Posted by COJ on March 22, 1999 at 03:11:25 {MWU4XIuTGLAZk}:
March 22, 1999
ANSTEY�S CHRONOLOGY DEAD AND BURIED
Hi Gary,
My computer went on strike last week and had to
be brought to a repairer. It is still not quite OK,
as I repeatedly get up nothing but "Video-Error". I
don�t know
why. Thus I have not been able to read
your messages for some days, nor does my working
under pressure against the clock these months allow
me to go back and try to find them. I have seen a
couple of your latest posts,
though, and have a
few comments.
THE CALENDAR IN THE NEO-BABYLONIAN ERA
You do not seem to have realized the problems
created by the Neo-Babylonian calendar for your
revised chronology. Let me first summarize some
points that I believe we can agree upon:
The Babylonian calendar was a lunar calendar,
and we agree that in the Neo-Babylonian era,
the 1st day of each month was determined by
direct observation of the new moon. The days
began in the evening after sunset, and the first
day of each month, therefore, began in the
evening when the new crescent for the first time
became visible shortly after sunset. This also
fixed the length of the
previous month, whether
it had 29 or 30 days. If the new crescent appeared
after sunset on day 30, this determined that the
previous month had 29 days, and that the "30th"
day actually was the 1st of the new month. This
way of fixing the length of the months is clearly
reflected in VAT 4956. If the new moon could
not be observed due to bad weather, the 1st of
the new month could still be determined on the
basis of the fact the the
previous month could
not have more than 30 days.
Similarly, the insertion of the intercalary months
�a 2nd Ululu or a 2nd Addaru�was determined
by direct observation. During the Neo-Babylonian
era, therefore, the insertion
of intercalary months
and the lengths of the months did not follow any
regular pattern. You seem to accept these facts.
These matters are clearly brought out by the
tens of thousands of dated contract tablets from
the
Neo-Babylonian era. They show, for example,
in which years the Babylonians inserted the 2nd
Ululus or 2nd Addarus. An almost complete table
of these intercalary months was published already
back in 1956 by Parker and
Dubberstein (p. 6).
Only a couple of improvements have been added
since. And here is one of your problems:
ASTRONOMICAL TEXTS INTERLOCKED
WITH THE CONTRACT TABLETS
You rightly points out that the some 50,000
dated
contracts from the Neo-Babylonian era
give us a RELATIVE chronology only. They
show the total length of reigns of the kings.
Does this mean that you can simply take this
relative chronology and adapt it to your own
revised chronology?
No, you cannot really, and this for at least two
important reasons:
(1) In your revised chronology, the lengths
of reigns of the Neo-Babylonian kings disagree
with those established by the
contract tablets.
They show, for example, that Awel-Marduk
ruled for 2 years and Nabonidus for 17 years.
You give 20 years to Awel-Marduk and 19
years to Nabonidus, the only reason being
that this is required by your
theory, while it
is in flagrant conflict with the contemporary
contract tablets.
(2) The calendar established by the contract
tablets fully agree with that reflected by the
astronomical texts and which you admit have
to be dated in the way established by the
scholars. Thus you agree that, with one or
two exceptions, all the c. 30 observations
recorded on VAT 4956 belong to year 568
BC. And the same holds true of the more
than
two dozens of lunar eclipses dated to
the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Your claim,
for which there is no evidence whatsoever
(it is required only by your theory!), that the
Seleucid scribes inserted the name of king
Nebuchadnezzar in these genuine astronomical
records, doesn�t really matter here, because these
astronomical records, too, reflect the very same,
irregular calendar as that brought out by the
contracts! The lunar eclipse
tablet LBAT 1420,
for example, which records about two dozens
of lunar eclipses from the first 29 years of
Nebuchadnezzar, shows the very same dates for
the 2nd Ululus and the 2nd Addarus as those
found on the
contemporary contract tablets!
It shows that a 2nd Ululu had been inserted in
the 2nd and 5th years of Nebuchadnezzar, and
that a 2nd Addaru had been inserted in his 11th,
14th, and 26th years. Exactly the same positions
are given by the contract tablets. In this way
the contract tablets are interlocked with the
astronomical records.
Even if the name of Nebuchadnezzar would
be removed from the astronomical texts, then,
the
thousands of contemporary contracts dated
the reign of this king lock his name to them
by showing that both groups of texts follow the
same identical irregular calendarial pattern.
The "conspiracy" you imagine, therefore,
is not
as simple as you have tried to argue. It is not
just a matter of exchanging the names of the
rulers in the astronomical texts.
And, of course, there is no evidence at
all in support of your "conspiracy" theory.
The only "evidences" you have presented
thus far are that your theory "requires" this.
This is just an arguing in a circle. As long
as you cannot present any proof which shows
that the Seleucid scribes used to change the
names of the kings in the texts they were
copying, it is a meaningless theory, and it is
useless to discuss it.
YOUR IMPOSSIBLE DELTA-T VALUE
You have never disclosed your Delta-T value
and how you have arrvied at it,
although we
have repeatedly asked you about it. But your
movement of the location to the longitude of
Honolulu shows the degree of change that
you feel is required by your theory, in order
to have two or three of the
observations fit
your chronology. This change of location
implies moving the sublunar point about
13.5 hours westward, whick is in addition
to the Delta-T of c. 5 hours for the 6th century
BC established by a careful
study of hundreds
of eclipses recorded from the 25 centuries before
the 17th century (which already is accounted for
in our programs). Your Delta-T value for the 6th century BC, then, amounts to about 18.5 hours,
which
implies that earth�s rotation has been
slowing down at a rate of early 6 ms/cy, or about
3.5 times that established by modern scholars!
Although you evidently do not realize it,
this consequence alone proves that your
revised chronology is simply impossible.
Firstly, you cannot just pick out a line or
two from VAT 4956 and apply your new
Delta-T to those observations only. If it
could be demonstrated that the rotation
of the
earth had been slowing down at the
rate required by your alternative Honolulu
longitude, this would affect EVERY lunar
position recorded in the ancient texts,
including the dozen or so recorded in
VAT 4956! You must
demonstrate that ALL
of these fit you Honolulu location! And
you must also explain why they fit so
excellently the Babylonian location!
Further, you have to apply your Delta-T
to the dozens of lunar eclipses recorded
in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. In fact,
you have to explain why the hundreds of
eclipses used by Stephenson and other scholars
show the rotation of the earth to have slowed
down at a rate of 1.7 ms/cy instead of the
nearly 6 ms/cy required by your theory. This
means you have to check carefully all these
eclipse records, which you said that you
would "LOOOVE to do", but which you now
seem to prefer to ignore completely.
In other
words: Your theory is confronted by
unsurmountable obstacles in several ways,
which you seem to prefer not to face.
THE NABON. NO. 18 ECLIPSE
Although this lunar eclipse fits excellently
the one that could be observed at
Babylon
in the evening of Sept. 26, 554 BC, you
still insist that it HAS TO be identified
with the Sept. 7, 479 BC eclipse, adapted to
your Honolulu longitude. You constantly
repeat the argument that the latter was
total,
while that of 554 BC was just nearly total.
This is a foolish argument, Gary. Firstly, this
is completely irrelevant, because we know
that the Babylonians were as much interested
in partial eclipses as in total
eclipses, and the
text says nothing about the magnitude of this
eclipse. Secondly, the totality of the 479 BC
eclipse could not be seen from the Honolulu
horizon, because the totality did not begin
until some 15-20
minutes after moonset,
when the moon was nearly 5 deg. below that
horizon! Its totality, then, doesn�t matter!
That this eclipse fits excellently the eclipse
of Sept. 26, 554 BC, was confirmed to me
by Professor F. Richard
Stephenson, today
the leading authority on Delta-T. I asked
him to check whether the 554 BC eclipse
really "set while eclipse", and here is his
answer, based on the most up-to-date
research, as quoted from his letter of
March
5, 1999:
"I compute using an interpolation value for
Delta T of 17700 sec that at Babylon the
Moon actually set while eclipsed. My
computed details are as follows (times
to the nearest tenth of an hour):
(1) Beginning at 3.0 h local time, lunar
altitude 34 deg in the SW.
(2) End at 6.1 h local time, lunar altitude �3
deg in the W.
The eclipse would thus end about 15 minutes
after moonset. A deep penumbral eclipse may
possibly be visible for a very few minutes and
there is always the possibility of anomalous
refraction at the horizon. However, I would
judge that the Moon indeed set eclipsed on
this occasion."
This should logically
end your quibble about
this eclipse, shouldn�t it, Gary?
SUMMARY
In summary, Anstey�s obselete chronology
was dead and buried already when you picked
it up. My and AF�s comments on it have been
just some "quotations from the
funeral speech".
Carl