Historical Timeline
Deep time on a years-ago axis · the Monetary Century · the ENOCH research archive
The archive's deep-time marks on one axis, years ago, log-scaled. Each mark is styled by what it rests on — a measurement, a document, or a tradition — and none is restyled to look like another. The set that used to be called “Deep History” begins at the 1913 Federal Reserve Act; it is the next tab, named for what it is.
Instrument. Dated by a measurement: radiocarbon, ice core, or astronomical computation.
Text. Dated by a document that says so. The document is real; its claim is what is plotted.
Tradition. What a tradition holds, at the date it gives. Plotted so it can be seen beside the rest — never restyled to look measured.
No durations are drawn. The yuga lengths, the Five Suns' year-counts and the Turin Canon's divine reigns are traditions, and a span on an axis would read as a measurement. Only claimed points appear, each styled by what it rests on.
- 38.4k years ago(36,420 BCE)Turin King List — divine rule beginsTraditionOne reading of the papyrus's pre-dynastic reigns. The papyrus is real; the sum is an interpretation.Source marks this "speculative". Plotted at the claimed date so the claim can be seen, not to endorse it.
- 12.9k years ago(10,900 BCE)Younger Dryas onsetInstrumentAbrupt return to near-glacial conditions, recorded in Greenland ice cores; about 12,900 years ago.The catastrophe layer the underground traditions are read against. The date is measured; the readings are not.
- 12.5k years ago(10,500 BCE)Sphinx — proposed Age-of-Leo dateTraditionBauval and Hancock's proposal from the Orion/Leo correlation. Conventional date is c. 2500 BCE.Debated. Schoch's water-erosion argument is the peer-reviewed thread; the correlation itself is not.
- 11.6k years ago(9,600 BCE)Göbekli TepeInstrumentMonumental enclosures raised before agriculture; radiocarbon-dated.
- 5.1k years ago(3,102 BCE)Kali Yuga beginsTextThe date the Surya Siddhanta and Aryabhata compute for the start of the present age.A text-computed date, placed as text. The yuga DURATIONS are not plotted; a span would read as a measurement.
- 5.1k years ago(3,100 BCE)Unification of EgyptInstrumentBeginning of dynastic history; the Narmer Palette.
- 4.8k years ago(2,787 BCE)Thuban is the pole starInstrumentPrecession puts Alpha Draconis at the pole during the pyramid age. Computed from the 25,772-year cycle.
- 4.6k years ago(2,560 BCE)Great Pyramid completedInstrumentConventional completion date, Fourth Dynasty.
- 2.2k years ago(129 BCE)Hipparchus records precessionTextFirst documented Western observation of the equinoxes' drift.
- 1k years ago(1025 CE)Guido of Arezzo's staffTextSolmization and the four-line staff; training time cut, by his own account, from ten years to one or two.
- 701 years ago(1325 CE)Tenochtitlan foundedTextThe Mexica settle the island. Date from the Mexica annals.
- 596 years ago(1430 CE)The Mexica burn their historiesTextUnder Itzcoatl; the reason recorded by Sahagún's informants. Year approximate.No source gives the year; placed early in the reign the sources name.
- 519 years ago(1507 CE)The last New FireTextDay 8 Reed, year 2 Reed. The next was due in 1559.
- 456 years ago(1570 CE)The Roman Missal keeps four sequencesTextA repertory in the thousands reduced to four authorized texts.
- 449 years ago(1577 CE)Florentine Codex completedTextSahagún's Nahua informants; the closest thing to the Mexica's own account.
- 339 years ago(1687 CE)Newton explains precessionTextThe physical cause of the drift Hipparchus saw.
- 236 years ago(1790 CE)The Sun Stone comes upTextDecember 17, under the Zócalo. Coatlicue in August of the same year.
- 226 years ago(1800 CE)12-tone equal temperament dominantTextThe trade with a receipt: modulation bought with the major third 13.7 cents sharp.Adoption was gradual; 1800 is the conventional marker.
- 113 years ago(1913 CE)Federal Reserve ActTextWhere the Monetary Century set below begins.
- 48 years ago(1978 CE)Templo Mayor foundTextFebruary 21; electric-company workers laying cable.