Early Writings
The earliest documents found on Meron, the Anwall Parchments, are in an archaic form of the Qaqian writing style, used by the Etanans and poorly adapted to the Meron language. It is evident that Meron script was invented as a result of exposure to the idea of transcribing one’s history on parchment, stone, or wood; it is equally obvious that the Meron deliberately did not base their alphabet off Etanan styles (Meroned is written right to left like Arabic, while Aywen is written in columns). This suggests that the Meron and the Etanans were, even then, uneasy with one another.
The idea of a chronology system first appeared in these writings, dated in the Qaqian style. Somewhat arbitrarily, the dates given on these documents are counted as the beginning of Meron chronology, now labeled Dadurab Mar (this system invented in the midst of Dakeba Mar).
The Lost Age
Dadurab Mar (commonly abbreviated RM) is the period of relative anarchy between the date found on the Anwall Parchments (the originals of which are lost) and the coalescence of the six tribal kingdoms 1442 years later. It is thus named not because of any particular strife or difficulty that occurred during the period, but simply because so little is known about it.
Historians tend to divide the area into three separate periods, of indeterminate but roughly equal lengths. This is because, while the era is notable for the lack of information with regard to it, there were definite advances that occurred at certain points, which caused enormous cultural and political change.
First Era: Early Agriculture (circa 1-400 RM)
The information on the first era of Meron history is the most sketchy, largely because so few people know how to read and write and so few documents have survived. Archaeology is a field that has been conceived only in the last decade or so, and is occupied by only half a dozen university men who are regarded as oddities. Thus, there is little chance of excavating sites to see what life might have been like for these early Meron people.
Settled agriculture existed even then, but the technology level was incredibly low. Records suggest that primitive plows were pulled by horses, used to ease the backbreaking labor otherwise required to plant even the most modest plots of land. However, the majority of labor was done by hand and people lived in thatched houses, often in clusters of four or five. There was little militant activity, in large part because few had anything worth taking. However, there were those who attempted to steal others’ land for their own purposes, and as a result people tended to live in small groups as insurance against being caught unawares by raiders.
Trade was possible, but made logistically complicated by the difficulty of travel between disparate regions. Those who had horses used them for hard labor, not transport. However, by the year 400, there were extensive trade networks between the northern and southern areas of the island.
There was also continued, but curtailed, contact between Meron and its southern neighbor, Etana, which was still a colony of Qaqia. While the Etanan colonists had canoe-like ships with which they traversed the channel between the two islands, it appears that the Meron made no attempt to venture beyond their own shores (although around the year 200 appears the first mention of the use of river barges for trade, a practice that is still hugely popular in modern Meron).
Second Era: Seafarers (circa 400-990 RM)
The Meron disinterest in the salty barrier that surrounded them came to an abrupt halt at the end of the fourth century RM. This was the moment of first contact between the Korbeth and the Meron.
The Korbeth crossed the ocean from what was then the kingdom of Shafleyen (which occupied most of what is now Ñist) around 300 RM. They were fishermen, and they, unlike the people of the Qajendu and Aeone regions, had ships with sails. This enabled them to cross far greater distances with a relatively small crew than the eastern people, who relied solely on manpower to move their ships across the water. Shafleyen (which collapsed only a few hundred years after the Korbeth migration) was a fishing culture, relying heavily on ships.
Korba, rocky as it was, had little to offer in terms of farmland but was perfect for the Shafleyen people and their needs. It soon became a permanent colony and the Korbeth people adopted their own governmental system. Initially they concerned themselves mostly with northward exploration. They were aware of Meron as a landmass, but most of the people there lived in the southern and central areas of the island, where the richest farmland was.
The first contact between these seafaring peoples and the settled Meron occurred sometime around the year 400 RM and signifies a break in the expectations and traditions of society. The white sails of the Korbeth ships were new and exciting to the Meron, who had all the resources necessary to build their own ships but not the skills required. A free-for-all cultural exchange began between the two societies, neither of which had any interest in the other’s land but both of which were interested in trade and commerce between the two lands.
Meron was still divided into hundreds of small areas with their own interests and needs. The northernmost people were the first to make contact with the Korbeth and it is suspected that people from both cultures made the decision to settle on the rocky northern coastline. This explains the Meron-Korbeth hybrid language that is still spoken today in those regions. The majority of northerners are fishermen and trade between northern Meron and Korba is still extensive.
Korba gave Meron sail power; Meron reciprocated with a writing system. The Korbeth initially adopted the Meron alphabet wholesale, but eventually made small adjustments to accommodate their own language. The frenzy of linguistic exchange is also evident in the similarities between words in Korbeth and in Meroned, each borrowing from the other.
Roughly concomitant with the northern seafaring development was the southern acquisition of wheeled technology. It had existed on the periphery before, but two southern villages built a straight, flat causeway between their towns, so that for the first time wagons were useful for trade purposes. A network of roads quickly followed, and wagons became a common technology throughout most of the island.
The ensuing six centuries were a time of commercial explosion in the islands. There was still little in the way of organized government, but the different regions had by then coalesced into dozens of small fiefdoms, each with its own leaders and priorities. The Etanans nibbled at the southern shores, but were repelled by a coalition formed by a group of men from the area; this perhaps provided the impression that the country was more unified than it was, because the Etanans did not try again to continue their conquest.
Third Era: Fiefdoms (circa 990-1442 RM)
The last division of Dadurab Mar is more arbitrary, because there is no single event that can be pinpointed as the transition point between the entirely agriculturally based society and one that began to more closely resemble the feudal system of later ages.
The divide between a lower and upper class probably began the moment the Meron set foot on land, but was already taking shape by the time the writing system was developed. It set a clear barrier between the lower class and the educated. Those who had time to be scholarly were typically young men or boys whose fathers were successful enough in business that they were able to hire others to do their grunt work for them.
In the late 900s or early 1000s, the split became more obvious as the informal landlord/serf system became more cemented. The fiefdoms had always had rulers, but never before had these chieftains “owned” the land on which the people in their villages worked.
The first castles were built in the early days of the Third Era. They were wooden forts built on hilltops, where richer or more powerful men were able to live in relative luxury off the fruits of their serfs’ labors. Several fragile tapestries still survive from such early days; because of the comfort in which the nobility lived, they were able to devote themselves to activities that were not strictly necessary, but in beauty and art for its own sake.
Money came into use in this period as well. It was easier to transport than goods for barter were. However, trade was still popular, and as it became easier to travel between fiefdoms, some areas began to move away from agriculture and people moved to places that were not arable. The northern fisherman had been plying their trade on the coasts for some time, but people moved further south to take advantage of rich clay deposits in the soil, which they used to make pottery. Though trade with Etana was still limited, some of the Meron pottery became so prized that it was shipped to mainland Qajendu and sold to the nobility there.
By the end of Third Era, the splintered fiefdoms were drawing together into larger tribal groups. In the year 1442, one particular young man rose to a position no one had before attained.
Prehistoric Age <-- | --> Dakeba Mar
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