Castles and Fortifications in Middle-earth

[Aiwendil]

William Cloud Hicklin wrote:

There is IIRC a Tolkien illustration of Gondolin- a circular walled city atop a flattened hill, rather like Carcasonne but more geometric, and with a very tall central watchtower, presumably that of Turgon's palace.

I had forgotten about that drawing by Tolkien. One interesting thing about it is that, though it's hard to tell from such a distance, it appears that apart from its position atop Amon Gwared, the only thing defending the city is a single encircling wall - no barbicans or outworks or even, as far as I can discern, embattled mural towers. But then, of course, the strength of Gondolin always lay more in its geographical location than anything else. We also know that the passage into the valley was guarded by no fewer than seven gates, per 'Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin'.

Tolkien liked his tall central towers

And indeed, he seems to use the Sindarin words 'Barad' and 'Minras', both of which he glosses as 'tower', as generic words for any fortress.

Legate of Amon Lanc wrote:

Well, it's said that Orthanc seemed like made of one piece of stone (or perhaps carven out of one piece of stone?), and I actually think it as well may have been just of one piece of stone. So really, no blocks, no joints, just one piece of stone. But I guess that would leave it out of the line of usual fortress-building.

True, but if the people of Gondor indeed had the skill to carve a tower out of a single massive block of stone, this probably has implications for other buildings in Middle-earth. Might, for example, the walls of Minas Tirith or even of the Hornburg have been solid stone as well?

William Cloud Hicklin wrote:

Although a total of seven is pretty extravagant, it was fairly standard NOT to put gates in a line, which would give an attacker a straight shot through them; generally some setup was designed so that if the enemy breached the first gate, they would have to move sideways between (manned) walls to get to the second.

Indeed, the whole city of Minas Tirith seems in a way like a massive concentric castle, designed to subject an attacker to as much fire from the walls as possible on the way inward toward the central keep. It's also built on a steep incline, so archers on, for example, the second wall would probably have a clear line of sight to attackers outside the first (and so on). I don't know if the walls were close enough together, though, that defenders on the second wall could fire over the first wall at enemies outside the gate.