1
From The Universal Encyclopedia (ed. M’ Eslier)
ERU is the name given by its inhabitants to the second planet in the solar system; also to the planet’s single continent, a rich and ecologically varied landmass which dominates the upper hemisphere. The remainder of the planet (with the exception of some small and uninhabited islands in the lower quadrants) is covered with ocean. It is thought that the first lifeforms arose in the sea before learning to survive on the shores of Eru itself. After millions of years of evolution our ancestors began to proliferate in the lush central regions, and around 6000 years ago the first cities began to appear beside the Kesh river. From those early beginnings, we can draw a straight line to the culminating triumphs of our own time. History is the record of that ascent, although a parallel story is found in our scriptures: how the One God made the waters recede; how He taught the fish to breathe the air, and the animals to walk upright; how He gave us dominion over the beasts; how He revealed to us fire and metal and agriculture; and how He raised the first church. Our faith itself is perhaps the most glorious product of our evolution, and the most splendid ornament of our civilisation.
To the best of our knowledge, such a thing has never happened anywhere else in the universe.
2
A lecture by Professor M’ Eslier of Central University: transcript in Proceedings of the Eru Historical Society
Good morning. Some months ago, in a desolate spot deep in the heart of the desert regions, a team of surveyors employed by the Transcontinental Rail Company found themselves at the periphery of a brief seismic event. The men were fortunately unhurt, and on returning to the location they discovered evidence of a mudbrick structure unearthed by the tremors. They contacted the University, and we sent a team of historians to investigate the findings.
It has long been suspected that these deserts were once inhabitable, and that the river Kesh – or a major tributary of that river – had irrigated the region, its course having been diverted several millennia ago. In which case we might expect to find some early settlement or evidence of nomadic activity beneath the dunes. However, all such sites discovered so far have been located more centrally. Until now, that is.
The initial findings from the desert excavation are certainly evocative. The mudbrick structure revealed by the earthquake appears to have been a religious building, a primitive shrine. This small square chamber with a single doorway contains a central podium – we are tempted to say, an altar – facing the entrance, and behind it a rough niche recessed in the wall, no doubt intended for a statue or totemic object. The room is too small for a congregation, but it is easy to imagine in the flickering, firelit chamber a solitary priest or penitent making their humble offering in the hope of salvation. Piled in one corner of the shrine were a number of small round clay discs, baked hard by the sun or perhaps a destructive fire. These discs contain various markings that have yet to be deciphered – not writing, of course (the age of the site makes that impossible) but probably some sort of crude tally system.
Initial stratigraphic analysis suggests that this shrine, although excavated first, in fact belongs to an older layer; and subsequent structures, apparently built over the mudbrick foundations we uncovered, have fallen away or were perhaps plundered at a later time. A short distance shoreward of the primary site we found a stone foundation and walls, and beneath these foundations traces of other, earlier structures. It is not yet possible to fully untangle the several layers, but the mudbrick buildings are substantially earlier than the surrounding stonework, suggesting a long and probably continuous period of occupation.
The drama of finding an ancient temple, or a lost city, is what will occupy the headlines, no doubt. But we historians are often taken by less flamboyant details. So it is in this case. The most intriguing find is a modest fragment of pottery. This sherd, found among the baked clay discs, is of high quality and bears a design that we have not seen before. Key stages of Eru’s earliest history have always been identified through the consistent development of ceramic styles, and we have amassed a generous collection of examples from all stages of early urban development. This solitary potsherd, however, with its unfamiliar design, raises questions that we are not yet able to answer.
Unfortunately, the site remains unstable and the threat of further seismic activity has halted our investigations. We are hopeful of returning for more extensive excavations soon. There is no doubt that this is a discovery of the highest importance and may entail significant changes in our understanding of the first cities of Eru.
(Applause)
3
From the personal journal of Professor M’ Eslier
... shocked by the news today from the University. Independent tests have corroborated the dates given for the mudbrick and stonework layers of the desert site. It is difficult to credit. Thrilling, too – I am excited by the find. But there is something else. The implications of this are far greater than we can grasp at this point – than I can grasp. The stone levels are at least 10,000 years old; and the mudbrick levels are around two millennia older. This city (we have officially started calling it a city now the extent of the settlement has come to light) was lost to the desert several thousand years before our first cities were built – what we have, until now, considered our first cities. How can such a civilisation disappear and be forgotten? The absence of written records is one thing, but folk-history and oral tradition would have ensured that some traces remain. One of my colleagues has suggested that the inscriptions on the clay discs are in fact a lost language – as if a civilisation with its own language, and by extension its own history, could be so completely forgotten! I fear we have made a terrible miscalculation somewhere.
... the full dimensions of the temple complex are now apparent. Worship was at the heart of the city, and remained there from the earliest brick shrine to whatever grand edifice capped this holy place at the end. My thoughts keep returning to the simple chamber with its solitary statuette. The ancient mind would have identified the representation with the Deity: for as long as the statue stood in its niche, God was present in His home. I try to imagine the experience, the living presence of God Himself, but I cannot. It is too far from the transcendental intricacies of our own beliefs, too innocent perhaps. But there is surely something primitive about all faith, even our own. We have denied it, tried to conceal it under theological sophistication. And then to see it at such a distance, from 12,000 years away, to see with the shock of the objective such superstition – for that is what it seems. From this far away it looks like simple superstition...
... another tremor at the site, and the dislodging of a foundation wall revealed a sealed burial chamber beneath. We have found our first skeletal remains, albeit only a partial specimen. A middle-aged male, it appears, with a strong set of teeth. There were few grave objects in the chamber, only some clay discs and a single bowl of the same pottery style discovered in the shrine. A modest burial, then, and an ordinary man entombed alone. If only he could speak, what a story he might have to tell.
... am attempting to reconstruct the theology. We have not yet uncovered any representations of the Deity, unless the scratchings on the clay discs are a form of pictography, but that seems unlikely. There is still a question, therefore, about the relationship between the ancient religion and modern beliefs. My colleagues are divided on this issue. A few have assumed that there are connections between the old faith and our own, and consider it a first fumbling attempt at the truth. Most insist that the theology of the ancients has nothing in common with ours, that their faith was a foolish idolatry, ignorance clutching at ghosts. Further discoveries will no doubt settle the dispute. But either outcome makes me uneasy. What if their religion is independent of ours – if it arose, evolved and became extinct with no echo left in our own holy books? Until now we have understood that there is one faith: we have no precedent for dealing with a second, let alone one that flourished and then died out. Did those ancient people also consider that there was one true faith? How is their certainty any different from our own? To the best of our knowledge Eru is the only inhabited planet in the universe – and what if we were to discover another planet, another race with science and religion and civilisation? Would not such a discovery turn us on our heads? Would it not change everything? On the other hand, if this ancient faith is a precursor to our own, then how can worship of the One God be forgotten? How could He have abandoned His shrines and churches? Did He destroy the ancient city for some terrible sin, allow His subjects to die without issue? The ancient people no doubt thought their faith, as do we, a bulwark against trouble and destruction. And yet how wrong they were!
... I confess to a certain selfish anxiety. This is important work – all that I have done has been important, shaping and giving substance to the historical consciousness of my people. I hope it is not out of place for me to consider The Universal History one of the crowning achievements of our age. But when I think of those ancient citizens building their temples and basking in the glory of their cultural achievement, only to be covered by the desert and forgotten – it is heartbreaking, in a way, and humbling. I wonder about my name and my standing now and in the future, all that I am and have done. Could it be for nothing? And strangely I am afraid for my wife and family – not a fear of any immediate harm, but of the oblivion that waits for us under the earth or the sands of the desert.
... hard to keep pace with the new discoveries. This palatial structure raises a host of new questions and will keep us all busy for many years to come. I welcome the demands of the excavation: I find some peace in the slow methodical scrutiny and the careful cataloguing of our finds. Because when I stop to consider what we have brought to light, what we have unearthed...
4
Transcript in Proceedings of the Eru Historical Society
(Professor M’ Eslier is invited to speak)
Good afternoon. This third phase of the excavations has focused upon an area at some distance from the initial site. Our attention was first drawn by what appeared to be a section of stone wall from a later period of the city’s development. A preliminary sounding indicated at least two older layers, all built of stone and dating at the earliest to a millennium after the mudbrick shrine discovered in the first phase. Given what we have learned about the city during earlier excavations, we are now calling this monumental stone structure a palace – although the precise nature of government remains unclear and most likely varied over the centuries. Just as the temple complex appears to have provided an early focus for the city, both geographically and socially, we believe that the palace provided a later, secular centre for government and was emblematic of a hierarchy that had slowly emerged in the city. As we might have expected, the palace contained many remarkable objects.
In addition to a great number of baked clay discs, and some larger alabaster panels with similar markings, the most interesting finds include a number of bowls and jugs showing particularly fine workmanship. We are increasingly able to use these pots and sherds for accurate stratigraphic dating, and the palace ceramics almost certainly date from the final years of the city’s existence. One small room contained modest items of jewellery, found loose but perhaps kept originally in a wooden box. These include an ivory comb, a number of bronze pins (for hair or clothing) and an elegant silver dish, no doubt used to hold some cosmetic substance. Naturally, we have assumed that this room belonged to the king’s wife or daughter. The long central hall of the palace is dominated at one end by a raised stone platform with several large steps on all four sides. Atop the platform was the base of a crudely carved stone chair or throne. The throne itself must already have been of great antiquity by the time of the latest palace structure, and no doubt embodied the historical claims that would have legitimised the monarch’s rule – as in any hereditary system. These discoveries are, of course, enormously exciting and have revealed much about our ancient forebears. But nothing on this list compares to what we were about to discover in one shadowy corner of the great throne room.
Lying face down on the earthen floor was a stone panel approximately six feet square. It was cracked across the lower third, but otherwise intact. When we turned it over we were faced with the finest example of relief sculpture we have yet discovered. The panel depicts three figures surrounding a square building that is recognisable as a shrine, similar to the chamber found in the initial phase of the excavation. Two of the figures are to the left of the shrine, a man and a woman, the former kneeling and the latter with arms raised to the sky. On the right hand side, a larger male figure appears to be pulling, or perhaps conjuring, the shrine from the ground. Background vegetation and buildings are finely sketched in the shallowest relief, and the foreground figures display harmonious proportions and exquisite detail of clothing and other adornments. It is indeed a fitting decoration for a royal hall.
The question naturally arises: is this a representation of our own scriptural story of the One God raising the first church? And if so, what does this extraordinary find tell us about the history and nature of our faith? Most of my colleagues at the University deny that the carving corresponds to our scriptural account, and see the visual echo as mere coincidence. They do this because our established tradition tells us that the One God raised the first church around 4000 years ago, and yet this carving was made around 10,000 years ago – and may well be presenting a story already familiar for another millennium or two. Errors in timing are admittedly common in our field, but rarely of this magnitude – and not in a matter of such importance. The carving cannot therefore be what it appears: the anachronism would be insupportable.
Excuse me. (Speaker consults his notes)
This is not my own belief. My opinion, my considered opinion is that the relief carving does indeed refer to the raising of the first church, or I should say a first church, and that this mythology is common to both the ancient city-dwellers and ourselves. I use the term mythology deliberately, as I believe that these recent discoveries demand an honest reappraisal of the historical situation of our scriptures.
(Unrest)
Please. Please. I do not mean to belittle the value of our traditions and our shaping narratives. Quite the opposite. The foundation myth of our own culture (cries of ‘shame’) appears to be an archetype that has served others before us, and has thus proven its value more than once. That value, however, is not to be judged by the same criteria as historical claims. There is rather a functional significance to such a narrative which will require a different set of tools to interpret and develop it.
(Unrest, and several members leave)
Please. Very well, I will conclude. We have always trusted that what comes next will be better than what is past, that our own time is pregnant with an even more glorious future. I wonder if these ancient citizens held the same view, saw their city grow from a modest sanctuary to a rich and flourishing monarchy, buttressing their faith in themselves with stories of God blessing them on their path. And I wonder also how they felt when the end came. We do not yet know the cause of that sudden catastrophe – perhaps internal strife, or a sudden change in Eru’s climate, or even a plague beyond their no doubt rudimentary medicine – but we know that a burgeoning civilisation was lost and forgotten for ten millennia. That knowledge must be accommodated. As the scripture says, there is an end to all things.
Thank you.
(Members leave without comment or applause)
5
Copy of a letter from Professor M’ Eslier to the University Chancellor
It pains me greatly to write this letter but I suspect, given the recent outcry and the hostile attitude displayed in certain quarters, that you will be relieved to accept my immediate resignation from the University and all its boards and associated offices.
It was not my intention to cause offence to any party and I am sorry that I did so. Perhaps I was too hasty in my assumptions, too speculative in my conclusions. Given the scarce and fragmentary nature of the historical finds, I recognise that any claims I made were at best interpretations and not authoritative. Inevitably, perhaps, it was assumed that I was speaking on behalf of the University and its Historical Society. I hope that my resignation from both institutions will clarify that these opinions were my own, and were not representative of the Academy.
I give full permission for the comments above to be made public at the University’s discretion.
On a more personal note, and not for publication, I maintain that these discoveries – more, indeed, every day – all point to a fundamental error in our current way of thinking. For this reason, I will continue to reflect on the findings and attempt to realise their wider significance. I will record my thoughts in the hope that they may be of interest, and perhaps value, to some future scholar who will have come to terms with the great shift of our time. But be assured that I will no longer publish them, lest they be falsely attributed to any institution.
Yours etc.
6
From the personal journal of M’ Eslier
... site continues to unsettle its excavators. My wife pleads with me not to consult the daily reports, and with good reason. Every new discovery seems to undermine the stories we were told, the stories we tell our children. Eru has a turbulent, forgotten history. Perhaps my fate is to be its turbulent, forgotten historian.
... in the year following my departure from the University. But this is, without a doubt, the greatest breakthrough since we started excavating. And we owe it to a young student who was arrogant enough to believe all of the experts wrong, and talented enough to be right himself. That it is in fact a language, is surprising; that it is our language, encoded in different signs, is almost beyond belief. Thousands of clay discs and tablets have been discovered, and now they can be deciphered. The signs are apparently syllabic, and the vocabulary itself highly archaic, but there is no doubt that these people spoke our words. And some speakers must have survived the catastrophic events that ended their civilisation to keep their language and stories alive as their homes were slowly suffocated by the desert. And then, around six thousand years ago, a new civilisation was born from an old faith and a stubborn, persistent tongue. It is a remarkable discovery. But it does not bring these ancient people closer to us – rather, their intelligence and the range of their achievement only makes them seem more strange. A belief in progress requires that our ancestors were far behind us; in their technology, their values, their complexity. But writing is a complex artefact, an invention crucial to social organisation – as, perhaps, is religion. I am no longer sure of much. But it has become clear that these ancient people were more advanced than we thought possible.
... the written texts are largely administrative, which is to be expected. I wonder, if our own civilisation were to be rediscovered by historians in thousands of years, what would our writings say about us? There would be more receipts and contracts than poetry, more about trade than learning or love, I suspect. We cannot draw significant conclusions from this. But there is one tablet that is of much wider interest. It is probably part of a larger poem telling of the creation and the beginning of life on Eru. The text mentions several natural powers by name, unfamiliar to us now but probably the precursors of our own angels and devils, and they are called to the service of the One God as He intends to create a home for mankind on Eru. The poem tells of how, at His command, the waters of the upper hemisphere parted to reveal an island paradise beneath. And there the narrative breaks off. But the parting of the waters clearly resembles our own scriptural account. The similarities are uncanny and serve to corroborate my claim that our faith is aetiology, not history. Our ancient cousins knew the value of an origin myth. But my ideas are still untimely: for the faithful, it seems, this shared trope seems only to prove their beliefs. Even the University is publishing this find as the glorious vindication of our traditions. As if it is the truth that endures. No, it is the expedient that lasts: our faith remains because it serves a purpose, not because its claims are true. The opposite, in fact. The truth is like a virus: dangerous to possess, fatal even. Will they come to see this, in time? Will those future historians, thousands of years from now, see this moment as the pivot on which everything turned?
... ten or twelve millennia, perhaps more. I can hardly imagine so vast a period of time. More than twice the previous measure of our history. The scale has altered my perspective. Everything now appears smaller. Every event or achievement, the span of a person’s life, all seem microscopic on such a huge timeline. Contemplation of this great distance stirs a dread I cannot shake off. I cannot unsee the past.
... my old colleagues have done a good job recording and analysing the finds, and in particular identifying the different levels and the periods to which they correspond. We have an increasingly clear understanding of how the city grew from its foundation, and of some of the concerns that would have driven that growth. It is a most fascinating topic. We can also piece together the development of their faith – even speculate as to its origins and early forms. The deciphered tablets and several carvings suggest a progression from nature-worship and early forms of superstition, through the development of divination and an interest in astrology, to a more deliberately rational theology and an almost scientific account of natural phenomena. By the end, their faith appears to have been quite sophisticated. This evolution is mirrored in the actual buildings, from that numinous first mudbrick shrine through successive enlargements to the grand structures lately uncovered on the shoreward side of the site. And knowing the history of that faith distances us from it: we may understand the passion and conviction of their prayers, but the religion itself has become a mere object of study, a construct of historical processes. As the philosopher said, Nothing mysterious has a history. It surprises me that the University is comfortable publishing this material. Are they blind to the implications?
... dark days and restless nights as these thoughts grind away like a millstone in my heart. There are times I feel liberated, exhilarated even – as a sinner must feel when he has finally made his confession. But then other anxieties crowd in on me. I feel smaller, of less worth than before. Sometimes the work that I am doing, clarifying these ideas for posterity, seems of great significance; and then in an instant I see it as negligible, a mere flash in the vastness of millennia. And yet I feel closer to the truth than I have ever been. I understand now that the object of my faith was not merely the One God, or the tenets of our theology: I had faith in myself, my work, my culture, the grandeur of our achievements and the promise of our future. But what was it for those ancient citizens to trust in their future? No, I should not dwell on possible futures: that is why I became a historian, to feel the solid ground of the past beneath my feet. But this earthquake has thrown even the past into confusion.
... has left me. I acknowledge that I have not been giving her the attention she deserves, that this project has taken over my days and my nights. But, she says, that is not why she has moved out. She remarks on my loss of faith which troubles her, and a creeping anxiety which has darkened our marriage. She tells me I am too sad. I have lost my footing. How will I carry on without her?
7
It was approximately 90 years ago that we first discovered evidence of the culture that has come to be known as High Eru. Since then we have learnt a considerable amount about the institutions and values of that time. An intriguing picture has emerged. They were a people obsessed by their own distant past, and what it meant for their civilisation; a people as much hampered by existential doubt as empowered by progressive optimism. Their faith in science and technology took them far – to the brink of spaceflight, it seems – when suddenly, for reasons unknown to us, their civilisation collapsed. No doubt one cause of this was the climatic change which slowly reduced the upper hemisphere to an uninhabitable desert. Over the following millennia, as our own culture developed in the island groups of the lower hemisphere, the memories and echoes of the High Eru culture disappeared. Today’s scholars disagree over the precise extent of our culture’s debt to these distant ancestors, but even the most generous estimate accords them only a minor role in our heritage.
We have recently learnt to decipher the High Eru language, and the voices that emerge from the ancient texts sound to our ears at once strange and familiar. One voice in particular has come to represent the intelligence and curiosity of the early scientific period (High Eru IVa). Around 8300 years ago the High Eru culture was advancing industrially, but was still a century away from digital and nano-technology. The recent formulation of basic evolutionary theory was beginning to unsettle the most sensitive minds of the time – and one of these, a teacher and historian known as M’ Eslier, left us an archive of his writing and correspondence. We have presented here selections from that archive.
A recurrent concern in these ancient texts is religion. M’ Eslier was preoccupied with the notion of dogma as fact, as if the claims of his faith must stand or fall on their truthfulness. This is perhaps unsurprising in an academic historian, but it will strike the contemporary reader as strange. M’ Eslier’s world, confined as it was to a single landmass, contained only one faith. Our own culture developed on separate, often isolated islands, and has therefore produced the wide range of religious practices that we recognise today. After our early wars of religion, we quickly came to understand that these various theologies were local expressions of tradition and history. Different conditions have led to different faiths – but any faith that works is legitimate. In such matters, fact and truth are of little concern to any but the few militant dogmatists that have lately troubled the lowermost islands. As we prepare to embark on an era of spaceflight, we might also reflect (as M’ Eslier did) on the possibility of alien species with alien faiths. To evaluate an alien faith in the light of truth or history would clearly be wrong-headed. For M’ Eslier, however, coming to think of his own beliefs in a similar light was evidently a difficult and disruptive experience.
The survival and discovery of these texts is not simply a happy accident. M’ Eslier’s investigations into his ancient past (the cultures we now refer to as Archaic Eru I and II) led him to contemplate the extinction of his own civilisation at some time in the future. This attitude later became formalised as ‘catastrophism’, a theory now discredited by modern scholars – although it served M’ Eslier well. From the correspondence it appears that in his own time catastrophism was considered unorthodox, heretical even. He therefore took steps to ensure that something of himself would survive. The texts translated above were sealed in a lead-lined stone container which lasted remarkably well in the dry heat of the desert. Several documents and books were mostly intact. Sadly, we do not know what became of M’ Eslier himself: the final journal entry translated above, apparently concerning the dissolution of his marriage, is the latest information we have.
The texts have been arranged chronologically as best we understand, and lacunae have been indicated with ellipses. We have included at the start a passage from The Universal Encyclopedia, parts of which were recently discovered. It is translated here for the first time as a fitting prologue. M’ Eslier’s legacy would
[ Here the manuscript breaks off ]
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