The Phantom Time Hypothesis

[w_ockham]

I'm writing a paper on the "Phantom Time Hypothesis".  You can Google this, or refer to this paper by Niemitz http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/volatile/Niemitz-1997.pdf, or this by Illig http://www.bearfabrique.org/Catastrophism/illig_paper.htm, or this article about it on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A84012040. Briefly, the

Comments

[policraticus]

Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessita.

With a user name like w_ockham I should hope that you have only one hypothesis: this is a theory that has multiplied entities without necessity.

[takhys]

Very well said.

[topoliushka]

sine necessitate

Otherwise +1 :))

PS. Topic starter, I suggest you add this theory to the ones you've listed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_%28Fomenko%29.

[taliesinmerlin]

You'll want to look at chronicles. In particular, there are several Anglo-Saxon chronicles that I would consult. This is a good start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_Chronicle

In addition, I would listen to the others on here. It's not a creditable hypothesis because it assumes too much. In addition, to argue that the church could keep a widespread conspiracy assumes that the church was more unified than it was, and that the pope had more power than he did. It also ignores other monarchies, not to mention other dating systems, like that of the Abbasids.

[tarimanveri]

What taliesinmerlin said, about the papacy and other dating systems, and also, archaeology. Pretty sure there are dendrochronological sequences out there that prove those 300 years existed.

[w_ockham]

Thanks for these comments. In reply to the 'sufficient reason' objection (why not 1000 years, why not all history) I have ignored the more extreme versions because they are inherently implausible, whereas the 300 year version is grounded in a sufficient reason (the apparent discrepancy between Julian and Gregorian calendar system, of about three days, and is superficially plausible (we have fewer written record for the 'dark age' period than for the classical or post dark-age period

[stevenotto]

The added years have interested me for years (ouch). Since I stumbled on Quedlenburg where Heinrich Himmler for 5 years did a yearly death connection ritual to his former self as the King who's relative changed the dates. He also had this thing about a 1,000 year Reich

[wulfila]

Yet another argument against the hypothesis: 300 years of linguistic change are supposed to have happened out of nowhere ...?

But as for your question:

How often did official documents record the exact date?

Dates were definitely recorded in documents, often in different ways combined. While the Anno-Domini-dating we are used to nowadays gained popularity throughout Europe at slightly different times (but by the time of the Carolingians, it was already widespread), there were other dating systems in use: Often, the year of a king's rule was mentioned, or the cycle of indiction, and the days of Saints or other religious holidays were used as fixed points to mark the exact day.

[w_ockham]

Thanks.

>>Often, the year of a king's rule was mentioned

This would support the hypothesis. If public awareness of a year was only of the number of years of a king or emperor's rule, you could invent the calendar by inventing previous rulers.

>>300 years of linguistic change are supposed to have happened out of nowhere

What was the linguistic change? What is the evidence for it, given that we have no phonographic records, only written ones?

[nova_paladin]

Because even the written language changed considerably. Compare Anglo-Saxon written in the year 1000 with Middle English written in 1300-completely different vocabulary and several new grammatical constructs.

[wulfila]

In addition to that, take the name material we have. For example, Clovis and Louis the Pious actually bear the same name, but at noticeably different stages of historical language development. You have the first latinized as "Chlodovechus" (and can surmise that he would have called himself something akin to "Chlodwech", usually given als "Chlodwig" in modern German), while Louis would be latinized as "Ludovicus" and would probably have referred to himself as something like "(H)Ludvig", very close already to the modern German name "Ludwig