Sälethïa Laelis

Archaeo-History Department of The Valgaaren Academy;

Zyendiil Maar History and Archaeological Record

The civilization we call Nir Rizaal ended an somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 years ago with a great catastrophe, one we believe to have caused the devastation still present in Zyendil Maar. It is unclear when Nir Rizaal formed, but our archaeological records indicate this civilization may have begun at least 9,000 years before its demise. Before that, is merely speculation with extraordinarily little solid evidence backing what life was like for andeamer, and even what the andeamer of this time were like. Fossils and remnants of Nir Rizaal are primarily located in Zyendil Maar with some collections discovered as far as the northern ice fields before this area succumbed to an abrupt flooding and later freezing.

Acquired artifacts of Nir Rizaal give us some idea of how this ancient civilization was structured, their technological capabilities, governance, culture, and so many more facets of this era and its people. We know without a doubt the people of the 4th Epoch were innovative, capable of technological feats of computing, mathematics, science, and many other fields as indirectly indicated by surviving structures and objects.

Excavations of Nir Rizaal have varied in sincerity and competency for centuries. This has compromised the integrity of the established timeline as well as our collection of artifacts to extrapolate information of Nir Rizaal from. Many of these artifacts previously uncovered by the Valgaartiran or other entities have either been damaged by carelessness, ignorance, or sold to non-academic collectors. Recent excavations, within the last 100 to 200 years, utilize modern excavation equipment and techniques to reduce damage to artifacts and their surroundings as well as give us access to deeper layers not possible in the years before.

When recovering an object, its placement in the strata, surrounding artifacts, and location are all relevant to determining the object's significance in the archaeological record and functionalist interpretations. In fields such as this, context is extremely important. Deeper excavation into the ruins scattered about Zyendil Maar have given us a plethora of context. Many structures and objects of this era remain somewhat intact to make inferences about this civilization that spanned Ënokhïa. Immediate preservation of recovered items is of the utmost importance. Typically, in the field, recovery and preservation is the goal. Once the artifacts are safe and brought to the laboratories of the Valgaartiran are they studied. Some objects, such as technological artifacts are extremely delicate and fickle. These objects are left to the digital archaeologist for cleaning which can sometimes take years to complete.

Nir Rizaal

Nir Rizaal is defined as the singular civilization of Ënokhïa, archaeo-historians hypothesize was born in the 3rd Epoch. This era spans an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 years ago. General consensus agrees the 3rd Epoch began with an agricultural revolution which allowed andeamer permanent settlements instead of a nomadic lifestyle. The establishment of Nir Rizaal is likely to be placed in the latter half of this epoch. With what we have gathered thus far, we know Nir Rizaal had changed many times during its lifetime and perhaps was not always Nir Rizaal but variations of progenitor societies and civilizations which would later give rise to the civilization that dominates the archaeological record of Nir Rizaal.

It is in the final thousand years of the 3rd Epoch that societal disintegration appears and it is from this time we have the most information available of. The time prior to this particular point in history remains largely a mystery supported by small data points and minimal collections.

We estimate Nir Rizaal, that is the first large scale gathering of andeamer civilization, to have been found maybe 10 to 9,000 years before its demise. A majority of the evidence for this timeframe comes from several settlements found in Den Svyärr and what were likely museums which held many artifacts considered ancient even by that era’s time. A good collection of these artifacts was preserved in their museum’s archives and sometimes we may still stumble upon those left untouched in Zyendil Maar.

The oldest settlements discovered in Den Svyärr were found using the same radar equipment also utilized for geological surveys, mining operations, and oceanic exploration. These varieties of radar methods allow us to take a peek through solid ground several miles below the surface. They aren’t perfect but these technologies have revolutionized archaeological methods in last century.

The structures discovered in Den Svyärr were established before this province was reduced to an arid desert. One collection of artifacts rediscovered in the “museums” of Nir Rizaal could be traced back to these specific places. Nir Rizaal is estimated to have spanned 700,000 to 800,000 square miles at its height through various interconnected settlements and evidence of complex transportation systems. This estimated area extends well beyond the observed “crater” in which the ruins on the surface are seen. These ruins are less than a percent of the entire city which lies beneath the surface and protrude due to their artificially raised foundation. However, due to earthquakes and collapses the city has spread to various strata which can cause issues dating our findings.

Computers and Technology

Despite their difficulty, it is these technological artifacts that are the most sought after. Luckily, these objects were largely ignored by scavengers, looters, and early excavations mostly because they did not know what they were or considered them trash amalgamated under millennia of pressure. Although there are unfortunate cases where their compositions were inventoried and the technological objects were “recycled” for their components, primarily precious metals or minerals.

The category of these objects is most vulnerable to elements and erosion, just as with the computing objects you use. A plethora of these computing artifacts have been found in what is dubbed the “library”. We aren’t entirely sure the purpose of this enormous structure, but some evidence indicates it a record-keeping or archival facility. The library is a large dome structure whose size overshadows the capital city of the Valgaartiran, yet only a quarter of it has been unearthed. Most of this structure is devoted entirely to housing the computers of this era. It was discovered only a decade ago and since then specialists have been cleaning the artifacts as we move deeper into the structure.

Littered through Zyendil Maar are other computing and technological artifacts. These appear to be items that one would carry on their person for convenient use. These items range in purpose from virtual maps, visuo-audio recordings, digital notebooks, and much more. Most of these which we have recovered are repairable and can even be worked within lab environments, but there is one large hurdle to extracting information from these objects aside from repairing and reconstructing their digital components—Language. The andeamer of the 3rd epoch spoke and wrote in a predecessor of Ënokhan to which we have yet to decipher. The current inventory of these objects amounts to 47, with only 5 currently operational.

As little as we have, these personal objects have told us so much about the daily lives of the Andeamer of this time. One object in particular was found alongside its owner who has been determined to be a woman roughly 60 to 80 years old at the time of death. Her device held a catalogue of what appears to be journal entries. These entries are immensely useful to unraveling the complicated version of Ënokhan spoken in the 3rd Epoch as they are written rather than a recording of a speaker.

An easier glimpse into this world is a literal one. Many devices of this type possessed cameras that could capture still images and motion videos complete with color and audio. We have a small collection of videos and pictures of this world primarily in the form of still images. Reconstructing imagery and videos are a difficult process since digital information has not survived well enough in general circumstances. What we do have comes from those 5 functional artifacts.

More awaits within them but reconstructing virtual data and extracting what could be lost forever is a time-consuming process. What we have recovered shows what Ënokh looked like, which isn’t very different from what you see today, however the locations in question are unknown. A few stills show Nir Rizaal in its prime and confirm what we assumed for many years: the ruins in the epicenter were a vast sprawling city, much more than we see today.

 Andeamer of the Era

Fossils of the andeamer of this era vary extensively depending on the time they lived. The further back in time we go, the more difficult it is to find evidence to extrapolate information from. Noticeably, these andeamer appear to be somewhat physically different from us today. These physical characteristics are visible in the facial structure and post-cranial remains. The faces of our ancestors were more prognathic and the occipital region more elongated. Their skulls supported thicker and heavier horns and thus a more robust frontal bone. While their skulls jutted and accommodated the same number and kinds of teeth we have, their teeth and mandible are much softer than our own.

Due to the nature of their facial structure, their oral cavity was larger and, curiously, had recessed chins. The teeth of the specimens we have retrieved are not complete and a majority have dental ailments or extensive dental reconstruction or treatment, typically in the form of artificial replacements. The enamel is the most durable part of our teeth and does not repair itself and is typically what we recover from these ancient andeamer. However, their enamel displays an unusual rate of erosion inconsistent with typical wear from aging. This and the overall weaker mandible and palate we observe is consistent with their unsustainable diet and agricultural habits.

Our ancestors suffered a variety of ailments not unlike we do today, but at a frequency nearly 100x higher. We believe cancers were especially common among the population, crossing socioeconomic strata. Diseases of the bone appeared at a higher rate than current populations. Given we do not have many specimens with soft tissues intact we can only infer using the state of the environment of the time. Core samples reveal a shocking magnitude of pollution concentrated in specific areas of Nir Rizaal’s numerous settlements. Exposure to these carcinogens would explain the high frequency of malignant cancer evident of skeletal remains. It is not uncommon to find old landfills below densely populated regions containing materials with carcinogenic elements, polymers, and even radioactive contaminants which could easily leak into water tables or agricultural fields.

Some individuals show evidence of surgical procedures on their bones suggesting removal of bone cancers, and potentially soft-tissue cancers as well, as well as medical work related to other diseases and ailments. We know the andeamer of Nir Rizaal had extensive medical knowledge and, at the least, comparable to what is accessible in the Valgaartiran. However, whether every andeamer had access to adequate healthcare is an ongoing debate in the archaeological record. A good portion of individuals died because of diseases which could be easily treated with the practices of the time while others were treated successfully and healed to return to their normal lives.

Adjacent professions to our field include the observers of the people who study ancient andeamer. The hierarchy hypothesis explains these extreme differences among our ancestors. The hierarchy applied to all andeamer is indicative of wealth and access to resources. Those at the top of society had access to more resources and quality of resources while those further down in the hierarchy received less resources and less quality. Another example we use is the states of dwellings and housing. There are huge discrepancies between locations that show this very divide. Those who occupied the top hierarchies of society had more disposable wealth and access to material and immaterial things not essential to their existence. This hierarchy appears to be a gradient instead of a rigid divide with variation across the population. Coinciding to this divide is the quality of life of the andeamer of the time.

As mentioned before, those who had access to more resources would have had better living standards. From the remains we have exhumed, we can determine what kind of life the individual lived. Isotope analysis and a general autopsy can be used to quantify and determine enthesopathies (occupational stress markers) as well as ailments common to specific classes of people. We observe those who were at the bottom of the societal hierarchy were more prone to insufficient nutrition and thus shorter stature, occupational markers indicative of manual labor, repetitive wear of the joints and higher rates of arthritic ailments, poor overall health, and earlier death. We have confirmed our ancestors did not live as long as we do now but averaged a lifespan of 300 years.

Various case studies and data suggests that those better off in their socioeconomic status lived longer while those poorer in the socioeconomic strata died earlier, typically before reaching 100 years of age. In congruence with this trend, andeamer matured at varying rates. We see signs of earlier maturation in the poorer populations as well as women reproducing younger than those in wealthier classes. The higher socioeconomic statuses have a gradual increase in maturation with mothers reproducing later in life and with less offspring.

Beyond the fossil record is our digital record. As stated, prior, some devices our ancestors possessed allowed them to capture the world around them in complete visual, audio, and color. We have photographic evidence of what these ancient people looked like alive. In comparison to the fossil record, it is no surprise they do not look completely like us. They possessed varying phenotypes and utilized various cosmetic alterations from tattoos to jewelry to modify their appearance. These alterations, including the clothes they wore, may have also been indicators of status and wealth. Those with more disposable income had easier access to these non-essential items and procedures, some of which altered their bone structure entirely, most notably the facial features.

 Extensive Garbage

As you may have noticed, much of our knowledge of ancient andeamer is extrapolated from the garbage they left behind. The materials used in nearly everything they manufactured was not biodegradable and things such as polymers and especially radioactive elements has since then re-entered the natural world since they first began using these materials. Due to the nature of these items, they are extremely well preserved. Everyday items such as cooking utensils, grooming tools, some clothing, all the way across the categories to food processing and construction materials remains obscenely prevalent throughout Zyendil Maar.

Unfortunately, items such as physical texts and papers do not fare so well, but there is some hope to solve the puzzle behind this missing media. We know the ancient andeamer must have had artificial copies residing within their numerous computers found throughout Zyendil Maar. Eventually, these technologies can be repaired or duplicated to assist with deciphering the language they spoke and from there, we will know significant and mundane information about their lives and culture.

 Ënokhan

Our language changed drastically after the fall of Nir Rizaal. Ënokhan at this time, likely had variants just like it does today, and it is from the surviving variants we believe modern Ënokhan originates. The survivor hypothesis has become the most likely explanation: Nir Rizaal was the epicenter of destruction which little to none survived, however those who lived further from Nir Rizaal, typically farmers, smaller communities and villages, and rural people had a better chance of surviving and thus passing on their dialect. This hypothesis relies on the surviving people to speak a dialect different from those who inhabited Nir Rizaal proper. This isn’t unlikely given the distribution of regional accents we see today. Through linguistic evolution, Ënokhan transitioned into a middle version and then modern version. Another method to solving this dilemma backtracks middle Ënokhan and its variants, albeit this is a difficult and unreliable process.

Through our few digital records which possess audio capture, we can hear what our ancestor sounded like. The phoneme inventory of Ënokhan remains similar with some variances not heard in Ënokhan today. Language may have been another indicator of societal hierarchy with those at the top of the hierarchy speaking differently than those beneath them in a variety of ways like orthology, accents, lexicon, and even topics of discussion with having more access to information and education. Some theorist suggest this correlation with status could be explained by isolation because those at the extreme ends of hierarchy did not interact with each other.

Given that the city was the epicenter of disaster, the leading proposed hypothesis of modern Ënokhan originates with the lower hierarchies that did not live in the city epicenter. These andeamer lived closer to modern coastlines far from Nir Rizaal and thus had a better chance of surviving. The andeamer of this lower status were more likely to be laborers on farms, sea-faring vessels, even recluses, and others typically shunned by the mainstream society.

Architecture and Infrastructure

The city of Nir Rizaal supported an estimated 35 to 50 billion people. Outside the city those numbers vary and may be comparable to what we have today if we use the Valgaartiran as an example. To support this huge population, Nir Rizaal had an infrastructure to match. We can find remnants through the ruins and extending towards satellite settlements as far as Den Svyärr and still partly intact below ground where it has not been disturbed by earthquakes or collapses. This includes water and waste pipelines, power conduits, subterranean transportation, foundations, and support mechanisms for large structures.

Architectural infrastructure of Nir Rizaal extends deep into their foundations to compensate for earthquakes. Nir Rizaal’s structures were enormous towers, much bigger than we see today even within the Valgaartiran. Very rarely are they completely intact and are more likely to have buckled and collapsed under their own weight over the centuries. Due to the nature of their buildings, we can safely assume construction was partly automated, especially on the production level. The kind of technology required to manufacture these structures has only been available to use in the past 500 years to the Valgaartiran and not as extensively as we see in Nir Rizaal. The functions of these buildings range from housing, to commercial, leisure, businesses, and manufacturing.

Water sanitation, extraction, and distribution appear to be on par with standards in the Valgaartiran. Water was accessible on demand via pipes and cleaned before distribution in large facilities with automation as well as manual production. Nir Rizaal likely extracted their water from a freshwater lake that used to lie to the northeast of the city and from subterranean water tables. Some treatment plants appear to have been equipped to recycle wastewater. Waste treatment such as sewage and garbage were treated separately. Sewage was sterilized through cycling tanks before it was either recycled to public or farms or released to the ocean via pipelines extending South into Den Svyärr. Garbage was extensively recycled via automation and anything that could not be reused was burned for fuel. In some strata, deeper than what we normally would dig to, an abundance of garbage is present. While anything organic has since decayed, artificial constructs such as discarded tech parts and polymers remain.

The energy supporting their infrastructure relied heavily on fossil fuel which we know by traces of specific carbon and other isotopes present through their settlements and indirectly indicative of depleted deposits expanding outward from the city epicenter and settlements in known deposit regions as well as oceanic extractors found off coastal areas. Other methods of energy supply were used such as nuclear fission, solar, and wind power. Numerous plants and reactors have been found through Zyendil Maar, some of which are still active and leaking radiation. Luckily, they are covered by several miles of sediment from various collapses over the centuries. These structures were designed to be self-sufficient and nearly indestructible, which is how they maintained themselves over the years. However, without andeamer to maintain certain functions they have become ecological disasters that only worsen the longer nothing is done to mitigate effects.

Machine automation allowed Nir Rizaal to distribute a stable power supply to their people. While there are dozens of reactors in the ruins alone, they are not accessible or are too dangerous to investigate further, like much of the city itself. Radiation poses the biggest threat to researchers. Two so far have been safely explored. A large plant was unearthed 12 miles west of Nir Rizaal archaeological site zero. It had lay dormant since before the civilization’s destruction, possibly due to computational issues as it has never been used. This site is under investigation to assist with mitigating effects of or outright shutting down hazardous locations scattered throughout Zyendil Maar.

Because of their means of energy synthesis, the andeamer of the era caused a great deal of pathological and environmental damage. We see this in the geological and fossil record. Nir Rizaal had endured several droughts lasting decades prior to its downfall. It is estimated to begin somewhere between 1,000 to 500 years or 200 to 300 years prior to year zero and rapidly declined from there. We observe more and more carbon poisoning the strata as archaeological sites expands. Environmental poisoning would have also caused global temperatures to rise which we can confirm is what caused sea levels to rise to where they are today as well as submerging potentially inhabited land. Supporting this, were maps found in area 12 of quadrant 42 (western coastal Zyendil Maar) which would later reveal a different coastline of Ënokhïa. Virtual maps retrieved on devices have also been used to further reconstruct the continent.

What Happened to Our Ancestors?

Remnants of this ancient world remain within our own. We know a great calamity destroyed Nir Rizaal. We know nuclear fire rained down across the province of Zyendil Maar and left it the barren wasteland it is today. What we do not know are the specifics of what caused such a horrific catastrophe. No scholar agrees it is just one fault of this civilization that caused its downfall, but compounding issues of environmental, social, and political issues that cause a violent disruption.

An increasing socioeconomic divide gives us evidence in the very bones of our ancestors. The extremely impoverished outnumbered the wealthy and from the very architecture and temporary barricades of the time, we can see certain populations were prevented from navigating to parts of the city where only the wealthier andeamer were allowed to live. Dwindling resources from environmental pollution would have put immense strain on the population of Nir Rizaal and no doubt cause panic that could later turn into violent action.

As mentioned above, the city was divided by temporary barriers—we know they were temporary because these barriers were made from debris and anything easily accessible and later reinforced with common building materials. On one side of this divide, were the wealthy, the highest of the socioeconomic hierarchy confined to their area within Nir Rizaal. One the other side of the barrier, we found a mixed population of remains; a gradient of statuses, but mostly those at the bottom of the hierarchy. On both sides, hordes of weapons and supplies. This happened before a nuclear reactor beneath the city was sabotaged. It is unclear what faction—and we do believe there was more than merely two points of view on issues contemporary to that time—sabotaged this reactor, but it began a chain reaction that would destroy two other reactors that would inevitably destroy Nir Rizaal.

During this era, the archaeological record shows an exodus of the city as well. Some of the population had already evacuated, possibly fearing this very scenario before it happened. These andeamer moved to less densely populated regions and settlements, some even started their own. The most successful groups lived closest to the coasts and farthest from Nir Rizaal. Inside of the epicenter of destruction, no andeamer would have survived, however we have found some structures—similar in purpose to the bunkers beneath the Valgaartiran—scattered about Nir Rizaal, mainly where political gatherings took place.

Adjacent to social and political divides was a volatile figure who led an extremist group. We know their leader as the Black Prophet and many of her followers were those of the lowest socioeconomic status and easily radicalized amidst the chaos of their time. For a brief time, it was thought the Black Prophet never existed and was merely a deity concocted to symbolize the destruction and turbulent times of this era. This figure continued to seep into later generations as a mysterious bogeyman and herald of the end-of-days. Artwork in the form of graffiti, carvings, and symbols references a woman specifically and consistently in appearance. Once translated, literature and digital archives may back up this hypothesis and connect to these visual depictions. The Black Prophet appears as a dark figure with golden horns and having grey skin.

Near the epicenter, we pushed further into a government complex that contained a secured room far below what was once its base floor. We found a collection of what could be considered blasphemous items of the time. Propaganda, art, more literature, and what is like physical copies of dossiers of a digital archive that have survived due to the dry and sealed nature of the room. The most curious item was a black box, locked of course, but also hidden in a safe. Once we finally pried it open a golden horn lay within. In all the art depicted of her, the Black Prophet had two golden horns, twisted and curved together to create a beautiful set. Only half was recovered, but this told us that the Black Prophet could very have well been a real person and compounded with art as well as actual photos recovered from this room, there is no doubt now.

Yet, she remains mysterious. These photos of her have made many in the academic community and the public extremely uncomfortable. Once seen, you would see why. In images she does not appear to be andeamer and naturally this caused quite a stir, however these images could be edited or entirely misleading. There is much controversy surrounding the contents of what was recovered in that room and ultimately, created an enormous gap in the history of our species and our own knowledge. She could very well be andeamer, just perhaps disfigured and later altered by surgical means. The photos are noticeably corrupted and varying in quality, only show her face as she appears to be covered in black from head to toe. It is clear she does not have her natal horns so many in my field lean to her belonging to a lower social stratum, possibly shïathyerihn. This would make sense given the movement she spurred and her contribution to destabilizing the comfort of those above her. The Black Prophet is supposedly responsible for a sizeable amount of chaos in the sociopolitical spheres. Her following targeted those at the top of the social hierarchy, reasons are yet to be fully determined, so we can only guess her and her people’s motivations. Simple revenge, chaos, upheaval, making their oppressors as uncomfortable and hurt as the oppressed were…

Another hypothesis asserts she is a creature from the Void and merely sought to destroy. We have a long history with the Void and things that inhabit it. They have caused a lot of chaos and suffering for all our existence, so it is a natural and valid assumption. There were many players on the board during this era and we have many gaps to fill in the timeline, so we try not to exclude any explanations. Or, she is someone else entirely and not the Black Prophet, but because of similarities of folklore surrounding the Black Prophet, she has been assigned that name by modern peoples lacking context.

It may be some time before we truly know what happened thousands of years ago in the ancient ruins of Nir Rizaal. As our own techniques progress, we will be more successful with unraveling our ancestors’ technology and learning the secrets locked away in these daily relics. Until then, we have indirect evidence of what happened in Nir Rizaal, but we are still left more questions than answers.