Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I think a far simpler and a far better answer is that the lives of the Eldar in Aman compared to Middle-earth were something like the lives of the Edain in Numenor vs those in Middle-earth: i.e. they were blessed with peace, prosperity and eternity - and as such they tended to focus every which way, from artifice/science to art to making more Eldar.

This is why I think there really isn't any rhyme or reason behind Aman births. After all, there's always another tomorrow untainted by Melkor in their eyes...

Unfortunately that goes against Tolkien's thinking; in XVII.3(1) (his last comment on the matter) he specifically says that the Eldar married sooner in Aman. I think we have so little data on the births in Aman that it's possible to make almost any construction fit; I'm going to keep poking the numbers to see if it hangs together.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

EDIT: Oh - how did you arrive at 9,258 years? Tolkien was writing my OP text in c. 1970. In our version the Bel. years last for 600 years - as they do in the 1960 comment about the 7th Age: it should probably be 9,260 years.

Because I have him writing it in 1968. Given that the whole timeline is permanently riddled with off-by-one errors, I'm not overly concerned with two years.

hS

EDIT: it does not hang together. The issue is that Shibboleth explicitly states that Miriel lived until Feanor was full-grown. Quite aside from the absurdity of her moping around for over 3000 years and still somehow being a tragedy, this makes Fingolfin & Finarfin effectively the second generation in Aman. Their children come out as still, well, children at the Exile, which obviously doesn't work.

So... we're back where we started. There's a bunch of dates in AAm, and no obvious way to adapt them to the new timeline, which is 2.5 times longer. ~hS