Another version of the Farum Azula Elden Ring design has been right below our noses (literally)
A stone-tiled road runs throughout the majority of the Lands Between. Each of the stone tiles making up the road has the same sigil carved into it. This sigil bears resemblance to the Erdtree sigil, but instead of an Elden Ring design that is three rings surrounding a center ring (triangle-shaped), this design is four rings arranged in a diamond shape. This diamond-shaped Elden Ring looks similar to the one in Maliketh’s boss room in Farum Azula.
We believe that this sigil depicts the Elden Ring as it existed during the era of the Ancient Dragons, pre-Erdtree, because both have the four rings in a diamond shape. However, this is not certain. We do not know what or who caused the shape of the Elden Ring to change from its four-ring diamond shape to its four-ring triangle shape. We do not know for certain that the ring in Maliketh’s boss room is the ring as it existed during the time of the Ancient Dragons. It could be that this was the shape of the Elden Ring during the time of Godfrey.
To explore these possibilities, we are going to look at where the network of roads extends, other motifs associated with the Goldroad, and when the symbol and road may have been created.
This symbol appears on a network of roads stretching from the northern edge of the Consecrated Snowfield to the southern edge of the Weeping Peninsula, even all the way over to Sellia in Caelid (maybe even to Farum Azula). We have dubbed this network of roads “the Goldroad”, for the gold coloring of the artwork on the tiles. By looking at the places linked via the Goldroad, we may begin to understand who built them and what the Lands Between were like when they were built.
We looked for all of the places where we could find these tiles. We found them stretching from Castle Morne, to Leyndell, the the Lift of Rold, all the way to Apostate Church in Northern Consecrated Snowfields. A map is below, and here is an imgur link to screengrabs of each of the individual locations, in case you want to see the evidence for yourself (some photos have been artificially brightened).
Some of the more interesting locations include the Apostate Church in the northern Consecrated Snowfields (where Latenna’s sister is). The floors at both the Grand Lift of Dectus and the Grand Lift of Rold contain these tiles, with the markings. This may suggest that the architects of the Grand Lifts were a part of the civilization that built this road.
Notably, there is a Goldroad bridge on Mt. Gelmir. It goes directly to the Dead Minor Erdtree that exists there, which then leads up a path to the Volcano Manor. This implies that the Goldroad was built when Mt. Gelmir/Volcano Manor was a desirable destination (or at least, that the Minor Erdtree was). Perhaps prior to the serpent being considered a traitor to the Erdtree (the dead Minor Erdtree there looks to have been suffocated with poison, which is linked with the serpents), or even far earlier than that, perhaps at the time of the ancient serpent cult on Mt. Gelmir.
Map of the Goldroad
Yellow is the square aligned stone tiles that is seen throughout most of TLB. Orange is the hypothesized “Old Goldroad”, a unique stretch of road characterized by drainage channels, diamond-oriented stone tiles with the four-ring diamond shaped ER design, and unique architectural motifs (stone circle design, man with flowers statue). We discuss more about the old Goldroad below. The orange dotted is hypothesized Old Goldroad, which is pretty much just the Grand Lift of Rold. We presume that both Grand Lifts were created at the same time, and since the Dectus lift is along the Old Goldroad, we think the Rold lift was as well. White dotted is unpaved, no stone tiles but hypothesized to be a part of the network because they join parts of the Goldroad together.
The Roman Empire’s network of roads may have inspired the Goldroad
The Romans are famous for building a network of roads across Europe, North Africa & Western Asia to link their empire together. In ASOIAF’s history, the Valyrians did the same thing. Given that GRRM did this game’s worldbuilding, and he is a gigantic history nerd with a habit of borrowing IRL historical events to use in his stories, we believe that this is exactly the type of thing that he would do. This also implies that the civilization who built the Goldroad could be classified as an empire.