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The alternative view

This page explains the ideas behind the "alternative view" sections in this project: where they come from, what they say, how they apply to the buildings here, and who to watch and read to go deeper.

Where the ideas come from

  • Tartary on old maps. From the 1500s to the 1800s, many European maps labelled a huge area of northern and central Asia as Tartaria or Great Tartary. In mainstream history this was a loose name for lands Europeans knew little about, inhabited by Tatar, Mongol and Turkic peoples. The alternative view reads it as evidence of a forgotten empire.
  • New Chronology (1970s–1980s onwards). Russian mathematician Anatoly Fomenko and his co-author Gleb Nosovsky argued that accepted world history is badly mis-dated and that much of it was compressed or invented. Many later "Tartaria" ideas build on this.
  • Nikolai Levashov. A Russian writer who popularised the idea of a "Great Tartaria" as a lost civilisation in the 2000s.
  • The English-speaking internet (about 2016–2018 onwards). The ideas spread through Reddit forums and YouTube channels, combining Tartaria with "mud flood" theories and a focus on grand 19th-century buildings.

The main ideas

Idea What it claims Examples in this project
An older civilisation (Tartaria) Many grand buildings were inherited from an advanced worldwide civilisation and later claimed or re-dated Villa Sultana, Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Mud flood A catastrophe buried city ground floors in mud, which is why windows and doors are found below street level Seattle Underground, St Pancras undercroft
The reset A break in history around 1800–1900 erased knowledge, with records lost and cities "rebuilt" Palace of Westminster (records burned in 1834)
World's fairs Exhibitions showcased existing buildings as new, then removed them by demolition or fire Crystal Palace, Palace of Fine Arts, Palais du Trocadéro
Fire and demolition Grand buildings were destroyed soon after "completion" to erase them Anhalter Bahnhof, Crystal Palace
Lost energy technology Domes, spires, copper and mercury were part of a free-energy system Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, Rocchetta Mattei
Impossible timelines Buildings were too big, too fast or too precise for their stated dates Crystal Palace, Cologne Cathedral
Star forts The same geometry worldwide suggests a common origin or a non-military purpose Palmanova, Goryōkaku
Shared architecture The same domes and styles appear on every continent at once See the glossary, for example Dome and Onion dome
Satan's Little Season The "thousand years" of Revelation 20 have already passed, and we now live in the short season that follows, a time of deception that explains the reset and the hidden history A framework for the whole project rather than one building; see below
Letters in dates (the "J" argument) The first "1" in dates like 1255 was originally an I or J standing for Jesus, so history has been stretched by about 1,000 years Date stones and inscriptions on buildings; see below

Satan's Little Season

The idea

Revelation 20 describes Satan being bound for a thousand years, after which "he must be loosed a little season" (Revelation 20:3, King James Version) before the final judgement. Most Christian traditions place the thousand years either in the future or treat them as symbolic.

The "Satan's Little Season" view says the thousand-year reign has already happened in the past, and that we are living now in the little season of deception that follows. Supporters connect this with:

  • Tartaria: the thousand years as a golden age, whose civilisation and buildings were inherited and re-labelled
  • the reset and mud flood: catastrophe and the loss of that world, sometimes linked to Satan's release
  • altered timelines and "missing centuries", and sometimes the Mandela Effect

How it applies to this project

It is a framework for the whole story rather than a claim about any one building. For each building it raises the question: does the building belong to an older age that was later claimed, and do its records show signs of being rewritten?

What critics say

  • Mainstream Christian commentators read the little season as a short final rebellion still in the future, or as a symbol, not a historical period.
  • A detailed review of one version of the theory argues that its order of events conflicts with the sequence in Revelation 20 itself, and calls it a synthetic chronology rather than something the text sets out.
  • Some Reformed writers do link the little season to deception in the present age, so the idea of living in it isn't entirely new, even if the Tartaria connection is.

Letters in dates (the "J" argument)

The idea

This comes from Anatoly Fomenko's New Chronology (volume 1, chapter 6). The argument is that in medieval documents years were written with the name of Jesus in front, as a letter I (or sometimes J) or X, for example "I.255" meaning "year 255 of Jesus". Later readers took the I or J for the number 1 and read it as "1255". On this reading, many dates have been made about 1,000 years older than they really are.

Supporters also point out that J only became a separate letter quite late:

  • Gian Giorgio Trissino first formally distinguished I and J as separate letters in 1524.
  • In English, the distinction only settled in the 1600s. The first English book to explain it is usually dated to 1633.

So, the argument goes, a date stone or document that uses a "J" in a way that looks old should make us ask when it was really made.

How it applies to this project

Look closely at date stones, foundation stones, inscriptions, coins and old documents connected with each building:

  • Is the year written with a letter in front of it, or a "1" that looks like an I or J?
  • Does a "J" appear in an inscription supposedly older than the 1500s?
  • Do the dates on the building match the dates in the records?

Record any examples in the entry's Anomaly log, with a photo if possible.

What critics say

  • J as a numeral is documented. In Roman numerals, a final i was often written as j, so 13 might be written "xiij" and 23 "XXIIJ". A "j" in a number is therefore expected in older documents and doesn't by itself mean the date is wrong.
  • Lowercase i and j were already different shapes before 1524; only the capital letter shared one form. So the presence of a "j" doesn't automatically date a text to after 1524.
  • Dating doesn't rest on written dates alone. Historians also use tree-ring dating, radiocarbon, astronomical records (eclipses) and independent manuscript traditions, which would all need to be wrong in the same way.
  • Mainstream historians reject the New Chronology as a whole.

The useful test for this project is concrete: find actual inscriptions and documents and look at exactly how their dates are written.

People and places to watch

A starting list for exploring the alternative view. The project doesn't endorse every claim these sources make: use them for leads and arguments, then check each claim against the evidence and label it (see How to weigh what you watch).

Alternative history researchers

Who Where Focus
Jon Levi YouTube Architectural anomalies and "hidden history"; one of the channels that brought Tartaria to English-speaking audiences
Martin Liedtke YouTube Mud flood and Tartaria videos
Sylvie Ivanowa YouTube Architectural anomalies
Stolen History stolenhistory.net Community site collecting old photos, maps and theories
r/Tartaria and r/CulturalLayer Reddit Forums where the ideas spread, with many old photos and maps

Founding books and thinkers

Who What Why read it
Anatoly Fomenko and Gleb Nosovsky New Chronology series (English editions include History: Fiction or Science?) The original argument that accepted dating is wrong
Nikolai Levashov Books on "Great Tartaria" (mostly in Russian) Where the Tartaria-as-civilisation idea was popularised
Heribert Illig The "phantom time" hypothesis (1991) Argues that about 300 years of the early Middle Ages never happened; related to the "reset" and dating questions

The wider "lost civilisation" field

Who Where Focus
Graham Hancock Books such as Fingerprints of the Gods; the series Ancient Apocalypse An advanced civilisation lost in the deep past
UnchartedX (Ben van Kerkwyk) YouTube Precision stonework and megaliths; useful for the monolithic columns question

The other side: sceptical and mainstream views

Knowing the strongest counter-arguments makes the alternative view sharper. These set out the mainstream case:

Who Where Focus
Skeptoid (Brian Dunning) Podcast episode #765, "Tartaria and the Mud Flood" A sceptical look at the main claims
Geographicus Blog: "The empire that never was" What the old maps of Tartary actually show
Wikipedia "Tartarian Empire" article Summary of the theory's history, with references
Discover Magazine "What is the lost empire of Tartaria?" Mainstream overview

How to weigh what you watch

  • Note the claim, then find the source. If a video says a building went up in a year, look for the records: newspapers, contracts, photos.
  • Label it. Use the project's evidence labels: Documented, Observed, Reported or Speculative.
  • Look for the ordinary explanation too. For example, the "Ouverture 1911" caption on Villa Sultana might mean the start of a casino season. Testing both readings is what makes a finding stand up.
  • Bring leads back here. Add them to an entry's Research notes section, or to the research list, so they can be followed up.

Sources