The straightening out and the agreed verb, this history teacher had never doubted his certainties: the centuries, the eras, the dates, he recorded everything, he knows everything by heart and it is as well classified in his memory as are the volumes in a university library. Benoît is an authentic Clio pro, muse of History. Moreover, he rides a Clio…
Precisely, this Monday, he is giving a class on Pompeii. Easy! Pompeii-was-buried-under-the-ashes-of-the-Vesuvius-in-79 CECommon Era-discovered-in-1709- excavated-in-1738, end of history. With his eyes closed, Benoît can recite Pliny the Younger like a kid sings a nursery rhyme.
The summit of Mount Vesuvius shone on several points with broad flames and large columns of fire whose redness and brightness were brightened by the darkness of the night. My uncle slept from a sleep that cannot be doubted, for his breath was heard by those who came and went before his door. But the courtyard through which one accessed his apartment was already filled with ashes mixed with pumice stones. He is woken up, he comes to join Pomponianus and the others who had spent the whole night standing.
Pliny’s uncle dies asphyxiated. When the day came, his body was found intact, in perfect condition and covered with the clothes he had put on at his departure; his appearance was that of a sleeping man rather than a dead one. (source)Pliny the Younger
While preparing his course, he came across yellowed boards from another time: the eruption of Vesuvius that engulfed Pompeii accompanied by a highly fanciful date—1631!! Come on! What a gross mistake! It was in 79 that this eruption took place, everyone knows it. The disappearance of Pompeii backdated to more than 15 centuries!
He immediately repels this nonsense as if hunting an intrusive fly. But the fly returns quickly. He comes across a series of other evidence, engraved plates, a book too, with chronicles that cite the same date! With a beautiful ensemble, all these witnesses evoke the disappearance of Pompeii as the most natural thing in the world. The eruption of the 17th century did indeed exist!
Benoît continues to delve into this new chronology called recentism. Feverish, trembling, he throws himself into the investigation with the anxious ardour of a student who has forgotten everything before the exam. I might as well tell you that he thinks he’s going crazy.
“For Fomenko, world history is much less long than one says. The formula of this great mystification is simple: take an event, copy it and transpose it to other times.
And that’s how you get 2,000 years of history without being too busy.
You don’t miss a single course on ancient history at college? You wasted your time.
According to Fomenko and his friends, what you have learned on the benches of the lecture hall is nothing but a series of elucubrations forged by the Jesuits.
For German theorists like Uwe Topper, doubt is not allowed: history as we know it is a machination fomented by the Catholic Church, which reformed the calendar in 1582 under the pontificate of Gregory XIII.
Adding a few centuries to the counter would therefore have served to establish the legitimacy of Catholicism.” (LeNouvel Observateur)
What-what-what?! It’s too much for Benoît. Decidedly, we no longer respect anything. The immutable timeline he possesses to his fingertips becomes obsolete. He loses the north. The columns that supported his inner temple are cracking and threatening to fall. He must have the truth of it.
Benoit’s discoveries plunge him into an abyss of confusion. He switches from euphoria to anger. — The New Obs has some good ones! said to himself Benoit almost furious. The calendar reform mainly served to hide the inexistence of Jesus.
Perhaps he had read this previous article What Middle Ages? “Would the character of Jesus be a pure invention? We know that its historical reality was never acquired. Our calendar does not have a zero year to celebrate the birth of Jesus. It goes directly from -1 to +1. The year of Jesus was simply evaded…” (Read the rest)
For Benoît, it’s too much. Should such an upheaval be taken seriously? Someone wrote that the school and the church must be resolutely backward. It is therefore a matter of walking on eggs…
He is the author of the only book in French on the subject. After being published as an e-book in 2006, “Where did the Middle Ages go then?” , it was published last year by Hadès editions. Their slogan: “In the service of dissent.”
He remembers the moment when he had doubts about classical chronology:
“My first encounter with a discrepancy in History took place in Split, Croatia, in 1966, while I was participating in a marine biology internship as a student.
I had been struck by the state of freshness of Diocletian’s Palace, dating from the 4th century AD.
But the most astonishing thing was to see how the houses of the Renaissance intertwined with the architectural ensemble of the Roman era, as if there had never been a thousand years between the two periods.
According to him, the entire period from the 7th to the 14th century would never have existed. Chroniclers like Joseph Scaliger would then be responsible for splitting it and then filling the gap between the two.
***
Carried by the energy of despair, Benoît fights to keep his mental health. He who has always taught without trembling finds himself dizzy. What remains of a certainty when uncertainty is invited with so many disturbing presumptions? Not to mention the insolent evidence…
Our brave teacher measures all the weight of his role: teaching without betraying, but also without lying. So many scruples overwhelm him and disrupt his well-oiled mechanics. The colleagues, the director, his students, the program, nothing and no one requires him to change anything. He only has to repeat the manual, serve his guests the approved dish without looking for any embellishments. His students only ask to eat what he will put on their plate.
The ‘Pompeii problem’ is regularly raised by recentists as one of the arguments of their thesis. It is based on the work of a Russian researcher, Andreas Tschurilow, relayed in French in a YouTube video published by Douglas Connan.
***
Andreas Tschurilow, born in Astana (Kazakhstan), was a Technical Engineer and lived in Deggendorf (Bavaria). In 2008 he researched the ruins of Pompeii and discovered astonishing facts, published in a detailed article on Revised Chronology (still only in German) under the heading Nicht der letzte Tag von Pompeji. Underneath the volcanic ashes he discovered a channel, documented as built around 1600 AD, and in a local museum he found an inscription dated at 1645, which mentions Pompeii as destroyed by the Vesuv eruption 14 years before, i.e. 1631. (source)
Here is the translation: “All our descendants will benefit from reading with the greatest attention this story written two days after this day of fury. Be careful! When Vesuvius awakens, do not be surprised, I warn you that the next day, you will undergo a horrible catastrophe. So, I repeat to you, don’t hesitate! (…)
Those who are in its vicinity will have to flee when there is still time, because it will more and more spit fire, vomit lava, and finally explode, ruin everything and cut off your retreat. If you don’t run away very quickly, you will die!”
For everyone, it could be a stele dating from the era of the mythical Roman Empire telling about the famous ancient eruption. Don’t be fooled, this inscription is infinitely more recent. We know it because by chance it is dated. And we can read this:
“On December 16, the year of our Lord 1631, under the reign of Philip IV, Emmanuel Fonseca, viceroy.”
***
Benoît can no longer act. He remembers Antoine Blondin, an author whose insolence he admires. Blondin has always refused to lock himself in dogmas. Convey Blondin’s smile in the face of crumbling certainties. The role of a history teacher is not limited to repeating dates. He can also teach doubt.
It’s said: he will tell two stories to his students, the one about the textbook and the unthinkable date. The old story as solid as a Roman bridge, and the new one that is just a plank above the void. It’s up to his students to choose. The teacher turns into a setter of the precipice.
The next day, Benoît regains the safety of his beginnings. Comedian, tragedian, he recites Pompeii while managing his effects. Diction, gestural, everything contributes to suspense. The calm and settled tone gradually ignites.
In a single fatal night, Vesuvius reminds men that they are always in the hands of the gods. The lava and ashes spewing from his mouth captivate the whole class. His students tremble at the orange flash of Vesuvius. They accompany the Roman people in their flight and drink with Pliny the fatal cup of curiosity. Triumphant, euphoric, Benoît plays the high priest of Memory.
Soon, the ventriloquist of History puts down his glasses and lets himself be invaded by a delightful disturbance. He trembles with desire in the arms of this clandestine lover.
— Yet…
The whole class stops doodling.
— Yet, a mystery remains in Pompeii. Everything is not as simple as it seems. When the city engulfed by ashes was finally cleared, many ancient treasures were listed. And among them, a set of surgical tools. Tongs, scalpels, needles that strangely resemble those so well described iby Molière in the Doctor despite himself. Those that are still displayed in 17th century museums.
The House of the Surgeon in Pompeii is among the oldest houses in the old town. This house owes its name to the discovery of more than two hundred surgical instruments, among which probes and scalpels and even rarer instruments. The number of pieces found and their extraordinary modernity clearly tell us that in Pompeii, surgery was not a raw and primitive art, but an advanced and almost perfect art for the time. (source)
If Pompeii had been destroyed in 79, these paintings and statues would not exist. (wikipedia).
With a circular gaze, the teacher kisses the whole class. The brows frown. Incredulous astonishment can be read on all faces. Benoît enjoys this trouble, delighting in advance with the thunderclap he is preparing.
— One will say that it is the early genius of the Romans, of course. But the coincidence has something to make you think about …
… when we know that in 1631, a new eruption of Vesuvius devastated the region. And in some chronicles of the time, the destruction of Pompeii is still mentioned. Really curious, this city destroyed twice. Rebuilt in the same place after its destruction. Yes, really very curious.
A new pause. Time for the teacher to erase the actor.
— Remember the date of 79, the one from the manual. Because it is this that will be required for exams. But keep deep inside you the scent of this other story, more thrilling, so incredible that it hasn’t yet found its place in books.
Benoît has placed in the young minds a seed of doubt — which, one day, will be able to grow and flourish.
Let’s do as the students of Benoît, let’s retain the date of 79. But reluctantly, because other evidence arrives dare-dare. The original of the famous allegory of the Three Graces was found in a fresco in a villa in Pompeii. If the city had indeed been destroyed in 79, how to explain that so many painters and sculptors of the Quattrocento, of the Italian Renaissance, could have been inspired by it to create their countless works?
That same evening, in his room, Benoît reviews the whole scene. Historian by day, poet by night, always a tightrope walker. Lifting his glass of red wine, he toasts with the starry sky, and murmurs: — To you, Pompeii, eternal mistress of impossible dates.
And in the silence, he perceives a distant laughter. Mischievious, mutinous, lutinous, the Three Graces mock at his dreams as at his torments.
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