Today i had history class and the teacher talked crap about the babylonian stuff etc etc while me and my mates play poker without her noticing, but then i thought of this question, which made me quit poker and listen to the lecture...
What year is skyrim set in, if it was in real life? Surely it aint the 1800s, but it cant be the 5000BC, so any rough dates, such as the roman empire or akkardian empire etc etc?

1573

maybe around 1000 or so, there's still no cannons or guns and consifering guns where already common around 1450

About 475 AD.

Around 500-1000 AD

It seems to me that the sawmill is the most advanced invention in Skyrim, so whenever they had similiar sawmills in our history I guess.

4E201.

Its senseless to try and put a historical age on Tamriel, as its a fantasy universe.
Sure the horses and carts seem pre-industrial age, but how do you classify the spacetravel and constructing and maintenance of pocket dimensions? Future stuff?

They have a great deal of sixual equality. This alone makes it very difficult to place in Earth history. That's before you get to magic and the obviation of the need for technological progress. Post feudal politically, and their attitudes, violence notwithdtanding, are pretty 'renaissance'.

The sawmills in Skyrim look like sawmills from the 1800's, although I believe they are of a similar design to the 3rd century sawmills.

Sawmills aren't that high tech as the most of you think.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierapolis_sawmill pretty early and the are almost like the ones in Skyrim. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Zell_alte_Saegemuehle_25052007_01.jpg.

I would say it would be around 600-1000 a.D.

Tens of thousands of years in the future.
My view on TES universe is that humans of earth left this planet, colonized other planets and Nirn is one of them. It's just been thousands of years since the arrival that no one remembers it.
Thus, real world technology and names appearing in a fantasy setting.
As for gods and magic... well... nanotechnology and SCIENCE!

There is no way of knowing what those sawmills looked like. It is fairly clear the sawmills in Skyrim are based on early 20th/late19th century sawmills (seeing as we don't know what the 3rd century mills looked like.)

Not a single year.

TES isn't real life. You can't slap a time period on it. That doesn't make sense.

1400-ies , due to the advanced plate of the period.

I reckon that the technology available in Skyrim places it between 500-800 AD.

The only thing I can think of (that's not to say there aren't others), is the rounded spines of some books, which weren't around until the 15th Century.

Quote: "Early and medieval codices were bound with flat spines, and it was not until the fifteenth century that books began to have the rounded spines associated with hardcovers today"

The question is actually a difficult one to answer as Skyrim is set in a fictional universe that has no real timeline comparisons. It has a mixture of culture, fashion, tech and animal life from various periods throughout earth's history and it depends on which of these you focus on to give it an earth equivalent for a time period.

The Nord culture is heavily influenced by the Viking age which ran from approximately the 8th to 11th century. The Imperials, modelled after the ancient Romans, are much earlier and could be anywhere from the alleged founding of Rome in 753 BC to sometime in the 5th century when it fell.

As for the animals, the time period is way out. The mammoths for example, disappeared on earth during the late Pleistocene period (approximately 11,000 before the present). Throughout most of this period, humans on earth had yet to evolve into the modern Homo sapiens that are depicted in the game world.

So just pick a period that takes your fancy and run with it.


Stannie

1980+ due to equal rights for man and woman
2000+ because of relatively little racism
3000+ for curing all kinds of diseases with a simple potion
421 because of similarities with Rome in that time
30 because magic happens like all the time and gods walk the earth (only applies if your Christian)

Generally speaking it's most reminiscent of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Middle_Ages. The Dwemer do have the look of ancient Mesopotamia, though more like Assyrian stuff than Babylonian stuff if you ask me. In their architecture there is a hint of Mayan Revival art deco.

There are a lot of Archaelogical finds of sawmills all around europe.

I'd say the Dark Ages, as the Roman Empire equivelant is collapsing and the world is plunging into wars. The previous games are set in the Classical era imo.

This is, of course, just for the overall "feel" of the games, which are obviously not confined to a period.

IDK after the world ends in DEC 2012 maybe we can look forward to 2013 lol.

Definately the Dark Ages. Germanic culture is heavily influenced and in some ways defined by that time period.

I just don't get how you get all those time periods, half of the things in Skyrim would make sense the other half would make anything but sense in that time period.

Fair enough.

id say 1500's, wernt that around the time dragons roamed earth its been a while since i was at school...

serious tho its hard to tell like people have said with all the different factors equality, fashion, weapons & archetecture....

also the dwemer dont help with there advanced technology, and them catapults with explosives...