black greasy stone across the known world

[ellstaysia]

I want to talk about the mysterious structures & objects made out of a similar sounding black stone material. I just finished my first complete read of the book & I kept noticing & getting more intrigued by the mention of this peculiar type of stone.
first, we have the seastone chair, which was supposedly on old wyk before any first men arrived. that's in the far west of the known world. it was made of an oily black stone material of uncertain origins.
second we have the square fortress at the bottom of the hightower in oldtown. no one knows how or when it was built, or by who. seamless black stone.
third we have the ancient ruin of yeen in the sothoryos jungle. it is built of oily black fused stone. this fortress is so cursed that even after thousands of years the jungle has not grown into it. this is in the very south of the known world. nymeria's quote "a city so evil that even the jungle will not enter" really stuck out to me.

forth we have the five forts in yi ti. they are enormous strongholds built with fused black stone, older than time.
lastly, in the very far east of the known world, we have asshai, a city built entirely of black stone; black stone that is described as greasy & unpleasant. asshai has a sinister reputation around the known world.

who is behind all of these constructions? & across such an extremely large area of land. it's unbelievable to think about. I believe that when we finally see the heart of winter, we will also see a structure of black stone that seems to suck the light. is it possible the others were behind these ancient mysteries? perhaps they were an early worldwide empire that for some reason became terribly cursed. I don't know. i really am not sure what these all mean in relation to each other but I am intrigued & would be curious to hear other opinions.

[BearQueen87]

Lots of ideas in this thread you might find interesting. I agree that the black oily stones are seriously intriguing. My own thought right now is some sort of "proto-race" that existed long long long long long (long long long long) ago.

[H0X0]

Already several long threads on this...

Here's one.

*ninja'd by BearQueen*

Plus you missed the toad.

The base of the Hightower is never described as oily or greasy. To me the oily stuff is associated with ancient, sinister, Lovecraftian bad-stuff. The other black stones are just ancient.

Edited to sound less mean.

[ellstaysia]

I looked back about half a dozen pages to see if there was a similar topic, but didn't find anything.

I'll go read up over there then.

[Maester Mando]

You missed the giant toad on the isle of toads, basilisk isles

[Archmaester Drew]

There are actually four types of black stones described in TWOIAF:

1. "Oily black stone" (Seastone chair, Toad Is., Yeen, Assha); aka, 'Strange stone'.

2. Plain fused black stone (Five Forts, Hightower) - similar to Valyrian, but plain; 'proto-Valyrian'?

3. Elaborate fused black stone (Dragonstone, Valyrian roads, etc.); 'Valyrian'.

4. "Bloodstone" (Yin - Bloodstone Emperor of Yi Ti) - meteorite (made of iron rich material, aka hematite -- 'bloodstone').

It would seem to me that Assahi and Yeen are linked to an ancient magical catastrophe that may have upset the elemental balance of the world -- knocking it off it's hinges, as it were -- culminating in the Long Night and subsequent imbalance of the seasons. Asshai is truly ancient and its inhabitants today, although inheritors of the magic tradition, have no tangible connection to the builders.

Here is a link to a previous thread:

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/119617-woiaf-spoilers-oily-stone-yeen-asshai-the-wall-5-forts-hinges-of-the-world/

:)