Where Might We Go in Amazon's LOTR?
From Númenor to Mordor, these are the lands of the Second Age
“I wisely started with a map”
The other part of that famous quote from J.R.R. Tolkien, is that he said to go the other way around would get you lost — to start with a story and then create a map from the story. At least for any speculative fantasy as complex as The Lord of the Rings, that is. Let’s hope the writers and show-runners behind Amazon Studios’ upcoming TV streaming series followed his advice as much as they could.
Given there are far fewer characters and stories by Tolkien on the Second Age of Middle-earth, the era that will be the setting for the series, relying on his existing lands and maps from his legendarium would lend any new stories authenticity and believability, and very importantly for fans of the books and Peter Jackson films, a dose of familiarity. However, except for its name and references to its inhabitants’ descendants, the island of Númenor is not well known to most Tolkien fans, including fans of the Jackson films. So let’s start there…
Westernesse, Isle of Elenna, westernmost of all Mortal lands, is where the civilization of Númenor is founded in the year 32 of the Second Age. Tolkien recounts many of the high-level details of Nùmenor’s history in Appendix A and B of The Lord of the Rings. A more detailed account, especially of the end of Númenor is written in The Silmarillion as a supplementary chapter known as the Akallabêth.
While reportedly Amazon Studios does not have legal license to use any contents in The Silmarillion, since the Appendices in The Lord of the Rings touches on many of the same events, it is hard to imagine the Tolkien Estate did not allow room for supplementation from the Akallabêth to keep details consistent with Tolkien’s legendarium — a dictate that is also part of the creative license.
As a result, and indeed confirmed by a map in 2019 posted by Amazon to their LOTRonPrime Twitter account, names of areas of Númenor not included in the Appendices appear part of the upcoming production. These include names of the five juts or peninsulas that help form Númenor’s star-like land pattern, which for better or for worse has always reminded me of the “Glaive” throwing star from the rather arch 1983 fantasy film, Krull. Never the mind, the key thing to know about the island is that it has three key cities: Armenelos, the capital and at the time the greatest city in the world, Andúnië, the home of the Faithful and the most western port that looks out to the Undying Lands, and Rómenna, the eastward port that the Faithful relocate to as Númenor’s king, Ar-Pharazôn, falls under Shadow.
Sauron’s Temple is erected in Armenelos during Ar-Pharazôn’s reign, where a constant fire burns at its core, fed by the holy tree of Nimloth and sacrificial human remains. Above Armenelos and at the center of the island is the great mountain Meneltarma. From its top, on clear days, as in Andúnië, the far sighted can espy Eldamar and the glittering elven harbor city of Avallonë on Tol Eressëa, entrance to Valinor, the land of the gods.
The voyages of the Númenóreans before the rise of Ar-Pharazôn take the “Sea-kings” far and wide across Middle-earth. Early in the Second Age, they come in kindness and curiosity first to the Great Lands, and were called in the Sindarin elven tongue the Dúnedain, “men of the west.” They brought knowledge, crops and protection to many of the human cultures of Middle-earth who had been harried or corrupted by the darkness of Sauron. So the Akallabêth recounts:
“Thus it was that because of the Ban of the Valar the voyages of the Dúnedain in those days went ever eastward and not westward, from the darkness of the North to the heats of the South, and beyond the South to the Nether Darkness; and they came even into the inner seas, and sailed about Middle-earth and glimpsed from their high prows the Gates of Morning in the East.”
But over the centuries, this wanderlust eventually turns to avarice. Upset over being forbidden to venture west into Valinor — the Ban of the Valar — lusting for immortal life, the Númenóreans sail to the Hither Lands, the Inner Seas and as far as the East Sea, to the Walls of the Sun, exploring, colonizing and often pillaging and enslaving other peoples and realms that are only vaguely covered in the annals of Tolkien’s legendarium — perhaps most of that history is lost when Númenor, also called Atalantë, falls beneath the sea. Around the world since the First Age is also Ekkaia, the Encircling Sea, which covers the outer reaches of Arda (Earth).
Within the contents of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, and also in the Akallabêth, however, are some details on these more distant lands. We know from other sources, including versions of The Hobbit, that Rhûn, a vast expanse that approximates Russia and Asia, also includes a desert sea. Early drafts of The Hobbit even mentioned the Gobi Desert in China.
There is the inland Sea of Rhûn, which is somewhat of a marker for the outer limits of geographical knowledge in the Third Age, in terms of what the peoples of western Middle-earth know. However, there are still more hints deeper in the pages of Tolkien’s works. In The Silmarillion, we learn that the elves first came into being or “awoke” in Cuiviénen on the eastern shores of the Sea of Helcar. A kind of Eden, it was in between the sea and the mountains of Orocarni. We also learn that humankind comes from a far eastern area in the deep past called Hildórien. There is also a “Sun-rising hill” called Kalórmë in the furthest known land in the east that potentially approximates Mount Fuji.
There is also the Dark Land that is southeast of Middle-earth that is perhaps Tolkien’s nod to Australia. Closer to the locus of the main story are the Hither Lands, which includes the Númenórean haven of Umbar, preferred by the King’s Men, the loyalists to the cause of immortality. In the northern section of the Hither Lands is essentially Harad, which seems to evoke Medieval European encounters with the Middle East and North Africa. The Easterlings apparently hail mostly from Rhûn and southeast of Mordor, including in the Third Age an area called Khand. Collectively, according to various source texts, these lands included far flung tribes, a few known variably as the Balchoth, the Variags and the Wainriders, calling to mind horse and chariot-riding cultures from Mongolia and Turkey, perhaps based on great marauding militaries such as Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire and the Hittites in Anatolia.
Not to be forgotten is also the Ice Bay, the Cape of Forochel and the far cold north of Middle-earth, Forodwaith. These areas call to mind Scandinavia, the Lapland, the icy Arctic and northern Russia. In the eastern part of these cold wastes, in the Ered Mithrin (“grey mountains”), from the Second Age through the Third Age, reigned many dragons, including the “cold-drakes.” The Lossoth, the “snow-people,” lived west in Forochel, near the great western sea of Belegaer.
There is no Gondor at the time of most of these events. Indeed, for most of the Second Age, there is no Gondor or Arnor, the northern branch of the Dúnedain realm that begins with the Exiles who survive the fall of Númenor. *Spoiler Alert* Before the island kingdom sinks into the ocean, the Exiles are known as the Faithful. Amandil, father of Elendil, is critical in preparing the Faithful to evacuate Númenor before it is swallowed up by the sea.
[Read about some of the characters that may appear in Amazon Prime’s series here.]
Once they arrive on the shores of Middle-earth, Elendil and his sons Isildur and Anárion help settle the lands north in between Lindon (the upper western coast) and the Misty Mountains which run north to south in the middle of the western region of Middle-earth. This great expanse is called Eriador, but most of it becomes Arnor late in the Second Age, while the southern half of Elendil’s kingdom realm is called Gondor, which his sons rule and defend.
But long before this age of Elendil and the Exiles, the majority of Middle-earth is rather sparse. If you look at the Amazon map above — Amazon Studios actually posted five maps in 2019 that span thousands of years of Middle-earth — which reflects the earlier era of the Second Age, those same regions have names more associated with their natural features. There is the great plain of Calenardhon (“green region”), before Gondor is fully established. In the Third Age, it is bequeathed to Éothéod and later makes up Rohan.
We also see a lot of forests in Eriador in Enedwaith (“middle-folk”) and Minhiriath (“between the rivers”), which potentially hints at a lot of wood-dwelling humans and Silvan Elves, as well as potentially Ents, and even Entwives, the fabled and missing female Ents that Treebeard laments in The Lord of the Rings. The Misty Mountains are also called by their Sindarin name on the map, the Hithaeglir.
Vulture.com did a clever analysis of the five maps that Amazon released in 2019, and pointed out how each iteration became more populated with place names and cities, while also showing increasing deforestation and environmental damage. By the fourth map, there are the cities of Annúminas (capital of Elendil’s realm in Arnor), and in Gondor, Minas Anor (later renamed Minas Tirith) and Minas Ithil (later renamed Minas Morgul). Orthanc also appears at the bottom of the Hithaeglir. Sauron’s stronghold, Barad-dûr, is also marked in Mordor.
The fifth map posted by Amazon (the map displayed above) actually turned the clock back to before Gondor and Arnor, predating even Imladris (Rivendell) and Lothlórien (labeled Laurelindórenan). If you look at Amazon’s fourth map shown below, much of the forests in Eriador in the fifth map are gone. One theory is this is because for millennia, the Númenóreans stripped the land of trees to build their ships, forts and cities. Lond Daer, shown near the estuary of the Gwathló river, was the port for much of that activity, founded sometime between 750 and 800 S.A. (Second Age), originally named Vinyalondë.
About a thousand years later, beginning with the tenth king of Númenor, the Dúnedain took an ever greater interest in Middle-earth. Tar-Minastir, the tenth king, aided the High-elven king, Gil-Galad, in driving Sauron back east to Mordor. The subsequent kings, Tar-Ciryatan the Ship-Builder and his son Tar-Atanamir the Great, grow greedy in their conquests, and demand tribute from other peoples and tribes. This trend continues for hundreds of years, even more so as the more checkered kings of the third millennium of the Second Age come to power.
Two other great ports are also marked on this fourth map: Mithlond and Pelargir. The former is the Sindarin name for the Grey Havens, where the elf Círdan the Shipwright helps Gil-Galad lead many of the High Elves and Grey Elves who survived the First Age. Mithlond is inside the Gulf of Lune in eastern Lindon (“Land of Music”), with the Emyn Beraid just south (the “Tower Hills”).
Pelargir is a Gondorian port on the great river Anduin south of Minas Anor, founded by the Faithful in 2350 S.A. It was made in peace with the natives in contrast to the havens of Umbar, which were favored by the King’s Men, who subjugated the peoples of Umbar and Harad. From Pelargir, which means in Sindarin “Garth of the Royal Ships,” the Faithful would sail northward to visit Lindon and the elves there. Called the Elendili (“Elf-Friends”), the Faithful’s foothold in Pelargir becomes an important refuge before and after the great Downfall of Númenor. Fun fact: Tolkien associated Pelargir with Venice.
Going back to the fifth map, which depicts the early Second Age, while the Amazon map posted to their Twitter account is too low resolution to tell, it looks like Eregion and its main city Ost-in-Edhil, or at least its ruins, are marked just west of the Hithaeglir. Established in 750 S.A., it is where Celebrimbor and his Gwaith-i-Mírdain forge many great works, including the original Rings of Power for the elf and dwarf kings of the Second Age. It is destroyed in 1697 when Celebrimbor discovers Sauron’s treachery in creating the One Ring.
Khazad-dûm, the neighbor of Eregion and Ost-in-Edhil, is the motherlode of mithril, the “true silver” that Durin’s Folk and Celebrimbor’s elves craft into armor and weapons, along with the cutting and crafting of gems. The most legendary city of the dwarves, Khazad-dûm, later known as Moria, shuts its magical Doors of Durin when war breaks out with Sauron. At first they fight Sauron, attacking him from the rear as he lays siege to Rivendell, but are driven back. The Khazâd, as they call themselves, later delve “too deep” and awaken a Balrog. Scattered by these tragedies, the dwarves of Khazad-dûm go west, north and east to the Blue Mountains, the Iron Hills and the Lonely Mountain (Erebor). It’s too low resolution to be sure, but the fourth and fifth maps also seem to show Mount Gundabad, the original home of Durin, the founder of Khazad-dûm. But Gundabad is later overrun by orcs around 1695 S.A.
The elven lords Galadriel and Celeborn also go east around this time and settle Lothlórien, which Galadriel keeps enchanted through one of the Rings of Power — Nenya, the Ring of Water — and modeled after the elven kingdom of Doriath from the First Age. To the north in Greenwood the Great (later to be renamed Mirkwood in the Third Age), the elf lord Oropher and his son Thranduil also establish a bulwark against Sauron called the Woodland Realm. Architecturally, its cavernous halls are modeled after Menegroth, the Thousand Caves, the underground city of Doriath.
All of these realms at different times and in different ways stand against Sauron and his Land of Shadow, Mordor. After Sauron the Deceiver crafts the One Ring, he is taken by the Númenórean king Ar-Pharazôn back to Westernesse. Just as he deceived Celebrimbor, so does he deceive Ar-Pharazôn. By this time, the Nazgûl, the Nine, are already in existence. And Barad-dûr has been fortified after 600 years of construction, having been begun in 1000 S.A. and completed with the power of the One Ring.
There are 20 Rings of Power. We can count on Amazon Studios exploring how, who and where each of those rings go in the Second Age. The Three Rings of the elves go to Galadriel, Gil-Galad, Círdan and eventually also Elrond and Gandalf, but even their little journeys from finger to finger will be fascinating. We can rest assured, however, that all roads in the end will lead to Orodruin, Mount Doom, and the choking dusts of Mordor.
Of course, while we may very well watch Sauron discover and shape the iconic Dark Land, it could be Amazon may not take us much further east, or deep into the uncharted inner seas and to Kalórmë. But from Númenor to the realms of Middle-earth, no doubt they will have plenty of mythical lands to unveil.
Read our first article on Amazon Prime’s upcoming Middle-earth series here, which gives a “primer” on the Second Age and Tolkien’s “Atlantis” myth of Númenor. Also read about some of the characters that may appear in Amazon Prime’s series here.