Illig claims that 297 years (bw. August 614 & September 911) are simply inventions at writing tables. This seems absurd for us, but he detects anomalies in the established history. Fomenko claims that history before 1250 is either invented, or happened bw. 700 & 1250, independently of the historic labels. This seems absurd for us, but he detects anomalies in Earth's rotation, if the familiar history is true. Gurzadian claims that we should bring upwards Babylonian history bw. 1st dynasty and sack of Babylon by 96 years. This is suggested on the ground of Earth's rotation, but it would be dangerous for Assyrian & Hittite King Lists, while good for the evolution of Middle Babylonian pot painting styles.

History is scholarship, while Earth's rotation is science. Can we make them concordant, should we, or may be content with another version of "double truth"?

ON THE LENGTH OF SKIRTS

B. Lukács

President of Matter Evolution Subcommittee

of the

Geonomy Scientific Committee

of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences

lukacs@rmki.kfki.hu

CRIP RMKI, Bp. 114. Pf. 49, Budapest, Hungary

ABSTRACT

Why female skirts are short now if they were long for 4,000 long & uninterrupted years? Or do historians leave this question to Fomenko, who denies the 4,000 years?

1. INTRODUCTION

The length of female dress is an interesting question for almost anybody. (For men this is trivial; for women this is a matter of Holy Fashion.) The question (or, rather: the answers to it) is: how long was the female skirt throughout History?

Not all female dresses contain a skirt. For example, in China it was/is usual enough to have breeches (pantaloons &c.) also for women. This habit went to Japan on the East, and Turkish Central Asia on the West. We are not too interested in female breeches. So I restrict the geographic range of this discussion to historical Europe, Western Asia and supra-Saharan Africa, plus modern successors.

The actual problem will be stated in due course in Chap. 2. However there is a more general problem: either we do not understand some forces behind History (which is quite possible), or our history contains errors &c. (which is also possible, but we like to believe that we have recognised all the errors already). My personal guess is that we like some Simplified History, and then sooner or later contradictions arise. Then people with greater than average fantasy tell that we need a completely new History and turn to Alien Astronomers directing pyramid building, while the other side again draws the conclusion that History cannot be understood. The remainder between believe that they do understand Her.

This situation is not optimal. And while I cannot solve all problems of History, I can demonstrate the problem via interesting examples. Maybe somebody reads them and then gets some idea for exit.

2. THE LENGTH OF SKIRTS IN HISTORY

XXth century seems to have been exceptional. Practically all historians seem to agree that "in the past" women bore "full-length" skirts. Then in a few years centered around 1925 AD this changed in the Anglo-Saxon World + Europe, and the change gradually penetrated Western Asia & sub-Saharan Africa, although Moslim habits were strong enough barriers. The change was practically abrupt.

Of course historians & sociologists can name reasons (e.g. propagation of "healthy life" and/or appearance of female masses in outdoor business), and Fashion cannot be fully understood anyway. However it seems that the actual change was the first in 4,000 years; and it was irreversible in the sense that it has not changed back. While in recent Europe some women sometimes wear full-length skirts, this (with the exception of some small religious groups) is an occasional act.

In due course I will demonstrate that in canonical History indeed a 4,000 year old habit changed almost overnight about 1925; now let us accept it for argumentation. Then indeed strong forces must have acted in the background. I will discuss the barriers against these hypothetical forces in the next Chapter. But now I show up the Problem: Either Early Twentieth Century was something unparallelled even in the History of Fashion, or the Forces acting for Shorter Skirts were exceptionally strong then, or we are in error about History. We should know which is true from the 3 possibilities.

Ref. [1] is a short sci-fi story written in c. 1970 by Van Vogt. The story is irrelevant here, but it involves Time Travel. The husband regularly vanishes from his 1904 home, and then the wife finds out how he vanishes. She follows, and appears in the future, in 1967. Now some sentences from the writing.

"Marietta bought a dress, a suit, underclothing, accessories, and shoes. She went out of the shop, trembling at her temerity in wearing such shameless clothing but very determined." (Italics are mine.) Now, I state that this story would have been impossible at least in a small region of Hungary (not too far from Budapest), while I think everybody in Europe & USA would believe knee-length skirts shocking in 1904. Maybe we learn a simplified history.

3. THE HISTORY OF SKIRT LENGTH

With the above geographical restriction we have to discuss a limited set of societies such as:

Ancient Mesopotamia

Ancient Egypt

(Periferial Western Asian societies)

Greco-Roman Antiquity

Other European Antique societies

Medieval Europe

Europe of Enlightment in Industrial Age

(Moslim Middle and Later Ages)

The two cases in parentheses I will avoid. For the first, small Western Asian civilisations were in Antiquity heavily influenced by Egypt, Mesopotamia & Greece. For the second, it seems that habits of Moslim societies are rather against to show too much skin, even for men, so full-length dresses are rather automatic there.

As for evidences, written sources go back before 2,000 BC in Egypt & Mesopotamia, and to 1,400 BC in "Greece", but the extant texts are rather taciturn about the exact length of skirts. Very few table paintings remained from Antiquity, but wall paintings are available, and also reliefs. From Medieval times pictures are more and more abundant, from the last, say, 500 years some clothes are available, from 1800 AD we have journals specialised in Fashion, and from 1850 we have photos.

For practical reasons I will distinguish only a few degrees of length, as follows. Full-length will be abbreviated as FL, and it means skirts stopping at the shoes, or even lower. Ankle-long or AL is when the ankles are definitely visible (either in socks, or not). Mid-leg, ML is something ending definitely between knee and ankle. Knee-long is KL, and the parallels of our miniskirts, MS, end definitely above the knees. In our XXth century evolution reached ML in c. 1925, KL in c. 1935, but, although sporadic attempts occurred, MS took another 3 decades, until Mary Quant suggested it in 1964; then it became successful in a fortnight.

Mesopotamia

In Ancient Mesopotamia c. 2,000 BC is a divide. Earlier the dominant culture is Sumerian; later Amorite, then Akkadian. Akkadian is later known as Assyrian & Babylonian, and in later times the Assyrian & Babylonian seem to prefer rather long skirts. This is not necessarily true for earlier Sumerian, and although my startpoint is 2,000 BC, the Sumerian situation deserves attention.

The earliest information is an alabaster vase from the E'anna temple in Uruk, from c. 3,300 BC. A completely naked male priest gives some foodstuff to either Goddess Innana, or her Chief Priestess. The female is fully dressed, and AL. See: Baghdad, Iraq Museum.

On a temple tablet from c. 2,550, ruler of the city Lagash, Ur-Nanshe, builds the temple. Behind him you can see his daughter and four sons. All the 6 royal persons have AL dresses; above waistlines all males are naked and the daughter is half-naked (one breast is covered). See: Louvre; limestone tablet from Girsu.

The statue of Ur-Nanshe, "the Great Singress" from Ma'ri, c. 2,500 BC, clearly shows a KL skirt and nothing above. See: gypsum statue, Musée d'Archéologie, Damasc.

A limestone tablet shows a naked male priest before Goddess Nisaba, who is again fully dressed and AL, c. 2,400 BC, from Girsu. See: Louvre.

So in Sumerian times AL is rather the rule (even for men!), but KL is not impossible. Later AL seems strict.

Egypt

Ancient Egypt is very well documented. In addition, it seems that Egyptians had no nudity taboo. Indeed, lots of paintings show female slaves (and male PoW's) fully or practically naked. Female dancers & singers may wear anything, from a G-string to full dress with ML skirts; but outside artists until New Kingdom times practically any female is either nude, or is AL, with very tight skirt. In New Kingdom skirts remain AL, but the patterns become complicated. Exceptions are some work scenes for farmer women, and one special case from the court of Amonhotep III, which I will discuss.

Good; so AL is strict rule for Middle & Upper Classes. (The reason is not technological, as in Sumer. Establishment males generally wear KL or shorter kilts.) But the skirts (really not skirts: one-piece clothes) are so tight that the women could not walk; indeed they are generally shown at complete rest. Some women colleagues of mine guess that the skirts are sliced sidewise; the traditional Egyptian art does not show that aspect. Indeed, look at the (still almost) Amarnean art in the tomb of Pharaon Tut-ankh-Amon; his wife wears a sliced-up "skirt", sometimes opening up to mid-thigh.

Also, well-to-do women wear on paintings, reliefs and statues so flimsy garments that the nude body beneath can quite be seen. So it seems that AL is not modesty, but something more complicated. And note that it seems as if nude breasts were canon, at least in some times. The tight one-piece garment is generally held by two straps. Now, on lots of paintings & reliefs the garment starts below the breasts, and the breasts are not covered by the straps. Although Egyptian painting is not perspectivic, and its rules are nontrivial, the amount of evidences is big enough to believe that naked breasts were socially accepted at least in some periods. (Middle Kingdom seems to have been one such.) So then AL rule is probably not "modesty".

I promised a definite exception. Princess Sitamon, secondary wife of Pharaon Amonhotep III was a daughter of Amonhotep III himself & the primary wife Teye. (Dynasty XVIII was massively incestuous.) On a chair of Princess Sitamon she gives honour to the principal wife (her mother too) [2], and Princess Sitamon wears a KL skirt (and nothing above waistline), while Queen Teye is AL. (In fact, Sitamon's garment is not unsimilar to that of courtly men.)

I dare summarize the Egyptian situation as follows. Farmer women did not feel disturbed in any garment (but substantial garment distinguished them from slaves). Middle & Upper Class women were also not disturbed by nudity taboos, but AL garments were socially preferred, so they chose it at formal occasions. Princess & Secondary Queen Sitamon with her mother and Principal Queen Teye is only a partially formal situation; and as far as it is formal, Sitamon is in subjugated position, so simple garment is proper.

Things will be different in Greece, where there was some nudity taboo for women.

Greece

In Classical Greece male nudity was accepted, in some situations even preferred in all-male situation. Female nudity was terrifying. Artistic proof is coming. But first: Ancient Greece means three different cultures, as follows. First was Mycenian Greece, say, bw. 1500 and 1200 BC (there is very few knowledge about cloths before that; Indo-European conquest is cca. 1900 BC). Then Mycenian civilisation collapses as a byproduct of the Bronze Age Migration (the Greek equivalent seems to be the Doric migration, but there are some chronologic difficulties of cca. 150 years); the result is the Dark Ages. With some evolution Dark Ages develop then into Classical.

In Mycenian Greece fashion was under heavy Minoan influence. Minoan public female dress seems to have consisted of a bodice open in the front, and an AL or even FL rather bell-shaped skirt, as we see from statuettes & murals. Now again, AL skirts very probably had no connection with some nudity taboo. Murals do not show completely naked females, but they show bull-dancer girls in loincloth. Again we do not know why AL/FL skirts are so usual; Middle Class women are not depicted.

Mycenian fashion has its compromises to more Northern climates, but Minoan female dresses are not unheard of. But Mycenian cities are abandoned or reduced c. 1200, the best agricultural lands of Peloponnesus are occupied by uncouth Early Iron Age Dorians, on the North around Thebes Northwestern barbarians sit on the top of Bronze Age Aiolians. Attica avoids occupation, but they also go down from their (not too high) Mycenian level. Attic Submycenian ceramics generally do not show human figures, and also, of course, not the proto Geometric ones. However human figures appear on some mature Geometric pottery; in VIIIth century Athens the female figures wear FL or AL skirts. This will develop into VIIth century or later naked kouros vs. FL kore statues.

Good; uncouth barbarians muffle up their women. However there are two problems with this explanation. First, there is the nude ivory goddess-statuette of the Dipylon cemetery in Athens from VIIIth century. Good, you cannot clothe a Goddess against Her will, and She may even be Aphrodite; but please remember this. Second, look at the Archaic Boeotian ceramics statuettes. Louvre CA 623 comes from the neighbourhood of Thebes, from bw. 720-700 BC. The figure is obviously female, and KL. Athens, National Museum of Archaeology 5635 seems to be the same. Later pieces are overwhelmingly FL, but do not forget that Archaic Boeotian statuettes are more stable if FL. However obviously in Boeoty, 700 BC KL women were not impossible.

In Greek Classical Antiquity all female statues & paintings are:

1) either FL, perhaps AL;

2) or KL or MS only if huntresses of Artemis (including the goddess Herself), or Amazons, or perhaps exceptional girls as Atalanta, runners of the Hera race, or Spartiate women in training;

3) or nude if goddesses but practically only Aphrodite.

I think that no arguments are needed for Point 1); often even Maenads are full-clothed; they sometimes may not be modest above waistline, but for any case FL if not naked. To Point 2) I would refer to the numerous Amazon statues & reliefs, to my guess the Soft Porno of Indo-European Antiquity. Point 3), however, needs more discussion, considering the nude statuette from the Dipylon cemetery.

It seems that (male demands on female) morals became so strict between VIIIth and Vth century in Athens that even the Goddess of Love was shown only clothed. It seems that Skopas was then the first forming Aphrodite naked about 375 BC.

Maybe Praxiteles was the second about 350. His "Aphrodite of Cnidus" is known from copies; but even this statue is nontrivial. First, antique stories show that the innovation was not taken easily. The statue was ordered by the city/island of Cos (Dorian); Praxiteles manufactured two statues, one clothed one naked. The Cosians bought the clothed statue. After some time the city of Cnidus (also Dorian, near to Cos) bought the refused nude statue. Also there is a story about a youth feeling mad love for the statue.

But now let us see the statue; copies can be found in the Vatican Museum and the Glyptothek in Munich. The Goddess of Love covers Her lap with Her right hand! Other Praxiteles Aphrodites are FL, although naked above waistline. Later, Hellenistic, Aphrodites are even more shy. The "Capitolean Aphrodite" (copy in the Museo Capitolino, Rome) is nude, but tries to cover everything as Christian women on Turkish slave markets according to numerous German woodcuts in centuries XVI-XVII AD. The same is true for the "Medici Aphrodite" in the Uffizi, Florence. The Siracuse Aphrodite, for variety's sake, holds some part of Her removed clothes before Her lap. (True, slightly later Aphrodite of Cyrene (National Museum at the Thermae, Rome) is completely nude and not embarrassed at all.)

So in Greek art the good Indo-European women are modestly clothed. Maybe the Goddess of Love not always, but then She knows that Her apparel is shameful. Hunting maidens of Artemis may go KL (imagine hunting in peplos), but during hunt they are holy and men are not present. As for Atalanta, the Argonaut, remember the Kalydon Hunt, where heroes & princes died in the tumult because her presence, bloody feuds originated; and remember the bad end of Atlanta, impudent hussy.

This is Art. However we have lots of texts also. Thence we can be sure that on the streets of Classical Athens all women were either FL/AL, including slave girls, or nude (the hetairas, when Wise Solon established the industry in the city, if this story be true). Maybe peasant women were sometimes AL.

We know that Ionians were strict with women. Maybe in some other cities rules were different; but for a rapid check Sparta will be enough because Greek sources always tell stories about independence of Spartiote women. Plutarch (Boiotian) cites Ibycus, Euripid's Andromache, an unknown play of Sophocles when comparing Lycurgus & Numa [3], in the sense that Spartan girls run after the lads (Ibycus) and display their naked thighs (Euripid & Sophocles). Now, for first this seems MS, but it is not. Plutarch explains that they wore the regular chiton, but did not sew together the lower wings. Then, when walking, the thighs come out. So KL or MS was contrary to habits, the cloth was AL/FL, still the thighs were seen. Otherwise Plutarch tells that Lycurgus ordered boys & girls nude in official processions; so there was no nudity taboo in Sparta, girls were not ashamed of their bodies and displayed their thighs in public; still female dress was AL/FL. Any comment?

Etrury's proper place would be here; but let us first discuss briefly Rome.

Rome

That in a local variant of Greece. The public female dress is AL/FL according to lots of art pieces. In general the atmosphere is more liberal than in Greece; for example Goddess Venus is often nude and is not ashamed of. Somewhere in Sicily sometimes women are depicted in bikini swimsuits. But no KL female "street" dresses at all.

So far the Mediterranean Indo-European female dresses are variants of AL/FL. They are improper for work; but women more or less work at home, who knows in what dress. It is also improper for even city traffic; but remember that Solon was against the frequent street traffic of free women. ML/KL dresses would be more practical, but surely (as some feminists would formulate more succintly) patriarchal Indo-European males wanted to keep the women at home and generally put them into perpetual shame/minority complex. Generally the principle of dressing does not differ too much of today's chador even if sometimes the hair was not taboo. Now we may test this interpretation by comparison with the most important non-Indo-European surviving people of Antique Europe.

Etrury

Etruscan habits indeed differed a lot from Greece/Rome, and Etruscan ladies were very often accused by Greek/Roman authors for being shameless. (As the easiest, look at Livy.) Still the difference is surprisingly slight in dress.

For any case, now ML is not infrequent. For example, two statuettes from Veii, the Goddess with Child, and "Athena" wear such skirt. In the Museo Etrusco, in Florence, a sarcophagus (from Tarquinii) shows two women charioteers fighting against Romans (?), but the skirts are concealed by the side of the chariot; a foot warrioress in KL is just killed by a Roman (but she may be a variant of the Amazon theme), while a woman rider attacks another Roman, but she wear breeches (to be sure, ML). On a vase from Bisenzio 17 maidens dance roundelay, all in ML. So indeed, Etruscan women are not so muffled up than Greek/Roman counterparts (I cannot write "sisters"; patriotic Tarquinian woman charioteers would deny to have Roman sisters), but for modern European standard still muffled up enough unnecessarily.

Antique European Barbarians

The list would be long, the information limited. Non-Indo-European Iberia shows both FL and ML statuettes [4]. The Scythian (Indo-Iranian) felt rug from Pazyryk shows a goddess in AL [4]; surely lots of Scythian women wore breeches, but the goddess just then was not riding.

And when we turn to the North, the Germans of Antiquity show something different. It seems that a German (?) lady may have worn skirts of any length. Many times bogs preserved even the cloths; in other cases the jewels inform us. Surely a lady wearing trinkets on her legs did not wear a skirt covering the trinkets.

There are surely AL skirts [4]. But not solely. In sites on the territory which is sometimes Germany, sometimes Denmark (from Schleswig to Jylland) many remnants of female cloths were found. At Skrydstupfeld a rich enough young woman wore AL skirt. On the other hand, a somewhat younger woman at Egtved (not so rich) had KL. A rich woman at Lübz (Mecklenburg) had bronze rings at her lower legs, so her skirt must have been ML at most. The Neumünster Industrial Museum (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany) reconstructed both AL and MS skirts.

And now observe that ladies of warm Mediterranean wore long skirts (or nothing), but in Scandinavia short skirts were not infrequent. True, 2000 years ago the temperature was somewhat higher than now; but also at the Mediterranean. No pattern emerges at all; at least, not for me.

Middle Ages & Slightly Later

Common opinion is that European Middle Ages were very strict in skirts. Gentlewomen wore FL skits; maybe the shoe could be seen, but the ankle not at all. Their female servants wore surely AL; they had to move a lot for working in the house. The general idea is that the Catholic Church forced this on women; but in Classical Antiquity there was not Catholic church, and still the skirts were similarly long. (Also in Egypt.) Again no pattern emerges.

Now, these are the gentlewomen & their servants. City women more or less mimic the gentry. But what about peasant women, members of the same Church, subjects of (generally) the same morality?

It seems that until Reformation the rule is simply: a trifle shorter skirts in the villages. Maybe because 1) morality was somewhat not so strict there, and 2) work at the fields was impossible in FL skirts or sometimes even in AL ones. After Reformation the length seems to depend on religion too, roughly: 3) Calvinists (Puritans, Presbiterians &c.) > Lutherans > Catholics. This is so known that no proof seems to be needed. There is no doubt that Southern Italian peasant girls wore shorter skirts in Middle Ages than the average. Still, look at Ref. 4 for demonstration. Illustration 80 there is a painting of David II Teniers, Flemish Popular Feast, 1652. A peasant couple is just dancing, with broad movements, the woman is in AL. The landlord & landlady are also present, and they do not move at all, the lady is in FL, appended with a tail. Point 3) can be demonstrated with Illustrations 178 & 179: an English peasant wife vs. a German laundress, both from XVIIth century. The English woman is in FL; the only uncovered regions are the hands, the face, and a part of the neck. In contrast, the German (Lutheran or Catholic) is in ML. True, her lower legs are covered by socks, but her lower arms and whole neck are bare.

Enlightment & Industrial Ages

There is little new. Enlightment brings somewhat laxer mores in France, but it does not affect too much skirtlength. An interesting exception is the French Woman of the gilded silver figure set of N. Cousinet for the table of the Portuguese king, 40 cm. The figure is clearly a gentlewoman, still in ML. I wonder if the figure is correct; on the other hand the King might know it. Industrial Age evolved into Victorian times in Great Britain, stricter about legs that any other time.

From c. 1860 we have photographs. The photographs show women of long skirts, either in cities (majority) or in villages (minority), although tendenciously the skirt is longer in cities.

There are methodical paintings from villages of different parts of Hungary, and photograph from cca. 1860. The pictures show FL/AL women. My doubts can wait a bit.

The Twentieth Century

Photograph collections are published as books. One of them is [6]; the title means simply "The Pictures of Our Century". According to the date of publication the book is pro-Communist, but for the length of skirts it seems to be a random selection.

The book starts in Paris showing the 1900 World Expo. Can-can dancers are in FL skirts even if that does not show. Later from Hungary we see a skatress, in FL, professional woman dancers in ML, bathing women in ML "breeches" and from Germany a surgery with FL nurses. The first movies also show women in FL.

True, a Hungarian sales advertisement shows a lady whose skirt is probably AL, but in running it seems as if ML. The first English suffragettes in 1906 are also in FL. Also the peasant women selling apricot in Kecskemét, Hungary! The actress in Paris celebrating the victory is also in FL in 1918. No obvious difference to Athens, Rome & Middle Ages. Mrs. Léderer, from the famous Hungarian killer couple, still stands before the judges in FL in 1925 (she got life sentence). But this is the end of FL. In one or two years 4 ladies listen to the radio (Hungarian broadcast service started in 1925); 3 of them in ML, and only the oldest in FL. And after that, more or less as now. In 1934 on the burial of the Serbian King the women of the royal family are in black ML's, and American girls are dancing in MS or in shorts. Still 3 decades until Mary Quant; but only ratios are changing. The New Life has arrived.

4. THE REGION OF SHORTSKIRTS

The above term comes from Hungarian ethnography. Today it is the compact territory of 5 (or, by another count, 6) villages just above Danube; the biggest being Kôhídgyarmat (now it has an official Slovakian name, but nevermind). If you are interested, you can find them as follows. There is on recent maps a small but substantial Hungarian city Esztergom (Ostrihom in Slovakian). There is a smaller city across the Danube called Sturovo since 1947 in Slovakian, Párkány in Magyar. (Until 1947 it was Parkán in Slovakian.) The above mentioned region is several kilometers East-northeast thence. My mother's paternal village is 8 km to West-northwest. She was born in 1921, and from her mother she had learnt that Kôhídgyarmat women had funny and short skirts.

These shortskirts are well documented from cca. 1900, but local tradition tells that shortskirts go back to Turkish tax collectors (cca. 1650 there), and the present Kôhídgyarmat village home page guesses that the fashion originates from Magyar Conquest in 896 AD, because of necessity of riding horses.

The skirts are KL. Today an ethnographic march there looks exactly as a 2005 Budapest city picture, except that the bodices are embroidered. For some details see Appendix A. In 1900 they surely looked to city people as balerines.

Now try to visualize Párkány, at 28 Oct., 1900. That was a Sunday, and the day of Ss. Simeon & Judah. That was and is a nationwide market day in Párkány, ordered by old Hungarian Kings centuries ago. All neighbouring villages sold/sell.

In 1900 there were the consumers: city women in FL and AL; and sellers: women from the West in ML and from the Eastern shortskirt country in KL. Maybe city women slapped their daughters if they were careless and their ankles shone forth unnecessarily; but the seller in KL was regular. Maybe at home the city women then told to the daughters that Kôhídgyarmat women had funny skirts.

The 5 shortskirt villages were neither bad nor good examples for the others. Neighbouring villages did not learn shortskirts, but neither shortskirt villages accepted AL habit.

Let us again take the story of Van Vogt [1]. As he writes: the heroine time-travels from her 1904 home, and appears in 1967. She would seem foreign in her dress on the street, so goes into a shop, and:

"Marietta bought a dress, a suit, underclothing, accessories, and shoes. She went out of the shop, trembling at her temerity in wearing such shameless clothing but very determined."

Surely, that clothes did not qualitatively differ from 1904 folk style Kôhídgyarmat or Kéménd clothes. In 1904, however, Kôhídgyarmat women were not trembling from their shameless skirts in Párkány, and maybe neither Párkány women trembled from indignation. The author of [1] is a man, and maybe men cannot imagine women's souls.

In 1900 or 1904 the only Hungarian writer ever connected with sci-fi was old Maurus Jókai, never involved into time travels. But if you imagine a young Párkány woman travelling from 1904 to 1967, surely she would not have trembled from her freshly acquired shameless 1967 dress. Rather she would have giggled: look, now I am similar to the funny Kôhídgyarmat girls.

Maybe there were other shortskirt regions in Hungary at the beginning of the XXth century. Maybe there were at other countries as well. Maybe not. I do not know. I know of no documentation. But it seems that both KL and AL were stable in their villages for a long time.

5. APRÉS DU GUERRE

And then in a few years in 1925 everything changes and women's skirts shrink to a length they never had in 4,000 years, except in Germany in 1st millenium AD and 5 villages of Hungary in second half of 2nd millenium. Strange, is it not? World War I was terrible and started new ideas. 30 Year War was also terrible, but it did not start short skirts anywhere. Any explanation?

Fomenko's scheme would offer an easy explanation (as far as I know, Fomenko did not discuss this problem). I do not suggest this explanation (and so I give it only as Appendix B). But still I believe a more traditional explanation would be welcome.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

My colleague Ágnes Holba is thanked for valuable discussions.

APPENDIX A: SHORTSKIRT VILLAGES NOW

The procession mentioned in the main text happened at Kéménd, 16 Sept. 2000. The population of Kéménd marched in traditional dress, and, as I told, I have almost local information that indeed a century ago that was the tradition. You can see (for a while) the picture as the upper left one at [7].

The Kôhídgyarmat homepage is [8] and that mentions the hypothesis that shortskirt dresses would go back to 1100 years; either correct or not. If you look very attentively, shortskirt pictures are in the general background and the detailed form of the dress is not identical to that of Kéménd.

APPENDIX B: HISTORY OF FEMALE SKIRTS IN FOMENKO'S SCHEME

In Fomenko's scheme history before cca. 1250 is full with clones of later historic texts, and "old manuscripts" &c. are written later. Then "antique pictures" were produced by Medieval authors, so they invented "ancient fashions" generally according to their everyday impressions, so long skirts. Therefore up to now long skirts were used for cca. 600 years and short ones for 80. Not even an order of magnitude difference, so any plausible explanation can be used.

REFERENCES

[1] Van Vogt A. E.: The Timed Clock. In: Lost: Fifty Suns. Daw Books, New York, 1972

[2] Desroches-Noblecourt Christiane: Life and Death of a Pharaon: Tutankhamen. G. Rainbird Ltd. London, 1963

[3] Plutarchi vitae parallelae. Teubner, Leipzig, 1892

[4] Jacobi B.: Verweht und ausgegraben Archäologische Forschungen der letzen fünfzig Jahre. Prisma-Verlag, Zenner & Gürchott, Leipzig, 1964

[5] Chaunu P.: La civilisation de L'Europe classique, Arthaud, Paris, 1966

[6] Bokor P: Századunk képei. Gondolat, Budapest, 1968

[7] ***: Régiók. http://parkany.host.sk/magyar/index_reg.htm

[8] ***: Kőhídgyarmat. http://parkany.host.sk/kohidgyarmat/magyar/jobb.htm

My HomePage, with some other studies, if you are curious.