The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - Determining the ages, Tolkien's great use of Mathematics and Historic Events.

Son of Númenor · 05-31-2004, 07:17 PM

The Fourth Age seems like it wasn't long enough ago. I would have imagined that its end would have been marked roughly by the Ice Age, wherein some believe that ancient civilizations came to their ends (many speculate that the Sphinx was actually created circa 15,000 B.C., based partially on the fact that it shows significant signs of water erosion & it has not rained in that part of Egypt for several thousand years). If Tolkien wanted his mythology to hold any kind of 'weight', it seems that he would have said the Fourth Age came to an end in or around 15-10,000 B.C. In this case, the end of the the Fifth Age may have been the birth of Christ, & I like Voralphion's idea that the Sixth Age reached its end in World War II because of the atomic bomb (or in World War I, even, since it had a profound impact on the world as we know it & on Tolkien himself).

But then, who am I to question Tolkien on when an Age should or should not have started?

05-31-2004, 07:17 PM	#5
Son of Númenor A Shade of Westernesse Join Date: May 2004 Location: The last wave over Atalantë Posts: 515	The Fourth Age seems like it wasn't long enough ago. I would have imagined that its end would have been marked roughly by the Ice Age, wherein some believe that ancient civilizations came to their ends (many speculate that the Sphinx was actually created circa 15,000 B.C., based partially on the fact that it shows significant signs of water erosion & it has not rained in that part of Egypt for several thousand years). If Tolkien wanted his mythology to hold any kind of 'weight', it seems that he would have said the Fourth Age came to an end in or around 15-10,000 B.C. In this case, the end of the the Fifth Age may have been the birth of Christ, & I like Voralphion's idea that the Sixth Age reached its end in World War II because of the atomic bomb (or in World War I, even, since it had a profound impact on the world as we know it & on Tolkien himself). But then, who am I to question Tolkien on when an Age should or should not have started? __________________ "This miserable drizzling afternoon I have been reading up old military lecture-notes again:- and getting bored with them after an hour and a half. I have done some touches to my nonsense fairy language - to its improvement."