Unraveling history's alternate timelines

Medieval Kingdoms

500 - 1500 CE

Discover alternate empires, strange customs, and unexpected alliances.

Found 97 entries in this era.

The Blue Marked Basket

The lake had the color of hammered tin before sunrise, and the wind came off it with enough teeth to make every dog in Lukurmata curl under a wall and...

Lead Weights on a Pen Case

I came up from the river road while the last of the night still clung to the low ground like spilled ink. The Morava below the hillfort looked cut fro...

A Bowl Held Up to Hail

The morning light in Tollan has a way of making old victories look freshly laundered. The atlantean columns stand where they always stand—tall men mad...

The Little North Bend

I came into Pueblo Bonito looking for a replacement point for my awl, which had snapped in the last place where bone tools were cheap and conversation...

Resin Sheen on the Jar Seam

I arrived at Cliff Palace the way most visitors do: by trying not to look nervous while my feet argue with the rock. The handholds are polished by a c...

The Court Mark On My Jar

The coral houses of Kilwa take the morning sun like old teeth: white where they are clean, yellow where the salt has had opinions. From the harbor ste...

Clean Water For Monkeys

The road into Niani was doing what roads into important cities always do: collecting everyone’s excuses before the officials could. Donkeys stood hock...

The Green Notched Pole

The first thing I learned this morning was that even an empire can be held in place by a bird with poor timing. I woke before the market drums, not b...