Moria in the Fourth Age

[The Mouth of Sauron]

With Durin's Bane killed by Gandalf and presumably only a few Orcs left in Moria after Sauron's downfall, did the Dwarves re-take Khazad-Dum ?

The suggestion in the LOTR appendices is that Durin the Deathless re-appeared and if so surely Moria would have been his kingdom ? Also remember Gimli in Dimrill Dale : "there lies the crown of Durin till he wakes".

[Galin]

In drafts for Appendix A Tolkien wrote:

'And the line of Dain prospered (...) the name of Durin, and he returned to Moria; and there was light again in deep places, and the ringing of hammers and the harping of harps, until the world grew old and the Dwarves failed and the days of Durin's race were ended.'

CJRT notes: 'It is impossible to discover whether my father did in fact reject this iea, or whether it simply became 'lost' in the haste with which the Appendices were finally prepared for publication. The fact that he made no reference to 'Durin VII and Last', though he appears in the genealogy in Appendix A, is possibly a pointer to the latter supposition.' The Peoples of Middle-earth

See also the abandoned Epilogue on this matter.

[Groin Redbeard]

Originally Posted by The Mouth of Sauron

The suggestion in the LOTR appendices is that Durin the Deathless re-appeared and if so surely Moria would have been his kingdom ? Also remember Gimli in Dimrill Dale : "there lies the crown of Durin till he wakes".

Funny that you should mention this, but the Dwarf king that retook Moria was Durin VII, or Durin the last. He was the direct descendant of king Thorin III Stonehelm (according to some sources, his son), ruler of Erebor and the Iron Hills in the Fourth Age. His birth was apparently prophesied upon the accession of Dáin II after the Battle of Five Armies (although no record exists of the actual prophecy itself). He led Durin's Folk back to recolonize Khazad-dûm some (unspecified) time after the beginning of the Fourth Age, where they remained "until the world grew old and the Dwarves failed and the days of Durin's race were ended"

The interesting thing is that the name Durin is only given to Dwarves who resemble Durin the Deathless. So in a a sense the prophecy did come true.