Mittwoch, 7. Dezember 2016

Maps created for "Middle-earth seen by the barbarians"

For the full-colour edition of this book, I have redrawn the whole set of maps included in "Middle-earth seen by the barbarians" that show the movements and settlements of barbarian peoples in the First to Third Age. On the new page "Global maps" I include the basic maps on which these others are based.

The Silmarillion map is fitted to the LotR map at the same scale. Turquoise river courses and the shorelines south of the isle of Balar are conjectural, though along the Bay of Belfalas supported by evidence given in HoMe XII. For simplicity's sake, the transition from Arda Flat to Arda Round has been ignored, as has the alleged extension of forests in the First Age of the sun.
There is some doubt to whether the Ice-Bay of Forochel really existed in the Second Age.

Note that the map of Númenor as published in UT gives a wrong impression: the surface of Númenor is actually as large as Beleriand!

Europe overlaid on the LotR map, based on
Tolkien's assertion that Hobbiton is at the
latitude (and, implicitly, longitude) of Oxford