Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Galin

Advice alert: I'm someone who (at least so far) pays little heed to the 1959-ish texts, and even the 1965 text. I've adopted the late Elvish Life-cycles idea, and so, given its wonderful brevity/vagueness regarding who was born when, should I go back to The Annals of Aman and just plug in 144?

I realize that's arguably problematic when we get to the Rebellion, but if I recall correctly, don't we see Tolkien doing that with respect to crossing the Grinding Ice or sailing back to Middle-Earth -- in other words, don't we see Tolkien seemingly not minding the notable amount of actual time that passed here, given (simply) the larger ratio.

Or am I forgetting something obvious? Or something else.

Funny thing is, that's exactly what Tolkien did at first - that is, just use the existing AAm dates for the First Age but plug in the 144 figure instead of the 9.582: however, that gave an absurdly long First Age (c. 65,000 years give or take). In fact, even longer than that, since at one point he moved the Awakening of the Elves to YT 1000 (so now it was c. 72,000 years instead).

So instead, he decided to more or less keep the length of the First Age as it was before (c. 4-6,000 years, depending on text), and instead seems to have settled on there simply being less Valian years on the whole. (I'm not sure I like the use of the term 'settled' here - it would be more accurate to say that this was the direction he was going in.)

For example, the timespan between the Awaking of the Elves and the death of the Two Trees in AAm lasts from YT 1050 to YT 1495.

However, in one of his later conceptions, the timespan is from VY 850 (Awakening of the Elves) to VY 888 (death of the Trees) - this is what Huinesoron is using in his reconstruction.



And as to the flight of the Noldor - your guess is as good as mine...Evidently, 720 (solar) years was too much, but c. 50 (solar) years was too little??? But 144 is 'just right'?

As I mentioned in one of my previous comments, he also made Feanor take 72 (solar) years to reach Beleriand...by sea...The professor is an enduring mystery.