Chronology

Chronology (from the Greek χρόνος, chronos, "time" and λόγος, logos, " teaching" ) is the doctrine of the time.

Various aspects can be distinguished:

• Time as a physical phenomenon: time (physical size), time measurement ( chronometry )
• General chronology: annual census (eg BC ), calendar systems
• Dating: science of locating historical events in time in archeology and history
• As a term in everyday language: description of a sequence of events in a specific context, such as chronology of music, chronology of mathematics, chronology of certain events, see Timeline. See also Chronicle.

Time as a physical phenomenon

Physics is the study of time and space. Just as the chorology representing The doctrine of space, chronology is generally a methodology of scientific phenomenology to investigate aspects of phenomena.

Order of time and chronology: Natural, cyclic and linear chronology

General

The chronology is familiar with the natural cosmic order of time (day, lunar month, solar year ) as a representation of the physical concept of time, the cyclic order of time (calendar ) and the linear order of time ( year count).

Or " before Christ " ( BC) or indicated " according to Christ" ( AD) - In the years count the time as a measure, such as " before present " ( BP before present engl. ).

History of the years count

In Roman antiquity was often counted from a supposed founding year of the city of Rome. In reality, however, was the "Anno Urbis Conditae " yearly counting - as well as the "Anno Domini " year count - not even in ancient times, because it was not earlier than the year 400 used systematically for the first time, from the Iberian historian Orosius. Although Dionysius Exiguus the "Anno Urbis Conditae " yearly counting probably knew (but never used ) seems to Pope Boniface IV (c. 600 AD ) to have been the first, the relationship between those two important annual counts ( ie AD 1 = AUC 754 ) recognized.

Dionysius Exiguus ' "Anno Domini " era, which contains only calendar years after Christ, has been extended from the Venerable Bede to the full Christian counting year (but which also includes calendar years before Christ no year zero). Venerable Bede can be considered as the most important chronologist of the first millennium, because he was the first to actually as a full-fledged system for the dating of historical events used the Christian Era. He was thus the great promoter of the annual count, which was eventually to become the world's only normal.

Ten centuries after Bede the French astronomer Philippe de La Hire took ( in 1702 ) and Jacques Cassini ( in 1740 ) - only to facilitate certain astronomical calculations - that ( in 1583 proposed by Joseph Scaliger ) Julian system and hereby an astronomical years counting in use containing a leap year zero, year 1 ( AD), however, precedes not exactly coincide with the year 1 BC.

Dating: Relative and absolute chronology, Astronomical chronology

In archeology and geology / paleontology, the distinction between relative and absolute chronology is common:

• Relative chronology is based on the comparison of two contexts (eg archaeological layers ), ie both are either the same age or younger than the other. The methodology comes from the stratigraphy.
• Absolute chronology is possible by means secured to historical records, dendrochronology, or other physical methods (eg radiocarbon dating, Thermolumineszenzdatierung ). Additional possibilities absolute dating arise in rare cases by the textual sources of early historical research, eg by comparisons of historical or dynastic data with cosmic events, which can be verified by modern science.

The Astronomical chronology is an additional interdisciplinary field between the chronology and astronomy and an auxiliary science of historiography. With their help, or the help of, for example archeology or comparative text Science temporal sequences of historical events are determined.