Intellectual hooliganism topic: Middle Earth Archaeology

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Oh that one's a treasure!

But then Gollum says that he couldn't touch the dead there. So are they really there?

That's a tough one, but my guess is "no".The Dead Marshes have some weird magic going on. The faces are described as "rotting" it think, but given the time that has passed, the faces in the dead marshes should be nothing but skeletons (if indeed still there at all). If the marsh is acidic and peaty, it could pickle the bodies but the water would likey then be too murky to see them. The faces are supposed to be mostly war graves as I recall (i.e. bodies that were actually buried, as opposed to simply left on the battle field). Even assuming that the modern "6 feet under" was practiced back then, the bodies would still be reachable by Gollum. Maybe not by simply sticking his hand in a pool, but Gollum, due to his long aquatic existance is (unlike normal hobbits) a good swimmer and diver; six feet would probably not trouble him much. If he says he can't reach them, they're probably illusions; or souls trapped in the land with all physical remnants rotted away, or Orc plundered (Orcs being orcs, I assume that if there was any good stuff left on the ground or in the graves,later orcs would have tramped in (maybe during the period before the marshes expanded, when the ground was still solid, and dug it all up. Orcs are not likey to respect burials).

[Galadriel55]

You're right about the orcs, but I'm not sure if there were actually enough of them out there before the marshes came. It all depends on when the water came - before Sauron declared himself in Mordor and started building up his power, or after that.

[Eruhen]

Personally, I've always wondered this: what was behind that door Brego died trying to open?

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Eruhen

Personally, I've always wondered this: what was behind that door Brego died trying to open?

It's for the Dead to know and for the Living to wonder.

And by the way, in The Passing of the Grey Company it says that the air in that cave was very dry, and that was why Brego's shape was still intact. This would be your perfect Indiana Jones archeology!

[Annalaliath]

Then I have to wonder, how much of the magic would still be around Middle Earth in a society contemporary to our own. Again, caves are great for preservation. I am wondering if I should pose some questions to Dr. Strauss my Archaeology instructor, would that just be too weird. " So, Dr. Strauss, how do you think Archaeology would work in Middle Earth?" ....

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Eruhen

Personally, I've always wondered this: what was behind that door Brego died trying to open?

That's Gandalf's "uncloaking room".

Really though, ME denizens didn't seem to have a lot of interest in digging in the ground or in old ruins for the sake of curiosity.

The Dwarves' interest in Moria was more a financial one, I think, connected to the mithril lode, though the tradition of the place was a draw too.

Men don't seem to care much at all. We don't see expeditions from Gondor to visit ruined Fornost or Amon Sûl, or even to wander through nearby Osgiliath, its former capital, without some sort of business driving them.

All in all, I see much more interest in the people from the past, as opposed to places. And that's mostly connected to family lineage, and whatnot.

As for the "modern" era finding Middle-earth ruins or artifacts, I think they'd probably look a lot like the things we find in reality. Tolkien said that scientific analyses of a "magical" item such as lembas would fail to reveal anything special about it, and I think the same would hold true for other things of Middle-earth.

[Annalaliath]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

All in all, I see much more interest in the people from the past, as opposed to places. And that's mostly connected to family lineage, and whatnot.

Archaeology isn't about the stuff that is found, it is about understanding past peoples and cultures as best we can through the things they leave behind. Honestly we are like dumpster divers. Objects are objects, but the people who made them and used them are what's important.

[Galadriel55]

Pretend you found the Red Book.

[Lalwendë]

What lies beyond the door in the Paths of the Dead? Something that Men wanted to keep secret, somewhere that they were engaged in very dark and unpleasant things. This is from an issue of the journal Vinyar Tengwar, and one of my very favourite chilling passages in all of Tolkien's work:

The special horror of the closed door before which the skeleton of Baldor was found was probably because the door was the entrance to an evil temple hall [of the same Men of Darkness to which the Oathbreakers presumably belonged] to which Baldor had come, probably without opposition up to that point. But the door was shut in his face, and enemies that had followed him silently came up and broke his legs and left him to die in the darkness, unable to find any way out.

I suspect that what lies in there could potentially be very interesting to an Middle-earth archaeologist but it could also be very unpleasant, and with a story attached to it like this, almost like a 'curse', who would want to go in there? It's a shame, as the way to the path under the mountain is clearly truly ancient, much more ancient than the Numenorean culture and part of the intriguing past of the Woses. Then other Men, with sinister intent came along and things changed. But it was once different, and I've said before that the whole description of this 'complex' reminds me of Avebury, West Kennet and the Sanctuary

At each turn of the road there were great standing stones that had been carved in the likeness of men, huge and clumsy-limbed, squatting cross-legged with their stumpy arms folded on fat bellies. Some in the wearing of the years had lost all features save the dark holes of their eyes that still stared sadly at the passers-by. The Riders hardly glanced at them. The Pukel-men they called them, and heeded them little: no power or terror was left in them; but Merry gazed at them with wonder and a feeling almost of pity, as they loomed up mournfully in the dusk.

The Dead Marshes fascinate me for other reasons. These are like the meres and mosslands I grew up amongst, and which were once so much more extensive, forming England's biggest lake before the land was drained. Peat moss preserves bodies very well as seen by the 'bog bodies' that have been found, often sacrificial victims, and log boats used to be turned over by the farmers in the fields where I used to live, preserved there for centuries but falling to nothing as soon as they were exposed to the air (I imagine a weapon taken from the Dead Marshes might do the same). Nobody would wish to pass through the Dead Marshes if they could avoid it as they would be treacherous, and to add to this, the stories of fallen warriors tempting the unwary to their deaths would only add to the sense that this was a place to be avoided. In the world I know, Celia Fiennes took great care in 1698, during her horseback tour around England, to avoid Martin Mere as it was treacherous.

I think the third main place that intrigues me in Middle-earth would be the Barrow Downs of course. But the tales of wights would be enough I think to again put off any prospective archaeologists. That again is echoed in the real world as I don't think there can be many ancient monuments which come without an attached legend or cautionary tale.

This is probably why you don't hear much of archaeology in Middle-earth. The myths and folk tales are still in the reach of history and not in the far, distant past, and who would want to go poking about in a sinister temple or the site of a terrible battle that's also a treacherous mere when these stories were fully believed?