Topper, Uwe
Uwe Topper (1940-) was born in Wroclaw, Poland (formerly Breslau, Germany) and currently living in Berlin where he earns a living as an artist. However, he is better known as a researcher and author in the fields of history, ethnography and anthropology. Towards the end of the last century, he turned his attention to chronology and developed his own version of New Chronology which incorporates some of the views of Anatoly Fomenko [1823] and Heribert Illig.
‘New Chronology’ is also a term applied to the realignment of the chronologies of the Middle East as expounded by David Rohl and others. An interesting review of the New Chronology and its revisionist antecedents is available online(h).
A paper(b) by Topper on the subject is worth a read as is a critical review(g) of Topper’s work by Jason Colavito.
An English translation of some of Topper’s work relating to his revisionist view of ancient chronology is available(i). In it he explores what he describes as “jolts and gaps in historical chronology”, noting that “dates that were detem1ined centuries ago and documented in classical and prehistoric monuments collide with those re-calculated by modem techniques for those same objects. They diverge quite noticeably, and the more the dates go back in time the bigger the difference between the two, i.e. between real observation of that time and re-calculation based on present observations.” Topper is convinced that chronological misalignments are the consequences of cataclysms(b).
Topper seems to thrive on controversy, because not content to deconstruct our chronology, he has denounced, Beowulf, the cave paintings of Chauvet, and the Lady of Elche as all fakes(a). He has also written an extensive paper(f) on the cart ruts, usually associated with just Malta, but which are found around the Mediterranean and further afield.
Topper has also written about Atlantis, placing its capital on the site of modern Cadiz surrounded by nine other cities between Lisbon and Tarragona(j) (see Richard Cassaro) and has identified possible references to Atlantis in the Qur’an(k) and also speculated that by 11,000 BC Atlantean culture had spread as far as the Americas and Asia! He dealt with these matters in his 1977 book[916], Das Erbe der Giganten. Untergang und Rückkehr der Atlanter (The legacy of the giants, fall and return of the Atlantean)
He has also attempted to revive interest in Hanns Hörbiger’s ‘world-ice theory’(d).
My instincts tell me that Topper’s views should be treated with great caution.
Topper’s son, Ilya, is following in his father’s footsteps with articles on New Chronology as well as papers with provocative titles such as; The Christian Koran and The Sumerians did not exist(c).
(a) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/topperen.htm
(b) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/kataursacheen.htm
(c) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/ilyaen.htm
(d) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/glacialen.htm
(f) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/gleisedt.htm (german)
(g) https://web.archive.org/web/20200227140310/http://jcolavito.tripod.com/lostcivilizations/id13.html
(i) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=544
(j) Die Chronik von Atlantis – Atlantisforschung.de (German) *
(k) Der Koran als Quelle der Atlantisforschung – Atlantisforschung.de (German) *