Pseudo-History And The Hyborian Age

[Water Bob]

Whether is it was something Howard intended or has been added by the many cooks who have had their hand in the Hyborian Age development pot, I love the little "pseudo-history ties" (that's what I call 'em) that I discover as I read different Conan yarns.

Remember that "pseudo" means "false", so I'm not making any real-world comments here. I'm just speculating on a fictional pre-history of the world--Conan's world.

I just caught one today. I'm reading the Dark Horse collection (trade--graphic novel--collection--whatever you want to call it), Conan: The Hall of the Dead And Other Stories, and there in the prologue, I see the Prince and the Wazier discussing the discovery of the Nemedian Chronicles and the tales of Conan, as they do in the beginning of each of these collections.

The Prince and the Wazier, for those of you who don't read the Dark Horse books, live in the post-Hyborian Age world, but it's clear that we're still in real world pre-historic times. The Prince's father is some great Xerxes-esque emperor (The Prince definitely has a Persion flair about him.), and he has sent one of his sons, the Prince, to scout, evaluate, and basically inventory the newest edition to the empire. The land they explore used to be Aquilonia, and the Prince becomes intrigued with the long-forgotten tales of Conan, the barbarian king that ruled these lands during the Age before.

I don't know, but the Wazier has a very Thoth-Amon feel to him. I keep wondering if I'm going to be surprised one day when Dark Horse reveals that he certainly his Thoth-Amon, survived hundreds of years after the fall of the Hyborian Age. We'll see.

The pseudo-history tie that I read hit me as the Prince and the Wazier came to what should have been called The Great Western Ocean. But, they don't call it that. That's what it was called during Conan's time. During the Prince's Age, they call it, the "Atlantean Ocean".

The Atlantean Ocean? Hmm. Here's the pseudo-history tie: Great Western Ocean (that swallowed Atlantis) --> Atlantean Ocean ---> Atlantic Ocean.

I like that kind of stuff. I think it's "neat". It somehow makes the world that much more believeable because of the little details like this.





The Prince has a pseudo-Persian flair to him, so I think of his father's empire to be somewhere around where Persia was. And, the Wazier, in the story I'm reading, mentions the Central Sea. Hmm. Now, I'm starting to think that the Prince and the Wazir live in an age when the cataclysm that has shaped our world into what it looks like today has already occured. The ruins of Aquilonia that the Prince discovers is really somewhere in--what we call today--France.

Why is my thinking leaning this way? It's because of the pseudo-history tie mention of the "Central Sea". The Prince comes from a pre-Persian empire, and I'm thinking the Central Sea is called the Mediterranean Sea today.





There are other pseudo-history ties that I've read from other sources or discovered on my own. I read somewhere that the atmosphere of Brythunia should reflect that of Britian just before or just after Roman occupation. Pseudo-history tie: Brythunia ---> Brythun ---> Britian.





Another thing I read, somewhere in all my Conan readings, is that Shem came about by the original settlement of the Sons of Shem.

The Sons of Shem? According to the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis, Noah had three sons. Shem was one of them. And, after The Flood, the entire human race is said to be decended from the eight survivors of The Flood. The decendants of Shem are thought to be the Semitic peoples (those of Middle Eastern decent, also called Arabs), which fits in perfectly with the flavor of the peoples of Shem during the Hyborian Age. Pseudo-history tie: Noah ---> Shem (Noah's son) ---> Sons of Shem (who settle in a desert, Middle-Eastern area) ---> Shem (Hyborian Age nation) ---> Middle-Eastern Arab lands.



But, what about The Flood, itself. Could this be a pseudo-history tie to the one of the Cataclysms that shaped the world? It almost has to be, because The Flood was a cataclysmic event. But, which cataclysm? Pseudo-history tie: Great Cataclysm (that sunk Atlantis and eventually birthed the Hyborian Age) = The Flood ---> Noah ---> Shem (Noah's son) ---> Sons of Shem (who settle in a desert, Middle-Eastern area) ---> Shem (Hyborian Age nation) ---> Middle-Eastern Arab lands.

If that's a true pseudo-history tie, then there were a pocket of Christians among the many religions of Shem for hundreds of years before the religion took off? Unlikely. It would be more believeable that.... Pseudo-history tie: The Flood = The Cataclysm (that shapes our present-day world) ---> Noah ---> Shem (Noah's son) ---> Sons of Shem (who settle about where the Hyborian nation of Shem stood) ---> Middle-Eastern Arab lands.





There are other pseudo-history ties that can be taken from the Bible. Look at Genesis 6:4, where it is written, "There were GIANTS in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." If you do a search for the term "giants" in any of the many online Bibles, you'll find the term mentioned throughout, along with references to Titans.

Pseudo-history tie: Giants = Giants of ancient Acheron?

You can also find references to "sorcerer", "magic" and "magicians", and similar words, depending on which version of the Bible you are referencing. Look at Acts 8:9, where it is written, "But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:"

Pseudo-history tie: Sorcery existed and was more prevalent in ancient times than in today's world.



And, a tie can be made with dinosaurs. Conan has fought his share of beasties. Pseudo-history tie: Some of the extinct beasts that lived during the Hyborian Age were dinosaurs.

In some stories, Conan comes into contact with races that resemble, or have features of, early man. Pseudo-history tie: "Cave" men, in various stages of development, exist during the Hyborian Age.



That's all I can think of at the moment, but I have a nagging suspicion that I'm forgetting other "ties" that I've discovered (or created). If I think of some more, I'll try to remember to post them here.

 

[S'mon]

The only big problem I've encountered in tying Conan's history to our own is the Atlas Mountains of nw Africa. Nothing like them exists in Conan's world. REH was writing in an age before knowledge of plate tectonics, it was believed land could rise and fall by thousands of feet in a geologically brief time.

Everything else in the Hyborean age can be presented as occurring shortly before the floods at the end of the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago, but the Atlas mountains are a sticking point for me.

 

[Water Bob]

Everything else in the Hyborean age can be presented as occurring shortly before the floods at the end of the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago, but the Atlas mountains are a sticking point for me.

Yep, 12K years ago is the target point for the Hyborian Age, but think of this... Howard only wrote a few stories set in the Black Kingdoms (that becomes Africa). If a story wasn't set near the Atlas Mountains, there was no reason to mention them. Maybe they were there the whole time?

 

[Votan]

The only big problem I've encountered in tying Conan's history to our own is the Atlas Mountains of nw Africa. Nothing like them exists in Conan's world. REH was writing in an age before knowledge of plate tectonics, it was believed land could rise and fall by thousands of feet in a geologically brief time.

Everything else in the Hyborean age can be presented as occurring shortly before the floods at the end of the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago, but the Atlas mountains are a sticking point for me.

How do you know that the maps aren't missing this feature due to a cartographical error? What might be in the Atlas mountains that would prevent explorers from reporting this error?

 

[Water Bob]

To be fair, and really, is pretty realistic, is that all of the real-world maps of Conan's time are all a little bit different. Kingdoms have slightly different shapes. Mountains and cities are moved. All sorts of terrain features are different.

If the Hyborian Age were a real time in history, that's how I'd expect the maps to be.

 

[Aurumvorax]

Reading the introduction to one of Howard's collections, he was a history buff that planned on setting his stories in a real point in time but decided against it because people would spend too much time looking for inaccuracies. He set it in a fictional, pre-flood age so he could use real-world geography and references without tying himself to known history.

Off the top of my head, Atlantis and Atlantic are both derived from "Atlas" so even pre-Howard writers referred to Atlantis as being located in the Atlantic ocean.

 

[Water Bob]

Off the top of my head, Atlantis and Atlantic are both derived from "Atlas" so even pre-Howard writers referred to Atlantis as being located in the Atlantic ocean.

I was on Santorini a couple of years ago, just before Greece started experiencing its financial woes, and I learned that Plato speculated that the myth of Atlantis started there, on that island, in the Aegean Sea. If you google "Santorini Atlantis", you'll find some info about it.

At somepoint, the story of Atlantis got transplanted to the Atlantic.

 

[David Howery]

The only big problem I've encountered in tying Conan's history to our own is the Atlas Mountains of nw Africa. Nothing like them exists in Conan's world. REH was writing in an age before knowledge of plate tectonics, it was believed land could rise and fall by thousands of feet in a geologically brief time.

Everything else in the Hyborean age can be presented as occurring shortly before the floods at the end of the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago, but the Atlas mountains are a sticking point for me.

well, a big chunk of the Atlas mountains didn't exist in Hyboria because part of Africa that they are on was 'beneath the waves' and didn't rise up until the cataclysm. I'd always assumed the Atlas mountains rose because of the cataclysm...

 

[S'mon]

How do you know that the maps aren't missing this feature due to a cartographical error? What might be in the Atlas mountains that would prevent explorers from reporting this error?

The problem is that in Hyborean geography the river Styx opens into the Atlantic just north-east of where the Atlas mountains should be, and this is the heavily populated riverine heartland of Stygia, it's not a remote location. The area where the mountains should be is actually underwater, along with much of Africa. I've tried tweaking and remapping but this (underwater Africa) is the one issue with the Hyborean maps that cannot IMO be solved by reference to real-world science & geography.

 

[S'mon]

well, a big chunk of the Atlas mountains didn't exist in Hyboria because part of Africa that they are on was 'beneath the waves' and didn't rise up until the cataclysm. I'd always assumed the Atlas mountains rose because of the cataclysm...

Yes, that's right.