Nan Madol

Off the island of Pohnpei, in Micronesia, the Saudeleur rulers built a city of nearly a hundred artificial islets from columns of basalt, linked by canals. Pohnpei tradition says the Saudeleurs were overthrown by Isokelekel.

Date: About 1180 to 1628VIII · Medieval networks and empiresIX · Oceans crossed
Place: Nan Madol, Pohnpei · Nandauwas · Pahn KadiraOceania
Laid out as: A cityOne city, district by district, from its centre outwards.
Lessons: 6 planned, none written yet
Themes: Transport, towns and building works
Politics, government and law
Religion, belief and myth

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

IA city on the reef
IIBasalt logs
IIIThe Saudeleur kings
IVNandauwas, the royal tomb
VIsokelekel
VISaving a sinking site

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

Isokelekel (in tradition)

Objects

Basalt column walls

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestry Our species and the Old Stone Age Farming and the New Stone Age First cities and the Bronze Age The Iron Age and growing states The classical world After the empires Medieval networks and empires Oceans crossed Revolutions and the first factories Industry, empire and world war The world since 1945

1180 to 1628. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?