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Originally Posted by Lalwendë
I wouldn't take the seven levels/seven hills parallel as good evidence as there are also seven hills in Sheffield (and Rome, but it aint a patch on Yorkshire). I think its much better to think of Jerusalem as a metaphor for the concept of a city or a state of mind, as Blake did.
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There's the rub. I don't think Tolkien was suggesting anything special about such a state of mind. He's too much on the natural world's side to be given over to using an urban metaphor for holiness.
There's seven days too to consider. There's seven somethings in Norse mythology too as I vaguely recollect. There used to be seven planets, too.
As for Minas Tirith's ship's keel, methinks the Numenorean link might just have something to do with that design.
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Originally Posted by Lal
That's the stuff. Collective Unconscious. Universal truth. The search for an unknowable transcendant truth.
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Now don't go forcing your belief in collective unconscious on me! Sometimes an association is just an association.
On the other hand, would Tolkien have been making some kind of comment on holy cities, suggesting that ancient things decline and are not worthy of reverence? He couldn't just be puffing up Minas Tirith, could he? And if we're talking cities, we have to consider the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, don't we? But that's the richness of Tolkien. He leads out in so many directions.