Two tombs

Roy C. Lackey · 09 Jul 2006, 21:23 · from 2006-July.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 16:23:59 -0500
Subject: (urth) Two tombs
Message-ID: <000c01c6a39e$01299360$df3ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

Andrew quoted and wrote:
>> The mausoleum was evidently built during
>>the period
>>of the autarchy, by or for an armiger or optimate.
>
>Why do you assume that?

The images above the door, for one thing. If they represent Tzadkiel's Ship,
the White Fountain and the Claw, they had no meaning before Typhon's era.
The cult of the Conciliator didn't exist until Severian was sent from Yesod
to Typhon's era for the express purpose of establishing the legend. The
thorn that became the Claw and founded the Pelerines was also delivered
then. There was no need for a White Fountain before then, or a Ship to take
someone to Yesod to earn it.

> Assuming continuity betwen BOTNS and LS/SS,
>I think we can safely assume that in pre-Autarchial days, the
>necropolis could be a resing place of the highest status. Why else
>would Typhon's daughter have been interred there (in what I guess
>was probably Typhon's family mausoleum)? The tomb might have
>belonged to some very high-ranking, pre-Autarchial figure, however
>related to Sev.

Apart from Cilinia's burial on the hill, I don't think there exists another
shred of textual evidence in the twelve books to connect any rulers, by
whatever title or name prior to Sev, with any mausoleum in the necropolis. I
don't know how much time passed between Typhon's unceremonious demise behind
his curtain and Ymar's rise to power, but I don't see anyone on Urth
erecting a burial monument on his behalf. He was both feared and hated while
he lived, and we know he wasn't buried anywhere.

After Sev the Conciliator prophesized Typhon's death behind the curtain,
Typhon's retort indicates that, if he were to die at all, he expected he
would be interred in the skull cavity of his mountain. (URTH, 275) So if a
"family mausoleum" was constructed on Citadel Hill, it must have been done
while he still was alive, and it was intended to house only his family, not
himself. Cilinia died young, whether in consequence of her revolt against
her father or not. I suspect the former. If that is true, it is quite
possible that most, if not all, of his family who may still have been on
Urth at the time of his death died before him. At any rate, none of them
seem to have had an impact on Urth's future history.

But this is all conjecture. I still see no reason to suppose Sev's mausoleum
existed prior to Typhon's era, and his mausoleum was not the one where
Cilinia was buried.

-Roy

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