Middle Earth: history or myth?

[Taurendil]

I dont know why, I have no reasonable explanantion.  There is plenty of evidence to suppose it did exist... and I beleive it did,
The only thing that I think, wrongly or rightly, is that it didnt all exist at once. i.e that perhaps gondor didnt exist at the same time as Edoras for instance.

I think we are talking here about actual existence of ME, including events that happened there, not only as a geographical object. Like a history. And why do you think it didn't all exist at once??

The main questions, in my opinion, are where and when it existed in relation to Earth's real history.

[EG]

I dont know why, I have no reasonable explanantion.  There is plenty of evidence to suppose it did exist... and I beleive it did,
The only thing that I think, wrongly or rightly, is that it didnt all exist at once. i.e that perhaps gondor didnt exist at the same time as Edoras for instance.

I think we are talking here about actual existence of ME, including events that happened there, not only as a geographical object. Like a history. And why do you think it didn't all exist at once??

The main questions, in my opinion, are where and when it existed in relation to Earth's real history.

yes I know what you are talking about!  Why do you question that!

and I beleive many of my quotes from Tolkien's letters support the fact that I beleive it didnt all exist together in time at the same time.  The fact that Gondor has  lot of Eqyptian background... Edoras, Medieveal, Hobbiton from Scandinavian/England folklore times...

[Taurendil]

Then I don't unbderstand how the events could have taken place if the places didn't exist at one time??

[Hyllyn]

 E.G of course Rohan didn't exist when the two kingdoms in exiled first appeared (the coming of Eorl to the south and so forth), that we know of even in the books, however considering that Gondor would have been in a comparable Bronze Age (classical period) and Rohan in a Norman period is not what I believe Tolkien tries to state there. The intention in my opinion is to make it easier for people to identify what these two cultures were like according to more recent samples.

 Where and when is indeed difficult to state Taurendil but to target where we must first know the when and I think that to guesstimate based on the timeline given by Tolkien (somewhat dubious and hazy I must add) means you are making speculations as accurate as the rate of success of a carbon dating (e.g gaps of hundreds of years up to a millenia), of course such a period of time is not long enough to move a whole mass of land completely but making use of your words the view of M.E being flat befits the belief of the Norse and Germanic people surrounding the Yggdrasil, and that of many more people.

 It seems to be that only earlier in time people had knowledge of earth being "bent". There's the speculation that romans might have known (refer to the pediment of the four seasons at Aqua Sulis, namely Bath) and the Piri Reis Map.  In the aforementioned map we have a copy made by an Islamic captain of maritime routes and lands not charted later in time in Europe. It is said the map in earlier editions could have been copied in Alexandria prior to the burning of it by Julius Caesar and then passed on to the library of Constantinople. This map funnily enough shows this depiction of the planet just after the last glaciation.

 Here I give you the link anyway and the book by Professor Hapgood is aptly named "Sea routes of the Ancient Sea-Kings"
 (http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_1.htm)

 I personally believe that the documented history of the planet by any biped does not start with the beginning of Earth as a planet (no no apes involved here). this planet has shon stages where from an arthropod (insects) ruled planet we have gone to reptilians and lately to supra-"inteligent" bipeds so the "ages" described in the works might be as early as 300,000 years for estimating a reasonable time frame for a settled biped civilization, "modern" humans are known to have appeared only about 40,000 years ago which doesn't mean human-like people didn't exist before.

 So you can choose to work on those estimates and find out what the state of the planet was 300,000 years ago (pretty much the same as nowadays in a tectonic sense) (Misocene being one of the nearest modern stages is still a few million years ago and shows the same structure we now possess http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/Mio.jpg) the only real changes were fluctuation of what happened on top of these continental plates (weather and ecosystems)
 If you have checked Karen Forsyth's Atlas of M.E (a relatively acceptable speculative source) you will see that the evolution of Arda is not unlike that seen in geological history, whether that is on purpose or not. (http://geology.com/pangea.htm). Thing is to find that "island stage" you talk about you need to go back to Pangea and this matches the time Almaren was around before the "breaking of the world" (http://www.wallenium.de/php/lotr/images/cr_ages_of_the_lamps.jpg) whereas Arda in the 4th age is more recognizable as our present day world (http://www.wallenium.de/php/lotr/images/cr_the_fourth_age_of_the_sun.jpg)

 I just don't see it as an isolated complex but part of a dynamic land mass which is to me undeniably linked with the history of the land mass of Europe and parts of Africa and Asia. There just isn't any other possible land mass able to accomodate this complex in that time frame with such drastic changes.

[Taurendil]

Where and when is indeed difficult to state Taurendil but to target where we must first know the when and I think that to guesstimate based on the timeline given by Tolkien (somewhat dubious and hazy I must add) means you are making speculations as accurate as the rate of success of a carbon dating (e.g gaps of hundreds of years up to a millenia), of course such a period of time is not long enough to move a whole mass of land completely but making use of your words the view of M.E being flat befits the belief of the Norse and Germanic people surrounding the Yggdrasil, and that of many more people.

It seems to be that only earlier in time people had knowledge of earth being "bent". There's the speculation that romans might have known (refer to the pediment of the four seasons at Aqua Sulis, namely Bath) and the Piri Reis Map.  In the aforementioned map we have a copy made by an Islamic captain of maritime routes and lands not charted later in time in Europe. It is said the map in earlier editions could have been copied in Alexandria prior to the burning of it by Julius Caesar and then passed on to the library of Constantinople. This map funnily enough shows this depiction of the planet just after the last glaciation.

I personally believe that the documented history of the planet by any biped does not start with the beginning of Earth as a planet (no no apes involved here). this planet has shon stages where from an arthropod (insects) ruled planet we have gone to reptilians and lately to supra-"inteligent" bipeds so the "ages" described in the works might be as early as 300,000 years for estimating a reasonable time frame for a settled biped civilization, "modern" humans are known to have appeared only about 40,000 years ago which doesn't mean human-like people didn't exist before.

I just don't see it as an isolated complex but part of a dynamic land mass which is to me undeniably linked with the history of the land mass of Europe and parts of Africa and Asia. There just isn't any other possible land mass able to accomodate this complex in that time frame with such drastic changes.

Actually I've made a mistake, the world was flat, not ME only. It's still the most important questions however it's explained in Norse mythology.
I meant geological history of Earth, not a documented one. In my opinion if ME really existed it was even more than 300,000 years ago. So it can't be linked with Africa or Europe. By the way, we're forgetting the fact that the stars were also made by the Valar when they lived in ME, and the stars are several billions years old, as far as I know.

[EG]

if you think its not linked with Europe or Africa, where do you think it existed ?  As Nil says, when the land masses were different, what were to become Europe and Africa are there.

Or perhaps you beleive it exists in a parallel universe ? that it wasnt on this earth ?

When you asked me about how the events happened, you are really asking, whether we think that "The Lord of the Rings" happened.  The story, not the existence of Middle Earth.

I beleive that the essence of LOTR probably did happen, perhaps... I certainly beleive that the places existed, as I said, not in the same time frame as depicted in LOTR.  There are some events to me, that arent described in the book, which PJ for instance picked up on, that I think would have happened too... e,g elves at Helms Deep

But I digress.

[edit]  I found this quote in his letters.... Tolkien talks of characters who have arrived, not of those he has invented or made up...

A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir – and he is holding up the 'catastrophe' by a lot of stuff about the history of Gondor and Rohan (with some very sound reflections no doubt on martial glory and true glory): but if he goes on much more a lot of him will have to be removed to the appendices — where already some fascinating material on the hobbit Tobacco industry and the Languages of the West have gone.

Letter 66

[Hyllyn]

 That's fine Taurendil, however in this land mass we call planet earth before 300,000 years ago there was no place which would have bore the ressemblance of M.E. of course I'm not saying it is impossible, just improbable. Also how would one explain this surviving as a myth up to the last 30,000 years when it could have entered the mind of our more modern human beings?

[Taurendil]

What do we mean by saying Middle-earth existed in the past? I personally understand it directly: all events that are described in the books (beginning from the Silmarillion) took place in a land mass called Middle-earth(also in Aman, Numenore, Tol Eressёa).
However if we are talking about a possibility of the existence of Middle-earth just as a land, then it's quite possible that it was where now Europe is, there's not any serious obstacle to accept it.     

But taking into consideration the Silmarillion, do we deny some facts of the creation and changing of Middle-earth? I mean, it seems to me that some events cannot be separated from the land and vice versa. For exampe do we deny the existence of Beleriand? It was destroyed by Valar during the War of Wroth. If not, why then to deny Middle-earth once being flat?

[Hyllyn]

 
 If not, why then to deny Middle-earth once being flat?

Perhaps because the exact intention is to make the views of M.E being flat similar to those in the Middle Ages? (in Europe at least)

As for Beleriand you can certainly see that parts of nowadays Europe did extend far from its present basin. North Sea being above water, Mediteranean following its cycle of emptiness and fulness, The Scilly Islands showing the existance of a much bigger land mass where they stand nowadays. This image is a good indicative of how these basins might look above water (http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/infobank/gazette/jpg/regions/fr_eu.jpg).

How you see the war of wrath is really up to you, interpretation in an anthropological sense gives plenty of room for that, you can "humanize" (or valarize if you like) or you can try and see it as natural events of cataclysmic nature. Still between the start of any recknoning of time and Arda as Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Humans, Hobbits, etc came to know it there is always going to be a tremendous span of time, otherwise you are denying (as you say) the existance of the planet in other essential stages of evolution/creation (a mistake also perpetuated by Religion)

Things being flat simply are an illusion or how a human perceives in a brief amount of time his surroundings, won't enter the land pf astro-physics but needless to say it has yet to be found a flat planet, flat maps perhaps but not tridimensional entities of this sort, and allow me to add there Arda can't be exempt from similar natural laws that other planets/galaxies/multiverses/complexes , etc are subjected to.

[Beleriel]

This map I think, is very helpful to illustrate the location and changing landscape when referring to Middle Earth and Europe.  It is very interesting to study and compare what is going on and helps to identify more, I think where ME was actually located.

http://element.ess.ucla.edu/pictures/Middle-Earth.jpg

Note that the map has been tilted anti-clockwise but it clearly shows a lot of the mountain ranges etc etc. 

[Taurendil]

 
 If not, why then to deny Middle-earth once being flat?

Perhaps because the exact intention is to make the views of M.E being flat similar to those in the Middle Ages? (in Europe at least)

As for Beleriand you can certainly see that parts of nowadays Europe did extend far from its present basin. North Sea being above water, Mediteranean following its cycle of emptiness and fulness, The Scilly Islands showing the existance of a much bigger land mass where they stand nowadays. This image is a good indicative of how these basins might look above water (http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/infobank/gazette/jpg/regions/fr_eu.jpg).

How you see the war of wrath is really up to you, interpretation in an anthropological sense gives plenty of room for that, you can "humanize" (or valarize if you like) or you can try and see it as natural events of cataclysmic nature. Still between the start of any recknoning of time and Arda as Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Humans, Hobbits, etc came to know it there is always going to be a tremendous span of time, otherwise you are denying (as you say) the existance of the planet in other essential stages of evolution/creation (a mistake also perpetuated by Religion)

Things being flat simply are an illusion or how a human perceives in a brief amount of time his surroundings, won't enter the land pf astro-physics but needless to say it has yet to be found a flat planet, flat maps perhaps but not tridimensional entities of this sort, and allow me to add there Arda can't be exempt from similar natural laws that other planets/galaxies/multiverses/complexes , etc are subjected to.

So you mean that elves, dwarves and other creatures are also, say, a mythical beings and a fruit of people's imagination, along with Middle-earth being flat and other events? Well, that is possible. Eventually I come to the conclusion that our views differed in the  understanding of what 'Middle-earth existed in the past' means. As I've said, the existence of Middle-earth where now Europe is only as a land mass is probable.

This map I think, is very helpful to illustrate the location and changing landscape when referring to Middle Earth and Europe.  It is very interesting to study and compare what is going on and helps to identify more, I think where ME was actually located.

http://element.ess.ucla.edu/pictures/Middle-Earth.jpg

Note that the map has been tilted anti-clockwise but it clearly shows a lot of the mountain ranges etc etc. 

Nice finding, Beleriel!

[Hyllyn]

 That map is almost accurate except for very small adjustments needed.

 No Taurendil, you got the the wrong way round.  What I mean is that the impression that Tolkien wanted to give was to portray people of the time believing the planet was flat just as we once did, period.

 For us as a race to realise that the planet isn't flat it took if you want to call it something "tetra-dimensional" thinking. What I mean by this is that you have to remove yourself from the picture to be able to see it whole and since for people of that time it was only conjectural the belief that earth might not be flat you had to set the precedent so that others could observe and experiment and eventually find proof that the place wasn't flat.

 As for mythological beings I could talk about my own impressions on certain peoples but we would be entering scientific realms again and subjects that are best put in a book 

 I doubt I can add anything else to this topic as:

A) I have stated what to me constitutes proof of Middle Earth's existance from many a viewpoint.

B) Once those variables have been explained it just makes me consider even more that for any of the events to take place in our reality they would have had to take place in that time span and therefore in that land mass.

C) If I keep repeating it I will make myself dizzy  , plus you are entitled to believe what you may, I'm not proselitist in any way.

[Taurendil]

What I still haven't got ( ) is whether you naturalise the events (such as the War of Wroth) and creatures of Middle-earth or assume they happened as it is told.

[EG]

This map I think, is very helpful to illustrate the location and changing landscape when referring to Middle Earth and Europe.  It is very interesting to study and compare what is going on and helps to identify more, I think where ME was actually located.

http://element.ess.ucla.edu/pictures/Middle-Earth.jpg

Note that the map has been tilted anti-clockwise but it clearly shows a lot of the mountain ranges etc etc. 

WOW!  that has made me really sit back!   puts a lot of things into focus!

[Hyllyn]

This map I think, is very helpful to illustrate the location and changing landscape when referring to Middle Earth and Europe.  It is very interesting to study and compare what is going on and helps to identify more, I think where ME was actually located.

http://element.ess.ucla.edu/pictures/Middle-Earth.jpg

Note that the map has been tilted anti-clockwise but it clearly shows a lot of the mountain ranges etc etc. 

WOW!  that has made me really sit back!   puts a lot of things into focus!

 That one is based on the one I posted previously, and guess how she got it? 

 It's quite cool tho, it saves one time to have to super impose it yourself 

 Taurendil certain things are naturalized, some aren't. All of it is basically down to how you do story telling, if you want to tell a story of a time when people didn't have knowledge of the primary essences (DNA-RNA) as the basis for physical/mental traits in a living being you had to apply the appropiate narrative and explain it with magick (I believe he used the term which is rather scary as I dislike Crowley) or tales of wondrous deeds, it would simply make no sense or fit very well if Tolkien had explained certain things in a totally logical/scientifical way, if he had doneit would be a really bad sci-fi tale.

 So in answer to that yes some things happened and some things are "valarized/humanized/eldarized/etc". In the ainulindale you can see for yourself that the Ainur adopt physical forms to perform certain tasks without these forms they are just an elemental force of one sort or another. 

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