Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Arvegil145]

@Huinesoron

Do you have any new insights on the subject, or otherwise any changes you'd make to your timeline?

Just looking for an update (if there's any).

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

@Huinesoron

Do you have any new insights on the subject, or otherwise any changes you'd make to your timeline?

Just looking for an update (if there's any).

I don't think so; nothing new has come up, and the Late Timeline doesn't include the Lamps (which were the last query we had). The Unified Timeline does, but that whole document is a dubious string of assumptions anyway.

As far as I know, the only new information since we last looked at this is the Poems book, and the only thing I've heard is in there and relevant is the English version of the Complaint of Mim. I haven't seen that, though, and don't know if it has a date associated with it; or if the whole narrative is even included in the book.

hS

[James the Just]

Happy New Year!

From Tolkien Gateway:

Unlike other reckonings of time created by J.R.R. Tolkien to set his legendarium, the Valian Years did not have a complete and definitive form. In the 1930s and 1940s, Tolkien handled a length of the Valian year fluctuated slightly around a round number of 10 solar years. In the notes to The Annals of Aman, Tolkien stated a single Valian year lasts 1,000 Valian days, defined as the duration of a complete flowering of the Two Trees of Valinor. Each of these Valian days is divided into 12 Valian hours, with each Valian hour having a duration equivalent to 7 solar hours. Thus, a single Valian year would last 84,000 solar hours. As a single solar year is approximately 8,766 hours, it was easy to calculate the equivalence of 9.582 solar years for each Valian year.

This is a little bit incorrect. According to Tolkien himself a year is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. This would be 8,765.812778 hours, for a Valian Year of 9.58268242 years.

But why did Tolkien choose a Valian Year of 84,000 hours to begin with? It seems rather odd. Perhaps there is an explanation.

The length of time from the new tally of years beginning with the Years of the Trees to the Years of the Sun is 1,500 Valian Years, or 14,374 mortal ones. This comes out to 99.82 Valian Years of the longer sort (144 years). What if he had an age of 100 Valian Years in mind? It seems too close to be coincidental. If that's the case then the short Valian Year would be exactly 9.6 years, not 9.582.

[Arvegil145]

@Huinesoron

I think I found a late (c. 1968 or later) quote from an Eldarin Hands, Fingers and Numerals-related text that might be of consequence regarding the timing of the Dwarven awakening:

The Ered Luin were the remains of the mountain range that formed the eastern boundary of Beleriand (usually called by the Eldar Ered Lindon), difficult to cross. But the Dwarves had built some great Mansions in those mountains (commanding the only passes), which had certainly been founded long, even in Elvish time, before the coming of the exiled Noldor, probably before the Eldar of the Great Journey ever reached Beleriand.

- Vinyar Tengwar 48, 'Variation D/L in Common Eldarin. (Note 1)', §3, p. 24 (bold font is my addition)

[Arvegil145]

@Huinesoron: another late (written on paper dated to 1968, text itself probably even later) text from the NoME that might just be the latest conception about the duration of the First Age that Tolkien wrote:

The legends speak of a sojourn of many years and long debates before the Vanyar and Noldor after long exploration began the crossing “by the pass under the Red Mountain”. They were followed by some two-thirds of the Teleri. A third, mainly belonging to the folk of Olwë, had become during the delay well contented, and remained behind. There was no contact between these Silvan Elves and the Grey Elves, the Sindar, who in the event also remained in Middle-earth and never crossed the Great Sea, until the Second Age and the ruin of Beleriand. In Mannish terms that was a time as long maybe as all the years that now lie between us and the War of the Ring.

- The Nature of Middle-earth, 'Silvan Elves & Silvan Elvish', Text 1, pp. 357-8


So, even if you assume the earlier, conservative 1958 figure of c. 6,000 years (from the Letters) - that still leaves 6,000 years between the sundering of the Nandor and the end of the War of Wrath.

If you assume the later, 1960 figure from the NoME - that's c. 9,250 years.

In any case, this expands the timeline massively.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

So, even if you assume the earlier, conservative 1958 figure of c. 6,000 years (from the Letters) - that still leaves 6,000 years between the sundering of the Nandor and the end of the War of Wrath.

If you assume the later, 1960 figure from the NoME - that's c. 9,250 years.

In any case, this expands the timeline massively.

Oh dear. XD

Linking the Ages discussion and my Late Timeline to keep it together... there are a few Timeline texts which might come after this, but nothing which affects the bulk of the dating. EDIT: and the Arvegil timeline

Do we have any version of any timeline which puts 6000 years between the sundering of the Teleri and the end of the First Age? The Late Timeline makes it about 3500 years, so we'd need to double the length somewhere.

Alternately - this seriously post-dates the last comment on how long ago the Elder Days were (by almost a decade). Could it mean that the War of the Ring ended ca 1500 BC? That would make the Fourth Age begin roughly with the founding of Mycenaean Greece and the New Kingdom of Egypt. That... kind of works, actually?

EDIT: I am working on a comparison table of the different timelines (Tolkien's or ours). I need to Have My Books to get the rest of the dates in, but you can see the shape of it.

hS

[Arvegil145]

Do we have any version of any timeline which puts 6000 years between the sundering of the Teleri and the end of the First Age? The Late Timeline makes it about 3500 years, so we'd need to double the length somewhere.

Alternately - this seriously post-dates the last comment on how long ago the Elder Days were (by almost a decade). Could it mean that the War of the Ring ended ca 1500 BC? That would make the Fourth Age begin roughly with the founding of Mycenaean Greece and the New Kingdom of Egypt. That... kind of works, actually?

Well, I think the earlier timelines (ones dealing with the Great Journey) have absurdly long figures, but not in this specific range of c. 6,000 years IIRC.


As to the extended duration - remember that footnote in the 'Elvish Ages & Numenorean' about the timespan between Elves coming to Aman and the end of the War of Wrath being 'very like longer [than 3,100 years]': the one dealing with Celeborn's age and his descent from Elmo?

Depending on how you stretch the definition of 'longer than 3,100 years' - this can work. Especially since I think the quote in my OP might refer to the bulk of that extra time being spent in the events in Aman/Beleriand, and not on, say, the part of the Journey from Hithaeglir to the coast of Beleriand.


And as for your suggestion about the timespan between us and the War of the Ring being much shorter - it's possible, but unlikely I think (if anything, leave Tolkien to his own devices and he would most probably make it even longer than 9,250 years, judging by the ever more 'realistic' direction he was taking the legendarium over the decades following the LOTR).

The most important thing though is that while we can speculate on new figures, truth is there really are only 2 canonical figures he ever gave - and we should follow the latest (the 1960 one, that is, unless some new information surfaces later).



All in all, I would follow the 1960 figure + the footnote to the 'Elvish Ages & Numenorean' and extended the Elves' stay in Aman.



P.S. Did you see my above post about the Awaking of the Dwarves, the one immediately before the 'extended timeline'?

Also, I've since got around to the 'Telerin Celeborn' idea - it's been really consistent in the last 5 or 6 years of Tolkien's life, and it would neatly give us the opportunity to include Gilitiro from the new PE23 as a possible son of Olwe.

Additionally, I've also been fairly convinced that the 'Celebrimbor in Nargothrond' footnote from the PoME might be much later than I previously thought, and in fact Tolkien's latest word on the subject.


Finally, I pretty much abandoned my own shorter timeline - really the only thing it has going for it is that it lines up more elegantly with the duration of the following Ages (as well as having only 6 generations at Cuivienen) - but other than that, it clearly falls short of Tolkien's later intentions.