# Were the Numemoreans greater than the men that came before them?



## Valinor (Jan 10, 2012)

My understanding is that the earliest men were more or less physically equal to elves and that they gradually declined as they interbred with lesser men. Obviously the numenoreans were blessed with longer life being descendants of Elros but were they ultimately greater than earlier men? Take the house of Hador for example.


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## Maiden_of Harad (Jan 10, 2013)

The Numenoreans certainly had a greater civilization, but in the LOTR appendix A, it is mentioned that the Dunedain showed great reverence to the burial mounds of Tyrn Gorthad or the Barrow-downs. In them were buried men of the First Age before men even came to Beriland. Maybe the answer is in some ways yes, and in other ways no.


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## Andreth (Jan 10, 2013)

I think that all relies on what meaning we yield to the term " great ". What we do mean? I personally don't believe in a kind of absolute greatness, not for a human being at least; I think the two different cultures were confronted with historical periods too different to be compared.


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## Turgon of Gondolin (Jan 14, 2013)

This is a fascinating question—thank you for posing it! As the Númenoreans are a very specific group of people I 'm going to assume that you're looking to compare them to a very specific group of their fore-bearers, namely the Edain. One thing I think worth considering is that there isn't a huge number of generations of men between the first Númenoreans and the most famous men of the Edain in Beleriand. Consider just one of the familial lines of the Edain:



So looked at one way the first Númenoreans were just the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the most famous heroes of the Edain. Of course we don't know what the non-famous Edain were like. I think we have to assume that the great figures we know of were exceptional, just as the great figures of the Númenoreans were more than the more common people.

All of this being said, one of the common themes that I think you pick up in Tolkien's works was one of the greatness of the past slipping away. With each generation of the Eldar they were somewhat less than their fathers, and when you figure in the difference between the Calaquendi and Moriquendi this only becomes more pronounced. We learn that the houses of the Edain that dwelled with the Noldor in Beleriand grew greater than those who remained in the East. It is my belief that, as you see their generational separation from the Noldor growing greater, the men of Númenor also grew to be less, at least as far as being like the Eldar goes. In terms of their own glory as men, separate from the Eldar and the Light of the Trees, I believe the Númenoreans did increase in greatness, but eventually this too declined.

Now that I've rambled on for a bit (I blame watching _Top Gear_ while I wrote this) I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.


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