Enchantment or advancement.

[Rumil]

A couple of random points to throw in here..

LoTR seems to me to be set in a Dark Age/Early Mediaeval milieu (approximatelyish naturally). In Britain the people of those times sometimes looked back to the remains of Roman civilisation and wondered at the power of the Ancients (eg. central heating, aqueducts, municipal buildings, Hadrian's Wall etc etc) . Therefore some sort of respect and awe for artefacts of a bygone age seems appropriate.

Was it Arthur C Clarke that said any sufficiently advanced technology is viewed as 'magic' by those unfamiliar with it? I'm sure Tolkien would have hated the idea that eg. Sting was the product of high-tech rather than 'craft' but the effect is the same, both Sting and a light-sabre could cut deep into a wooden beam at a single stroke!