ROYAL PILLARS

Nearly every one of the scoffers of Zylon the Aged’s ascension, additionally doubt the long span of his life. Many seek to point to the Royal Pillars. The peculiarity of these pillars is the way they carry a perpetual stench of rotting apricot. However, this fact is of only limited use to Quendoran historians. What is more important is the way the Royal Pillars list only the final year of each monarch's reign. This is probably because of the way the calendar was assumed to begin from the first year of Entharion's reign. Thus there was no need to list a first year for his section of the pillar, and the practice stuck. However, due to the damage done to the lower half of the first pillar, there is no way of knowing if Mysterion the Brave was in fact the king to immediately precede Zylon the Aged. The destroyed portion of the pillar is a large one, enough so to accommodate at least two or three other kings, who even so would have to have been extremely long lived themselves in order to fill the gap between Mysterion and Zylon. There is no conceivable reason why that section of the pillar would have been left blank, nor can it be conceivable that the ever-obscure Mysterion's post-mortem list of accomplishments was on the order of five times longer than his esteemed predecessor, Entharion.

Despite the popular opinion, many scholars still find enough evidence from religious texts and other sources to verify Zylon's abnormally long life.

SOURCE(S): A History of Quendor