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Forgeries, Fakes, and Phantom Time
According to some, written history began in the 14th century. It may seem ridiculous, but the Phantom Time conspiracy theory has serious implications.
If it was possible that hundreds of years’ worth of documents had been forged, it was reasonable to ask whether any people or events they mentioned which were not attested in external evidence (coins, inscriptions) might also have been invented. But, shortly after the Second World War, the Russo-American psychiatrist Immanuel Velikovsky used apparent discrepancies between ancient texts to suggest not only that Egyptian history needed completely redrawing, but also that the Greek ‘Dark Ages’ never happened. Shifting his focus further forward in time, Illig claimed that the entire period AD 614-911 was invented as part of a vast conspiracy concocted by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III and Pope Sylvester II to position themselves at the symbolically significant year 1000.
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