The Temple of Linken in 14,508.
The Temple of Linken (by 11,959 HE) in Huashengdun was built during the Old States period (11,776-12,304) of North American history. More than 2,500 years later it still stands on the banks of the Botuomake, at 38.889 North and 77.050 West, just 1200 metres west of the Broken Obelisk.
Linken was president of the Old States in the 11,800s and part of the cult of the Six Grandfathers (or Founding Fathers) in the 11,900s.
The temple was built by 11,959: its image appeared on coins from 11,959 to 12,008. On the other side of the coins is an image of Linken himself, recognizable by having a beard but no moustache.
An Old States coin from 11,983 showing Linken and his temple.
The temple, built in Greek Doric style, is 58 metres long, 36 metres wide and 30 metres high. It has 36 pillars made of marble, each one 13.4 metres tall. Right above each pillar on the frieze is the name of an Old State written in Roman alphabetics and a Western year in Roman numerals. The last one listed is Neihuada with the Western year of 1,864 (11,864 HE).
The Old States listed on the frieze of the Temple of Linken.
Inside the temple was a huge statue of Linken sitting on a throne, covered in gold and facing the rising sun. It is long gone. The gold, if not the statue itself, likely disappeared during the First Time of Troubles (12,304-12,407), when the Old States sank into a period of warlordism that gave rise to the Middle States (12,407-12,812).
On the western wall, behind where the statue once stood, it says, in Old States English:
In this temple
As people’s voice
For whom to save the union [of the Old States]
Yabolahan Linken’s memory
It is eternal
On the other temple walls are words of Linken to his countrymen during the war between the southern slave states and the northern free states. He says the Old States were founded 87 years ago. Some scholars argue that means Linken was president in 11,874, others say 11,863. The Temple of Linken can be used to support either date: the first Old State is dated to 11,787, yet the list stops at 11,864, which is 88 years after 11,776, the year on the statue of the Green Goddess of Manhadun.
The cult of the Six Grandfathers worshipped the six presidents of the Old States considered to be the wisest. We can only be sure of four of them: Linken, Jiefuxun, Luosifu, and Huashengdun (namesake of the capital). They are the ones on the monument of the Six Grandfathers of the Plains. The two missing Grandfathers apparently fell out of favour. Some scholars say they were Fulankelin of the Broken Bell and Kennidi of the Grassy Knoll. Like the other four, they appeared on coins at the height of the cult, though less frequently.
State cult: The cult was pushed by the Old States government, but even at its height the images of Linken were never as common among the common people as those of Yesu or Maliya. Linken promised only Emancipation, Yesu promised Resurrection from the dead – and Maliya was his mother, believed to be in heaven, who had a great temple in the neighbouring country of Moxige.
– Abagond, 14,517 HE.
See also:
- The Green Goddess of Manhadun – written in Old States English with Western dates
- The Six Grandfathers of the Plains
- Western years
- Old States
- Huashengdun – the capital
- Yesu
- Maliya of Moxige
564
Abagond 
It looks like the scientific community isn’t any less group-centric in the future where Abagond currently resides.
HE = Holocene Epoch, I presume?
FYI, the current epoch is most accurately described as the Age of Insects:
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150211-whats-the-most-dominant-life-form
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Excuse my ignorance, but what’s HE?
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What’s with the weird spellings, Abagond?
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Science fiction?
Is this a sample of Future English language?
Who will be ruling at that time? (right-wingers fear a Third World invasion to the richer North at some point)
Has humanity (or the USA) came to that through various Times of Troubles? Or Times of Sorrow (in James Cameron’s Avatar movie/2009)
Note –
I personally think that whatever the future holds for humanity, to a large extent it will be determined by technological advances that are already in the making, right now. I’m thinking about an emerging , which, certainly will be a decisive game-changer about how humans will live (probably in the second half of this century and beyond…).
It will not be humans only over here on Earth!
This is something that many Science Fiction writers seem to not properly take in account.
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Hum, something ate my words!
I meant:
… emerging age of robots…
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I see what you did, here. Well-written, and very well done.
😎
vanishes into the shadows for another year or three
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@ munubantu
“Who will be ruling at that time?”
Going from the spellings, my guess is China.
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Also “the Six Grandfathers” which is reminiscent of Chinese groupings such as the Eight Immortals, the Five Classics, the Four Olds….
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Did a reading on the ancient ‘Nacirema’ peoples in grade school back in the 90s. If this is the summary then that would be the main paper and none of us really got it until the writer started going on about dental care and how much people cared about their teeth and how much time people spent polishing them. I still remember that reading and discussion to this day nearly 25 years later. When you look at a culture out of context then it can seem stronger or weaker then it is.
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Just to add to that thought, when you look at a culture through a lens of imperialism or some other abusive view then you can manipulate yourself to justify anything. Abuses look less abusive. Exploitation looks less exploitative and your own corruption becomes a necessary tool to maintain the charade. No wonder substance abuse, corruption and greed is killing these shameless squatters.
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Abagond has totally geeked out.
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This is the distant future and the United States Of America and our English language is obsolete. Humans have been replaced with artificial intelligence. This is the new space age.
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@Everett F. Pomare
These are not weird spellings. You would recognize all the people and place names easily with a basic understanding of Hanyu Pinyin.
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@Mary Burrell
This is not the impression I get from this blog post at all.
It is a retelling of North American history as recounted by some future descendant society of China (but written in Old States’ English with Pinyin renderings of people and place names and using the Holocene calendar).
Or maybe, that is how future AI will retell the story of human history, who knows.
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This is how ‘modern’ day anthropologists, archaeologists and other related disciplines render ancient societies.
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@Jefe: Perhaps this post is open to interpretation I don’t know, I would be interested in what Abagond has to say what this post is about. To me it seems futuristic. Perhaps it’s like Herneith said in her post it could be from an archaeologist or anthropologist talking about an ancient society.
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Right, we know less about these people in what would be our 4517 AD than they know about us. I assume there was a period of Chinese ascendancy due to the spelling. But that period may be far in their past.
Maybe by this point Mandarin is a dead language but used as a global lingua franca, especially among scholars, as Latin was for many centuries after the fall of the Roman empire.
The dominant society on Earth could be of any race and nation, or a mix of alliances unknown in our day — or not human at all, but AI or space aliens.
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Herneith said:
This is exactly right – or at least what I intended. It takes the archaeological lens the West applies to Ancient Egypt and turns it back on present-day North America to see what it would look like in the year 4517. It is like the Nacirema thought experiment, but that one was more anthropological.
The dating uses the Holocene calendar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar
The periodization is a take-off of the one the West applies to Egypt: Old Kingdom, First Intermediate, Middle Kingdom, etc. Thus Old States, the First Time of Troubles and Middle States.
I kept the metric system so things would not be too unfamiliar, but that may well have changed by 4517. But maybe not: after all, this blog in 2017 still uses Roman units like miles and pounds.
The names of people and places are mostly Chinese, Pinyin in fact (without the tone markings). In a sense they are already more common than the English ones. And certainly will be in the Sino-Western world culture I imagined in this post for 4517. It will probably be worse than that in practice: at least the Chinese names are based on English ones – a courtesy the West does not always extend to “Egypt” (Kemet). But I had to keep the post from descending into pure gibberish.
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Minor correction:
Kennedy should be Kennidi (Kěnnídí – 肯尼迪), not Kennedi.
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@ jefe
Thanks!
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Wow, i have to admit how reading is so fundamental and how i shouldn’t post when first waking up and commuting on the train to work. I was way off about this post. This is a post about the Lincoln Memorial. Many of the word are Chinese. With the help of the Chinese -Pinyon-English Dictionary many of the clues could be found. The word Huashengdun according to the Chinese-Pinyon Dictionary is Washington. Pinyin is the standard system of romanized spelling for translating Chinese. For me this was fun like a puzzle the name Yabolahan is Chinese for Abraham. Yabolahan Lincoln translates to Abraham Lincoln.
“On the western wall, behind where the statue once stood, it says, in Old States English: “In this temple as people’s voice For whom to save the union [of the Old States] Yabolahan Linken’s memory It is eternal.” In English “In this temple as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the union the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.”
Linkin, Jieguxun,Luosifu translates to Presidents Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt. Luosifu is Roosevelt. I think the Six Grandfathers Of The Plains refers to Mount Rushmore. The Statue Of The Green Goddess Of Manhadun is The Statue Of Liberty. Faulankein Of The Broken Bell I am guessing is Ben Franklin and the Broken Bell is the Liberty Bell with the crack. Kennidi Of The Grassy Knoll is John F. Kennedy. This was an enlightening and enjoyable post. I gained some tidbits of knowledge learning about the Lincoln Monument. I feel like a dunce all the clues were right in front of my freaking face. I must say Abagond is very clever and I enjoyed this exercise.
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State Cult: This must be some reference to religion the word Yesu which i recognize from Judeo-Christian refers to Jesus or Yeshua and Maliya in Chinese-Pinyon is Maria. “Linken promised only Emancipation, Yesu promised Ressurection from the dead-and Maliya was his mother, believed to be in heaven, who had a great temple in the neighboring country of Moxige.” Moxige is Chinese for Mexico.
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@Jefe: You live in China so you would know what this language was. The Chinese-Pinyon-English Dictionary is helpful and boy was i way off the mark.
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@Abagond: Please do more post like these i really had to go back and read and reread and i really feel foolish with the clues staring me right in the face the penny which was so obvious that’s what the post was about and Herneith’s astute observation that this was from an archeological anthropologist perspective she’s very smart and Jefe’s knowledge of Chinese as he is Asian-American and knows the language from his travels and living in China. I had to come back and figure this post out and I am satisfied that I learned something from this post about the Lincoln Monument.
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cheat sheet:
Temple of Linken – Lincoln Memorial
Yabolahan Linken – Abraham Lincoln
HE = Holocene Era = AD + 10,000
Huashengdun – Washington (person or city)
Botuomake – Potomac
Broken Obelisk – Washington Monument
Old States – the US from 1776 to 2304
Western years – AD
Neihuada – Nevada
Roman alphabetics – Roman alphabet + ics to make it sound more like hieroglyphics
Green Goddess of Manhadun – Statue of Liberty (of Manhattan).
Jiefuxun – Jefferson
Luosifu – Roosevelt (Teddy and Franklin confused as one person)
Fulankelin – Ben Franklin
Broken Bell – Liberty Bell
Kennidi – Kennedy
Yesu – Jesus
Maliya – Mary
The great temple of Maliya of Moxige – The church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico
The Six Grandfathers of the Plains – Mount Rushmore. The Six Grandfathers is what the Sioux called Mount Rushmore before Rushmore was born. In this post I imagine the mountain going back to its original name but then leading to the false assumption that two faces are missing, like maybe those of John Kennedy and Ben Franklin.
“In this temple…” – the original inscription translated into Chinese and then back into English using Google Translate, to give it that off feel that translations sometimes have.
Not used:
Dam of Hofu – Hoover Dam
Bridge of Gold – Golden Gate Bridge
and a map of North America that makes it look like something out of Lord of the Rings.
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@MB
Even before you responded to me about it being a futuristic AI thing I already told you that the People and place names were rendered in PinYin. I guess you didn’t know what I was talking about and only figured out that it was about the Lincoln Memorial after Abagond gave a full explanation.
I was a Teaching assistant for the Mandarin Chinese department at university since age 17, but grew up in Washington, DC and led some tours around DC in Chinese one summer, as well as live in New York also, so I knew instantly what he was talking about. Sorry that I did not explain myself clearly.
It could still be a futuristic AI thing. I am thinking about the movie AI where there are no more humans in the future and AI creatures try to recreate a narrative about the human past. I imagine that they might use Pinyin terminology as that is the most extensive use of the alphabet nowadays.
Abagond may be right. Pinyin might be the most extensive use of the Roman alphabet on the planet, so all Americans and Europeans probably should gain at least a rudimentary understanding in Pinyin to navigate in the current world.
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re: abagond
Interestingly, the only thing I did not understand when I read the post the first time was something NOT MENTIONED in Abagond’s glossary:
Grassy Knoll: refers to Dealey Plaza in Dallas, where Kennedy was shot.
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When I first read the post, I was wondering if it might be better to use the Lincoln Memorial image from Logan’s Run (1976). It looks more like the ruins of the Lincoln Memorial.
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Washington, DC in HE 14,517
Logans Run (1976) Post-Apocalypic Washington DC scene
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJqpr6BS6JU)
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@Jefe: No, didn’t understand what you were talking about like I said in my post I had to reread to connect the dots. I had to google words to figure everything out. Like I said I feel foolish with everything staring me in the face i posted previously that when I read this post early this morning half asleep on the commuter train to work so my reading comprehension was hazy. I had to come back to the post because it bothered me that I could not figure this out. But thanks anyway. I personally have a feeling of accomplishment.
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@ Mary Burrell
Please don’t beat yourself up. Everyone has different interests and experiences which shape their knowledge base.
It is impossible to learn everything — and it is even difficult to retain all the knowledge we are exposed to. For example, I feel stupid now about my comment above on the Six Grandfathers. Not only was my guess about it being an allusion to Chinese culture completely off base, but I have read a lot about the Sioux and the Black Hills, so surely I have learned somewhere before that the Six Grandfathers is their name for Mt. Rushmore. But it didn’t stick in my head.
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@Solitaire: Thank you for your kind words.
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@ jefe
I probably would have used those images of the Lincoln Memorial if I had seen them beforehand, but the Doric temple I used in the post, the Hephaisteion in Athens, is just about the right age.
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