Explore the city of Lacandria, also called Lakandahar, an ancient settlement situated in today's Syria and part of Mesopotamia, during 340 AD. You can visit a lot of monuments, such as temples, ruins, and more.
VERSION
This city was built on version 1.14.4. You can play with later versions but at your own risk (it may cause problems to the map).
INFO
It was five years ago, 2015. At the beginning I wanted to build a simple Ziqqurat for fun but... After that I thought: I have to build an entire city around it.
This map was built initially on Xbox 360 block by block, after I transferred the map on pc and continued it with World Editor. It is obviously a fictitious city and it never existed. There are a few secrets like historical curiosities (for example, we still don't know where Alexander the great was buried, so I built a tomb, in which I invented that he was buried there). There is also the abandoned settlement of the Mitanni, who conquered Lakandahar in 1500 BC and destroyed the majority of the city; then, this settlement was destroyed by the Assirians when they conquered the city.
This is not the final map: I might adjust some details and buildings over time and update the map. Sorry for my English, I'm Italian. Write in the comments what do you think about the map and if you have questions to ask!
LACANDRIA
Lacandria, also known as Lakandahar, is a very ancient city located in present-day Syria. The city still exists today and is the capital of the Federal Republic of Lacandria, but that's another story. The city you can see now is the representation of how it looked like in 340 AD, a few days before its conquest and sack by the Roman emperor Constantius II. Lacandria is the capital of the homonymous kingdom: it is because it is where the tor (king) and the Minadiga (a kind of ante litteram parliament) reside; moreover, Lacandria is also the headquarters of the Legio I Lacandrina which, in addition to being the largest of the four Lacandrine legions, it is also the personal guard of the tor. The city, like the kingdom, is a crossroads of completely different cultures and religions; the main characteristic, however, is that they coexist peacefully (almost always, at least). In the streets of the capital you can find Lacandrine temples, Greco-Roman temples, Christian temples and temples of other middle-eastern gods (such as Mithras or Isis). The Lacandrine kingdom was the freest of the ancient era: freedom of speech, religion and behavior were considered normal, there were no slaves but independent servants. We must be careful, however, because it was not free as it is the world today: the tor held all the powers, the Minadiga was only an advisory body - it was only concerned with proposing new laws (although we must say that almost every tor took every proposal seriously) and had the task to elect a new tor when the previous one no longer had heirs and could no longer continue his dynasty; the Minadigius Maximus (and, later, paired with the Minadigia Maxima - the female counterpart) had the task of advising the tor and communicated the Minadiga's proposals at each palace meeting. The Lacandrines have already invented many things before their time: the most incredible inventions are the bell ("Aes" in Latin, used both for churches and as an alarm), the wooden drawbridge ("Pons mobilis" in Latin) and the iron portcullis ("Cataracta" in Latin, it was already invented by the Romans, but the lacandrines improved it). All these inventions were a secret: only the tor and the Minadigii Maximi knew the techniques to build these inventions.
BRIEF HISTORY
It is estimated that the town of Lakandahar was founded around 4000 BCE as a village, after some nomads, perhaps coming from the coasts of the Caspian Sea, decided to settle in that area. The first "revolution" took place in 3792 BCE, when the first tor, Lakandahar, was elected among the citizens, from who the name of the city was derived; In fact, it was his successor Lakandaham I to give this name to the inhabited center. Lakandahar built the first permanent houses and established the first nucleus of the city which would evolve over time, and a long canal with which wheat was cultivated. Lakandahar also built the first grain storage for any potential famine, he gave birth to the Minair (a kind of symposium where people used to eat and talk in company) and he built his own private home where to stay and receive guests. The Ziggurat (in Lacandrine: Zig-qurat; in Latin: Zigguras, -atis) was built during the reign of its successor, Lakandaham I, and was used not only as a deposit but also as a throne room and as a temple to the goddess Ashnan (goddess of grain, the same god prayed by the Sumerians). Tor Lakandaham III, however, thought that using the Ziggurat building as a regal house was a sacrilege to Ashnan, so he built a palace outside the walls, which was used by the tors until the end of the empire (around 1500 BCE).
In Lakandahar there have been eight dynasties, including a mythical one, but there is no evidence of this one; however, the mythical dynasty was probably composed by the people who settled in Lakandahar territory before the election of the first tor. It was this people, probably, to build the village on the other side of the acropolis, which, for unknown reasons, was abandoned to move across the hill. Lacandrine tor Phaenicaesh, also historian and philosopher, wrote that there was another civilization before the mythical dynasty, the people of Minanuya.
The Lakandahar empire ended around 1500 BCE, due to the brutal territorial expansion of the Mitanni (under King Barattarna) and of the Hittites. The surviving inhabitants will flee to Cyprus and there they would create the kingdom of Phaelat, which will survive until the 6th century BCE and will mainly live in the Mediterranean trade. A new kingdom will be founded only in 331 BCE, by one of the generals of Alexander the Great, Athenogenes I; in fact, the Macedonian had deep respect for Athenogenes, who had the better experience in war, and allowed him to take control of the territory around Lakandahar (which the Greeks knew as Lacandria) as a satrap (but he was perceived as a tor by the Lacandrines and acted like he was). Right after Alexander's death, Lacandria officially became one of the numerous Hellenistic kingdoms. For forty-four years, during the Nicephorus I's regime and then Nicephorus II, the capital moved from Lacandria to Callinicum because of an attack by the Seleucid Empire, which strongly damaged the former capital. The Hellenistic kingdom of Lacandria will last until 17 BC when tor Lucius Papirius Probus (a roman), a trusted friend of Augustus, betrayed the alliance with the Romans by conquering Roman territories in modern Turkey; the city will be conquered for punishment by the Romans, and Augustus will also build an arch to show his authority. He will give freedom to the citizens only in 11 AD by organizing the election of a new tor: Helvetius. The kingdom of Lakandahar was therefore apparently independent, because it was actually a cliens of Rome (an autonomous territory which was actually controlled by a stronger entity). However, he had a lot of privileges: the army was personal, so the Romans intervened only in critical moments, and the Minadiga (the Lacandrine assembly) had been re-established (but had a much smaller power than the past). Furthermore, the Lacandrines' army had the task of helping the Roman, and with this rule it was possible to stabilize the Roman conquest of Mesopotamia. The kingdom was strongly influenced by the Romans; in fact, gladiator games were introduced, they built stages in greek theatres and built new ones, a circus and various temples devoted to Roman gods, although few people believed in the Roman religion and the temples were dedicated to the Romans only by name and not in fact (in fact, the citizens went to pray Lacandrine gods: for example, Jupiter was associated to Macathen) and even after the construction of the "Temple of the Lacandrine gods" this used to happen. The Roman kingdom of Lakandahar ended in 340, when it was officially annexed to the Roman empire after a war that lasted almost a year: this happened because the Lacandrine kingdom became more and more independent from Rome, and the Romans didn't like it. Since then, no tors were elected and the Minadiga was dismantled (members of the institution, however, became senators or were allowed to enter in other Roman institutions). A new kingdom, though, with capital Ebla, will be created only around 400 AD, by the rebel and the future Eblaite king Cassander.
