Tolkien said that he imagines the events of The Lord of the Rings to have happened about 6,000 years ago. Assuming this is the case, what happened since then to make the land completely unrecognizable? Climates can shift a bit in that time, but what definitely can't is mountain ranges. They usually take tens or hundreds of millions of years to erode away. So barring any apocalyptic eruptions or impacts, all the mountains in Middle Earth should still be here today. The only way I could see this happening is if the Valar or Eru himself are somehow responsible either by completely reshaping the land or by sinking it, but that doesn't fit the theme of the magic fading from Middle Earth.
1 Answer
Tolkien admitted it was difficult to fit the fictional lands and cultures into real history, and he didn't really try.
I could have fitted things in with greater versimilitude, if the story had not become too far developed, before the question ever occurred to me. I doubt if there would have been much gain; and I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap* in time between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for ‘literary credibility’, even for readers acquainted with what is known or surmised of 'pre-history'.
...
*I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years: that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh.--Letter #211
Assuming the Ages have quickened, like Tolkien said, and that we are now into the 7th Age, it's reasonable to divide the 6000 years more or less equally into three. The Beginning of the 6th would be A.D. 0, and the beginning of the 5th or the End of the 4th about 2000 B.C.
Of Eldarion son of Elessar it was foretold that he should rule a great realm, and that it should endure a hundred generations of Men after him, that is until a new age brought in again new things; and from him should come the kings of many realms in long days after. But if this foretelling spoke truly, none now can say, for Gondor and Arnor are no more; and even the chronicles of the House of Elessar and all their deeds and glory are lost.
--HoMe XII
It takes about 2000 years to produce a hundred generations of Men (if they marry in their 20s). The Reunited Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor had to collapse or fade into another plane by the End of the 4th. In the 5th Age the history of our Old World became too certain to miss such a kingdom. A great change had to happen to reshape the lands and possibly also the memory of Men.
So what caused the change? Did Men do something that annoyed Eru again, say building a tower to reach the heavens? I think it's left to fan-fiction.
The legend of the fall of Númenor, or Atalantie "Downfall", survived to be told by Plato as the fall of Atlantis.
Westron, Elven languages and Feanorian letters must disappear, since no real world language seems to bear their influence.
Cirth can survive. Historical runes can fictionally originate in Cirth, instead of Old Italic Letters.
-
The oldest known civilizations originate ca. 3500 BCE, which would put them ca. 500 years after the fall of Barad-dûr. Some ancient European burial grounds (like Newgrange) are about the same age. However, in some of his writings, Tolkien mentions Dagor Dagorath, the "Final Battle", and "Thereafter shall the Earth be broken and remade". Tolkien writes that though Mandos prophesied it, even the Ainur do not know anything of the second world. It is hence not a far stretch to imagine that our world is the result of the remake, in which the oldest Mesopotamia and Egypt were left largely unchanged. Commented Sep 13, 2022 at 7:35
-
@Eugene I think I rmember that In another letter Tolkien suggested that the fall of Barad-dur was six or eight thousand years before he wrote. That would give a litle more time between LOTR and the beginnings of history. Commented Sep 13, 2022 at 17:21
-
@Klaus Æ. Mogensen It is not certain how canonical the prophacy of the Dagor Dagorath is. In any case, after the world is broken and rebuilt, it would no longer be marred by Morgoth. And as well all know, the present world is still marred so the Dagor Dagorath can't have happened yet. If this is supposed to be the better world prophesied by Mandos, we should all sue Mandos for deceptive advertising! Commented Sep 13, 2022 at 17:26
-
1@Klaus Æ. Mogensen; Göbekli Tepe in Anatolia is dated to roughly 9500 BCE, and is now believed to be one of several such sites. We knew nothing about it until 1995. Weirdly, the older construction at Göbekli Tepe is easily the more sophisticated, while the newer construction is crude by comparison. That fits the idea of a fallen civilization rather well. Just fascinating.– JohnHuntCommented Sep 14, 2022 at 5:42
-
Perhaps the most distinctive feature on the maps of Middle-Earth is the three-sided, right-angled "box" of mountains around Mordor. There are two real-world analogues: one in northern Bulgaria and southern Romania, the other in southern Xinjiang. In the latter case, one can, if one is so inclined, find corresponding analogues to a remarkable amount of the rest of the physical geography of Middle-Earth. Commented Sep 22, 2022 at 17:38