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Japanese TD

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Traditional dating of Japan is dating of pre-historical and early historical events, based on material in Japanese chronicles and legends. Later generations, when writing firstly Japanese legends (such as Nihonshoki and Kojiki) and afterwards history mostly based on those legends, assigned years that have now, after scientific research, been assessed untrustworthy as without credibility.

Particularly early monarchs tend to be given inflated number of years in their reigns by TD. This also means that counting years back from solidly based later historical events using those inflated number of years for their reigns, will stretch the past, increasingly the farther the count progresses. Japanese state (or its nucleus and dynasty) was not founded in 660 BCE, but much later, presumably in first centuries CE.

The timetable thus formed cannot therefore be depended upon.

Traditional dating appears to start to correspond quite well with actual history from late 6th century onwards. 6th and perhaps 5th century CE traditional dates are presumably not incorrect by many decades, only a bit stretched towards the past.

For example, the ruler (Hondawake Mikoto) who was later known as Emperor Ōjin is assigned TD years 270-310 as his reign, and year 200 as his birth year. His birth has been told to have occurred three years after the death of his father. In this timetable, he started rule when 70 years old, and died when 110, functioning as the ruler up to his death. His mother's pregnancy took at least three years. None of these traditional count dates around his life and reign have any historical basis. His reign is currently believed to have taken place sometime in (early) fifth century CE.