Ambarkanta

[ArcusCalion]

With that, I think this chapter is done! Fin, can you update it on the outline?

[Findegil]

I have started to work on the Diagrams and Maps. I got relatively good scans of the them. First a view general points:

1. I am not willing to redraw all the Maps and Diagrams. Therefore I think we should use the original reproductions as given in HoME IV.

2. Readability of Tolkien’s hand writing on the reproductions is pure. I think we should remove all this and replace it by some printed font. ‘Rockwell’ is nearest to the font used on the map in the LotR that I had on my computer. Or do we give a list of all things written as Christopher Tolkien did in e.g. HoME IV; Map V and make or ubdates by copying letters?

3. As a matter of fact we have to change some things. But the question is how far do we go with this. I give her under a list of things I have changed already and would wish to hear your comments on these and any additional feature you think should be amended.

I have started on Map V, which seems must difficult, since it is very rough and missing many essesnsital features, which we must added. In addition the covering of the lables is most difficult since the backround is flecked and smired grey.
This Map must represent the state between the War of the Powers (Melkor captured in Utumno) and the War of Wrath (Angband destroyed). It is clearly only a rough sketch. Nonetheless we must work on it and with it:
- I added Anduin and the Hithaeglir. For that I reconstructed first Tolkiens Map for the LotR that is given in HoME VII. Then I stitched it together with the map from Sil77 by bringing the Ered Luin of the First Age into agreement to that of the Third and fitting as good as possible Tol Fuin and Himling to Dorthonion and Himring. This combined Map I overlaid to Map V by fitting it to Hithlum, Dorthonion and the upper part of Ered Luin. (I wondered how nicely they fitted all together. The only feature that did not match nicely was the course of Duin Daer (Gelion), which is in the larger scale map from Sil77 much farther from the mountains. The coast line south of the Bay of Balar for example looked like a natural prolongation of the Sil77 map. One strange observation by the way: The coast line on the northern extent ion of the Map from HoME VII (Tolkien’s LotR map) is about the distance of the length of the Hithaeglir farther North than the northern most point on Map V!) Anduin does naturally flow into the Inland Sea and maybe we have to generalise the course of the river a bit more. Please let me know your opinion about that.
- Tol Eressëa is missing completely on this map. I added it beside the magic Isle and the shadowy Isle, by combining Map IV to Map V by fitting the cost lines of Aman.
- I would not add any farther details: In the original there are no woods so Mirkwood would be unwanted. Since we have no representation of the Third Age Iron Hills and The Sea of Rhun lay a bit north of the Inland Sea on Map V I would not add either of these. For Luhn, Baranduin or Mitheithel/Gwathló we have no idea if they cut through the Southern Ered Luin or if they rounded the Hithaeglir in the South and flowed into the Inland Sea. I find the later more probable. But since we don’t know we should not add them.
- The false start of drawing the last part of the course of Duin Daer (Gelion, the southern crossed out branch) should go.
I don’t see any other feature that was clearly ‘marked for deletion’ by Tolkien, but their might be some superficial lines:
- In Beleriand we have what looks like a false start at the coast line from the mouth of Sirion to the mouth of the crossed out ‘branch’ of Duin Daer (Gelion), I think we should remove that.
- There is a line running straight north-south crossing Hithlum and going into the bay of Balar just at the mouth of Sirion. In Hithlum it might be Rivers running into Lake Mithrim and in its southern part this might be a bad representation of Narog. We might let it stand. Please give me your opinion about it.
- One question is if we should add the ‘Yellow Mountains’. It could of course be that they were destroyed / removed during the War of Powers. But I find it equally possible that they were just forgotten on Map V. If you think we should add them please give as well some indication of how you would find the right place.
The script on this Map is in part really hard to read. Therefore I decided to remove them completely and give the following label in a font near to that used on the maps from LotR. On the original map we have some labels written in a bow (AMAN; HITHER LANDS and Walls of the Sun). I have tried to catch the bows more or less.
What follows is how I worked with the labels:
- Angband
- Daidelos => Dor Daedeloth
- Thangorodrim
- Hithlum
- Beleriand
- We have the 3 acronyms ‘S’ for South in the middle of the continent ‘Africa’ and again as ‘S.’ in the South of the continent, ‘N’ for North in what would become Eriador and ‘NW’ for North-West in southern East-Beleriand. At least the northern ‘S’ must go. But I would remove them all.
- Inland Sea
- H I T H E R L A N D S
- Straits of the World
- Helcaraxe => Helcaraxë
- Beleglorn Great Gulf => Belfalas Great Gulf
- Great Seas
- Alflon => Aqualondë
- (Belegaer)
- The 2 old English names Utgarsecg and Ingarsecg should be removed.
- Bay of Fary => Bay of Eldamar
- I would add ‘Tol Eressëa’
- Eruman => Araman
- Outer Lands (Valinor)
- Two Trees
- Tún => Túna
- Valimar
- Taniqetil => Taniquetil
- Arvalin => Avathar
- The stroked out name Eruman south of the Bay of Fary should also be removed.
- A M A N
- Outer Seas
- East Sea
- Dark Land (South Land)
- Walls of the Sun (I moved this nearer to the mountains to generate some space for the next entry.)
- Burnt Land of the Sun (This label I turned and moved and bowed to fit it inside the continent it belongs to.)
- Outer Seas
- The text in the upper right corner reads: ‘After the War of the Gods (Arvalin was cast up by the Great Sea at the foot of the Mts.’ I think we change this to: ‘After the War of the Powers Araman was cast up by the Great Sea at the foot of the Mountains.’

Respectfully
Findegil

[gandalf85]

Wow, that sounds like a lot of work! That's really cool, Fin! Responding to your points.

1. That seems reasonable to start. We can try to finalize what we wish to change/include, and if we wanted, somebody could re-create the maps for a final version.

2. I'd have to see how it looked to decide if a printed font works. I think changing it on the map directly is the best idea. They cost money, but the fonts from https://www.mytolkienbooks.com/tolkien-fonts/ would probably work best.

3. Map V is indeed pretty rough.

- Not sure I entirely understand your question about the Anduin, I may need to look at the map itself to understand it.

- Adding in Tol Eressëa and the shadowy Isle by combining Maps IV and V makes sense.

- I agree that adding things (like forests or other rivers) by guessing isn't in the spirit of the project, I would simply clean up what Tolkien himself drew.

- I agree with removing the attempt at the coast line from the mouth of the Sirion to the mouth of the crossed out branch of the Gelion.

- I agree with you assessment that this line appears to be the Narog, along with tributaries to Lake Mithrim. I say we let it stand.

- I think attempting to add the Yellow Mountains would involve too much guess work. It is reasonable to assume they were destroyed during the War of Powers.

- I agree with all of your textual/legend changes. I'm OK with simply removing the labels showing the cardinal directions (north, north-west and the two souths), they do not add much to the map and are situated in confusing locations.

[Findegil]

Posted by gandalf85:

Wow, that sounds like a lot of work!

It is, but it makes for some fun as well. And the result is worth the effort, in my opinion.
2. Thanks for guiding to the fonts, but as I need Word-Art for the inclusion of some white ‘shadow’ behind the letters to make them more readable and I never found out how to add fonts to Word-Art, I don’t think I can work with them.
3.:
- About Anduin: As I scaled the Map up as much as possible to add the Hithaeglir and Anduin, I was abe to follow the course of Anduin on the LotR map closely. But this means it course represented now probably in much greater detail than any other river on the map.
- Adding other things: Have you seen this thread in The Books forum? There it is revealed that on Tolkien’s original working map for the LotR are some features east of the Sea of Rhûn. Most clear of this is a Mountain range. As we have no idea when that was raised (if it is not indeed a representation of the Orocarni) we can of course not add it.

Working on Map IV, I have some farther remarks for Map V:
- If we do add the Enchanted Isles we specify the map to be after the Hidding of Valinor. Which is okay for me.
- I think we should remove the Enchanted Isle from Map IV. An since that we should add their name here.
- I would as well add the name of the Shadowy Isles here.
- The Burnt Lands of the Sun seem to be a late addition to the map by Tolkien. It looks like he had already marked the area as sea by hachuring. Should we remove that and ‘clean’ the eastern continent? I think we should.

Of course it will all be easier to discuss once you have seen the maps. Please have some patients with me while working on it.

Respectfully
Findegil
P.S.: gandalf85, maybe you should edit your post, and remove my ‘standard geeting’ from the end. Otherwise it looks a bit like I would discuss all this only with myself.

[Findegil]

I have finished the work on Map IV. Therefore here my changes:
- This Map must represent the state after the Fall of the Lamps and the first fortification of Valinor but before the War of the Powers. Therefore the way of the Elves from Cuiviénen to Beleriand is anachronistic. I think we must remove it.
- Tún: We should remove this as well, since at the time of this map Túna was not jet there.
- Eldaros (Elvenhome): Same here, no Elves in Valinor so no name ‘Elvenhome’.
- Bay of Elfland: And again, no Elves means no name ‘Bay of Elfland’.
- The Enchnated or Magic Isles: In our text we tell that these Isle were put into the sea at the Hidding of Valinor. Therefore we must remove the Isles and the name.
- The Shadowy Isles are a different case. In our text they are only once mentioned and that is in the vision of Tuor at the end of his talk with Ulmo. As we know nothing more the Isle could already be there at the time Map IV represents, so I would simply let them stand.
- The Straits of Ice: Only the Helcaraxë is drawn. The other three are only written in. In addition we have an issue with the comparision between Map IV and Diagram II. The Straits of Ice are seen in the North-South-Cut of Diagram II, which means that they covered the full breadth of ‘Pelmar’. If that is so, do we show that in Map IV? If we do, it would be a lot of work and probably look a bit monoton, since we have not much to work with. At first I added drawings of the Straits of Ice only like that of the Helcaraxë and evnen that looked ‘forced’. (Luckily the Straits of Ice are neither named nor drawn in Map V.)
- I would shy back from adding the Hithaeglir on this map, but I think we can assume that Angband was older and that the map represents the time between the building of Angband and the rearing up of the Hithaeglir.
Labels to be used, from above left to below right:
- ‘V’ written head down in the upper right corner is to be removed
- North Formen
- ‘The World about V.Y. 500 after the fall of the Lamps Helkar and Ringil and the first fortification of the North by Melko’ => ‘The World after the fall of the pillars of the Lamps Helcar and Ringil and the first fortification of the North by Melkor’
- Utumna => Where Utumna is marked on the Map in the later concept Angband was. Wherefore we should lable that dot ‘Angband’
- We should add ‘Utumno’ makred as similar dot about the center of the land behind the Iron Mountains.
- Vaiya => Ekkaia
- Helkarakse => Helcaraxë
- Beleriand
- Iron Mountains
- Straits of Ice
- Falasse => Falas
- Northland
- Eruman => Araman
- ‘Westerness’: I think we must remove this since that word was later only used for Númenor. In its place I would here repeat ‘Westland’
- Blue Mountains
- Red Mountains
- Eastland
- Shadowy Isles
- Chasm of Ilma => Chasm of Ilmen
- ‘Belegar or Great or West Sea’ => ‘Belegaer or Great or West Sea’
- ‘Sea of Helkar’ => ‘Sea of Helcar’
- Kuiviénen => Cuiviénen
- West Númen
- Valinor
- Valmar
- Mountains of Valinor
- Taniqetil => Taniquetil
- Tol Eressea => Tol Eressëa
- Pelmar or Middle-Earth
- Endon Earth-middle => Endor Earth-middle
- Mid-land
- Mts. of the Wind
- Hildórien
- East Sea
- Lands of the Sun
- Mts. or Walls of the Sun
- East Rómen
- Chasm of Ilmen
- Arvalin => Avathar
- ‘Westland or’ => Westland
- Sea of Ringil
- Chasm of Ilma => Chasm of Ilmen
- Straits of Ice
- Grey Mountains
- Southland
- Yellow Mountains
- Straits of Ice
- Vaiya => Ekkaia
- ‘The Magic Isles & Tol-eressea are shown as they were placed much later.’: I think we should remove the Magic Isles and this note.
- South Hyarmen

Respectfully
Findegil

[gandalf85]

Wow, I think the maps turned out great! Excellent work!

The removals from Map IV: I agree with what you removed. I would keep the Shadowy Isles as it stands.

The Straits of Ice: I think what you added to show the extent of the griding ice is great. It looks like mountains, but that is how Tolkien depicted the Helcaraxë.

Hithaeglir: In chapter 3 of the Silmarillion it says the Hithaeglir were raised by Melkor to hinder the riding of Orome. I think it's safe to assume he settled in Angband before this.

Westernesse: "Westland" makes sense to me.

The Magic Isles and Tol Eressea: In the image you sent, it looks like you removed the Magic Isles but not Tol Eressea? I am hesitant about removing both the Magic Isles and Tol Eressea. I agree that it's weird to have a kind of superposition of maps from different eras in time, but that is personal preference and this is explicitly how Tolkien constructed the map. I would keep The Magic Isles and Tol Eressea, along with the note.

Other notes: In Map IV, "Valinor" is misspelled as "Valionr". Also in Map IV, there looks to be some small text added in before "Easterness" which wasn't in the original map, and I can't read what it says.

[Findegil]

The Magic Isle & Tol Eressëa: Yes I removed the magic Isles because the Maps showes a time when these Isles were definitley not there. I think that Tolkien draw Map IV while he worked on the Ambarkanta but found then, that he had mixed up different times. In consequence he put in the note and made the shetchy Map V. Since I added some features to Map V, I think it is okay if we as well remove the anachronistic features in Map IV. I left Tol Eressëa because this was an existing Island when it was used to ferry the Elves. But of course the placemant is unsure and I am willing to remove it as well if that is preferd by the groupe.

Hithaeglir: Melkor did not settle in Angband himself at this time but that he builded Angband first and then later raised the Hithaegilr was also my impression.

Other Notes:
- Valinor: Thanks for catching this misspelling.
- The small word before Easterness is 'or'. In full the lable reads 'Eastland of Easterness' as in the original. I agree that the readability is pure. May be we should set the lables in that are printed in Sea, Ice or Mountains in a white frame, like it is in the original.

What about the course of Anduin in Map V? Is that okay?

Respectfully
Findegil