[Rumil]

I can't see any problem with umbrellas in ME, after all they're hardly high-tech items. The umbrella situation may be revealing, however, in that there should be no set order of things being invented, apart from those that depend on the technology of their predecessors. For example, you'd have trouble inventing the rifle if no-one had thought of gunpowder before, whereas I can't see any good reason to develop windmills before water mills or vice-versa.

Umbrellas weren't invented by Western society but were brought back from India, where they had been used for centuries, mostly as sunshades admittedly, but the principle's the same. I've even seen a carving of an umbrella-esque sunshade adorning the chariot of the King of Persia in Biblical times. Naturally an umbrella is partly an item of fashion and the current culture will determine whether or not it appears silly.

On clocks, I wonder if they were made by the Dwarves, like the seemingly 'magical' toys, then traded to the hobbits. I'd imagine that the Dwarves were the most mechanically advanced of the peoples. There's no reason that Celeborn couldn't have had a clock, but I'd expect the elves to be uninterested in such artefacts of mechanical technology. (Anyway it'd have to be set to tick once every month!)

Meanwhile with ships, the Numenoreans were noted as sailing 'galleons' and being able to circumnavigate the world in such ships. One would therefore maybe associate them with the Portuguese and Spanish galleons of the Age of Discovery, Columbus, Magellan, the Conquistadores and the Armada, say around the late 1400s to 1500s (minus the canon). However it seemed plain that by the end of the Third Age Gondor's seafaring technology had decayed.

Tolkien said thet he visualised the fighting men of Middle Earth to be equipped similarly to those depicted on the Bayeux tapestry, which fits well with the descriptions of the Rohirrim in the books.

As Tolkien chose his words with great care, I think its not too much of a jump to look for the historical occurences of, for example, the dromund, and let these guide our thoughts.