Isaac Newton on the Trail of an Inflated History
What if some kingdoms had granted themselves extra centuries of history? Isaac Newton took this question very seriously. The scientist known for gravitation also suspected that accounts of antiquity had been distorted and their chronology stretched.
In The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, published after his death in 1728, he compared ancient texts with royal successions, generations, and astronomical reference points. He notably challenged Greek chronologies that assigned kings average reigns of 35 to 40 years. By comparing several dynasties, he proposed an average of 18 to 20 years, enough to shorten some periods considerably.
He also used celestial reference points that ancient accounts associated with the Argonauts to try to date their expedition. In his chronology, he placed it in 937 BC and the capture of Troy in 904 BC. He thus proposed shifting major events in Greek accounts by several centuries.
Newton believed that peoples had competed to claim the most ancient origins. A kingdom's prestige could thus be built on an exaggerated past, later handed down as truth. He set out to untangle these accounts and put their dates to the test. What if he was right, at least in part? Had he identified accumulated errors, but also deliberately embellished histories? His investigation invites us to look differently at chronologies we have grown accustomed to accepting.
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