Determining the ages, Tolkien's great use of Mathematics and Historic Events.

[THE Ka]

Wow. last time i posted a thread the big B (Barrow Wright) closed it... I think all of your theories are wonderful! Especially about the sphinx! ( I am addicted to Ancient Egypt) It is very true about the water erosion on the bottom layers, mind you that there are also layers of vegitational erosion found on the sphinx as well. Which if you wanted to speculate abou this it would mean that the sphinx would have had been quiet old when the sahara was green (which was about 6,000 - 5,000 years ago!) But of course, many scientist brush this away as common misconseption... I encourage all to go look in the Enyclopedia of Arda and find stuff on the dating of the ages... there is plenty more information from were my quote came from. Thank you all. Blessed be! THE Ka

[drigel]

Its more than the 6000 years that JRRT alluded to, but i always imagined the 4th age ending before the last ice age (little ice age around 15-20K years ago..?). In my tragically derainged mind, this would explain the lack of evidence today of any of the civilizations of pre 5th age ME. Or at least the mid to northern sections. Getting scraped away by a preceding and receding 2 mile thick sheet of ice would do that, no?

[THE Ka]

Hmmm, maybe. If you go and read in the encyclopedia of arda under hobbits, they do make some reference of hobbits living in the more seculded areas of The Isle of Man. This is from lore of a small folk who have large feet and a love for wine... But, there is also the Picts ( Roman given name mean the "painted people") Who were called the "old people" or "small folk". they had dark almost tan skin and were not very tall. From what i've collected on the Picts, they sound like Harfoots. But, the Picts tended to live in the forest, like the Fallohides.