Professor Tolkien used his blood memory and revelations in his dreams, besides being blessed with deep understanding of mythology and culture. So unreal it's real. Great read, as always.
Indeed, there seems to have been significant interest in this area of now-submerged Europe in the first few decades of the twentieth century. Someone as well-read as Tolkien must, I think be assumed to have been aware of it.
As to why Tolkien kept such associations/origins to himself. . . I think the answer is probably a lot more straightforward and, unfortunately, less interesting than some that have been suggested both here and in your previous post. Tolkien may have been one of (if not the) first authors to come up with a detailed fictional map of a fantasy world, but he would hardly be the last. I think Tolkien just straight-up borrowed/stole real geography of Iron Age Europe for the sake of convenience, just like Martin obviously repurposed the geography of the British Isles for his map of Westeros. I mean, seriously: https://brilliantmaps.com/westeros/
Why did he keep this to himself? Because I think convenience was likely the main motivation. If he had really intended for the geographic connections to convey real meaning, I don't see any reason he couldn't or wouldn't have just said so. He certainly wasn't coy about his works' meaning in other contexts. So the fact that he never really did much with this suggests, to me, that he didn't want his works to be burdened with the "Gondor is Rome, Mordor is Persia/the Ottomans" associations that would have inevitably arisen if he'd been clearer about that.
It's worth mentioning at this point that Tolkien does reference Rome (Rûm), Troy (Trui), Babylon (Bablon), and Nineveh (Ninwi) in very early versions of his legendarium. But these are all depicted as having met their ends long after the end of the Third Age.
Brilliant work. A few quibbles: in the captions and elsewhere, don't you mean a lower sea level? One of the captions is also incomplete I think.
A sea level rise of 2100 m is quite extraordinary, usually the end of the ice age is said to have raised them by 100 m if I'm not mistaken. What does the Mid-Atlantic ridge look like with a more modest reduction in sea level?
I believe most that claim the Mid-Atlantic ridge was once above water attribute it to plate tectonics, not an actual world wide sea level rise of that magnitude.
And I’m not making claims on that one way or another, just pointing out what it looks like Tolkien was thinking about
Yes, I would also suspect some sort of tectonic activity, which of course would also change the coastline.
I think you've made a compelling case of hidden depths to the professor's work. As to why he presented it as a fantasy, perhaps this was out of an awareness that should he make stronger claims he'd be pilloried. Another factor is that, by working in the context of a fiction, he could fill in the blanks to create a more compelling narrative, and thereby avoid the boring death of dry academese. A living mythology should be vital, it should fire the imagination - a series of dull papers and monographs could never do this.
-One is that the Atlantic Ocean is expanding, growing outwards from the ridge in the middle. The North and South American plates are moving away from the Old World. So in the past the mountains of the mid atlantic ridge could have been more prominent and elevated.
-Two is that rivers carry sediment, so the Adriatic sea could have plausibly been filled with more dirt than today, likewise Anduin would have its many mouths amongst the Ageaen islands. These areas wouldve been filled if sea levels were significantly lower.
-Three is that the volcanic activity of the Mediterranean is due to the plates pushing together, but plates also rotate and change orientation over time. So the North Africa coast could've swung more towards being directly below Gondor, and in doing so would press up the mountains of Andrast/Spain. In fact Western Spain (beyond the portrayal of Andrast is being pushed up and up as the Atlantic Plate subducts under the Iberian Plate. Likewise as sea levels rose it could have flooded the areas with rivers, such as Lenfui River becoming the Bay of Nice, and the Pinnath Gelin mountains becoming Corsica/Sardinia/Mayorca. Just possibilities based on the map of Western Gondor. Spain could be a newly created land compared to 3rd Age Middle Earth.
-Four and most importantly is that ancient maps were not accurate in their orientation. They were drawn and redrawn like a game of telephone. The orienatation of North/South/East/West would change based on how people expereicned travel over the terrain. They are also full of symbolism. Mountains may be drawn in a straight line when in reality they they sprawl and jut out in crops. The Misty Mountains may also have eroded to become lower/less sharp or flooded creating valleys (. Bodies of water are often portrayed much too small in ancient maps because travelling by water is faster and thus the map is contracted. Also its impossible for ancient cartographers to capture the spherical nature of the world (a theme Tolkien's ages rifts on too). Through some combination of the telephone effect and poor ancient cartography, the Middle Earth map could be distorted, especially since real life Europe curves East as you go South. Gandalf mentions this in Drumrill Dale "the weather hasnt changed much because we've travelled much more east than we have south" to the Hobbits. Distant places would also be misportrayed such as the Sea of Rhun/Caspian.
-Five, its actually very clear that the Dagorland became the Black Sea, as that region on the map contains Wetwang and the Dead Marshes. These regions are already marshy and basically submerged in water, that water continued flowing in over time. Similarly Lamedon couldve become the Adriatic and just be portrayed too small.
-Six, in reality the Misty Mountains are probably much less spiny and the mountain-adjacent areas on the map of Middle Earth are probably much more hilly than portrayed on the paper map. I could see Dunland/Fangorn being very hilly areas like Bavaria/Czech Rep. Similarly the angles of the White Mountains are probably more curved and less straight than portrayed. The map was first drawn by Christopher Tolkien in 1953 then redrawn in 1980. Different maps have different scales in terms of miles and leagues.
-Seventh, LOTR is a Hobbit-centric book, and it seems (in-world) Bilbo or another hobbit probably drew the maps, so they might have shrunken and distorted places they know less about (unexplored or more distant) such as the width of Enedwaith, where nobody in the series ever travels or talks about except for knowledge of the North-South road.
Many explanations but I think youre spot on with the real geographic connections. Assuming ice-age floods and accelerated plate tectonics can explain the rest. Its obviously not real history, but there's many ways in which Tolkien could have convincingly explained it as descending from fragments of real world prehistory if he had been so cheeky.
Yes, Tolkien admitted in some of his letters that Middle Earth was based on Europe. He even stated that he wished he had placed more focus into making the locations of mountain ranges and other natural features geologically consistent with the real world. He intended for the story to be an alternate pre-history of the real world. He envisioned the time of The Lord of the Rings to be approximately 6,000 years ago. While that doesn't line up perfectly with the ice age, I strongly believe Tolkien wouldn't object to that interpretation.
I wonder if Tolkien just wanted to see if anyone would catch on, so he kept a lot to his chest. And maybe he just thought it was funny, like an inside joke.
Remarkable write up. Thank you. It is clear, and has been to me for awhile, that our traditional "timeline"of historical events is so redacted one could call it a work of fiction in itself.
Professor Tolkien used his blood memory and revelations in his dreams, besides being blessed with deep understanding of mythology and culture. So unreal it's real. Great read, as always.
I like this. A lot.
According to Wikipedia, Tolkien would certainly have had access to information about Doggerland. H.G. Wells wrote about it as early as 1897. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27365/27365-h/27365-h.htm#Page_59
Indeed, there seems to have been significant interest in this area of now-submerged Europe in the first few decades of the twentieth century. Someone as well-read as Tolkien must, I think be assumed to have been aware of it.
As to why Tolkien kept such associations/origins to himself. . . I think the answer is probably a lot more straightforward and, unfortunately, less interesting than some that have been suggested both here and in your previous post. Tolkien may have been one of (if not the) first authors to come up with a detailed fictional map of a fantasy world, but he would hardly be the last. I think Tolkien just straight-up borrowed/stole real geography of Iron Age Europe for the sake of convenience, just like Martin obviously repurposed the geography of the British Isles for his map of Westeros. I mean, seriously: https://brilliantmaps.com/westeros/
Why did he keep this to himself? Because I think convenience was likely the main motivation. If he had really intended for the geographic connections to convey real meaning, I don't see any reason he couldn't or wouldn't have just said so. He certainly wasn't coy about his works' meaning in other contexts. So the fact that he never really did much with this suggests, to me, that he didn't want his works to be burdened with the "Gondor is Rome, Mordor is Persia/the Ottomans" associations that would have inevitably arisen if he'd been clearer about that.
It's worth mentioning at this point that Tolkien does reference Rome (Rûm), Troy (Trui), Babylon (Bablon), and Nineveh (Ninwi) in very early versions of his legendarium. But these are all depicted as having met their ends long after the end of the Third Age.
Brilliant work. A few quibbles: in the captions and elsewhere, don't you mean a lower sea level? One of the captions is also incomplete I think.
A sea level rise of 2100 m is quite extraordinary, usually the end of the ice age is said to have raised them by 100 m if I'm not mistaken. What does the Mid-Atlantic ridge look like with a more modest reduction in sea level?
Yeah, caption was a typo.
I believe most that claim the Mid-Atlantic ridge was once above water attribute it to plate tectonics, not an actual world wide sea level rise of that magnitude.
And I’m not making claims on that one way or another, just pointing out what it looks like Tolkien was thinking about
Yes, I would also suspect some sort of tectonic activity, which of course would also change the coastline.
I think you've made a compelling case of hidden depths to the professor's work. As to why he presented it as a fantasy, perhaps this was out of an awareness that should he make stronger claims he'd be pilloried. Another factor is that, by working in the context of a fiction, he could fill in the blanks to create a more compelling narrative, and thereby avoid the boring death of dry academese. A living mythology should be vital, it should fire the imagination - a series of dull papers and monographs could never do this.
A few things:
-One is that the Atlantic Ocean is expanding, growing outwards from the ridge in the middle. The North and South American plates are moving away from the Old World. So in the past the mountains of the mid atlantic ridge could have been more prominent and elevated.
-Two is that rivers carry sediment, so the Adriatic sea could have plausibly been filled with more dirt than today, likewise Anduin would have its many mouths amongst the Ageaen islands. These areas wouldve been filled if sea levels were significantly lower.
-Three is that the volcanic activity of the Mediterranean is due to the plates pushing together, but plates also rotate and change orientation over time. So the North Africa coast could've swung more towards being directly below Gondor, and in doing so would press up the mountains of Andrast/Spain. In fact Western Spain (beyond the portrayal of Andrast is being pushed up and up as the Atlantic Plate subducts under the Iberian Plate. Likewise as sea levels rose it could have flooded the areas with rivers, such as Lenfui River becoming the Bay of Nice, and the Pinnath Gelin mountains becoming Corsica/Sardinia/Mayorca. Just possibilities based on the map of Western Gondor. Spain could be a newly created land compared to 3rd Age Middle Earth.
-Four and most importantly is that ancient maps were not accurate in their orientation. They were drawn and redrawn like a game of telephone. The orienatation of North/South/East/West would change based on how people expereicned travel over the terrain. They are also full of symbolism. Mountains may be drawn in a straight line when in reality they they sprawl and jut out in crops. The Misty Mountains may also have eroded to become lower/less sharp or flooded creating valleys (. Bodies of water are often portrayed much too small in ancient maps because travelling by water is faster and thus the map is contracted. Also its impossible for ancient cartographers to capture the spherical nature of the world (a theme Tolkien's ages rifts on too). Through some combination of the telephone effect and poor ancient cartography, the Middle Earth map could be distorted, especially since real life Europe curves East as you go South. Gandalf mentions this in Drumrill Dale "the weather hasnt changed much because we've travelled much more east than we have south" to the Hobbits. Distant places would also be misportrayed such as the Sea of Rhun/Caspian.
-Five, its actually very clear that the Dagorland became the Black Sea, as that region on the map contains Wetwang and the Dead Marshes. These regions are already marshy and basically submerged in water, that water continued flowing in over time. Similarly Lamedon couldve become the Adriatic and just be portrayed too small.
-Six, in reality the Misty Mountains are probably much less spiny and the mountain-adjacent areas on the map of Middle Earth are probably much more hilly than portrayed on the paper map. I could see Dunland/Fangorn being very hilly areas like Bavaria/Czech Rep. Similarly the angles of the White Mountains are probably more curved and less straight than portrayed. The map was first drawn by Christopher Tolkien in 1953 then redrawn in 1980. Different maps have different scales in terms of miles and leagues.
-Seventh, LOTR is a Hobbit-centric book, and it seems (in-world) Bilbo or another hobbit probably drew the maps, so they might have shrunken and distorted places they know less about (unexplored or more distant) such as the width of Enedwaith, where nobody in the series ever travels or talks about except for knowledge of the North-South road.
Many explanations but I think youre spot on with the real geographic connections. Assuming ice-age floods and accelerated plate tectonics can explain the rest. Its obviously not real history, but there's many ways in which Tolkien could have convincingly explained it as descending from fragments of real world prehistory if he had been so cheeky.
I am foaming at the mouth as I realize further alignments of these maps.
not in anger just in sheer excitement.
Yes, Tolkien admitted in some of his letters that Middle Earth was based on Europe. He even stated that he wished he had placed more focus into making the locations of mountain ranges and other natural features geologically consistent with the real world. He intended for the story to be an alternate pre-history of the real world. He envisioned the time of The Lord of the Rings to be approximately 6,000 years ago. While that doesn't line up perfectly with the ice age, I strongly believe Tolkien wouldn't object to that interpretation.
I wonder if Tolkien just wanted to see if anyone would catch on, so he kept a lot to his chest. And maybe he just thought it was funny, like an inside joke.
Remarkable write up. Thank you. It is clear, and has been to me for awhile, that our traditional "timeline"of historical events is so redacted one could call it a work of fiction in itself.