Era Dira
Era Dira is the time period of Earth prior to the current period, Anno Ortu. How long the period lasted is unknown, but archaeological discoveries and studies have found evidence of the period extending at least 1000 years into the past prior to the current period. Years are counted negatively from then on, with Era Dira ending in year -1 and Anno Ortu beginning in year 1, with no year 0 between them.
The name of the period comes from the discovery that deep underground is a thick layer of ash and charcoal. This layer has been observed across the entire globe, even extending some distance into the oceans, giving us a clear indicator of how far the water level of the Earth has risen since the end of Era Dira. Everywhere it has been observed, it is of the same thickness and apparent age, suggesting that the whole of the planet was at one point on fire for 6 to 8 years in an event now known as The End of Everything. How this fire was caused, or could even be possible, is unknown. With current technology, we are unable to extract meaningful information from the ash layer itself, and all current methods of measuring the age of organic materials show that everything beneath the ash layer appears to be the same age as the ash, leaving us reliant entirely on the discovery of intact artifacts within or underneath it. Effectively, nearly all of Era Dira was erased from history.
Evidence that both humans and spirits existed during this period is relatively plentiful, but there have been extremely few discoveries of any form of writing from the period aside from the artifacts held by the Children of the Flame, and the validity of those artifacts is debated. Artifacts in general are extremely rare and difficult to find due to the depth and thickness of the ash layer, but from what has been found, it appears likely that during this period, the spirit population actually outnumbered the human population two to one.
The formation of the Earth is assumed by many to have taken place during this period rather than during a separate period of creation, but cannot be confirmed due to how little is truly known about the era, nor has there yet been convincing evidence of how much time the formation of the Earth actually took to complete, let alone when it began, or even when it was completed.
While the formation of the Earth is well documented and understood by now, the time it took and the subsequent formation of life is not, and no evidence showing how life may have formed has ever been discovered. For all we know, all life on Earth simply appeared at some point between the end of the Earth’s formation and the year -1000 ED.