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Old 10-01-2019, 05:17 AM   #14
Huinesoron
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Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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Huinesoron is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Huinesoron is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Last night I pulled out my phone microscope and took some closeups of the map, to see if I could draw out any more details. I was all set to post them, but: I've found an absolutely huge scan of the whole thing online.

Via 'New Criterion'

Starting from the top, then:

A: something to do with distances. It's two sentences, the first of which looks like it reads:

Quote:
Shire - should be 40 miles further west
The second is trickier, but definitely includes '50 miles'.

B: I'm less convinced that this says 'Neldoreth' now. It looks more like 'Nelo[n/u/v]eh'.

C: That's definitely a mountain range.

D: Is sadly not a name for said mountain range. The first line is 'This should be', and the second looks like it starts 'Mist'. One possibility is that C is an early sketch for the shape of the Misty Mountains, but the shape looks very wrong.

E: I think the line is clearly intended to separate C from the body of the map.

F: Very clear, except for Tolkien's handwriting. This might say:

Quote:
*Isengard should be ____
up to Vale. 30 miles
__ __ __ to D.C. ____?
G: If the 'Isengard' reading for F is correct, then I think G is a sketch of the Vale of Isengard, ie Nan Curunir. It seems to match the shape of the valley on the main map, and shows a river running down from the north.

H: The only word I can make out on this is the last word of the third line from the end, which must be 'Nindalf'.

I: The last word of the first line is 'Anduin', and the lone word on the third line is 'Hills'. I think the second line might end with 'and omit [Proper Noun]', in which case this refers to a deleted feature. One possibility is the named hills on the Brown Lands, which seem to have been removed when the Rohan overlay was placed; their name ends with '-en', which could match this note.

I.2: 'Sand' or 'some' or 'sane'. Could be flippin' anything.

J: Appears to contain the words 'should be farther East'. I think the name 'Orodruin' may also show up? I'm not sure though.

It does look like these are very much working notes, not particularly new information. But it's still interesting, and missing from HoME! And unless someone can find a match for that mysterious mountain range, it could still exist...

hS
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