Timelines in Antiquity

Drynemeton

Banned
So I've lurked this website formatting and I've noticed that the majority of timelines set in antiquity involve either the Roman Empire (and more scarcely the Roman Republic) or Alexander the Great.


These are interesting to read for sure, but I think that there's an equally interesting bunch of things to choose from in the ancient East as there are in the ancient West. One thing I like to think about is Anatolia being mostly Armenian by the time of Christ OTL. I was wondering how you guys think that might happen, and maybe what some of your ideas were for timelines set in antiquity?
 

Drynemeton

Banned
How do you mean? Like... prehistoric timelines? I've thought about doing one of those, but they seem to require A LOT more research than a regular one set in recorded history.


Or do you mean just going back to like... Sumer, or the Indus Valley Civilization?
 

FDW

Banned
Yeah, I have to agree with you here, the Warring States period in particular is something that's literally brimming with particularly juicy POD's, and yet it's potential is practically untapped so far.
 
As for Timeline's set in antiquity: NikoZnate's Realm of A Million Years is absolutely fantastic as is Errnge's "The Weighted Scales" and Daeres "For a Fistful of Amphorae" (that one deals with the Hitites-I know its not the Armenians, but its still about Anatolia). I have a tl going on (Eternal Flame Dies Out) but its not nearly as good as those.

As for your thing about Anatolia being Armenian: I'm not all too familiar with that but I would presume you couldn't go wrong with a POD during the Bronze Age Collapse.
 

Deleted member 67076

Come to think of it, does anyone know of any Sumerian TLs? That's about as ancient as you can get.
Not that I'm aware of. There isn't alot of information in that era (AFAIK) so its rather difficult to do timelines with the precision of say, Niko's timeline.
 

Drynemeton

Banned
I would say that it also gets hard to come up with names for your characters. If you have a POD in say, Medieval Britain or Ancient Rome, Greece, or even Persia, you have a wealth of material from which to draw to name your characters as the timeline goes on. But when you're dealing with something like Sumer, Elam, the Gutians, Urartu, or Hatti, you have a bit of a problem. You can't just make up names, because the languages are well documented (some of them). But unfortunately a lot of that information isn't available online...

That's part of the reason I like the idea of prehistoric POD's cuz of the whole rewriting human history and language and such, but it also looks like it would be very, very hard... And I'm not an experienced writer.


But a POD in the Bronze Age Collapse you say? What did you have in mind?
 
I would say that it also gets hard to come up with names for your characters. If you have a POD in say, Medieval Britain or Ancient Rome, Greece, or even Persia, you have a wealth of material from which to draw to name your characters as the timeline goes on. But when you're dealing with something like Sumer, Elam, the Gutians, Urartu, or Hatti, you have a bit of a problem. You can't just make up names, because the languages are well documented (some of them). But unfortunately a lot of that information isn't available online...

When NikoZnate originally wrote his TL and realized he'd need a Mycenaean character, he basically used the one Mycenaean name he could find and hoped he wouldn't need any others.

Then he got lucky and found a source with a lot of other names, so now Mycenaean character names aren't a problem, and there will probably be many.
 

Drynemeton

Banned
So I've been reading some over the past day or so... oh, by the way, I FINALLY got a job!


But anyways... I was reading about the genesis of the Armenians as a nation and an ethnic identity, and I was thinking that a POD involving the civil war between those last three kings of the Assyrian Empire, Sin-shumu-lishir, Sin-shar-ishkun, and Ashur-etil-ilani would be interesting. Do you guys think that without the civil war, it would have been possible for the empire to stagger on for several more decades, or perhaps even a century, allowing for a stronger and more militarily advanced Kingdom of Urartu? Or is the fall of the Assyrian Empire at about that time something that is pretty much inevitable?


I've been having a hard time finding material on the socio-political/economic situation of the period.


I mean, I think that a greater expansion of Armenians into Anatolia is possible with a number of PODs, even those outside of antiquity, but I like the more ancient ones because the butterflies are much bigger.
 
I'm not too familiar with the Assyrians, but it is to my knowledge that the storm clouds were already gathering towards the end of Ashurbannipal's (spelling?) reign-to the point where, IIRC, the record is almost non-existent for the last years of his reign. So I doubt the Assyrian Empire could hang on for much longer.


Though I imagine there might be some room for Urartu to make a resurgence in the wake of the Assyrian collapse and kind of take advantage of the power vacuum under a capable leader...
 

Drynemeton

Banned
What about the consequences of say, his father, Ashurahheiddina, not having died en route to Egypt?


Or perhaps even if the Medes didn't go back on their alliance with Urartu under Rusa III?
 
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