Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
Keep in mind that the bulk of the ultimate Numenorean colonies lay off-map in Harad; Umbar and Pelargir were the northernmost. As to why Aldarion originally landed in Lindon- well, besides the fact that one would want an established port for refit and resupply, not an uninhabited bay, it's also the case that the Numenoreans are stated to have been taught shipcraft and sailing "by the Eldar," which I expect means Cirdan's people rather than the occasional visitors from Eressea. So the route to Lindon was known and Aldarion may well have had Elvish navigators on his first voyage.
Why harvest timber and establish a logging port in Minhiriath? Probably because it was "uninhabited" in the usual imperialist meaning of the term (Eriador means, roughly, "empty land"); Harad was full of "civilized" peoples who likely would have objected rather violently to wholesale felling (those of Eriador did, too, but they couldn't do much about it).
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This is good stuff.
I love the idea that Harad was "the civilised world" at that time - after all,
they hadn't just undergone a cataclysmic destruction of the western seaboard...!
Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
Equatorial latitude: the Annals of Valinor state that Tun (later Tirion) is located on the "girdle of the earth." Eressea is in the bay of Eldamar, necessarily also on or near the equator; and Numenor was just within distant sight of Eressea (from the top of the Meneltarma, so say ~100 nautical miles).
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Um... the world is flat. ^_^ Eressea is visible from arbitrary distances, weather and the observer's visual acuity permitting. The top of the Meneltarma is presumably Pretty High, so I think the only limit can be haze/shadow - which in the Shadowy Sea, is magical rather than meteorological, so it's very difficult to calculate how far away you can still see through it from.
hS