Post by Witch-king of Angmar on Dec 26, 2006 21:50:02 GMT
z3.invisionfree.com/The_Northern_Kingdom/index.php?showtopic=51
Witch-king of Angmar
Tolkien gives the impression that the Gondorians and Numenoreans were practicing ancient Egyptian style embalming. That brings a rather interesting question. In Arnor, they seem to have been buried with the treasures they had in life. (Witness the Barrow Downs)
However, in Minas Tirith in the days of the Stewards, the dead were all buried in crypts. I don't recall Tolkien ever giving an explanation for this difference. Maybe he was portraying the North as further along in their deterioration than was the South. Any ideas, anyone?
Gordis
Tyrn Gorthad was very old. It were the Edain of the First Age who started burying their chieftains there. It seems early Edain used Viking-type mounds. Tolkien himself mentioned in the Letters that Tyrn Gorthad was much like the mounds in Old Uppsala.
Then Numenoreans started building stone tombes, to the point that their ccities became more the cities of the dead than the living. Gondorians seemed to inherit this custom in full.
As for Arnor, we really know little. As far as I remenber, Val argued that the early kings of Arnor starting wiht Valandil were all buried in Tyrn Gorthad. I doubt it. I think in Annuminas and later in Fornost they had their "Rath Dinens" with royal tombs.
As for Cardolani, they lived not far from Tyrn Gorthad, if not on it (the riuns of fortresses are mentioned in LOTR). Perhaps they started to use the old mounds for the new burials and reverted to old customs of their ancestors.
Alternatively, the Cardolani may have also built tombes - like in Numenor, and only their last Prince, killed in the War of 1409 were buried in an old mound. By this time Cardolani Dunedain were all but destroyed and nobody was available to build a lofty new tomb. They simply put the Prince's body in an old mound - perhaps the very one they used as a hideout and a fortress when they fought back the Angmarian invasion. And they put his weapons with him - but that was probably done for the entombed Numenoreans as well.
Witch-king of Angmar
Gordis, since Tolkien wasn't specific on the old practice of burying items in tombs, all we can do is conjecture. We can suppose, however, knowing the greed of man that those tombs at Barrow Downs were sooner or later stripped by graverobbers of whatever was left.
Gordis
Perhaps the old mounds had been robbed in the Second Age, but I doubt they were in the Third. First there were Cardolani fortresses nearby, guarding the area, and then there were the Wights (thanks to the Witch-King).
Alcuin
The tomb in which Frodo and his companions were trapped was sealed sometime in III 1409 or shortly thereafter. (N.B.: It is arguable that the tomb was used continuously until III 1635.) There were many items of value in the barrow, including the brooch which Tom Bombadil took for Goldberry, as well as many “things of gold, silver, copper, and bronze; many beads and chains and jeweled ornaments.” (Fellowship of the Ring, “Fog on the Barrow-Downs”) Many of these things lay unmolested for two centuries or more until the wights arrived to infest the barrows. After that, I agree with Gordis: it is unlikely anyone molested the wights who guarded them, and very few who dared try.
There is a passage in Unfinished Tales in the chapter “The Disaster of the Gladden Fields”, under the essay “The sources of the legend of Isildur's death”, in which Tolkien describes the tomb-raiding activities of Saruman:
QUOTE
…King Elessar, when he was crowned in Gondor, began the re-ordering of his realm, and one of his first tasks was the restoration of Orthanc… ll the secrets of the tower were searched. Many things of worth were found, jewels and heirlooms… filched from Edoras…, and other such things, more ancient and beautiful, from mounds and tombs far and wide. Saruman in his degradation had become not a dragon but a jackdaw.
We know that Saruman had visited the Shire in secret on several occasions. Such visits took him near the barrows of Tyrn Gorthad. Saruman the White before his fall was stronger than Gandalf the Grey, like unto Gandalf the White, I imagine (‘Saruman as he should have been’). He would not fear the barrow-wights, and around noontime with the summer sun high and bright might have entered the barrows and taken what he pleased.
I have always been intrigued by Tolkien’s image of Saruman as a jackdaw. Percy Trett in the website Birds of Britain describes jackdaws as “intelligent rogues,” and says of a pet jackdaw that he knew personally,
QUOTE
It was highly intelligent and ... had the ability to imitate human speech and was a great thief. When anything bright and shiny went missing, it was usually found in Jack's box.
The Image UBB code is apparently not working, but here is a link to a lovely jackdaw: www.birdsofbritain.co.uk/img.asp?i=photos/birdguide/jackdaw.jpg
Witch-king of Angmar
Tolkien gives the impression that the Gondorians and Numenoreans were practicing ancient Egyptian style embalming. That brings a rather interesting question. In Arnor, they seem to have been buried with the treasures they had in life. (Witness the Barrow Downs)
However, in Minas Tirith in the days of the Stewards, the dead were all buried in crypts. I don't recall Tolkien ever giving an explanation for this difference. Maybe he was portraying the North as further along in their deterioration than was the South. Any ideas, anyone?
Gordis
Tyrn Gorthad was very old. It were the Edain of the First Age who started burying their chieftains there. It seems early Edain used Viking-type mounds. Tolkien himself mentioned in the Letters that Tyrn Gorthad was much like the mounds in Old Uppsala.
Then Numenoreans started building stone tombes, to the point that their ccities became more the cities of the dead than the living. Gondorians seemed to inherit this custom in full.
As for Arnor, we really know little. As far as I remenber, Val argued that the early kings of Arnor starting wiht Valandil were all buried in Tyrn Gorthad. I doubt it. I think in Annuminas and later in Fornost they had their "Rath Dinens" with royal tombs.
As for Cardolani, they lived not far from Tyrn Gorthad, if not on it (the riuns of fortresses are mentioned in LOTR). Perhaps they started to use the old mounds for the new burials and reverted to old customs of their ancestors.
Alternatively, the Cardolani may have also built tombes - like in Numenor, and only their last Prince, killed in the War of 1409 were buried in an old mound. By this time Cardolani Dunedain were all but destroyed and nobody was available to build a lofty new tomb. They simply put the Prince's body in an old mound - perhaps the very one they used as a hideout and a fortress when they fought back the Angmarian invasion. And they put his weapons with him - but that was probably done for the entombed Numenoreans as well.
Witch-king of Angmar
Gordis, since Tolkien wasn't specific on the old practice of burying items in tombs, all we can do is conjecture. We can suppose, however, knowing the greed of man that those tombs at Barrow Downs were sooner or later stripped by graverobbers of whatever was left.
Gordis
Perhaps the old mounds had been robbed in the Second Age, but I doubt they were in the Third. First there were Cardolani fortresses nearby, guarding the area, and then there were the Wights (thanks to the Witch-King).
Alcuin
The tomb in which Frodo and his companions were trapped was sealed sometime in III 1409 or shortly thereafter. (N.B.: It is arguable that the tomb was used continuously until III 1635.) There were many items of value in the barrow, including the brooch which Tom Bombadil took for Goldberry, as well as many “things of gold, silver, copper, and bronze; many beads and chains and jeweled ornaments.” (Fellowship of the Ring, “Fog on the Barrow-Downs”) Many of these things lay unmolested for two centuries or more until the wights arrived to infest the barrows. After that, I agree with Gordis: it is unlikely anyone molested the wights who guarded them, and very few who dared try.
There is a passage in Unfinished Tales in the chapter “The Disaster of the Gladden Fields”, under the essay “The sources of the legend of Isildur's death”, in which Tolkien describes the tomb-raiding activities of Saruman:
QUOTE
…King Elessar, when he was crowned in Gondor, began the re-ordering of his realm, and one of his first tasks was the restoration of Orthanc… ll the secrets of the tower were searched. Many things of worth were found, jewels and heirlooms… filched from Edoras…, and other such things, more ancient and beautiful, from mounds and tombs far and wide. Saruman in his degradation had become not a dragon but a jackdaw.
We know that Saruman had visited the Shire in secret on several occasions. Such visits took him near the barrows of Tyrn Gorthad. Saruman the White before his fall was stronger than Gandalf the Grey, like unto Gandalf the White, I imagine (‘Saruman as he should have been’). He would not fear the barrow-wights, and around noontime with the summer sun high and bright might have entered the barrows and taken what he pleased.
I have always been intrigued by Tolkien’s image of Saruman as a jackdaw. Percy Trett in the website Birds of Britain describes jackdaws as “intelligent rogues,” and says of a pet jackdaw that he knew personally,
QUOTE
It was highly intelligent and ... had the ability to imitate human speech and was a great thief. When anything bright and shiny went missing, it was usually found in Jack's box.
The Image UBB code is apparently not working, but here is a link to a lovely jackdaw: www.birdsofbritain.co.uk/img.asp?i=photos/birdguide/jackdaw.jpg