Quote:
Originally Posted by Inziladun
I can't find any evidence that anything was there apart from the mounds. It appears the area was regarded solely for its historical interest, and the honoured dead that lay there.
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The very presence of the mounds, however, would seem to indicate a wider Dúnedainic presence in Tyrn Gorthad than mere military flight. The Barrows and environs include stone architecture, which suggests to me that some of the Barrows, at least, predate the flight-to-the-forest situation of the final Cardolanrim. This being the case, it seems to me quite unlikely that the Dúnedain buried there would have been transported thither from a great distance.
Granted, of course, the Númenoreans were greatly skilled in embalming, and this was inherited at least in Gondor, so presumably for a time in Arnor as well, but there's still no reason to assume that the Arnorian, or later Cardolanian "Valley of the Kings" would have been located so far from the capital, as in Númenor, Armenelos was nigh to Meneltarma (the burial valley being in the southern shadow of the mountain), and in Gondor it was also in the shadow of a mountain--Mindolluin, within the walls of Minas Anor.
Mind you, both these examples would seem to indicate a preference for mountain burials among the Dúnedainic royalty, but Tyrn Gorthad is much further from Annúminas than either Mindolluin or Meneltarma from their respective cities, nor is it truly mountainous. Annúminas had much closer hills of equivalent or greater height in the Hills of Evendim or even the North Downs, and the later, Cardolanic royalty, if we assume they reigned from Tharbad (personally, I don't discount the possiblility of an unknown, more centrally located capital, perhaps in the much nearer South Downs), would have been even further away.
If the Barrow downs indicate
royal burial, and I emphasize that I have no reason to think they do, then this would indicate a much nearer Cardolanic capital than Tharbad. Perhaps not Tyrn Gorthad itself--I have already suggested the South Downs, and I think a glance at a map of Eriador would make such a general location strategic, if not likely.
On the other hand, if the barrows of Tyrn Gorthad are not royal, which I would presume exclusively if the treasure in the burial mounds were less, then it seems to me that there must be a closer source of the dead Dúnedain--closer, perhaps, even than the South Downs, though the embalming Dúnedain before ailing Cardolan was absorbed back into Arthedain could have made such a distance possible. Still, if we aren't looking for royalty, then we aren't looking for a major city or fortress--perhaps just a major Númenorean estate--the ancestors of the "last prince of Cardolan" perhaps--and perhaps it isn't too untoward to think there may have been some Dúnedain, perhaps of great wealth, resident among the later-named Barrow-Downs themselves, or perhaps just to the east.