Cthulhu Mythos Timeline

Created: APR-1997

This file was based on ahcfaq8.txt_Mythos_Lore, written by Donovan K. Loucks. Some dates and terminology were changed to agree to the Evolutionary and Geological Timelines, by Niel Brandt. A major revision was done on 1998-12-18.

Other Cthulhu Mythos Timelines:

3,800 million BC

Formation of Earth's Oceans (real)

3,500 million BC

Elder Things (crinoid Old Ones from AtMoM) arrive at Antarctica ("At the Mountains of Madness")

3,000 million BC

Life (as we know it) begins on Earth (real)

Legends say Life began as a jest by the Old Ones (AtMoM)

1,000 million BC

Great Race of Yith (minds only) came forward and inhabited the bodies of the indiginous Australian conical entities. ("The Shadow Out of Time")

The people of K'n-yan, who reputedly brought "Tulu" who migrated to the surface when the land was fit to live on. ("The Mound", by HPL/Bishop)

600 million BC

Flying Polyps arrive, and build basalt cities with windowless towers (in Australia) ("The Shadow Out of Time")

Archaean slate preserves striated triangular footprints of Elder Things ("At the Mountains of Madness")

290 - 250 million BC

Permian period (real)

War of Shoggoths resubjugation ("At the Mountains of Madness")

200 million BC ???

Pangea broke up (real)

R'lyeh is built ("At the Mountains of Madness")

Spawn of Cthulhu arrive, and war with the Elder Things and drive them into the sea ("At the Mountains of Madness")

205 - 135 million BC

Jurassic period (real)

Mi-go arrive from Yuggoth (Pluto) and drive Elder Things from Northern Hemisphere ("At the Mountains of Madness")

100 million BC

Rifts seperate Africa from Europe/Valusia and Asia (No Ref)

65 million BC

K-T boundary (real)

Probably this marks the destruction of the Old One's old city at the Plateau of Leng

50 million BC

City founded in the Plateau of Leng to replace older city on site of first arrival, by Elder Things ("At the Mountains of Madness")

The Great Race of Yith disappears from the earth en masse into the future, occupying the race of beetle creatures who inherit the world from the human race

40 million BC

A group of 14 Old Ones is trapped in a cavern in Antarctica

30-25 million BC

Development of CircumAntarctic current, essentially isolating Antarctica from the rest of the continents, and beginning the establishment of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (Real)

No sea cities of Elder Things north of 50deg S; no land cities outside of Antarctica and tip of South America ("At the Mountains of Madness")

6 - 1.8 million BC

Pliocene epoch (Real)

50,000 BC

Civilization of great-headed brown people of South Africa (No Ref)

24,000 BC

Hairy cannibal Gnophkehs overcame many-templed Olathoe and slay all the heros of the land of Lomar (inside 80 deg N). ("Polaris", by HPL)

Pnakotic Manuscripts taken to Ulthar in the Dreamlands (No Ref)

Hyperborean copy of PM preserved by same cult which wrote the Book of Eibon (Letter #826 of "Selected Letters")

15,000 BC

Hyborean Age ???

30 BC

Ubar/Irem "a many-columned city...whose like has never been built in the whole land" [Koran] vanishes in sandstorm. [1984 Challenger mission spots buried roadway stretching for 60 miles in desert north of Oman's Dhofar province] [Mankato Free Press, 7/16/1990] [Hitti, HIST.ARABS: "A recently discovered Nabataean site, 'RM, 25 miles east of al-Aqabah, is Kornaic Iram (sur. 89:6)"][2/5/92 NYT "Archeologists and explorers in Oman have uncovered the ruins of eight towers and adjoining walls and deposits of pottery dating to Roman times and as far back as 2,000 BC. The explorers are virtually sure it is UBAR, the fabled entrepot of the rich frankincense trade thousands of years ago."]

730 AD

_Al Azif_ written at Damascus by Abdul Alhazred, who claimed to have visited Irem and an even older city; worshipped Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu.

738 AD

Alhazred dies or disappears under terrible circumstances. Said by Ebn Khiallikan to have been seized in broad daylight and devoured by an invisible monster before a horrified crowd.

950

_Al Azif_ translated into Greek as _Necronomicon_ by Theodorus Philetas

1050

Greek text of _Necronomicon_ burnt by Michael, Patriarch of Constantinople (Arabic text lost at this point)

1228

Olaus translates _Necronomicon_ into Latin.

1232

Pope Gregory IX places _Necronomicon_ on _Index Expurgatorius_

15th century

Black letter edition of Latin _Necronomicon_ printed in Germany. Copy rumored to exist in the British Museum.

1500 - 1550

Greek text of _Necronomicon_ printed in Italy. Last known copy vanished in burning of a certain Salem man's library in 1692. Copy kept by Pickman family of Salem? If so, vanished with R. U. Pickman in 1926.

1692

Edmund Carter flees from Salem to the hills behind Arkham ("Through the Gates of the Silver Key", Chapter 5).

17th cent

Spanish printing (in Latin?) of _Necronomicon_ (copies at Bibliotheque National in Paris, Widener Library at Harvard, Miskatonic U. library at Arkham, library of Buenos Aires).

1760's AD

The four Brown brothers, Reverend Manning and the Governor of Rhode Island (Lippincott?) go on a witchhunt for Joseph Curwen ("The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", HPL)

1839

_Unaussprechlichen Kulten_ published in Dusseldorf. Written by Friedrich von Junzt (1795-1840) [read _Necronomicon_ in Greek translation]. Von Junzt dies six months after returning from trip to Mongolia while working on second book. Less than a dozen copies exist of this edition. ["Von Junzt relates many stories of the survivals of cults worshipping pre-human entities or prehistoric gods, such as Ghatanothoa, Bran, and others. The principle obscurity of the book is in Von Junzt's use of the term 'keys' -- phrase used many times by him, in various relations, such as descriptions of the infamous Black Stone in Hungary and the legendary Temple of the Toad in Honduras."]

1845

Bridewell, London publisher, does a pirated translation of _Unauss. Kulten_. "...full of grotesque woodcuts, and riddled with misspellings, faulty translations, and the usual errors of a cheap and unscholarly printing...."

1865

E. A. Hitchcock, _Remarks on Alchemy_ "...the now unattainable secrets of the Aklo tablets."

1882, June

Meteorite lands west of Arkham "The Colour Out of Space"

1883, October 7

Randolph Carter (9 years old) enters Grotto. When he leaves, he gets part of his memories from future

1892

Body exhumed, heart burned in Exeter, RI (mentioned "The Shunned House")

1901, February 22

Climax of "Beyond the Wall of Sleep"

1907, November 1

Raid near New Orleans captures Cthulhu cultists

1908 - 1913

Wingate Peaslee's amnesia

1909

Golden Goblin Press, New York. Expurgated edition of _Unauss. Kulten_ (fully one quarter of work cut), handsomely bound, illustrated by Diego Vasquez. Approx. 30 known to still exist.

1910, January

Houdini is "Imprisioned With the Pharaohs"

1913, August 3

Box delivered to A. Jermyn

1917, August 20

"The Temple" 20 N, 35 W

1919, August 25

Exploration of the Shunned House

1920

Russell Thorp made a breakdown of this year, for those that play Call of Cthulhu

1921, August

Reporter encounters "The Lurking Fear"

1922, January

"The Attic Window" published in _Whispers_ (see "The Unnameable")

1923, July 16

Delapore moves into Exham Priory

1923

HPL writes "The Festival" ("...they included old Morryster's wild _Marvells of Science_, the terrible _Saducismus Triumphatus_ of Joseph Glanvil, published in 1681, the shocking _Daemonolatreia_ of Remigius, printed in 1595 at Lyons, and worst of all, the unmentionable _Necronomicon_ of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, in Olaus Wormius' forbidden Latin translation..." ["The Nameless City" written 1921; "The Hound" 1922]

1925, March 23 to April 2

R'lyeh emerges from ocean

1925, October 9

Letter 197, vol 2, HPL to CAS: "I bedeck my tale [Horror at Red Hook] with incantations copied from the 'Magic' article in the 9th edition of the _Britannica_, but I'd like to draw on less obvious sources if I knew of the right reservoirs to tap." Recommends _Witchcraft in Western Europe_ to CAS.

1926

R. U. Pickman disappears.

1927, Good Friday

Chas. Dexter Ward revives Joseph Curwen

1927, July 6

"The Shadow Over Innsmouth"

1928, February

Raid on Innsmouth

1928, August

The Dunwich Horror

1928, October 7

Randolph Carter goes through the Gate of the Silver Key

[Aug 30, 1932 letter "Dear Abdul...And for each plane of cutting, we get a different 3 dimensional solid. Thus from an original, unchangeable 4th dimensional SOMETHING, we get a (sic) infinity of seemingly different 3 dimensional forms; as by varying the angle at which a plane cuts a cone... All of which is the thesis accounting for Carter's scrambled affairs."]

1930, September 2nd

The Miskatonic Expedition to Antartida leaves Boston Harbor (AtMoM)

1931, January 22

Plane spots the Mountains of Madness 76^o 15' S, 113^o 10' E.

1931, January 23

Lake et al, of the Miskatonic Expedition, discover a cavern with several fossils.

Among them there are 14 Old Ones, 8 of them intact (AtMoM)

1931, March

Gale wrecks roof of the Witch House

1935, June 3

First blocks found by Peaslee's Australian expedition

1935, Night of July 17-18