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3010 BC |
Ur, Sumer: Bartimaeus is first summoned. His first job is to pinch a fertility stature from the love goddess’s sanctuary in Ur. Morally speaking, this sets the tone for his next 2000 years. Despite this, he at first experiences a ‘terrible joy’ – a feeling that his energies could cope with anything. This feeling vanishes when he’s sent off to irrigate and cultivate the Fertile Crescent. |
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2900 BC + |
Sumer: For centuries, Bart is employed by various warring city states throughout southern Mesopotamia, helping conduct campaigns against their rivals. Notable early cities include: Ur, Kish, Eridu and Uruk. Soon he meets, and regularly crosses horns with, the djinni Faquarl, whose first summoning was in 3015, in Jericho. |
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? 2700 BC |
Sumer: At an unknown date early in his career, Bartimaeus is responsible for a great flood, which occurs when he builds a dam across the Euphrates river for a bet. Many houses between Ur and Shuruppak are apparently inundated, though in Bart’s view the incident has been subsequently ‘over-reported’. |
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c.2600 BC |
Uruk, Sumer: Reign of King Gilgamesh.
The great king Gilgamesh is B’s first named master. Bart serves him in the guise of a youthful spear-carrier, and helps him defeat the giant Humbaba. Around this time Bartimaeus rebuilds the walls of Uruk, a feat that for 4,500 years remains one of his proudest boasts. Ever afterwards ‘Bartimaeus of Uruk’ is his favoured title. |
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2551 BC |
Egypt: Khufu becomes pharaoh.
Bart is involved in construction of Khufu’s great pyramid, and suspects Faquarl’s involvement when a bit of it falls on him. |
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c.2400 BC |
Ur, Sumer: Possibly around this time, Bartimaeus is enslaved by the terrible Old Priestess of Ur, who conducts murderous rituals involving the sacrifice of animals and servants. The Priestess longs for immortality, and works her magicians to death to get it. Her obsession results in the creation of the dreadful Circlet of Harms and the final downfall of the Old Priestess. Bart buries her at last in a lead-lined tomb – despite her muffled protests. |
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c.2300 BC |
Akkad: Around this time, Bart serves King Sargon the Great of Akkad, aka ‘Old Scowler’. |
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c.2050 BC |
Eridu, Sumer: The City of Eridu, ‘the bone-white city’, reaches the zenith of its power. Bart was probably present there around this time. |
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c.1792 BC |
Babylon: The reign of King Hammurabi begins. Hammurabi conquers most of Mesopotamia. Bart is among his troops, who sing rude songs about Hammurabi in his honour. The king joins in the choruses. |
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c.1500s? BC |
Jericho, Canaan: Bart possibly works on the walls of Jericho around this time. According to the djinni Queezle, Bart is responsible for their flimsy construction, revealed during Joshua’s invasion a few centuries later. |
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1,500 BC |
Atlantis: a Mycenaean outpost on Santorini, is destroyed in this year by a powerful spirit. Bart hears the explosion hundreds of miles away in the Egyptian delta. |
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1478 BC |
Egypt: Bart is a member of Tuthmosis III’s army, allegedly the greatest body of spirits ever assembled. |
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1475 BC |
Egypt: Bart helps erect an obelisk for Tuthmosis in Heliopolis. Later (2002 AD) he is somewhat surprised to see it beside the Thames. |
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c.1350 BC |
Egypt: Akhenaten and Nefertiti
Bartimaeus is closely associated with the heretic pharaoh and his wife around this time, and seems to be a favourite of Nefertiti in particular. A few years later he is involved in the overthrow of Akhenaten, a coup engineered by the High Priests of Ra, and for this Nefertiti never forgives him. |
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1279 BC |
Egypt: Reign of Rameses the Great begins.
Bart works hard for Rameses II, whom he remembers later as a grandiose and pockmarked ruler. It may be during this time that he rebuilds the walls of Karnak, another of his favourite boasts. |
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1274 BC |
Battle of Qadesh between Egyptians and the Hittites, which Rameses wins. Bart and Faquarl take part in this battle. Two hundred years later, the battlefield is still a blackened waste, a field of bones. |
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1200? BC |
Fall of Troy: Faquarl claims to have been present on this occasion, and to have given Odysseus the idea for the Trojan Horse. Bart is sceptical, but can’t prove anything, as he is Egypt at the time.
Around this time Faquarl is in his pomp, known far and wide as Faquarl of Sparta, scourge of the Aegean. Bart recalls him as a ‘slate-black giant crushing hoplite armies beneath [his] heels.’ |
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c.1170 BC |
Egypt: Bartimaeus is involved in Rameses III’s campaigns against the Sea Peoples, and helps drive them from Egyptian soil. |
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970s-940s BC |
Israel: Solomon the Great is king of Israel.
Solomon wields great power with his magic ring, one of the most powerful talismans of all time. Bart is one of many spirit slaves working for Solomon’s magicians, and he undertakes much construction work in Jerusalem. |
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950 BC |
Events of The Ring of Solomon.
Bartimaeus briefly works on Solomon’s Temple, before taking a leading part in ‘that uncomfortable business of Solomon’s magic ring,’ in which Jerusalem is almost destroyed. Bart seems slightly equivocal about the whole affair in later years, but is more than happy to boast of having spoken with Solomon. |
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