> A potential problem with lunar eclipses is that the cycle repeats every 18
> and a bit years, and this has been known for a long time. So a really
> ingenious faker could have cut out an appropriate number of years. Seems a
> bit of a leap though to realise that eclipses could be used to verify dates.
I don't think the dating would depend on *lunar* eclipses, but on
*solar* eclipses -- particularly total or near-total eclipses.
These are quite rare in any particular location, but are spectacular
and do get chronicled. So matching them up should be quite definitive --
and make it very hard to pad 300 years into the record, to say the least.
See, e.g., Historical Eclipses and Earth's Rotation:
http://uk.cambridge.org/astronomy/catalogue/0521461944/default.htm
(a detailed examination of 400 solar and lunar eclipses from 700 BC
to AD 1600)
I doubt 300 years off the calendar escaped F. Richard Stephenson's
notice, when he was working to calculate variations in the exact
length of the day.
Incidentally, a propos of the supposedly missing 300 years and the
nonexistence of Charlemagne -- Charlemagne's own son, Emperor Louis,
is historically recorded as having witnessed the total solar
eclipse of May 5, 840 seen in France, Bavaria, Austria, and northern
Italy:
http://www.sternwarte.de/esop-99/abstract/42zawil3.htm
And King Alfred the Great of England recorded the precise hour of a total
eclipse that was seen in London on October 29, 878 (a few months
after he defeated Guthrum the Dane at the Battle of Edington).
See: D G Scragg, 'The Solar Eclipse of Wednesday, 29 October A.D. 878.
Ninth-century Historical Records and the Findings of Modern Astronomy',
in: Alfred the Wise, Studies in Honour of Janet Bately on the occasion of
her 65th birthday. 1997. ISBN 0 85991 515 8
<http://www.boydell.co.uk/164.HTM>
I wonder how Otto III and Pope Sylvester II managed to arrange
for *these* little bits of fakery?
Mark Leisher wrote, a few skeins back in this thread:
> Herr Krojer takes Illig, and by extension, Niemitz to task quite effectively,
> in my opinion.
I think we can agree to consider Illig and Niemitz to be certified
historical cranks now, and perhaps get on with our Unicode business. ;-)
--Ken
P.S. For those who didn't take a stab at Krojer's debunking of Illig, it
might be interesting to note that what made him, as a German, change
from his earlier stance of cavalier dismissal of Illig's cooky historical
theory, to take it seriously enough to deserve a thorough, researched
and published debunking, is the undercurrent of sinister
historical revisionism in German historiography that touches on the
rather more sensitive years 1934-1945, rather than the distant dark
past of 600-900.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Thu Mar 28 2002 - 20:33:48 EST