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Redbonebandit's avatar

Brother, these articles are fantastic, thank you for putting in the work to unlock these. I've been hooked since reading about Tolkein possibly using maps that weren't know or accessible to the general public in his creation of Middle earth, particularly Doggerland.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

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Joseph L. Wiess's avatar

Angband, being Morgoth's main fortress was landlocked. So I'm guessing that Jan Mayen was at one time landlocked as well. Or at least it would have been in Tolkien's writings. Either that, or it was ice locked.

I am fascinated by your tracking down places in Tolkien's work.

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Andrew Henry's avatar

I think ice-locked would be more likely, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure how far the literality of this series can really take us

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groddlo's avatar

If you assume sea levels 1.5-2 km lower, it works.

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Bilbosbagend's avatar

Feeling a Raider of the lost ark archaeological adventure coming…

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Andrew Henry's avatar

Saxon Cross meetup on Rockall Island

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Tombadil's avatar

Tolkien was an avid mountain climber and hiker in the Alps, which probably has a lot to do with Middle Earth and the way it developed in the writing. It was definitely the mind of geographer and linguist.

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John D. Westlake's avatar

It happens that I'm presently reading Colin Wilson's _Mysteries_ and just last night finished the section on Lethbridge. Wilson didn't mention the mountaineering. I didn't expect a Tolkien connection to appear there, but here we are.

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Zach Mercugliano's avatar

So glad you keep trotting these out. Thank you Andrew!

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Seth Tummins's avatar

👍🏼👍🏼

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Great Caesar's Ghost's avatar

Do a Imagine search "Antipodal focusing of seismic waves due to large meteorite impacts on Earth."

3 -D model of the earth's interior and crustal structure with numerical calculations of the propagation of seismic waves around the earth after an impact. Its shaped like Númenor

Im no saying this was the event rather a frame of reference. A number of researchers have asked "what happened on the side of the earth opposite the place where the meteorite hit in the Yucatan (Mexico) 65 million years ago?" This point is called the "antipode." The earth is a sphere, and acts like a lens to focus seismic waves on the opposite side of the planet. Body waves travel through the interior and are focused by reflection and refraction off of boundaries such as the crust-mantle, mantle-outer core, etc. Surface waves converge at the antipode after spreading out from the impact site, which looks like a point source of energy at the scale of the whole earth. Models to date have used a spherically symmetric earth and did not include subtlties such as the elliptical shape of the earth or continents. These models have suggested that there could have been at least 10 meters (33 feet) of shattered uplifted rocks at the antipode.

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groddlo's avatar

Can be made to work, if we assume Angbard and Utumno aren't connected by land but have a sea between them.

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Andrew Henry's avatar

I think the idea would have been that the sea level was lower and they were not separated in the past. Not sure if this is technically feasible, its just what I guess the Professor imagined

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Morgthorak the Undead's avatar

Morgoth’s biggest problem was that he turned into a soy boy for Ungoliant. Remember that? Stupidly, he thought he could use her and it blew up in his face. Ungoliant was the first feminist and you know how they are? Too much is never enough for them!

Too bad Morgoth didn’t think it through before using her to go after the trees. Ooops!

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Benjamin's avatar

All of this is extremely exciting. It makes Tolkien's mythopoeic project about 10 times as impressive, discovering connections and possible connections to real-world Prehistory.

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Andrew Henry's avatar

It really does. Of course, the big question of this series is whether this is all just Tolkien having some secret fun with his stories, or if he was doing something more serious.

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groddlo's avatar

I hope he wasn't traficking with the devil.

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Sep 30
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Andrew Henry's avatar

Can't believe its almost been two years. I thought I was going to write here so much more often than I have. But it's been a fun time

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