Archaeology Project

Summary:
History of Hyrule (the website) was originally focused on the art and details from the older games. Given that many of us have a deep love for Zelda that goes way back to the earlier games in the series, and given that many of us have always wanted there to be a richer history and lore to the game, we've decided that it would be really fun to create our own mythos and world of Hyrule. In short, we're creating our own history of Hyrule.

The Premise:
Our history of Hyrule is to be presented as a scholarly look back through time to describe the goings-on of "ancient/medieval history" through the lens of a modern-day Hyrule. Everyone who participates in this project will become, in essence, Ph.D.'s in Hyrulean History. Together, our aim is to sort through the tales and legends (i.e., the games) and sort out what parts of those oral and written tales are factually accurate and which elements are entirely fictional. We will be presenting our knowledge of the ancient world via quotations from ancient texts (such as the Book of Mudora) as well as archaeological evidence (items and buildings uncovered at digs) as a means of supporting this fan-made history.

A Note about Timelines:
For our intents and purposes, Hyrule Historia is canonical. Therefore everything that happens in our history must abide by the general outline that it has presented. Because there are three separate timelines there, our history is going to follow the one that contains the early Zelda titles (LoZ, AoL, LttP, and LA). Therefore, the only games permitted in our timeline are as followed:

• Skyward Sword
• Minish Cap
• Four Swords
• Ocarina of Time
• Link to the Past
• Oracle of Seasons
• Oracle of Ages
• Link's Awakening
• Legend of Zelda
• Adventure of Link

Every other game in the franchise is considered extracanonical; in other words, you can reference these games insofar that people have written legends about those games, but those games did not happen; no conclusive evidence to support them will ever been found (unless it also happens to be used/found in one of the canonical games).

Where to Put Our Focus:

• Top Priority: Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Legend of Zelda, Adventure of Link. These games are the ones that History of Hyrule (the website) focused on originally, and they're the ones that are keyed out specially in the main site, so describing the origins of these games is #1.
• Second Priority: Ocarina of Time. Because LttP includes the Imprisoning War as its backstory, which takes place pretty much straight away after OoT, we'll need to put some emphasis on this game as well. It doesn't take center stage quite so much as the primary four, but we'll need to talk about it some.
• Third Priority: Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages. The Oracle games take place during the same time period as do LttP and LA according to Hyrule Historia. Therefore, this is relevant to the time period under study. However, they will receive less focus because these events took place well outside of the borders of Hyrule. Our focus and mission is Hyrulean history. However, because it does have relevance, it should be included to some degree.
• Fourth Priority: Skyward Sword, Minish Cap, Four Swords. These games take place VERY early in our timeline, and therefore a lot of the historical records either have not survived or are much more difficult to prove the claims of. We should be able to make claims of little bits of pieces that we have found and make educated guesses about these, but we shouldn't go out of our way to make any sort of legitimate proof that these happened the way that we know them in the games.
• Last Priority: Every other game. When it comes to all of the extracanonical games, we should be able to talk about them as legend. We should be able to talk about theoretical/fictional places that are referenced in the legend. We can discuss that, if they were true, where we might find them in "our Hyrule." We just don't want to put any effort into substantiating those games.