A new 1948 map of Arda by Tolkien!

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

To be fair, I wouldn't take these latitudes too literally - I believe they were just rough approximations in Tolkien's mind when he was writing that letter.

I think he definitely had a latitude for Minas Tirith in his head: Florence, Ravenna, and Belgrade are all within 1 degree of latitude of each other (between 44 and 45 degrees north). The problem is, none of them are 600 miles south of Oxford!

Also:

Originally Posted by Baynes map

Minas Tirith is about the latitude of Ravenna (that is 900 miles east of Hobbiton or near Belgrade). Bottom of the map (1450 miles) is about the latitude of Jerusalem. Umbar the city of Corsairs – about that of Cyprus.

Minas Tirith is 700 miles east of Hobbiton, according to the scale lines drawn on the Baynes map by Tolkien himself!

What is 900 miles east of Hobbiton, so precisely that I wonder if he used it to determine the scale, is Barad-Dur. The pencil on the Baynes map is quite faint, so I wonder if "but" is actually "b d". They seem easy to confuse. Ravenna is about 650 miles east of Oxford, which is about right for Minas Tirith, so it feels like Tolkien may have actually been using those three as the "real locations" for the map points.

Which would put the Misty Mountains somewhere in eastern France, and make the vertical line on the 1948 map way off the edge of the Third Age Map.

hS