When did the Andals leave Essos?

[Lord Varys]

There is no reason to try to search for meaning where is none. George isn't Tolkien, and doesn't like to invent all that many names. Unless we don't know that names used by the First Men at point A in time where not, simply by coincidence, also used by the Andals in Essos or Westeros at point B in time we have no reason to assume that there is a continuity there, and that the Andals took their names from the First Men and/or their First Men ancestors.

 

We have no reason to buy or assume any of this 'ancient Andal raider' stuff because the text nowhere states that something like that ever happened. We may not be know exactly what happened during the Battle of Seven Stars (or what led up to it) but it makes no sense to assume we can find out what 'truly happened' if our only sources are legends.

 

And I've no idea where this gender equality thing comes from. The axe as the symbol doesn't mean the Andals were in any way like ancient vikings, it may simply have been a symbol of their ancient homeland - the Axe, in Essos. The fact that they no longer lived there and searched for the kingdoms their gods had promised them in a new land also makes quite clear why they might have began using seven stars instead of an axe. Why dwell in the past if you are looking for a new and exciting future?

 

There is also no reason to believe that the Winged Knight story has any real basis in history. The Winged Knight may be a complete fabrication cooked up by the singers based on the average elements of a good Age of Heroes stories. The same way the First Man Lann most likely became an Andal adventurer in some versions of the story, especially after the Andal Joffrey Lydden had effectively taken over House Lannister. The same way knights and Andal stuff crept into the ancient stories about the descendants of Garth Greenhand.

 

The only source for the Andals being in Westeros 6,000 years ago is the Alyssa Arryn thing, and that was clearly reassessed in TWoIaF. With that 'source' for this practically destroyed, there is really no reason to keep this whole thing up, especially in light of the fact that Yandel makes it perfectly clear that the Valyrians were responsible for the Andal migration to Westeros, and nothing else. We don't even have a reason to assume that the Andals already lived at the western coast of Essos 6,000 years ago.

[Mithras]

Valyrians driving the Andals to Westeros is at best a conjecture and I don’t buy it. There is no reason for me to respond to the rest of your post.

[Mithras]

Again, according to the Maesters written histories, the Rape of the Three Sisters happened 2000 years ago, 

 

No written histories as far as we know. “The maesters say the Rape of the Three Sisters was two thousand years ago” is the exact quote and as a rule of thumb, I don’t believe in anything “the maesters say” without seeing their proofs and how they came to such conclusions.

[Lord Varys]

Mithras.

 

it is rather strange to actually think one knows things better than people actually living in this world. You will never see the proof you demand, and your theories are by necessity worse than even the most outlandish theory a maester in Westeros could come up with since he lives in Westeros, and has thus to all the actually source material you will never see. You and I will only see what they quote or paraphrase, and we'll never be able to check the original sources on our own.

[Mithras]

Not strange at all because we are led to believe the ignorance of the maesters right from the beginning and we witnessed that certain things they ridiculed are proven to be true.

[Free Northman Reborn]

 

No written histories as far as we know. “The maesters say the Rape of the Three Sisters was two thousand years ago” is the exact quote and as a rule of thumb, I don’t believe in anything “the maesters say” without seeing their proofs and how they came to such conclusions.

 

Well we know the Maesters have written histories going back to the septons that came with the Andal conquest. If they are referring to events after the Andal conquest, it is based on written histories.

 

The nice thing is that Lord Borrell of Sisterton specifically refers to the Maesters placing the Rape of the Three Sisters 2000 years ago. Not to some wetnurse from Sisterton's stories. The reliance placed on Old Nan's stories in this forum boggles my mind. The Maester's histories will be far more reliable than Old Nan's bedtime stories. Specifically when dealin with timelines.

 

It is quite clear that the Maesters have little real knowledge - other than archeological evidence - about events preceding the Andal invasion. But after that - and especially as one moves further forward in time to when Andal records were being kept on a widespread scale across the continent - their knowledge is far more credible.

 

If the Maester's say the Rape of the Three Sisters happened 2000 years ago it is going to be based on a bit more than Old Nan's fanciful stories heard from her mom, who heard it from her mom etc. etc.

[Mithras]

If the Maester's say the Rape of the Three Sisters happened 2000 years ago it is going to be based on a bit more than Old Nan's fanciful stories heard from her mom, who heard it from her mom etc. etc.

 

Do not underestimate the oral tradition.

 

The accounts of the maesters or septons are based on their assumptions like when did the Andals come or how many years might have passed between these dynasties or these kings etc. There should be a lot of historical documents which include omissions, gaps, forgeries, bias, contradictions and whatnot. Like a modern historian, a maester considers a certain set of documents, disregards others and comes up with a narrative. Depending on which documents are considered and which documents are ignored, different narratives can be made. That is the reason why different archmaesters propose different timelines.

 

So, I don’t think that there are perfect historical documents that can be used for dating stuff. 

[Bael's Bastard]

One can choose to favor a particular time line all they want, but all of the possible timelines we have been given in the book are part of the canon (ASOIAF, D&E, TWOIAF), and reflect the different the in-world opinions of what is the correct timeline, and to act as though only one time line "is the canon" is just not going to be taken seriously by other posters. It remains to be seen which is correct, or closest to correct.

[Free Northman Reborn]

 

Do not underestimate the oral tradition.

 

The accounts of the maesters or septons are based on their assumptions like when did the Andals come or how many years might have passed between these dynasties or these kings etc. There should be a lot of historical documents which include omissions, gaps, forgeries, bias, contradictions and whatnot. Like a modern historian, a maester considers a certain set of documents, disregards others and comes up with a narrative. Depending on which documents are considered and which documents are ignored, different narratives can be made. That is the reason why different archmaesters propose different timelines.

 

So, I don’t think that there are perfect historical documents that can be used for dating stuff. 

 

Agree with all of that. And yet, the various documents the Maesters base their competing theories on are still more reliable than Old Nan's Tales of the Brothers Grimm.

[Jon Fossoway]

My impression is that the Andals "adventurers" (I think that is the exact word used in the wikia) are like spanish conquistadores: mostly lowborn, lesser nobles, fanatics, hungry warring hordes that came into Westeros to start again. The fact that the Andals killed the CotF wherever they saw them (spanish conquistadores are known to have wiped out entire ethnic groups in South America) gives me some more comparison context.

 

They came by waves; not every one of them actually did sailed to westeros. My guess is that the "Andal Invasion" isnt the start point of their migration into Westeros. They were already coming, maybe in much smaller force. Maybe this Hugor was one or a series of messianic andal figures that insisted on sailing into Westeros (it was in disarray, at least in some coastal points) and forging kingdoms there. And rallied, as I mentioned, these lowborn, lesser nobles and poor fanatics.

 

I dont think the andals living in Essos are cut from their original culture. They didnt had much to do with these brutish religion from the start.

[Lord Varys]

An important problem that is actually somewhat discussed by Yandel is the dating stuff. Even if a maester has a splendid source on war X or the life of king Y it should be difficult to precisely determine when exactly that happened. After all, the contemporaries may count years differently, say, 'in the 6th year of the reign of King Y happened this or that, and that was it'. Unless the events were connected to a major event in some other kingdom which is precisely dated things may be rather unclear. You can have a pretty thorough account on a certain historical event and still have no clue when exactly the event supposedly took place. Prior to the Conquest there was apparently no universally accepting dating system in Westeros, and we don't know of any independent kingdom having established something of this sort on its own. If the people just counted the years of the reigns of kings the maesters are effectively fried unless they have full and correct lists of all the kings - which they don't have. Another problem is to identify the king in question, a problem Yandel discusses with the multiple kings named Durran.

 

In regards to the Rape of the Three Sisters we don't know exactly if it is 'tradition' which sets it 2,000 years in the past - it's alleged length of 1,000 years is clearly an exaggeration since the hostilities ceased at times, only to begin again, and so on.

 

Oral tradition is generally not worth anything at all. You tell stories orally, and stories are supposed to be entertaining, and not dull accounts on the lives and times of this or that insignificant historical figure. Old Nan's stories contain knowledge insofar as they preserve information on magical events of the past, but those are very interesting events which one would want to preserve, but whether there are actual ice-spiders still remains to be seen, if I'm not mistaken. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

An important problem that is actually somewhat discussed by Yandel is the dating stuff. Even if a maester has a splendid source on war X or the life of king Y it should be difficult to precisely determine when exactly that happened. After all, the contemporaries may count years differently, say, 'in the 6th year of the reign of King Y happened this or that, and that was it'. Unless the events were connected to a major event in some other kingdom which is precisely dated things may be rather unclear. You can have a pretty thorough account on a certain historical event and still have no clue when exactly the event supposedly took place. Prior to the Conquest there was apparently no universally accepting dating system in Westeros, and we don't know of any independent kingdom having established something of this sort on its own. If the people just counted the years of the reigns of kings the maesters are effectively fried unless they have full and correct lists of all the kings - which they don't have. Another problem is to identify the king in question, a problem Yandel discusses with the multiple kings named Durran.

 

In regards to the Rape of the Three Sisters we don't know exactly if it is 'tradition' which sets it 2,000 years in the past - it's alleged length of 1,000 years is clearly an exaggeration since the hostilities ceased at times, only to begin again, and so on.

 

Oral tradition is generally not worth anything at all. You tell stories orally, and stories are supposed to be entertaining, and not dull accounts on the lives and times of this or that insignificant historical figure. Old Nan's stories contain knowledge insofar as they preserve information on magical events of the past, but those are very interesting events which one would want to preserve, but whether there are actual ice-spiders still remains to be seen, if I'm not mistaken. 

 

I was waiting for the exaggerated length of the War over the Water to be brought up. Of course, the answer to that is that the Maesters themselves state its true length (around 200 years if I recall correctly, or actually, that was the war with the Barrow Kings, but nevertheless, it is the Maesters who give us the more realistic duration of the War over the Water too), just like it is the Maesters themselves who date its start as 2000 years ago.

 

It is the folktales that describe it as lasting for 1000 years.

 

On your broader point, I agree.

 

Nevertheless, at the very least in the case of the Stark crypts we have an unbroken line of Stark kings represented. Or at least, a list of verified kings, given that it is highly unlikely that they would go to the trouble of carving a full body statue of a guy if he didn't rule Winterfell at some point. So while there may be kings missing from the Stark crypts due to oversight, or disaster or some other event that prevented a statue from being carved, there won't be statues for guys who never existed. Hence, the Winterfell crypts give us a minimum number of Stark rulers.

 

So if there are 500 statues there, we know there were at least 500 Stark lords of Winterfell. There could be more, but there almost certainly were not fewer.

 

Now I don't know if there is some kind of runic identification mark next to each king's statue, but given that the ancient Egyptians had hieroglyphic identity markers on their ancient tombs going back millenia it is highly unlikely that there is not some way to identify each statue in the Stark crypts. In fact, it would seem that even at Bran's age he has been required to learn the name of every Stark statue below Winterfell.

 

And given that we know of at least a few treatises written by Maesters who studied the North and the Starks in particular, it is fairly certain that every Stark statue is identifiable. So, by comparing those statues with known events attributed to certain prominent Stark Kings - like Theon Stark's war against Argos Sevenstar, Jon Stark's building of the Wolf's Den, Brandon Ice Eyes's slaying of the Slavers, Brandon the Shipwright's voyage across the Sunset Sea etc., we can clearly see what happened before which other event, and furthermore, we can count the comparative number of Stark statues between one event and another.

 

The Stark crypts give us not only the number of kings that existed, but also the exact order in which they existed. And while the events of each one's lifetime may not be known, the most significant events can quite clearly be tied to specific Stark kings.

 

Theon Stark, as mentioned above, is a great example. To expand on this, we know that Bran identified his statue specfiically. And we know that he battled the Andal warlord Argos Sevenstar. So this places Argos's period of the Andal invasion quite specifically in the Stark chronology. Similarly, the Maesters will know which Stark King led the Rape of the Three Sisters. My current conclusion is that it was Theon Stark himself, as he is stated to have had a good relationship with the Boltons, to have conquered the Three Sisters and we know that a Bolton created a tent from the skins of 100 Sistermen, which when all read together argues quite convincingly for it all to have happened in the same time period. But that is not important. What is important is that Theon's place in the chronological order of Stark kings can be seen very specifically. And hence, so can Argos Sevenstar's dating be corroborated. And so would whichever Stark king led the Rape of the Sisters.

 

And going back and forth, if there are 30 Stark kings after Theon Stark before you get to Brandon Ice Eyes, and similarly 30 Stark kings before Theon Stark to get to the statue of Jon Stark who built the Wolf's Den, then you can start to build a very nice chronology of key events.

 

We have only been told a fraction of what the Maesters know. That Knights of Winter tome written by some Maester about the Starks of Winterfell must be a treasure trove of knowledge. In fact, it may be one of the greatest history sources around, given the ability to link so many key events to specific statues in the crypts below.

 

Hence, I think that events in the North in particular can be dated relatively well by Maesters who have conducted dedicated study on the matter.

[LmL]

An important problem that is actually somewhat discussed by Yandel is the dating stuff. Even if a maester has a splendid source on war X or the life of king Y it should be difficult to precisely determine when exactly that happened. After all, the contemporaries may count years differently, say, 'in the 6th year of the reign of King Y happened this or that, and that was it'. Unless the events were connected to a major event in some other kingdom which is precisely dated things may be rather unclear. You can have a pretty thorough account on a certain historical event and still have no clue when exactly the event supposedly took place. Prior to the Conquest there was apparently no universally accepting dating system in Westeros, and we don't know of any independent kingdom having established something of this sort on its own. If the people just counted the years of the reigns of kings the maesters are effectively fried unless they have full and correct lists of all the kings - which they don't have. Another problem is to identify the king in question, a problem Yandel discusses with the multiple kings named Durran.

 

 

Strongly agree with this - I thought the 'Yandel' was very frank and logical when discussing the fog of history. I enjoyed that aspect of TWOIAF. 

 

 

Oral tradition is generally not worth anything at all. You tell stories orally, and stories are supposed to be entertaining, and not dull accounts on the lives and times of this or that insignificant historical figure. Old Nan's stories contain knowledge insofar as they preserve information on magical events of the past, but those are very interesting events which one would want to preserve, but whether there are actual ice-spiders still remains to be seen, if I'm not mistaken. 

 

Stongly, strongly disagree here. Not only do we have examples of incredibly accurate oral traditions all throughout the world (accurate in the sense of unchanging over time), I happen to think that folktales and old myths and legends are far, far more credible than some modern historians tend to think. I don't know that we need to have this debate here, as it's only tertiary to the ASOIAF discussion here, but I think you err badly by treating oral traditions and folktales with such little regard. I've seen this bias creep into your ASOIAF analysis on many occasions, and I always feel its in error. You'd probably say the same about me - that my bias towards treating myths and folktales with credibility reflects in my ASOIAF analysis - and I don't deny that.  But I think when you look at the series, the singers, fisherman, and nursemaids are meant to be "reliable" in the "bard's truth" sense of the word reliable, particularly 0when it comes to issues of magic and ancient history.  I feel like Martin is broadcasting this idea loudly, through every book, and while I agree with you that the maesters are scorned unfairly, I think the fact that you seem to be missing this message reflects your real-world bias against oral tradition.

 

Feel free to correct me if I have taken the wrong impression of your opinion. ;)

[LmL]

 

I was waiting for the exaggerated length of the War over the Water to be brought up. Of course, the answer to that is that the Maesters themselves state its true length (around 200 years if I recall correctly), just like it is the Maesters themselves who date its start as 2000 years ago.

 

It is the folktales that describe it as lasting for 1000 years.

 

On your broader point, I agree.

 

Nevertheless, at the very least in the case of the Stark crypts we have an unbroken line of Stark kings represented. Or at least, a list of verified kings, given that it is highly unlikely that they would go to the trouble of carving a full body statue of a guy if he didn't rule Winterfell at some point. So while there may be kings missing from the Stark crypts due to oversight, or disaster or some other event that prevented a statue from being carved, there won't be statues for guys who never existed. Hence, the Winterfell crypts give us a minimum number of Stark rulers.

 

So if there are 500 statues there, we know there were at least 500 Stark lords of Winterfell. There could be more, but there almost certainly were not fewer.

 

Now I don't know if there is some kind of runic identification mark next to each king's statue, but given that the ancient Egyptians had hieroglyphic identity markers on their ancient tombs going back millenia it is highly unlikely that there is not some way to identify each statue in the Stark crypts. In fact, it would seem that even at Bran's age he has been required to learn the name of every Stark statue below Winterfell.

 

And given that we know of at least a few treatises written by Maesters who studied the North and the Starks in particular, it is fairly certain that every Stark statue is identifiable. So, by comparing those statues with known events attributed to certain prominent Stark Kings - like Theon Stark's war against Argos Sevenstar, Jon Stark's building of the Wolf's Den, Brandon Ice Eyes's slaying of the Slavers, Brandon the Shipwright's voyage across the Sunset Sea etc., we can clearly see what happened before which other event, and furthermore, we can count the comparative number of Stark statues between one event and another.

 

The Stark crypts give us not only the number of kings that existed, but also the exact order in which they existed. And while the events of each one's lifetime may not be known, the most significant events can quite clearly be tied to specific Stark kings.

 

Theon Stark, as mentioned above, is a great example. To expand on this, we know that Bran identified his statue specfiically. And we know that he battled the Andal warlord Argos Sevenstar. So this places Argos's period of the Andal invasion quite specifically in the Stark chronology. Similarly, the Maesters will know which Stark King led the Rape of the Three Sisters. My current conclusion is that it was Theon Stark himself, as he is stated to have had a good relationship with the Boltons, to have conquered the Three Sisters and we know that a Bolton created a tent from the skins of 100 Sistermen, which when all read together argues quite convincingly for it all to have happened in the same time period. But that is not important. What is important is that Theon's place in the chronological order of Stark kings can be seen very specifically. And hence, so can Argos Sevenstar's dating be corroborated. And so would whichever Stark king led the Rape of the Sisters.

 

And going back and forth, if there are 30 Stark kings after Theon Stark before you get to Brandon Ice Eyes, and similarly 30 Stark kings before Theon Stark to get to the statue of Jon Stark who built the Wolf's Den, then you can start to build a very nice chronology of key events.

 

We have only been told a fraction of what the Maesters know. That Knights of Winter tome written by some Maester about the Starks of Winterfell must be a treasure trove of knowledge. In fact, it may be one of the greatest history sources around, given the ability to link so many key events to specific statues in the crypts below.

 

Hence, I think that events in the North in particular can be dated relatively well by Maesters who have conducted dedicated study on the matter.

 

Thanks Free Northman, that was all really great northman knowledge... true to your name. Just wanted to say thanks for all that, I need to re-read the north TWOIAF section again.  :cheers:

[Bael's Bastard]

While oral tradition may be susceptible to intentional exaggerations, or things intended to be understood a certain way by insiders that may be misinterpreted by outsiders, in general I agree with the post above, they tend to be pretty reliable, especially when it is the primary or only way a people passes it down. The north remembers, and I don't think it is because of anything written in their libraries.

[Free Northman Reborn]

While oral tradition may be susceptible to intentional exaggerations, or things intended to be understood a certain way by insiders that may be misinterpreted by outsiders, in general I agree with the post above, they tend to be pretty reliable, especially when it is the primary or only way a people passes it down. The north remembers, and I don't think it is because of anything written in their libraries.

 

An example of the available knowledge is the following:

 

From Bran, all we knew was that Theon Stark was known as the Hungry Wolf because he was always at war. That was it. In the same way, Bran had one liner summaries of the deeds of a number of other Stark kings as he walked past them in the crypts. We could be forgiven for thinking that this was about the extent of the available knowledge on each of these kings.

 

Then, in the World of Ice and Fire, we have Yandel giving a summarized account of the North, in a larger tome dedicated to a high level overview of the history of the entire known world. Clearly Yandel does not cover every known detail about every part of the entire world. His book is not a specialist treatise on any given area or topic. Instead it is a summarized overview of everything.

 

Even in Yandel's book there are references to other specialist tomes that delve into a lot more detail about virtually every sub-topic. About the North, he refers to two that I can recall offhand. One is the Knights of Winter, written by a Maester who spent years researching the lineage and history of the Starks of Winterfell, and another is Married to the Sea, a tome about the history of White Harbor specifically.

 

Now, it is highly likely that each of these specialist tomes reveals as much more about its topic of research than Yandel does, as Yandel exceeded Bran's brief account.

 

And who knows whether the Knights of Winter - because it covers every known Stark in history - may refer to other even more specialized tomes, that may cover the life of only a single Stark - like say Theon Stark for example, or maybe the Starks of the last 100 years preceding the life of some Maester that wrote the hypothetical The Hungry Wolf  2000 years ago, or whenever.

 

The point is, there is vastly more knowledge in written records outside of Yandel's tome, than there is within it. We are working with the bare bones of the knowledge that must exist in-universe.

[LmL]

I think the key is understanding the idea of the "Bard's Truth." Folktales contain true stories, but you have to assume a certain amount of leeway for storytelling's sake, cultural transmission, the concept of conquerors assimilating the trappings of the conquered people (donning the "floppy ears"), etc. Right at the start, when we are on the Wall with Tyrion and Jon and Mormont, we hear that the fisher folks report seeing Others - and it's dismissed as "fisherfolk talk" or whatever. But of course, we know they were right. 

Now I will say that since this is a chronology issue in particular, we should give the maesters a fair amount of credibility here. I think when we get information from either the maesters or the fishwives and singers, we simply have to take their perspectives into account.  Both have their finger on different aspects of "the truth."

 

Anyway. Back to the OP and the issue of the Andals. Don't want to derail the thread here. I think we have to look at the hostelry of the Ironborn and Riverlanders to try to compare and place the Andal invasion. I saw a thread where someone did it very thoroughly, but I have not been able to find it since. Their conclusion was 2500 - 3000 years ago, which seems about right to me. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

I think the key is understanding the idea of the "Bard's Truth." Folktales contain true stories, but you have to assume a certain amount of leeway for storytelling's sake, cultural transmission, the concept of conquerors assimilating the trappings of the conquered people (donning the "floppy ears"), etc. Right at the start, when we are on the Wall with Tyrion and Jon and Mormont, we hear that the fisher folks report seeing Others - and it's dismissed as "fisherfolk talk" or whatever. But of course, we know they were right. 

Now I will say that since this is a chronology issue in particular, we should give the maesters a fair amount of credibility here. I think when we get information from either the maesters or the fishwives and singers, we simply have to take their perspectives into account.  Both have their finger on different aspects of "the truth."

 

Anyway. Back to the OP and the issue of the Andals. Don't want to derail the thread here. I think we have to look at the hostelry of the Ironborn and Riverlanders to try to compare and place the Andal invasion. I saw a thread where someone did it very thoroughly, but I have not been able to find it since. Their conclusion was 2500 - 3000 years ago, which seems about right to me. 

 

Yes, that falls pretty much in the middle of my estimate as well.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

 

I was waiting for the exaggerated length of the War over the Water to be brought up. Of course, the answer to that is that the Maesters themselves state its true length (around 200 years if I recall correctly, or actually, that was the war with the Barrow Kings, but nevertheless, it is the Maesters who give us the more realistic duration of the War over the Water too), just like it is the Maesters themselves who date its start as 2000 years ago.

 

It is the folktales that describe it as lasting for 1000 years.

 

On your broader point, I agree.

 

Nevertheless, at the very least in the case of the Stark crypts we have an unbroken line of Stark kings represented. Or at least, a list of verified kings, given that it is highly unlikely that they would go to the trouble of carving a full body statue of a guy if he didn't rule Winterfell at some point. So while there may be kings missing from the Stark crypts due to oversight, or disaster or some other event that prevented a statue from being carved, there won't be statues for guys who never existed. Hence, the Winterfell crypts give us a minimum number of Stark rulers.

 

So if there are 500 statues there, we know there were at least 500 Stark lords of Winterfell. There could be more, but there almost certainly were not fewer.

 

Now I don't know if there is some kind of runic identification mark next to each king's statue, but given that the ancient Egyptians had hieroglyphic identity markers on their ancient tombs going back millenia it is highly unlikely that there is not some way to identify each statue in the Stark crypts. In fact, it would seem that even at Bran's age he has been required to learn the name of every Stark statue below Winterfell.

 

And given that we know of at least a few treatises written by Maesters who studied the North and the Starks in particular, it is fairly certain that every Stark statue is identifiable. So, by comparing those statues with known events attributed to certain prominent Stark Kings - like Theon Stark's war against Argos Sevenstar, Jon Stark's building of the Wolf's Den, Brandon Ice Eyes's slaying of the Slavers, Brandon the Shipwright's voyage across the Sunset Sea etc., we can clearly see what happened before which other event, and furthermore, we can count the comparative number of Stark statues between one event and another.

 

The Stark crypts give us not only the number of kings that existed, but also the exact order in which they existed. And while the events of each one's lifetime may not be known, the most significant events can quite clearly be tied to specific Stark kings.

 

Theon Stark, as mentioned above, is a great example. To expand on this, we know that Bran identified his statue specfiically. And we know that he battled the Andal warlord Argos Sevenstar. So this places Argos's period of the Andal invasion quite specifically in the Stark chronology. Similarly, the Maesters will know which Stark King led the Rape of the Three Sisters. My current conclusion is that it was Theon Stark himself, as he is stated to have had a good relationship with the Boltons, to have conquered the Three Sisters and we know that a Bolton created a tent from the skins of 100 Sistermen, which when all read together argues quite convincingly for it all to have happened in the same time period. But that is not important. What is important is that Theon's place in the chronological order of Stark kings can be seen very specifically. And hence, so can Argos Sevenstar's dating be corroborated. And so would whichever Stark king led the Rape of the Sisters.

 

And going back and forth, if there are 30 Stark kings after Theon Stark before you get to Brandon Ice Eyes, and similarly 30 Stark kings before Theon Stark to get to the statue of Jon Stark who built the Wolf's Den, then you can start to build a very nice chronology of key events.

 

We have only been told a fraction of what the Maesters know. That Knights of Winter tome written by some Maester about the Starks of Winterfell must be a treasure trove of knowledge. In fact, it may be one of the greatest history sources around, given the ability to link so many key events to specific statues in the crypts below.

 

Hence, I think that events in the North in particular can be dated relatively well by Maesters who have conducted dedicated study on the matter.

That would be a great benefit to the Maesters. Unfortunately, a rather large part of the crypts is inaccessible with all the old graves and statues inside. The truly ancient ones most likely.

That restricts the Maester's knowledge to the upper, intact layers.

 

Furthermore, there are at least two statues not depicting Stark kings (or Lords): Brandon and Lyanna. I'm going out on a limb and state that they were not the only examples of such behavior, and that no Maester alive would know the difference in the older parts of the crypts.

[Jaak]

If the people just counted the years of the reigns of kings the maesters are effectively fried unless they have full and correct lists of all the kings - which they don't have. Another problem is to identify the king in question, a problem Yandel discusses with the multiple kings named Durran.

Are we ever told that they don´t have them?

We are specifically told that Arryns were literate and sponsors of writing from the beginning. If early Arryns had historians to write down the length of Roland I-s reign (26 years) and the length of construction of Eyrie after Roland II-s death (43 years) then Arryns should be expected have a full and correct list of all kings AND reign lengths. Directly dating the Andal conquest. End of argument.

 

Now, the pre-Andal history of illiterate First Men is another matter! How did the septons of, say, Ormund III Durrandon write down the list of previous Durrandons from oral tradition and reach the count of 24 Durrans?