What happened to Mordor?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Eönwë

How long did it take us humans to invent gunpowder?

But yes, that is good point. In fact, technology seems to have gone downhill (though in the early middle ages that did happen too).

Well, it is said that the Chinese invented gunpowder in the 9th Century. They also invented the compass, paper and printing long before the Western World. Yet Chinese culture, like western culture, also for a time 'stopped' developing new technology. Perhaps this is a feature of human cultures that Tolkien emulated (and drew out through the ages)? Did Egyptian and Indian cultures also experience this lack of technological development? (It didn't stop them from creating monumental structures of great power and beauty.)

The other point to consider is the stagnation of elven culture and the possibility that this influenced the cultures of Men and Hobbits and Dwarves. We don't hear of compasses or printing in Middle-earth and while hobbits and men do have books, we don't know what the pages consist of. Certainly the inferrence is that they are hand printed. All in all, Middle-earth is a world very circumspect of technology, as was Tolkien himself. It could possibly be argued that it is an alternate world view, just as we now have the genre of alternate histories.

EDIT: cross-posted with Macalaure. Oh that pesky interrrupting invention, the telephone.