Ancient Halaria

Ancient Halarian City States
c. 4000 BCE–c. 1400 BCE
Capital		Not specified
Languages		Halarian
Political structure		Confederation
History
•	Established	c. 4000 BCE
•	Disestablished	c. 1400 BCE
b.	...

Halaria was an ancient civilization based around Lake Khuda and the Ekuos River, in what is now Azerin and Barradiwa. It was famously known for its dualist cosmology tied to the monsoon pattern.

Ancient Halaria never unified, remaining as interconnected city states sharing a culture. Scholars tend to either split its 2 millenia long history into 3 periods (Old, Middle, and Late periods), into 6 (with 1 corresponding roughly to the Late Period, 2 and 3 to the Middle Period, and 4-6 to the Old Period), or a comprimise position of splitting period 4 into a "transitionary period" between Old and Middle Periods.

Because of its wide savanna, it never really had any defined borders. Especially because in many periods, it was closely aligned with several pastoralist groups who were not Halarians proper, but did use the Halarian langauge, adopted many hallmarks of Halarian culture, and did settle in Halarian city-states especially in times of crisis.

Old Period (periods 5-7, roughly 4000 BCE - 2700 BCE)

The Old Period started at the beginning of the 4th millenium BCE, and by the middle of the 4th millenium, we see evidence of writing across the Lake Khuda region by about 3500 BCE. Because of the lack of written evidence from this period, some scholars argue that the beginning of the 4th millenium should be considered a separate 7th period.

The Old Period was generally defined by city-states with a strong bifurcated tribal system, wherein citizens would act with their maternal tribe during the wet season, and the their paternal tribe during the dry season. The two sets of tribes would not necessarily overlap, with some tribes only existing in one or the other month. Each tribe had a central tribal god, as well as the collective gods of the city.

Cities were built around a central temple complex, with a House of All Gods, where city wide meetings were held, and priests and elders frequently lived in. In addition, each tribe had a smaller shrine around the city as well.

While the Middle and Late Periods tend to be known for their Cult of the Trickster alongside their gods, there is no evidence from the 6th period, and only a bit of evidence from the 5th period and only in a small number of cities on the southern shore of Lake Khuda for the Trickster getting a special status.

6th and 7th period was mostly focused on the cities of Stalo, Ritkes, Nunkes, Madrana, and the now lost city of Halar, but the 5th period saw an expansion to most of the range of the Halarian core.

There isn't an exact end to the Old Period - some scholars date it to the founding of Sonegio in South Halaria by the legendary Baroit dynasty in what is traditionally believed to be 2760 BCE. Others point to a rapid change in production because of the city at the lake of the river, and northern Halarian cities do not see much change from the 5th Period before 2700 BCE.

Transitionary Period (period 4, 2750 BCE - 2450 BCE)

In most 19th C Halarian studies, this period tended to be lumped in with Old or Middle Halarian periods, with linguistic evidence used for old, and the starting of innovations that would characterize the middle Halarian period (though, these would not be adopted by all city states right away)

There were a few crop failures that sometimes drove Halarian city-state dwellers to become pastoralists and para-Halarian pastoralists to join cities at this time, leading to a mixing of populations, ideas, and all that, as well as innovations in city governance to handle the changing populations.

The city on the mouth of the lake used its existing Cult of the Trickster to establish many of its new citizens as "Wanderers" and at the changing of the gods every season, the collected priests would divvy them to work with whatever clan worked. To keep the clan system somewhat intact, a new parent would be assigned to whatever clan they were in at the birth of their first child, which would lead to a looser social bond among the clans as generations happened.

Due to a growing trade after these collapses, and this new city structure, the city on the mouth of the lake gets very wealthy, and starts extending a cultural influence on the rest of the Halarian city-states, including seeing evidence of some mention of the Trickster in almost all cities, and an adoption of this new Wanderer system.

Between the 27th and very early 25th Cs, the city at the mouth of the lake starts force vassalizing its neighbors. Each of those starts adopting more and more of the Trickster Cult, with some clans in cities both in the infleunce of the southern cites and not in the influence focusing on their chief god more than the clan.

The transition was not just a transition of individual city states consolidating a new clan system within each city, but also a change from a loose set of city states with similar langauge and culture to a specific confederatory structure. In response to the growing influence of the city on the gate of the river, almost all non-vassalized Halarian city-states join a coalition to attack it, which ended up in 2487 BCE with an battle that humiliated the city as a "vassal to all," which had to pay tribute to all cities in the coalition.

The city at the mouth is still a bottleneck of trade, so rebounds quickly. The tribute within a few years causes inflation that causes the tribal systems of most cities to fall apart. The priestly classes of some try new building programs in the hot season, with all citizens becoming Wanderers in the summer, and all priests relying on the Cult of the Trickster to turn people into the correct godly portion.

To end the instability caused by this crisis of new production and cycle of inflation, in 2450 BCE, one city steps in to diplomatically reforge the city states into a more robust confederation, including getting the mouth city’s trading wealth more equally distributed, at the expense of more military aid from other city states, and more equality, including a more formal system of tribute going both ways.

Middle Period (periods 2-3, 2450 BCE - 1900 BCE)

The greatest number and extent of most Halarian archeological sites are from Middle Period.

One of the greatest changes that sparked a more unified Halaria was when Letsic-speaking peoples from the Azro-Barradiwan branch begin to settle western Halaria.

Legacy

Later civilizations would tie themselves to the legacy of Ancient Halaria. In the 11th C BCE, the city of Madrana had a “Halarian renaissance,” so Madranite Neo-Halarian became an important language of Early Iovism.