# The East



## Karma (Jan 31, 2005)

Just popping in with a quick question, and I figured this would be as good a place as any to ask it:

Details dwindle as one goes further east in Middle-Earth, ranging from the maps ending, to Gandalf's "...to the East, I go not." So is it a region left completely unexplored by Tolkien? Or is it possible to be pointed in the right direction? Thanks in advance for any information I might receive.


----------



## Uritheas (Feb 8, 2005)

I thought there was an island there, I saw it once on a map... I'll have to look it up for you.


----------



## Barliman Butterbur (Feb 8, 2005)

Karma said:


> Just popping in with a quick question, and I figured this would be as good a place as any to ask it:
> 
> Details dwindle as one goes further east in Middle-Earth, ranging from the maps ending, to Gandalf's "...to the East, I go not." So is it a region left completely unexplored by Tolkien? Or is it possible to be pointed in the right direction? Thanks in advance for any information I might receive.



You're probably right. In all the maps Tolkien drew, none of them went into areas which were not directly concerned with the story. I am reminded of a passage in _the Hobbit_ or possibly the intro to LOTR, which mentions that the hobbits weren't interested in much beyond the borders of The Shire, and their maps frequently simply "showed white" at the edges. I think it's the same with the maps of Middle-earth that Tolkien drew.

Barley


----------



## Aiglos (Feb 27, 2005)

There's actually a whole load of detail in Karen Wynn Fonstad's 'Atlas of Middle Earth'. Many of the details of the East seem to be drawn from the tales of the Voyages of the Numenoreans.

There's even reference to a polar opposite to Taniquetil, it's called Kyormé or 'Sun-Rising Hill'. A mountain on the far eastern side of Arda.


----------



## Hammersmith (Feb 27, 2005)

I've seen an atlas that shows how Middle Earth slowly becomes the continents of Earth as we know them today. Ostensibly it's based on writings, and it kind of works. I don't know how genuine it is, but if correct the "East" would be Asia.


----------



## Ingwë (Mar 18, 2005)

Very interesting. Tolkien didn`t white maps of the East. I found a big map of the Middle earth here: http://www.dungeon.gr/galleries_show_image.php?id=305 
This map is greater: http://www.dungeon.gr/galleries_show_image.php?id=304

I couldn`t find something about the East? Is there an island? Is there a big sea there? We will never know the answer of these questions.


----------



## Greenwood (Mar 18, 2005)

Hammersmith said:


> I've seen an atlas that shows how Middle Earth slowly becomes the continents of Earth as we know them today. Ostensibly it's based on writings, and it kind of works. I don't know how genuine it is, but if correct the "East" would be Asia.


I suspect any such map is based much more on the mapmaker's conjectures than any actual Tolkien writings. I don't believe Tolkien left much about the areas outside the parts of Middle Earth he wrote about. There is of course, also the matter of whether any given map refers to the First Age or later after the overthrow of Morgoth and the changing of the world. (For that matter there were changes in the world even during the First Age.)


----------



## Ithrynluin (Mar 18, 2005)

The changing and shaping of the continents of ME into how they appear today would have taken millions of years. In a footnote to Letter 211, the professor notes: 



> I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years : that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh.



So he envisioned the fall of Sauron to be about 6000 years removed from 'our times'. Personally, I always had a hunch that it would have been much, _much_ longer than that, more like 60,000. So our earth cannot be some sort of continuation of Arda. But then again, logic only works so far, and cannot always solve anything, so it might well have been that Eru had something to do with the very rapid change in land mass and hue. But I digress...


----------



## Hammersmith (Mar 18, 2005)

Yes, I realise that. I always assumed that in a world where divine beings could raise up and destroy islands, tear down mountain ranges and drown continents and remove nations from the sphere of the natural, the normal shifting of the land masses would not really be an issue


----------



## bauglir (Mar 31, 2005)

i don`t know much of the authenticity of this map, but it shows all of arda in SA
http://students.sivan.co.il/itamar_b/TolkienontheNet/NewFiles/maps/map4.html


----------



## Alatar (Mar 31, 2005)

This map(for a game) is what someone thinks the east looks like any one could have done but it is still very intressting (if unacurate)
http://www.dragonmyrth.serveftp.net/art_work/middle_earth_political_map.jpg


----------



## Ellatur (Apr 7, 2005)

^ thats a very interesting map


----------



## ingolmo (Apr 20, 2005)

You'll get some information on this webpage too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth 

Apart from the map, that page and website gives a lot of nice info on Middle-earth. Be sure to bookmark it, for quick reference.
-Ingolmo


----------



## Wraithguard (Apr 20, 2005)

I would send a map if I had one. Mordor covers about 10% of the East. 65% is covered by the desert of Harad. 10% is covered by the East-Lands (Rhûn). 5% is covered by Harondor (South Gondor) and the final 15% is covered by Umbar. This may not prove to be too much assistance but:

Rhûn is a huge plain ending in a mountainous area where the Easterlings make their home. A lake lies north of here.

Harad is a desert that extends from the bottom of Mordor to the edge of Middle-Earth.

Umbar is an ancient Nùmenorian port that was captured by the hosts of Mordor long ago.

Hope you can find a more helpful answer!


----------



## ltas (Apr 21, 2005)

Karma said:


> Just popping in with a quick question, and I figured this would be as good a place as any to ask it:
> 
> Details dwindle as one goes further east in Middle-Earth, ranging from the maps ending, to Gandalf's "...to the East, I go not." So is it a region left completely unexplored by Tolkien?



Hmm, how about if we explore the possible symbolism behind it, instead of studying the geographical details?

If we start from the standpoint that West symbolises all that is good, (it's the blessed realm of the Valar, the final haven for elves, the most favoured Men were given a land nearest to the West (Numenor) etc.), maybe the East is supposed to symbolise the opposite, the place where most of evil originates from, and just as the West isn't shown on maps, the East isn't meant to be seen, either?

It's only the land between the Evil and the Good, the _Middle-earth_, that concerns us mortals.

Hm?


----------



## Arthur_Vandelay (Apr 22, 2005)

ltas said:


> Hmm, how about if we explore the possible symbolism behind it, instead of studying the geographical details?
> 
> If we start from the standpoint that West symbolises all that is good, (it's the blessed realm of the Valar, the final haven for elves, the most favoured Men were given a land nearest to the West (Numenor) etc.), maybe the East is supposed to symbolise the opposite, the place where most of evil originates from, and just as the West isn't shown on maps, the East isn't meant to be seen, either?
> 
> ...



Didn't Elves, Men and Hobbits originally come from the East?


----------



## ltas (Apr 22, 2005)

D'ohhh!!! (forehead slap)

I stand corrected .


Back to the old "West as the Home of Civilisation, East as the Cradle of Wild and Untamed", then, I suppose.


----------



## Wraithguard (Apr 22, 2005)

All races _basically _came from the *west*. The Ainur were westerners and creators. Wait. The world is round so couldn't Aman be the EAST as well as the WEST?


----------



## Ithrynluin (Apr 22, 2005)

Wraithguard said:


> All races _basically _came from the *west*. The Ainur were westerners and creators.



What exactly do you mean? Both Elves and Men came from the East when the world was still flat. The Ainur descended into Arda from without and only _settled_ in its West after their first abode was ruined.


----------

