World Timeline - the date of Conan's lifetime?

[demongg]

I was starting to put together a timeline for my game (for my reference since I do lots of non-linear storytelling), I'm wondering has it ever been estimated the exact times of Conan's life?

Even down to a century would be helpful. The best I can determine is a 500 year gaps of time... Somewhere inbetween 10,000 BC and 9,500 BC.

Is that right?

I was interersted in knowing "what else" would be happening in the world around this time... at first glance one big neat thing is the Temples at Giza happened somewhere around this time...

anyone?
thanks
-kev-

 

[Bregales]

I'm sorry I'm trying to remember while I'm at work (stopped working for the moment of course).

I can't remember for certain. It's a little longer back in time than 10,000 B.C. Part I of the Hyborian Age essay talks about the early forming of the nations of the Hyborian World up to Conan's point in the game (see the Hyborian Age thread, which includes a link to an electronic version of Part I): http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7526).

Part 2 covers the end of the age as picts and hyrkanians overwhelm the hyborian nations and barbarism wades in, eventually to be replaced by early egyptian and sumerian civilizations. Unfortunately, I don't know of any links to part 2, but the written forms are in a couple of Howard books that I know of. Unfortunately, my copies are at home. If no one else suggests books, I'll look them up when I get home and try to give a better idea of the timeline Howard writes of. Conversely, I like what he'd offered some times, that this age could be a pre-dawn age of earth, or of some other planet far away, or a future age as of yet unrealized on our own earth. Hope this is of some help. :?

 

[VincentDarlage]

This timeline places Kull's era at 100,000 BC.
http://www.necfiles.org/timeline.htm

This one places Kull's era at 20,000 BC and Conan's at 10,000 BC.
http://www.dracandros.com/Jebgarg/Nidoking/cthuchrono.htm



Another timeline can be found on this board (although it mixes in other stuff, such as Tolkien and Gemmel into it for some reason)

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3615&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Most timelines presume the Hyborian Age ended around 10,000 BC because of L. Sprague de Camp. However, The Hyborian Heresies, by Dale Rippke, argues that the Reign of King Conan was in 32,500 BC. This is my personal favourite placing. His arguments seem quite sound and is the position I support.

I highly recommend Rippke's book. Here is the link to buy it: http://my.lulu.com/content/51571

 

[Bregales]

Hey thanks very much for the links. I also like treatment of The Hyborian Heresies, by Dale Rippke. I'll still try to look up the part 2 I had mentioned, but Vincent's reply probably answers.

 

[demongg]

Somewhere inbetween 10,000 BC and 9,500 BC.

So okay...
All those sources seem to place Conan's reign between
18,000 BC and 10,000 BC
With the Hyborian Age ending around 9,500 BC.

Unless anyone can pinpoint anything further I'll just choose a year in there and use that to be as close possible.

Again - the reason I wanna do this is mostly to pinpoint a date that I can thenmove around from non-linear stories and sorta know where we're at in Conan's life too...
That and seeing what cool real stuff is happening in the world.

any thoughts?
-kev-

 

[Bregales]

So okay...
All those sources seem to place Conan's reign between
18,000 BC and 10,000 BC
With the Hyborian Age ending around 9,500 BC.

Unless anyone can pinpoint anything further I'll just choose a year in there and use that to be as close possible.

Again - the reason I wanna do this is mostly to pinpoint a date that I can thenmove around from non-linear stories and sorta know where we're at in Conan's life too...
That and seeing what cool real stuff is happening in the world.

any thoughts?
-kev-

Well Vincent suggested further back, and if I can find any dates in The Hyborian Age, Part 2 I'll follow up. As for story suggestions, Dale Rippke (referenced above) came up with a timeline for the Howard stories. [NOTE: runs counter to the L.Sprague de Camp outlines from the Ace/Lancer books]. Check out The Dark Storm Conan Chronology: A Post-Modern look at Conan’s life according to the writings of Robert E. Howard

 

[VincentDarlage]

Unless anyone can pinpoint anything further I'll just choose a year in there and use that to be as close possible.

Again, I would suggest following Dale Rippke's timeline (32,500 BC), and his timeline for Conan's stories. His research is amazing. There are so many reasons why the 10,000 BC dating should NOT be used.

 

[demongg]

Unless anyone can pinpoint anything further I'll just choose a year in there and use that to be as close possible.

Again, I would suggest following Dale Rippke's timeline (32,500 BC), and his timeline for Conan's stories. His research is amazing. There are so many reasons why the 10,000 BC dating should NOT be used.

The big reason not to use this is - I don't have it. I haven't seen it.
There's no resource online for it...... (that I know of)

EVERYthing else I've found researching it says 10k BC.

What are the reasons for not using that time period?


I'm okay with changing to that - I just want to know why?
-kev-

 

[Fearguis]

Not having read it, I would assume that his reasoning is that we already know about cultures and history that existed prior to 10,000 B.C. To effectively put a time on Conan's era, you would need to take a period of pre-history where the fiction can fit.

 

[Bregales]

Somewhere inbetween 10,000 BC and 9,500 BC.

So okay...
All those sources seem to place Conan's reign between
18,000 BC and 10,000 BC
With the Hyborian Age ending around 9,500 BC.

Unless anyone can pinpoint anything further I'll just choose a year in there and use that to be as close possible.

Again - the reason I wanna do this is mostly to pinpoint a date that I can thenmove around from non-linear stories and sorta know where we're at in Conan's life too...
That and seeing what cool real stuff is happening in the world.

any thoughts?
-kev-

Hi. Unfortunately it's a hard week to get to books and look things up. Anyways, I found The Hyborian Age in it's entirety in The Conan Chronicles - Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle.Gollancz.UK.ISBN: 1 85798 996 1. The essay is the first 24 pages of the s/c book, which I'd recommend for the whole essay and all of the Howard shorts dealing with Conan. It's part 8 of a "Fantasy Masterworks" series, as is the next book, Volume 2:The Hour of the Dragon (which begins with "Red Nails" and has several stories, the last of which is the novel in the title).

The Hyborian Age appears at the beginning as a 24 page essay, and at it's conclusion gives migrations of peoples (Aesir, Cimmerian who conquored the ruling Picts who'd overthrown the Hyborian nations), and of the evolutions of the Shemite and surviving Hyrkanians. They all evolve eventually into the peoples of Europe and Asia. Now, since the essay covers such evolutions as the breaking up of the Hyborian continent and migrations of peoples who become Aryan (evolving into Indian and then some migrate into Europe), Sumerian, Egyptian (which archaeologists can now date with new findings on the tomb of the Scorpion King to about 12,000 B.C.), etc.

The Essay makes no yearly references, rather it describes the migrations, mixing of bloods and emergences of new cultures out of the old. It's changes of geography and of kingdoms and peoples encompass ages, along the lines of writings like Tolkien. So though no definitive data is entered, we can deduce that Howard knew a fair share about archaeology and sociology (he took classes at a college before stopping to dig full into writing). Anyway, that's the best I can do as I'm running out of steam, but accept the recommendations and links posted in this thread and put it around 32,000 years B.C. And if you get a hold of the full essay, you'll get a better sense of the vast span of time emerging into the ancient cultures we know of, and decide I'm sure it would have to be MUCH further back in history, if pre-history earth is really what you want to do.. 8)

 

[Mythos]

The big reason not to use this is - I don't have it. I haven't seen it.
There's no resource online for it...... (that I know of)

EVERYthing else I've found researching it says 10k BC.

What are the reasons for not using that time period?


I'm okay with changing to that - I just want to know why?
-kev-

Well, nowhere is there any material written by Howard that has the Hyborian Age happening 10,000 years ago.
Most of the people who are doing research into this area, Rusty Burke in particular, belive that the 10K time frame was invented by de Camp. It does not appear anywhere before he started doing the editing for the Lancer editions of the stories.

 

[demongg]

Well, nowhere is there any material written by Howard that has the Hyborian Age happening 10,000 years ago.
Most of the people who are doing research into this area, Rusty Burke in particular, belive that the 10K time frame was invented by de Camp. It does not appear anywhere before he started doing the editing for the Lancer editions of the stories.

okay...
that helps.

I'm more than willing to go with the concensus of this forum because I've found everyone's arguments pro/con much more insightful than me trying to dig around and find articles on this myself.
Kinda the why not use the massive resource with these forums than spin my wheels looking for things I won't find.

So the concensus I'm hearing is 32,000 BC for the reign of King Conan.

any other thoughts?
-kev-

 

[Fearguis]

This is something that I've been studying for the last few months just in my spare time. I've been looking through a book I bought listing a wide variety of archeological finds, placed in a timeline fashion. I also read the Epic of Gilgamesh, which also gives sort of a peek into the ancient man's mentality.

I wasn't really doing it for the sake of Conan. But I think it's a fascinating subject, as VERY little is known about his supposed time period. I find it unfortunate that we have no records of the time, as I can only assume that there was language and writing, and some form of civilization, even if it was just a bunch of hunter/gatherers. But really, for all we know, the Conan mythos could very well be true. It actually makes a lot of sense, minus the magic part...