History
Within the context of the series, there have been twelve incarnations prior to the thirteenth warehouse in South Dakota. The oldest was Warehouse 1, which was built between 336-323 BCE under the reign of Alexander the Great, as a place to keep artifacts that were obtained during war campaigns. Following the death of Alexander, the Warehouse was relocated to Egypt, establishing the practice of locating the Warehouse in the empire that is the most powerful at the time, and therefore most able to safeguard it. It was at this time that Egypt's Ptolemaic rulers appointed a group of people, known as the Regents, to oversee the Warehouse and act as its first "agents" and collectors of artifacts. Warehouse 2 lasted until the Roman conquest of Egypt. Some of the other Warehouses include: Warehouse 7 located within the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan, Warehouse 8 in Germany during the Holy Roman Empire (1260-1517), Warehouse 9 in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople (the inspiration for Ali Baba), Warehouse 11 in the Russian Empire under the Romanov Dynasty (the Napoleonic War with Russia in 1812 was an attempt to seize control of Warehouse 11), and Warehouse 12 located in the United Kingdom from 1830 until 1914. It was during the time of Warehouse 11 that the Regents began to employ the use of agents to gather and protect artifacts. This practice continued under Warehouse 12, with British agents traveling farther and farther searching for artifacts to add to the collection.
The next move for the Warehouse was to South Dakota in the United States. Unlike previous warehouses, which were placed in the centers of their empires, Warehouse 13 was located so as to hide it. The first Warehouse 13 was built in 1898, but the structure burnt down because of an insufficient understanding of how to safely store artifacts. The move to the rebuilt and current Warehouse 13 occurred in 1914 at the onset of World War I. The Warehouse was designed by Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and M. C. Escher.
Read more about this topic: Warehouse 13
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