Missing years

[Paul Hill]

"Clive D.W. Feather" wrote:
> 
> > It is also not clear [weather] the
> > years ~600-~900 do exist or were just inserted by some calulcation error
> > during the calendar switch.
> 
> I've been wondering - what on earth does this last comment mean ? How can
> 300 years not exist and be "just inserted by some calculation error" ?

It is related to a theory promoted by certain Soviet authors in an 
attempt to discredit "The West", in which things like repeated patterns
of kings and queens hint that someone has accidently duplicated and
thus streatched history, putting classical Rome or ancient Egypt not as far
back as we normally think of them.

For an example, see: http://www.univer.omsk.su/foreign/fom/fom.htm

Consider the idea that Byzantine, Jewish, Moslim, Coptic, Hindu, ...
chronologies would all suffer from this same 'stutter' present in
Western European chronologies in a way that the problem of the insert of
extra years has been masked for going on 500 years now.  There is also the
challenge of correctly correlating various recorded astronomical events.
The theory also often relies on some bit of counterfeiting of any
document that comes before the mistake or crime was committed.

Once you've considered these ideas, you'll appreciate why not many folks have
been motivated to look for the 300, 500 or 1000 year gap.  The range
of missing dates and how and when the mistake or mistakes were made vary depending
on who you talk to.

This is another topic that got some play on the calendar mailing list
back two years or so.  Like I hinted at before they're a weird bunch over
there. Then again, you can't trust me maybe, I've mistakenly
duplicated some chronologies, so it was only last year it was discussed :-)
Even on that list it was often more than a bit off topic. Certainly there are no
timezone issues that would involve mistaken chronologies from the medieval
period, therefore that is all I will say on the subject.

-Paul

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