Fourth, Fifth, Sixth (and Seventh?) Ages

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I was going to suggest "abolition of slavery" or similar as an evil defeated, but it seems to me that the ends of Ages were the defeats of "similar, just lesser" evils, which did not really make the world a better place (in fact they tended to accelerate decline), just saved it from uncontested demonic tyranny for another few thousand years. So if successive Ages have ended in similar ways, it's difficult to say; it's so much harder to see. Professor Tolkien did dislike empires though, so their collapses might have merit: "I love England (not Great Britain and certainly not the British Commonwealth (grr!))" (Letter 53); "I should have hated the Roman Empire in its day (as I do), and remained a patriotic Roman citizen, while preferring a free Gaul and seeing good in Carthaginians" (Letter 77). Perhaps there's something there?

In which case... the Great War. Multiple empires were broken up when it ended, notably the German and Ottoman; Ireland won its independence from English rule; and it was only a few years later that Britain's Dominions (Canada, Australia etc) were formally given the right to set their own foreign policy. You also have the establishment of the League of Nations (the proto-UN), which marks the beginning of a move towards international cooperation in non-military fields. (Well... sort of.)

It also feels right to make 1919 the end/start of an Age in a Tolkien context. Along with Christ, it's certainly the most plausible for him to have been thinking of (much more so than the smallpox vaccine!). And it's got the 'accelerated decline' element, too: the First World War marked the final end of the knightly/warrior form of battle, and enshrined the dominance of 'Orcish' mechanised war. A grim end to the Sixth Age, but the ends of the First and Second weren't particularly rosy either.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Zigûr

As an amateur student of Napoleonic history I feel like Bonaparte is far too mixed a figure to be either a servant of evil or a hero. However, Professor Tolkien did say that the successive leaders of Gondor would be like "Denethor or worse"; I feel like "Great Man history" doesn't mesh with a Tolkienian concept of ages, as he seemed to see the future as ever-blander mediocrity. I'm not sure we even get to slot Caesar, Alexander and the like in here, although the Gondor-Egypt concept does make the idea of a Ramesses or similarly significant pharaonic figure appealing.

And at this end of history, we are taking a more critical view of 'heroic' figures from our past. Was Alexander a glorious unifier, or a subjugator of ancient nations? He brought Egypt under Greek rule, establishing the Ptolemeic dynasty which would eventually yield it to Rome... there are no historical figures of the heroic nature of Aragorn, Gil-Galad, Earendil. For that, you have to turn to stories - Beowulf, Arthur at his best, the warriors of the Norse sagas...

Which, I suppose, was Tolkien's point all along. If Middle-earth was real, it was a time when the things we now tell in stories were actually true.

hS

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

In which case... the Great War. Multiple empires were broken up when it ended, notably the German and Ottoman; Ireland won its independence from English rule; and it was only a few years later that Britain's Dominions (Canada, Australia etc) were formally given the right to set their own foreign policy. You also have the establishment of the League of Nations (the proto-UN), which marks the beginning of a move towards international cooperation in non-military fields. (Well... sort of.)

Indeed. I think I took too long editing my previous comment! (see the end of what I said before as I updated) I definitely think it has some resonance as a significant moment.

This might also tie in to the idea of more ambiguous individuals in the "modern" era; we also have more ambiguous conflicts. It's no longer the free peoples of the West versus the Shadow; it's "we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring" (Letter 66) shades of grey.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Indeed. I think I took too long editing my previous comment! (see the end of what I said before as I updated) I definitely think it has some resonance as a significant moment.

From a "Legendarium is real" perspective, it all feels a bit on-the-nose; but from a "mindreading Tolkien" angle, I agree that the Great War is probably the answer.

Jumping back into the pseudohistory side, I've just learned of the Varna Necropolis, on the shores of the Black Sea (or Sea of Nurn, if you prefer; the right-angle bend of the southern Carpathians makes that undeniable). It dates to 4600-4200 BC, right on the button for the end of the Third Age (my date was 4241 BC), and includes the oldest known gold treasure in the world.

It also includes this chap:



He's the highest-status burial in the necropolis, and may be the earliest known elite male burial in the world. He carries a war adze/mace, and is positively covered in gold.

I really want to go go full Schliemann and claim this is the body of King Elessar himself, but that's obviously ridiculous. Elessar fought with a sword, and would have been buried with his crown, not a huge gold necklace. Also, this body was buried in Mordor.

Obviously, it's the skeleton of Sauron Himself.

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

the day between the crucifixion and resurrection was the Harrowing of Hell. I had to check, but the Catholic version is indeed that Christ released all the righteous souls who had died before him from their torment, and let them into heaven. As a "dark angel is overthrown" moment, they don't get much more significant.

Although it's not something the Church says much about these days, it would have been known to any medievalist, and especially to a Middle English scholar like Tolkien since it features prominently (and dramatically) in Piers Ploughman.

Which then turns to the theory of Aragorn as Christ-figure, specifically as Christ-the-King*: What does Aragorn do but descend into the abode of the accursed Dead, bring them out with him, and by releasing them restore to them the Gift of Men?

_________________
* Frodo (who "dies" on Mt Doom and returns to life**) is Christ-the-sacrificial-lamb or Suffering Servant; Gandalf (who literally dies and returns) is Christ-the-Priest

** In the first draft, Frodo's coma lasted for - wait for it - three days.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I really want to go go full Schliemann and claim this is the body of King Elessar himself, but that's obviously ridiculous. Elessar fought with a sword, and would have been buried with his crown, not a huge gold necklace. Also, this body was buried in Mordor.

Very, very minor side-quibble: Elessar most certainly would not have been buried in his crown because: a.) he wasn't buried and b.) Eldarion would worn the crown.

Regarding the first point, it is entirely possible he could have been buried at a later date to avoid tomb-robbers (the orkish work of <i>The New Shadow</i> perhaps?).

But, regarding the second, the crown had been made in the reign of Atanatar Alcarin, replacing one that had been used since Isildur's day. As epochal a king as Elessar was, it would not have been "buried" with him, but would have been used for his heir. The reason, I presume, that it was brought to him at the time of his own coronation from Rath Dínen is because Eärnur left no heir, so the crown was left with the last king till the arrival of the new.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Although it's not something the Church says much about these days, it would have been known to any medievalist, and especially to a Middle English scholar like Tolkien since it features prominently (and dramatically) in Piers Ploughman.

Thanks! It's always hard to know what was known, what was obscure, and what postdates the professor anyway.

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Which then turns to the theory of Aragorn as Christ-figure, specifically as Christ-the-King*: What does Aragorn do but descend into the abode of the accursed Dead, bring them out with him, and by releasing them restore to them the Gift of Men?

_________________
* Frodo (who "dies" on Mt Doom and returns to life**) is Christ-the-sacrificial-lamb or Suffering Servant; Gandalf (who literally dies and returns) is Christ-the-Priest

** In the first draft, Frodo's coma lasted for - wait for it - three days.

According to the unassailable source We Three Kings, I think this means Aragorn gets gold, Gandalf gets frankincense, and Frodo is stuck with myrrh.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Very, very minor side-quibble: Elessar most certainly would not have been buried in his crown because: a.) he wasn't buried and b.) Eldarion would worn the crown.

I... should have known that. -_- Thank you!

So this means it's definitely Sauron, right? ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

All this got me curious about what Europe was like 6000 years ago - whichever specific date we pick, the Third Age ending ca. 4000 BC is pure Tolkien. As is traditional, I scribbled together a map:



The prehistoric coastlines - back when Doggerland joined Britain to the mainland, ice filled the North Sea, and Corsica and Sardinia were one island - actually match up pretty well with Middle-earth, provided you ignore western France and Iberia (perhaps Aragorn had his dwarf buddies dig out the eastern Med and build them?). The similarity of the Italian-French coast with the Middle-earth map surprised me, as did the fact that the Irish coast and mountains fit Lindon perfectly. Of course, the Misty Mountains wound up on the course of the Rhine, but we can't have everything.

Anyway, some of the cultural locations of the era:

-Sauron's dominions match up nicely with the Chalcolithic - Copper Age - cultures. Makes sense, as he was the one pushing technological advancement.

-Rhun was inhabited by the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture, which is noted for periodically burning down all its settlements. Sounds like a Sauron thing!

-Khand is where the Varna Necropolis lies; it seems to have been built by horse-riding peoples migrating from the east. Sauron's Easterlings on the move.

-Everything west of the Sauronian era was busy building menhirs and megaliths. This really took off around 4000BC itself, so possibly it's a post-Third Age phenomenon. Or maybe the ones in Britain and Brittany were actually the lintels of Hobbit-holes?

-Sardinia, somewhere around Umbar, was under the Bonu Ighinu culture. They buried their dead in natural cavities, so this may be the Gondorian culture after the end of the Age.

-Rohan was under the Lengyel culture, which built defensive ditches around its settlements. Look, prehistory isn't all that detailed...

-Going back a couple of thousand years, the Neolithic appears to have hit Europe in two waves: one coming from the sea in the West, and one coming up the Danube in the East. Arnor and Gondor, anyone?

-Around a thousand years before the fall of Barad-Dur, the mosaic of cultures in Italy - ie, Gondor south of the White Mountains - are quite suddenly unified. Sounds to me like the Stewards needed to impose some unity on their new kingdom.

Obviously Tolkien didn't know any of this - much of it wasn't known at all in his day - but it's nice to see that things sort of line up.

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

It also makes it apparent that Napoleon was a Black Numenorean from Umbar, which explains a lot.

[Huinesoron]

Had to come back to this, because I happened to glance at The Lost Road, which lists Tolkien's notes on stories he could include while 'working backwards' to Numenor:

Originally Posted by HoME 5: The Lost Road - The Unwritten Chapters

[after the 20th century story would come] Lombard story?; a Norse story of ship-burial (Vinland); an English story - of the man who got onto the Straight Road?; a Tuatha-de-Danaan story, or Tir-nan-Og; a story concerning painted caves; the Ice Age - great figures in ice; Before the Ice Age: the Galdor story; post-Beleriand and the Elendil and Gil-Galad story of the assault on Thu; the Numenor story

The key point is up in the middle there: at the only time we know Tolkien thought about linking the Elder Days to a specific time, they were before the Ice Age.

What exactly consitutes the latest Ice Age is a bit of a tricky one. To avoid adding 100,000 years to the timeline, we could just look at the Younger Dryas - a brief (1000 year) glacial period that followed a ca. 2000 year period of warming, which itself followed tens of thousands of years of ice.

I don't know the history of when the Ice Age was presumed to be, but I know geological timelines have tended to get longer, so I think it's plausible Tolkien had the Younger Dryas in his head as "six thousand years ago". The Lost Road predated LotR and the Third Age: the 'assault on Thu' marked the end of the Elder Days (Galdor is apparently a seer who lived in the latter days of Numenor, or possibly was a survivor of it). If we assume the length of the Second Age wasn't fixed, then the timeline matches up quite well! Ages of ice before the Sun was made, then a warm spell during which Men awoke and Beleriand and Numenor flourished, then a cold snap which regressed the Numenoreans to neolithic barbarism and left space for the rise of Egypt.

With the advent of the Third Age, this becomes somewhat unfeasible: you have to push back at least 40,000 years to find an interglacial period long enough to run from Feanor to Frodo. But that's okay! Because the advance in science gave us an extra 6000 years to get back to the Younger Dryas, and leads to the very nice 'Morgoth caused a mini ice age' concept from my second post in the thread. ^_^

hS