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Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings
- davidw 11y agoMinis Tirith ... Ravenna?! It's flat there: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ravenna+RA,+Italy/@44.3775632,12.1204286,11z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x477df9505a24da17:0x2a74a33c9c54a776!5m1!1e4 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ravenna+RA,+Italy/@44.3775... Maybe he was thinking of http://www.incomingpartners.it/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sanmarino_panorama.jpg http://www.incomingpartners.it/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sa... San Marino.
- scott_karana 11y agoPerhaps it was the history of re-conquer that inspired it, or something else? (The walls have no relation...)
- mmanfrin 11y agoRavenna is where the Western Roman capital moved to (402-476) in an effort to be more easily defended; likewise the capital of Gondor was moved from Osgiliath to Minas Tirith to more easily defend it.
- davidw 11y agoPerhaps they would have lasted a bit longer if they'd gone to San Marino! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino
- mmanfrin 11y agoWouldn't have made much of a difference as Odoacer simply bypassed Ravenna (and would have bypassed San Marino) on his way to sacking Rome. Rome at that time had fallen far from grace, but the sacking was the nail on the coffin. The true strength of Rome had already left, gone east to Constantinople. 4th/5th century western Rome was just a slow and painful decay. The East survived until 1453. Fun little fact: the Roman Empire existed until 1453 and was finally destroyed by the Ottomans; the Ottomans existed until the end of WW1; the Cubbies last won the world series in 1908; which all means: the last time the Cubs won the world series, the empire that destroyed the Roman empire was still around.
- baghira 11y agoI can't recall a sack of Rome by Odoacer, nor can I find after a quick search, but my memory may be lasping here. FWIW, Odoacer did escape to Ravenna to escape Theoderic and the siege lasted circa 3 years, so it did prove to be a reasonable location from that point of view.
- azernik 11y agoWhich was the point - Rome was too easy to attack, so the government moved to Ravenna so that when it happened, at least the emperor and bureaucracy wouldn't be at risk.
- baghira 11y agoTrouble is, there was no San Marino at the time. While I have no idea whether or not this was the inspiration for Tolkien, some element sort of match, from the capital being moved to the following reconquest of Ravenna under Byzantine rule, and also the presence of marshes to the north of the city (if Middle Earth map is oriented North-top South-bottom, which I'm not sure).
- eru 11y ago> (if Middle Earth map is oriented North-top South-bottom, which I'm not sure). It is. They explicitly mention that the Dwarfish orientation is different (east up) in the Hobbit, I think.
- Steko 11y agoNice try San Marino stealth marketing council.
- abritinthebay 11y agoProbably referencing this fortified town there: http://media.royalcaribbean.com/content/shared_assets/images/ports/hero/RAN_01.jpg http://media.royalcaribbean.com/content/shared_assets/images... Which TOTALLY makes sense.
- milansm 11y ago"The novelist also uses Belgrade, Cyprus, and Jerusalem as other reference points, and according to Blackwell’s suggests that “the city of Ravenna is the inspiration behind Minas Tirith - a key location in the third book of the Lord of The Rings trilogy”." Fun fact: Belgrade (Београд), capital of Serbia, literary means "the white city" in Serbian.
- nathancahill 11y agoA high resolution stitched map: http://i.imgur.com/lWAFuHe.jpg http://i.imgur.com/lWAFuHe.jpg Made with pictures from here: http://www.citylab.com/design/2015/10/a-map-of-middle-earth-annotated-by-jrr-tolkien/412105/ http://www.citylab.com/design/2015/10/a-map-of-middle-earth-...
- jfaucett 11y ago"It shows what Blackwell’s called “the exacting nature” of Tolkien’s creative vision: he corrects place names, provides extra ones, and gives Baynes a host of suggestions about the map’s various flora and fauna." You've got to respect the man for his attention to detail. To the outsider it might seem as if it were near insanity levels (fully creating multiple language families for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_constructed_by_J._R._R._Tolkien https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_constructed_by_J._R....). But you feel the histories and mythology behind the languages in the works. There's just an amazing vitality and realism in his universe that I've personally never felt in another work of fantasy as good as those other books might be. I read a biography about him many years ago, and if I remember correctly he wrote the stories for the languages not the other way around, since he discovered that his languages needed a mythology and history in order to be realistic.
- mmanfrin 11y agoThere is a decent nerdwriter video on worldbuilding (and he talks about Tolkien's masterly production of the world of Middle Earth): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA6MQHNM2yE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA6MQHNM2yE I don't fully agree with the thesis of the video, but it's a worthy watch and well reasoned argument.
- macintux 11y agoI found Shippey's "J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century" a compelling read. It examines Tolkien's fascination with myth (which, I suppose, is effectively redundant; can't very well write a biography of him without it).
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