Chronology
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Chronology (from
Chronology is a part of
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Chronology is the science of locating historical events in time. It relies mostly upon
Calendar and era
The familiar terms
Ab Urbe condita era
Ab Urbe condita is Latin for "from the founding of the City (Rome)",[4] traditionally set in 753 BC. It was used to identify the Roman year by a few Roman historians. Modern historians use it much more frequently than the Romans themselves did; the dominant method of identifying Roman years was to name the two consuls who held office that year. Before the advent of the modern critical edition of historical Roman works, AUC was indiscriminately added to them by earlier editors, making it appear more widely used than it actually was.
It was used systematically for the first time only about the year 400, by the Iberian historian
Astronomical era
Dionysius Exiguus' Anno Domini era (which contains only calendar years AD) was extended by
Prehistory
While of critical importance to the historian, methods of determining chronology are used in most disciplines of science, especially astronomy, geology, paleontology and archaeology.
In the absence of
Known wares discovered at strata in sometimes quite distant sites, the product of trade, helped extend the network of chronologies. Some cultures have retained the name applied to them in reference to characteristic forms, for lack of an idea of what they called themselves: "The
Laboratory techniques developed particularly after mid-20th century helped constantly revise and refine the chronologies developed for specific cultural areas. Unrelated dating methods help reinforce a chronology, an axiom of corroborative evidence. Ideally, archaeological materials used for dating a site should complement each other and provide a means of cross-checking. Conclusions drawn from just one unsupported technique are usually regarded as unreliable.
Synchronism
The fundamental problem of chronology is to synchronize events. By synchronizing an event it becomes possible to relate it to the current time and to compare the event to other events. Among historians, a typical need is to synchronize the reigns of kings and leaders in order to relate the history of one country or region to that of another. For example, the Chronicon of Eusebius (325 A.D.) is one of the major works of historical synchronism. This work has two sections. The first contains narrative chronicles of nine different kingdoms: Chaldean, Assyrian, Median, Lydian, Persian, Hebrew, Greek, Peloponnesian, Asian, and Roman. The second part is a long table synchronizing the events from each of the nine kingdoms in parallel columns.
By comparing the parallel columns, the reader can determine which events were contemporaneous, or how many years separated two different events. To place all the events on the same time scale, Eusebius used an
In addition to the literary methods of synchronism used by traditional chronographers such as Eusebius, Syncellus and Scaliger, it is possible to synchronize events by archaeological or astronomical means. For example, the
See also
Examples
Christian chronology
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General
Fiction writingAspects and examples of non-chronological story-telling:
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Notes
- ISBN 0-19-286205-7.
- ^ Cates, William Leist Readwin (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). pp. 305–318.
- ^ Memidex/WordNet, "chronology," memidex.com Archived 2019-12-15 at the Wayback Machine (accessed September 25, 2010).
- ^ Literally translated as "From the city having been founded".
- ^ Richards 2013, pp. 591-592. (Incomplete reference).
- ^ Greene, Kevin (November 2007). Archaeology : An Introduction. University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. Chapter 4. Archived from the original on 2005-03-29. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
- ^ Grafton, Anthony (1994). Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ISBN 978-1441976239.
References
- Hegewisch, D. H., & Marsh, J. (1837). Introduction to historical chronology. Burlington [Vt.]: C. Goodrich.
- B. E. Tumanian, "Measurement of Time in Ancient and Medieval Armenia," Journal for the History of Astronomy 5, 1974, pp. 91–98.
- Kazarian, K. A., "History of Chronology by B. E. Tumanian," Journal for the History of Astronomy, 4, 1973, p. 137
- Porter, T. M., "The Dynamics of Progress: Time, Method, and Measure". The American Historical Review, 1991.
Further reading
Published in the 18th–19th centuries
- Weeks, J. E. (1701). The gentleman's hour glass; or, An introduction to chronology; being a plain and compendious analysis of time. Dublin: James Hoey.
- Hodgson, J., Hinton, J., & Wallis, J. (1747). An introduction to chronology:: containing an account of time; also of the most remarkable cycles, epoch's, era's, periods, and moveable feasts. To which is added, a brief account of the several methods proposed for the alteration of the style, the reforming the calendar, and fixing the true time of the celebration of Easter. London: Printed for J. Hinton, at the King's Arms in St Paul's Church-yard.
- Smith, T. (1818). An introduction to chronology. New York: Samuel Wood.
Published in the 20th century
- Keller, H. R. (1934). The dictionary of dates. New York: The Macmillan company.
- Poole, R. L., & Poole, A. L. (1934). Studies in chronology and history. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Langer, W. L., & Gatzke, H. W. (1963). An encyclopedia of world history, ancient, medieval and modern, chronologically arranged. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
- Momigliano, A. "Pagan and Christian Historiography in the Fourth Century A.D." in A. Momigliano, ed., The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963, pp. 79–99
- Williams, N., & Storey, R. L. (1966). Chronology of the modern world: 1763 to the present time. London: Barrie & Rockliffe.
- Steinberg, S. H. (1967). Historical tables: 58 B.C.-A.D. 1965. London: Macmillan.
- Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. (1975). Chronology of world history: a calendar of principal events from 3000 BC to AD 1973. London: Collings.
- Neugebauer, O. (1975). A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy Springer-Verlag.
- Bickerman, E. J. (1980). The Chronology of the Ancient World. London: Thames and Hudson.
- Whitrow, G. J. (1990). Time in history views of time from prehistory to the present day. Oxford [u.a.]: Oxford Univ. Press.
- Aitken, M. (1990). Science-Based Dating in Archaeology. London: Thames and Hudson.
- Richards, E. G. (1998). Mapping Time: The Calendar and History. Oxford University Press.
Published in the 21st century
- Koselleck, R. "Time and History." The Practice of Conceptual History. Timing History, Spacing Concepts. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2002.
- Ronald H. Fritze; et al. (2004). "Chronologies, Calendars, and Lists of Rulers". Reference Sources in History: An Introductory Guide (2nd ed.). ABC-CLIO. pp. 4+. ISBN 978-0-87436-883-3.
- Olena V. Smyntyna (2009). "Chronology". In ISBN 978-1-4129-4164-8.
- Daniel Rosenberg; ISBN 9781568987637.
External links
- Dating the Past (archived 29 May 2005)
- Pragmatic Bayesians: a decade of integrating radiocarbon dates in chronological models (archived 5 April 2005) from the University of Sheffield at the Internet Archive. Accessed 2008-01-04.
- Open Library. Works related to chronology
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
- Chattopadhyay, Subhasis. Chronicity and Temporality: A Revisionary Hermeneutics of Time in ISSN 0032-6178.