[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I still have reservations about the whole '3 ages of the imprisonment of Melkor' - perhaps you could convert the 2874.6 figure (in the AAm) into something similar but more duodecimal - let's say 2,880 SY years (20 x 144).

Or otherwise - you could simply keep the whole 144 x 15 (i.e. 2,160 years) idea...I don't know.

Yes, you could do any of those things. "Three Ages" is the only one for which there are multiple sources tied to it (the AAm entry for his release, and the GA entry for Luthien's birth), so I have used it as the version with the "most evidence". It also gives the best Beleriand dates ("best dates" being the same logic I used for the Finwean calculations). Out of curiousity, here's where the three versions fall in the timeline, with the Unchaining fixed to the death of the Trees:

• 1153 - "Heresy" among the Quendi.
• 1681 - Chaining of Melkor ('duodecimal AAm' = 2880 SY)
• 1686 - Chaining of Melkor ('AAm' = 2875 SY)
• 1778 - Awakening of Men.
• 2016 - Finding of the Quendi.
• 2232 - Great March begins.
• 2373 - Vanyar and Noldor pass Greenwood after Orome drives out Sauron's evils, and settle east of Anduin in Atyamar.
• 2401 - Chaining of Melkor ('3 Ages' = 15 VY = 2160 SY)
• 2426 - Teleri begin to arrive in Atyamar, having come around the southern end of Greenwood.
• 2652 - The March is over.
• 2808 - Noldor and Vanyar arrive in Aman.
• 2833 - Chaining of Melkor ('3 Ages' = 12 VY = 1728 SY)
• 3084 - Teleri under Olwe depart Beleriand.
• 4561 - Release of Melkor

Using the AAm date definitely doesn't work, falling before even the Finding. The choice between 15 VY or 12 VY can be based on two things:

1. Per VI.B. "the rescue of the Quendi must be … before the assault upon Utumno". How far away do the Quendi need to be before the Valar will risk assaulting Melkor? Is "beyond the Greenwood" far enough? Equally, would they really wait more than 1 VY after the Quendi reached Beleriand to start the attack?

2. Tinuviel, Tinuviel. 12 VY puts her birth in 3409, as on the Timeline; 15 VY pushes it back to 2880, which is 223 SY before Elwe awakens.

I think the combination of the direct statement from VI.B, and the calculations from Luthien, make 2833 the best date for the Chaining. If you wind up creating your own timeline, you can weight the evidence differently; all it affects is the Fall of Utumno and the Beleriand dates.

Bonus calculation: per AAm, the war with Utumno lasted 11 "VY" (at 9.58 SY): a running battle 1090-92, the siege from 1092-1099, and the Chaining in 1100. If that timeline is maintained, then the war begins 105 SY before the Chaining. If the Chaining is 2401 (15 VY), then the war starts in 2296 while the Quendi are in Rhun; if the Chaining is in 2833, the war starts in 2728, one SY off from half a VY after "All the Eldar of the main host are in Beleriand".

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Also! I thought that you would shave off 144 SY from the timeline - so that the timeline would end in c. 5,930 or so.

XVII.2 gives the years between the Finding and the death of the Trees. I adjusted to match that.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

If you're going to remove Celeborn because he's problematic, you really ought to remove Galadriel, Celebrimbor, Gil-galad (though he doesn't feature in the timeline), etc.

The issues with Celeborn and Galadriel are completely different. Celeborn - whoever he's related to - is dated once, with a big "at least" and a huge "if this calculation is correct (it probably isn't)". Since we've thrown out the 3100 SY, there's no basis left to his birthdate. Galadriel, meanwhile, has too many sources; I list three on the Timeline and I think we've discussed others.

Celebrimbor the Sinda is hilarious, because it doesn't fit with anything else - Daeron has no wife and an infatuation with Luthien, so this Celebrimbor would have to be born in the Second Age, so can't be a descendent of Feanor or a resident of Gondolin. You already convinced me to drop that one.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

There's no 'Almaren stuff' in the revised timeline, since the whole 'Two Lamps' and the consequences of their destruction aren't a part of it.

They're not mentioned in any post-AAm/GA source, no. Neither are the birthdates of the descendents of Finwe, the building of Menegroth, or frankly most of the stuff we're putting in here. Given that the Valar were building domes to grow trees in because the Sun just wasn't shiny enough for them, I'd need a solid source saying there weren't Lamps before I'd say they never existed.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

According to the latest version of the legendarium, Men awoke after the Dwarves - the whole "awaking after the Children of Iluvatar" makes zero sense unless the Ents awoke after Men.

You see why I'm leaving the Ents out. The sources disagree too strongly.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

BTW, @Huinesoron, what do you think about the idea of creating a post (recorded)-Fourth Age timeline?

There is, to my surprise, actually some meat to the basic skeleton that Tolkien mentioned in his '1960 of the 7th Age' comment - it most certainly wouldn't be a simple repetition of the dates of the SA and TA.

Though I suppose that 'meat' might be significantly cut down if one were to exclude the 'Notion Club Papers'...

Honestly, I agree that a Grand Unified Timeline of all the Ages of Arda, from the arrival of the Valar to the release of Rings of Power Season 2, would be both amazing and hilarious. But having seen how complicated it is just for this piece of the First Age, I'm not sure I could handle it!

For one thing, the latest source on "how long ago was this" is NoME 1.VI (the "1960 of the 7th Age" text), which adds 3000 years to the usual "6000 years" version, contradicts the astronomy in LotR, and aligns best with stuff from the Lost Road era. And let's not even ask how long the Valar were in Arda before the creation of the Trees!

(3500 AAm VY, but that's about a fifth of the time between the creation of the Trees and the Awakening of the Quendi. You'd probably want to either treat the pre-Trees stuff as 144SY years, making it 504 000 SY, or keep the ratio of 3500:1000 for Beginning-Trees:Trees-Awakening, which makes it about 428 000 SY.)

hS