#maps of the ancient world

[historyfiles]

The Iberian peninsula prior to the Carthaginian invasion and partial conquest was a melange of different tribal influences, with the Celtic influx being the most  recent and most pervasive as this map shows.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Babylonian Map of the World (6th century BC), also known as Imago Mundi, is oldest clay tablet map written in Akkadian.

The tablet describes the oldest known depiction of the known world.

It was discovered at Sippar, southern Iraq, 60 miles north of Babylon on east bank of Euphrates River.

This map not only serves as a historical record of the region's geography but also includes mythological elements, providing a comprehensive view of the ancient Babylonian worldview.

Today, the Babylonian Map of the World is housed in the British Museum, where it continues to be a valuable artifact for understanding the ancient past.

Details of the map:

1. “Mountain” (Akkadian:šá-du-ú)

2. “City” (Akkadian: uru)

3. Urartu (Armenia) (Akkadian: ú-ra-áš-tu)

4. Assyria (Akkadian: kuraš+šurki)

5. Der (Akkadian: dēr)

6. Swamp (Akkadian: ap–pa–ru)

7. Elam (Akkadian: šuša)

8. Canal (Akkadian: bit-qu)

9. Bit Yakin (Akkadian:bῑt-ia-᾿-ki-nu)

10. “City” (Akkadian: uru)

11. Habban (Akkadian: ha-ab-ban)

12. Babylon (Akkadian: tin.tirki), divided by Euphrates

13. Ocean (salt water, Akkadian:idmar-ra-tum)

[blue-eyes-never-lie]

[vaguely-concerned]

one of the things mourn watch rook has the most comments about/seems pretty knowledgeable about when they're there is the way the necropolis will just shuffle rooms around every now and then on a whim, so I'm headcanoning that rye's previous area of expertise, outside of general watcher duties, was keeping track of and rediscovering these lost or displaced areas. that, and basically acting as a sort of tour guide when need be, such as on the day they met varric.

'have we really misplaced the ashen cathedral again? *sigh* that's the third time this year, we really must strengthen the wards. oh well. someone send for ingellvar, they'll track it down in no time I'm sure. and it might keep them out of trouble for a while'

[theromaboo]

I've been looking at this map of the Roman Empire for a long time and I still have no idea what the fuck is going on with it. This is literally from Time Magazine. There is no way they can screw up so badly with a map.

So the red means "at death of Julius Caesar." Does that mean the land Rome had at the death of Caesar? No it can't mean that, because Roman land during 44 BC was certainly not made up entirely of Egypt, North Spain, and a bit of Central Europe. Rome didn't even have those yet.

Maybe it means land that was acquired after the death of Julius Caesar and before the death of Augustus? If they meant that, I think they should've said that, but it doesn't matter. If that's what they meant, it seems to make some sense.

So the orange means "at death of Augustus Caesar." They certainly didn't have all that in the East at the death of Augustus! So maybe it means land that was acquired after the death of Augustus and before the death of Trajan? Which (not including the Britain-sized elephant in the room) seems to make some sense.

But the brown means "at death of Trajan." What does that mean now? The Romans certainly did not acquire Italy after Trajan died! This ruins the entire pattern I was setting up!

I thought maybe the colors were just mismatched, but I have no idea how to match them back up. I thought maybe orange was supposed to mean "at death of Trajan," and red was supposed to mean "at death of Augustus," and that seems okayish enough (cough cough except britain).

But the brown can't mean "at death of Caesar," because they didn't have that much Britain in 44 BC! Or that much Germany.

(I'm just going to ignore how the Roman Empire is depicted as having both all that Britain and all that Germany at the exact same time... maybe the map is just depicting the land in Germany to be permanent to make it more simple. But if the color of lands acquired is supposed to change at Augustus' death, then Germany and Britain can't be the same color!)

Now that I look closer, what's that Galatia-shaped hole doing there in the East? Why isn't it colored in at all?

But, the brown. What's going on with the brown? Is there supposed to be an extra color? I think the brown was likely supposed to be "at death of Julius Caesar," but then someone fumbled by adding all that extra land especially in North-West Europe.

Maybe I figured it out? What the map is trying (poorly) to say? Brown is (attempting to be) death of Caesar. Red is (mostly) death of Augustus. And orange is (mostly) death of Trajan? Which is absolutely not what the key says but oh well.

But, if I'm right, how did all that slip through the cracks? How did someone make a map so poorly? How did everyone who looked it over give the green light? I must be misunderstanding what the map is trying to say. It's probably obviously correct to everyone else.

But, there's no way I'm the problem. What Roman Empire growth map shows Italy and Britain as the same color, but Egypt as a different color? I just don't understand what happened. Who made that map?

[corvarrow]

Alright guys it's now time for a very exciting worldbuilding post: SETTING MAPS!! There are several in this post so I hope you enjoy the ride and please feel free to ask me if anything catches your interest.

I will start this off by saying these are very basic, and I only marked off a couple points of interest, but I still think there is some fun stuff to talk about here. Due to the massive amount of info I am also just going to have to skip some background info. Additionally: this continent is the main setting, but there ARE at least two more. It's also huge, like comparable to at least North America in size, so please imagine there are a ton of additional features (such as rivers, lakes, additional biomes, settlements, etc) here that I just didn't mark off.

Above is the very general Ancient Era map and we are just going to get really note heavy from here. Not everything is fully named and may or may not be adjusted later. One final note before I start is there is a conlang involved. I also haven't fully translated everything but I think in this case that works in our favor, which we'll get to in a sec.

Here is the map of ancient world sentient cities and a couple pieces of information. The four* sentient cities are called Sovereigns, and they all have avatar bodies (their original sion bodies).

*Ahveph, their creator, has a "spot" but at this point it's not acting as a sentient city and it doesn't have an avatar

Their language does makes a distinction between them as a location and them as an entity when using the full name. When dealing with shorthand though the first section of the name gets used to refer to the entity and the second for the location. For example, with Fatewinder's Beacon, "Fatewinder" = entity and "The Beacon" = location. I do have the first sections translated into conlang so we'll also start using them in this post, so if you see the conlang name I'm now talking about entities and the English names are locations. By the way, Fatewinder is Akiyohm, or "(to) wind fate". His siblings are Kantalys (Kanta), Sennamet (Sen), and Tenemohr (Ten).

Worth noting here that the avatar bodies can travel, but they ARE "tethered" to their main city bodies. They can visit each other, but they can't go much farther than that, meaning they have been locked to this continent and the waters immediately around it.

What is also really important to know is that they do NOT look like normal cities. They are actually complex megastructures, though they contain all things you would expect in cities including transportation systems. These megastructures are also shaped differently from each other. The Beacon is in a desert and is mainly vertical - about 10% of it is above ground and the rest is under. The Reach is across a mountainside and is built at an angle with the most terracing of the lot. Rest is in some riverlands and is mainly horizontal. Haven is on some heavily forested karst landscape - it's also horizontal but it has less levels than Rest does because Kanta chose to stretch it out farther.

Next we have the original territory map. When they first started here, they got along fine, but eventually when they figured out they could influence other magic wells besides the ones they lived in, they had some issues with who got what well. Finally they decided to split this out into roughly equal pies and for a while they were fine with that.

Influencing the wells into certain magic types also causes the area around them to have a magic bias towards that type. For example most of Aki's wells are wind type, so his whole region tends to have wind magic and they can construct lots of windmills to take advantage of that. If they change territory lines then the wells in that area will change as well, though they won't change easily if the area is under war.

From here on out you can consider these pies to be Kingdoms, with the Sovereigns being their capitals, and the Sovereigns also being Actual sovereigns.

Ahveph's "spot" (Seat of the Creator) remains a neutral event ground for the entirety of ancient history.

Also on this map I can point out Sunbath, which is a major story location. It is a remote village that ended up on Aki's trading route. It is also where Jas happens to live.

So yeah they still could not fully agree on territories which led to multiple disputes and actual wars over the millennia, until they finally ended up with this around the peak. Kanta has the largest pie by far, then Sen, Ten, and finally Aki.

At peak pre-cataclysm, this civilization had gotten quite advanced, as in "farther in the future than Earth" and "how are we feeling about the vast reaches of space everyone" kind of advanced. The major difference is that sions wield magic, so most of their advancements were heavily magic based rather than using physical science. Anl quick example of what I mean by that would be like, batteries - although they could make electrochemical batteries like we use on earth, they would more likely make them using lightning magic instead.

Well things couldn't stay good forever. Events led to the cataclysm and caused the plane split - literally there now three different planes are stacked on top of each other and they are not exactly the same.

First is the original Reality plane, now called Time's End. This plane has become, to put it politely, completely fucked. Although plants like it, and there are some leftover constructs like corvafex, there aren't any people or animals anymore. It is blown out with magic and very few natural processes work like they are supposed to. The time of day is locked in bands by region (see next map), time flows inconsistently, and the weather and seasons don't cycle, they are locked at random by region. This doesn't mean things are entirely in stasis though - the tides still move, which is quite clear in places such as the inland sea, and the shore near the Glassworks. At The Beacon, which had already been near a dune field, Aki's wind towers have gone without maintenance for so long that they stir up huge sandstorms every so often like clockwork.

Technically, it is still possible to reach this plane. It's most easily reached by (modern) sions because mirrors do exist here, but it is desolate. Non-sions can occasionally end up here too, but with the resonance levels and time fuckery it is not advised to stay too long.

This map is just to show how the time of day is locked. So for example, the Seat of the Creator is in perpetual midday, the Beacon is stuck in the afternoon, Rest and the glassworks are still stuck in the morning, and the Reach is at night.

The second plane is the Memory plane. It is called this because there are copies of settlements (mostly from the new Reality) on this plane, but not actually anyone in them. The plane is actually empty, like nobody ever actually lived here, as opposed to Time's End where it is empty because everyone is dead. It still remains quite eerie to explore however. It's just tons and tons of ghost cities essentially. Most of these copies look fairly normal (if not just eerie), but not all of them as the Memory plane still contains some resonance. It's not nearly as bad as Time's End but there are some cases where you'll have like, an entire empty city permanently covered in glowing fog.

So as far as Ahveph goes - it is an entity integrated into the whole planet, and it COULD manipulate things where ever, it just chose to focus on the areas the ancient sions lived in. After the planes split it was almost completely immobilized except for this one location. It can still sorta see things but it cannot do shit unless it's here. What it has currently chosen to do is to act as a city and build modern sions to live in it. It's success at being a city like the Sovereigns is kind of debatable but to be fair it is really a different beast entirely anyway.

Named characters that actively live here are Cavi, Torch, Tower, and the Daydreamer. While it is mostly populated by sions it does sometimes allow non-sions as well, like Subore actually lives here. He is also is one of the only humans that has learned modern sionic.

This is also probably a good time to mention modern sions are fairly different from ancient sions. Ancients are all sapient automatons - they have A Process to build some more (there is in fact some "genealogy" and "genetics" involved but it gets...kind of wacky) but they are 100% new builds every time one gets made. On the other hand, Modern sions are not 100% new, they are kind of doppelgangers - specific humans/shifters from reality are identified, their essence copied, changed up a bit, and then the copies are stuffed into a new construct body and let loose in the city. A good example of this is Sy and Tower, Sy being the original guy (a "Source"), and Tower being the sion that was created.

Aaand finally we have the current new Reality plane. It has been entirely repopulated by humans and shifters. The ancient sions have been largely forgotten except for whatever archaeologists dig up. Since they don't have any way to translate the relics being dug up they are just called "The Lost Race". Modern sions are basically a crypid at this point that everyone calls some variation of "mirror demon" and there is no connection that these two are actually related.

The overall technology level is similar to Earth. Maybe slightly ahead, but it is mostly based in the physical sciences with some augmentation with whatever magic relics they've figured out how to work.

Ahveph can technically manipulate things at Five since it's at the same location, but it generally does not. It has however, made a very convenient shortcut for explorers to travel back and forth between Reality and Memory.

Character locations on this plane:

Five - Sy's family had moved here from overseas when he was young. He grew up here but moved somewhere between Calanom and Five. His mom, dad, and older brother still live here though.

Calanom - Yeah so the kids (Cody, Mady, and Static/Shaun) all live here. Jack (Cavi's Source) was from here as well.

Mercury Falls - Subore and Riley (Torch's Source) are from here, though Subore didn't want to stay after Riley passed away.

[ballpitbee]

I absolutely love your streetlamp city stuff and how you can just look at all your toontown characters and make a whole new world for them. It's like that one post with how au art of mlp characters eventually evolved into their own characters with separate lore and names. It's so cool

THANK YOU!! I realised that aphter a while I was having more phun doing my own thing with my own rules and world building - so I yoinked those phellas away and put them in my new place!

(Course, I still LOOOOVE toontown- but nothing theres nothing I love better than going wild with ideas and whatnot X3)

[spotsupstuff]

If five pebbles was ever built for zephyr the same way he was built for moon, would he ever see her as a mentor?

i imagine that he'd!!! be more open with her than he is with Moon, because their personalities match better. Zephyr isn't really the doting, overprotective kind. She didn't have the chance to learn how to be affectionate and warm even though she wishes she could be and she needs to watch her own systems like a hawk 24/7 so she ain't got the attention to spare to nag at him even if she wanted to. they'd end up bonding over their anger at the injustice of the Iterators' fate, though

Pebs would probably take someone else as Mentor™ (she wouldn't be capable of fullfilling the expectations of that role), but he'd probably still look up to her a lot. she'd be like. a not-the-title mentor in the specific field of being angry at their situation and doing Something about it

[ancientstuff]

Well, I mean the title for this article is hugely misleading, but the article itself is really interesting.

[avenin7]

What was Medoh's life like growing up? Were things significantly different 10,000 years ago?

I have been trying to think about how to answer this one since I got it. Medoh had a very typical upbringing in the village. period typical sexism causing her to narrow down into the route of medicine woman at a relatively young age. (she’s not one to just lie down and take it, but the environment in which she was raised didn’t exactly give any other options. she lived out the projected path, if a bit adjacent.) typical parents who loved her a typical amount and were good enough at what they did that she ended up okay. she wasn’t very scrappy growing up. not one to pick fights or really make herself anyone’s problem, but not one to really enjoy the company of others. would rather be isolated and alone. Her parents died when she was a teen and she really dove further into medicine as a way to cope. becoming one of the best healers in the village. her skills were renowned and she had surprisingly good bedside manner too. She was just, very simply, a girl.

Times were very different back then. the village spilled out into the surrounding area around Lake Totori and had a booming fur, wool, & cloth trade. This is an approximation of what the area looked like at the time-

the green is representative of rito-centric settlements vs the blue being hylian-centric. (not pictured are the smaller tribes further northeast in deep Hebra or the south in the Tabathan cliffs). most of the hylian settlements focused on farming and raising alpaca/goats where as the rito acted as protectors of the area and weaving the fibre into blankets or fabrics to be sold. it’s a mutual beneficial relationship for both parties. societally things were community driven but with the air of sexism surrounding what roles people could/should participate in. whether that was the influence of the hylian settlers or simply how things came to be isn’t exactly clear. but overall the villages ran smoothly and peacefully.

[aitiuilghrain]

[historyfiles]

Mesolithic Map 8000 BC: although culturally and technologically continuous with Palaeolithic cultures, Mesolithic cultures quickly developed diverse local adaptations for special environments, and multiple cultures as this map reveals.

[1five1two]

[lord-of-tomatoes]

Sorry if this feels like pro Egypt propaganda she's just stuck in the past

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[elbiotipo]

One thing that seems increasingly important to me is that cultures interacted a lot with each other in the past, probably way more than we give them credit for. Yes, in general, for a peasant life was in their village with occassional trips to town. But then there are also Roman merchants who travelled to India, medieval European communities in Persia and China (and their own Christian churches), Jewish cultures in India and Ethiopia, and the ethnobotanical and cultural evidence in favor of Mesoamerican-South American contact piles up so high it's hard to dismiss it. People weren't isolated, they knew what was going on in the rest of the world, even as rumors.

[fortune-maiden]

To this day, I firmly believe Olivier Lenheim might have been inspired by Johnny Shiden xD