Maybe everyone’s wrong about the First City and it was actually Atlantis? manic giggling
eyetwitch Too many theories. Cannot cope. Off to Zee.
[quote=Alexis Kennedy][color=#009900]We haven’t commented on any of these questions: but rumour has accreted in this thread over years, and with the Mysteries tab closing, I want to play fair.
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[color=#009900]Archaeology and history both have a nasty habit of invalidating historical fiction when people dig up more information; and we did the relevant research to, I would say, about the standard of your average moderately conscientious historical novel. I’m not aware of any extant major inconsistencies (I am aware of all kinds of niggles about Victorian historical accuracy, but as I’ve said before, there were no sorrow-spiders in Dickens) but some will probably show up. This is part of the reason we asked about ‘continent’ rather than ‘city’.[/color]
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[color=#009900]And I should add that (a) there are some intentional red herrings and (b) the history of the Fallen London universe isn’t exactly the same as real history. The points of divergence are usually obvious, but FL is fiction. Karakorum was not stolen by bats.[/color]
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[color=#009900]A few points which have grown legs in this thread, especially re: Trodgmey’s extensively researched posts.[/color]
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[color=#009900]First City Coins. It isn’t a mistake that these exist; it was a mistake when someone put one in the amber under Flute Street, and we had to retcon that out.[/color]
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[color=#009900]The Silk Road. I’m confident that there’s nothing in our content that says that the First City post-dates the Silk Road trade network; and I’m confident that it’s far from impossible for a visitor wearing silk to have been in the West before there was regular commerce, particularly with fictional licence. If I’m wrong, then do drop us a line at support@failbettergames.com and we’ll treat it as a content bug. :-)[/color]
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[color=#009900]First City Architecture. There are limits to what reads in a 100x130 image. The First City image from the Forgotten Quarter had to be immediately identifiable and distinctive from the Second City image, and (without giving anything away) ‘reads casually as Mesopotamian’ looks rather a lot like ‘reads casually as Egyptian’ to modern non-specialist eyes (NB my own eyes are modern and non-specialist). There is a reason the architecture in the FQ and in Polythreme is not the ‘mud brick’ described in the Hundred’s memories: but that reason, has, I think, never yet surfaced. [/color][color=rgb(0, 153, 0)]So this is an amalgam of red herring, story point and pragmatic convenience which has confused a minority of folk: sorry about that![/color][/quote]
If I may enquire about the "continent" topic: should we only refer to continents in the strict geographic sense of the term, or are locutions like "Latin America" or "Central America" acceptable?
[quote=Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook]
Actually, one question about the Mysteries closing shop: I’m assuming you won’t be going through everyone’s entries one-by-one? If not, how precisely do our answers have to be formatted?[/quote]
I’d guess that you’d get all the distinct answers and give the mostly correct ones all a thumbs up, and then bless that question for all the characters who had a thumbs-up answer. You wouldn’t have to click "yes" for 500 occurrences of every right answer, but you may have to scroll through 200 special snowflakes of wrong answers.
The history of coinage would point somewhere towards 619–560 BC or later, if we accept King Alyattes of Lydia as the father of coinage.
Silk road was established during the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). Alexis’s comment implies that the date may well be earlier than that, though.
This gives us a timeline of 619-206 BC to work with for the First City. (Also, remember that the Second City should come after the First but before the Third.)
Potential "falls of the Babylon":
A) In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia
B) In 331 BC, Darius III, the last Achaemenid king of the Persian Empire was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great
C) Red herring possibility: The reference could to a much earlier fall of Babylon, meaning that the First city is actually older instead of being founded somewhere close to this time period
Personally, I would guess A. Mainly because it ties in so neatly with the coinage.
Wall of text behind the spoiler tag:
Following the line of coinage:
Silver coin - Wikipedia
"Silver has been used as a coinage metal since the times of the Greeks; their silver drachmas were popular trade coins. The ancient Persians used silver coins between 612-330 BC."
Remember, however, that the First City coins in FL are reproductions, and thus they may have been originally made of other metals than Silver.
First City is unlikely to be in Greece, however, so we need to follow the coinage towards east and forwards in time.
Let’s take some keywords from this link:
Captcha Check
coins - originate from Greece
cedar -
"Cedar" is an ambiguous term and very difficult to narrow down. It can mean juniper, cypress, some flower-like plants, or Lebanese cedar (which seems so obvious it is potentially a red herring). We want something which casts a shade and can form a grove. So something reasonably tall.
diorite in a religious context
"use of diorite in art was most important among very early Middle Eastern civilizations such as Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, and Sumer. It was so valued in early times that the first great Mesopotamian empire—the Empire of Sargon of Akkad—listed the taking of diorite as a purpose of military expeditions."
"Diorite is a relatively rare rock; source localities include … Northeastern Turkey"
alabaster
"Gypsum alabaster was very widely used for small sculpture for indoor use in the ancient world, especially in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Fine detail could be obtained in a material with an attractive finish without iron or steel tools. Alabaster was used for vessels dedicated for use in the cult of the deity Bast in the culture of the Ancient Egyptians, and thousands of gypsum alabaster artifacts dating to the late 4th millennium BC also have been found in Tell Brak (present day Nagar), in Syria."
silk - from China
crossroads -> we need to find "a crossroads" where all of these things can be located through trade, and we have located the First City.
NOTE: "Crossroads" could also refer to the crossing of two rivers, since during the times before modern big road networks were built, waterways were very useful for hauling heavy cargos.
Also, remember that we will probably need to have also some temples and cuneiform.
Also:
"we came to the shores of the inland sea, where they’d never even seen silk…'" supports the view that this predates silk road. Also, "inland sea" is a hint: either it’s a passing point (Caspian Sea fits the description nicely), or the location of the First City itself.
"A series of arrows starts in Eastern China and ends in the land between the Caspian and Mediterranean seas." this could be a red herring referring to the silk road which came later; or the actual journey.
-> Between Caspian and Mediterranean seas there would be modern day Turkey, Syria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and potentially some of Iraq and Iran.
following the coins:
Electrum - Wikipedia
"The gold content of naturally occurring electrum in modern Western Anatolia ranges from 70% to 90%, in contrast to the 45–55% of electrum used in ancient Lydian coinage of the same geographical area."
The earliest electrum coins were from Lydia and had a high gold content.
First possible First City:
Ephesus - Ephesus - Wikipedia
"Ephesus was founded as an Attic-Ionian colony in the 10th century BC on the Ayasuluk Hill"
Temple - Temple of Artemis - Wikipedia
"Its reconstruction began around 550 BC, under the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes, at the expense of Croesus of Lydia"
Second possible First City:
Sardis - Sardis - Wikipedia
"Sardis was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia,[1] one of the important cities of the Persian Empire, the seat of a proconsul under the Roman Empire, and the metropolis of the province Lydia in later Roman and Byzantine times. As one of the Seven churches of Asia, it was addressed by the author of the Book of Revelation in terms which seem to imply that its population was notoriously soft and fainthearted. Its importance was due, first to its military strength, secondly to its situation on an important highway leading from the interior to the Aegean coast, and thirdly to its commanding the wide and fertile plain of the Hermus."
Temple mentioned. However, plains rather than cedars. And "a road" rather than "crossroad".
Persian Royal Road: Royal Road - Wikipedia
"stretches of the Royal Road across the central plateau of Iran are coincident with the major trade route known as the Silk Road. … The road also helped Persia increase long-distance trade, which reached its peak during the time of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon)."
Regardless:
"It was during the reign of King Croesus that the metallurgists of Sardis discovered the secret of separating gold from silver, thereby producing both metals of a purity never known before. … Sardis now could mint nearly pure silver and gold coins, the value of which could be—and was—trusted throughout the known world. This revolution made Sardis rich and Croesus’ name synonymous with wealth itself. For this reason, Sardis is famed in history as the place where modern currency was invented."
Supposedly, The First City could come on the timeline after this revelation of minted coinage.
King and coinage: Croesus of Lydia - Croesus - Wikipedia
"With Herodotus’ account also being unreliable chronologically in this case, as J. A. S. Evans has demonstrated,[20] this means that we have no way of dating the fall of Sardis; theoretically, it may even have taken place after the fall of Babylon. Evans also asks what happened after the episode at the pyre and suggests that "neither the Greeks nor the Babylonians knew what really happened to Croesus".
Temple: Sardis Synagogue Sardis Synagogue - Wikipedia
Close to Lydia there is also Anatolia:
Anatolia - Wikipedia
From the region of Anatolia, coinage sprouts forth through trade.
An interesting possible location for the First City would be Urartu:
Urartu (region) - Urartu - Wikipedia
"The pantheon was headed by a triad made up of Khaldi (the supreme god), Theispas (Teisheba) god of thunder and storms, as well as sometimes war, and Shivini a solar god. Their king was also the chief-priest or envoy of Khaldi. Some temples to Khaldi were part of the royal palace complex while others were independent structures."
We have a priest-king and a thunder god. (and cuneiform and a language no one can read.) But we don’t have coins (too early), nor any mention of cedars (wrong climate?).
So…let’s move on to where the cedars are, in the same time period:
Achaemenid Empire - Achaemenid Empire - Wikipedia
"The empire expanded to eventually rule over significant portions of the ancient world, which at around 500 BC stretched from the Indus Valley in the east to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece. The Achaemenid Empire would eventually control Egypt as well. It was ruled by a series of monarchs who unified its disparate tribes and nationalities by constructing a complex network of roads."
This does sound like crossroads to me.
"At its greatest extent, the empire included the modern territories of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, all significant population centers of ancient Egypt as far west as Libya, Turkey, Thrace and Macedonia, much of the Black Sea coastal regions, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, much of Central Asia, Afghanistan, northern Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and parts of Oman and the UAE. … Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great,[16] would eventually cause the collapse of the empire and its disintegration around 330 BC into what later became the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire, in addition to other minor territories which gained independence at that time."
This covers pretty much the whole geographic region we are looking for during the time frame we are looking for.
The empire’s territory also certainly covers cedar, diorite, alabaster and coins.
Here we have another king of the same era:
Darius the Great - Darius the Great - Wikipedia
Darius is credited with bringing coinage to be used in many parts of Achaemenid empire.
"Iranian cedar" is a known as "graveyard cypress" or "Pencil Pine". It’s a tree large enough to cast a shade, and to form a grove.
Cupressus sempervirens - Wikipedia
"In classical antiquity, the cypress was a symbol of mourning and in the modern era it remains the principal cemetery tree in both the Muslim world and Europe. In the classical tradition, the cypress was associated with death and the underworld because it failed to regenerate when cut back too severely."
This ties in very well with the ongoing underworld theme of past cities that fell.
"Cypress was used to fumigate the air during cremations. It was among the plants that were suitable for making wreaths to adorn statues of Pluto, the classical ruler of the underworld."
…and here we could have the smell of cedar or pine, and the meaning behind it.
"In Greek mythology, besides Cyparissus, the cypress is also associated with Artemis and Hecate, a goddess of magic, crossroads and the underworld. Ancient Roman funerary rites used it extensively."
crossroads mentioned. coincidence?
"Cypresses are mentioned extensively in the Shahnameh, the great Iranian epic poem by Ferdowsi."
Shahnameh - Wikipedia
"Today … the greater region influenced by the Persian culture celebrate this national epic."
From this wall of text, I deduce that this "funeral city" may be (this is a wild guess)
Pasargadae? - Pasargadae - Wikipedia
"Cyrus the Great began building his capital in 546 BCE or later; it was unfinished when he died in battle, in 530 or 529 BCE."
…certainly young in 539 BC (age: 6 years), when Babylon fell to Cyrus himself.
"The design of Cyrus’ tomb is credited to Mesopotamian or Elamite ziggurats, but the cella is usually attributed to Urartu tombs of an earlier period.[3] In particular, the tomb at Pasargad has almost exactly the same dimensions as the tomb of Alyattes II, father of the Lydian King Croesus; however, some have refused the claim (according to Herodotus, Croesus was spared by Cyrus during the conquest of Lydia, and became a member of Cyrus’ court)."
…and here we have convenient tie-ins with Croesus and Urartu.
"Pasargad was first archaeologically explored by the German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld in 1905"
Therefore, they would not yet know its location in Fallen London.
tl;dr:
"Iranian cedar" = funeral cypress
First City = Pasargadae?
edited by Karhumies on 1/8/2014
Very thorough. I’m not quite sure about it, though.
The original First City Coins needn’t be silver, from what the Numixmatrix said. In fact, they probably weren’t; from what I remember, the coin in Flute Street Alexis called a mistake was in a First City ruin, indicating that there weren’t supposed to be any coins like that at the time.
Personally, I’m rather fond of the Gilgamesh and Enkidu theory. The story of Gilgamesh does have a connection to cedars. I think the Babylon bit may have been one of the herrings that were mentioned, as it was just sidebar text describing a saying, and similar things said about the Correspondence are laughably incorrect.
I might be overthinking things (again), but I find the Gilgamesh hypothesis strengthened by the mention, very specifically, of the Gigamesh section of A Perfect Vacuum by Stanislaw Lem, when leaving a certain place (in the new Ambition) with a thematic connection to the King with a Hundred Hearts.
Very thorough. I’m not quite sure about it, though.
The original First City Coins needn’t be silver, from what the Numixmatrix said. In fact, they probably weren’t; from what I remember, the coin in Flute Street Alexis called a mistake was in a First City ruin, indicating that there weren’t supposed to be any coins like that at the time.
Personally, I’m rather fond of the Gilgamesh and Enkidu theory. The story of Gilgamesh does have a connection to cedars. I think the Babylon bit may have been one of the herrings that were mentioned, as it was just sidebar text describing a saying, and similar things said about the Correspondence are laughably incorrect.[/quote]
I’ll try to support this theory that red herring is not the cedars; but instead the term "coin" used instead of "currency" with the aid of Google.
Cuneiform:
Akkadian.
Crossroads:
"Mesopotamia was a cross-roads of the early ancient world for trade between Egypt, India and China"
So not a literal crossroads, but a figurative one, meaning "center of trade".
diorite - Egypt (northeast Turkey and Egypt are the only main sources of the region)
silk - China
gypsum alabaster - ties in with Mesopotamia
India may also be connected somehow, potentially culturally (religion?)
Money, especially if it’s not in coin form:
"Marvin A. Powell, in "Money in Mesopotamia," lists the types of money used by people of ancient Mesopotamia from probably the third millennium B.C., by which date Mesopotamia was already part of an extensive trade network [see the silk road]. Money was not in coin form at that time, although words like minas and shekels* – used in connection with coinage and perhaps familiar from the Bible – were applied to the weights of the ancient Mesopotamian form of money."
The etymology for minas and shekels to have meant weights rather than coins in the past may have well been the source of the red herring.
Giving coins 30 at a time:
(previous source)
"Barter is a form of trade that is (1) not symbolic and (2) where the units of exchange have intrinsic value."
Units of exchange having intrinsic value ties in closely with the time period.
Uruk? & Cedars:
If we interpret cedars not as graveyard cypress, and turn to the Epic of Gilgamesh, we realize that there are no natural cedars in Uruk.
Maybe this story is enough to tie in with everything else, though.
edited by Karhumies on 1/8/2014
I should really apologize for being needlessly pedantic about all of this – it’s easy to forget that a) it’s fiction, so not everything lines up, b) this is a work in process, and the author is reading these forums, and c) it’s just a game. ;)[li]
On the other hand, climbing down all of these rabbit holes with a flashlight has been a lot of fun. My knowledge of the ancient near-east is substantially larger because of it.
The Case for Amarna
Hidden for spoilers! Quite long!
On why the Second City was Egyptian:
Never mention the Second City to the Masters of the Bazaar.
Hereby we know that the Second City has a special relation to the Masters; one taboo and indicating bad memories.[i]
A peculiar antipathy Certain of the Masters of the Bazaar – Mr Stones, Mr Apples and Mr Wines, and possibly others – seem to have a particular contempt for Egypt and the Egyptological.
[/i]Hereby we know that the same relation exists between the Masters and Egypt; since none of the other cities seem to be so reviled - not even the Third City, with its wells and God-Eaters and other unpleasant events! - the connection between the Second City and Egypt first becomes apparent.[i]
[/i]’…one hears that the Masters of the Bazaar stayed in the Second City far longer than they intended. Perhaps that’s something to do with their disdain for Egypt…’
And here it becomes evident: this snippet equates the Second City with Egypt. Note that "Egypt" is named, not Nubia; despite the active cultural exchange between Egypt and Nubia, they both had distinct cultures and it should, even by the standards of 19th century Egyptology, be easy to tell apart. As such, Meroe is not a likely candidate.
A woman passes you. She is dressed in a simple white linen shift and about twenty pounds of gold jewellery. She is dark-skinned: African, perhaps.
Much is made of the Duchess - who is confirmed to be one of the "Pharaoh’s daughters" that will find further mention below - being described as dark-skinned to the point where the player characters pinpoint her origin to Africa. Ethnic considerations on Ancient Egypt are quite a messy subject, but ultimately it ought to be said that black Africans in Egypt were, while common during certain eras, not the native populace; DNA tests of isolated oasis communities in Egypt as well as Copts suggest that Egyptians shared a common ancestor with the Berber peoples of North Africa. Note that both Berbers and modern-day Egyptians are, while not black, often decidedly dark-skinned. The Duchess being particularily dark-skinned is not a convincing argument for Nubian ancestry.
On why it was Pre-Hellenist:
One of the messages is written in the picture-alphabet of the Second City. The part you can make out says, ‘…all the Pharaoh’s daughters bar one are gone…’
Two things here, although none 100 % conclusive: both the title of "pharaoh" and the use of hieroglyphs (as opposed to the later Demotic script, or indeed Greek) are associated with native Egyptian culture; were it a Ptolemaic city, like Alexandria, there would be a prominent Greek architectural, religious and linguistic element to the Second City, but there seems to be none.
‘…I still hear speculation about Alexandria, but I’m sure that isn’t true. The Second City didn’t have nearly enough temples to be Alexandria.’
You heard it, folks. Alexandria is out of the question provided this is a reliable source (and most of the item conversion hints that aren’t failures seem to be) and we have gained another hint: the Second City didn’t house as many temples as one would expect of an Egyptian city. Let’s see what we can do with that.
On why it was Akhetaten:
[i][color=#7e6345]’…They say her father was mad, you know. Tore down all the old Gods and raised himself up.’[/color]
[/i]Akhenaten, pharaoh of Egypt, instituted radical religious reforms in Egypt, the most brazen of which was the declaration of monotheism centered around the Sun, personified as the god Aten. Akhenaten renamed himself to honour his god, and he built a new capital for himself at Akhetaten; his stunt was unique, so the references to the "tearing down of the Old Gods" and apotheosis of some degree (Akhenaten regarded himself as a projection of Aten on Earth) find no comparable event in Egyptian history. [i]
[/i][i]The tall man’s daughters. The city of granite. The drowning.
[/i]"The tall man", huh? Flyte was so kind as to alert me to the fact that during the rule of Akhenaten, a new art style emerged, which has been coined, quite appropiately, "Amarna art". Amarna art is interesting for many reasons, central to this observation of the Second City is that Akhenaten himself (not exclusively, but quite prominently) is depicted as very tall, spindly, with long and gangly limbs and elongated features; this is a clear break from former Egyptian art traditions where humans in general and the pharaoh in particular were depicted as handsome, muscled and well-proportioned.
[i]There is an air of celebration […] a great disaster has been averted, the King’s folly is ended by the Princess’ cunning, the heralds of night are bound. Yes, the sun is gone, and no, the places below ground are not what had been taught, but perhaps that’s for the best, considering.
[/i]I used to think the Duchess was Ankhesenamun, but since she’s said to be the youngest among her sisters, she could likely be Setepenre; in any case it is noteworthy that Atenism did not survive Akhenaten, was immensely unpopular among the priesthood (who’d have thought?) and was quickly hidden under the rug. Tutenkhaten and Ankhesenaten, children of Akhenaten, changed their names to Tutenkhamun and Ankhesenamun, respectively.
"Yes, the sun is gone, (…) but perhaps that’s for the best, considering."
Further evidence for the heliocentric heresy of Akhenaten, and its overturning.
With all these specific descriptions of the Second City pointing towards Akhetaten/Tell el-Amarna, I believe it safe to assume that the identity of the Second City is as certain to us as that of the Fourth.
Countless thanks to Theodor Gylden, whose compilation of Pre-Lapsarian Archaeological notes made this post much easier to write, and Flyte for poking me into writing this and providing me with sources and clues.[li]
edited by Nathanael S. Wells on 1/11/2014
[quote=Nathanael S. Wells]
[spoiler]I used to think the Duchess was Ankhesenamun, but since she’s said to be the youngest among her sisters, she could likely be Setepenre[/quote]
If we only count those who survived to adulthood, I think your first assumption is still solid.
[spoiler]
Ankhesenamun as the Dutchess has the side effect of making it very likely that Tutankhamun is the Cantigaster. There’s the small issue that Tutankhamun is known to have died from a broken leg and not a snakebite, but given the recent reminder that there’s artistic license going on here, I’m not going to protest too much… ;)
[/spoiler][li]edited by Trodgmey on 1/11/2014[/li][li]
edited by Trodgmey on 1/11/2014
[quote=Nathanael S. Wells]The Case for Amarna
Hidden for spoilers! Quite long!
On why the Second City was Egyptian:
Never mention the Second City to the Masters of the Bazaar.
Hereby we know that the Second City has a special relation to the Masters; one taboo and indicating bad memories.[i]
A peculiar antipathy Certain of the Masters of the Bazaar – Mr Stones, Mr Apples and Mr Wines, and possibly others – seem to have a particular contempt for Egypt and the Egyptological.
[/i]Hereby we know that the same relation exists between the Masters and Egypt; since none of the other cities seem to be so reviled - not even the Third City, with its wells and God-Eaters and other unpleasant events! - the connection between the Second City and Egypt first becomes apparent.[i]
[/i]’…one hears that the Masters of the Bazaar stayed in the Second City far longer than they intended. Perhaps that’s something to do with their disdain for Egypt…’
And here it becomes evident: this snippet equates the Second City with Egypt. Note that "Egypt" is named, not Nubia; despite the active cultural exchange between Egypt and Nubia, they both had distinct cultures and it should, even by the standards of 19th century Egyptology, be easy to tell apart. As such, Meroe is not a likely candidate.
A woman passes you. She is dressed in a simple white linen shift and about twenty pounds of gold jewellery. She is dark-skinned: African, perhaps.
Much is made of the Duchess - who is confirmed to be one of the "Pharaoh’s daughters" that will find further mention below - being described as dark-skinned to the point where the player characters pinpoint her origin to Africa. Ethnic considerations on Ancient Egypt are quite a messy subject, but ultimately it ought to be said that black Africans in Egypt were, while common during certain eras, not the native populace; DNA tests of isolated oasis communities in Egypt as well as Copts suggest that Egyptians shared a common ancestor with the Berber peoples of North Africa. Note that both Berbers and modern-day Egyptians are, while not black, often decidedly dark-skinned. The Duchess being particularily dark-skinned is not a convincing argument for Nubian ancestry.
On why it was Pre-Hellenist:
One of the messages is written in the picture-alphabet of the Second City. The part you can make out says, ‘…all the Pharaoh’s daughters bar one are gone…’
Two things here, although none 100 % conclusive: both the title of "pharaoh" and the use of hieroglyphs (as opposed to the later Demotic script, or indeed Greek) are associated with native Egyptian culture; were it a Ptolemaic city, like Alexandria, there would be a prominent Greek architectural, religious and linguistic element to the Second City, but there seems to be none.
‘…I still hear speculation about Alexandria, but I’m sure that isn’t true. The Second City didn’t have nearly enough temples to be Alexandria.’
You heard it, folks. Alexandria is out of the question provided this is a reliable source (and most of the item conversion hints that aren’t failures seem to be) and we have gained another hint: the Second City didn’t house as many temples as one would expect of an Egyptian city. Let’s see what we can do with that.
On why it was Akhetaten:
[i][color=#7e6345]’…They say her father was mad, you know. Tore down all the old Gods and raised himself up.’[/color]
[/i]Akhenaten, pharaoh of Egypt, instituted radical religious reforms in Egypt, the most brazen of which was the declaration of monotheism centered around the Sun, personified as the god Aten. Akhenaten renamed himself to honour his god, and he built a new capital for himself at Akhetaten; his stunt was unique, so the references to the "tearing down of the Old Gods" and apotheosis of some degree (Akhenaten regarded himself as a projection of Aten on Earth) find no comparable event in Egyptian history. [i]
[/i][i]The tall man’s daughters. The city of granite. The drowning.
[/i]"The tall man", huh? Flyte was so kind as to alert me to the fact that during the rule of Akhenaten, a new art style emerged, which has been coined, quite appropiately, "Amarna art". Amarna art is interesting for many reasons, central to this observation of the Second City is that Akhenaten himself (not exclusively, but quite prominently) is depicted as very tall, spindly, with long and gangly limbs and elongated features; this is a clear break from former Egyptian art traditions where humans in general and the pharaoh in particular were depicted as handsome, muscled and well-proportioned.
[i]There is an air of celebration […] a great disaster has been averted, the King’s folly is ended by the Princess’ cunning, the heralds of night are bound. Yes, the sun is gone, and no, the places below ground are not what had been taught, but perhaps that’s for the best, considering.
[/i]I used to think the Duchess was Ankhesenamun, but since she’s said to be the youngest among her sisters, she could likely be Setepenre; in any case it is noteworthy that Atenism did not survive Akhenaten, was immensely unpopular among the priesthood (who’d have thought?) and was quickly hidden under the rug. Tutenkhaten and Ankhesenaten, children of Akhenaten, changed their names to Tutenkhamun and Ankhesenamun, respectively.
"Yes, the sun is gone, (…) but perhaps that’s for the best, considering."
Further evidence for the heliocentric heresy of Akhenaten, and its overturning.
With all these specific descriptions of the Second City pointing towards Akhetaten/Tell el-Amarna, I believe it safe to assume that the identity of the Second City is as certain to us as that of the Fourth.
Countless thanks to Theodor Gylden, whose compilation of Pre-Lapsarian Archaeological notes made this post much easier to write, and Flyte for poking me into writing this and providing me with sources and clues.[li]
edited by Nathanael S. Wells on 1/11/2014[/quote]
[/li]An excellent argument! I am pleased that you made it so I don’t have to.[li]
To continue this trend of Second-City speculation, the rare success when converting Morelways makes me suspect that, assuming the Duchess is who we think she is,the Cantigaster is Akhenaten.This also makes me think that the “love stories” so prized aren’t always romantic in nature.
Do we know what exactly happened in the Second City with regards to what the Pharaoh actually did?
[quote=OPG]To continue this trend of Second-City speculation, the rare success when converting Morelways makes me suspect that, assuming the Duchess is who we think she is,the Cantigaster is Akhenaten.This also makes me think that the "love stories" so prized aren’t always romantic in nature.
Do we know what exactly happened in the Second City with regards to what the Pharaoh actually did?[/quote]
That, my friend, is an exceptional find. And highly persuasive at that.
Very well, I lay down my last objection to the Amarna hypothesis. The First City will continue to be an absolute head-pounding knot because of it, but I imagine I’ll be quite sad when we’ve tugged out the last of the mystery.
[li]
Okay, to spin up one more theory that could perhaps account for the problematic timing of the First City…[li]
The "young when Babylon fell" gives us all kinds of head scratchers, since the most noted sackings of Babylon either happen immediately before or well after the abandonment of Amarna. The hint of the Eye Temple does nod strongly towards Nagar/Tell-Brak, but Nagar was founded in 6000 BC, potentially either before or in the same age as the founding of Babylon. The "it’s just reversed" theory bugs me ("even Babylon was young when the first city fell"), but digging through fellow First City-candidate Uruk and its mention in Genesis led me to another fun theory I’ll try out.
The early chapters of Genesis are almost certainly adapted from earlier Mesopotamian myths, particularly the Deluge Myth and the very hazy histories of early Antiquity in the fertile crescent. One event which appears in a very brief description in the pre-Abrahamic chapters is, of course, the scattering of humanity at the Tower of Babel. If you look at Wikipedia on the Tower of Babel, one theory is that the ziggurat of Marduk in Babylon is the prime candidate for the myth. This seems more than a bit strange, as it would have been constructed just over a century before the written editions of the Babylonian Talmud would have been composed in its shadow, centuries after the time of Moses, and probably a millennia after the other events described in pre-Abrahamic Genesis. In any case, bear with me and let’s assume that in Neath history the Tower of Babel was a structure in early antiquity.
For our First City speculations, a somewhat less inverse modification of the old saying could work very well here. Whatever Mesopotamian city (or amalgamation by FBG thereof) you go with – Nagar, Uruk, Eridu, whatever – any of them would have been young when the Tower of Babel fell. Even if you make the common association (though by no means definite) that the Tower of Babel indeed stood in Babylon, given the number of times Babylon fell before finally going permanently into ruins, you could account for the Tower in the city falling without the whole city disappearing.
While we’re on the subject, I’m going to take one more flying leap into rampant speculation. The Tower was depicted in Roman-era art as a round, spiraling structure reaching to the sky, a shape not unlike, say, the spirals of a nautilus. It’s my understanding that the common perception is that at the time of the theft of the First City, the Bazaar was already established in the Neath. Taking note that in addition to the Talmudic record of the confusion of the languages of humanity at Babel, there are previous myths involving a common language being confused by divine action. Taking that, what if Tower of Babel was, in fact, the Bazaar itself; the fall of the Tower of Babel actually the Bazaar’s initial descent to the Neath; and the common language that was confused by the Gods what we now call the Correspondence?
Just for grins, consider this:
[spoiler] Akhenaten was thought to have suffered from Marfan’s syndrome, that being (supposedly) the cause of the unusual depictions of height, head shape, etc. Another symptom of Marfan’s syndrome is long, spindly, fingers also known as arachnodactyly. Thus, the connection to spiders and the form of the cantigaster. Another symptom was congenital heart problems which would make him sickly and eventually in need of the same sort of rescue as the Prince Consort.
One flaw here is that this isn’t actually true. DNA analysis disproved it… in 2010. Fallen London has been running longer than that, right?[/spoiler]
edited by Humblest on 1/24/2014
[quote=Humblest]
Just for grins, consider this:
[spoiler] Akhenaten was thought to have suffered from Marfan’s syndrome, that being (supposedly) the cause of the unusual depictions of height, head shape, etc. Another symptom of Marfan’s syndrome is long, spindly, fingers also known as arachnodactyly. Thus, the connection to spiders and the form of the cantigaster. Another symptom was congenital heart problems which would make him sickly and eventually in need of the same sort of rescue as the Prince Consort.
One flaw here is that this isn’t actually true. DNA analysis disproved it… in 2010. Fallen London has been running longer than that, right?[/spoiler]
edited by Humblest on 1/24/2014[/quote]
[li]
Also, as I pledged to remember in the new year, as Alexis says, "Karakorum was not stolen by bats." I think things that had been theories for a while are worth pondering here.
As to OPG’s find, the Dutchess text at the end of the University storyline argues against his specific theory. But the inclusion of "sister-wife," unless it’s actually a dismissal a la the "not enough temples to be Alexandria" line, is pretty much a lock-down.
Specifically,
I think the “he” in that sentence is not the Cantigaster, but the Pharoah (Akhenaten), whoever/wherever he may be.
[quote=Trodgmey ]Okay, to spin up one more theory that could perhaps account for the problematic timing of the First City…
– snip --[/quote]
Interesting! I had to dust off my (digital) copy of the De Occulta Philosophia for this quote in particular:
[spoiler]"We might doubt whether Angels, or Demons, since they be pure spirits, use any vocal speech, or tongue amongst themselves, or to us; but that Paul in some place saith, If I speak with the tongue of men, or angels: but what their speech or tongue is, is much doubted by many. For many think that if they use any Idiome, it is Hebrew, because that was the first of all, and came from heaven, and was before the confusion of languages in Babylon …"
Now, ‘Hebrew’ is a popular guess, but the theory goes around in occult circles that there was an Adamic language before the Tower of Babel – and if the Correspondence is the language of celestial entities, it could well be the language of angels or Judgments or whatever else presides in the FL universe.[/spoiler]
[quote=theodor_gylden][quote=Trodgmey ]Okay, to spin up one more theory that could perhaps account for the problematic timing of the First City…
– snip --[/quote]
Interesting! I had to dust off my (digital) copy of the De Occulta Philosophia for this quote in particular:
[spoiler]"We might doubt whether Angels, or Demons, since they be pure spirits, use any vocal speech, or tongue amongst themselves, or to us; but that Paul in some place saith, If I speak with the tongue of men, or angels: but what their speech or tongue is, is much doubted by many. For many think that if they use any Idiome, it is Hebrew, because that was the first of all, and came from heaven, and was before the confusion of languages in Babylon …"
Now, ‘Hebrew’ is a popular guess, but the theory goes around in occult circles that there was an Adamic language before the Tower of Babel – and if the Correspondence is the language of celestial entities, it could well be the language of angels or Judgments or whatever else presides in the FL universe.[/spoiler][/quote]
[li]
Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash generally centers around Sumerian as a primeval universal human brain stem-based language. The reason for the confusing of the languages was, in that world, a means of obstructing a neurolinguistic virus that had been unleashed on mankind. Here, the language would be pre-Sumerian, I think, as the cuneiform of the First City would be after the fall…