Middle-earth seen by the barbarians: The complete collection including a previously unpublished essay
Page 14
More interesting is the continuation of the note: ‘Minas Tirith is about the latitude of Ravenna (but is 900 miles east of Hobbiton, more near Belgrade).’ This more or less confirms the calculations made in Appendix B that have resulted in the maps of Fig. 25 and Fig. 26.
The note continues: ‘Bottom of the Map (400 miles) is about the latitude of Jerusalem. Umbar & City of the Corsairs - about that of Cyprus.’ Jerusalem is located at about 32°N and Cyprus at 35°, both values closely match the reconstruction of the map in Fig. 25, again confirming our mathematical approach.
PBD, annotation in the lower left corner (contrast enhanced by the author)
Another note, just to the right of that previously cited, refers to the rendering of mûmakil on PBM:
‘Elephants appear in the great battle outside Minas Tirith (as they did in Italy under Pyrrhus) but they could be in the blank spaces of Harad[,] also camels.’ (So Pyrrhus, and not Hannibal, has inspired the Battle on the Pelennor Fields.)
Both a mûmak and a camel appear on PBM. Note that camels are not mentioned at any place in LR. This allusion underlines, though, that Harad is an equivalent of North Africa, though its state may be closer to that of the Bronze Age and does not necessarily imply the ergs or hamadas of the Sahara. Though a desert named Lostladen, evidently a Quenya cognate to the empty blotch in the north-east of the S map that is called in Sindarin Lothlann, is explicitly shown on the ‘Second LR Map’ that has been published in WR. The fact that it is not mentioned on the official published map does perhaps not necessarily mean that it should be discarded.
The mûmak on PBM
Notes on ships to be sketched on the Bay of Belfalas read: ‘Vessels of varying size from 3-masted to single-[masted] and ‘Corsairs had red sails with black star or eye’.
One such ship appears on PBM, but it is very clearly a dhau, not a dromund. Therefore, it should probably be assumed that this is one of the many smaller vessels of the Corsairs (see Fig. 56).
The other vessels depicted on PBM are clearly galleons. This is probably inspired by a description of Elendil’s ships that, in a note by Baynes in the upper left of PBD that was probably derived from oral communication, are explicitly called ‘weatherbeaten galleons ... all black, 5-masted ... as large a pre-steam vessel as can be drawn, ie Columbus type’ Evidently, Tolkien was little aware of how small Columbus’ ships were. Michael Martinez supposes that Elendil took 4500-5000 people across the Belegaer (http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/11/30/seeking-the-wayward-children-of-numenor/), but this may be way too much. Columbus’ flagship, the Santa Maria, had a regular crew of 90, the other two vessels were even smaller. Thus, nine fully crammed vessels of that size could not take more than 2000 people aboard.
The dhau of the Corsairs on PBD and PBM (contrast enhanced by the author)
But the Akallabêth implies that the Númenóreans had other vessels, too, for the galleons were not regularly oared - Ar-Pharazôn, however, attestedly employed lots of slaves from the Anfalas, Umbar and the Harad as oarsmen on Alcarondas and his other warships. These vessels may have looked more like Phoenician ships that, other than dromunds from Umbar, were able to leave the coastal areas and traverse the high seas unscathed. So, perhaps, Pauline Baynes’ remark on galleons was simply off the mark.
The wine-growing barbarian region of Dorwinion is first located on PBD, see V.4, and adopted on PBM. The beasts below illustrate ‘the white wild kine of Araw’ Another annotation on PBD says that ‘Planes of Rhovanion between Mirkwood, Rhun & Mordor had many wild kine & wild horses.’ These refer to the White Wild Kine of Araw and the horses that supplied the cavalry of the Northmen.
Dorwinion on PBM
More selected essays from
Lalaith’s Middle-earth Science Pages
Words of Westernesse
The development of grammar and vocabulary of the Mannish languages of Middle-earth and some tentative etymologies of Adûnaic and Westron
The Moon in ‘The Hobbit’
How Tolkien used the moon as a narrative agent and how you can do that in your novel, too
Dynasties of Middle-earth
Which Steward of Gondor was twice married? Was Girion of Dale a king? This annotated volume comprises comprehensive genealogical tables of all the noble Mannish houses from the First to the Fourth Age of the sun and discusses conflicts in their tradition.
All books include many illustrations, maps and diagrams.
Available in English as ebooks or printed.
Available from: More essays on Lalaith’s Middle-earth Science Pages: www.codex-regius.eu lalaithMESP.blogspot.de
PLUTO & CHARON
The New Horizons spacecraft at the farthest worldly shores
Results of the flyby of the New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto and its satellites
On 14 July 2015, Pluto changed before our very eyes from a dot of light into a world. The image of the (dwarf) planet with its bright white heart went all over the world, touching the hearts of people like few other images from outer space.
Meanwhile we have found out what Pluto's heart is made of, though not yet how it came to be. And the New Horizons spacecraft has discovered many other remarkable landscapes on this remote celestial body that, surprisingly, looks as earth-like as few other bodies in the solar system.
This book tells of what the American spacecraft has sent to earth till April 2016, displays the best images of Pluto and its moons on large prints and describes it like we see it today - an alien world that no Science-Fiction author could have imagined more weird.
Available as ebook or printed from: www.codex-regius.eu
The Horsemen of Mars come with the solar wind.
The sparks beneath their invisible hoofs
illuminate the nights of the red planet.
A marvellous sight from the safety of
your base on Mars.
But when you are lost in the red planet’s desert,
the Horsemen of Mars show their fatal facet
as their wild hunt is tracking down
your fragile body.
Join our Mars crew in the most critical
time of their mission! Follow them into
the struggle for their lives on the hostile
plains and hills of the red planet.
An illustrated science novel for young and adult armchair astronomers.
Including two double-page maps and many full-colour images from Mars’ surface.
Award-winning in Germany – now also in English!
Nominated for the Kurd Laßwitz Award 2001
See the video trailer on Dailymotion or YouTube!
First edition November 2014
106 pages, many full-colour illustrations , print or e-book.
ISBN-10: 1499274572 ISBN-13: 978-1499274578
From Robots to Foundations
Mapping space and time in Asimov’s Galaxy
They called him Raven because he unravelled mankind’s future - the future of a human species that had forgotten its past.
Only fragments of history in space have been preserved. And the planet called Earth had been forgotten.
The most detailed timeline, from the beginning of spaceflight to the era of the two Foundations, that can be compiled from the novels and stories by Isaac Asimov which are set in the Trantor Universe: the Robot Series, the Empire Series and the Foundation Series, as well as ‘Nemesis’ and a couple of short stories.
The Serpent and its Priest
His mind would never settle with petty aims. He always saw the greater thing.
1850 years ago, when scientific thinking was on decline and religious fundamentalism winning over, Alexandros, a little quack, made himself high priest and guru of the demonic Glycon, a puppet on strings that he had declared a godhead to deceive the masses and relieve them of their money.
The report, written by Lucian of Samosata who exposed the deceiver with analytic deduction, is the oldest preserved essay on the war, still undecided, between scepticism an
d superstition.
All titles available on paper or as ebooks from: www.codex-regius.eu and online bookshops like Amazon, XinXii, Lulu etc.
Codex Regius is the pen name and label of two authors: Andreas Möhn from Wiesbaden, Germany, and Metka Klemenčič from Ljubljana, Slovenia. Metka is a university engineer of chemistry and has spent her time trying to convey the wonders of the Periodic Table to mostly unreceptive students. Andreas, a graduate of physical engineering, has been working as a technical editor before the couple set up a freelance translation business and their own publishing company. Today they are working from home, which the children find very convenient when they return from school. The two authors are married to each other and still trying to find a common language.
You are welcome to visit our blog on
WWW.CODEX-REGIUS.EU
to discover more about our English or German programme of print and e-books.
Table of Contents
The indigenous peoples of Eriador and Gondor
Nomenclature
Migrations in the First Age Drúedain, Southern Atani and Bórrim
The Second Age Before the Númenórean colonisation
The Third Age The Middle Men of Arnor and the Hillmen of Angmar and Rhúdaur
The Lossoth and the Forodwaith
The Culture
Their Origin: the Forodwaith
The Lossoth and the Dúnedain
The lost history of the Men of Darkness
Geography
Cultural features The Swarthy Men
History The First Age
The third Realm in Exile
2280 - 3320 SA:Númenórean Period
3320 - 3441 SA: Sauronian Period
3441 SA - 1050 TA: Ancient Realm
1050 - 1448 TA: Gondorian Period
1448- 1810 TA: Middle Realm. Castamirion Dynasty
1810 - 1944 TA: Interregnum
1944 - 3019 TA: New Realm
The last Black Númenórean
The mysterious king Bladorthin
Was Bladorthin Elf or Man?
When did Bladorthin place his order?
Bladorthin and his age
The hidden history of Dorwinion