform its administration? When and how did this reform – called by modern historians ‘reform of the themes’ – come into being? How did feudalism develop?

One group of historians pointed out that the essentials for this reform were outlined in Antiquity and that for the 300 years following 600 AD nothing happened. Thus nothing can be said about this period, because no historical sources exist for the supposed reform in this period.

It's also striking for instance when looking at developments in architecture and related arts for this period (614–911 AD).

...Art historians explain and describe artifacts and buildings of this period as anachronistic – but they never follow up on their assessments. One of the best examples, intensively surveyed, is the Chapel of Aachen (ca. 800 AD), which seems to come approximately 200 years too early.

The way of constructing an arch shown in this chapel has no predecessor (Adam 1968,7). Arched aisles are usual only in the 11th century in Speyer. The construction of choirs with rising arch and also rising barrel vaulting is not resumed until 200 years later at the portal of Tournus (Hubert 1969,67). The vertical steepness of the interior arches of the Aachen Chapel is more accentuated than those of churches built two centuries later. One of these is the 1049 AD consecrated Abbey-church of Ottmarsheim. Although missing some details of the early model, nevertheless it is the “best copy” of Aachen.

However, these and many other arguments implicate that the Chapel of Aachen has to be regarded as a building of the second part of the 11th century.

Supposed authors of the scam were Emperor Otto III and Pope Sylvester II (who was an intriguing figure anyway).
Not saying I'm buying this per se, but the entire 'phantom dark ages' theory is strangely solid.

Originally posted by Kieithsage
Suppose its true, then 2012 wont be here for another few hundred years or so

I believe correlation between Mayan calendar and (our) 2012 emerged after the dark ages - Therefore: no it won't make much difference, only we'd call it 1715 instead of 2012.

[edit on 27/1/10 by Movhisattva]

reply to post by AMANNAMEDQUEST


More relevant now than ever. Consider Anatoly Fomenko's work:

History - Fiction or Science?

And it is practically common knowledge that were lied to about most major events in the present.