The world of Made in Abyss is built on layers of mystery, tragedy, and wonder—but beneath its fantastical surface lies a deep reservoir of real-world historical resonance. The narrative frequently gestures toward a distant, cataclysmic past known as the Forgotten Age, an epoch whose ruins, relics, and lingering curses define the series' present. While the specifics of that fictional era remain shrouded, the themes it evokes—exploration, the rise and fall of civilizations, technological hubris, environmental reckoning, and mythic storytelling—mirror actual historical events that shaped our own world. By examining these parallels, we gain a sharper appreciation for how Made in Abyss transforms humanity’s collective memory into a striking fantasy landscape.

The Spirit of Exploration Across Eras

At the heart of Made in Abyss is the insatiable drive to explore the unknown—a force that has propelled human history for centuries. The Abyss itself functions as the ultimate frontier, a bottomless chasm that promises extraordinary discoveries but exacts a brutal toll. This dynamic closely echoes the era of European global exploration, when adventurers set sail into unmapped oceans driven by the prospect of new trade routes, knowledge, and glory. The Age of Discovery (15th–17th centuries) saw figures like Magellan and Columbus venture into uncharted territory with rudimentary tools and incomplete maps, much as the Cave Raiders of Orth descend into the Abyss armed with little more than their whistles and sheer willpower. Both groups faced existential risks—unknown diseases, hostile environments, and the psychological weight of the void—yet the reward of returning with relics or new knowledge was deemed worth the sacrifice.

Later intellectual movements deepened the urge to explore. The Enlightenment of the 18th century fostered a scientific mindset that reframed exploration as a systematic pursuit of knowledge. Naturalists and cartographers began to document the world not merely for conquest but to understand its laws. In the series, the study of Artifacts and the biological curiosities of the Abyss mirrors this empirical drive. Delvers are not just adventurers; they are researchers, cataloging the bizarre lifeforms and ancient technologies that defy conventional science. The Space Race of the 20th century added another layer: a competition between superpowers that accelerated technological innovation while pushing human limits. Orth’s own culture of aspiring White Whistles and the nationalistic pride tied to deeper delves reflects how exploration can become a proxy for prestige and power. Riko’s personal quest, however, reminds us that at its core, the impulse to explore remains deeply personal—a call that has echoed through every era of human history.

Ancient Echoes: Lost Civilizations Within the Abyss

The Abyss is a graveyard of forgotten cultures, littered with relics whose original purpose is often lost. This imagery draws directly from the way modern civilizations have uncovered and mythologized ancient societies. The Romans left behind aqueducts, roads, and amphitheaters that still stand as engineering marvels, prompting awe and speculation about their builders. Similarly, the Maya civilization developed advanced astronomical calendars and monumental pyramids that were reclaimed by the jungle, their purposes partially understood only through painstaking archaeology. In Orth, Delvers recover Artifacts of immense power—such as the Star Compass or the Sparagmos—whose origins point to a technologically advanced precursor race that vanished in the Forgotten Age.

This atmosphere of ruin and rediscovery also evokes ancient Egypt, where the pyramids and the Sphinx became objects of enduring fascination precisely because they outlasted the society that built them. The Abyss’s layers are stratified like archaeological sites, each depth corresponding to a different epoch of the unknown culture. The deeper Riko’s party descends, the more alien and intact the remnants become, culminating in the fabled Golden City at the bottom. This narrative technique mirrors the real-world sensation of peeling back history—from medieval layers to Roman, then to prehistoric—except that in Made in Abyss, the descent is literal and the dangers are immediate. The Forgotten Age is not just a historical curiosity; it is a haunting presence that actively shapes the living.

Technology’s Dual Nature: Relics as Promise and Peril

Technology in Made in Abyss presents a paradox: the very Artifacts that enable survival and progress often carry catastrophic consequences. This mirrors the Industrial Revolution, a period of unprecedented mechanical innovation that transformed economies and societies but also introduced exploitation, urban squalor, and environmental degradation. The steam engine, which powered trains and factories, opened new frontiers while condemning countless workers to dangerous conditions—a dynamic reflected in the way Relics like the Curse-repelling vessels enable deeper delves yet expose Delvers to the Abyss’s horrific strains.

In the series, the most coveted Artifacts are also the most feared. Bondrewd’s cartridge system, which harnesses the Curse for scientific advancement, is a chilling reminder of the ethical abyss that can accompany technological ambition. History offers uncomfortable parallels: the advent of nuclear energy brought clean power and devastating weapons; the chemical industry revolutionized agriculture and medicine but left behind toxic legacies. The Forgotten Age’s downfall may well have been caused by its own technological zenith—a warning that the series transmits through the shattered Relics and the ever-present Curse of the Abyss. Even innocent objects like Riko’s Star Compass are double-edged, guiding but also binding their bearers to an irreversible path. This theme resonates with contemporary debates about artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and climate-altering technologies, reminding us that every tool carries the shadow of its misuse.

Environmental Upheaval and the Curse of the Abyss

The Abyss is not merely a hole in the ground; it is an active, hostile environment whose rules change with every stratum. The Curse of the Abyss—a biological backlash that worsens the deeper one goes—functions much like environmental pressures that have redirected human history. During the Ice Ages, shifting climates forced entire populations to migrate, adapt, or perish. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s, a man-made ecological disaster, obliterated farmlands and displaced hundreds of thousands, demonstrating how fragile human settlement can be in the face of a changing land.

In Made in Abyss, the stratification of the Abyss creates distinct biomes, each with its own predators and atmospheric conditions. Delvers must adjust their equipment and strategies precisely as early humans did when moving from plains to mountains or from temperate zones to deserts. The Curse itself is an unforgiving law of nature that punishes ascent—a fictional exaggeration of altitude sickness and decompression sickness, but also a metaphor for the irreversible damage that exploration can inflict. As the party ventures deeper, they encounter zones like the Sea of Corpses and the Crystal Valley, environments that are both beautiful and lethal. The series implicitly asks whether humanity can ever fully adapt to a world it has disrupted, echoing modern anxieties about climate change and biodiversity loss. The Forgotten Age, with its scattered ruins and mutated creatures, stands as a monument to a civilization that failed to live within its environmental limits.

Conflict and the Ethics of Discovery

Exploration rarely occurs in a vacuum; it is almost always entangled with conquest, competition, and collision of cultures. The world of Orth is divided into factions—White Whistles with their own agendas, foreign nations eyeing the Abyss’s resources, and the internal hierarchy among Delvers. This fragmentation mirrors the global convulsions of the 20th century. The World Wars showed how technological superiority and resource rivalry could plunge entire continents into devastation. The Cold War afterward split the globe into ideological spheres, with proxy conflicts fought over strategic territories—much like the quiet power struggles that simmer among the Cave Raiders. Colonialism, too, left an indelible mark on history: European powers extracted wealth and labor from colonized lands, often rationalizing their actions as a civilizing mission. Orth’s relationship with the Abyss can be read as a colonial endeavor, where the surface world mines the depths for Artifacts while the human cost—borne by the Delvers and the children of the orphanage—is systemically obscured.

The figure of Bondrewd crystallizes these ethical tensions. His pursuit of scientific breakthroughs leads him to commit atrocities in the name of progress, exploiting orphans and delving into forbidden realms. His actions parallel historical instances where researchers violated ethical boundaries, from the medical experiments of imperial Japan’s Unit 731 to the Tuskegee syphilis study. The series does not offer easy answers; it forces us to sit with the uncomfortable truth that the most profound discoveries can emerge from the darkest actions. In the Forgotten Age, a similar ethical collapse might have precipitated the civilization’s extinction, leaving behind a warning that the present generation only dimly comprehends.

Myth, Folklore, and the Narrative of the Unknown

Before science could explain earthquakes or eclipses, humans turned to story. Mythology and folklore became the vessels through which societies grappled with the incomprehensible. Made in Abyss leans heavily on this tradition, constructing its own mythos around the Abyss’s origins, the Golden City, and the Narehate. The Abyss is a living storybook, where each layer adds a new chapter of legend. This technique recalls ancient Greek myths of the underworld—Orpheus descending to retrieve Eurydice, Persephone’s cyclical journey between worlds—where a descent into darkness often led to transformation or tragedy. Riko’s journey is a deliberate inversion: she is not trying to bring someone back but to find her mother at the bottom, a quest that reshapes her identity with every loss and gain.

Norse sagas from the medieval period also celebrated exploration as a test of fate and character, with heroes sailing into uncharted waters and confronting monstrous forces. The White Whistles themselves resemble mythic heroes, each with a larger-than-life reputation and a tragic flaw. Meanwhile, the smaller folktales shared among Delvers—about the Curse, about strange creatures, about the Abyss’s will—function like the oral traditions that once preserved collective knowledge before written records. The series suggests that even an advanced civilization (the one from the Forgotten Age) ultimately becomes a story told by its successors, its truths warped into legend. Understanding that process is key to unraveling the mystery of the Abyss.

Learning from the Forgotten Age: Historical Lessons in a Fantasy World

The Forgotten Age in Made in Abyss is not merely a backdrop; it is a cautionary tapestry woven from humanity’s own repeated mistakes. Every shattered Artifact and mutated creature whispers a warning about the cycle of rise and fall. Real history teaches us that civilizations collapse when they overextend their resources, ignore environmental limits, or let ethical safeguards crumble. The Mayan city-states fell into decline partly due to prolonged drought and deforestation; the Western Roman Empire unraveled under internal corruption and external pressures; the Dust Bowl showed how quickly technological ambition could turn fertile land into wasteland.

By embedding these echoes into its world, the series challenges its audience to recognize that exploration without wisdom, technology without conscience, and conflict without resolution lead only to ruin. The Delvers’ relentless push into the Abyss mirrors our own drive to conquer space, digitize consciousness, and engineer new life—but without the humility to learn from the past, we risk building a future as fragile as the Relics scattered across the pit. The Forgotten Age reminds us that knowledge can be lost, that environments bite back, and that the line between hero and monster is thin. Its greatest gift is the opportunity to reflect before the next descent begins.

Connecting Past and Present Through the Abyss

The creative achievement of Made in Abyss lies not in inventing a wholly alien world but in distilling the most poignant lessons of human history into a single, terrifying wonder. The series transforms the Age of Discovery, ancient ruins, industrial revolutions, ecological disasters, ideological wars, and enduring myths into a cohesive narrative that feels both timeless and urgently modern. As viewers follow Riko, Reg, and Nanachi into the unknown, they are also retracing the steps of countless real-world explorers, scientists, and storytellers who shaped our understanding of the world. The Forgotten Age may belong to a fictional past, but its shadows fall squarely on our own present, urging us to venture forward with open eyes and a cautious heart.