North Africa
Cities and landmarks
*Alexandria — Capital of Egypt
Carthage (city) — Carthage, Tunisia
*Chott el Jerid — Saltwater lake/salt flats, Tunisia
Hippo Regius — City west of the city of Carthage. (Annaba, Algeria)
Mauritania — Westernmost subprovince of African Carthage
Oea — City east of the city of Carthage (Tripoli, Libya)
Rusicade — City east of Hippo Regius (Skikda, Algeria)
Tacape — City between Oea and Carthage (Gabes, Tunisia)
Oceans
The Sea of Atlas — Atlantic
Pacfica — Pacific
Erythraean Sea — Arabian Sea
Imakpik — Bering Strait
Miscellaneous
Aotearoa — New Zealand
Rapa Nui Island —Easter Island
Mythological
Ynys Afallon — Isle of Apples, Avalon
* Indicates a region or city in which narrative events take place. This list is not comprehensive, and is intended to help readers orient themselves, nothing more.
Appendix II: Calendar Terms and Alternate History
Caesarian I, called by history “Caesarian the God-Born,” undertook a major reform of the Roman calendar system, which was decidedly out of joint. In antiquity, the year began at the spring equinox, in Martius, and the number of days in the year did not reflect properly Earth’s full solar year. This led to seasons and months no longer matching up, over time.
Hence, Caesarion the God-Born and his advisors—and other scientists, over the centuries—made the following changes: All months but three were regularized to thirty days. The calendar year’s beginning moved to Ianuarius, instead of Martius.
One month was renamed for Julius Caesar, becoming Iulius. Two days were added to it, for a total of thirty-two. One month was renamed for Caesarion, and two days added to it, as well. One day was added to the end of December, and, once the notion of Earth orbiting the sun came into vogue, every four years, a second day was added to this last month of the year, to account for leap years.
Edda-Earth does not concern itself with multiple calendar formats, though the Nahutl (Aztecs), Maya (Quecha), Judeans, and other civilizations have their own calendars. All dates are presented in Roman format for simplicity.
Months
Ianuarius 30
Februarius 30
Martius 30
Aprilis 30
Maius 30
Iunius 30
Iulius 32
Caesarius 32
September 30
October 30
November 30
December 31, +1 at leap year.
Days of the Week
Multiple languages and gods result in a wide variety of terms for days of the week. Gothic and Roman terms are used throughout the text of the trilogy to provide a feeling of cultural syncretism.
English
Latin
Gothic
Gods/Symbolism
Monday
dies Lunae
Monandæg
Moon
Tuesday
dies Martis
Tiwesdæg
Tyr/Mars
(War)
Wednesday
dies Mercurii
Wodensdæg
Odin/Mercury
(Wisdom)
Thursday
dies Jovis
Thunresdæg
Jupiter/Thor
(Thunder)
Friday
dies Veneris
Frigedæg
Freya/Venus
(love/beauty)
Saturday
dies Saturni
Sæternesdæg
Saturn/Cronus
(death/wisdom)
Sunday
dies Solis
Sunnandæg
Sun
Ascensio Caesare vs. Anno Domini/Common Era
The Edda calendar takes as its start the year of Julius Caesar’s ascent to the throne of Rome. This occurred in 44 Before Common Era (BCE). Thus, all Edda dates are offset by forty-four years from AD/CE dates. For general reference purposes, see the table below:
Real Earth
Edda
100 BCE
55 BAC
45 BCE
1 BAC
44 BCE (year of Caesar's assassination)
1 AC (year of Caesar's ascent)
43 BCE
2 AC
42 BCE
3 AC
41BCE
4 AC
40 BCE
5 AC
30 BCE
15 AC
20 BCE
25 AC
10 BCE
35 AC
1 AD/CE
45 AC
5 AD/CE
49 AC
1000 AD/CE
1044 AC
1906 AD/CE
1950 AC
1910 AD/CE
1954 AC (story start)
1955 AD/CE
1999 AC (end of trilogy)
Alternate timeline events
In the Edda-Earth reality, the library of Alexandria did not burn at the hands of Caesar’s troops. Rome never fell. There were no ‘dark ages.’ No medieval period. Science continued to progress at a steady pace, and was supplemented by magic. As such, scientists discovered some technologies before Real-Earth did. . . and in some areas, due to the prevalence of magic, technology actually lags that of Real-Earth.
Ancient times
ca. 2226 to 2171 BAC: Reign of Sargon of Akkad. Within 100 years after his death, the godslayers and namtar-demons were at work in the world, tearing down the temples and killing gods.
1583-1556 BAC: Range of dates for the Thera eruption and the destruction of the Minoan civilization.
1292 BAC or 1290 BAC: Death of Akhenaten. Imperfect suppression of the cult of Aten
ca. 1146 BAC: Destruction of Homer’s Troy.
ca. 1035-963 BAC: Life of Saul; ban of magic in Judea. End of golems.
The Rise of Rome
102 BAC: Fall of Carthage. Carthage conquered by Rome; the city is burned, but the inhabitants are permitted to retain their language and religious beliefs.
4 BAC: Julius Caesar did not accidentally burn the Great Library of Alexandria down when he set fire to his own ships.
1 AC: The Failed Assassination of Julius Caesar. Brutus informs Caesar of the pending attack, and assembles legionnaires to protect Caesar's life. Brutus took one of the assassin's knives through his own back as he and others protect Caesar from the conspirators.
All of the conspirators are tried, found guilty, and executed.
Caesar sets aside his 'adopted' son of Octavius in favor of his natural son by Cleopatra, Caesarion.
15 AC: Ptolemy XV Caesarion Julius Philopator Philometor, Caesarion the God-Born, ascends the throne.
Octavian’s Rebellion. Brief. Assassination attempts against Caesarion.
26 AC: Caesarion meets with the Zealots of Judea, and offers them improved self-rule in exchange for loyalty, with the Legions waiting on hand to burn Jerusalem if needed. (Second Temple is never burned. No Diaspora.) Judea becomes a loyal province of the Empire.
55 AC: Caesarion's death. He is followed by his son, Philometrus Julius Caesar Albius. Brief period of unrest and rebellion.
114 AC: Colosseum construction begins.
264–324 AC: First hot air balloons developed in Qin for military signaling.
350 AC: The Edict of Diocletian.
Diocletian decrees that all subject/client states have autonomy in matters of religion. Proselytizing banned.
Exploration of the World
500 AC: Fleet led by Hrolfr Njordr crosses the Sea of Atlas and lands in Newfoundland.
515 AC: Second fleet lands near what is now Novo Trier.
550 AC-675 AC: Early Decadent Period.
600 AC: Explorers have canvassed the eastern coast of Caesaria Aquilonis as far
south as the Bláthach peninsula.
675-750 AC: Reform period.
700-880 AC: Building of Domitanus' Wall in Judea.
880 AC: Kievan Rus attempts to invade Asia Minor. Domitanus' Wall construction halted, series of armed forts built along northern border, instead.
1000 AC: Leif Dalgaard circumnavigates the globe.
1100 AC: Sea-trade with Qin and Nippon and India now possible, as well as the overland Silk Road.
1150 AC: Gunpowder introduced to the West and dismissed, largely, as a novelty item; cannons tended to explode.
1190 AC: Gold discovered near what becomes Burgundoi, making this city-state in Nova Germania fabulously wealthy. This gold funds the fleets that now began to sweep around the globe.
1190 AC: Cuzco settled by Inca.
1223 AC: Mongols begin invasion of Kievan Rus.
1250 AC: Mongols invade Qin. Romans aware of this as a disruption in trade.
1264 AC: Mongols attempt to invade Byzantium… and are vigorously repelled by the much more technologically advanced and organized Romans.
1275 AC: Mongols diverted east into Persian subject kingdoms, and get as far south as Judea, where cannons are used for the first time effectively from Domitanus' Wall.
1304-08 AC: Plague years.Many merchant ships were lost at sea in this four-year span, and a number of port cities suffered from the plague, but the result was limited, because so much of trade was conducted by sea. . . and many of the ships were simply lost with all hands as a result of the virulent plague.
Total effect on Europa's population: -2 million people, not the -75 million or -100 million of Real-Earth's Black Plague.
1325 AC: Tenochtitlan built.
1334 AC: Lavish additions made to the Palace of the Imperator in Rome.
1350 AC: Rich silver lodes found in the white-capped Nivalis mountains, east of Burgundoi. Accessing this required massive innovations in mining technology. Gunpowder explosives used.
1360 AC: Founding of the empire of Tawantinsuyu.
1427 AC: Rome meets the new-formed Nahautl Empire, and demands an end to human sacrifices if they're going to be neighbors. Residents of Novo Gaul do not appreciate being captured and dragged off as sacrifices
The Industrial Revolution
1450 AC: Industrial Revolution begins.
1475 AC: First contact between Novo Gaul, Novo Germania, Rome, and Tawantinsuyu.
1500 AC: Discovery of electricity.
1501 AC: Small Roman colony founded at the southern tip of Africa,
Cyrenus.
1505 AC: Wan Quan publishes study on the efficacy of inoculating against smallpox by taking the dried scabs, powdering them, and blowing them up a patient's nose with a blowpipe. This variolation method became transmitted by medical texts to the west over the next one hundred years.
1528 AC: Steam engine invented.
1528 AC: Rebellion in Nahautl against Rome.
1531 AC: Hellene physicians discovered the anesthetic properties of diethyl ether.
1548 AC: Locomotives invented and tracks begin to be laid.
1550 AC: Thomas Mauritis determines that ley-power can power an engine just as well as steam or electricity.
1565 AC: Nomadic Bantu tribesmen trade a few shiny rocks to the Romans at the port in Cyrenus. It takes over a year for the shiny rocks to migrate their way to Rome, where they're discovered to be very large diamonds.
1568 AC: Mauritis develops the incandescent bulb as a novelty.
1575 AC: Eadward Gann, in Britannia, used cowpox as a method of inoculating against smallpox. This, combined with the innovations of Wan Quan, begins to change medicine forever.
1576 AC: Diamond mining expedition sets up camp outside of Cyrenus.
1585 AC: Germs and microbes observed with microscopes for the first time. Germ theory developed, Judea.
1590 AC: Telegraph invented by Samuel Maurus, the son of a Roman man
and a Judean woman, in Judea. Competing inventors included Agapetus Metaxus, who developed the code system used for telegraphy to this day.
1580-1590: AC Plague years in Tawantinsuyu; inadvertent introduction of smallpox decimates population.
1597 AC: Tawantinsuyu agrees to formal treaty with Rome, becoming a subject state.
1600-1750 AC: Latter Decadent Period
1601 AC: Incandescent bulbs replace oil lamps in parts of Europe.
1607 AC: First tethered hot air balloon flight in Rome, performed at the Imperator's palace.
1615 AC: First coal-fired power plants come online in Judea to produce electricity.
1645 AC: First untethered hot air balloon flight, again demonstrated in Rome, this time by the Gaulish Locinna brothers. Largely a novelty at first, except in Judea, where balloons were later used to conduct surveillance over the Wall.
1660 AC: Temple of Jupiter rebuilt in Rome after a great fire swept through the city. The emperor of that period, Julian III, had rebuilt the temple, larger and grander than before.
1675 AC: Laudanum distilled, precursor to morphine.
1697 AC: Morphine developed for use in battlefield medicine.
1701 AC: Chloroform and ether used for the first time to allow for first non-agonizing amputations and surgeries during the Invasion of Asia Minor.
1750 AC: Laws giving slaves rights passed in Rome.
1756 AC: Penicillin developed and used in field hospitals during the War of the Caspian Sea (1753-1763; Rome vs. Raccia, Raccia vs. Mongols, Mongols vs. Rome, Mongols vs. Persia, Persia vs. Rome. It was ugly.) Dr. Alexander Argyris the first to really study the mold that had been a folk remedy for generations.
1769 AC: Reginleif Lanvik born.
1771 AC: First successful Caesarian in medical history, in which both mother and baby lived. Conducted in Jerusalem.
1825 AC: First manned plane flight performed just outside Novo Trier, by a pair of brothers by the names of Ursus and Wystan Abered.
1830-1845 AC: Mongols invade Qin.
1850 AC: Radio invented, in Hellas.
1855-1860 AC: Caspian Crisis; Mongolia attempts to annex most of the Caspian Sea, resulting in a four-way battle between Rome, Raccia, Mongolia, and Persia; this was the first major war involving Rome since the War of the Caspian Sea a hundred years before.
Death of Solveig Caetia.
1875 AC: Helicopter invented, Judea. Widest adoption in Raccia and Novo Germania, however.
1890 AC: Brandr Ilfetu born.
1895 AC: Ornithopter invented, Persia.
1900 AC: Far-viewers developed, in Nippon.
Recent History
1905 AC: Antonius Valerius Livorus born, Rome.
1910 AC: Sigrun Caetia born, Cimbri-on-the-Caestus, Nova Germania,
Caesaria Aquilonis.
1915 AC: Jet turbine engine developed.
1923 AC: Livorus enters the Legion.
1924 AC: Kanmi born.
1926 AC: Sigrun enters the Odinhall.
1927 AC: Slavery abolished in Nova Germania and Novo Gaul.
1927-1930 AC: Raccia-Mongol Conflict.
1928 AC: Trennus Matrugena born.
1929 AC: First rocket launched into space from Judea, sparking space-race between Hellas, Judea, and Nippon, with Britannia an interested observer.
1929 AC: Adam ben Maor born. Sophia Caetia born.
1930 AC: Sigrun leaves the Odinhall.
1930 AC: Minori Sasaki (Ijiun) born.
1930-54 AC: The Shadow War. Proxy war; Persia and Rome fight through provinces and subject kingdoms like Chaldea, Media, and Judea. Re-ignites every 3-4 years.
1930-1932 AC: Sigrun on Roman-Persian Border, in Asia Minor.
1932-1934 AC: Sigrun on Roman-Mongol border, within spitting range of Raccia.
1933-43 AC: Livorus serves as aedile in Rome. Roof over Colosseum built.
1934 AC: Transatlantic cable laid, allowing for overseas telephone calls.
1936-38 AC: Sigrun begins protection work for diplomatic envoys to the independent Nordic countries.<
br />
1939 AC: Splitting of the atom in Judea.
1939 AC: Sophia Caetia’s first visions.
1939-1948. Sigrun works as an ælagol in the New World.
1943 AC: Livorus’ unsuccessful run for quaestor. Appointed diplomatic envoy to India, instead.
1944 AC: Trennus’ mentor killed by a rogue summoner. He goes to University of Londonium thereafter.
1945 AC: First satellites settle into orbit.
1946 AC: Kanmi graduates the University of Athens and gets married. Immediately leaves for Mongol border.
1947 AC: Adam goes to the Persian border.
1948 AC: Caesarion IX crowned. (God-born).
1948 AC: Livorus appointed ambassador to Qin.
1949 AC: The Mongol-Qin Provocations.
1949 AC: Sigrun recruited by Praetorians; appointed to Livorus' detail after the Mongol-Qin incidents.
1950 AC: Kanmi returns home from Roman-Mongol border. Recruited by Praetorians.
1950 AC:. Trennus leaves Londonium for work with the gardia.
1951 AC: Adam recruited by the Praetorians.
1953 AC: Adam paired, late in the year, with Sigrun.
1954 AC: Story begins.
Appendix IV: Glossary
Languages in Edda have not been locked in time or sealed away in a vacuum chamber. They have lived, breathed, and developed in interrelation to one another.
Gothic
I use Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon terms to give Sigrun’s language flavor. Given that the various branches of Germanic have been under heavy influence from Latin for some 2,000 years, it is very likely that her spoken dialect, while it retained the characteristic “we two” pronoun of Anglo-Saxon, witan, and the equally characteristic lack of a future tense, would be somewhat closer to Mittelhochdeutsch or Middle English. The Great Vowel Shift never occurred. If you wish to imagine what she’d sound like, grab a copy of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or the work of the Pearl poet, and read it out loud to yourself. . . being sure to use the vowel sounds of continental European languages.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 133