Statistical correlation of texts

The basic assumption is that a text that describes a sequence of events will devote more space to more important events (for example, a period of war or unrest will have much more space devoted to than a period of peaceful, non-eventful years), and that this irregularity will remain visible in other descriptions of the period.

For each analyzed text, a function is devised that maps each year mentioned in the text with the number of pages (lines, letters) devoted in the text to its description (which could be zero). The function of the two texts is then compared.

Example: the allegedly contemporary history of Rome written by Titus Livius with a modern history of Rome written by Russian historian V. S. Sergeev, have a high correlation, and thus that they describe the same period of history, which is undisputed.

When modern texts which describe different periods are compared, we have low correlation, as expected. However, when, the allegedly ancient history of Rome and the irrefutable medieval history of Rome are compared, we have a high correlation. The conclusion is that the ancient history of Rome is a copy of the medieval history of Rome, thus ancient Rome did not exist, it is a version written in the middle ages.

Statistical correlation of dynasties

Two dynasties of rulers using statistical methods are compared. First, a database of rulers, containing relevant information on each of them. For each pair of the rulers, are created “survey codes” which contain a number which describes a degree of the match of each considered property of two rulers.

For example, one of the properties is the way of death: if two rulers were both poisoned, they get the value of +1 in their property of the way of death; if one ruler was poisoned and another killed in combat, they get -1; and if one was poisoned, and another died of illness, they get 0 (there is a possibility that chroniclers were not impartial and that different descriptions nonetheless describe the same person). An important property is the length of the rule.

A number of pairs of unrelated dynasties are listed – for example, dynasties of kings of Israel and emperors of late Western Roman Empire (AD 300-476) – and claimed that this method demonstrates correlations between their reigns. (Graphs which show just the length of the rule in the two dynasties are the most widely known; however, Dr. Fomenko’s conclusions are also based on other parameters, as described above.)

Dr. Fomenko also claims that the regnal history from the 17th to 20th centuries never shows a correlation of “dynastic flows” with each other, therefore Fomenko insists history was multiplied and outstretched into imaginary antiquity to justify this or other “royal” pretensions.


Astronomical evidence

Fomenko examines astronomical events described in ancient texts and claims that the chronology is actually medieval:

Fomenko says that the mysterious drop in the value of the lunar acceleration parameter D” (“a linear combination of the [angular] accelerations of the Earth and Moon”) between AD 700–1300, according to the American astronomer Robert Newton could not be explained in terms of “non-gravitational” (i.e., tidal) forces.

By eliminating those anomalous early eclipses the New Chronology produces a constant value of D” beginning around AD 1000. Conclusion: alleged eclipses that accompanied key events of the world history did not take place neither in location nor in time alleged in ancient chronicles of which the originals have disappeared.

Fomenko associates initially the Star of Bethlehem with the AD 1140 (±20) supernova (now the Crab Nebula) and the Crucifixion Eclipse with the total solar eclipse of AD 1170 (±20). He also believes that Crab Nebula supernova could not have been seen in AD 1054, but probably in AD 1153. He connects it with the total eclipse of AD 1186.

Fomenko refutes archeoastronomy as a fallacious circular exercise based on the erroneous clerical chronology of Jesuits Scaliger and Petavius. Fomenko holds in strong doubt the veracity of ancient Chinese astronomical data.

Fomenko pursues the research of Robert R. Newton and argues that the star catalog in the Almagest, ascribed to the Hellenistic astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, was compiled in the 15th to 16th centuries AD.

With this objective in sight he develops new methods of dating old stellar catalogs and claims that the Almagest is based on data collected between AD 600 and 1300, whereby the telluric obliquity is well taken into account.


Fomenko makes computer-aided dating of all 37 Egyptian horoscopes that contain sufficient astronomical data, and claims they all fit into 11th to the 19th-century timeframe. Traditional history usually either interprets these horoscopes as belonging to the 1st century BC or suggests that they weren’t meant to match any date at all.

In his final analysis of an eclipse triad described by the ancient Greek Thucydides in History of the Peloponnesian War, Fomenko dates the eclipses to AD 1039, 1046, and 1057. Because of the layered structure of the manuscript, he claims that Thucydides actually lived in medieval times, and in describing the Peloponnesian War between the Spartans and Athenians he was actually describing the conflict between the medieval Navarrans and Catalans in Spain from AD 1374 to 1387.

Fomenko claims that the abundance of dated astronomical records in cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia is of little use for the dating of events, as the astronomical phenomena they describe recur cyclically every 30–40 years.

Fomenko points out that the texts of Babylonian astronomical diaries, with records of precise astronomical observations of the Moon and planets, were dated in XVI-XVIII centuries in terms of the reigns of alleged historical figures taken from the chronological tables of Scaliger and Petavius.

Astronomical retro calculations are clearly circular as observations registered on clay tablets and cylinders are dated not from astronomical information therein contained, but from the alleged rulers’ reigns, to within a single day, which was taken from Scaliger and Petavius tables.

Thus the dates obtained agree with the accepted chronology. Thus archaeoastronomer F. R. Stephenson has ‘demonstrated’ through a systematic study of a large number of Babylonian, Ancient and Medieval European, and Chinese records of eclipse observations from Almagest of Ptolemy that they can be dated consistently with the conventional chronology of Scaliger and Petavius at least as far back as 600 BCE.

Dr. Stephenson claims to have destroyed the basis of the New Chronology thanks to the data of eclipses from Babylonian clay tablets and antediluvian Chinese records.  This ‘destruction’ is fallacious as there is no vocabulary of Babylonian astronomical symbols produced that can be applied to clay tablets for the extraction of unique dates of eclipses allegedly written on them.

Astronomical data therein contained is not sufficient for irrefutable non-circular dating. Either there are not enough symbols allowing for unique astronomical interpretation, or the symbols change from one clay tablet to another. The clay tablets contain data about eclipses visible in Babylon that could have taken place every 30-40 years, therefore don’t allow their exact pinpointing on the time axis.

An eclipse can easily be found for each allegedly ancient event mentioned in clay cylinder or tablet the age of which is an alleged one also.  Consequently, the dates of eclipses are attached to tablets in a circular manner. On the contrary Zodiacs from Egyptian Temples contain abundant astrological, i.e. astronomical information that is sufficient for non-circular unique dating. See Contents of Part 2, vol.III.

Dr Stephenson argues: ancient dates of Babilon eclipses coincide with dates of Babilon eclipses described in Ptolemy’s Almagest, but forgets to mention that Almagest composed in XVI describes events of X-XVI centuries. Dr. R.R.Newton called Ptolemy “the most successful fraud in the history of science. “Circulus Vicious.

Poor astronomical data in Babylon – abundant astronomical data in Egypt

Rejection of common dating methods

On archaeological dating methods, Fomenko claims:

“Archaeological, dendrochronological, paleographical and carbon methods of dating of ancient sources and artifacts are both non-exact, circular and contradictory, therefore there is not a single piece of firm written evidence or artifact that could be reliably and independently dated earlier than the XI century.” — Anatoly Fomenko, History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology 1) [Second edition].


Dendrochronology is rejected with a claim that, for the dating of objects much older than the oldest still living trees, it isn’t an absolute, but a relative dating method, and thus dependent on traditional chronology. Fomenko specifically points to a break of dendrochronological scales around AD 1000.

The dendrochronological sequences beginning with living trees from various parts of North America and Europe cannot be extended back 12,400 years into the past. Both relative and a fully anchored dendrochronology series going back past 1000 AD fallacious as based on a non-significant number of samples.

Radiocarbon dating



Moreover, initial calibrations of the radiocarbon dating method were made in Arizona University laboratory on wooden samples delivered and dated by ad hoc by an archaeological expedition of 1955-57 of the same Arizona University to Sinai, Egypt. Consequently, Fomenko concludes that carbon dating in its present form based on fallacious initial calibrations curves is circular and not accurate enough to be used on the historical scale.

Numismatic dating

Fomenko rejects numismatic dating as circular, being based on the traditional chronology, and points to cases of similar coins being minted in distant periods, unexplained long periods with no coins minted, and cases of mismatch of numismatic dating with historical accounts.


Has history been tampered with?