Covenant murals

Covenant Murals after the 3:00min mark

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In the deleted scenes on the Collector's Edition DVD Joseph Staten describes and shows some of the Covenant History. Specifically he shows a pre-render cinematic of the Covenant Murals.

The seven murals show the seven "ages" of Covenant history. There are a number of scenes that were cut from the game that show some murals that depict the Covenant's.

Murals

File:First Mural BG.jpg First Mural	Joseph Staten: So when you look at the first Mural you see it's a representation of the conflict between the Prophets and Elites, and this one shows the Elites function in the Covenant, which is as the enforcers. This age is also known as the Age of Conflict. This Age may have lasted for thousands of years, because the war went on for an extremely long time, but it definitely ended with a truce, when the Prophets told the Elites of the Forerunners.
File:TamingOfHunters.jpg Second Mural	Main article: Taming of the HuntersThe Taming of the Hunters was a period in the history of The Covenant when the Prophets and Elites used force to obtain new species/races of the Covenant. The "Taming" is when the Hunters were forced to join The Covenant. This is a progressive movement towards a new age, the Age of Conversion, though this would have been one of the shortest ages. However, it was probably recorded as an age because of its major significance.
File:Third Mural.jpg Third Mural	This mural clearly shows the Prophets and Elites having power over the other species as the new species of the Covenant are bowing to them. It depicts the Age of Conversion, which was the time that the Elites and Prophets incorporated the other races into The Covenant, either through conquest or religious conversion.
File:Fourth Mural.jpg Forth Mural	This mural is hard to understand, yet we speculate that it is indeed the Age of Discovery, and that the mural stands for the Elites and Prophets either finding, or understanding the technology left by the Forerunners. The picture depicts a hidden sword, which could symbolize hidden technologies. The Elite's and the Prophet's hand are reaching for it together in harmony. Notice the Elites weapon in this mural, and the ones before. It's a spear. After this, the weapon of the Elite is replaced by the energy sword. The reasoning behind our speculation is that in the First, Second, and Third Mural/Age of the Covenant, no Forerunner technology is found. Only very simplistic weapons like knives, and spears are shown. The Fourth Age is the turning point for the Covenant, the point in time in which technology is found. Between this age, and the current 7th age, complete understanding of the technology is understood, thus the ability to start the Great Journey.
Fifth Mural	The 5th mural is not able to be shown, and the image is not very well reconized on the video, yet it does show the locations of each of the seven Halos. This most likely means that while in the fourth age of the Covenant when they found the Forerunner technology, it led them to the locations. Which then led to speculation throughout the Covenant. (i.e. being transformed into a God when activating the Halos). The 5th age of the Covenant would have been full of rumors, dreams, and new found religons of the Halo Prophecy.
File:Second Mural.jpg Sixth Mural	After learning about the Halos and the locations, this mural depicts the races of the Covenant(In the form of Forerunner or Covenant glyphs) under a Halo, with an eye in the middle. (Probably representing godly power). In this age, the Covenant would have planned The Great Journey. They would have also started a religious movement to rather "campaign" for the Great Journey. All of the Glyphs depicted are unknown glyphs, though they are most likely covenant symbols for six species in the Covenant.
File:Seventh Mural.jpg Seventh Mural	The last Mural shows the Elites and Prophets embarking on The Great Journey