Republic of Enqusqo

Énqusqó, officially styled as The Grand and Illustrious Republic of the Cities of Énqusqó, is a confederation of city states located in the south of Vidina on the Kidal Sea. Its shares a border to the north with [NORTHERN NEIGHBOUR] and Higher Tar-dinuu to the west. The confederation consists of 33 member city-states who have granted the confederal government powers to devise common legislature for the economy and peaceful foreign policy of the region. The confederal government consists of three senates: the Public Senate, the Regal Senate and the Judicial Senate.

The capital, Tsétlaxó, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Vidina, having stood for over 2000 years. The city serves as both the capital for the republic, but also as the governing city of surrounding regions as a sovereign city-state.

Antiquity
The earliest evidence of human activity in the Énqusqó Peninsula appears around 18,000 years ago, with the onset of migrations into Vidina from Tiridinia across the Kidal Sea. These early communities left behind jewellery and fishhooks carved from the bones of monk seals along with early styles of seafaring canoe. This period is identified by the prevalence of "boat burials", where a corpse was found in the charred hull of a canoe, often surrounded by fishing spear tips and fishing hooks. Whilst it is commonly believed that this was a funerary cremation practice, the presence of leather bindings found around the ankles and wrists at some sites have lead some scholars to suggest that there was a sacrificial element. All examples of this burial have been found on land, however, it is believed the practice was possibly more common upon the sea, and these burials simply have not been preserved.

The Proto-Kidal-Énqutsa began to appear as a distinct culture around 2000 BCE. During this period there were large advances in naval technology, with canoes becoming more robust, opening up trade to further along the coasts of Vidina and Tiridinia. The Proto-Kidal-Énqutsa made crude figurines in bone, jade and amber, believed to be gods of early Kidal religion. These figurines have been found across the Kidal Sea and as far away as sites in south eastern Vidina. Early divergence in the group began to occur around 500 BCE with the integration of the Kidal archipelago into the Empire of Tar-Dinuu, leading to an east/west split and the precipitation of tensions between the settlements on the Énqusqó Peninsula and the Dinuuen people. The earliest written records of the ancient Énqutsa settlements come from Dinuuen and Kidal historians and traders who looked upon the cities with distain. It was a commonly held belief, according to written records, that the peninsula wasn't valuable enough to expend resources to take. The archaeological evidence, however, depicts a growing economy and an explosion of artistic expression in pottery, sculpture, and architecture. The Dinuuen historians neglected to write much about the internal politics of the peninsula, often referring to the many settlements as if under a single ruling entity, as such little is known about the individual governance of these cities and whether or not their grandeur predated the rise of the Empire of Tar-dinuu.

First Kingdom of Énqusqó
The First Kingdom of Énqusqó was largely believed by historians to have been fictional. The story of the kingdom's founding is a well known folktale amongst Énqutsa people, often being told to children at home or in early education settings, similar to Alutran fairy tales. The earliest version of this story to be recorded comes from a series of clay tablets discovered in [CITY-STATE] called the [CLAY TABLETS]. The tale follows the journey of Sémúúk'a (he who slithers) [FINISH]

Member city states
There are 33 member city states that form the confederation.