The Ibandr period began in the year 200 AD (After Dawn) and is named after the Moraxl city of Ibandr, during which cities developed across the Luzum and Xanthean region and Ibandr became one of the most influential. In the early Ibandr Period (200-800 AD), the city enjoyed a rise in population, trade, and prominence due to its location on the Luzum and connections between other cultures for trade.

Ibandr City Districts

The city was divided into several sections: the Kalliza district and the Niovolin district, named and dedicated for the *Paroxl* to which they are dedicated, were the most prominent with the most findings from these two areas. The Kalliza district was the central district separated from the rest of the city with low walls decorated with markings and images of *Paroxl*, city rulers, and prominent stories. This district was centered by two buildings: the Kalliza temple and the Ibandr storehouse. The temple began as a simple, four-sided mound with intricate carvings on the walls. Through successive centuries this pyramid-shaped building, believed to be completely solid when first built, was rebuilt, reshapen, and restructured to include a series of steps, terraces, and halls to allow for entry. While the Temple of Kalliza did not achieve its true grandeur until later Ibandr periods, the increasing complexity of the structure along with the walls separating it from the city indicating the increased reverence for Kalliza and the role of the priesthood within the city.

Kalliza played a pivotal role in the city's development. In the Saga of Barnatallamr, the eponymous god-king is the son of Kalliza and imbued with his powers in the destruction of Belitr and the burning of the city. Kalliza, through Barnatallamr, raises Ibandr from the ashes, starting with the temple and radiating out from the city center. It was here where Barnatallamr issued his first Bah as God-King and Zivold and, upon his death, the temple was lifted to bury the ruler under it. The Temple, and therefore the district, is believed to be imbued with the powers of both Barnatallamr and Kalliza by the local populace.

Economy

Ibandr showed signs of centralized collective storage of grain and other foodstuffs, as well as occasional objects and crafts such as farming tools or pottery vessels or bowls. It is during the early Ibandr period where we see a transition from grander, artistic designs of pottery into plainer bowls and jars built in larger quantities. This transition is largely seen due to the pottery wheel. The wheel allowed for faster and easier production of ceramics for functional quality, as well as allowing for a smaller portion of the populace becoming responsible for crafting these goods at large quantities.

Proof of ownership is also significant for the citizens of Ibandr, with showing familial or personal ownership of goods being one of the first Bah issues by Barnatallamr in the Saga. While there is evidence of the early Hortens showing ownership of tools, goods, and grain with small stone pieces pressed into clay, the increasing population and complexity of family ties with the Illir priesthood required better ways of transmitting information. Stone pieces turned into cylindrical seals, with markings shaped onto a cylindrical object that was then impressed onto a clay lump to seal a jar, door, basket, or clay tablets to indicate person or family. These images could be or innocuous shapes, events in mythology, or symbols that identified that family. In the linked image, the storehouse of Ibandr is shown on the left, then proceeding right the image of a horse and a jar on the ground, a woman bending over to fill the jar with a liquid of some sort, a line of other individuals (presumably other members of the family) carrying other goods, and a final shape marking the family.

During this time Ibandr also expanded its use of hemp and cotton as a trade good during this time, booming in the next Ibandr period. While Xanthea in general was ore-poor, the Luzum was even more so, with copper ore being barely available for even domestic consumption and use for tool development. Goods exported from Ibandr and similar Moraxl or Hortens citie included: ceramics, grain (sorghum, sunflower primarily), textiles (hemp and cotton primarily), oils (fish, vegetable), and reeds for the creation of mats and baskets. Imports were plenty and centered on ores and timber, including copper, obsidian, gold and silver, and word. Obsidian in particular is believed to have had particular reverence during the early and middle Ibandr period, being found buried in mass burial sites, in particular quantities surrounding temple districts, and typically held by a corpse at individual burial sites.

Other settlements

Out of the urban settlements along the Luzum, Ibandr was by far the largest and the most influential city to be used for dating in this time period. Outside of Ibandr, few sites in the Luzum yielded similar populations or cultural influence at this time. Key cities of the late Ibandr Period and successive periods have been shown to be occupied at this time (Alendr, Zola, Denosub, Kinakals, Ibutil, Dron; potentially Amiodarna, Flekainida, Balbaduf, Kuren). However, during this period there are few well known structures to have been found from before the early Ibandr period. Ibandr-style statues and buildings grow in number and prominence toward the later period, but the settlements do not grow to competing levels of prominence until the decline of Ibandr in the late Ibandr period and the [REDACTED] periods, following the [REDACTED] and [REDACTED].

To be completed following further funding, research, and review

• Neighboring regions during the Ibandr Period: Several cultures distinct from the Moraxl and the greater Hortens are known of and studied to have lived concurrently. As Ibandr had not developed forms of writing in the early Ibandr Period, little is known of surrounding cultures. However the early writing systems of the Qet-Savaq have recently seen progress in their translations and offers an exciting new development for understanding cultures outside of the immediate Ibandr periphery.
• Ibandr expansion: Ibandr cultural characteristics have been found far outside of its lands, from the Upper Hortens to the Selneam highlands in the north and the Zhim costal settlements of the south, and questions have risen about the relationship between the Luzum cultures and its neighbors. Some have talked of an Ibandr 'expansion' of sorts, with cultural forces spreading from the lower Luzum as a center of civilization and trade and others adopting features from the city. The Upper-Worlds Theory, purported by Gurum Astan Zalgayezi, has gained prominence and some approval, but is still strictly debated. In his view, the Ibandr-ites created waves of colonies and outposts outside of the lower Luzum, following the river both to the coast but also up to its origins, and then north toward the Abo peninsula and south along the coast around the Zhiachi desert. The motion of this activity may have been economic: elites of Ibandr sought out resources which they could not get in Ibandr and settled nodal points of trade with refugees and volunteers. The more developed state structure of Ibandr allowed for greater sophistication in long-distance trade links and exercise cultural, and potentially military, influence over its neighbors.
• Qet-Savaq: the relationship between Ibandr and the northwest Qet-Savaq during this time is not fully understood. The similarities between writing systems and the fact that writing seems to have appeared in Ibandr following the first signs in the Qet Savaq is striking and indicates closer ties than originally though, perhaps even dating prior to the city's rise in prominence at the early Ibandr Period. Influences can be seen going both ways and this will be an interesting point to keep track of as Qet-Savaq writing is deciphered just like the Ibandr Nystagmene script was only recently.

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Context: Small post mainly to introduce: Ibandr as a growing city state, Ibandr cultural spread and influence, trade coming in and out of the region, relationship between Ibandr and the Qet-Savaq growing, and the settlements of colonies and outposts by the city-state for access to other goods.