Juxtaposition of the theses of Topper and Heinsohn

Heinsohn’s archaeological-stratigraphical and Topper’s astronomical-chronological theory of time falsification of the history of the 1st millennium after Christ – a comparison of standards, results and open questions, by Peter Winzeler.

Preliminary note by the editor: A short and comprehensible account of how Gunnar Heinsohn came to his new theory that in the first millennium of the Christian Era 700 years are superfluous, so that in these thousand years of conventional counting only about 300 years remain archaeologically verifiable, can be found in his letter to Illig’s 70th birthday (here –>). A working hypothesis was developed by Topper and gradually improved over the last twenty years, according to which between Caesar’s calendar reform and the last major jolt 650 years ago only about half of the alleged 1400 years have occurred, namely about 700 years, while 700 years in this period have been inserted without base. More on this can be found in articles (here on the page) as well as in several books – especially the last one: “Das Jahrkreuz” (2016), of which an English summary is available here.
Both theses have a similar result in common, but have come about in very different ways: Heinsohn relies on the stratigraphies archaeologically dug out, Topper bases his results on extant astronomical reports, rejecting the commonplace assumption that precession has been uninterrupted and uniform during the last millennia, and assuming instead that several jerks or catastrophes must have happened, in order to make the reported astronomical observations make sense.
(End of preliminary note).

In order to start a discussion, and at the request of the two authors, Peter Winzeler has now attempted to bring a juxtaposition of the two theses, and, if possible, a merger.

Here the article:

The friendly request of both parties at the turn of the year to approach such a comparison on a (neutral) “scientific” basis, which at first seemed unacceptable to me, was greatly facilitated by Gunnar Heinsohn’s letter to Dr. Heribert Illig (here on this website) which explains the genesis of his view and approach and at the same time distinguishes it from historical-chronological data collections and chronology-critical axioms.

In diametrical contrast to Illig’s “phantom time” theory, Heinsohn does not count on empty times with absolutely no objects – such as the epoch and figure of Charlemagne – but only with “below or above” of deposited strata or stratum groups (as here A – B – C), which is attested to three times by analogous (==) layers in Classical Period A (Rome of the antique imperators and the Prinzipates) == Late Antiquity B (Byzantine Empire with identical Roman style objects) == Christian Early Middle Ages C (Aachen and Poland with identical miniature objects of the Roman Antiquity / A). The real continuum of this spacetime covers approximately 300 years of various periods (between Hellenism or the Celts / late Latène and High Middle Ages) and is only interrupted by a significant pre-catastrophe of the plague at the time of Marcus Aurelius (middle or end of the 2nd century = mid-5th century invasion of the Huns = 9th century with invasion of Hungarians in Italy), which occurred before the actual main catastrophe, which we call the “Heinsohn horizon” (HH) of Heinsohn’s theorie (HT). Heinsohn eliminates time, but neither objects nor texts, which he rather wants to bring together instead of splitting them over several periods – with endpoints between the 230s and 930s to get back to a comprehensive history.

In Rome and its buried theaters and port facilities, the final extinction (A: Time of the Severian emperors 230-ff) corresponds very clearly with the catastrophic burial of the Theodosian harbor in Constantinople, which was taken from oblivion by subway excavation work (B: Time of Justinian 530-550 [by Heinsohn with question mark]) and the sinking of comparable harbors in Truso or Scandinavia (C: beginning / middle of the 10th century). If identically manufactured Roman ships were still found laden – or encounter the same imported goods – without fate having smitten twice or even three times to the same extent (Vienna – Trier – Zurich – London), the uniqueness of the event which, with the possible exception of biblical writings, was largely forgotten. The latter is a crucial criterion of falsifiability: A single location with two or three final layers of destruction or covering with silt (instead of the only ONE in Aachen) would refute the Heinsohn Theory! Without counter evidence, however, the HT throws all conventional year counts or supposedly secure astronomical dates over bord. As a result, around 700 years of the millennial Christian Era (in the year 1000) are to be regarded as non-existent. In other words, the temporal axis, which was theologically constructed, shrinks by that amount of non-time (as opposed to the empty spaces and “dark ages” of conventional archaeology). And this in addition to the shrinkage that Heinsohn examined in the biblical antiquity of the Sumerians (etc.). The Nativity of Jesus Christ accordingly comes nearer to us: with incalculable consequences for all depending data “before” and “after Christ”.

Example: If Emperor Claudius should celebrate the 800th anniversary of the city of Rome and the Roman roads of the Via Claudia Augusta around 47 AD (aUC DCCC), this statement of milestones will be meaningless when the real turning point occurred around 700 years later. Unless one converts this statement into AD 800 (after Herbert Gabriel †), so that Claudius (Clodius) moves in the vicinity of Chlodovig or Louis the Pious (HLUDOVICVS, Lewis, Claude -Louis), comparable to the sources or coins of the Early Middle Ages (A == C). With the analogy symbol (==) the impression of an absolute identity (=) should be avoided, as Roman and Germanic sources shed light on different aspects and interpretations in the surroundings of possibly identical persons (Heinsohn here insists that several characteristics must coincide, not only names or common titles).

This is stratigraphically supported by Heinsohn’s Horizon implying an unparalleled mega-catastrophe (recognizable, among other things, by black-earth stratums and other typical features), with few exceptions, that can not be historiographically propped up or proved with lexicon data: the surviving contemporaries simply lacked the time and opportunity to write books about it. There was a lack of communication from radio or television stations to record the global scale of the desaster. The locally reported events (storms, earthquakes, tsunamis or volcanic eruptions) were thus only interwoven ex post to form an overall picture, as threatened or sketched out in St. John’s Apocalypsis which probably only became canonized (or post-edited) ecclesiastically.

The architect Ewald Ernst (who belongs to the inner circle of the Heinsohn Theory) saw also the TABU of a “second deluge” (after Genesis 6-8) implying that the Roman Church (or Justinian) had to conceal its extent. The plight forced the survivors to build their huts in the ruins of the muddy towns or castles, to breed small cattle or pigs and to leave behind the traces, waste or excrement that can today be scientifically collected on the ruins of typical Roman cities. With the baths, sewers, toilets, and feces of the civilized epochs (A == B == C) under it, they are usually found in ONE of the three time windows (A or B or C) but never together (A + B + C). So there is doubt whether Byzantium (B) was inhabited in Phase A at all or wether in Aachen (Phase C) other than the Roman installations (A) or Byzantine palaces or thermal spas existed.

In refinement of the approach Heinsohn was able to recognize a “Late Antiquity” (B’) even in the final phase A – especially after the imperial crisis under Marcus Aurelius, where the Goths and Teutons gained importance – or in the Christianized (or Arabic Islamized Early Middle Ages, where ancient architectural styles and late antique ornaments appear, which belong to the same time horizon (as exemplarily in pre-Romanesque church buildings of Charlemagne as in Taufers / Müstair around AD 800). Thus, the architecture of Heinsohn’s Theory is sufficiently outlined: it does not depend on a religious chronology of medieval Christianity (or the modern era), which would have been grafted on Western Christianity ex post – as a new beginning à la 1000 = 1 (Heinsohn) or astronomically grounded (according to Topper’s thesis). It is enough to realize that the Heinsohn Horizon is epochally UNDER the rebuilding of Romanesque or Gothic churches of the High Middle Ages – which had never been accepted by friends and critics of Heinsohn’s Theory as a fact. Nevertheless, the chronological reconstruction does NOT determine the substance of the stratigraphic finding, which appears consistent and evident in itself. As long as it does not have an astronomical anchor in the universe of Einstein’s “spacetime” of recent geological history (such as in the context of an electromagnetic relativity of astrophysics post Velikovsky) the entire complex of Heinsohn’s Theory hovers in the air, as long as an amount of scaffoldings are not found that appropriately interpret his findings. The author of these lines argues that scientific hostility towards Heinsohn’s Theory is inappropriate unless CERN and NASA solve their world-exploration problems. On the contrary, they could one day be grateful for those stimulations.

The theory of Uwe Topper and son developed very differently. It questions the constancy of precession of the Earth which is the prevailing image of our time, and it assumes catastrophic precession leaps (as a result of endogenous or planetarian influences), which would have caused comparable mega catastrophes in the period between 1200 and 1500, like the Heinsohn Theory postulated for the 10th century. Thus the transition phase of the Late Middle Ages is disputed, which Heinsohn leaves untouched. Christoph Pfister (in: “Zeitensprünge”) had already operated with a synchronicity of cities such as Bern (Brenodurum) and Celtic oppida (Engehalbinsel). Should the “seven crusades” of the High Middle Ages not be seen as a historicization of a “seven-armed” impact, as the scientist Alexander Tollmann verified in relation to the (second) deluge of St. John’s Apocalypsis (observation of the first flood can hardly be credited to the Bible authors)?

Would it therefore not sound logical to equal the Heinsohn Horizon with the last “Great Jerk” mid-14th century, which Christoph Marx (†) quoting Egon Friedell called a “conceptual shudder” (see footnote) which enabled the Copernican rethink of modern times? In every way one sought to fend off the chaos of bygone days in the mechanical heavens of Isaac Newton (so Velikovsky) or to banish the incalculable threat of human existence (the Kabbalah) in religious rites and pagan myths (such as the EDDA). Should the Heinsohn Theory hardware and the astro-critical Topper Thesis converge on one and the same unrecognized base point X, so that they can be “scientifically” unified and support each other?

I call for caution: the Topper Thesis has grown on a very different ground of doubts about the late-standing, “well-ordered” chronologies of antiquity and the Middle Ages, which only gradually crystallized in the early modern period, where they tended to monstrous time forgeries of the church agencies and state apparatuses. Here is an excursus on Topper’s earlier adoption of a “Great Action” by the Vatican and patronized sciences, which partly was followed by Fomenkoism, partly by Pfister’s later thesis that the ancient Roman Empire as a whole (A = B = C) did not exist until the Swiss Swabian War which found its end in 1499 (which Topper does not share). Even the “Gothic” pride of the Swedes emerged – compliant with the Swiss Confederates – only in this hour of birth of modern state formation (1600) (Thomas Maissen, see footnote 2). And the Hebrew biblical language of the Qumran scrolls (after Topper 10th / 11th centuries)? Did the humanist writing of the Bible in 15/16th preced the scrolls by only a few centuries, but not 1000-1500 years (see discussion Winzeler Topper in “Zeitensprünge”)? But is it really possible that the simplicism of large periods of time progresses in big steps towards research (where the devil is known to lurk in the details)?

Not only in language and methodology, but also in origin, the two approaches are fundamentally different and so not easy to synthesize. Topper’s subtle observation, however, that Baghdad caliphs of the 9th century (Phase C) perceived Ptolemy’s 2nd century (phase A) as contemporary may elicit his interest in Heinsohn’s stratigraphic parallelization of both periods. For example, Ptolemy knows the Polish Kalisz as Calisia, although Poland’s archaeologists have to date the architectural summit of this city in the 9th century (Heinsohn’s email to PW, January 2018).

References to Immanuel Velikovsky (in contrast to Kammeier, Baldauf and Johnson as the basis of the radical anti-church and partly also antijudaistic chronology criticism) can be rarely found in Topper or only incidentally (also precisely because of his heritage of Christoph Marx who made Velikovsky accessible). In Heinsohn they are influential in order to save the real history of Israel and the postbiblical Judaism archaeologically from disregard (say: to save them from the fashionable dissolution in purely fictional literary history by “science”), with great progress, which is evident in the stratigraphies of Jerusalem from the time of Jesus to the Crusades, (not yet published). In general, radical chronology criticisms tends to transfer the history of Christianity or Roman papacy before the turn of 1500 AD (of Albrecht Dürer) to the area of ​​total ignorance and fictional reconstructions of the history of the West – often squatting in front of preserved Celtic origins, especially in the stronghold Heinsohn continues to rehabilitate both Celtic and Jewish and early Christian information from that grey past, to reconsolidate dubious traditions – which in the prevailing image of time lost all legitimacy – with new finds and so to save what can be saved, also with regard to the history of the church, which preserved an old and later non-inventible legacy. (This surprisingly also with respect to the Round Table of Artus [http://www.q-mag.org/arthur-of-camelot-and-aththe-of-camulodunum.html] and the Nibelungen saga, which suddenly gain ground under their feet, provided that they are reflected in an appropriate context). Dramatically speaking, the Heinsohn Theory is providing for all the “mythical” military leaders and rulers – as Charlemagne – a reasonable place in the well-understood and condensed period of real history, so the other side (I mean: in the context of the Topper Thesis) tends to increase the fictional personalities that would be referred to the nirvana of invented gap-holes of religious myths, after they were annihilated in Time grids of the historical criticism (of the modern age). Of which Jesus of NAZARA (Lucas 4,16: the crucified Nazarene John 19,19) would have to be the most prominent victim, which clearly refers to a Qumran context of Early Christianity.

I am asking. I do not say that this side-track (the historical biblical criticism of the last 200 years, which Albert Schweitzer concluded) is or should remain the heart and the true intention of the Topper Thesis, as if there was – when finally understood in its own profile – no mutual learning. But one should pay attention to the genuine intentions and divergent interests when reading these two approaches – and therefore read both critically. Because this sketchy comparison – apart from distortions – could also lead to productive results, which seems to me as necessary and promising as the negotiations taking place right now in Berlin on the possibility and limits of a grand coalition, which indeed can not have the goal to leave the scepter to the supposedly radical alternative, the AfD – instead of the radical left. To stay in this picture: more is possible than we dare to think at present. And “radical” chronology criticism without stratigraphic substructure, which goes to the bottom of things and with verve to the roots, should have no future: not in this Europe of peoples and nations that does not even know what its roots are.

Footnote:
Friedell, Egon (1927-31): Cultural History of the Modern Age.
“If it is true that at that time there was a great jolt, a mysterious shock, a profound shudder of conception experienced by humanity, then the Earth must have undergone something similar, and not just the Earth, but also the neighboring planets, indeed the whole solar system .”
“that time” refers to the middle of the 14th century.

Footnote 2: wikipedia on Thomas Maissen: In his dissertation (1994), Maissen focused on “Die französische Vergangenheit bei italienischen Autoren des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts”. Thus he was able to point out that French kings auf the 15th and 16th centuries evaluated their history to humanist standards by the help of Italian court historicians. Thomas Maissen: Von der Legende zum Modell. Das Interesse an Frankreichs Vergangenheit während der italienischen Renaissance. Basel 1994.

See also the previous consideration of the two theories here