Die historische Zeitachse

The historical timeline

A graphical depiction of chronological criticism

Starting page: www.dillum.ch

The historical timeline according to the author

Explanation of the timetable

The following graphic illustrates historical and chronological criticism according to the author (CP).

You can view the illustration from top to bottom or vice versa.

The weakening tone shading from top to bottom illustrates our decreasing notion about history, both in contents and in datations.

In the colored field there are recorded five important volcanic eruptions. These events show our weakening knowledge about historical events when stepping down on the timetable.

Righthand of the colored field there are marked some important inventions and historical events.

The colored field contains two colored thresholds.

These stand for the two great jumps in the development of human culture and the beginning of history.

The upper colored threshold marks the passage from prehistory to history. It lasted perhaps circa 30 years.

The lower threshold is less colored, because of the weak possibility of datation - both in contents and chronology.

The figure starts on top with our actual epoch, the 21th century AD and ends after four centuries at the beginning of "the 17th century AD".

The 17th and the 18th century are set in quotation marks, since the actual datation Anno Domini (AD) datation has been invented only around "1750".

The author estimates the start of human culture and civilisation (with formation of power states, use of tools, and beginning of constructions at about four hundred years ago (around "1600").

Before the approximate threshold of human civilization and culture you cannot neither pretend nor estimate something.

Pretending a "16th century AD", for example, is completely pointless,

Ultra demonstrare nemo potest.

The year 1789 is to be held as the first reliable date: For the first time there is an accordance between contents and chronology.

Important cultural and technological steps in the history of mankind

The beginnings of human culture and civilization are blurred.

The terme "Stone Age", often utilized, is not quite right. We must assume that man used iron from the very beginnings.

The first century of human culture were caracterized by moving stones and soil. They erected for examples menhirs, alignments, and constructed also earth walls.

Before the end of the "17th century" cement or mortar was invented. This was the beginning of the so-called "Roman Era". A new culture of building and construction began.

The "Roman Era" with cities, Villae rusticae and castles may have lasted about thirty years. - In Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and in the Eastern Mediterranian it lasted longer.

In Middle Europe the Roman era ended abruptly about 300 years before today (around "1720"). The reasons are unclear.

The end of the Roman era marks the beginning of the "Middle Ages", and in a wider scale the beginning of the Modern Times.

The Middle Ages, in a strict sense, lasted about 50 years.

The Gothic style begann around 1740 and lasted to the early 1770s.

After this time the Gothic style was removed by those of Baroque, Rococo, and towards 1800, by the Classicism.

The Gothic period was characterizised by a great number of scientific and technical inventions: mirror, lenses, chemistry, gunpowder, printing, etc.

All these new technics were developed in Western Europe.

In the Gothic era we can see the Crusades, the military enterprises towards the eastern Mediterranean world: Greece, Anatoly, Syria, Palestine, even Mesopotamia, and attempted to conquer Egypt.

Europe in this epoch also started the discovery and the conquist of the New World, first the two Americas, then the rest of the world (Africa, Asia, Pacific).

IThe common Anno Domini-datation (AD) was developed in the 1740s, first with three Arabic letters, preceeded by a I or J.

The written culture, with printed books, manuscripts, but also with paintings, drawings, woodcarvings, and musical notes, started around 1760 AD.

This is also the beginning of libraries and archives.

Before this time we only have non datable inscriptions on stone and metal.

Eine grosse Geschichtsschöpfung oder Geschichtsfälschung wird in Gang gesetzt. Es entstehen "mittelalterliche" Handschriften und angeblich alte Dichtungen (Shakespeare, Rolandslied, Dante, mittelhochdeutsche Dichtungen wie Walther von der Vogelweide und Wolfram von Eschenbach).

During the following decades up to the end of the 18th century the so called Great Action of falsification of history created a huge amount of chronicles, pseudo old documents and poetical works.

Even older languages were invented: Homeric Greek language, medieval German, old English, old Italian and old French.

Art works, like paintings, drawings, woodcuts, etc. existed only since about 1760.

Homer, Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri and Wolfram von Eschenbach were known only towards the era of French Revolution.

With the written culture started a general invention and falsification of history.

This enterprise aimed to prove a culture and a history before the middle of the 18th century.

So up to 1800 we have a mass of documents and datations with very few real historical or chronological value.

The religious purpose stands behind all histories and datations up to the end of the 18th century.

During the first era of historical writing nobody had an interest to write down true history with true datations.

So before about the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 we cannot fix any historical event nor date.

The Great Action radiated to far away countries: In India western writers created Sanskrit as an old religious language.

Even in the Napoleonic era not all events are well documented. And even the person of Napoleon can be questioned.

Only the age of Romanticism around 1815 has developed a historical awareness.

After 1815 the Great Action is fading out. - It had become more difficult, to introduce "antique" writings and events.

There are some well-known exceptions: For example the Codex Sinaïticus in the 1850s, and the Rolls from the Dead Sea around 1948.

Our historical knowledge over the last two centuries has improved and widened by different technical inventions:

photograph, motion picture, sound recording, computer, satellites, laser, internet.

Five important volcanic eruptions inside the historical and chronological timeline

These eruptions illustrate - read from top to bottom or vice versa - our descending knowledge of geological events.

1980: Eruption 0f Mount St. Helens in the State of Washington, USA

This eruption is well documented, with all our recording (video, sound recording, eye witnesses, measurements, etc.)  tools available nowadays.

1883 Eruption of Krakatoa in the Sunda Street between Sumatra and Java

This eruption is documented by eyewitnesses, physical measurements, and by meteorological consequences felt even in Europe for several years.

1815: Eruption of Mount Tambora east of Java

There are contemporary recordings and eyewittnesses of this event.

The consequences were felt in Europe the following year by climatic abnormities ("a year without summer")  and starvation.

Eruption of an Icelandic volcano (Laki?) in the late 1780s

This eruption lays close under the most important historical timeline, the French Revolution of 1788/89.

The climatic consequences were felt in Western Europe by crop failure and starvation.

The exact date of the eruption, however, cannot be determined, neither the right volcano.

Eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii

The eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed the towns of Pompeii, Herculaneaum and Stabiae is a well known event in Ancient History.

The exact date, however, is unknown.

Historians commonly assume the date of "79 after Christ" - impossible according to historical criticism.

Written documents with woodcarvings set this event at "1631 AD". 

The final destruction of Pompeii has to be seen at the beginning of written culture, to my opinion in the late 1750s, or the early 1760s.

The Pompeiian eruption stands for the end of the so called Vesuvian religion, and marks the very start of Modern Times.

Nota Bene: Frühere erdgeschichtliche Ereignisse lassen sich nicht mehr annähernd weder chronologisch noch inhaltlich fassen.