The Ports and Portals of the Zelaznids (20 page)

[67]
Bilgames
, or
Gilgamesh,
was
the fifth king of Uruk (ca.2700 BCE) who
is said
to have built that city’s great walls.  He became the inspiration for the
Epic of Gilgamesh
, which portrays the king as part god.  See
Epic of Gilgamesh
, Benjamin R. Foster, trans. (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001).

[68]
The ancient Egyptians developed the earliest glasslike substance, known as faience.

[69]
Most historians
actually
believe that the pyramids
were built
(with the assistance of ramps and pulleys) by free farmers rather than slaves.  However, recent scans of the pyramids using electron microscopy have revealed structural anomalies more consistent with concrete than quarried stone.  Though it
has not been proven
, the concrete theory would explain how the
Egyptians
managed such precise construction with the tools at hand.  If true, then the Egyptians were at least 2000 years ahead of the Romans in the use of concrete.  For more on this study, see M.W. Barsoum, A. Ganguly, and G. Hug, “Microstructural Evidence of Reconstituted Limestone Blocks in the Great Pyramids of Egypt”,
Journal of the American Ceramic Society
, Vol.89, Issue 12, 3788-3796.

[70]
Crete.

[71]
Minos.
  According to
recently-deciphered
ancient tablets written in Linear A, this mythical founder of the Minoans was called ‘mwi-nu ro-ja’ (Minos the King).  However, as Linear A
has not been fully translated
in Huda’s time, it is unclear how he came across this variation of the king’s name. 

[72]
Legends state that Minos was the son of Europa and Zeus.  According to the myth, Zeus took the form of a white bull, kidnapped Europa
,
and took her to Crete where he made her the first queen of that island.  While this tale conforms little to historical fact, it is worth noting that Minoan society was matriarchal in many respects.

[73]
Myths also mention a subterranean labyrinth, reputedly guarded by the man-bull or Minotaur.  This legend appears to have greatly influenced the Zelaznids, Huda, or both.

[74]
This describes the great palace of Knossus, which
would have been built
sometime later, even presuming the actual existence of Minos.  Of note were the palace’s elaborate mosaics, grain storage facilities, and indoor plumbing (dating to approximately 1500 BCE). 

[75]
The ancient Greek Monists (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, and Parmenides) were pre-Socratic natural philosophers who believed that the universe
was made up
of a single element (water, earth, air, or fire).  Their work influenced Democritus, who originated atomic theory in the 5
th
Century BCE. 

[76]
Alexander the Great (d.323 BCE).
  Huda is probably referring to Alexandria in Egypt,
though it is worth noting that
Alexander founded at least 50 cities named for him; some sources
even
put the number closer to 70.

[77]
Likely a reference to Aristotle, who spent some time as tutor to Alexander.

[78]
Olympias came from a respected Greek
family which
claimed to be descended from the legendary, probably mythical, Achilles.  While Alexander’s mother, a devotee of the Dionysian Cult, was certainly a mystic, the Zelaznid theory
looks like
pure speculation.

[79]
In truth, n
o one knows what became of Alexander’s corpse
, although excavations are constantly underway to discover his tomb
. 
Frequent
references
to the tomb in later primary accounts suggest
that his remains were brought to Alexandria, possibly by Ptolemy,
the general
who inherited control of Egypt and founded the Ptolemaic Dynasty (305 BCE – 30 BCE).

[80]
Eratosthenes invented the armillary sphere for studying the cosmos and calculated the circumference of the Earth.

[81]
Euclid (fl.300 BCE) established important principles of geometry.

[82]
Archimedes (c.287-c.212 BCE)
is credited
with numerous inventions and theories.

[83]
Ptolemy XIII (62-47 BCE) and Ptolemy XIV (60-44 BCE) were younger brothers of Cleopatra VII (69 BCE – 30 BCE).

[84]
Cleopatra had been co-ruler with their father and then co-ruler/wife for each of her brothers in turn.  Her efforts to rule without the input of Ptolemy XIII led him to send her into exile, a banishment that did not end until Julius Caesar arrived on the heels of Pompey in 48 BCE.

[85]
Ptolemy XIII.

[86]
There is debate over how and when the Library of Alexandria
was destroyed
.  It is likely that the
structure did not fall
all at once, but in stages over a long
period of time
.  The first fire took place during Caesar’s operations in Egypt (48 BCE), but historians
disagree
over whether the fire was intentional or caused by accident when flames spread from ships that were burning in the harbor.

[87]
Ptolemy XIII.

[88]
Ptolemy XIV.

[89]
Caesar
was assassinated
March 15, 44 BCE.

[90]
When Rome, the western capital, collapsed in the 5
th
century, it was technically not the end of the Roman Empire.  The eastern capital, Constantinople, became the default center of Roman culture and continued to hold that position for roughly one thousand years as the capital of what became known as the Byzantine Empire.

[91]
Although Rome
was
sacked
several times, Huda is
likely refer
ring
to the
attack on
the city by the Visigoths, under the leadership of Alaric, in the year 410.

[92]
Byzantine Emperor,
Justinian I (r.527-565).

[93]
Muhammad (ca.570-632).

[94]
Albion is the earliest known name for England
, but the Romans generally
referred to it as Britannia.  Successful invasions by the Germanic Angle and Saxon tribes resulted in the island
being called
England (Angle-land)
,
after the largest of the invading tribes.

[95]
Strangely enough, England’s climate at the time of the Romans was more like that in the south of France.  Many wealthy Romans built the equivalent of vacation homes there to take advantage of the pleasant weather. 

[96]
Ǽlle, ruler of Sussex (r.477-514).

[97]
Pevensey Castle (ca. 491).

[98]
Arcturus is the third brightest star in the night sky, the brightest star in the constellation of Boötes (the Bear).

[99]
There are numerous versions of the story of King Arthur.  Though Huda places his Arthur in the proper timeframe, most sc
holars reject the concept of an historical Arthur.

[100]
This is a curious passage,
as
Huda is the first
person
we know of who has drawn a familial connection between these individuals.  Myrddin Wyllt reputedly went mad during a battle in 573, after which he lived in the forest and developed a gift for prophecy.  Taliesin (ca.534-599) was a legendary wizard and bard, later tied to the tales of King Arthur.  No contemporary sources mention Emlyn.  It is possible that
the story of
‘Merlin’
was
drawn
from the lives of
these three individuals.

[101]
There remains debate over where, when, and even if the Battle of Mount Badon (Mons Badonicus) took place.

[102]
Even if we assume that the Battle of Mount Badon was an actual event, Huda is mistaken about his dates.  Gildas, the English cleric and historian, was born in 516, two years after the death of Ǽlle (Ǽlah).  See
The Works of Nennius and Gildas
(James Bohn, 1861).

[103]
Cissa claimed lordship over the Saxons upon the death of his father, Ǽlle. 

[104]
Possible sources for the legends of Guinevere and Mordred.

[105]
The earliest sources date the Battle of Camlann (Cad Camlan) to 537.  See
The Works of Nennius and Gildas
.

[106]
Possibly Abdur Rahman bin Awf (d.652), who advised the first three caliphs after the death of Muhammad, the so-called Rashidun “Rightly-Guided” Caliphs: Abu Bakr (632-634), Umar (634-644), and Uthman (644-656).

[107]
Refers to the Aztecs or the Mayans, possibly both.

[108]
Jeanne d’Arc (c.1412-1431).

[109]
For a similar theory, see George Eaton, “Maid of Mars: Speculations on the Origins of Joan of Arc’s Military Knowledge”, unpublished manuscript (2007).

[110]
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).

[111]
Catherine de Medicis (1519-1589), wife of King Henry II (r.1547-1559); Nost
radamus supposedly predicted the king’s
death.

[112]
According to our research, Ikraam Huda did not have any children at the time of his death.  He
might, therefore, have been referring
to his intellectual progeny.

[113]
The “wise and cruel founder of Cordoba” is likely Abd-ar-Rahman, the Umayyad leader who fled Damascus to found a new dynasty in Spain (c.750 CE). 

[114]
According to Portuguese documents, an unnamed adventurer claimed to have found a city in an unexplored region of Brazil in 1753.  British explorer Percy Harrison Fawcett later asserted that he, too, had found evidence of
the city
, which he dubbed ‘Z’.  Fawcett left the British army in 1909 and spent the rest of his life searching for
‘Z’
before finally disappearing in the jungle in 1925.  While it is a provocat
ive coincidence, there is no
reason to believe that Fawcett’s decision to call the city ‘Z’
was in any way related to
the Zelaznids.  However, it is interesting to note that the natives of the Amazon
still
claim that Fawcett did not die, but rather traveled through a door in the mountains to another world.  See David Grann,
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
(Doubleday, 2009). 

[115]
Although George Stephenson did not inaugurate full rail service f
or goods and passengers until 18
25, steam locomotives had existed at least as early as 1
8
04, when Richard Trevithick used his machine over a nine-mile stret
ch of the Abercynnon in Wales.

[116]
In 1653, a Frenchman named de Son designed the 72-foot long “Rotterdam Boat”, the first combat submarine.  With too little horsepower to sustain forward motion, the Rotterdam
was
successfully
used
in combat
.

[117]
In 1797, Robert Fulton offered to build a submarine for the French to use against the British.  The first prototype, called the
Nautilus
,
took to the seas
in 1800 or 1801 but proved ineffective against the faster English ships.  Fulton
was rumored
to have constructed an improved version, though the inventor denied this.

[118]
This is the only internal reference to the existence of the second (lost) Zelaznid volume.

[119]
The use of ‘we’ in the final chapters suggests the input of someone other than Huda
, as
earlier chapters do not use this pronoun with such frequency.

[120]
It is unclear what writings these could be.  We have found no published works attributed to Abdul Hazred.

[121]
It is unclear what city serves as the subject of this editorial or what personal troubles were at issue.

[122]
Muhammad ibn Musa Khwarizmi (fl.820), the inventor of algebra.

[123]
According to
P
rofessor J.R. Ring, the formulae in this chapter mirror twentieth-century wormhole theories.  This particular formula seems to refer to a positive curvature in a curved universe.  See C.W. Misner, K.S. Thorne and J.A. Wheeler,
Gravitation
, 2
nd
ed. (W.H. Freeman, 1973).

[124]
There is no evidence that Khwarizmi expressed mathematical theories this advanced.