Where was the second city?

[The Wizard of Oz]

Somewhere in the Middle East, I guess.

I don't remember anything said more specifically about where it was, but I'm wondering if anyone else can remember any mentions.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

I have always felt the second City was less a place and more a historical age where the Antediluvians and their childer ruled and fought through various mesopotamian city states and tribal groups. I came to this conclusion after reading the Revised Toreadore Clan Book. It isn't cannon, just my impression.

In my spare time today - it was a mostly busy day for me - I thought about it and decided if the issue ever came up in my games, then Gobleki Tepe is the ruins of the Second City, and whatever remains of Irem is the ruins of the First City. However, Chris that is a solid insight. Kudos. It matches a lot of vampire history and behavior.

[Chris Wilson]

I have always felt the second City was less a place and more a historical age where the Antediluvians and their childer ruled and fought through various mesopotamian city states and tribal groups. I came to this conclusion after reading the Revised Toreadore Clan Book. It isn't cannon, just my impression.

[Jargal]

Archaeologists are lately excavating sites that would further place civilization earlier than even Gobleki Tepe, so we still don't know exactly how old humanity is.

- Saga

It depends on the definition of the words "civilization" and "humanity". Oldest known artifacts are about 3.300.000-3.500.000 (3.7M by some newest datas) years old and they weren't made by Homo Sapiens. The earliest signs of highly organized societies can be traced back to the 13th millennium BC.

[marin]

Well...

There's a bit in V20 Black Hand about how old Necropolis Enoch is... and it's an anachronistic problem. On the one hand, by established history it can't predate 2000 BCE, but the excavation sites strain belief for being around prior to 9000 BCE.

Backing it up is that the Well of Sacrifice that spawned the Baali dates back to at least the time of the Second City, and it's said to have been lost for at least ten thousand years, putting it around 8000 BCE minimum.

[mark]

The second city was explicitly build in the ruins of the first city. As for dates it's strongly implied it fell in around 3000 bc. Give or take a few centuries

[Saga]

Well, the second city is post-flood.
If you take, say, young-Earth Creationists' calculations, they put the flood about 2300BC (ie about the time of Sargon of Akkad).

The Sumerian King List puts it before the First Dynasties of Kish and Uruk, which archeologists put at about 2900BC.

So, after that.

I once translated this. The Sumerian King List rulers before the flood is 408,666 years (which is measured in "sars" in a different way than the following ones). The comes the 1st dynasty of Kish which adds up to 17,980 years. The first rulers of Uruk (which they include Gilgamesh) add a total of 2310 years. Then, between the first dynasty of Ur, the dynasty of Awan, the second dynasty of Kish, the dynasty of Hamazi and the second dynasty of Uruk adds up to 3107 years.

There is a cuneiform tablet that depict the crash of a meteorite in the Austrian alps in June 29th, 3123 BC. Due to the meteorite trajectory, this is the probable cause for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The flood is theorized lately that was caused by an asteroid impact during the Ice Age (the hiawatha crater in Greenland), which is contemporary a sudden rise of the ocean level and the disappearance of the Clovis culture in the northern hemisphere. The date is 125000 BP (or 10500 BC). So I would give the flood that dating.

Archaeologists are lately excavating sites that would further place civilization earlier than even Gobleki Tepe, so we still don't know exactly how old humanity is.

- Saga

[The Wizard of Oz]

Do we have approximate dates for the existence of the First and Second Cities?

Well, the second city is post-flood.
If you take, say, young-Earth Creationists' calculations, they put the flood about 2300BC (ie about the time of Sargon of Akkad).

The Sumerian King List puts it before the First Dynasties of Kish and Uruk, which archeologists put at about 2900BC.

So, after that.

[The Wizard of Oz]

The first edition of Chicago by Night hints strongly as to its location, if you know your literary references...

Unfortunately, I don't have Chicago by Night, what does it say?

[Zorin001]

Do we have approximate dates for the existence of the First and Second Cities?

[James_Willoughby]

The first edition of Chicago by Night hints strongly as to its location, if you know your literary references...

[The Wizard of Oz]

Some great ideas here, thanks.

[Black Fox]

While it's never been an issue in my chronicles, I've always placed it in Sumeria, specifically the old city of Eridu, considered by the Sumerians to be the first city by the Sumerian King List (and thus home to kings who lived for thousands of years). Made sense to me at least. To me, it's OK if mythology trumps archaeology in the World of Darkness.

Besides, it's always easy to insert some additional city levels unknown to archaeologists underneath the known tells as the actual Second City before historical Eridu.

[Cynic01]

I also used Gobekli Tepe as the location of the Second City, being an interesting real world locale and what I pictured as the beginning of the Antediluvians diaspora.

The First City I had located in the Fertile Crescent region but was entirely annihilated by the Great Flood (and thus ended up in the Underworld); thus it did not need to line up with any real world city. I preferred that it didn't because it allowed me to play fast and loose with pre-flood geography, the idea being that the flood reshaped parts of the world as well.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

I lean towards Gobekli Tepe myself, mostly because it is real place.