Heribert Illig
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Heribert Illig (born 1947 in Vohenstrauß) is a German Systems analyst and the leading proponent of the phantom time hypothesis, put forward in 1996, which asserts that the Early Middle Ages did not exist and that the approximately 300 years between 614 and 911 are an invention. If this hypothesis held true, we would not be living in the early 21st century, but the early 18th century.
None of Illig's work has been translated into English, and his thesis has received little attention in the English-speaking world as a considerable body of evidence immediately refutes his hypothesis.
- Eclipses allow the calculation of the historical rate of rotation of the Earth and match the predicted lengthening of the day due to tidal effects of the moon with high precision. Even millisecond errors in the calculation would have accumulated and resulted in the eclipse being observed thousands of kilometers away from the reported location. Many independent historical eclipse reports going back as far as 700 BCE are in agreement with the traditional historical timeline. [1]
- Illig underestimates the archaeological evidence and also the research done on the literary sources from the period.
- Dendrochronology, the method of scientific dating based on the analysis of tree ring patterns, refutes a gap of three centuries. Records of ancient droughts and floods match thin and thick tree rings -- a silent testimony to those droughts and floods.
- Illig's hypothesis requires a widespread collaboration involving not only the Occident, but also the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world, in order to fabricate all the synchronisms provided by the sources. Such a collaboration, however, would have been practically impossible to implement in the past.
- Illig gives no credible motivation for the supposed fabrications, even assuming that they had been feasible. Niemitz suggests two possible motivations: the hypothesis that Otto III redefined the calendar to suit "his understanding of Christian millenarianism," and the hypothesis that Constantine VII's re-recording of historical texts involved altering dates. Neither of these hypotheses are considered to be very credible.
- Illig's claims regarding the Gregorian Error assumed that Pope Gregory XIII's calculation of the inaccuracy in the Julian calendar, in 1582, was based on the time since the adoption of the Julian calendar, in 46 BC. In fact, Pope Gregory's calculation was based on the time since the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Niemitz's response to this is that scholars in Caesar's time used the same date for the equinox that we do, so if the Gregorian calendar was based on the Julian calendar's state in 325, our current observation of the equinox would not match up as well as it does. This response would imply that the Gregorian calendar is only accurate by coincidence, because the alleged error made in the 4th century (not calculating by the equinox date from the beginning of the Julian calendar) is cancelled out by the alleged error made in the 16th century (the 'lost' three centuries).
[edit] Books by Heribert Illig
- Die veraltete Vorzeit, Eichborn, 1988
- Hat Karl der Große je gelebt?, Mantis, 1996
- Das erfundene Mittelalter. Die größte Zeitfälschung der Geschichte, Econ 1996, ISBN 3-430-14953-3
- Das Friedell-Lesebuch, C.H. Beck 1998, ISBN 3-406-32415-0
- Mit Franz Löhner: Der Bau der Cheopspyramide, Mantis 1998, ISBN 3-928852-17-5
- Wer hat an der Uhr gedreht?, Ullstein 2003, ISBN 3-548-36476-4
- with Gerhard Anwander: Bayern in der Phantomzeit. Archäologie widerlegt Urkunden des frühen Mittelalters., Mantis 2002, ISBN 3-928852-21-3
- with Gunnar Heinsohn: Wann lebten die Pharaonen?, Mantis, 2003 ISBN 3-928852-26-4
