The Hyborian Age was devised by author Robert E. Howard as the post-Atlantean setting of his Conan the Barbarian stories, designed to fit in with the previous and less-well-known tales of Kull. The latter were also written by Howard and were set at the time of Atlantis. The name "Hyborian" is a contraction of the Greek concept of the land of "Hyperborea", literally "Super-North-Land". This was a mythical place far to the north that was not cold and where things did not age.

Howard's Hyborian age, described in detail in his essay The Hyborian Age (most recently republished in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian in 2003), is a mythical time before any civilization known to anthropologists. Its setting is Europe and North Africa (with occasional references to Asia and other continents; e.g.- Mayapan, coming from the Native American word "Matapan", the name for the continent of America) – with some curious geological changes that were thought up prior to the ascendancy of the geologic theory of plate tectonics, though somewhat similar to what geologists theorize. They consider that during the Ice Age, Europe was quite different. The Mediterranean Sea formerly dried out intermittently, alternating with floods over the Straits of Gibraltar. Once there was a land-bridge across the English Channel between England and the Low Countries (but not across the Irish Sea) such that the Thames once flowed into a northern extension of the Rhine. And both the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea were once fresh-water lakes, the former (renamed the Ancylus Sea, after a fresh-water clam) covering much of the eastern half of what is now Sweden.

On a map Howard drew detailing it, his vision of the Mediterranean Sea is also dry. The Nile, which he re-named the River Styx, takes a westward turn at right angles just beyond the Nile Delta, plowing through the mountains so as to be able to reach the Straits of Gibraltar. Although his Black Sea is also dry, his Caspian Sea, which he renames the Vilayet Sea, extends northward to reach the Arctic Ocean, so as to provide a barrier to encapsulate the settings of his stories. Not only are his Baltic Sea and English Channel dry, but most of the North Sea and a vast region to the west, easily including Ireland, are too. Meanwhile, the west coast of Africa on his map lies beneath the sea. There are also a few islands, reminiscent of the Azores, but his stories are not about naval tactics.

Correspondences

In this general setting, Howard placed imaginary kingdoms to which he gave names from a varied series of sources. Khitai is his China, far to the East, deriving from an ancient name; Corinthia is his name for a Greek-like civilization, a name slapped together from the name of the city of Corinth and a reminiscence of the Middle Ages province of Carinthia. He imagines the Picts to occupy a large area to the northwest. The probable intended correspondences are listed below; notice that the correspondences are sometimes very loose, and are portrayed by ahistorical stereotypes.

See also

• J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth also superposes a mythical geography over Europe.

References

• Howard, Robert E., "The Hyborian Age", The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian (2003).
• de Camp, L. Sprague, Carter, Lin, and Nyberg, Björn (1978). "Hyborian Names". Appendix to Conan the Swordsman. Toronto: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-20582-X.

External links

• Maps of the Hyborian Age
• Conan the Barbarian at AmratheLion.com

Fictional universes | Fictional continents | Robert E. Howard

Era_Hiboriana | Fantasy worlds