Chronology & Catastrophism REVIEW 1999:1 Click here for cost
The Causal Source for the Climatic Changes at 2300 BC, by Moe Mandelkehr
A number of years ago, I wrote three articles on cultural discontinuities, climatic changes and geological transients – all occurring at about 2300 BC [1]. These were published with considerable time separation, with only a limited effort to show the relationship between the phenomena, so their impact in introducing a unified model was correspondingly limited. I now hope to rectify this situation. My premise is outlined below. The primary causal factor for the overall event was the widespread and dramatic climate changes arising from an abrupt cooling of the Earth This cause a significant synchronous glacial build-up in both Polar and sub-Polar regions. ……………Cultures in all geographical regions were affected by these climatic and geological disturbances ……… This paper covers the climatic changes, the global cooling causing the climatic changes and the proposed causal source for the global cooling. ………………
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The Causal Source for the Geological Transients at 2300 BC, by Moe Mandelkehr
……. A large body of evidence testifies to the occurrence of a sizeable geological disturbance at about 2300 BC. This took the form of crustal movements, sea-level changes, earthquakes and geomagnetic transient phenomena. My previous article attempted to develop a causal source for the climatic changes; the intent of this article is to do the same for the geological disturbances. My premise is that the event at 2300 BC was caused by the Earth’s encounter with a massive meteroid stream . …………..
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Merlin and the Round Temple, by Emmet J. Sweeney
The island of Britain lies at the centre of two of the most enduring mysteries of antiquity; she is the location of ancient Europe’s greatest monument, a monument known to the Greek writer Hecataeus as early as 500 BC, and she is the home of old Europe’s greatest hero, a hero whose fame spread over the continent during the Middle Ages. The monument of course is Stonehenge; the hero is Arthur. In the myth it was Merlin, the magician and helper of King Arthur, who raised Stonehenge. However, since the Arthurian legends became popularised in the Middle Ages it has beeen assumed that Arthur was a Christian king of Dark Age Britain who battled against the pagan Anglo-Saxons. This article shows that Arthur was no Christian; Camulodunum (Camelot – i.e. Colchester), his capital, was the great religious centre of pre-Roman Britain and his Round Table was none other than Stonehenge.
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COMALCALCO: A Case for Early Pre-Columbian Contact and Influence?, by David J. Eccott
The remains of Comalcalco in Tabasco, Mexico, display anomalous features which are not found elsewhere in the Maya region – particularly the use of fired clay brick, instead of the usual limestone, in one construction phase. Fired clay brick technology was unknown in the whole of pre-Columbian America. Various designs and motifs were incised on the bricks, pottery etc. from the Old World. This has led to the conjecture that the fired bricks were the result of an Old World intrusion from a Mediterranean source. However, closer scrutiny reveals that the donor culture may have been Asiatic. When this is combined with other evidence for Asiatic traits existing in pre-Columbian America, a strong case can be made for an Asiatic influence on some New World peoples. Chronological disparities are also discussed.
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Another Velikovsky Affray – The Histories, by Dale F. Murphie
My critique of David Rohl’s A Test of Time [1] presented objections to the ‘New Chronology’ which has been offered as a replacement for Velikovsky’s now generally discarded ‘Revised Chronology’, ……….. Many new theories for the history of the ancient world are emerging, inspired by notions that Velikovsky lost the plot in at least his last two books [2] and some claim glaring inconsistencies in his first [3]. I advocate amendments at many points in Velikovsky’s work but believe that this can occur without significantly eroding the original genius. ……………
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Saul, David and Solomon, by J. Eric Aitchison
Velikovsky had a hero in Saul [1] and argued his case eloquently [2]. ………….. [he] argued that the story of Saul’s attack on the Amelekites [4] was the same attack that saw the Hyksos driven out of Avaris. It followed that the Hyksos were the Amalekites. This is well argued [5] and appears a correct identification. The argument for Saul [2] is summarised below………….
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Rethinking Hatshepsut, by David K. Down
Some 50 years ago Dr. Siegfried Horn identified the Egyptian princess who drew Moses out of the water as Queen Hatshepsut of the XVIII[th] dynasty. He did so by synchronising biblical chronology, I Kings 6:1, which dated the Exodus to about 1445 BC, with the then standard Egyptian chronology date for Hatshepsut from 1504 to 1482 BC. The alignment was pleasing. Hatshepsut was Egypt’s greatest queen, she built a beautiful temple at Deir el-Bahri and she had no sons to succeed her. At the time it seemed a good idea, but with advancing knowledge of Egyptian history this theory is no longer tenable. …………..
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Chronology & Catastrophism REVIEW1999:2 Click here for cost
Moderating the Middle Ages, by Derel Briarley
Recall the amount of evidence listed by Velikovsky and others to the effect that significant geological changes have happened recently enough for man to remember, and how orthodox science still balks at much of this? Contrast it with their readiness to receive Alvarez’s theory of mass-extinction via extra-terrestrial impact on much less and far from proven evidence. It is psychological: OK, catastrophes have occurred – but not so close to us in time. Similarly, many contributors to this journal are happy to accept short chronologies of the distant past but seem averse to having the Middle Ages shortened – but was the distant past not so far distant as we have been accustomed to thinking? …………..
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Fomenko and English History, by James and Trevor Palmer [with a response, ‘Fomenko is Right’, from Allan Beggs]
On the Internet pages of the Russian mathematician, A. T. Fomenko, is a 64 page work, in English, by Fomenko and G. V. Nosovskij, entitled ‘New hypothetical chronology and concept of the English history’ [1]. In this, Fomenko and Nosovskij attempt a complete revision of the traditional English chronology. ……………….. Scholars in all areas, including history, must always be on their guard against the dangers of building edifices on foundations laid down by previous generations without checking to see if these are secure but time contstraints mean that this is rarely done thoroughly. ………….. Given that errors generally show up sooner or later, it would be extremely wasteful to put valuable resources into questioning something which is already well-established if there was no obvious reason to do so. On the other hand, an exception should be made when reputable scholars, using their expertise in their own area, come to conclusions which bring into question established beliefs in another. This would appear to be such a case ………………. [James and Trevor Palmer:]
[Allan Beggs responds: with ‘Fomenko is Right’] In the first paragraph of their article, James T Palmer and Trevor Palmer introduce the two-volume work by A. T. Fomenko, Empirico-Statistical Analysis of Narrative Materials and its Applications to Historical Dating but they then completely ignore this body of work and only mention it again in their references. ………………. However the information on the Website is intended only as an introduction to the two-volume work. …………… Fomenko and [Nosovskij] have offered evidence and reasoning to back up their claims. If the Palmers disagree with this evidence and reasoning, it is their responsibility to explain their disagreement ……………. the Palmers assume that Fomenko’s theory must be wrong and set out to show us how wrong it must be, with ringing phrases such as ‘the overwhelming view of historians’ …………… and ‘the mass of supporting evidence for the traditional scheme’. ……………..The Palmers must first show that Fomenko is wrong in his claims. ……………._____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Benoît de Maillet (1656-1738): A Forerunner of the Theory of the Dessication of the Mediterranean Sea, by Candido Manuel Garcia Cruz
This paper analyses the basic ideas of the fall in sea-level theory of Benoît de Maillet (1656-1738). Starting from a worldwide ocean, the desiccation of the seas by evaporation caused the emergence of mountains. Similar ideas are also found in the framework of ancient cultures, from the Chaldaeans to the Maya, through the Greeks and Egyptians. In spite of the rudimentary nature of his conceptions, Benoît de Maillet was the first to establish an explanation for the salinisation of the Mediterranean basin and we consider his ideas a forerunner of the theory of the desiccation of [the] Mediterranean Sea.
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Sothic Dating: The Shameless Enterprise, by Jess E. Lasken
The defenders of Sothic dating are shameless in their use of sources and data. Take, for instance, an article defending Sothic dating by Leo Depuydt of Brown University, published in the leading American Egyptology journal [1]. This article reviewed the evidence for the proposition that the same Egyptian 365 day calendar was used without reform for approximately 3,000 years (‘the axiom of consistency’). It was intended to counter claims by Peter James [2] that Sothic dating had suffered a ‘practical demise’. Depuydt reviewed the history of the axiom and summarised the evidence supporting it. He was forced to admit [3]:
‘There is to my knowledge, no uncontroversial evidence for the consistency of the wandering calendar before 473 BCE.’
Nevertheless, he asserted that the weight of the evidence supports this. Furthermore, he claimed that double-dated documents from the Persian period show that ‘from about 473 onwards, the Sothic hypothesis is not really a hypothesis but simply the truth’. [4] Before examining this latter claim in more depth, we should first turn to Theon, a source whom Depuydt and others before him have cited in support of Sothic dating. We shall find that Theon actually contradicts current Sothic dating assumptions. ……………….
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Assyria: Is the Conventional Profile Believable?, by J. Eric Aitchison
Consult any good book on Assyrian history and you will learn that the Assyrians recorded the annual progress of their history by the simple expedient of naming each year after an official [a ‘Limmu’]. ………………….. The intention of this article is to question the application of the Limmu Lists to the construction of the later conventional template, because if it is wrong then the later Assyrian history is shattered …………..
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The Sword in the Stone, by Emmet J. Sweeney
Up until the closing years of the 19th century scholars, in conformity with the testimony of ancient tradition, generally assumed that Britain was the major, if not the sole, source of tin known to the ancient world. In addition, it was recognised that Britain had in some way a unique role in the development of metal-working and bronze manufacture in particular. Yet by the beginning of the 20th century a major revision of history was underway. Scholars began to downplay, even dismiss, Britain’s importance in the story of ancient metallurgy. The reason for this dramatic shift in opinion is instructive. Throughout the 19th century experts in Near Eastern history, Egyptologists and Assyriologists, began to speak of a Levantine Bronze Age commencing in the 3rd Millennium BC – long before the Phoenicians had opened the sea-routes to Britain in the 8th century. Thus the Near Eastern cultures, it was stated, must have had access to tin and tin-bronze from another source. This position caused problems: Britain was the only source of tin referred to by ancient authors. ……………………….
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Up-date of Year Counts in the Time of the Divided Monarchy (Israel and Judah), by Michael G. Reade
This is a supplement to the article ‘Shishak, the kings of Judah and some synchronisms’ (C&CR 1997:2, pp. 27-36). A ‘corrected’ chronology for the kings of Judah and Israel is derived and is summarised in the final table …………….
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