this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2026
4 points (66.7% liked)

AskHistorians

1380 readers
68 users here now

QUESTIONS

  1. Be civil.
  2. Be specific.
  3. Historical topic must be from at least 20 years ago.
  4. Post questions in the title. Elaboration is for the text box.

RESPONSES

  1. Be civil.
  2. Provide comprehensive answers.
  3. Please provide primary and secondary sources upon good faith request. Tertiary sources, like Wikipedia, are not accepted.

askhistorians is a community for academic answers to questions about history. Polls, opinions, bigotry, grammar pedantry, and personal insults will be removed.

Be sure to check out our sister community at: !askscience@lemmy.world

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Patnou@lemmy.world
PugJesus@piefed.social
Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.ca
Wrufieotnak@feddit.org
4
Before dick wolf before dceu before mcu before tolkien and others, what was the first fiction universe that was created? Or is the idea of a fictional universe a "new age" thing? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 day ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to c/askhistorians@lemmy.world
11 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

The first written fictional work we know of is the Epic of Gilgamesh from ~4000years ago. Considering that many societies, including those with writing also had strong oral traditions and these likely included fictional stories. A lot of these stories include fictional settings, such as heaven or hell/netherworld. Thus the first fictional universes can be considered as prior to writing.